On 01/03/2013 08:37 AM, Theo10011 wrote:
So, to summarize again, Quim, a staff member, and you,
a
No,
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups were proposed at the MediaWiki
community and wikimedia-l, they were discussed also with the
Affiliations Committee and they were finally approved and announced last
month.
Then Harsh and other volunteers in Ahmedabad interested in MediaWiki
decided to take that route, and announced their proposal in several
MediaWiki and Wikimedia India channels:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/Ahmedabad
Harsh sent the proposal also to this list on Dec 14 (it didn't raise any
reply until 15 days later, btw)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-December/009013.…
Second, MediaWiki *is* independent and might have
nothing to do with
Wikimedia. But then again, why are we on a list of Wikimedia asking
Wikipedians to join or create the said group?
The MediaWiki community is a piece of the Wikimedia movement that can
have ramifications out of it, like in the case of people using MediaWiki
for their own websites.
Still, something like a proposal on a new MediaWiki Group Ahmedabad is
clearly on-topic in this list. If you don't bother, then an option is
just delete the email and don't bother. :)
To the extent of my
knowledge, Mediawiki is a platform, a piece of software, in terms of
real world implications it has no existence. Which would then lead the
discussion back in to the circle, that went on the tech list about a
MediaWiki foundation and an independent identity, because clearly that's
the problem we have right now - shortage of committees, and groups and
organizations to conflate a bunch of stuff rather than the actual work
they are supposed to do.
I agree with you(r irony) here. And precisely because of this MediaWiki
Groups are designed to facilitate ad-hoc work without any bureaucratic
overhead. The paradox is that a thread like this is creating overhead (I
should be doing other things right now, like the rest of people active
in this discussion). Still I hope it's worth having the discussion once
and forever. After this proposing and resolving on MediaWiki Groups
should be a fast process letting focus the teams of volunteers on the
actual work.
The simplest question is what would this achieve?
The simplest answer is:
- MediaWiki Group X members are empowered to represent the MediaWiki
communiy in X.
- For someone interested in MediaWiki + X it will be easier to find the
right information and contacts to get involved.
There was a discussion about this at wikitech-l, see the thread starting at
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2012-December/065333.html
If after reading the thread you have more observations about MediaWiki
Groups then please share them at wikitech-l.
Thematic organizations are being discussed on Meta and
if
they should use Wikimedia or even Wiki in their name, I suppose some
extension would apply to Mediawiki as well.
Well, no. "MediaWiki" with the sunflower logo are different things. But
also, thematic organizations are meant to be heavier, incorporated
organizations while MediaWiki Groups are lightweight and not
incorporated. If a MediaWiki group is repeatedly misbehaving the whole
problem could be (radically) solved by deleting a wiki page and blocking
users - applying the (radical) problem resolution in the Wikipedia way.
As soon as you have an incorporated organization things get more tricky.
But we are getting off-topic. If you want to discuss Wikimedia User
Groups or MediaWiki Groups as such then the right place to do it is in
their discussion pages or at wikimedia-l / wikitech-l.
--
Quim Gil
Technical Contributor Coordinator @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil