Wikimediauk-l March 2006

wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org

22 participants
20 discussions

Wikimedia Poland Meetup 2006
by Dariusz Siedlecki 22 Mar '06

22 Mar '06

Hallo! My name is Dariusz Siedlecki and I'm the executive secretary of Wikimedia Poland, the Polish local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. At the end of April, our association will hold a meetup of all the Polish Wikimedians, and we'd like to invite people from Wikimedia UK to participate in a panel discussion on the future of the Wikimedia projects in Europe, and of course, to take part in the meetup as a whole. Apart from the Polish Wikimedians, we're inviting people from other Polish organizations (Creative Commons Poland), European organizations (Mozilla Europe) and Wikimedians outside of Poland (Czech and Romanian Wikimedians were interested so far). We'd be really happy if it would be possible for anyone from your organization to come and have a chat with both our organization, and our community. I think we should communicate fairly easily in English. The meetup will take place in Wroclaw, during 29th April - 1st May. 30th April will be the most interesting part, during which we'll hold every discussion, including the discussion panel I mentioned earlier. If anyone from Wikimedia UK would be interested in coming and taking part in the discussion, please notify me. We'd be really happy to see you here, in Poland. Hope to hear back from you soon. -- Regards, Dariusz Siedlecki

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winding down for the moment
by David Gerard 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

I've just had the best Communications Committee meeting ever, in which I got so angry I lost the power to form sentences. James: your story about how you were greeted at Wikimania? I now empathise. There are several people at higher levels of the Foundation who have taken a stance of Foundation versus volunteers. This isn't actually necessary, but the people in question have stated they officially don't care. As such, I don't plan to do much for the Foundation in the immediate future that isn't expressly for Wikipedia itself. I'll see what I'm up to otherwise and how this works with Wikimedia UK. Call this cooling off time. - d.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Some other subject entirely!
by David Gerard 18 Mar '06

18 Mar '06

On 18/03/06, Rob Church <robchur(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Obviously I don't want to pry directly, but I would be interested in > hearing what happened... *whistles* ooh, look! It's ANOTHER TOPIC! So. How about those launch ideas, eh? Eh? - d. (and being forced to give up smoking isn't helping my mood any)

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Guardian article, pretty good
by David Gerard 14 Mar '06

14 Mar '06

>From yesterday's Guardian: http://jobsadvice.guardian.co.uk/officehours/story/0,,1729329,00.html Also reprinted somewhat edited in the Hindustan Times: http://www.hindu.com/2006/03/14/stories/2006031405040900.htm Pretty good! - d.

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BBC Radio Wales 'Mousemat' interview done
by David Gerard 12 Mar '06

12 Mar '06

This morning I went into BBC Television Centre and did a remote radio interview for BBC Radio Wales 'Mousemat', which is to be run in this Sunday's programme - 5pm Sunday, repeated 6pm Wednesday. If you're not in Wales, you can pick it up on Sky TV channel 0117, or on the website for a week after broadcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales/shows/mousemat.shtml I covered how Wikipedia works, how we keep it from turning to rubbish, how good it is ("it's not perfect, and we're painfully aware of its problems, but it's *pretty good*"), the millionth article (how you can get so much good detail out of an unremarkable suburban railway station) and I did a *big* push for Welsh speakers to get in on the ground floor of cy.wikipedia - en. has 1,000,000 articles, but cy. has 4,000 and there's endless room to work on a really *good* Welsh encyclopedia. The Welsh language is undergoing bit of a revival - everyone there speaks English, but learn Welsh first, it's popular with its ethnicity, it's something people feel they *should* know if they're Welsh and of course kids learn it so their parents won't understand them, and the parents learn to keep up with them ;-) They recorded about 15 minutes, of which they'll probably use 5 or 6. And I'm apparently to receive a small payment for my trouble. :-O Just as well since I'm presently not on a contract. (Gi's a job!) - d.

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Media and press launch pages (on WMUK wiki) - compelling marketing story needed
by David Gerard 11 Mar '06

11 Mar '06

The WMUK wiki is presently a small closed internal directors' wiki, but mailing to the list here (a) reaches you all satisfactorily (b) will get ideas from the world, which I could do with right now. [[Media]] - this page has been started for all interviews/articles about WMF-related stuff in the UK, whether it's WMUK people or whatever. Nach0king has been doing a *pile* of press for the 1 millionth article. (He avoids wikipolitics like the plague, but would be happy to do local Scottish stuff come press launch time.) [[Press launch]] - here's where I need your help. This event is *all about marketing*. We want to look like a charity people in the UK will want to chuck money at. We need a *compelling marketing story*. We don't have one yet. "What's the money for?" "Er ... stuff ..." We don't control the wiki, we don't run servers - what do we use people's money for? - d.

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Guardian interview to appear Monday
by David Gerard 08 Mar '06

08 Mar '06

I just spoke to Natalie Hanman from the Guardian. This is to appear in Monday's paper, in the 'Office Hours' column in the Media section. This will be in the paper edition and *may not* be in the online edition (they tend not to put up the entire Media section). A reader had written in saying they'd read about Wikipedia's unreliability and asked if Wikipedia was any good; and she also wanted to know if it was good for office workers at their desks. I said we weren't as good as Britannica as yet, but we were better than anything else on the web, so the more media we get saying how bad we are the more readers we get ... and office workers don't have the Britannica on their desk but they *do* have Wikipedia. For usefulness, I pointed out that as an IT contractor, I use Wikipedia as a reference work daily. It's fabulous for computer and technical stuff, to quickly get yourself up to speed on what a piece of jargon is in 60 seconds. And Nature measured us as equal to Britannica in science. And we were no.12 in the world on Alexa yesterday, and we've been no.1 reference site for months now. So the main message was: we're not Britannica, but we're better than *anything* else readily available on the web. "We make the Web not suck." And we're actually good and useful as a reference work *right now*. - d.

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BBC this morning, Guardian this afternoon
by David Gerard 08 Mar '06

08 Mar '06

Recording with BBC in about an hour and a half. I also have an email from the Guardian to talk about Wikipedia's utility in the workplace - which is something I *actually find it useful for*. Probably this afternoon. - d.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Fwd: Jordanhill commemoration
by Florence Devouard 05 Mar '06

05 Mar '06

I do not support the Foundation spending money on this. I put the special project comm in copy in case some disagree. If other people or if a local chapter feel like donating money to set that up, fine. ant >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >From: Angela <beesley(a)gmail.com> >Date: Mar 4, 2006 3:57 AM >Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Jordanhill commemoration >To: wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Jordanhill_commemoration > >It has been suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation should contact the >authorities of the Jordanhill railway station to request and/or offer >to place a plaque at the station, in commemoration of the millionth >English language Wikipedia article. > >However, it might be better for the Wikimedia UK chapter to handle >this than the Foundation. Any opinions? > >If it was the Foundation, then it would likely fall under the remit of >the newly created Special Projects Committee. > >Angela >_______________________________________________ >Wikimedia UK mailing list >wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org >http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK >http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > > >-- >~notafish > > >

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Jordanhill commemoration
by Angela 04 Mar '06

04 Mar '06

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Jordanhill_commemoration It has been suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation should contact the authorities of the Jordanhill railway station to request and/or offer to place a plaque at the station, in commemoration of the millionth English language Wikipedia article. However, it might be better for the Wikimedia UK chapter to handle this than the Foundation. Any opinions? If it was the Foundation, then it would likely fall under the remit of the newly created Special Projects Committee. Angela

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Wikimediauk-l March 2006