Hi all,
The WMF has just announced grants for chapters: "If a chapter has
work it wants to get done in the furtherance of our overall mission
and goals during the fiscal year 2009-2010 (July 1, 2009 -June 30,
2010), but it cannot do it without financial support, the Wikimedia
Foundation is inviting that chapter to ask the Wikimedia Foundation
for funding."
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/WMF_grants
The deadline for this is 30 March. The value of the grant has to be >
500 USD.
Does anyone have any projects in mind that could benefit from such a
grant?
Mike
Hi all,
Would anyone be interested in being an admin on the Wikimedia UK
website? This would let you edit protected pages, block users, etc. -
the usual things. Obviously, you'd need to be approved by the board
(a quick and painless process). We are currently waiting until we can
de-sysop people (as a general principle) before actually turning
people into admins, but hopefully that won't be too long a delay.
Tango42, Majorly and Seddon already have the board's approval to be
sysops.
Also, would anyone like to come up with a new front page design for
the wiki? The one we currently have really doesn't look that good
visually. Please volunteer on the talk page for the main page, or go
ahead and make modifications straight away if you want.
Thanks,
Mike
I just phoned the co-op, and I've been told that our application has been
accepted, and that they'll have a sort code and account number for us on
Thursday.
Only three months later than planned, but hey, better than nothing.
T
Looks like I shall be elsewhere. Ho hum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/London_19
LONDON WIKIPEDIA MEETUP NUMBER 19
Date and time: Sunday 8th March, 2009 - 13:00
Location: Penderel's Oak pub, Holborn WC1
Please sign up on the above page, and add to the goodness.
Gordo
--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///
Just reading the news online and came across this article:
http://euobserver.com/851/27587
Look closely and you can see the picture cites "wikipedia"
I know pictures often cite "AFP" like that - but is this enough under
the GDFL? If not, what is the procedure for reporting copyright
abuses?
Andrew
~~ Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009 ~~
* where: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, London, UK
* when: 28th March 2009, 1030-1830
* home: <http://www.okfn.org/okcon/>
* programme: <http://www.okfn.org/okcon/programme>
* register: <http://www.okfn.org/okcon/register/>
* call for proposals: <http://www.okfn.org/okcon/cfp/>
* last year: <http://www.okfn.org/okcon/2008/>
The Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) is back for its fourth installment
bringing together individuals and groups from across the open knowledge
spectrum for a day of talks, discussions and workshops.
This year the event will feature dedicated sessions on 'open knowledge
and development' and 'open data and the semantic web'. In addition we
are reserving a substantial part of the event for the 'Open Space'-
sessions, workshops and discussions proposed either via the call for
proposals or on the day.
Interested in giving a paper? Have a project to talk about? Want to run
a workshop or session? Please see the call for proposals:
<http://www.okfn.org/okcon/cfp/>
Want to get involved in putting the event together or otherwise helping
out? Contact us at info [at] okfn [dot] org or add your name to the
OKCon wiki page:
<http://okfn.org/wiki/okcon/2009/>
Last but not least: we encourage early registration as space is limited:
<http://www.okfn.org/okcon/register/>
>> I just phoned the co-op, and I've been told that our application has been
>> accepted, and that they'll have a sort code and account number for us on
>> Thursday.
>>
>>
>>
>> Only three months later than planned, but hey, better than nothing.
> Congratulations and well done! That's fantastic.
> Unfortunately, it seems the planned AGM date clashed with Easter and
> had to be push back (ironically, my first proposed date for the AGM
> clashed with Christmas and had to be pushed back!), so it's still
> going to be ages until we get an AGM. If we bring it forward a week,
> it clashes with the chapter meeting in Berlin, which means we won't be
> able to have full attendance (unfortunate, but perhaps not a deal
> breaker). Bringing it forward a fortnight seems impractical (probably
> possible, though, if we really want to). It seems there isn't a good
> option, we're at the point of trying to find the least bad option.
I shall have to get my membership form in
once I have money :-) I am very pleased that
this much progress has been made, the last
thing to tick off the list is the tax exemption
and we will be a proper proper chapter :-)
Though anything beyond this is pretty much
uncharted waters in terms of a chapter in the uk :-)
2009/2/24 Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com>:
>
> "An individual wanted to learn details of the Chiefs of Defence
> Staff. He went to the authoritative source and sent a freedom of
> information request to the MOD. This week, the MOD responded by
> suggesting that Wikipedia is the most authoritative source of
> information on its staff..."
>
> http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/2009/02/factcheck_n_sources.html
That's a bit of a misinterpretation of their response, I think.
The FOI laws have exceptions (mainly s. 21 of the 2000 Act) that say
if something is already widely published, or is going to be, you can't
request it under FOI. Usually they'll send you a copy of the material
*anyway*, but it's to prevent people being silly about, eg, demanding
copies of commercially sold documents. In this case, something as
basic as a list of Chiefs of the Defence Staff, with ranks and dates,
is indeed easily available.
All they say is "an accurate list is available" - I read this as a
polite hint to someone who's sent two dozen requests for easily
sourced queries, not as saying "well, we ourselves don't know, but I
guess some guy on the Internet might".
(The idea behind FOI is to get access to government documents which
are otherwise unobtainable, not to have a civil servant do your
research on request for you.)
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
It doesn't surprise me. There is also a general issue of conflict of
interest since a number of UK civil servants routinely update
information about their departments on Wikipedia. I contacted UK Trade
and Industry on behalf of Wikiproject spam about this a while back (I
was an independent director of the DTI, then BERR at the time). See
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UK_Trade_%26_Investment&action=hi…
Stating the reorganisation was one thing but there was lots of links
and puff piece about how wonderful they were. Wikipedia is viewed as
trendy and cool in most of the government with politicians being more
cautious than professionals.
Boz
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:13 AM, Gordon Joly <gordon.joly(a)pobox.com> wrote:
>
> "An individual wanted to learn details of the Chiefs of Defence
> Staff. He went to the authoritative source and sent a freedom of
> information request to the MOD. This week, the MOD responded by
> suggesting that Wikipedia is the most authoritative source of
> information on its staff..."
>
>
> http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/2009/02/factcheck_n_sources.html
>
>
> Gordo
>
> --
> "Think Feynman"/////////
> http://pobox.com/~gordo/
> gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>
"An individual wanted to learn details of the Chiefs of Defence
Staff. He went to the authoritative source and sent a freedom of
information request to the MOD. This week, the MOD responded by
suggesting that Wikipedia is the most authoritative source of
information on its staff..."
http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/2009/02/factcheck_n_sources.html
Gordo
--
"Think Feynman"/////////
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
gordon.joly(a)pobox.com///