Wikimediauk-l June 2009

wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org

21 participants
31 discussions

Daily Mail: Labour councillor David Boothroyd caught altering David Cameron's Wikipedia entry
by Michael Peel 08 Jun '09

08 Jun '09

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191474/Labour-councillor- David-Boothroyd-caught-altering-David-Camerons-Wikipedia-entry.html or to avoid the inevitable line-wrap: http://tinyurl.com/q7sv6q Mike

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Independent: "Wikipedia 'sentinel' quits after using alias to alter entries"
by Michael Peel 07 Jun '09

07 Jun '09

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/wikipedia-sentinel- quits-after-using-alias-to-alter-entries-1698762.html "Paul Williams, volunteers director at Wikimedia UK, the British arm of the American company, said: "Sock-puppeting is a very serious offence for anybody. But for someone on the Arbitration Committee it is even more so. It can result in a lifetime ban. The problem with Wikipedia is that you can hide behind user names, but there is an expectation that you don't write for self-interest. In this case there is a conflict of interest."" Mike

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Charity Finance news article: Wikimedia UK denied charitable tax status
by Andrew Turvey 06 Jun '09

06 Jun '09

Full article copied below. As you can see the distinction between the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK is explained further down: Organisation responsible for Wikipedia already turned down by HM Revenue & Customs Wikimedia UK is to have its application for charitable status reconsidered by the Charity Commission after its initial application to HM Revenue & Customs was turned down. Wikimedia UK is part of a global family of national associations that coordinate contributors to the Wikipedia website, based in the US, and seek permission for other information, such as national archives, to be posted. It applied for charitable status, under the heading of promoting education, to HMRC because its annual income is currently below the £5,000 threshold for registration with the commission. incompatible encoding But HMRC turned down the application on the grounds that the mere increase of knowledge without teaching or education is not charitable. Andrew Turvey, secretary of Wikimedia UK, said: "Museums and art galleries are recognised as charities; our argument is that what we are doing is analogous to that." He said HMRC had agreed to pass on Wikimedia's letter of appeal to the Charity Commission for adjudication, even though the organisation does not expect to have an income of £5,000 for another 18 months. Turney (sic) said he hoped for a response within a few months. End ----- "Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: "Thomas Dalton" <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> > To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Sent: Saturday, 6 June, 2009 17:00:14 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal > Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Charity Finance news article: Wikimedia UK denied charitable tax status > > 2009/6/6 Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net>: > > Also covered by ThirdSector: > > > > http://thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/911135/Wikimedias-UK-charity- > > application-re-examined/ > > "Organisation responsible for Wikipedia" - that's about as bad as it > gets! I haven't read the full article (free registration required - I > never like the sound of that!), but the extract seems to start a > better description of what we are, but you should probably contact > them and try to get that lede fixed. > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org >

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Charity Finance news article: Wikimedia UK denied charitable tax status
by Michael Peel 06 Jun '09

06 Jun '09

See http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php? id=2876&pg=15&cat=30 Mike

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Summary of board meeting + questions
by Michael Peel 06 Jun '09

06 Jun '09

Hi all, At the last meeting, Tango made the good suggestion that I start sending out summaries of the board meetings, including the interesting points and questions that we would like your views on. This email is the first of those - I'll endeavour to send these out closer to the board meeting in future (i.e. within ~ 24 hours of the meeting). The bullet point summary of the interesting parts of the meeting (and some points from previous meetings) is: - Seddon is in discussion with the Manchester Tourist Board with an eye to bidding for Wikimania 2013 in Manchester - Seddon and Steve Virgin are looking for potential locations for the WMUK conference to be held with our next AGM - Steve is also pursuing leads for collaboration with companies/other non-profits/schools - We now have a Paypal account which you can donate to - see http:// uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Donate - We will be sending our response to HMRC soon. We're also soliciting pro bono lawyers. We'd like your views on the following questions: How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this? How many of the Board should have access to the Paypal account? We ask this because Paypal lets anyone with access to the account make transactions (e.g. buying things off eBay), and if we set up a direct debit link to our bank account this potentially means that there is a way around the current system requiring two signatures for expenditures. Something similar exists with access to the account via online banking. Would it be worth us making a resolution that states that approval from the board (either via a board meeting, or email) must be obtained prior to any outgoing transactions via online banking or paypal? Thanks, Mike Peel

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Board minutes - 2nd June
by Andrew Turvey 06 Jun '09

06 Jun '09

Dear all, The draft minutes of our Board meeting last Tuesday, 2nd June are up at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2009-06-02 and copied below. Please let us know if you have any comments or corrections. Regards, Andrew Turvey Secretary Wikimedia UK Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited. Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK Board meeting Tuesday 2nd June 2009, 8:30pm BST at #wikimedia-uk-board Present: Michael Peel (MP) (Chair); Andrew Turvey (AT) (minutes); Steve Virgin (SV); Joseph Seddon (JS) Apologies: Paul Williams (PW), Tom Holden (TH) Absent: Zeyi He (ZH) Contents [ hide ] • 1 Minutes of the previous meeting • 1.1 Matters arising • 2 Reports • 2.1 Secretary (AT) • 2.2 Conferences (JS) • 2.3 Corporate Relations (SV) • 3 HMRC response • 4 New chapters agreement • 5 Process to appoint the chapter-selected Board members of the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010 • 6 Next Meeting Minutes of the previous meeting Approval of the minutes of the meeting of the 26th May was delayed to ensure all brought forward actions had been captured. The following actions were carried forward: • JS to send the tokens of our appreciation to the retiring Directors, tellers and external speakers. ACTION: JS • TH to contact the bank to notify them of the new directors, to change the signatories to any two of MP, AT and TH and to set up AT and MP on the online banking. ACTION: TH • PW will talk to SV and ZH to get them set up with an account on IRC and give them operator rights. ACTION: PW • MP has transferred ownership of wikimedia.co.uk to us; MP still to organise transfer of wikimedia.org.uk with current owner. ACTION: MP • AT will send the opt out email re Phorm once wikimedia.org.uk has been transferred. ACTION: AT • PW will continue to research what is needed to produce business cards for Wikimedia UK officials. ACTION: PW • PW to obtain the list of email recipients and send them the May newsletter ACTION: PW • PW agreed to start pushing membership and organise the Membership/Drive page. MP, AT, SV, JS agreed to send suggestions to PW by 9 June. ACTION: MP, AT, SV, JS • So that we can use it for members-only merchandising, AT agreed to send the email to the Foundation previously discussed asking for permission to use their trademarks. ACTION: AT • JS will discuss with Manchester Tourist Board on their support for a possible Manchester Wikimania Bid in 2013. ACTION: JS • MP to approach membership with regards to the membership list being on the Board wiki. ACTION: MP • TH to start discussion on the Board mailing list with regards to director access to paypal account. ACTION: TH • TH to change paypal address to paypal(a)wikimedia.org.uk ACTION: TH • MP to set previous board members emails to forward to him. ACTION: MP • SV, MP, JS to collate press response template list ACTION: SV, MP + JS • ZH to prepare a timeline for WMUK initiatives. ACTION: ZH • TD agreed to contact the gazette on behalf of WMUK to solicit a pro-bono lawyer ACTION: TD • TH agreed to contact pro bono lawyer groups by email ACTION: TH Matters arising SV agreed to email the WikimediaUK-L Mailing List to solicit views on "scenarios" that could be useful for the "press response template" mentioned above. ACTION: SV JS to copy the standard templates from OTRS. ACTION: JS JS has been in contact with WJBScribe, a lawyer who has offered to give pro-bono advice to the chapter. JS to clarify if this means formal written advice that can be relied upon or informal word of mouth assistance. ACTION: JS Reports Secretary (AT) AT has received an email from Steve Bowbrick, the BBC Radio 4 Blog Editor who spoke at the AGM regarding collaboration between the BBC and WMUK. SV agreed to pursue this as Director of Corporate Relations. ACTION: SV AT has also received an email from the Open Knowledge Foundation who were lined up to speak at the AGM but weren't able to in the end, also regarding possible collaboration. JS agreed to follow up. ACTION: JS Conferences (JS) JS had previously emailed the Board regarding the Online Information 2009 (1-3 Dec, London) conference. They are inviting speakers and although the deadline is officially passed they are accepting late submissions. The cost to attend is £400/day/person (£400 for the 3 days for registered charities). JS will confirm whether speakers have to pay this fee. ACTION: JS SV is already attending in a work capacity. In the event that speakers do have to pay the fee, SV will look into getting a slot in a fringe event instead. ACTION: SV Once this is established, JS, MP, AT will work on a submission ACTION: JS, MP, AT SV is also talking to the University of the West of England and the University of Leeds regarding holding a WMUK conference there. Corporate Relations (SV) SV has been in touch with a few leads: • The Vega Science Trust , a not-for-profit publishing material on the internet; JS and SV will follow up with a call to discuss collaboration opportunities. ACTION: JS; SV • Bairds , a public affairs consultancy who may be able to help regarding funding for Welsh language projects. JS and SV will follow up to discuss collaboration opportunities. ACTION: JS; SV • The Red Maids school regarding the wikischools idea. JS and SV will progress ACTION: JS; SV HMRC response The response is complete save for the appendix on the use of Wikimedia in education. It was agreed AT and MP would work on it together, send the final copy round the Board and send out. ACTION: AT; MP We have received two offers of help funding legal advice in connection with this issue - one from the WMF and one from a pro-bono lawyer. It was agreed we would respond to thank the people for offering, explaining the Board has decided to respond to HMRC ASAP; if this is not successful we may then seek legal advice so would be grateful for assistance then if it's still available. For the pro-bono lawyer we do need help with the chapters agreement so to ask if they would be prepared to advise us on that. ACTION: AT New chapters agreement It was agreed that MP will provide the Chapter Agreement Committee with a link to Chapter Agreement Revision/Response with our current response. This may alter following legal advice. ACTION: MP Process to appoint the chapter-selected Board members of the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010 It was agreed AT should post this to the WikimediaUK-L mailing list to solicit views on this process and it should be discussed again next time. ACTION: AT Next Meeting Next meeting was arranged for Tuesday 9th June, 8:30pm at #wikimedia-uk-board Meeting closed at 23:00.

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Chapter-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's board
by Andrew Turvey 03 Jun '09

03 Jun '09

Wikimedia UK, together with the other chapters, are currently drafting the process that will be used next year to choose the members of the Wikimedia Foundation's board who sit in the "chapter-selected" seats, We would appreciate any comments you have on this process, so we can feed them back before it is approved. First, I'll summarise the background as best as I can, for those who aren't familiar. Apologies if I state something thay everyone knows! Wikipedia, Commons, Wikinews and the other projects are owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, a US charity incorporated in Florida. In April 2008, the Foundation announced [1] a change in the way the Foundation's Board is made up: in the future, it will consist of ten members, as follows: - Three members elected by the Wikimedia community (registered users who have made more than a certain number of edits) - Two members selected by the 21 recognised chapters throughout the world - Four "specific expertise" members appointed by the Board - One "community founder" member being Jimmy Wales The three elected seats will be decided in July 2009 and every two years thereafter. The chapters were asked to fill the two chapter seats as soon as possible and then in odd years thereafter. First they were asked to draft a process that would be agreed by the Foundation and then to select two people following that process. In the event, the chapters moved to discuss nominations before the process had been agreed by the Foundation; following discussions at the Chapters Meeting in Berlin in April a compromise was proposed: to maintain continuity, the current chair was nominated alongside the top person to come out of the discussions. This was eventually accepted by a majority of the chapters and the new people were appointed a few days ago [2]. Wikimedia UK only joined the discussions at the end - only after we were formally recognised as a chapter in January. So that the process is cleaner in 2010, the chapters want to prepare a formal process so that this can be approved by the Foundation Board before the nomination begins again. The current proposal for this process is at [3] with proposed changed at [4]. I've copied the proposal below. At this stage, Wikimedia UK has been asked to give its input into what we think the process should be. A committee of 2/3 people will then be appointed from all the chapters to re-draft the process which will then come back to us for approval. ==== Proposal: Every even numbered year the chapters will select two people to take seats on The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) board. The chapters and WMF board agree that these board members are not intended to represent the chapters, they are expected to act in the best interests of the WMF at all times. These selections will be made by 1st July of each year. The following steps will be taken: 1. By 1st April: The chapters will appoint a moderator to manage the election. This is intended to be very simple, sometime a few weeks before that date someone should nominate a moderator and if no-one objects (which they should only do if they have a serious problem with the candidate's ability to do the job in an fair and impartial manner) that person will be moderator. The moderator should not be a candidate, but they can participate in the process. The moderator is responsible for keeping the community updated with the progress through this process and will serve as liaison to the WMF board. 2. By 1st May: Chapters will nominate at most two candidates each by supplying the following information on the chapters wiki: 1. The name of the nominee 2. The name of the nominating chapter 3. A statement from the chapter in support of the nominee 4. A statement from the nominee in support of themselves, confirming they are willing and eligible to take a seat on the WMF board 3. From 1st May to 15th June: The chapters will discuss the candidates on the chapters wiki and will attempt to reach a consensus on which two to select. If, at any time during this period, the moderator feels a consensus has been reached he will clearly state who he/she believes the chapters have chosen and if no chapter has objected after a week, those nominees will be selected and the moderator will inform the WMF board. If a chapter objects, the chapters will go back to discussion. This process can be repeated as many times as appropriate during the period. 4. If no consensus has been reached by 15th June the moderator will announce a vote. Each chapter will vote for two candidates by posting on the chapters wiki and, on 1st July, the moderator will count the votes and the two candidates with the most votes will be selected and the moderator will inform the WMF board. In the event of a tie, the moderator will toss a coin. The method(s) used by individual chapters to make any decisions required of them are entirely up to the chapter in question, however chapters are advised that the names of candidates and any discussion and votes are confidential and should be restricted to the chapters wiki. [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Board_of_Trustees/Restructure_Announcem… [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-May/052037.html [3] http://chapters.wikimedia.ch/Committee_proposals#Process_for_the_future (note: limited availability) [4] http://chapters.wikimedia.ch/Talk:Appointment_process/Committee_proposals#C… (note: limited availability)

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Using Wiki software in higher Education: Interview request
by Andrew Turvey 02 Jun '09

02 Jun '09

We have recently been approached by a company asking for someone to be video interviewed on the subject of how Wikipedia can be used in universities. The company is a spin off from Imperial College in London and is partly public owned and partly privately owned. They are currently preparing courses in new technology, which are expected to be used by over 100 higher education institutions around the world. The interview will take place in London one day in the next two weeks. The interview will last about 30 minutes and will be cut down to around 5-10 minutes. They are willing to pay travel costs if necessary. Exact details of the interview questions are still being worked out. This is an excellent opportunity for Wikimedia UK to promote use of the projects in higher education. We're looking for a volunteer who is familiar with the workings of Wikipedia and is willing to be interviewed. If you are interested in doing this for us or would like to discuss it further please drop me a line or ring me on 07754 881 562. Regards, Andrew

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Fwd: Announcing GLAM-WIKI in Australia
by Andrew Turvey 01 Jun '09

01 Jun '09

Forwarded below details of another exciting event, this time taking place in Canberra, Australia. I don't suppose anyone from the UK is going? It would be great to find out how this goes so we can pick up some tips for the "London/Britain Loves Wikipedia" event penciled in for next spring. Andrew ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: "Liam Wyatt" <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> To: "Local Chapters, board and officers coordination (closed subscription)" <internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Cc: chapters(a)wikimedia.ch Sent: Tuesday, 26 May, 2009 15:42:21 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Re: [Chapters] [Internal-l] Announcing Wiki loves art Netherlands Congratulations Hay and the rest of the Dutch team on your innovating work! From where I sit it looks like the Dutch are doing a lot of interesting things right now - including " Wikiwijs " - I'm jealous of your progress! However let me take this opportunity, in the spirit of healthy rivalry between Chapters, to announce an even that Wikimedia Australia will be hosting in August: Ladies and Gentlemen may I present to you the first ever "GLAM-WIKI" event. </fireworks> G.L.A.M. (in English) stands for galleries, libraries, archives, museums and this will be the first time that the cultural sector of any country will come together to meet with WIkimedians to discuss how we can better work together. Whilst this is specifically looking at the Australian/NewZealand perspective I do believe that the discussions we have will be applicable to our two communities worldwide. You can find out more and download the poster here: glam.wikimedia.org.au We will be posting all event videos/slides/outcomes there afterwards. The idea is that both the "GLAM sector" and the Wikimedia community instinctively know that they could offer a lot of expertise to the other. So, rather than being a conference where one community tells the other what it is doing wrong, GLAM-WIKI is designed to be a two-way discussion where we share best-practices and each community asks "how can we work better with you?" This is collaborative relationship building. And the best bit is... everyone we talk to is very excited about it. Every national and State gallery, library, archive and museum we talk to says "wow - yes, we'll come to that! We need to know about that!" They've been told for the last decade that they need to "be online" but no one has come and said "Hi - we are from the internet and want to work with you and this is how we recommend you do it". Equally we as a community have never formally sat down with the organisations that are the professional cultural organisations and ask them what their experiences, best-practices and expectations are. Thanks to the generous support of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Australian War Memorial we will be able to run this event with no attendance fee and in state-of-the-art facilities. WMF-CPO Jennifer Riggs will be coming out to grace us with her presence and the Australian Government representative who is most engaged in issues about Open Access, online rights, etc. ( senator Kate Lundy ) will be opening. I'm very excited about the range of "big names" who've said to us that they're supportive of this and have agreed to speak and use their considerable influence in their field to promote this. As part of the goals for each community to be able to take away with them an understanding of what they other community wants - and to see if those changes can be implemented - we would very much like to have some international representation from non-Australian Wikimedia communities. So today Brianna Laugher and I drove around the "embassy quarter" in our capital knocking on doors to see who would be interested in sponsoring people from their country to fly out here. Not surprisingly none said "of course - here's a bag of money" but many were very interested (especially the Swedish and Dutch actually...). If you would like to attend this event - please contact us and maybe we can organise a combined approach to your embassy or national culture ministry. If there are any questions or suggestions please contact me and we hope that some of you might be able to join us in person in Canberra in August. Otherwise, join us on Twitter during the event. Peace, Love and Metadata! -Liam Wyatt [[witty lama]] VP Wikimedia Australia wittylama.com/blog Sent from Canberra, Act, Australia On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 7:59 AM, Hay (Husky) < huskyr(a)gmail.com > wrote: Hello everyone, here's an update on the Dutch Wiki loves art (WLA) project. This event was inspired by previous comparable projects (Wikipedia loves art) in the US and Australia (from which we also had some handy tips, thanks Liam!) The Dutch version of WL A will be organized by Wikimedia Nederland and Creative Commons Nederland, with support from the Museumnight Foundation, Digital Heritage Netherlands and ISP XS4ALL. [snip] I hope this answers a few questions some of you might have. Of course, comments and critique are still welcome, but because the event will start in one week we might not be able to change a lot. Of course, if you happen to be in the Netherlands in June, please visit a few museums and take some pictures! Or if you're not in Holland then you can still help by including the photographs from Commons in your favorite articles. Regards, – Hay _______________________________________________ Internal-l mailing list Internal-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/internal-l _______________________________________________ Chapters mailing list Chapters(a)wikimedia.ch http://lists.wikimedia.ch/listinfo/chapters

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Merchandise/fundraising
by Dahsun 01 Jun '09

01 Jun '09

I'm sure if we set up an Ebay account and got Jimbo to sign some stuff there would be buyers. More importantly once we are a registered charity we can tap into things like this: http://www.justgiving.com/statements/about_us/charities.asp As well as [[Payroll giving]] As for T shirts, aren't they slightly old hat? I would have thought cufflinks, coffee mugs, mousemats and library card holders would be more appropriate for our target market. And with the wonders of commons we ought to be able to do a neat line in calendars, postcards and greeting cards. Here are two companies that do calendars http://www.suomiprint.co.uk/quote/calendars.html http://www.thedesignfactoryltd.co.uk/ Lots of charities have calendars sold through retailers in the run up to Xmas, I'm sure a wikipedia one could easily get shelf space. You could even print an in this month panel to add interest; or do different versions - Sports, Milhist, bizarre happenings etc. WereSpielChequers --- On Mon, 1/6/09, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> wrote: > From: Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> > Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] Merchandise > To: wikimediauk-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Date: Monday, 1 June, 2009, 10:44 AM > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I know this may > be early days, but I see mention of chapter > negotiations and this is a somewhat related > issue. > > > > Most people here > (not in the wider public) know about the Cafepress > store for Wiki merchandise, but it doesn’t really cut > it anymore. I am > aware that alternatives are being looked at, but this may > not be global > coverage, and would likely not cope with localised > merchandise for WM UK. > > > > I know the > Wikimedia name is covered in the chapters’ > agreement(s), but if you wanted to do a members-only > T-shirt, could you do “Wikimedia > UK, > Supporting the > Wikipedia > Mission” shirts from a local supplier to keep > shipping costs down? Obviously > a cut goes to the WMF, but this seems like a good point to > cover in any future > agreement. > > > > > > Brian. > > > > > > > > -----Inline Attachment Follows----- > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org > http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org >

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Wikimediauk-l June 2009