Well Tom, you have to remember that I write here as old Rexx, the dinosaur, wikimedian volunteer. I don't speak for the WMUK Board, and I sometimes wonder if I have to put a disclaimer on everything I write as a result. Would you prefer that? It sounds like just the sort of bureaucracy that will encourage others to stand as trustees in future.

I stand by my view that future projects will always have the potential to do great good for the movement, as well as do harm if things go wrong. The view that the Wikimedia community in the UK should be paralysed into inaction for fear of doing something wrong is simply untenable. I seriously hope that's not what you're suggesting.

Please feel free to tell us how you'd handle a future request for a new wiki-town. Even better, there's going to be a call for new trustees, both elected and coopted in the near future. WMUK could certainly do with having the benefit of your wisdom on the Board, and I'd vote for you.

--
Rexx
Expressing my personal opinion only.


On 12 February 2013 16:31, Tom Morris <tom@tommorris.org> wrote:
On Tuesday, 12 February 2013 at 15:56, rexx wrote:
> For example, Monmouthpedia generated many new articles in multiple languages as well as new photographs; the volunteers' efforts have helped vitalise the Welsh Wikipedia; the contacts made are leading to a shift in attitude of the Welsh Government and academia towards free and open licensing of work that they create or are custodians of.
>
> Gibraltarpedia has the potential to involve the whole area from Gibraltar into North Africa and create links between British, Spanish and North African wikimedians - perhaps even help to establish new communities of wikimedians where they do not yet exist.
>
> Andreas' concerns are clearly genuinely held, and we should never fear honest scrutiny and criticism. I'm looking forward to seeing new initiatives in the future and I'd welcome everyone's input on how best to ensure that they meet the vision of our wiki-movement. Contributions from our sternest critics are potentially the most valuable.

Let's be fair here, it's not just Andreas' concerns. It's not just a concern for self-styled Wikipedia critics. Lots and lots of people thought that Gibraltarpedia was problematic, myself included.* I think it's a clear case of WMUK collectively not having a good intuitive grasp of what the community on-wiki will and won't tolerate from chapters or chapter board members.

It's not even about the rights and wrongs of what went on, it's about being able to make sane judgement calls about about whether one can get the community to buy-in to grand plans for outreach (whether clearly good things like working with GLAMs to more problematic things which skirt close to the edge of paid editing like the Gibraltar stuff). It's about realising that one has to think through the politics of these things and to have the cleanest possible hands in dealing with COI.

Despite negative press coverage, negative reaction on-wiki and a governance review, based on Rexx's email, I'm starting to think that nobody at WMUK has actually learned anything useful from the Gibraltarpedia affair. Which is a shame.

* See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:GLAM/GibraltarpediA

--
Tom Morris
<http://tommorris.org/>



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