Hi all, this is an email to ask for help and advice on improving the Wikimedia UK websiite. Speaking to RexX recently at an event, I was discussing some of the issues we are having with the UK website recently as a result of it not being updated much. Some other chapters have recently gone down the path of moving away from MediaWiki to make their sites more user friendly, but I don't think we want to do that and I feel sure that with a bit of effort we could make our MediaWiki site look a lot nicer. If you look at the Special:Version <https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Special:Version> page on the WMUK site, you can see all the extensions that are installed currently. It appears we are lacking many that would be useful, and not being a huge MediaWiki person I wonder if anybody could lend a hand with helping to install some. In particular, we cannot display video on the site, because there is no Timed Media Handler extension. We probably also need Template Styles for reactive tables, and there's probably more that would be useful. I would really appreciate if anybody could offer help in installing these and/or advising what other extensions we should install. The website really needs quite a lot of work, but one thing I would really like to be able to do is to automate scraping the image and lead paragraph off blog posts and having it go onto the WMUK main Wiki page. At the moment this needs to be done manually and this is quite annoying. The same goes for the events list on the main Wiki page, which constantly has to be updated and duplicated from the Events page. Again, if anybody knows how this could be achieved, we would be very grateful. One idea I'd like to suggest for doing this is to have a WMUK one day workshop with anybody who is interested to meet up and work with us on improving the site. I would be happy to organise this and arrange it if people would like to attend help us improve the site. If you would be willing to willing to come to London for this kind of event, please let me know so I can get an idea of how many people might come and help out. I hope that Wikimedia UK can also be here to support your Wikimedia work and projects, so please bear in mind that there are always small grants available for expenses to cover members' projects, so please let us know what interesting things you have been doing and if there is any way we can support you. All the best, John Lubbock Communications Coordinator Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0767 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Office 1, Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ. Wikimedia UK is the national chapter of the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia UK? Donate here <https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk>. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk

We don't have any technologists on staff. We contract work to someone, but I believe they are pretty fully occupied with some back end issues at the moment. John Lubbock Communications Coordinator Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0767 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Office 1, Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ. Wikimedia UK is the national chapter of the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia UK? Donate here <https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk>. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.* On Tue, 9 Oct 2018 at 11:56, Lewis Cawte &lt;lewiscawte(a)googlemail.com&gt; wrote: > In place of a more useful researched answer (as I'm in a lecture) but > does the chapter not employ/contract people to manage the websites and IT? > > I'm a bit out of touch with chapter things these days, but I'm sure > this was a thing that the contractors used to handle for staff? > > -- Lewis Cawte > > On Tue, 9 Oct 2018, 11:35 John Lubbock, &lt;john.lubbock(a)wikimedia.org.uk&gt; > wrote: > >> Hi all, this is an email to ask for help and advice on improving the >> Wikimedia UK websiite. Speaking to RexX recently at an event, I was >> discussing some of the issues we are having with the UK website recently as >> a result of it not being updated much. Some other chapters have recently >> gone down the path of moving away from MediaWiki to make their sites more >> user friendly, but I don't think we want to do that and I feel sure that >> with a bit of effort we could make our MediaWiki site look a lot nicer. >> >> If you look at the Special:Version >> <https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Special:Version> page on the WMUK >> site, you can see all the extensions that are installed currently. It >> appears we are lacking many that would be useful, and not being a huge >> MediaWiki person I wonder if anybody could lend a hand with helping to >> install some. In particular, we cannot display video on the site, because >> there is no Timed Media Handler extension. We probably also need Template >> Styles for reactive tables, and there's probably more that would be useful. >> I would really appreciate if anybody could offer help in installing these >> and/or advising what other extensions we should install. >> >> The website really needs quite a lot of work, but one thing I would >> really like to be able to do is to automate scraping the image and lead >> paragraph off blog posts and having it go onto the WMUK main Wiki page. At >> the moment this needs to be done manually and this is quite annoying. The >> same goes for the events list on the main Wiki page, which constantly has >> to be updated and duplicated from the Events page. Again, if anybody knows >> how this could be achieved, we would be very grateful. >> >> One idea I'd like to suggest for doing this is to have a WMUK one day >> workshop with anybody who is interested to meet up and work with us on >> improving the site. I would be happy to organise this and arrange it if >> people would like to attend help us improve the site. If you would be >> willing to willing to come to London for this kind of event, please let me >> know so I can get an idea of how many people might come and help out. >> >> I hope that Wikimedia UK can also be here to support your Wikimedia >> work and projects, so please bear in mind that there are always small >> grants available for expenses to cover members' projects, so please let us >> know what interesting things you have been doing and if there is any way we >> can support you. >> >> All the best, >> >> John Lubbock >> >> Communications Coordinator >> >> Wikimedia UK >> >> +44 (0) 203 372 0767 >> >> >> >> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England >> and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Office 1, >> Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ. >> >> Wikimedia UK is the national chapter of the global Wikimedia open >> knowledge movement. We rely on donations from individuals to support our >> work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting >> Wikimedia UK? Donate here <https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk>. >> >> The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who >> operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an >> independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor >> responsibility for its contents.* >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia UK mailing list >> wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l >> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia UK mailing list > wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk