One of the things that a few people have mentioned as a real positive about the chapter is the way that decisions are made openly in consultation with members and supporters.
The home page makes quite a bg deal about this:
"Open decisions
As an organisation promoting open knowledge, we also want to be leaders in transparency regarding our decision making:
* Our constitution puts decision making in the hands of members wherever possible * We seek the widest possible membership base * We are led by a seven person Board of Trustees, elected by the members at the AGM * All Board meetings are held in public on the internet. We publish our Agenda beforehand and minutes afterwards * We pledge to discuss all major decisions with our supporters beforehand though our mailing list and our wiki * We keep supporters informed through our monthly Newsletter which you can subscribe to here."
Unfortunately with the pressure of too much to do plus some changes brought in for efficiency reasons, some aspects of these have changed in the last couple of months:
- Board meetings have moved from IRC to Skype, which we haven't been able to open to the public or even publish the recordings afterwards - We haven't been able to publish a newsletter since September - There is little input to Board agendas or reaction to minutes - Non-board activity on this email list, the wiki and in chapter projects hasn't really developed in the way we originally hoped
I would like to ask how people see this who support the chapter but aren't on the board. Are you hearing enough about what the board is doing? Are you wanting to hear more? Are you happy with the amount of input you have to chapter activities or do you want to get more involved? Generally are you happy with the way the chapter is going?
Do any of these developments above matter to you, and if so, which ones in particular?
If you do want to get more involved, what's the best way to engage? Should the board use more, or less of:
- this email list? - the wiki? - direct emails to members? - the monthly newsletter? - the blog at http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/? - the facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5678482133&ref=ts? - the twitter feed at http://twitter.com/wikimediauk - anything else?
All feedback and thoughts are welcome!
Andrew
On Sun, 2009-12-20 at 15:18 -0800, AndrewRT wrote:
- Board meetings have moved from IRC to Skype, which we haven't been
able to open to the public or even publish the recordings afterwards
- We haven't been able to publish a newsletter since September
- There is little input to Board agendas or reaction to minutes
- Non-board activity on this email list, the wiki and in chapter
projects hasn't really developed in the way we originally hoped
This is the one that bugs me. It is technically possible to record Skype conference calls. All that is required is one participant running a call recording program. There are some rather fancy and expensive ones on Windows but, the basic one available in Ubuntu is free and works fine.
Of course, something freely licensed would be much better.
That and me wondering when my membership (now paid) actually goes through.
---- "Brian McNeil" brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
From: "Brian McNeil" brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 21 December, 2009 00:22:23 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain, Ireland, Portugal Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK "Open" decisions
This is the one that bugs me. It is technically possible to record Skype conference calls. All that is required is one participant running a call recording program.
Yes - I've been doing that with the "MP3 Skype Recorder" programme. However, this saves it as MP3s, which can't be uploaded to the wiki. So I then convert it to OGG using CyberPower's "Free Mp3/Wma/Ogg converter" and the ogg wont upload either! All I can say is we're working on it!
But it begs the question - if I did get it to work and managed to upload it, would people listen to it?
Andrew
On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 00:57 +0000, Andrew Turvey wrote:
---- "Brian McNeil" brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
From: "Brian McNeil" brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 21 December, 2009 00:22:23 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain,
Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK "Open" decisions
This is the one that bugs me. It is technically possible to record
Skype conference calls. All that is required is one participant running a call recording program.
Yes - I've been doing that with the "MP3 Skype Recorder" programme. However, this saves it as MP3s, which can't be uploaded to the wiki. So I then convert it to OGG using CyberPower's "Free Mp3/Wma/Ogg converter" and the ogg wont upload either! All I can say is we're working on it!
Try Audacity for the conversion.
Load up MP3, if needed do noise removal, compress to peaks, export as OGG and fill in the metadata.
Never had a file done that way fail to upload. Plus Audacity is Free software.
2009/12/21 Brian McNeil brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org:
Never had a file done that way fail to upload. Plus Audacity is Free software.
Also ridiculously easy to use, if you understand the process of recording something. First time I had need of it, I went from installing it to finished piece (with assorted effects, there's a nice selection built in) in under three hours, not looking at the help once.
- d.
Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a go
On Dec 21, 1:29 am, Brian McNeil brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.org wrote:
On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 00:57 +0000, Andrew Turvey wrote:
---- "Brian McNeil" brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.org wrote:
From: "Brian McNeil" brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.org To: wikimediau...@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, 21 December, 2009 00:22:23 GMT +00:00 GMT Britain,
Ireland, Portugal
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK "Open" decisions
This is the one that bugs me. It is technically possible to record
Skype conference calls. All that is required is one participant running a call recording program.
Yes - I've been doing that with the "MP3 Skype Recorder" programme. However, this saves it as MP3s, which can't be uploaded to the wiki. So I then convert it to OGG using CyberPower's "Free Mp3/Wma/Ogg converter" and the ogg wont upload either! All I can say is we're working on it!
Try Audacity for the conversion.
Load up MP3, if needed do noise removal, compress to peaks, export as OGG and fill in the metadata.
Never had a file done that way fail to upload. Plus Audacity is Free software.
-- Brian McNeil brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.org Wikinewsie.org
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On Tue, 2009-12-22 at 15:39 -0800, AndrewRT wrote:
Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a go
<snip>
Try Audacity for the conversion.
Load up MP3, if needed do noise removal, compress to peaks, export as OGG and fill in the metadata.
Noise removal is the slightly confusing one. What you want to do is select a second or two of quiet/background noise in the recording; pick the noise removal option from the menu; click the "sample" button to build a noise profile; then pick from menu again and apply the noise profile to the full recording.
Never had a file done that way fail to upload. Plus Audacity is Free software.
The folks that do Wikivoices (featuring myself, Mike Peel, Skenmy, and Jimmy Wales on Wikinews this evening 8pm) have a lot of experience cleaning up and editing recordings. Once you've done a couple of clean and uploads they can probably offer some really good advanced tips.
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org