Currently, both recent changes and watchlists on the WMUK Wiki are showing 0 changes, despite there being changes that should be shown - there have been four posts to the Engine Room (where this problem was flagged up) in the past 2 days for example.
Chris
---- Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Hi Chris, I know, I know, it's a huge problem we've been having. All the extensions are also down, and some domains like the QRPedia one and the stats.wikimedia.org.uk one are also not working, and have not been doing so for a while. I'm told that Tom Morton is trying to fix things but I think he's part time, and I keep on asking for updates about when things might be fixed, but I've not heard anyhting about when they might be fixed. Things are going as fast as he can manage, I suppose, but without a full time person to do this on staff, and with Tom the only person who has access to the server files, it's all going very slowly. Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
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 Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 12:54, Chris McKenna cmckenna@sucs.org wrote:
Currently, both recent changes and watchlists on the WMUK Wiki are showing 0 changes, despite there being changes that should be shown - there have been four posts to the Engine Room (where this problem was flagged up) in the past 2 days for example.
Chris
Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
It seems that having only one person able to access the server files is a poor idea for various reasons including business continutiy, reliability and issues lie this one.
I don't have the skills for the job, but there must be someone in the community that does?
Chris
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018, John Lubbock wrote:
Hi Chris, I know, I know, it's a huge problem we've been having. All the extensions are also down, and some domains like the QRPedia one and the stats.wikimedia.org.uk one are also not working, and have not been doing so for a while. I'm told that Tom Morton is trying to fix things but I think he's part time, and I keep on asking for updates about when things might be fixed, but I've not heard anyhting about when they might be fixed. Things are going as fast as he can manage, I suppose, but without a full time person to do this on staff, and with Tom the only person who has access to the server files, it's all going very slowly. Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
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 Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 12:54, Chris McKenna cmckenna@sucs.org wrote:
Currently, both recent changes and watchlists on the WMUK Wiki are showing 0 changes, despite there being changes that should be shown - there have been four posts to the Engine Room (where this problem was flagged up) in the past 2 days for example.
Chris
Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
---- Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Dear John,
If WMUK no longer has a technology budget you might want to consider asking if another chapter would be willing to support QRpedia. It is only because it started in the UK that it was hosted by the UK chapter, it is actually a global resource.
Jonathan
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:04, John Lubbock john.lubbock@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Hi Chris, I know, I know, it's a huge problem we've been having. All the extensions are also down, and some domains like the QRPedia one and the stats.wikimedia.org.uk one are also not working, and have not been doing so for a while. I'm told that Tom Morton is trying to fix things but I think he's part time, and I keep on asking for updates about when things might be fixed, but I've not heard anyhting about when they might be fixed. Things are going as fast as he can manage, I suppose, but without a full time person to do this on staff, and with Tom the only person who has access to the server files, it's all going very slowly. Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
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 Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 12:54, Chris McKenna cmckenna@sucs.org wrote:
Currently, both recent changes and watchlists on the WMUK Wiki are showing 0 changes, despite there being changes that should be shown - there have been four posts to the Engine Room (where this problem was flagged up) in the past 2 days for example.
Chris
Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:18, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
If WMUK no longer has a technology budget you might want to consider asking if another chapter would be willing to support QRpedia.
Of WMF?
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:31, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
If WMUK no longer has a technology budget you might want to consider asking if another chapter would be willing to support QRpedia.
Of WMF?
That should read "Or WMF?"; sorry.
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:31, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
The whole "three wise monkeys" approach by WMUK to its wiki has been going on for years, and is quite unacceptable.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list
Now would be a good time for the WMUK board to review whether having its own wiki is worth the on-going investment in scarce volunteer time or employee time. Running a blog does not need a wiki, and many other chapters happily use meta to publish reports and documents which can be discussed by anyone there, with zero budget or consultancy needed.
When we created the charity's own wiki, there was a vibrant and highly active UK charity volunteer community of hundreds. A significant proportion of the most active volunteers used our entirely volunteer driven wiki to coordinate the projects and policies of the evolving charity. Those reasons no longer exist. Projects can, and probably should, be coordinated on WMF supported sites, such as project pages on Meta, Wikipedia and Commons, with the obvious benefits that volunteers globally can easily link to it, find it (via standard search), and participate, rather than being directed to a peculiar chapter wiki that they will have no special incentive to use for discussion and is increasingly subject to outage and maintenance headaches.
For QRpedia, current and potential usage is far wider than the UK. Discussing its maintenance and long term future should be widely promoted and can easily justify a specific WMF funding case.
Thanks Fae
Hi all
Thanks for your comments and suggestions about the chapter's Wiki, and related technical issues. There have been a few conversations around this at board and senior management level recently and we are aware that there is a need to improve our approach to technology both at an operational level (with some work currently happening on this front) and at a programmatic/strategic level (ditto). There is much more to be done however - and we're aware that we also need to work more closely with the volunteer community on both the challenges and opportunities we're facing regarding technology - so please bear with us while we seek to address some of the issues highlighted (and others that haven't been!)
Thanks and best Lucy
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 14:02, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:31, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
The whole "three wise monkeys" approach by WMUK to its wiki has been
going on for years, and is quite unacceptable.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list
Now would be a good time for the WMUK board to review whether having its own wiki is worth the on-going investment in scarce volunteer time or employee time. Running a blog does not need a wiki, and many other chapters happily use meta to publish reports and documents which can be discussed by anyone there, with zero budget or consultancy needed.
When we created the charity's own wiki, there was a vibrant and highly active UK charity volunteer community of hundreds. A significant proportion of the most active volunteers used our entirely volunteer driven wiki to coordinate the projects and policies of the evolving charity. Those reasons no longer exist. Projects can, and probably should, be coordinated on WMF supported sites, such as project pages on Meta, Wikipedia and Commons, with the obvious benefits that volunteers globally can easily link to it, find it (via standard search), and participate, rather than being directed to a peculiar chapter wiki that they will have no special incentive to use for discussion and is increasingly subject to outage and maintenance headaches.
For QRpedia, current and potential usage is far wider than the UK. Discussing its maintenance and long term future should be widely promoted and can easily justify a specific WMF funding case.
Thanks Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Sorry it should have said
Also I understand that Hannah Evans has left. I feel that it would have been better if people on this list had been informed.
all the best,
Fabian
Thanks Fabian - and yes, I will do that.
I'm sorry Hannah didn't contact this list about her departure, which I'm sure was an oversight. I have also been meaning to email the list about my return, but I'm going to do that in a separate message :)
Best Lucy
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 15:42, leutha@fabiant.eu wrote:
Hi all,
Thanks for that, Lucy.
Might I suggest a small improvement which could be achieved for little expense is that you use both this list and the wiki to keep people informed.
Please have a look at the Engine Room https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room. It is unfortunate that there has been no reply to Brian Kelly's inquiry about the VLE made back in August.
Likewise, the outdated staff photo – dating from 2015 is still the one currently being used, despite the prompt dating from March 2018, which Michael kindly responded to over four months later.
Perhaps if you could ensure that a member of staff is charged with checking this and responding to queries at the start of every week. This would only take five minutes most weeks, as the unresponsiveness on the wiki has meant there have only been 10 posts in all of 2018.
Likewise the water cooler, where the sole inquirer for 2018 has been waiting four months for a response!
Also I understand that Hannah Evans has left. I feel that people on this list had been informed.
all the best,
Fabian Tompsett
aka Leutha
On 30 November 2018 at 14:17 Lucy Crompton-Reid < lucy.crompton-reid@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Hi all
Thanks for your comments and suggestions about the chapter's Wiki, and related technical issues. There have been a few conversations around this at board and senior management level recently and we are aware that there is a need to improve our approach to technology both at an operational level (with some work currently happening on this front) and at a programmatic/strategic level (ditto). There is much more to be done however
and we're aware that we also need to work more closely with the volunteer community on both the challenges and opportunities we're facing regarding technology - so please bear with us while we seek to address some of the issues highlighted (and others that haven't been!)
Thanks and best Lucy
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 14:02, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:31, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
The whole "three wise monkeys" approach by WMUK to its wiki has been
going on for years, and is quite unacceptable.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list
Now would be a good time for the WMUK board to review whether having its own wiki is worth the on-going investment in scarce volunteer time or employee time. Running a blog does not need a wiki, and many other chapters happily use meta to publish reports and documents which can be discussed by anyone there, with zero budget or consultancy needed.
When we created the charity's own wiki, there was a vibrant and highly active UK charity volunteer community of hundreds. A significant proportion of the most active volunteers used our entirely volunteer driven wiki to coordinate the projects and policies of the evolving charity. Those reasons no longer exist. Projects can, and probably should, be coordinated on WMF supported sites, such as project pages on Meta, Wikipedia and Commons, with the obvious benefits that volunteers globally can easily link to it, find it (via standard search), and participate, rather than being directed to a peculiar chapter wiki that they will have no special incentive to use for discussion and is increasingly subject to outage and maintenance headaches.
For QRpedia, current and potential usage is far wider than the UK. Discussing its maintenance and long term future should be widely promoted and can easily justify a specific WMF funding case.
Thanks Fae -- faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
-- Lucy Crompton-Reid Chief Executive Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 203 372 0762
*Wikimedia UK* is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827 Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ
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@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 30 November 2018 at 15:42 leutha@fabiant.eu wrote:
Please have a look at the Engine Room https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room . It is unfortunate that there has been no reply to Brian Kelly's inquiry about the VLE made back in August.
"Sorry, the website moodle.wikimedia.org.uk cannot be found" is as much as I know about it.
Charles
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 15:42, leutha@fabiant.eu wrote:
Engine Room
water cooler
I suggest re-merging those pages. The level of traffic is not high and the benefits of splitting them were never clear.
I support Andy's proposal. Some consolidation of communications formats is a very good thing from my point of view. We have so many it's hard to keep track of them all.
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 Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 16:39, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 15:42, leutha@fabiant.eu wrote:
Engine Room
water cooler
I suggest re-merging those pages. The level of traffic is not high and the benefits of splitting them were never clear.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
More radically, you could move the UK wiki to be a project on Meta.
This would end much of your costs for maintaining the wiki, other than any domain names which you could point there. But more importantly it would include you into Single User Login and cross wiki notifications. So if you pinged someone in a discussion they would know about it next time they were on Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons. It would also help lower the barriers against involving that rather large group of Wikimedians who are in the UK but who have had little or no contact with the chapter.
I can’t think of anything we have ever gained from having our own independent Wiki as opposed to a project on Meta, unless you count independence and seperation from the rest of the movement as a positive.
Jonathan
Get Outlook for iOShttps://aka.ms/o0ukef
________________________________ From: Wikimediauk-l wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org on behalf of John Lubbock john.lubbock@wikimedia.org.uk Sent: Friday, November 30, 2018 5:48 pm To: UK Wikimedia mailing list Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Recent changes and watchlists broken on the WMUK Wiki
I support Andy's proposal. Some consolidation of communications formats is a very good thing from my point of view. We have so many it's hard to keep track of them all.
John Lubbock
Communications Coordinator
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 203 372 0767
[https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B-NnTyZV24WTVXhLeDIxSWs2d...]
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 herehttps://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 Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 16:39, Andy Mabbett <andy@pigsonthewing.org.ukmailto:andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote: On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 15:42, <leutha@fabiant.eumailto:leutha@fabiant.eu> wrote:
Engine Room
water cooler
I suggest re-merging those pages. The level of traffic is not high and the benefits of splitting them were never clear.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.orgmailto:wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 01 December 2018 at 09:30 Jonathan Cardy werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
More radically, you could move the UK wiki to be a project on Meta.
<snip>
I can’t think of anything we have ever gained from having our own independent Wiki as opposed to a project on Meta, unless you count independence and seperation from the rest of the movement as a positive.
As a matter of history, independence was a big motivation, rightly or wrongly.
There is fundraising to consider, naturally. There is more than that one wiki hosted, even in terms of MediaWiki instances.
In terms of fundraising, I spoke in 2010 (as WMUK staff) to someone then working in online fundraising as CE of a charity. Who told me that Wikimedia as a whole undershot what could be done in terms of raising funds, by an order of magnitude; and that you had to cater for the needs of the savvy donor, who researches charities online. The point is obviously not to rely entirely on impulse giving.
Now, that cannot be done on meta, clearly.
Does there need to be a wiki involved? There an element here of business logic versus open logic. Certainly one argument is "a report on the charity's activities is under professional control, and that is what should be online". A counter-argument is that it would convey nothing distinctive, everyone knows that glossiness can be purchased, and the WMF set its face some time ago against the plusher models of charity and NGO development.
A colleague told me not long ago that the trend for corporate sites is to make them leaner. The rationale is that people will anyway use other sources of information about corporation C, researching it elsewhere. Part of this discussion should be whether that would actually be a good thing for chapter's comms. There is a familiar debate here about who are the stakeholders and so on, and honestly anyone who brings up rationalising the wiki out of existence really needs to have their own version of that to hand.
Actually the UK wiki seems to me to have suffered from a couple of things. These really shouldn't have to be spelled out. They are:
(a) That it has been treated as an appendage to the office system; and
(b) A division of labour that is familiar from WP, that everyone should muck in on the scutwork, some people develop substantive content, and others do maintenance work like tagging with templates and effectively archiving old content, has not been understood by the office. And that none of this should be confused with the developer time cost, though there is certainly a cost to not having the site run like a dog and suffering periods of downtime.
For heaven's sake, a way to engage volunteers familiar with wiki editing is to have a wiki they'd want to edit. Not some sort of obsolescent filing cabinet. In these terms, beware the stakeholder analysis that simply ignores the group of people who, wait for it, actually write Wikipedia.
Charles
IMO both QRpedia and the wmuk wiki could be hosted on WMF infrastructure in one way or another.
The was an email a few weeks or months ago regarding access to the wiki for volunteers on the server side to help improve the situation, but it doesn't seem much really happened after that.
If WMUK want help with any of the above then I and others on this list are here and ready to help and also waving our arms around. But WMUK needs to start the process.
I guess there are privacy elements (GDPR) and what not that need to be considered.
On Sat, 1 Dec 2018, 12:37 Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 01 December 2018 at 09:30 Jonathan Cardy werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
More radically, you could move the UK wiki to be a project on Meta.
<snip>
I can’t think of anything we have ever gained from having our own independent Wiki as opposed to a project on Meta, unless you count independence and seperation from the rest of the movement as a positive.
As a matter of history, independence was a big motivation, rightly or wrongly.
There is fundraising to consider, naturally. There is more than that one wiki hosted, even in terms of MediaWiki instances.
In terms of fundraising, I spoke in 2010 (as WMUK staff) to someone then working in online fundraising as CE of a charity. Who told me that Wikimedia as a whole undershot what could be done in terms of raising funds, by an order of magnitude; and that you had to cater for the needs of the savvy donor, who researches charities online. The point is obviously not to rely entirely on impulse giving.
Now, that cannot be done on meta, clearly.
Does there need to be a wiki involved? There an element here of business logic versus open logic. Certainly one argument is "a report on the charity's activities is under professional control, and that is what should be online". A counter-argument is that it would convey nothing distinctive, everyone knows that glossiness can be purchased, and the WMF set its face some time ago against the plusher models of charity and NGO development.
A colleague told me not long ago that the trend for corporate sites is to make them leaner. The rationale is that people will anyway use other sources of information about corporation C, researching it elsewhere. Part of this discussion should be whether that would actually be a good thing for chapter's comms. There is a familiar debate here about who are the stakeholders and so on, and honestly anyone who brings up rationalising the wiki out of existence really needs to have their own version of that to hand.
Actually the UK wiki seems to me to have suffered from a couple of things. These really shouldn't have to be spelled out. They are:
(a) That it has been treated as an appendage to the office system; and
(b) A division of labour that is familiar from WP, that everyone should muck in on the scutwork, some people develop substantive content, and others do maintenance work like tagging with templates and effectively archiving old content, has not been understood by the office. And that none of this should be confused with the developer time cost, though there is certainly a cost to not having the site run like a dog and suffering periods of downtime.
For heaven's sake, a way to engage volunteers familiar with wiki editing is to have a wiki they'd want to edit. Not some sort of obsolescent filing cabinet. In these terms, beware the stakeholder analysis that simply ignores the group of people who, wait for it, actually write Wikipedia.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018, Andy Mabbett wrote:
On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 15:42, leutha@fabiant.eu wrote:
Engine Room
water cooler
I suggest re-merging those pages. The level of traffic is not high and the benefits of splitting them were never clear.
The point of splitting them was that internal meta discussions about the charity, its governance, the technology, and miscellaneous grievances were distrating from (and a times overwhelming) outward-facing communication regarding events, volunteering, etc.
However given that at the moment almost nobody is using the wiki to communicate about anything (and even fewer people are doing so successfully) it is probably best to merge them for now - probably just archive the curent posts on the Engine Room and redirect it to the Watercooler with a note about where to find the archives. This way splitting them again, should the activity level in future return to previous levels, will not require any significant effort.
---- Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
On 30 November 2018 at 14:01 Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Now would be a good time for the WMUK board to review whether having its own wiki is worth the on-going investment in scarce volunteer time or employee time.
Not so much. There has been an issue for five years, IMX, and a "review" that concluded that starving the wiki of resources, and, more importantly, of respect by staff has left a mess is not a long job. Just rationalising it away is cheap, in all senses of the world. Besides, it could be useful, and a plus for fundraising, with TLC.
For QRpedia, current and potential usage is far wider than the UK. Discussing its maintenance and long term future should be widely promoted and can easily justify a specific WMF funding case.
For QRpedia, I would agree that a tech review now would be a good idea.
Charles
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org