Do any fellow unpaid volunteers have a view on the changeover of the charity from using the volunteer controlled wiki as a front end, to using a fixed employee controlled website?
I feel this will be the end of the UK wiki in terms of being a public landing site with immediate engagement with fellow volunteers. Instead, we will have a public relations website subject to control by the Chief Executive, presumably full of good news, and hidden behind it will be the UK wiki, now acting only as a forum rather than a space where volunteers could create pages that support fund-raisers, openly discuss real issues, problems and so forth.
As a community of volunteers, we seem to have let the charity gradually drift away from being volunteer driven and volunteer centric and become overly sensitive to public relations. I am not sure why we let that happen.
Link https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
Fae
Like other chapters, including the Netherlands, Swiss, French, Swedish and German chapters, we need a professional looking website that will attract new volunteers and contributors, not just people who have an existing knowledge of wikis. The wiki will not change: indeed it will still be linked to through this website 'overlay'. We have smartened it up already through the support of UK Wikipedians but it has its limits.
Stevie has explained it in greater detail at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
On 8 June 2014 17:58, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Do any fellow unpaid volunteers have a view on the changeover of the charity from using the volunteer controlled wiki as a front end, to using a fixed employee controlled website?
I feel this will be the end of the UK wiki in terms of being a public landing site with immediate engagement with fellow volunteers. Instead, we will have a public relations website subject to control by the Chief Executive, presumably full of good news, and hidden behind it will be the UK wiki, now acting only as a forum rather than a space where volunteers could create pages that support fund-raisers, openly discuss real issues, problems and so forth.
As a community of volunteers, we seem to have let the charity gradually drift away from being volunteer driven and volunteer centric and become overly sensitive to public relations. I am not sure why we let that happen.
Link https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 10 Jun 2014, at 17:12, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
We have smartened it up already through the support of UK Wikipedians but it has its limits.
This is the bit I don't understand. What does the current proposal do that *can't* be done on the wiki? Why do we *have* to have these non-editable pages? If it's just visual content, then that can be done on the wikis fairly straightforwardly *. If it's to add technical features (e.g. in-line contact forms etc.), then I can understand this move - it's analogous to how donate.wikimedia.org.uk isn't on-wiki as that uses technical features that the wiki can't support. My understanding is it's just the former, though, which is why this doesn't make sense to me.
* The exception being the side-bars / page surround, but that's an intrinsic part of the Wikimedia/Wikipedia brand identity (it's what people recognise as 'Wikipedia' beyond the logo) so should really be kept regardless.
Thanks, Mike
Actually, you can hide the top and side bars as well, fairly straightforwardly.
For once, I'm with mike. A decent front end dev with a bit of patience really can do anything you want with the wiki front page.
Forget the anti-cabal rhetoric for a minute. I'm a big fan of a more inviting landing page, but duplicating the front page will only lead to a confusing UX, and is honestly unnecessary.
Sent from my iPhone
On 11 Jun 2014, at 06:05, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
On 10 Jun 2014, at 17:12, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
We have smartened it up already through the support of UK Wikipedians but it has its limits.
This is the bit I don't understand. What does the current proposal do that *can't* be done on the wiki? Why do we *have* to have these non-editable pages? If it's just visual content, then that can be done on the wikis fairly straightforwardly *. If it's to add technical features (e.g. in-line contact forms etc.), then I can understand this move - it's analogous to how donate.wikimedia.org.uk isn't on-wiki as that uses technical features that the wiki can't support. My understanding is it's just the former, though, which is why this doesn't make sense to me.
- The exception being the side-bars / page surround, but that's an intrinsic part of the Wikimedia/Wikipedia brand identity (it's what people recognise as 'Wikipedia' beyond the logo) so should really be kept regardless.
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
If someone makes a mistake when putting content into the new website, then that mistake will remain for longer as volunteers won't be able to fix it. On the other hand, a wiki isn't a great primary website for an organisation, and WMUK should gain a lot from having a website that's easier to navigate and use.
Whether this tradeoff is worth it or not depends on the structure of WMUK's plans and how much the website and wiki are used in conjunction with each other, so I think there's insufficient information to draw a conclusion either way at this stage.
Dan
On 8 June 2014 09:58, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Do any fellow unpaid volunteers have a view on the changeover of the charity from using the volunteer controlled wiki as a front end, to using a fixed employee controlled website?
I feel this will be the end of the UK wiki in terms of being a public landing site with immediate engagement with fellow volunteers. Instead, we will have a public relations website subject to control by the Chief Executive, presumably full of good news, and hidden behind it will be the UK wiki, now acting only as a forum rather than a space where volunteers could create pages that support fund-raisers, openly discuss real issues, problems and so forth.
As a community of volunteers, we seem to have let the charity gradually drift away from being volunteer driven and volunteer centric and become overly sensitive to public relations. I am not sure why we let that happen.
Link https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
There's a few points I made on the wiki that I think are worth repeating here and that I hope can help:
- The* wiki is not going anywhere* and will remain the primary resource. - For those who wish to go straight to the wiki, there will be a simple option on their first visit to add a cookie which will take them to the wiki at every subsequent visit. This is a requirement of the brief. - Each page of the website will directly link to the wiki, especially the volunteer, GLAM and education areas. - The website will include portals for GLAM, education and volunteering as well as a home page and an about page. These pages will build on existing, community-driven content. - This is not an abandonment of our values. Several other significant chapters, including many listed in the brief itself, have websites as well as wikis - this is very much bringing us in-line with the work of other chapters. It is not something new or something that is a departure from the work elsewhere in the movement. - It is also a chance to make sure that stuff that is really important for those new to Wikimedia UK, and aren't Wikimedians, is highly accessible. Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible. We haven't really made any progress with this and it is extremely important that we do so, one way or another.
I also want to clarify that *existing Wikimedians are not the key audience for this and will be unaffected*. We want to have a space for newcomers, too. I'm confident this will help us actually grow our volunteer community. I hope this helps, and I'm happy to answer direct questions on my talk page https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/User_talk:Stevie_Benton_(WMUK) if you would like me to, although here is obviously fine as well, as is the Wikimedia UK wiki https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required. Thank you.
Stevie
On 10 June 2014 17:51, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
If someone makes a mistake when putting content into the new website, then that mistake will remain for longer as volunteers won't be able to fix it. On the other hand, a wiki isn't a great primary website for an organisation, and WMUK should gain a lot from having a website that's easier to navigate and use.
Whether this tradeoff is worth it or not depends on the structure of WMUK's plans and how much the website and wiki are used in conjunction with each other, so I think there's insufficient information to draw a conclusion either way at this stage.
Dan
On 8 June 2014 09:58, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Do any fellow unpaid volunteers have a view on the changeover of the charity from using the volunteer controlled wiki as a front end, to using a fixed employee controlled website?
I feel this will be the end of the UK wiki in terms of being a public landing site with immediate engagement with fellow volunteers. Instead, we will have a public relations website subject to control by the Chief Executive, presumably full of good news, and hidden behind it will be the UK wiki, now acting only as a forum rather than a space where volunteers could create pages that support fund-raisers, openly discuss real issues, problems and so forth.
As a community of volunteers, we seem to have let the charity gradually drift away from being volunteer driven and volunteer centric and become overly sensitive to public relations. I am not sure why we let that happen.
Link https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
I think this makes sense. It is easy for experienced Wikimedians to lose sight of the fact that wikis are not the most welcoming environment to newbies. Meanwhile, people who otherwise might've had something to contribute to WMUK but got lost in the weird world of the wiki will now have a resource to access.
Obviously for the more regular, hardcore WMUK volunteers, the wiki will remain the primary resource, and if someone wants to become a hardcore volunteer then they'll need to deal with that. But for other casual volunteers, having the wiki not be a barrier to entry sounds good to me.
Dan
On 10 June 2014 10:28, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
There's a few points I made on the wiki that I think are worth repeating here and that I hope can help:
- The* wiki is not going anywhere* and will remain the primary
resource.
- For those who wish to go straight to the wiki, there will be a
simple option on their first visit to add a cookie which will take them to the wiki at every subsequent visit. This is a requirement of the brief.
- Each page of the website will directly link to the wiki, especially
the volunteer, GLAM and education areas.
- The website will include portals for GLAM, education and
volunteering as well as a home page and an about page. These pages will build on existing, community-driven content.
- This is not an abandonment of our values. Several other significant
chapters, including many listed in the brief itself, have websites as well as wikis - this is very much bringing us in-line with the work of other chapters. It is not something new or something that is a departure from the work elsewhere in the movement.
- It is also a chance to make sure that stuff that is really important
for those new to Wikimedia UK, and aren't Wikimedians, is highly accessible. Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible. We haven't really made any progress with this and it is extremely important that we do so, one way or another.
I also want to clarify that *existing Wikimedians are not the key audience for this and will be unaffected*. We want to have a space for newcomers, too. I'm confident this will help us actually grow our volunteer community. I hope this helps, and I'm happy to answer direct questions on my talk page https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/User_talk:Stevie_Benton_(WMUK) if you would like me to, although here is obviously fine as well, as is the Wikimedia UK wiki https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required. Thank you.
Stevie
On 10 June 2014 17:51, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
If someone makes a mistake when putting content into the new website, then that mistake will remain for longer as volunteers won't be able to fix it. On the other hand, a wiki isn't a great primary website for an organisation, and WMUK should gain a lot from having a website that's easier to navigate and use.
Whether this tradeoff is worth it or not depends on the structure of WMUK's plans and how much the website and wiki are used in conjunction with each other, so I think there's insufficient information to draw a conclusion either way at this stage.
Dan
On 8 June 2014 09:58, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Do any fellow unpaid volunteers have a view on the changeover of the charity from using the volunteer controlled wiki as a front end, to using a fixed employee controlled website?
I feel this will be the end of the UK wiki in terms of being a public landing site with immediate engagement with fellow volunteers. Instead, we will have a public relations website subject to control by the Chief Executive, presumably full of good news, and hidden behind it will be the UK wiki, now acting only as a forum rather than a space where volunteers could create pages that support fund-raisers, openly discuss real issues, problems and so forth.
As a community of volunteers, we seem to have let the charity gradually drift away from being volunteer driven and volunteer centric and become overly sensitive to public relations. I am not sure why we let that happen.
Link https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
--
Stevie Benton Head of External Relations Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173 @StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. 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 http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 10 Jun 2014, at 20:16, Dan Garry (Deskana) djgwiki@gmail.com wrote:
Obviously for the more regular, hardcore WMUK volunteers, the wiki will remain the primary resource, and if someone wants to become a hardcore volunteer then they'll need to deal with that. But for other casual volunteers, having the wiki not be a barrier to entry sounds good to me.
Although there is definitely a barrier for entry onto the wikis, a) that's a barrier for editing not reading content (here, I think we're primarily talking about trying to make content easier to read and harder to edit/comment on/contribute to), and b) one of the main points of WMUK is to help people overcome that barrier and start contributing to the Wikimedia projects!
Thanks, Mike
On 10 June 2014 18:28, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible
How so?
Some examples were discussed on the Wikimedia UK wiki a while back here - https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Talk:Accessibility_of_the_Wikimedia_websites
One of our trustees, Carol Campbell, put together a really good paper on this, including some advice from the RNIB which we were given permission to use. I seem to remember that rather than focusing on the issue of accessibility, there was more discussion about whether we could use those elements of Carol's paper. It wasn't very productive, to say the least.
On 11 June 2014 21:08, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On 10 June 2014 18:28, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible
How so?
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
"Thank you. I'm familiar with that document - you'll see that I commented on it, and offered to help (that offer stands), as did others.
The issue not whether we could "use elements of" the paper, but the bogus claim of copyright over someone else's work, which was both bad practice - breaching other people's copyright undermines our mission - and opened the chapter to potential embarrassment, if not legal action.
That said, I don't believe that the document supports the claim that "Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible"; and where there are accessibility concerns, they're mostly content issues, which are easily fixed by educating authors (and without such education, are just as likely to be introduced in any new work), rather than being problems in the underlying wiki.
On 12 June 2014 11:16, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Some examples were discussed on the Wikimedia UK wiki a while back here - https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Talk:Accessibility_of_the_Wikimedia_websites
One of our trustees, Carol Campbell, put together a really good paper on this, including some advice from the RNIB which we were given permission to use. I seem to remember that rather than focusing on the issue of accessibility, there was more discussion about whether we could use those elements of Carol's paper. It wasn't very productive, to say the least.
On 11 June 2014 21:08, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On 10 June 2014 18:28, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible
How so?
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
--
Stevie Benton Head of External Relations Wikimedia UK +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173 @StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. 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 http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
I, as yet, have no opinion on whether a website 'overlay' is a god idea or not; I've been away for a week or so and I've just read through this thread. I would caution against reinventing the wheel, though - accessibility has been a known issue on Wikipedia for many years, and some considerable effort has gone into making things more accessible.
"Wikis aren't accessible" is one of those things people say, but nobody has yet provided anything concrete to explain that position. I'm the first to admit that the wiki format can't do everything, and that (contrary to the opinions of some of the format's more passionate advocates) it has its drawbacks, but nobody in his thread has explained what those drawbacks are in terms of accessibility. I've been using wikis for years, so I readily admit that I can't remember what it feels like for a first-time user. I'd really like to know if this is just one of those things that people say (in which case we can try to dispel an urban myth) or whether there is something about wikis tat makes them inherently inaccessible for readers.
As an aside, the rationale of the proposed 'overlay' is being couched in terms of accessibility, but the changes seem to be focused more on aesthetics, so I'm curious what the problem is that this 'overlay' would solve, and how it would solve it. I don't think it's a terrible idea by any stretch, but I'd like to see some informed discussion about what we're trying to fix and the best way to do that.
Thanks, Harry Mitchell
Phone: 024 7698 0977 Skype: harry_j_mitchell
On Thursday, 12 June 2014, 11:17, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Some examples were discussed on the Wikimedia UK wiki a while back here - https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Talk:Accessibility_of_the_Wikimedia_websites
One of our trustees, Carol Campbell, put together a really good paper on this, including some advice from the RNIB which we were given permission to use. I seem to remember that rather than focusing on the issue of accessibility, there was more discussion about whether we could use those elements of Carol's paper. It wasn't very productive, to say the least.
On 11 June 2014 21:08, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
On 10 June 2014 18:28, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible
How so?
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 12 June 2014 11:47, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
"Wikis aren't accessible" is one of those things people say, but nobody has yet provided anything concrete to explain that position.
Not helped by a required disambiguation:
*"Accessible" in common parlance for a website may equate to easy navigation. *"Accessibility" in a technical sense (that is very much in play around WMUK) equates to "readability" for those using a screen reader.
The latter is a matter of good practice in use of wikitext, so that the HTML on the pages helps rather than hinders. The former is a mixture of good design and good practice (e.g. portals and categories, respectively - if categorisation of pages is deficient, sheer guesswork may be needed to know whether a topic is covered on a wiki or not).
I'm all for having some good design in the mix.
Charles
A charity is to have a website controlled by employees under direction from the trustees who are elected by the members?
How awful. On 10 Jun 2014 16:02, "Fæ" faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Do any fellow unpaid volunteers have a view on the changeover of the charity from using the volunteer controlled wiki as a front end, to using a fixed employee controlled website?
I feel this will be the end of the UK wiki in terms of being a public landing site with immediate engagement with fellow volunteers. Instead, we will have a public relations website subject to control by the Chief Executive, presumably full of good news, and hidden behind it will be the UK wiki, now acting only as a forum rather than a space where volunteers could create pages that support fund-raisers, openly discuss real issues, problems and so forth.
As a community of volunteers, we seem to have let the charity gradually drift away from being volunteer driven and volunteer centric and become overly sensitive to public relations. I am not sure why we let that happen.
Link https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Engine_room#Digital_design_work_required
Fae
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org