Andrea Zanni, 10/09/2013 11:37:
Dear all, as many of you know, we are asking the Affiliation Committee to create a "Wikisource User Group" https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikisource_User_Group
Personally, I don't like user groups; I suspect most Wikisource users don't either. It's a paradox but for this very reason I think it may make sense for us all to support it: the WMF likes user groups and pushed them a lot; so the formation of a semi-formal user group can affect them, but nobody else.
What I mean is that we can define a scope and a more concrete proposal and then decide if we like it or not: 1) the scope would not to be the rulers of Wikisource; even if the group tried to do so it wouldn't matter, nobody would be listening to their orders; 2) the scope *would* be to interact with the WMF, summarising "from the field" what the general direction of Wikisource is and what is really absolutely needed for it to reach goals X, Y and Z (read: make them confident enough to invest some developer time in very focused areas; the WMF is only very moderately willing, has no idea where to start and fears a black hole); 3) as a consequence, we *do* need some "structure", not for the sake of bureaucracy but for the contrary (otherwise the usergroup is just a layer of bureaucracy around yet another discussion page which should be on wikisource.org scriptorium); it can just be an open discussion among the participants without predefined rules other than it has to end with 2 names of coordinators/whatever (even the WMF chapter-selected board seats started like this).
If it's useful I support it, otherwise I don't care. My opinion. :)
Nemo
The idea is very simple: we can create a group of interested Wikisource users, share ideas and experiences, and also interact with GLAMs in outreach activities. Many of you signed the page, so what I'm asking you is to decide together what we do want to do with the User Group, as the AffCom asked us additional questions. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikisource_User_Group#AffComm_questions
IMHO, the best way to do this is:
- notify your own Wikisource about this idea, so we can spread the word
- discuss on the Talk page (or here, if you prefer) about what we want
to do, and what is your idea. [...]