Okay - just had a long chat with some staffers in #Freenode. Here's what I've come away with..
Essentially folks are right that this policy is very much in flux. Which leads me to believe that some nudging from Wikimedia would be well timed.
They have agreed to reconsider WikiQueer's app - but that whole process has been shut down while they review this policy - so that could be a few months. Personally I take that as a good sign.
I think they're just not really clear how wiki communities work - so are not sure which are within their scope and which are not. There is also a lot of internal debate over what their founding documents mean. Some say they include open-content projects and other say that was meant to mean open-source software only.
They were generally uninformed and unaware of how wikis operate - and were surprised that there were "Wikipedia like" wikis beyond the Wikimedia umbrella. Which implies to me a basic "cultural" misunderstanding that could be addressed.
I'd suggest we pursue the initial idea from Petr as a good first step. We should be good stewards and outreach to their staff about our bot and tech related concerns - offer some thoughts on if or how wikis fit into Freenode's mission - and find out what resources they're in need of. I'm not sure if that should come from a WMF staffer, one of the existing FN contacts for WM, a coalition of the willing, an owl with a note, or..
-greg
On 21 Jun, 2012, at 5:04 PM, Sébastien Santoro dereckson@espace-win.org wrote:
On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 9:47 PM, Mr. Gregory Varnum gregory.varnum@gmail.com wrote:
Is anyone from Freenode on this list or able to respond? I feel like they'd be open to the conversation and hearing general thoughts from a designated group even before we know what carrot we'll offer.
If any requests are a non-starter then it may not matter if we can offer resources or not.
I think investigating networks more receptive both to our bot needs and accepting our partner wikis.
I don't understand why the wikiqueer community couldn't have its channel while there are already communities channels like #gaygeeks and #gaygeeks-fr.
Were it a channel problem (ie you can't have your channel on our network) or a group registration issue (ie you can't have a group, with cloaks)?
-- Sébastien Santoro aka Dereckson http://www.dereckson.be/
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