MediaWiki Groups are now official - and recognized by the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/
Who wants to start one?
I just created
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/San_Francisco
as a real test of the process and a real example of a local group. Other local groups are welcome. If you are in San Francisco and you want to be part of this group add yourself to that page. Any ideas welcome!
Looking at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Events there are some local groups especially welcomed:
* Amsterdam * Bangalore * Berlin * Brussels * Buenos Aires * Chennai * Cologne * Hong Kong * Los Angeles * Paris * Pune * San Diego * Tel Aviv * Washington DC ... and wherever you are sitting now. :)
The gates for topical groups are also open. I will start pushing one about Testing / QA, also to test the process with a real example. More proposals?
Thank you to all the people that provided feedback about the MediaWiki Groups proposal and especially to
* Federico Leva (alias Nemo), who was especially helpful with his close marking and attention to detail - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nemo_bis * Bence Damokos was a perfect Affiliations Committee chair and helped fine tuning the proposal to make it fit with the Wikimedia User Groups - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bdamokos
On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
MediaWiki Groups are now official - and recognized by the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/
Who wants to start one?
I just created
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/San_Francisco
I'm actually quite curious to see if there are actually enough MW devs in a single city (Other then WMF's home town) to form a group.
To be honest though, I kind of feel that if such "groups" were going to form, they probably would have already. Formality rarely makes people come together that wouldn't by themselves.
-bawolff
On 12/12/12 00:44, bawolff wrote:
I'm actually quite curious to see if there are actually enough MW devs in a single city (Other then WMF's home town) to form a group.
To be honest though, I kind of feel that if such "groups" were going to form, they probably would have already. Formality rarely makes people come together that wouldn't by themselves.
-bawolff
It's possible that some people make one group because they are new and it'd be cool. So we would have one more group listed. Would it last/be useful? Who knows.
On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 3:44 PM, bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com wrote:
To be honest though, I kind of feel that if such "groups" were going to form, they probably would have already. Formality rarely makes people come together that wouldn't by themselves.
Obviously robust MediaWiki Groups won't materialize overnight, but providing a good structure and encouraging people to participate is certainly not unwelcome or impossible to pull off. You'd think contributors to the software platform behind Wikipedia would be less skeptical about the power of a few committed individuals to grow a community, but I guess people don't change. ;-)
Steven
On 12/11/2012 03:44 PM, bawolff wrote:
I'm actually quite curious to see if there are actually enough MW devs in a single city (Other then WMF's home town) to form a group.
"MediaWiki Groups are open to members of different specialties and levels of expertise. The richer and more diverse the better. Non-technical users willing to contribute and learn are welcome too!" http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups
This is not about devs alone, but about people interested in all MediaWiki aspects, like testing fresh software, translating strings, participating in the UX design of a feature, helping triaging forgotten bug reports or enhancement requests...
MediaWiki Groups are tools for reaching to new potential community members. If your starting point is "how many MediaWiki core/extensions hackers are there in my city" then I recommend you to widen your scope. Otherwise you are right: it's not even worth starting.
Wikipedia is a big thing globally and there is plenty of tech people that would be interested in contributing if they would know how or who to ask around.
One starting point in your city / region would be to check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup , attend the next meetup and start infiltrating the MediaWiki / tech agenda there. There is no point in keeping the traditional divide between readers/editors and tech/coders forever.
To be honest though, I kind of feel that if such "groups" were going to form, they probably would have already. Formality rarely makes people come together that wouldn't by themselves.
Time will tell. We are not attempting to convince you. :) As long as you point to the right URL anybody interested in forming a group and you attend the activities happening near you, it's all fine.
On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 8:49 PM, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 12/11/2012 03:44 PM, bawolff wrote:
[..]
One starting point in your city / region would be to check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup , attend the next meetup and start infiltrating the MediaWiki / tech agenda there. There is no point in keeping the traditional divide between readers/editors and tech/coders forever.
Hey I would if there was one in either of the two cities I currently live in (University and "home" are in different cities). Heck no city from either of the two provinces I live in even make it anywhere on that page. [before I walk into the whole - you should start one yourself, I'm much too lazy ;) ]
To be honest though, I kind of feel that if such "groups" were going to form, they probably would have already. Formality rarely makes people come together that wouldn't by themselves.
Time will tell. We are not attempting to convince you. :) As long as you point to the right URL anybody interested in forming a group and you attend the activities happening near you, it's all fine.
By all means, if stuff actually happens I'll be just as happy as the rest of you :)
--bawolff
On 11 December 2012 17:14, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
MediaWiki Groups are now official - and recognized by the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/
There used to be Wiki Wednesdays in London - not just MediaWiki or Wikipedia - but all sorts of wikis. Mostly corporate users. These petered out from lack of general interest, though. It surprises me, as I'd expect a lot of people using MW in London.
- d.
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 4:06 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
There used to be Wiki Wednesdays in London - not just MediaWiki or Wikipedia - but all sorts of wikis. Mostly corporate users. These petered out from lack of general interest, though. It surprises me, as I'd expect a lot of people using MW in London.
Thank you for mentioning Wiki Wednesday. Wiki Wednesday is a
long-standing institution that seems to have lost popularity over the past several years.
Socialtext used to promote Wiki Wednesday pretty heavily in the Bay Area and elsewhere: https://www.socialtext.net/wikiwed/ . Socialtext today is radically different than it was then, and Wiki Wednesday became much less a priority for them.
Wiki Wednesday was the first of many such ideas: http://ashub.blogspot.com/2005/06/tag-tuesday.html
Ward Cunningham is still doing Wiki Wednesday activities today: http://twitter.com/WardCunningham/status/238315318345347074
On one hand, I think aligning "Mediawiki Groups" with the venerable tradition of Wiki Wednesday might be worthwhile. Wiki Wednesday is a concept that already exists, and I think people like Ward would be happy to see it promoted more than it has been. On the other hand, interest in Wiki Wednesday has died down in recent years, and that might reflect badly on a new but similar project.
-Chris
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org