[Wikimediaau-l] official wiki

[Karl Goetz]

On Sun, 13 Dec 2009 16:44:09 +1000
"Craig Franklin" <craig at halo-17.net> wrote:


> Perhaps a compromise between the "no access for non-members" and "open
> access" viewpoints is in order.  We could open access to everyone,
> provided they had an account.  Accounts would still need to be
> approved by someone to weed out spam bots and the like (having
> managed a public-facing Wiki, I know that this is often a serious

There are public block lists for mediawiki sites available to help with
such things are there not?

> problem), and perhaps the accounts of non-members could be
> sequestered into the user space or something.  If you look at
> Wikimedia UK's "Recent Changes" page, there is a lot of rubbish there
> that their admins are having to spend their time cleaning up -
> frankly I think our people have better things to do than play janitor
> on the chapter wiki.

Surely its possible to let anyone do the cleaning up? I've seen it said
several times that it would be the committees job. Sounds like
something 4-5 people should be selected to do as part of the
(potential) opening up process.

> I don't know, apart from the whole "open philosophy", I don't see any
> real reasons why anyone who is not a member would want to post on our
> Wiki, and the fact that the Billabong is quiet. I don't really see
> that as a problem since most of the communication and discussion
> occurs on this list, which is essentially open to the public anyway.

Someone else replied to this, so I'll go with 'what they said'.

> Cheers,
> 
> Craig

I've replied to the following email inline as well.

> From: wikimediaau-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:wikimediaau-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andrew
> Sent: Saturday, 12 December 2009 9:38 AM
> To: Wikimedia-au
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] official wiki
> 
>  
> 
> At the end of the day, and I think this is a point that isn't well
> understood because we have a foot on both sides of the border, this
> is the official wiki for a non profit organisation. The wiki's set up

Hopefully we can all agree on this and take it into account.

> in such a way that those that are willing to support the aims of the
> organisation can edit freely. I don't know of any other similar
> organisations which offer open editing or participation - one I know

'similar organisations' Meaning NGOs? NFPs? *wiki groups? ...?

> that runs meetings for its members (and this is just networking!)
> charges $10 for non-members to attend a meeting; another runs closed
> email lists that non-members can't even see.

That sounds distinctly un-community-like to me. For an industry group
(Something like http://sage-au.org.au/display/SAGEAU/Home ) I can
undestand that. For a group ostensibly trying to promote wiki it seems
distinctly counter to the groups aim.

> As for the argument re vandalism - that isn't even our biggest
> prospective problem. The biggest is actually misrepresentation - the
> risk that we will be discredited as an organisation in the eyes of
> those we seek to build partnerships with. In the relatively insular

Did you mean "... those we seek to build partnerships with, *if they
see vandalism*, or "... those we seek to build partnerships with, if
they see our website is editable".

> world of free culture, edginess seems like a good thing, but in the

edginess? Not sure I follow.

> real world, quite apart from our legal and other obligations with
> CAV, we have to deal with businesses, large organisations,
> governments, NGOs and the like. We're competing for their attention
> with more professional outfits which can offer them something. We're
> asking them to give us something - which requires a standard of
> credibility and professionalism. If random chaos is unfolding on our

It doesn't mean you have to (try and) be a business.
What "Random chaos" are you envisaging, if vandalism isn't considered a
major problem (hopefully not misquoting you there).

> official website (and that is what it is), we have a bit of a problem
> in that area. Expecting already busy committee members (and I'm not
> even speaking for myself here) to monitor the wiki in such

They shouldn't. Thats what other members should be doing.

> circumstances is an imposition on them and a completely unnecessary

Agreed.

> one - what do we stand to benefit from it, as against the costs?

Thats what we are trying to work out :)
kk

> cheers
> Andrew


-- 
Karl Goetz, (Kamping_Kaiser / VK5FOSS)
Debian contributor / gNewSense Maintainer
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
No, I won't join your social networking group
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