Water cooler

2009-03-22T04:51:17Z

Angela:

We need somewhere for random chatter, so here is somewhere! --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 22:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

==Transferring stuff from meta==
Ok, I've started transferring stuff over from meta, but we probably want something a little more organised than the random copying and pasting I'm doing at the moment (I thought it important to get the key information copied over ASAP so we can actually start pointing people to this site). How do we want to do this? Proper importing? Starting from scratch? Make it up as we go along? --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
:I think people should import, and those who wish to do it should ask for sysop rights from a bureaucrat. GFDL and all that... [[User:Majorly|Majorly]] 23:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

: Importing to start with, before starting to generate new content. I'm currently trying to figure out how to enable importing (it seems to be disabled at the moment...) [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 23:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
::Leave a message on [[m:SR/P]] asking someone to give you import rights on this wiki. '''[[User:Cbrown1023|Cbrown1023]]''' '''[[User talk:Cbrown1023|talk]]''' 23:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
::When I try, it says I need to be a sysop. Does being a sysop not help? We need to discuss user rights at some point, too... --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

::: I have 'crat status here, as does cfp (and the other board members will have too once they sign in). Who gets to be a sysop needs to be discussed... But atm, I can't import anything. [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
::::By default, there are no import sources specified for sysops to import. To get around this, you will need to ask a steward on [[m:SR/P]] to give you import rights so that you can export the pages on Meta and import them by file upload here. This is a lot faster than opening up a bug and asking them to set the import sources. '''[[User:Cbrown1023|Cbrown1023]]''' '''[[User talk:Cbrown1023|talk]]''' 23:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

==User rights==
No major urgency on this, but I thought I'd start this discussion. We need to decide how we are going to structure user rights on this site. We've already decided (I think) to use protection to handle official pages, so I suggest we request user groups of "Board member" and "Member" be created and restriction levels (ie. options in the list when protecting a page) created for them (having a "Member" group allows us to do online polls very easily - you just protect it to members only and suffrage sorts itself out). I suggest sysop and crat be kept as an independent hierarchy, since there is no need for the board to be the ones handling admin stuff here. --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
:Seriously, is all that necessary? [[User:Majorly|Majorly]] 23:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
::Yes. Thing like [[Template:WikiUKDisclosure]] are legal requirements and it shouldn't be possible for any random vandal to fiddle with them. --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
:::We can just protect them then. It seems like a lot of bureaucracy to be honest. Sysopship for trusted users. Bureaucrat for board members. Nothing else is needed imo. [[User:Majorly|Majorly]] 23:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
::::Perhaps it's just my programmer mentality, but I like to keep separate things separate. Authority in the charity and ability to administrate the website seems like separate things to me. And I do think a Member group to facilitate polls would be very useful. --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
:::::Member group does sound like a good idea. Though there's a danger it might end up being over used (too many pages protected as members only). I'm happy to make anyone I trust a sysop, but I guess we should run things past the board first.--[[User:Cfp|Cfp]] 23:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
::::::The only pages I see any point restricting to members only are polls are other official uses of member powers. Other pages can be semiprotected (ie. restrict to autoconfirmed) if necessary. --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 00:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

==Categories==
What is the point of [[:Category:Wikimedia UK]] (which should contain the whole site) and [[:Category:Templates]] (which should contain the whole Template namespace)? --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 11:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
: I created them so that things would be easier to find, without having to go through Special:Allpages. Not every page will end up in the Wikimedia UK category; it should end up more like [[:meta:Category:Wikimedia UK]] once everything's been imported. [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 14:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

==Vandalism==

Thanks Tango for spotting and deleting the offensive usernames; can we have a debate about:
# which behaviour and content policies we adopt here
# How we communicate this (can we revise the text below the edit box?)
# how we enforce these policies (blocking, banning, abuse reports)
[[User:AndrewRT|AndrewRT]] 23:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

:I think you are giving me credit for other people's work, there, but thank you anyway! (I deleted an irrelevant page, other admins have done some similar work as well.) I think our current implicit policy of just trusting the judgement of admins is working pretty well. Do we need explicit policies? --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 14:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

::Sorry I think I meant cfp! Admins are doing a great job in deleting accounts but this is about doing more. Do we need official policies? You can't do anything about misuse unless people misusing the wiki have a reasonable understanding of what is allowed and what isn't. First stage has to be designing policies and applying them. It only needs to be brief and simple - I'll put something together to show what I mean. [[Special:Contributions/155.202.254.82|155.202.254.82]] 13:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

:::I'm happy with people to use their discretion, but if you want to put together a set of guidelines that's fine too. And if anyone thinks my bans have been overly harsh I'm happy to change what I'm doing. I don't think there's any risk of us banning someone who could actually contribute to the project unlike on Wikipedia. To be honest though I think if we required log in to edit that would cut off most of it, and it wouldn't really inconvenience any of us. --[[User:Cfp|Cfp]] 18:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
::::Except for certain people that will (by necessity!) remain nameless who can't remember to log in... ;) --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 22:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
:::I think something on the main page explaining what this site is for is all that's required. I think, given that, it should be pretty obvious what is acceptable use. Any non-obvious cases can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. If we find ourselves discussing the same things and reaching the same conclusions repeated, we can write it down for convenience. (That's how it is supposed to work on Wikipedia - policy pages describe common practice, that's all.) --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 22:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

== Books ==

Is it possible to get the "books" feature that's recently been enabled on en.wp enabled here? I though it might be nice to get a book printed off of all the newsletters. [[User:AndrewRT|AndrewRT]] 22:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
: A bugzilla request would be needed, I believe. I'm not convinced it would be of much use, though... [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 23:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
:It would be easy enough to get enabled but, like Mike, I'm not sure of the use. Newsletters are only really relevant at the time, is anybody going to want a copy of historical newsletters all nicely bound together? --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

== Below the edit box ==

Below the edit box there is a text that says:

"Please note that all contributions to Wikimedia are considered to be released under the GNU Free Documentation License with the possibility of migration to CC-BY-SA 3.0 (see Wikimedia:Copyrights for details). If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!"

It is possible to change this and if so, how? [[User:AndrewRT|AndrewRT]] 22:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

: Yes; edit [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning]], and/or possibly [[MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2]] (I'm unclear on the difference between the two). [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 23:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

== Anonymous editing poll ==

Should anonymous editing be allowed on this wiki? Please put '''yes''' or '''no''' below with your reasons and signature. [[User:AndrewRT|AndrewRT]] 22:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

*No. [[User:Majorly|Majorly]] 22:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
* Yes: anonymous editing is one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia, and we should continue in that spirit unless it causes problems. [[User:Mike Peel|Mike Peel]] 23:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
*Yes - as long as it isn't causing significant problems (which it isn't so far), then why not? --[[User:Tango|Tango]] 23:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
* No. I don't see what we gain by it, and I do see what we risk by it (vandalism, potentially with legal repercussions). On Wikipedia anonymous editing makes sense. We want to make it as easy as conceivably possible to edit a page, and we do not want people to be put off by the small hurdle of having to register. On this wiki that does not apply. Virtually all our potential (non-vandal/lost) editors will already have Wikipedia accounts and will know the system. Those few that will not (if indeed there are any) will be coming from some other organisation with some specific request, and by dint of having gone to the effort of finding this wiki will not be put off by the five second hassle of creating an account. Note that by "anonymous editing" I understand Andrew to mean "editing from an IP address", which obviously is not particularly anonymous. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should prevent people from editing from accounts which give no identity information (which can often be more anonymous than an IP address). --[[User:Cfp|Cfp]] 03:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
* Neutral. <s>Yes. People from other chapters may want to edit without wanting to bother making another account.</s> I just realised this wiki, surprisingly, uses Wikimedia's shared user database. If it stays that way, then there's not so much benefit to allowing unregistered edits. [[User:Angela|Angela]] 04:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK - User contributions [en]

Water cooler