Water cooler

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Lua and Pizza

We are thinking of having Learn to Lua event in the office for people wanting to get to grips with the template creating language. There has been some positive reaction on the UK lists, especially when Pizza was mentioned. Anyone interested? Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 11:03, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

This has been arranged for Sunday 19 May. For those interested, please sign up on Lua on Wikimedia. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 14:19, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Great news that people are signing up - we will have to order more pizza! Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 14:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Request: Staff hierarchy

Could someone update the staff hierarchy at Staff? It does not explain how the current team of 11 staff and contractors are organized. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 17:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I will work on this and upload the new version when it is ready. I don't have a timescale for completion at this point as I have other pieces of work that have a higher priority. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 12:47, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I think a volunteer produced this before, I made the request on the Water cooler so that a volunteer could jump in again and help out so I was not particularly expecting this to be another staff job, especially as everyone is busy. In the meantime, for general information and to help a volunteer update the chart, is there a document that explains who is reporting to who at the moment? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:48, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I see this has now been updated by Rock Drum, presumably taking zero staff time. It might be an idea to plan to have these charts updated when we are recruiting for new positions that change the organization significantly. This will help both members and trustees stay up to date with the changes. --Fæ (talk) 16:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Confirmation of how many laptops are currently available for events, 3 or 6?

Hi, I am a bit confused by a minor detail at Lua on Wikimedia. This says that the Office has 3 laptops available for loan. However as this is the only event on that day, I think there should be 6 laptops available at this event, considering that 3 additional cheap laptops were specifically purchased for volunteer use this year, and there were 3 previous to that. Could someone confirm the status of these and that the Fixed Asset Register is correct? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:32, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fae. Both the Fixed Asset Register and the event page are correct. The other three laptops will not be at the event unless we really need them. One is in use by a volunteer, and the other two are unsuitable (being a Mac and a Chromebook) unless there is a huge demand for laptops. Thanks for bringing this up. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, perhaps the event page ought to say something along those lines and that a maximum of 5 are available. Certainly if an event is popular and more than 3 volunteers need laptops, then I would guess they are really needed, especially as there is no particular expectation that all our volunteers require a Windows operating system, particularly as I understand that the Office all use Macs. By the way, the event is more than six weeks away. I would be concerned if a volunteer were "borrowing" a laptop from the charity for months at a time, perhaps whoever this is, should put in a proposal of some sort so that the board of trustees are aware of why this is to the benefit of the charity. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

For clarity, the office staff do not all use Macs. I believe three staff do, the remainder use Windows machines. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 15:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for that, presumably that means there is no issue with loaning both the Windows and Mac laptops at events, with the single Chromebook as a backup. After experiencing one of the Lenovo Thinkpads being unable to cope with simply running Skype (plus my normal OS being Mac so Windows would slow me down as I would take ages to work out how to switch on the Dvorak keyboard layout), as a volunteer I would much rather be offered the much nicer Macbook Pro at future events. As it cost £1,100 I would like to see the charity get lots of use out of it.

Is there anything the chapter can say about long term loaner laptops for volunteers? If these are available, it would be sensible to make this a policy. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

As it has been 11 days now since I asked my question, I would guess there will be no answer forthcoming.

Just to be really clear, can someone please confirm that one of our laptops has not now been broken, lost or stolen, and that the volunteer that currently has one (as above) in their possession for an undefined period, for some reason, is known to the board of trustees? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:44, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

As we're discussing a specific volunteer, even if that volunteer is unnamed, I'll drop you an email about it rather than reply here. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the other parts of my previous question can be answered for the benefit of members without revealing the name of the volunteer? For example what policy are long term loans of laptops covered under as I'm sure there are other members that might be helped in their volunteer activities if they can take such a loan? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:08, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I think it's more appropriate to do it by email rather than potentially upset a volunteer. I've sent it now though. The idea of cementing long-term loans is an interesting one, and potentially very useful, but I don't think it needs a board level policy - something for Katie to sort out instead. I'll drop her a note about it. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I find the charity is doing 80% of its business these days by emails and closed wikis not shared with the members. A pity compared to the 80% open of only 2 years ago. As a trustee, I am ultimately responsible for the management of the assets of the charity, so I find this approach of secrecy odd, we certainly have never accepted a non-transparent scholarship or microgrant request in the past, even if we may have accepted a pseudonym, so I don't understand why this is different for any reason. This is more "secret" than I would expect us to be, as in this case the trustees still apparently know absolutely nothing about it, and this is not covered by any agreed process that I was previously aware of, or that has been quoted here. I have separately raised the issue for consideration by the board and potentially the A&R Committee. If we need a policy to allow this sort of thing, then we should approve one, rather than leave this ad-hoc and uncontrolled, which in practice leaves the staff who appear to be making these decisions about long term loans of the charity's assets at some risk should things go wrong, as there are no delegated powers for them to do so and basic requirements for appropriate protection, such as insurance, do not seem to have been considered. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:50, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Just to comment on the MacBook Pro; during the security review I noticed that you (Fæ) and Jon had logged into it using personal accounts. My recommendation was that for the moment it be limited to Staff/Trustee or carefully supervised use until it could be properly cleaned & confirmed free of any possible personal details etc. --ErrantX (talk) 12:03, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Inspiration and imagination needed for the five year plan...

Please get your thoughts on the next five years down!

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Towards_a_five_year_plan_2013-18

There is an abundance of supporting material and ideas on the main page but what is mostly needed is your imagination and energy.

Jon

Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 15:16, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments

It's that time of the year when planning for Wiki Loves Monuments picks up for those countries interested in taking part. In both 2011 & 2012, there were discussions about the UK taking part, but for various reasons it never ends up happening. I would really like to see it happen this year, and to that end have started the associated page on Wikimedia Commons.

For those who don't know, Wiki Loves Monuments is an annual photography competition running in September around cultural heritage monuments, which in the UK has in the past taken to mean listed buildings. Participants upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons, identifying it the subject of the photo to be one of the qualifying monuments with the best photos nationally and internationally winning prizes.

If you are interested in joining a working group to help with the organization, even just a little bit when you have time, please sign up on commons:Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the United Kingdom. I would plan to have a phone conference in the near future to discuss what needs to be done, when it needs to be done by, who might be interested in doing it etc. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Katie, thanks for setting up the poll to find a time to talk. As this page is probably not very often looked at, maybe you could advertise on Commons as well? I see that there was a volunteer Wiki Loves Monuments brainstorm in 2012 about this, and the subpages have some useful information that could be picked up on now. Maybe a follow-up meeting would be helpful this year, especially as the community now has you working away in the background ;) Looking at the suggested timeline on this page, it seems we are already a month or so behind schedule. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: I've had to remove and revdel'd the link to the poll as it was leading to one or more spammer removing existing responses and adding response/comment that are racially or sexually inappropriate. Anyone reading this who want to join into the upcoming phone conference can contact me for a link to the poll. Thanks! -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 19:53, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Privacy policy - comment and edit

Hi All,

I've just published a new version of a Privacy Policy - we need to get this drafted to our satisfaction so the Trustees can approve a version which will apply to how the chapter manages all its sites, including QRpedia, facilitating the process of transferring the domain.

Because it's important we get this right, we'll get the final version checked by a lawyer - so feel free to edit and query as usual, but it may be that a final tweak beyond these changes to ensure the policy is compliant needs to happen.

I need to come back to out legal counsel by next Friday 19th April, so comments and changes before then would be wonderful :-) Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 15:22, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Edit protected for Template:BoardApprovedHistory

I think that the first line of Template:BoardApprovedHistory needs to be changed from

[[{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}]] - {{{3}}} (<span class="plainlinks">[{{SERVER}}{{SCRIPTPATH}}/index.php?title=&oldid={{{4}}} approved revision]</span>{{#if:{{{lastid|}}}|, <span class="plainlinks">[{{SERVER}}{{SCRIPTPATH}}/index.php?title=&diff={{{lastid}}}&oldid={{{4}}} changes]</span>}})<br /><noinclude>

to

[[{{{1}}}|{{{2}}}]] - {{{3}}} (<span class="plainlinks">[{{SERVER}}{{SCRIPTPATH}}/index.php?title=&oldid={{{4}}} approved revision]</span>{{#if:{{{lastid|}}}|, <span class="plainlinks">[{{SERVER}}{{SCRIPTPATH}}/index.php?title=&diff={{{4}}}&oldid={{{lastid}}} changes]</span>}})<br /><noinclude>

i.e. the two inputs for the diff are currently the wrong way around.

Thanks,

Yaris678 (talk) 11:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I notice some trouble with trying to get the template to work. See my comments at Template talk:BoardApprovedHistory. Yaris678 (talk) 20:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Copyright law support for UK GLAMs ?

Not sure if this is the best place to post, but here goes ...

One thing I found interesting at GLAM-WIKI 2013 was the extent to which GLAMs seemed to be very fearful of the complexities of copyright law, getting things wrong, and possibly being sued. This seems to be quite a large problem, to the extent that some GLAMs feel paralyzed and unable to do anything without seeking professional legal advice (which, to be honest, they don't want to get involved in, and which is anyway usually much too expensive). The GLAM-WIKI conference may arguably have not encouraged GLAMs who want to do the right thing but who are just scared of all the legal stuff. Indeed, several speakers mentioned that it is a 'difficult' area which they were not going to touch on. I'd like to think that WMUK could provide some more specialist help in this field.

Ideally, I'd like to see WMUK commit within the 5 year plan to putting some easy-to-understand copyright law resources in place for UK GLAMs, including on-line pages of information on the legal background (UK copyright specifically, but touching on US to the extent to which Commons needs to comply with that), as well as flyers and other resources focused on particular types of GLAM holding (old and new photographs, paintings, sculptures etc). Also, it would be good to have a UK Copyright law question and answer forum where GLAMs could seek informal advice, either on a specific point or on general issues affecting the opening up of their collections.

Hope that makes sense. If this would be of interest to the community, I would be happy to put some effort into it. As a newly-retired UK patent and trademark attorney (until March I was a partner in one of the top London firms) I do have a reasonable knowledge of UK law. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

It makes very much sense. You may wish to start with Commons:Freedom of panorama and works that are of USA origin. You have two from w:List of Academy Award trophies on public display. The FOP page doesn't mention country of origin for 3D works on permanent display in the UK. Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter doesn't mention country of origin either in the 3D sculptures section. We may have to ask WMF legal weigh in on this one. Can you upload an FOP image from the UK of a 3D work with the country of origin being the USA where FOP is not allowed for statues?--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:32, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

A 3D US work on permanent display in the UK would fall under UK FoP copyright.

I would be happy to support a UK working group of some sort to help improve guidelines and policies related to GLAMs and copyright, perhaps with an emphasis on avoiding mistaken 'copyfraud'. In terms of location, doing this as a project on Commons would make the most sense to me, as any guidelines would have the most impact there; plus we could really do with attracting more contributors to related RFC and key deletion review discussions that are right at the cutting edge of this stuff. By the way, we have a lot of wikilawyers who will put forward what they think the law says, but few who will put in the spadework of researching and digging out legal cases to support an on-Commons case book; we have even fewer who can see the bigger picture and understand the difference between significant doubt and insignificant doubt that might be raised by fine hypothetical interpretation of the words of the law... Thanks --Fæ (talk) 05:44, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Brilliant thought Michael and very practical - could also support non glammers. Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 09:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

@Fæ, you may wish to clarify on Commons:Freedom of panorama as well as Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter. Neither of those pages state anything about the country of origin. One editor at en:wp thinks we can't host images of Oscar taken in the UK because the statue is copyright in the USA where the servers are.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:02, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

At the conference in Milan, the WCA council rep from Armenia got a round of applause as they are the first country in their region to gain FoP. As a copyright concept it is critically important for open knowledge, I really don't like to see folks pointlessly whittling away at the fringes of it. Country of origin for a permanent work on public display is of course, irrelevant. Where the servers are can be relevant if the release relied on something like expired copyright; not the case for this scenario. It would be great if you could add your example and suggestion for clarification to the commons policy talk page; don't wait for me to get around to it. :-) --Fæ (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

I am worried about US copyright law for images hosted on commons. If we have a museum take a picture in the UK of the Oscar then will the Academy lawyer up when they see it on posters in the US? Does the US copyright law cover imported images of 3D works that are under copyright in the US?--Canoe1967 (talk) 09:17, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Michael, that would be very useful, but my take on this is that it isn't always knowledge of copyright law that complicates this subject.

• Many institutions have objects and images that are on loan or otherwise subject to restrictions from the donor.
• Some institutions have objects and images that are considered culturally sensitive or may involve personality rights, especially in ethnographic collections.
• Sometimes the subject can be of such an apparent age that reasonable people would disagree as to whether they were adult.
• Sometimes the applicable law may itself be uncertain and the prevailing standards for seeking subject consent may have changed radically since the photo was taken. For example a 1930s photo showing a topless teenage woman in what was then the colony of a European power.....

Pre-screening image releases for the above may also be a non-trivial task.Checking the IP of this may be a non-trivial task for the institution, especially if this raises questions that may not have been considered when the loan was made.

Then there is the big tension between the role of ourselves and many GLAMs in making information available to all, and the marketing departments of many GLAMs who see digital images simply as a commercial opportunity (even if the copyright has expired). Some GLAMs seem to take the view that possession is >90% of the law, and they try to restrict the use and commercialise stuff even when they should know it is out of copyright.

Among GLAMs that are looking at this from a commercial angle there seems to be a divide as to whether their most lucrative route is to release High definition imagery under an open License thereby maximising use but not necessarily revenue; or whether it is more lucrative for them to release low to medium resolution imagery and get a larger proportion of users buying high res, but a smaller amount of use. Of course the equation changes as more high res imagery being available means that low and medium resolution imagery will tend to be used less, and while this has a big impact on potential image releases it isn't our place to advise GLAMs on commercial impact of releasing images.

Otherwise the institutions have three main approaches on this, One can almost envisage this as a triangle with the points marked "open", "cautious" and "commercial" and every organisation, and indeed GLAM worker seems to fit somewhere on that triangle. I'm beginning to think that there are enough GLAMs into making the material in their collections available to everyone that we should concentrate on them. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 17:06, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I entirely agree. There is no single thing that's needed, but more of a combintion of individual things. Most important of all, perhaps, is to get more volunteers. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:20, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

More volunteers would help, but also guidance in the form of case studies, copyright advice and maybe even Government guidance. Other aspects of this are international - I learned at the GLAM wiki conference about one government that is requesting digital copies of information from a UK GLAM. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 10:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

education-committee-l

The Education Committee is now communicating via the education-committee-l mailing list rather than private emails. This will ensure even more transparency and openness, as well as provide an easily accessible archive via the list information page. --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 11:17, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Working with non-English language Wikipedias / language policy

Hello everyone. During a recent discussion about the Wikimedian in Residence role at the National Library of Scotland a valid point was raised about notifying Wikipedians who spoke Gaelic to the role. I think everyone is aware that there are opportunities for Wikimedia UK to do some excellent outreach work to speakers of non-English languages and Wikipedians who work on non-English language projects. These are not limited to what might be called indigenous UK languages such as Kernowac or Gaelic, but could also include languages that are pretty widely spoken such as Bengali, Polish and Hindi. If anyone has any suggestions on how we might successfully do this please do share them here. It was also noted that we may have a need for a language policy, particularly to cover any Wikimedian in Residence roles (and, potentially any eventual Wikimedia UK recruitment) in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Again, comments and suggestions are very welcome. Thanks in advance for any input on this important topic! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 23:51, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The inspiration for such a Policy came from a discussion on Scotland, and therefore this thread should really only involve the WMUK's involvement in Scotland rather than an overarching linguistic policy on the situation of minority languages (such as Bengali) in England. Our Policy on Scotland must begin with the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 and Bòrd na Gàidhlig who are responsible for Gaelic on behalf of the Scottish Government. Wales has similar, yet stronger, legislation (including the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012) which gave the Welsh language official status in Wales - and I suggest that we also include Wales in our Policy, under a separate heading. The Welsh Language Commissioner ensures that "In Wales, the Welsh language should be treated no less favourably than the English language" and "Persons in Wales should be able to live their lives through the medium of the Welsh language if they choose to do so." There are common elements to both countries, which should be acknowledged as should over-riding international law, including European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights (1996) and to some extent the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. -- Llywelyn2000 (talk) 01:31, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly counsel against taking a leaf from the UK's public sector rules on this; they are overly-heavyweight and proscriptive, and don't actually apply to Wikimedia or WMUK. Instead, the focus should be on engagement with and support for non-English language groups (be that Welsh/Gaelic/BSL/Polish/Bengali/Arabic/etc.) - the question really is "are there people with such interests in our communities?" - if yes, where are they and what do they want?; if no, are there things we're doing wrongly that we could correct, and/or are there appropriate groups with whom we can reach out to encourage such participation. Jdforrester (talk) 05:32, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Jdforrester - the employer here is The National Library, not WMUK, they are not only in the public sector but are bound by the laws (not "rules") of Scotland, and their own in-house language Policy. No, they don't apply to Wikimeda UK, but they certainly do to the employer. I've outlined my reasons above why the Policy should mention specifically the different countries (Scotland and Wales) and imho the title should reflect this; I suggest "WMUK's Language Policy for Wales and Scotland". A separate document could be written for other languages which have lesser legal status. In answer to the second half of you comment may I refer you to the Gaelic speaking community here where we have a very live Gaelic speaking wiki. Your most important comment are there things we're doing wrongly that we could correct is very honest and needs addressing. If we have ignored wiki-gd thus far, we need to embrace that community, support and encourage them to be part of our dream; more importantly: can we be part of their dream, their vision? A Language Policy to guide us would be a good start. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 08:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

The most obvious thing is to ask the National Library of Scotland, as they deal with outreach to non-English minorities all the time for recruitment and the WIR is going to be their employee. It may be time for WMUK to run an open discussion about how best to engage with minority groups, this is more likely to reach meaningful conclusions if supported with advice from minority group organizations and using channels and forums where their members hangout. --Fæ (talk) 06:49, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 08:59, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Also as regards Irish, see Coláiste Feirste, a secondary Irish Medium School in Belfast.86.157.228.106 09:26, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed! Is there legislation for the Irish language in Northern Ireland? Do you have any other links, relevant to writing a language Policy? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 10:17, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• Of course there are laws that we and our partners and potential partners need to follow, but we also need to remember that we are part of a global movement with a global mission. We have a huge amount of the world's heritage in the possession of UK GLAMs, and in many cases as with Tipu's Tiger and the British library's Canada collection we can be the facilitator to get global access to cultural information that is in the UK. Helping UK institutions reach out to non-English speakers here, as tourists or on the web could be at the heart of what the Wikimedia movement associates Wikimedia UK with. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 10:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree it would be great for WMUK to be known for the internationalism of our work with cultural heritage; and as you highlight we already are. Over the weekend we met with WMIN representatives to take this particular relationship forward due to obvious shared heritage with key assets in the British Library and other institutions that are of immense value for Indian culture and history. Similarly the initiatives you mention that I took part in sponsoring are great examples of simple international partnerships working within our movement.

We are a highly successful global movement, however we do not lead the field with expertise in multi-lingual outreach or accessibility, in fact, at times we are naff at it compared to other global organizations of volunteers. We had a successful global conference in Milan, however the conference materials and presentations were almost entirely in English and the conference venue and social venues failed to assure wheelchair access, even though we knew that one participant was restricted to a wheelchair (I'm aware of the issues that came up as I took some time out for a quiet and interesting chat about access with the person affected). As an example of our maturity along these lines, I think this is fairly normal for us, and even though we can probably think of counter-examples where it has worked much better, this has not yet transferred into policy and standard practice. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:22, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

From my experience of Wikipedia I thought that creating policies was something that comes naturally! But seriously though, I’d suggest that WMUK has some sort of guide at the very least if not a policy. Formally informing the Gaelic and Scots wikis of this post at the same time as the English one would have just been common courtesy. I don’t for one minute think there was an intention to insult, but its little oversights like this that tends go get people's back up and rightly or wrongly add to the perception that WMUK is more focussed on one langue wiki over others. IF it is agreed that a language/languages guide or policy is a good idea, then the Estyn Llaw project in Wales has a wealth of advice and guidance, some of which can be taken on board and adapted. Here are some suggestions (of mine) on how to draw up a guide:

Theme	Level (easy, tricky, wishful thinking!)	Example	Advantage	Risks	Obstacles	Solutions
Attracting staff with bilingual skills	tricky	Attracting Gaelic speakers to apply for WIR post	*Make good use of Gaelic material at NSL *Increase content on Gaelic wiki			Post notice on Gaelic wiki (!)
Organising events	easy	If arranging a series of events in Wales, arrange a proportion of them through the medium of Welsh	*Attract new editors in that language *Increase content on Welsh wiki		WMUK staff does not speak the language	*Ask local volunteers to help *If a GLAM type event, ask if partner organisation has Welsh speaking staff
Organising events	easy	If one event in Wales, make Welsh visable, e.g. have publicity/posters/webpage bilingually, greet guests in both languages	*Attract new editors in that language *Increase content on Welsh wiki		WMUK staff do not speak the language	Ask local volunteers to help *If a GLAM type event, ask if partner organisation has Welsh speaking staff
Publicity	easy (ish)	If promoting event/story related to Wales , send out press release in English and Welsh	Increase likelihood of story in Welsh language media	*Translation could mean delay *Translation could mean cost	WMUK staff do not speak the language	(cost) Ask local volunteers to help (time) Give volunteers plenty of notice

Anyway, just some thoughts/ ideas I wanted to share!--Rhyswynne (talk) 13:13, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

• As a general rule I think we should work starting with existing Wikipedian communities, rather than trying to build from scratch. This is what we have successfully done in Wales, & pretty much failed to do with the "non-native" language communities in the UK. As far as I can see the level of activity on the Gaelic WP is really very low, & most editors are probably based in the relatively Gaelic-speaking areas. We don't AFAIK have an inside contact, equivalent to Robin, which is an essential first step; then we'd be able to announce things to the Gaelic WP in Gaelic, which of course we should do with things like this. By all means add it as a desirable thing for the Edinburgh post, but I don't see we need a policy. Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Of course, it depends what we mean by policy. We don't want to break anybody's balls over this and we don't want a load of legalistic verbiage. But some kind of direction would be useful. I think Rhyswynne's table is an excellent start for that and I also agree with Johnbod that working with existing Wikimedian communities will help in a lot of respects. Yaris678 (talk) 17:08, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
• FYI elsewhere in Wikimedia, these languages don't even have dedicated Wikisources yet. I mention this as the original conversation brought up "Gaelic manuscripts and books" and "Scots classics" at the National Library of Scotland. Multilingual Wikisource covers them, however. Gàidhlig currently has a glorious one text (and, even then, has no source for it), while Kernewek has twenty texts and Gaeilge has many. Scots is actually part of English Wikisource, with 22 texts. This doesn't even need material from NLS to rectify, the Internet Archive has at least a few works available (Example). It just needs people. (NB: All appear to have Wiktionaries but Gàidhlig Wiktionary looks to be in bad shape.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:01, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

  Further to this: NLS have a section on the Internet Archive but all their texts appear it have CC-BY-NC licences (even the clearly PD-old Victorian works). The copyfraud is easily ignorable but it would help if they didn't do that. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I've created a DRAFT Welsh Language Policy here based on the Language Commisioner's recommended template: Help Llaw. To keep everything together I suggest that any comments be kept here at the Water Cooler! I also suggest a new second policy to follow, should we agree on this one, based of the Scottish Gaelic. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 12:37, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Apart from any specific issues that I may have with your draft, I would say that this is not the sort of policy we want. It is a statement of something that looks like a good idea, rather than an analysis of problems, opportunities or options. I much prefer Rhyswynne's table because it is a good start at an analysis of what our options are. Yaris678 (talk) 13:36, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

WMUK should have both. Strategic policy and an operational action plan are different things; albeit things that should work together. The draft has a lot that Rhyswynne's table misses (and probably couldn't include) such as communication in Welsh. That does, however, bring up a potential problem: WMUK is not a large organisation and does not, to my knowledge, currently employ anyone fluent in Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Cornish etc. A commitment to answering communications in Welsh and without a delay is probably a bit too much (even with Google Translate available), especially if extended to the other native languages of the UK. Defining it as an aspiration but acknowledging the potential for a delay might be more realistic. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:49, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Another thought: Putting something on the Main Page about language coverage would be useful. Just a footer box, along the line of the sister links on most wiki projects, would be enough. It would be a natural assumption to read WMUK as WMEngland; something pointing out the wider remit could offset that. When/if other-language pages are made for this wiki (eg. Main Page/cy) they could be linked from here. In the meantime it could just be a simple selection of relevant languages (or possibly links to the the assorted projects within those langagues, as long as no suggestion of possession or authority is made). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:05, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that putting something on the main page about language would be useful.

A commitment to answering communications in Welsh and without a delay is clearly impractical at the moment... but maybe it would be a good target to aim for... or maybe we should spend our energies on something else. It's difficult to know when no analysis is included. If we did make it a target then knowing why it was a target would probably be a lot more useful than knowing that it was a target. And, of course, setting out some actions to meet the target is also essential, 1. so it isn't just wishful thinking and 2. so we can look at those actions to assess how much effort it will take. Maybe we want to commit to it if it is straight forward but not if it is really complicated. And that is just that bit of the policy. Maybe other bits of it are equally open to question... but it's difficult to know because we don't know why they are in there. Do you see my point? Yaris678 (talk) 21:28, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

My table was only just a sample of what could be included. The draft contains parts that could be implemented right away (e.g. the 'Planning' bit) while some parts may never be adopted. I'm not sur ehow WMUK goes about drawung up policies/guidleines, but how about breaking the draft down to a similar table with a column for people to accept/oppose each 'theme' and cite reasons. --This comment was added by Rhyswynne at 08:40, 25 April 2013‎

Syniad da Rhys. Dw i'n awgrymu fod hynny'n digwydd rwan, efallai ar dudalen ar wahan i hwn fel bod pawb yn medru ei ddeall. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

This table is a great start. I suggest that Rhys uploads it onto his namespace so that we can all amend and discuss it there. I also like the suggestion that we replicate and translate WMUK's home page into Welsh asap, with a link to two or three fluent Welsh speakers who could discuss with members, potential members and users in Welsh, if that is their preferred language. In fact a number of WMUK's staff and Board members have suggested this over the last year. A bilingual article was actually published in our Report Section.

The question of why we need to do this (asked by User:Yaris678) can be answered in many ways: Dafydd Iwan's poetry mentions that only a fool asks "why is snow white"? Another answer would be because it is there, but crucially: to respect the wishes of members or users who prefer speaking in their own language or because there is legislation in Wales endorses it, and will in the next couple of years demand it, as they do with the main institutions and local government. Another reason of course is that WMUK in Wales can seem to be, to many people, a very foreign creature, and that may be the reason why the Scots Gaelic and the Welsh language (apart from a handful of us) do not bother joining let alone participate. But my personal reason why we need to do this is that we need to reach out with our vision and enthusiasm to people who are much happier speaking Welsh and I we must respect that choice or alienate them. It's part of a worldwide movement which strives for the conservation of the rich diversity of culture on this planet; the opposite is a Big Brother, totalitarian, monotone-grey, state.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, my suggested action plan involves the only two languages which are indigenous to the countries of Britain and which are protected by legislation: Scottish (and Irish?) Gaelic and Welsh. Once this is in place we can look at other languages. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

You've given some reasons to do a lot more in the area of non-English languages but not necessarily reasons that lead us to what that should be. I think everyone agrees that we want to improve things in the area of non-English languages. We are just trying to work out what to do. Your reference to a totalitarian state is dangerously close to Reductio ad Hitlerum. Yaris678 (talk) 16:40, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Presumably the first and easiest tasks would be to create a few core pages in each language on this wiki. The main pages are obvious and it will probably help if a few other important pages are done too (perhaps Membership, Events, Contact us and Board). I would signify language with a subpage (eg. Main Page/cy, Main Page/sco, Membership/cy, Membership/sco etc.) but if anyone has a better idea please say so. There appear to be enough Welsh speakers here to handle that set. Perhaps others could be found on the appropriate projects; the Scottish ones could come out of the NLS WIR. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks AdamBMorgan, I've now translated around five of these suggested pages, as testspace; please feel free to amend the links etc.

AdamBMorgan said: A commitment to answering communications in Welsh and without a delay is probably a bit too much (even with Google Translate available)... One possible answer to the fact that staff at HQ do not speak fluent Welsh is to pass on any such communication to any one of the 120 fluent Welsh speakers who edit the Wici Cymraeg regulary; I certainly would be willing to answer any phonecalls, emails or other correspondance passed on to me and I know that other would also do this. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:41, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Table of language scope

English	(English)	en	Wikibooks, Wikinews, Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wiktionary
Cymraeg	(Welsh)	cy	Wicipedia, Wiciddyfynnu, Wicidestun, Wicidaith,[1] Wiciadur
Scots	(Scots)	sco	Wikipædia, Wikisource,[3] Wiktionar[1]
Gaeilge	(Irish)	ga	Vicipéid, Vicíshliocht,[1] Vicífhoinse,[2] Vicífhoclóir
Gàidhlig	(Scottish Gaelic)	gd	Uicipeid, Uicitobar,[2] Wiktionary
Kernowek	(Cornish)	kw	Wikipedya, Wikisource,[2] Wiktionary
Gaelg	(Manx)	gv	Wikipedia, Wikiockleyr
Englissh	(Middle English)	enm	Wikipædia,[1] Wikisource,[3] Wiktionary[4]
Ænglisc	(Old English)	ang	Ƿicibēc, Ƿikipǣdie, ǷicicǷide,[1] Ƿicifruma,[3] Ƿikiƿordbōc
Multilingual		mul	Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikispecies
[1] This project is on the Incubator - [2] This project is part of Multilingual Wikisource - [3] This is part of English Wikisource - [4] This is part of English Wiktionary

Spinning off from my comment above, I've started this table of UK languages and associated wikiprojects: {{Projectslang}}. This table just lists native languages at the moment, not the significant non-native languages like Polish, Punjabi or Urdu. It also doesn't list the currently unsupported native languages like Angloromani and Shelta. Two extinct languages are included because there are Wikimedia projects in those languages. The bold names link to potential main pages and there is some minor language switching in the bracketed language names (assuming the subpage name is the language code). The, currently unlinked, footnotes will need to be lang-switched too (and the method of doing so can stand to be upgraded too).

As for why bother with this, this can be placed on an appropriate languages page (or pages, as there really should be one of those for each language) or, if suitably amended, on the main page. It shows what languages Wikimedia UK could/should support and what projects could be supported as a result. It also at least acknowledges that these languages and projects exist, compared to the very English-Wikipedia-only appearance of WMUK at the moment (of course, the demographics are likely to always push in that direction).

Feel free to amend or ignore as desired. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 17:54, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I know Isle of Man is not technically in the the UK, but where would Manx fit in?--Rhyswynne (talk) 10:13, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

A great spinoff! I'll amend it a little on the Wicipedia Cymraeg; really useful. Thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:29, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Adam, thanks for putting this together. I would be cautious and spell out that this is not intended to limit Wikimedia UK if this table, or similar, is used in relation to the projects of the charity. The charity's scope is not limited to current or past "native languages" and there may be value in finding figures for all non-English languages in the UK as a basis for judging how much impact new project proposals might have for the beneficiaries of the charity (not restricted to people in the UK). As has been mentioned previously, statistically Polish is one of the highest used languages in the UK today, so encouraging Polish readers and writers to take part in our projects is probably an easy win. I doubt there is any need to make a choice between approaches, as it makes sense for us to aim to be as inclusive and diverse as possible. Cheers --Fæ (talk) 08:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Fæ, I can appreciate that table might give the impression of limiting the scope of the chapter if it were used in the wrong way. But so long as we are mindful of that risk it should be manageable.

I think some of the recent ideas generated by Adam and Llywelyn have been excellent and fit well into WMUK being a volunteer-led organisation. I really like the idea of mobilising volunteers to represent WMUK in non-English languages.

Adam, Llywelyn, what do you think of the idea of doing a specific media training session in Wales for Welsh speakers who would like to represent WMUK to Welsh-language Media? This is just an idea I have now, but if we speak to the right people I think we should be able to persuade them.

Yaris678 (talk) 19:48, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Interesting suggestion, I'd support that. It would be cool to have snippets of the odd event/workshop in Welsh on video too. :-) --Fæ (talk) 19:52, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

@Yaris678 That's exactly the sort of thing I'd like to see, although at this stage, the number of takers is likely to be low, but I'm sure that there would be demand for a Training-the-Trainers course through the medium of Welsh.--Rhyswynne (talk) 10:13, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

In fact this was discussed in the last meeting of Wici Cymru, a society to further the cause of the Wiki family in Wales. Rhys and myself have done some research into who could deliver such training. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 11:16, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Nice to see this initiative being progressed positively. I left a comment about it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wales but it has largely been superceded by events. Obviously, with 20% of the population of Wales speaking Welsh, the importance of addressing the non-English (official) native languages is a real one for Wales in particular! As for the non-native (but widely spoken) languages such as Bengali and Polish, I would imagine they will be contributing in projects other than Wikimedia UK, if any, in these languages. Sionk (talk) 14:15, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that Welsh deserves more attention than some languages since it is the second most widely spoken language in the UK.

I think that you have got the wrong end of the stick somewhere when you say "As for the non-native (but widely spoken) languages such as Bengali and Polish, I would imagine they will be contributing in projects other than Wikimedia UK". Wikimedia UK exists to promote free knowledge for all. It can do this in a number of ways, but one of the biggest things it does is encourage people to work on projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, which include the Bengali Wikipedia and the Polish Wikipedia.

Yaris678 (talk) 16:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

FYI, English, Welsh (562,000) and then Polish (546,000) are the most widely spoken languages in the UK, (from the 2011 census) closely followed in order:

1. Punjabi 273,000
2. Urdu 269,000
3. Bengali (with Sylheti and Chatgaya) 221,000
4. Gujarati 213,000

Scots is lagging with 100,000 speakers, which is on a par with Irish in Northern Ireland at 95,000 speakers. Whether this should or should not influence our projects is open to debate and interpretation. --Fæ (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

There's an old page at Language support, which could be a good home for this new table. with Fæ's numbers, I think the reference is [1]. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The number of Welsh or Gaelic speakers is irrelevant to this discussion, imho. The crux of the matter is that these two languages have an important legal status given through Acts of Parliament. Please read my preamble to this thread:

Our Policy on Scotland must begin with the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 and Bòrd na Gàidhlig who are responsible for Gaelic on behalf of the Scottish Government. Wales has similar, yet stronger, legislation (including the Welsh Language Act 1993 and the National Assembly for Wales (Official Languages) Act 2012) which gave the Welsh language official status in Wales - and I suggest that we also include Wales in our Policy, under a separate heading. In Wales the Welsh Language Commissioner ensures that "In Wales, the Welsh language should be treated no less favourably than the English language" and "Persons in Wales should be able to live their lives through the medium of the Welsh language if they choose to do so."

Example: A person who wishes to speak in Punjabi at a Crown Court in Cardiff or London would be given a translator; a person who wishes to speak in Welsh at a Crown Court in Cardiff (or Caernarfon) would be given a full hearing through the medium of Welsh.

Wales is a small nation, with few speakers of it's language remaining. Therein lies it's greatness and vitality, it's still live and kicking; WMUK recognises this, as well as it's legal status. Can I suggest we now move on by 1. getting the WMUK website's homepage up and running (I translated it a few days ago) 2. we continue to work on Rhys' plan, using it as a working document 3. we do the same with Scottish Gaelic. Then we pause for breath. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 05:57, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it would be great to have the page translation tab thingy up and running for the main page at least (you can see an example of what the multiple translations looks like at meta:WCA). As well as the legally recognized Welsh, which as Robin highlights should be a priority (and is easy for us to implement thank to Robin's commitment), it would be brilliant to find some additional volunteers that would enjoy helping with Polish and the South Asian languages (/me thinks of our special partnership with WMIN, I think Pranav is a member of WMUK, someone drop him a note!). I am keenly aware that if we can get some tame volunteers to regularly help with free translations, this is a great asset to our GLAM relationships. ;-) --Fæ (talk) 07:34, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I think Marek69 speaks Polish (he often attends the London meet up and I think he's a WMUK member). I should point out at this stage that I personally have no strong language skills beyond English (although I have family fluent in Welsh and Polish, it's just not in my bailiwick). Some other notes:

1. I moved the template above to {{languages native}} and created a sister temple in {{languages immigrant}} based on wikipedia:Languages of the United Kingdom.
2. I added Manx to the native table on the grounds of "close enough". I was a little worried when I noticed Old Norse and Norn Wikipedias in the incubator but they both appear to have been rejected, so I've left them out for now.
3. I have hijacked/updated the Language support page Mike Peel mentioned above and included the two tables. Since I was making tables anyway, I summarised to existing statistics on that page into {{language stats}} and updated them. (These are all templates instead of entering the tables directly so they can be used on equivalent pages for each language and still only need to be updated once each.) I hope the blurb around the tables, about legal duties and moral responsibilities, is OK; it was a little presumptuous but I needed to put something in there. Please edit if not.
4. I know I suggested using a subpage to indicate language (eg. "Main Page/cy") but would it be better to use the appropriate translation instead (eg. "Hafan")? There are potential problem with this, such as the Scots translation of "Main Page" being "Main Page".
5. Depending on the last point, is there any objection to Llywelyn2000's Llywelyn2000/Template/Main Page going live on "Main Page/cy" or "Hafan"?
6. Llywelyn2000's suggestion of having volunteers answer communications seems worthwhile. Would/Could WMUK keep a list of these volunteers as points of contact or for translation services?

NB: Apologies for not replying to this thread for a while but other things kept coming up. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

The WMUK tech committee are discussing adding a translation extension on this wiki which will allow a Welsh user interface and make translating things into Welsh much easier, using a system similar to http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Translation. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 11:22, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

That would be good, and help support possible non-English speaking (or fluent) WMUKers. (Not to mention at least making them feel welcome and suupported by the chapter.) - AdamBMorgan (talk) 11:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Press coverage page

Is there any reason we don't have a page on-wiki for Press coverage? So that community members can add coverage of WMUK-related stuff in newspapers and other similar sources. Because, you know, BBC News coverage of the NLS job. Shall I be bold and make a page where we can dump all that stuff in one place, rather than having it scattered in monthly reports and so on? —Tom Morris (talk) 10:07, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Great idea - there is an old one and we put them in the monthly report but this is sensible - Can we leave him to comment on this for although he sleeps with the Westcoasters he will awake later today.

Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 11:34, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Tom, this is a good idea. We do record press coverage in our monthly reports but a separate page may be useful. Please, do go ahead and be bold! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 18:05, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

My preference would be that we maintain the list of press coverage only in one place, rather than multiple places. That place has always been the monthly reports so far, so I wouldn't say that they've been scattered around. I'm not sure that having a new page for these rather than just pointing towards the monthly reports would particularly help people find them? Please remember that everyone is welcome, and encouraged, to add stuff to the monthly reports! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 22:00, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Wellcome Collection and CRUK meetings

I have arranged meetings next week with Wellcome Collection and Cancer Research UK (these are not linked, however both on 3rd May, London), and looking for a member of community that may be interested in attending.

Wellcome Collection meeting will look at options of future cooperation between the institutions.

Cancer Research UK will look at their recent external funding bid for a Wikimedian in Residence and see how we can improve it. Someone involved in the WikiProject Medicine may find this useful - at the same time this is an initial meeting focused on looking at paperwork and may not be of interest.

Any suggestions of volunteers that may benefit the meetings would be helpful. Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 13:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Good point about WikiProject Medicine. I have been bold and posted there. Yaris678 (talk) 17:24, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for coordinating this. I am a Wikipedian in Residence at a United States organization which does health education. It is a bit early to plan, but if Wikimania happens in London in 2014 my organization may present there with a health focus. I work for Consumer Reports. In the UK the equivalent organization is Which?. Our parent organization is based in London and is called Consumers International. I expect that neither Which nor CI know anything about me, but Consumer Reports in America would like for other English-speaking organizations to develop health content, so if you need to mention a precedent then CR could be one and we do sort of have a UK link. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:36, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Probably! Let's revisit once Wikimania 2014 comes closer - looking forward to meeting you again! Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 07:54, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

2013-18 Five Year Plan, first draft.

The first draft based on the 23rd of March event, comments received so far and our previous version is now up for discussion on the wiki.

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Towards_a_five_year_plan_2013-18

I look forward to your comments. This version will be brought to the board for their comments in May. Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 17:21, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia Botswana

Can anyone help Wikimedia Botswana with drafting their docs? (sorry for not linking it correctly)

• http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Botswana

Philafrenzy (talk) 15:51, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Possibly... it's rather complex, and would need an understanding of Botswanan law... Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 15:31, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought that was something they trained you in at Wikimedia central, Richard. If there is nobody who can realistically help, that's OK. Philafrenzy (talk) 16:46, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Draft 1 of 2013-18 WMUK Plan reminder

The discussion on draft one (to go to the board on May 11th) is hotting up. Please contribute.

Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 14:22, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Towards_a_five_year_plan_2013-18

Yaris and I made some comments at Talk:Towards_a_five_year_plan_2013-18#Comments_on_the_draft_five-year_plan last week, perhaps these should be moved to be answered as part of the discussion, if these are to be addressed in a revised version in time for the board meeting? --Fæ (talk) 14:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Will do - just hoping for few more before I have a go at it. Jon Davies WMUK (talk) 08:08, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

2013 Fundraiser

Just to let you know that we've received a note from the Wikimedia Foundation stating their intention not to renew our Fundraising Agreement with them for the forthcoming year, but leaving the door open for us to participate in 2014-15 after our recent governance changes have had more time to bed in. The Board will be talking about how this will affect our plans at the meeting on the 11th (if you read the reports that have been uploaded today you'll probably find reference to it) & I imagine we will upload their letter here before the meeting. Personally, while a little disappointed, this isn't something I will be losing sleep over: I think there continues to be a strong case for us to participate in the Wikimedia fundraiser in future based on what we can do with the Gift Aid received on donations, and on the use we can make of the email addresses donors give us, but equally this doesn't fundamentally affect our likely income or our ability to fulfill our mission. Regards, The Land (talk) 19:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedian of the Year award

Some of you may remember from last year Wikimedia UK AGM, we gave out a few awards to thank those in the UK or abroad who have helped the UK Wikimedia movement. The idea was that this is going to be an annual thing. In light of that, we would like to invite nomination for this year winners. Please add your nomination on UK Wikimedian of the Year 2013/Nomination by 5pm on 10 May. Thanks! -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 16:23, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Gibraltarpedia is a success !

Just came across this on Commons:

--MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:04, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Well on a more serious note it has just passed the 900 new articles mark (which compares with last years top project which had 550 articles). If you download Layar on your mobile phone and point it at the image above then it will add an augmented reality button to the image which will tell you about Gibraltar in the language of your phone (without a QR code or a pound of charity money being used). Can someone check that this works? It only works with (most) Android and Iphones at present. Victuallers (talk) 14:49, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

How can the Board of Trustees measure WMUK's performance as an organization?

As well as being recognised for doing well on increasing our quantity and quality of events, hosting GLAMwiki this year and planning Wikimania in 2014, it is useful to set some key indicators with hard measures for the board to assess performance. I am raising the general issue on the Water cooler to encourage different perspectives, though I am aware that few of our members get excited about this sort of thing. :-)

One of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that I have wanted to see published for a couple of years, is the number of active volunteers. Back in July/August 2012, this was part of a board workshop and we estimated the number of active volunteers at 87. However growth has not been as expected, and current views are that the number of active members today, nearly a year later, might be marginally greater but not by much. No systematic way has yet been proposed for measuring and reporting this number.

Another useful figure is the number of members of the charity. As a table or chart showing the trend has never been published, I pulled this together at Membership/numbers. The trend shows that we rapidly increased, nearly doubling in size, from 2011 to 2012, but since the last annual report, we appear to have dropped in registered members by 20% (based on last month's figure). Out of interest, if we consider this a critical demonstration of the "value" of the charity (debatable, though the above total of active volunteers would be an excellent metric to use were it available), we can compare that to our funding, this can be shown as:

• 2011: £257k/165 members = £1,550 grant income per member ref
• 2012: £500k/330 members = £1,520 grant income per member ref
• 2013: £743k/272 members = £2,730 grant income per member ref

This shows that our spending in the last year has gone up by ~50% (or ~80% if counted per member head), whilst our growth in members (and volunteers) has not grown. Caveats: For 2011 I have only taken the grant income while in 2012, 2013 the activity plan has a figure that may include other income streams, in practice I don't believe this makes much of a difference when the trend is the important thing to assess. I am open to other suggestions of how to pick the best number.

It may well be that we can pull numbers together for increasing numbers of events and perhaps the increasing numbers of public involvement, or we could start to measure the benefit of creation of new public resources, such as the release of images from projects with The National Archives and the British Library. If basic KPIs such as members and volunteers continue to be slower to grow than expected in the charity's long term strategy, and yet the charity is seen as succeeding in delivering the mission in other ways, then we are short of verifiable measurements to give us balancing KPIs that show a more holistic picture.

One balancing factor that I kicked off in 2011, was to start our PQASSO quality assessment programme. This has been a modest success with the charity assessed at 'level 1' and we have plans to carry on to reach 'level 2', giving us good credibility for our policies and processes when benchmarked against other charities in the UK. Perhaps improved governance and quality may itself be considered a KPI? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:55, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for raising this topic Fae. It is useful to be able to discuss this and it provides an excellent opportunity to highlight some of the work that's happening in the office to improve the way we measure and monitor our activity. Perhaps the most important example of this is our quarterly planning grid. We use this to highlight some very top level activities and then monitor progress at quarterly checkpoints. These are then highlighted and monitored using the "traffic light" system. Given that our year runs from February to January we have just completed the reporting for the first quarter. You can view this as a PDF file on this wiki here.

Another aspect of our reporting and monitoring is our report to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC). We use this as a key way of demonstrating the value of our work to the FDC and also to show compliance. This page sits on Meta and our Q1 report can be seen here.

Monitoring and reporting on the number of volunteers is slightly trickier. This is dependent on how we define a volunteer and I'm not sure that there has ever been a satisfactory definition. One way of monitoring this might be to review the activity on this wiki. I returned from my holiday today and reviewed the last couple of weeks in recent changes and noticed some new usernames making a contribution here so it appears, at least to that extent, that we are successfully encouraging wider participation. I can't back this up with numbers. However, we have the excellent Katie Chan working with us and she has the specific remit of broadening volunteer participation. I have no doubt that her work will bring great benefits.

Regarding membership I do think that more can be done to recruit members and I believe that we will continue to improve. Many previous members have simply lapsed and some may have chosen not to renew because the charity has had a difficult year in terms of governance and press attention. Furthermore the only thing that we currently offer members is voting rights. This means that membership of our charity is not of great appeal to people who might otherwise join. It may be that as time passes we are able to refine and redefine membership to make it more attractive. If we were to do this I am confident that we would see a marked increase in charity membership. All this being said I don't see membership levels as being as important as the other metrics outlined above.

I do hope that my comments are useful and I am of course happy to discuss this further. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:31, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Stevie, you can see from the above that I was hoping for some alternatives to volunteer and membership numbers, as Key Performance Indicators that are currently being tracked so that the Board of Trustees use these to help our duty for oversight of operations and to assess the performance of the organization (rather than staff) against our strategic goals. No matter how we re-frame the current measured trends, they are below any past expectations in our long term strategy.

The quarterly planning grid is a good step forward in reporting, and contains a lot of detail. The column "WMUK KPIs if applicable" is a confusing mixed bag, as some of these are administrative service performance agreements, whilst others are statements of activities rather than measures (such as "Value for money checked when ordering"). To cherry-pick this list, it would be useful to have reports of easily quantifiable performance related figures such as "numbers of people taking part" and "new editors trained" for Outreach, and if these were reported to the board providing trends over a period of 6 or 12 months, it would be great to consider rolling these up as part of a high level organizational KPI. Though prospective numbers like this are listed in the quarterly planning grid, which covers the last 3 months, the trustees have yet to be supplied with any of the "KPIs" stated in the form of a simple report with numbers and trends rather than textual descriptions of activities. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:22, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Morning! Not to put a spanner in the works, but a genuine thought re ' they are below any past expectations in our long term strategy.' - what were these past expectations? (Are they clearly articulated anywhere?) More importantly - in light of the last 12 months of challenge, are they relevant? Were they even realistic in the first place? We need to be careful to make sure that we're not comparing the reality of 2013 to pipe-dreams from when we were a smaller organisation in a considerably different position. This is why the five year plan process is probably a good place to thrash this out - because its based on consultation and consensus on where we really are now and what we can realistically achieve. Please don't see this as a suggestion we shouldn't be ambitious or set stretching targets - I'm pro that :-) Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 10:18, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

1. In the Board workshop of 2011, you can find Andrew Turvey's (our Chairman) presentation Minutes_27Aug11/Presentations#Growth. This set a target for 2013 of 2,000 members. At that time the Board of Trustees found that a realistic figure in the light of the fact that we were soon to appoint a CEO and set up an office with employees. That expectation shows we should have achieved six or seven times more members than we have today. You may wish to note that it was this scenario planning that Ting Chen gave us warmly encouraging feedback about. Were were a rare chapter that put forward and discussed strategy in this realistic way.
2. In the 2012 Five Year Plan last year, we set a target of 1,000 members within 3 years. 2012_Five_Year_Plan#Members_and_Volunteers - Drawing a straight line, this means we should have around 400 or 500 members this year. We are more than 50% under this target.
3. In the accepted 2012-13 FDC proposal there is a "Five year target of 2,000 membership" (i.e. to be delivered by 2016). m:FDC_portal/Proposals/2012-2013_round1/WMUK/Proposal_form Unfortunately this target is not meaningful to assess any current measurement against.

Significant growth in membership has always been a core performance indicator. The staff ought to be aware of these documented expectations of the board, if nothing else it would be a good idea to respond with helping the board and CEO set new realistic goals if these are unrealistic targets. Examining the historic pattern here, you may note that targets have been set increasingly longer distances into the future, and with declining expectations. It would be great if these became hard measurable targets for the year so the board could tell if the performance trend was sufficient or not, and to develop SMART actions and measurable plans so that performance review is based on firm foundations. --Fæ (talk) 10:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Quick point, but is that the same presentation that posited that we would end up with 700,000 members and an income approaching £60million per year? Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

One other point here. I'm currently reviewing the five year plan to 2018 which states that we aim: "To have 2,000 members, at least 25% of whom actively contribute to WMUK activities". I think that's a pretty clear and measurable target. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:45, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Andrew's scenario planning was great fun. Certainly if I am still alive in 2018, I would look at the 2018 annual report with interest to see if it makes any reference to the current five year plan, or uses any of the targets. In the meantime it would be great if the board can work with non-subjective KPIs and credibly reported trends that we can discuss and review in 2013.

Let us be honest, if against any of our past expectations for the benefits of rapidly establishing our office, we have not grown the numbers of active volunteers in the last 12 months by any significant figure, and at the same time, the number of registered members has actually gone down since the last annual report, then we should admit that as a definite failure in performance by the charity, and now look to put a measurable and credible improvement plan in place that addresses these targets. --Fæ (talk) 12:01, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I think this is slightly disingenuous, honestly. There has been a small upward trend in membership since Katherine joined. The larger drop from last summer could be explained by a change in the way we record numbers although I'm not well versed in CiviCRM so can't be sure. I do know that Katherine worked very hard to cleanse the data when she joined to bring it up to date. One can only imagine how much our membership would have increased had we been active participants in the fundraiser. And we are seeing an increase in volunteers. We have certainly undertaken a lot of positive outreach work, including building relationships with institutions of global renown - and this is by no means hyperbole. Given the difficulties we've faced in the last year I think all things being considered we're doing OK and we have better things to come. There are plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 15:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Stevie, there are always reasons to be cheerful. I find it odd that you are so determined not to give one inch of room to the possibility that there may be something to worry about here. The fact that we can provide no evidence that the number of volunteers is growing or shrinking compared to last year, and based on your statement we are even unsure if the number of members of the charity has actually decreased or not over the last year (when using figures published in our annual report) would worry most other organizations. Do you accept that an improvement plan and some verifiable KPIs with trend figures being available right now, so that trustees can monitor operations might be a jolly good idea?

I created this thread with the intention of having some views from members rather than only staff, hopefully there will be a few. --Fæ (talk) 16:40, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Slightly related r.e. performance indicators; following the Stamford outreach session I suggested some things we could do to improve our outreach follow up (mostly it seems fire and forget up to this point :P). Including:

• Build a proper "outreach" team of volunteers willing to lend support to groups
• Assign a specific volunteer to liase with the group we are giving outreach both before and after the event - to provide both on and off-wiki support.
• Have a follow up schedule to check on how groups are doing, provide further guidance and see who is editing what

In the case of Stamford I've not heard a peep since, and am not aware of any real follow up with them as a group. Despite a lot of enthusiasm in the room! I think if we had a proper schedule of outreach this would help us with more data points both for new wiki volunteers and active membership. --ErrantX (talk) 15:12, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Need to kick-start WLM 2013 in the UK if it is going to happen

A few of us had a brief phone meeting about WLM 2013 over a week ago (Commons:Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013_in_the_United_Kingdom/planning), but I can't see any on-wiki progress since. If we are to run the competition in the UK this year, some hard work is now very much overdue. We are already quite some time behind on the timeline (see Commons:Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013_in_the_United_Kingdom).

It would be a shame if the UK missed out again, for the 3rd year running, due to lack of interest.

My understanding is that WMUK is fully behind the community in backing this, and presumably what is needed is some greater volunteer action.

I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but unless another volunteer is in the middle of doing something I will in the next few days post some additional planning suggestions on Commons and will also advertise there to to try to bring in more help, as we certainly don't have enough people at the moment.

Any thoughts? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)