Water cooler

2009 2010 2011 2012

Request for comment

I am drafting a proposal at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pine/drafts/ENWP_Board_of_Education and would like input from chapters. I would appreciate comments on the talk page. Thank you! Pine (talk) 10:52, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

How do we reduce the creeping "legalese" of our constitution and policy documents?

Hi, I have raised a question around how better to handle difficult wording on our key documents at Talk:Articles_of_Association#Difficult_legal_language, though I'm thinking that this is a more general problem that could do with rather more plain English advocacy. Anyone have good ideas on how to make this guff a bit more digestible? Cheers --Fæ (talk) 11:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Does Navigation popups work for you on WMUK?

I just tried out Navigation popups (check your preferences, gadgets) but it does not display correctly for me, in fact it leaves a nasty mess of un-wiped text for every internal link I hover over. Anyone have a fix? --Fæ (talk) 13:46, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I've had a look and they don't work for me either. Pretty nasty! --Stevie Benton (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

This is something I've noticed with the popups on some other wikis, too. Does some custom CSS need to be added to MediaWiki:Common.css? Rock drum (talk • contribs) 15:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

How commonly is the water cooler used?

Hello everyone. As you may be aware I'm working on reviewing our communications and writing our comms strategy at the moment. One thing I wanted to take a look at in my examination of the WMUK wiki is the water cooler. I'd like to get a handle on how many people come here. So, if you're reading this before Friday 8 June, would you please pop a note here? Many thanks. --Stevie Benton (talk) 15:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid this test isn't going to work. A lot of us follow this wiki by keeping an eye on recent changes, so having lots of people posting here will attract more people. It's not the kind of page that you specifically go to to see if anything interesting has been posted. You come here when you notice it on recent changes or your watchlist. --Tango (talk) 15:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

That in itself will have some value for me actually. I want to see how something on here develops in real time and how many people will respond to something without being directly pointed there. Thanks for the heads-up though, I appreciate it :) --Stevie Benton (talk) 16:06, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

You might be better off looking through the page history and seeing how actual discussions here developed. Asking people to respond is very artificial, which will severely limit the usefulness of your results. (I'm an actuary in real life, so I have a thing about statistically well-designed studies!) --Tango (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I have recent changes on my RSS feed and that led me here. If the wiki gets busier and this becomes the place to announce new stuff I might switch to just having this page on my RSS (every history page is an RSS feed). Filceolaire (talk) 20:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, it's a matter of how long a piece of elastic might be. You start to get the Observer effect. I think you might find that what's most salient about your aim of trying to write a comms startegy is that you start developing relationships with different editors. These human interactions take place at a level somewhat distinct from the sort of formal assessment of what a strategy might be.Leutha (talk) 23:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I tried to adapt a metric from Wikiversity at Water cooler/metrics but I couldn't suss out the right code, so the first one (April 2011) gets us to the Ukrainian wikipedia. (I left the others unchanged so you end up at WV.) I tried looking at Meta, but they seem to have a way of jumping from UK.Wikipedia to UK.wikimedia. Anyway, I need a break so I thought someone else might like to have a crack at this. Basically it allows you to set up a metric on the page and keep track of viewings. Leutha (talk) 23:37, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't get that much use, but it's the most logical place to discuss things to do with the wiki itself (as opposed to the chapter). Stevie, it might interest you to know that the Wikipedia equivalent, the village pumps, also tend not to get very much attention except when people are pointed there. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your comments, very much appreciated. --Stevie Benton (talk) 12:49, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

QRpedia coordination page

I know that outreach:GLAM/QR_codes exists, but I'm wondering if a page on :wmuk would be useful to point to for folks to understand the QRpedia agreement with WMUK, the status of the open source code, trademark agreement and where to report bugs in an emergency; or should we just point to the :outreach page and improve that? --Fæ (talk) 09:45, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

How to attract an administrator's attention

We have a template for recommending the speedy deletion of a page (Template:Delete), which does sometimes get used by non-administrators when they need a page deleted. This includes the page in Category:Speedy deletions so an administrator can spot it and delete it. However, as an administrator, I never look at that category. I keep an eye on this wiki simply by looking at recent changes. I do sometimes spot and delete pages tagged with that template, but only because I saw it on recent changes, so the template didn't actually help. Do other administrators check that category on a regular basis? If not, should we come up with a better way to find an admin? Or is having admins looking at recent changes enough, in which case we don't really need the template? What are people's thoughts (admins and non-admins alike)? --Tango (talk) 13:38, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I didn't even know that category existed. Whenever I delete something, it's always from the recent changes. I think the template is mostly used by people who do small wiki monitoring. With this being a fairly quiet wiki, there's probably no need for a dedicated system for reaching an admin (there are plenty of us compared to the amount of work for us to do), but the template does no harm and it might be useful if the wiki gets busier. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I did know that template & category existed, but I do things from recent changes as well given that the wiki is small enough to do that and not miss anything. The template does no harm, and maybe useful for some. Any other potential methods for contacting admins would probably be more bureaucracy than is worth. KTC (talk) 19:31, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

More about the footer

I just saw the thread #Huge foot and looked at the footer.

I thought "About Wikimedia UK! That would be a useful place to put info like an address..." But then discovered that the page explicitly isn't about Wikimedia UK, it is about the the Wikimedia UK wiki.

Maybe where the footer says "About Wikimedia UK" it should say "About the Wikimedia UK wiki"

And another thing... if the linked page is about the wiki, why is it called Help:Contents? Surely it should be called Wikimedia:About. (Wikimedia:About is currently a redirect to Help:Contents)

Yaris678 (talk) 17:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Good points. Perhaps you could be bold and improve the pages and links? :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:12, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

OK... well... I have moved Help:Contents to Wikimedia:About... But that is about as far as I can take it. I can't edit MediaWiki:Aboutpage (I would need to be an admin)... so unfortunately if you click on "About Wikimedia UK" you now get the little message saying "(Redirected from Help:Contents)".

Someone with admin rights will also need to edit MediaWiki:Aboutsite so that it says "About the Wikimedia UK wiki".

Happy to make these changes myself if someone gives me admin rights.

Yaris678 (talk) 21:28, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I have changed MediaWiki:Aboutpage. I'll leave any changes to MediaWiki:Aboutsite to someone else to decide whether the above suggestion is the best wording. KTC (talk) 21:49, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that change.

Anyone got an idea for a better phrase to put in the footer?

Would anyone like to argue in favour of the current situation (where it says "About Wikimedia UK" and then you click on it and the page says "This page is not for those seeking help in contacting WMUK (instead, see here), and more details about the exact structure of WMUK are on the main page. Instead, this page gives advice for editors of the wiki.")

Anyone think we should do something completely different? Like make "About Wikimedia UK" link to Contact us?

Yaris678 (talk) 00:59, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Page of volunteers?

We have pages for Staff and the Board, which would naturally come together under the heading of 'People' (in particular thinking about the sidebar link), but that wouldn't include the most important people for the organisation - volunteers. I'm wondering if it's worth starting a similar page giving profiles of some volunteers, or whether that wouldn't be sustainable, or if there aren't volunteers interested in being featured on such a page. What do you all think? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 00:10, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

We all have userpages don't we? I've no objection to others creating something else, but the first place I'd look for a profile would be someone's userpage. WereSpielChequers (talk) 18:04, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

How would you choose who to have on the page? We have lots of volunteers, contributing various amounts in various ways, and we'll hopefully have even more in the future - far too many to have profiles of all of them. --Tango (talk) 16:49, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe interested volunteers could give their User page a category, ie: volunteers? That way it would be self administering and opt in.Leutha (talk) 06:02, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

You could create a category for user pages & link that at a people page, or link to a Special: list (Eek, not Special:ListUsers!). Not sure it's worth doing more, per the above comments. But few people have much on their pages here, except links to WP. Johnbod (talk) 17:47, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Something like Category:Active volunteers for Wikimedia UK? I think it's important to specify that we are talking about people who do stuff for WMUK... if we get onto people who voluntarily contribute to a Wikimedia wiki then the list is long and useless. Yaris678 (talk) 08:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Not too keen on this particular idea - "active blah" categories always rot faster than you can update them. Deryck Chan (talk) 19:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps if we were to have volunteer cats they should be specific ones - this editor is willing to help do x or y. That way when you need a couple of volunteers to help out at an event you can contact people in that category rather than email the whole mailing list. WereSpielChequers (talk) 19:18, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've been creating a UK "GLAM Connect" hub for GLAM professionals which includes (or at least, will include) a list of Wikimedians interested in GLAM and working with institutions. You can see this at Cultural partnerships/Connect; perhaps something like this could be created for other outreach projects, too. Regards, Rock drum (talk • contribs) 20:20, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the feedback. I've created People, and Category:Wikimedia UK volunteers to serve these roles, please help improve the former and/or add yourself to the latter. :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

NB, I didn't go for specific categories as I was aiming for something simple that can organically grow, rather than going specific directly. Please feel free to create more specific categories as you think are needed, or want to categorise yourself into. :-) Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:14, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

en.wikipedia Meetups template

Just spotted this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Meetup-UK - which I think Pigsonthewing set up a couple of years ago. Looks like we could make use of it (I wouldn't mind putting it on my Wikipedia user page, for instance) but it doesn't seem to work at present... any idea whether this can be fixed? The Land (talk) 21:33, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

It looks like it has to be updated manually. There is nothing broken about it, it just hasn't been updated for 2 years. --Tango (talk) 22:17, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

meta:Template:Meetup list is probably a better template to use, since that's where most (all?) UK wikimeets tend to be listed. Cross-wiki inclusion would be a really nice feature to have... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:16, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

The co-opted trustee

The press release says that the board would decide on a replacement for Joscelyn over the in-person board meeting last weekend, but I don't see anything along those lines in the minutes. What is going to happen? Deryck Chan (talk) 11:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Deryck. The Board are currently considering their options and there will be an update in due course. Thanks. --Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Deryck, if you hadn't yet seen, the Board is pleased to announce the appointment of Saad Choudri to the Board. --RexxS (talk) 13:43, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

WMUK membership survey

We're currently in the process of developing a WMUK membership survey. A page has been popped up on this Wiki for comments and suggestions. Please do get involved with the discussion here. Thanks! --Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:42, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Improvements to the Trustee Code of Conduct

I have raised some suggestions for improvements to the code at Talk:Trustee_Code_of_Conduct#Conflict_of_Interest_Policy. I would welcome comments and further suggestions on how we can take a conservative approach to trustee interests without excluding anyone with reasonable expertise to bring to the board. We may be at a point where the consensus is that no trustee can serve who has any financial interest (as opposed to direct financial interest), though this might become difficult to interpret at the time of the next election if members come forward prepared to serve, who have related valuable experience to bring to the board that they claim is "manageable" and therefore allowable under Charity Commission guidelines. That word "manageable" is tripping us up right now, and some on-wiki discussion may help define it in a way that is credible to the outside world (such as the WMF) and yet pragmatic for the benefit of our charity. --Fæ (talk) 10:22, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Glad to see such efforts. -- w:User:Lexein 19:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Resignation

Thanks, WMUK, but it's not enough. This does nothing to a) address the public perception of Wikimedia/Wikipedia's ability to police itself (follow both the letter and spirit of all pillar/policy/guideline), or b) repair the damage done to Wikipedia's credibility and reputation.

• A public list of edits by whom at WMUK, related to Gibraltarpedia (including DYK promotions) should be published in a press release, with classification of each as non-controversial, promotional of Gibraltar, self-promotional of Wikipedia, or inappropriately collaborative with an external entity.
• The Gibraltarpedia project itself should be, as I've said elsewhere, shut, disavowed, and salted, and all involved editors should publicly self-topic-ban for one year. The independence and status of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia which documents, but does not serve, any entity or individual, must be firmly reasserted, and if it has never been asserted before, it should be asserted now.
• I can't help thinking that none of these remedial actions would have been needed if clean hands had been kept at WMUK, with only independent volunteer public editors doing the edits, in the tradition of IRC:en-wikipedia-help, with no meatpuppetry. --wikipedia:User:Lexein 19:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
• Oh, and by the way, I know this is self-draconian and extreme, but what else will strongly indicate Wikimedia/Wikipedia's commitment to independence, unalloyed neutrality, and ability to recognize and respond to even the appearance of impropriety? --wikipedia:User:Lexein 20:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
  • AFAIK The only WMUK trustee involved (beyond the odd edit) in Gibraltarpedia is Roger (now ex-trustee of course). You can see his contributions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Victuallers, which do include edits to some Gibraltarpedia articles, as well as organizing stuff on talk pages etc. Whether the 500-odd bytes he added to the 18th century Great Siege Tunnels, one of the articles he has added most to, are "non-controversial, promotional of Gibraltar, self-promotional of Wikipedia, or inappropriately collaborative with an external entity" I'll leave you to judge. He has stated that the consultancy he is doing does not include editing, though it does include training editors. It is not within the power of WMUK to shut down the project, even if we wished to do so. I have not seen any suggestion that the vast majority of edits to project articles are not being done by "independent volunteer public editors", as they have been in all the other very successful projects Roger has been involved with. Finding, channelling and enthusing such editors is Roger's special talent. Johnbod (talk) 21:47, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's officially only one person. I shall repeat: Resignation may be necessary, but it cannot be sufficient. This does nothing to a) address the public perception of Wikimedia/Wikipedia's ability to police itself (follow both the letter and spirit of all pillar/policy/guideline), or b) repair the damage done to Wikipedia's credibility and reputation. Organizational or procedural changes must also follow. If I'm wrong, correct me. Roger placed a well-detailed development report at WT:Did you know‎, and I responded there. IMHO, full public disclosure like that, early, and instantly, would have gone far to blunt the damage done. Given that that's now impossible, WMF/WP has to do something else. --wikipedia:User:Lexein 04:48, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I am taking some time out to write a longer reply, please read this as a personal viewpoint as I have chosen to respond without confirming that my (rather busy!) fellow trustees support the specific detail of this response. I would be happy to tweak my reply should any trustee be concerned about my wording.

I agree we have been unacceptably slow to respond and communicate with our members. It should be noted that we have been in the process of seeking external advice and improving our Trustee Code of Conduct since March this year, in fact we had no such document in place for the trustees to sign up to, until the AGM in May. I first alerted the trustees to the issue blowing up on DYK on Saturday (and have been personally incredibly frustrated that we were incapable of making a response within 24 hours). Unfortunately our CEO is in the middle of a family emergency (spending much of his time at the hospital) and our Communication Officer is on holiday. As a result, much of the hard work of considering what the response to urgent inquiries should be, has been down to unpaid volunteer trustees. We take the matter seriously but only managed to have a telecon on Wednesday, where we could follow our due process and make the joint decisions to co-opt Saad as a trustee and sadly accept Roger's resignation from the board, it was an emotional and difficult discussion. At that same meeting we *had* to agree the budget underpinning the 2013 Activity Plan as part of our necessary functioning as a charity, it was a very, very full discussion.

Lexein, please keep in mind that our role as trustees is quite limited. We have no control over what our individual members do on Wikimedia projects and trustees are expected to follow their conscience on such matters within the Trustee Code of Conduct. Roger's activities pre-date our code of conduct, a situation that has for many months caused the Board to have long and difficult discussion where we repeatedly failed to achieve a full consensus, and for current or future trustees this situation (where a trustee was receiving indirect but closely related financial benefit) could not happen as it would be in conflict with our reading of the code based on the conservative interpretation of Charity Commission guidelines we have adopted. Much of our difficult discussion has been in-camera, which in retrospect may have been a mistake in terms of applying our Values and I intend to clarify the limits of how the Board intends use in-camera sessions in future; a matter I have previously raised with the Board, particularly where there may be resulting delay in effectively managing a reputational risk to the charity (a key responsibility of trustees).

I accept that organizational and procedural changes must follow this damaging incident, and I have already proposed improvements to the code to make it clearer on the issue of interests, I welcome your comments on further improvements you would like to see.

The Board can take action to withdraw membership from anyone that has demonstrably failed to support our Mission and we would require any trustee to step down from the board if they fail to support the Trustee Code of Conduct; we have no authority over a member's or a trustee's actions on the Wikimedia projects, though their actions on the projects may be used as evidence of a failure to support the Mission or a failure to comply with the Trustee Code of Conduct.

In response to an inquiry this week from the Wikimedia Foundation, we have been preparing a full explanation of the background to Roger's work with Gibraltarpedia, how his interest has been declared and managed throughout this year (Roger's interest has been a key topic of discussion at every board meeting this year), including gaining external expert advice from a charity governance expert in March 2012 and legal advice at the beginning of September 2012 (as a result of which we took the step of writing, before this incident, to the Charity Commission for their comments on our approach, and are awaiting their reply); the advice was given with explanation of Roger's declared interests and known plans for future work. Several trustees and staff have spent significant time checking the facts and putting the explanation together. I understand that a version of this same information will be made public shortly.

I, and other trustees, have opinions on how the DYK process should improve and the analysis that could be done to support improvement, but that is a matter for those that contribute to the English Wikipedia rather than the UK Chapter.

I certainly would like to be in a position where we can respond "instantly" (or at least within one working day of significant questions being raised), though in terms of disclosure, Roger has been making determined efforts to make full public disclosures, for example during his re-election at the AGM, at board meetings, at Wikimania and during Wikimeet discussions. Any question raised with Roger about his interest from any member or non-member has been responded to calmly and promptly. Despite no longer being on the Board, Roger has shown no shortage of goodwill in helping us with supplying information and clarifying his position; he has my full respect for keeping calm under pressure. However from the viewpoint of the charity, I do not dispute that our communication of the risk and our steps to deal with it over the last few months, was not effective or sufficiently proactive, and when our Communications Manager is available the Board will be seeking his advice and plan on the improvement necessary to our processes, and how we can disclose information in a more effective way to ensure we meet our values to stay open and transparent in our operations as a charity; in my view we are currently failing to meet those values that our members demand and as trustees we hold dear, that is not an acceptable situation, fortunately I can assure you it is improving and the trustees are absolutely committed to delivering on these values.

Side note - For those in the UK, our next in-person board meeting is on the weekend of the 17th November. If at that time anyone still feels we have not taken sufficient action and would like to opportunity to publicly hold us to account, please do come along, ask for a slot on the agenda (preferably a couple of weeks in advance!), and bend our ears. Our quarterly board meetings are open, and we fully welcome independent views being presented on how we can improve processes and manage risks more effectively than we have seen to date. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 07:01, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Update After posting the above, I can see an email confirming that a blog post as an official statement from the Chapter, with a summary of the facts, will be on the blog later today. --Fæ (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Update I have now released the blog post at http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/ in which Chris lays out the key facts on behalf of the Board of trustees. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 10:09, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the extended response, as one who is as ignorant of the inner machinations of WMUK as the public. I'm not sure the WMUK chapter yet realizes the Wikipedia-wide exposure and crisis of confidence this has triggered. Unfortunately, the blog post's flat and somewhat angry declaration of "fact" is (to use wikipedia:User;Orangemike's term) tone-deaf to the appearance of impropriety, and thus does nothing to assert or guarantee Wikipedia's independence from other entities or persons. Why should Wikipedia or Wikimedia have any hand in helping Gibraltar expand its tourism? Is Wikipedia's job to document, but not serve, or not?

I hope measures will be put in place to guarantee that the encyclopedia will always be and appear to be, at all costs, independent. I'd rather lose a project than have the encyclopedia suffer any further loss of credibility or public faith. Full and rapid crisis disclosure, and, better than that, full disclosure at the start of a project, will be helpful. The appearance of loss of independence was predicted by those of us who were called "paranoid". Fortunately, future risk of such appearance of loss of independence can be predicted by forward-looking risk analysis, if implemented as organizational best practice. --wikipedia:User:Lexein 12:55, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

To pick up on one of your recommendations, you may want to take a look at Risk Register. I would say that is in a poor draft state with a lot more work needed, your viewpoint for some more forward-looking risks and suggestions on potential countermeasures would be welcome additions to the associated discussion page so that trustees and management can take them on-board.

As I mentioned above, I agree "full and rapid crisis disclosure" is a requirement we need to meet as our response times are inadequate. I find your criticism that the blog post appears an "angry declaration" or that we seem "tone-deaf" to the appearance of impropriety, hard to roll over and accept, having seen from the inside how desperately seriously the trustees have treated the issues this week, and the huge amount of work we have all put into governance and communications improvement throughout the year, I am prepared to accept that we have failed to communicate this improvement to the wider community and that trust in our charity will take a lot more work, from everyone involved, to rebuild. If the title "Gibraltarpedia, the facts" appears angry to you, I am open to suggestions of a better and less aggressive wording.

The fact is, that is less than a year since we became a charity and less than a year since we took on our first employee. Our rapid growth has been impressive, taking on employees more quickly, I believe, than any other chapter in the same position. That itself is a cause for concern, and as a trustee I have questioned several times if we have sufficiently established best practices that can support our new organization. It was with this in mind that in 2011, I first pushed the idea of being assessed against PQASSO before the 2012 fund-raiser, as the most prominent UK quality standard for charities, and this programme of improvement had put us in good standing in comparison to charities of a similar size. I make a personal commitment to continue to challenge, and reject, planning further rapid growth, should we be seen to be unable to put plans, processes and policies in place that can credibly handle the risks that we need to address, including the current one of failures to be seen properly to manage declarations of interest. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:27, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

But the blog post doesn't acknowledge the damage to Wikipedia's credibility and loss of public confidence, or the internal crisis of confidence, except to imply that they don't exist, because nothing bad happened. If it wasn't tone-deaf, what was it? Maybe it wasn't angry, but what was it? Cheerfully arms-crossed teeth-gritted "not our problem?" What sort of posture is that for WMUK to take? The Gibraltarpedia page, project page, articles, and DYKs are all still there, for everyone to see, and we don't have a position from WMUK except "not our problem." I'm not having a go, here. Just count the donations box, day by day (see below in re 2007). I wish I could have done a rewrite of that post - it was a truly lost opportunity. As for the rest, I heartily hope for the best in re PQASSO, and risk analysis. I'll look at that with interest. --wikipedia:User:Lexein 13:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Fair comment. I'll pass on your paragraph here to the board and see if we are prepared to and add more to the post to address the point that we have not done sufficient to acknowledge a loss of credibility in our community. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 13:58, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I don't claim to be right, just less wrong than previously thought. I do not envy the participants in that conversation. As for the title, I suggest this: "Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release 21.09.2012" It signifies importance beyond a usual blog post, keeps any claims or bias out of the title, implies that the situation is developing, being considered, and that the last word is yet to be written. --wikipedia:User:Lexein 14:41, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Lexein, your request is more than Draconian and extreme- it is phrased in ways that imply you object to Wikimedia's core activities. To carry out our mission to the fullest extent, we have to work in partnership with a variety of partner organisations. These are situations that should benefit all parties: when a museum or gallery helps improve Wikipedia improve coverage about its holdings, more of the world's knowledge and culture is made freely available, Wikipedia and its sister projects are improved, and the partner organisation benefits from increased public interest, maybe even increased funding.

There are almost inevitably costs involved in these partnerships, and it's not possible or desirable for WMUK pay all of them. When the partner organisation pays practically all the costs, as is the case with Gilbraltarpedia, then we should count that as a very good thing, and well done to the Wikimedians who negotiated it.

Wikimedia UK is the national charity promoting and supporting Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. It's absurd to imply that activity that is "promotional of Wikipedia" is some sort of offence, especially as the only activity promoting Wikipedia that seems to have taken place is putting more sourced, factual content so that search engines have more text to find. I'm not aware even of an allegation that information about Wikipedia, anywhere, was distorted by Gilbraltarpedia. As for "promotional of Gibraltar", show us some Gilbraltar-related edits by Victuallers that are not in line with Wikipedia's policies, then we have a concrete allegation to go on. If we get worked up about the mere logical possibility of biased edits, when the potential conflict of interest was already declared and public, that way madness lies.

When reality and public perception wildly diverge, I personally urge the board to ground their decisions in the reality rather than the perception. I also urge them to ignore extreme requests: success in Wikipedia's/Wikimedia's mission is not some kind of horrible offence for which highly effective contributors have to be metaphorically flogged. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:05, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

No. Martin, you fail to understand just how much damage was done to the entire Wikipedia project by the appearance of impropriety and appearance of loss of independence. It is not the encyclopedia's mission to collaborate or be steered by external organizations. Its mission is to document, but not to serve. It's fine that articles were written and expanded, but that should have been done long before Gibraltar ever expressed any interest in expanding their tourism. Understand? Now, every one of those new and expanded articles is tainted, and must be combed through by uninvolved editors to assure NPOV, and citation only of independent reliable and hopefully scholarly sources. Wikipedia's core activity is to document, and not to serve, entities and individuals. I would rather lose some random pet project, than have Wikipedia suffer any further loss of credibility, public confidence, or independence.

Martin, your notion of reality is distorted by what you want Wikimedia's mission to be, rather than what its stated aims are. If its stated aims are indeed to collaborate and serve external masters, then holy hell, this place really is a corrupt scam, and all the public detractors are right. -- wikipedia:User:Lexein 12:55, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Addendum1: Martin, I acknowledged above that other measures exist than shutting down a project. IMHO such a closure should be considered dispassionately in light of the long-term interests of the encyclopedia, over any short-term funding needs. In my opinion the needs of the encyclopedia (credibility, independence, neutrality) will always trump the needs of its parent organization(s). There are ways donors can contribute without a conflict of interest: Gibraltar, I think, was mishandled. Perhaps this can be remediated without draconian measures; to do so and regain public confidence? That's a (I think) much tougher challenge. -- wikipedia:User:Lexein 13:16, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Assendum2: Damage to Wikipedia's credibility is concretely measurable. "Wikipedia Paid Posts Scandal" shows a nice graph of the decline in 2007 donations from 22 Feb to 17 Mar around the Essjay scandal (if the causality and correlation is valid after correcting for normal donation fluctuations). I'm not making this stuff up. It's more like the stock market than you want to admit, I guess: public confidence drops will result in donation drops. Mixed-metaphorically, playing fast and loose will cost you, but running a tight ship and keeping a clean house provide long term benefits which are hard to deny. -- wikipedia:User:Lexein 13:34, 21 September 2012 (UTC)