Water cooler

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

Gift Aid

Typo: "Don't forget that if you pay Income Tax at the higher rate you are likely to be able to claim ..." should read "likely". 92.5.50.132 10:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

So if you want to do a direct debit and claim gift aid what then? There is no box on the form for this.

If you honestly want people to enter personal details into this form, you need to encrypt the website. 78.105.210.252 22:59, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Apart from the typo, I'd like to say also as far as I understand it (and I have asked Her Majesty several times, the BBC Moneybox programme on a phone-in, and various charities) if you are a higher rate taxpayer you can declare the donation on the tax return (and should) but the charity does not get the difference of the basic rate and higher rate tax from Her Majesty – you do. (And then can give that to the charity if you wish, which presumably you could also claim as gift aided, in reductio ad infinitum ad nauseao). I hope this may be heplful to anyone in a similar position, sorry I cannot be more definitive. 82.29.185.61 17:03, 27 November 2011 (UTC) (More often en:User:SimonTrew)

Transferring stuff from meta

Ok, I've started transferring stuff over from meta, but we probably want something a little more organised than the random copying and pasting I'm doing at the moment (I thought it important to get the key information copied over ASAP so we can actually start pointing people to this site). How do we want to do this? Proper importing? Starting from scratch? Make it up as we go along? --Tango 23:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think people should import, and those who wish to do it should ask for sysop rights from a bureaucrat. GFDL and all that... Majorly 23:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Importing to start with, before starting to generate new content. I'm currently trying to figure out how to enable importing (it seems to be disabled at the moment...) Mike Peel 23:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Leave a message on m:SR/P asking someone to give you import rights on this wiki. Cbrown1023 talk 23:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

When I try, it says I need to be a sysop. Does being a sysop not help? We need to discuss user rights at some point, too... --Tango 23:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I have 'crat status here, as does cfp (and the other board members will have too once they sign in). Who gets to be a sysop needs to be discussed... But atm, I can't import anything. Mike Peel 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

By default, there are no import sources specified for sysops to import. To get around this, you will need to ask a steward on m:SR/P to give you import rights so that you can export the pages on Meta and import them by file upload here. This is a lot faster than opening up a bug and asking them to set the import sources. Cbrown1023 talk 23:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

User rights

No major urgency on this, but I thought I'd start this discussion. We need to decide how we are going to structure user rights on this site. We've already decided (I think) to use protection to handle official pages, so I suggest we request user groups of "Board member" and "Member" be created and restriction levels (ie. options in the list when protecting a page) created for them (having a "Member" group allows us to do online polls very easily - you just protect it to members only and suffrage sorts itself out). I suggest sysop and crat be kept as an independent hierarchy, since there is no need for the board to be the ones handling admin stuff here. --Tango 23:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, is all that necessary? Majorly 23:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Thing like Template:WikiUKDisclosure are legal requirements and it shouldn't be possible for any random vandal to fiddle with them. --Tango 23:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

We can just protect them then. It seems like a lot of bureaucracy to be honest. Sysopship for trusted users. Bureaucrat for board members. Nothing else is needed imo. Majorly 23:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just my programmer mentality, but I like to keep separate things separate. Authority in the charity and ability to administrate the website seems like separate things to me. And I do think a Member group to facilitate polls would be very useful. --Tango 23:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Member group does sound like a good idea. Though there's a danger it might end up being over used (too many pages protected as members only). I'm happy to make anyone I trust a sysop, but I guess we should run things past the board first.--Cfp 23:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The only pages I see any point restricting to members only are polls are other official uses of member powers. Other pages can be semiprotected (ie. restrict to autoconfirmed) if necessary. --Tango 00:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Categories

What is the point of Category:Wikimedia UK (which should contain the whole site) and Category:Templates (which should contain the whole Template namespace)? --Tango 11:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I created them so that things would be easier to find, without having to go through Special:Allpages. Not every page will end up in the Wikimedia UK category; it should end up more like meta:Category:Wikimedia UK once everything's been imported. Mike Peel 14:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

Thanks Tango for spotting and deleting the offensive usernames; can we have a debate about:

1. which behaviour and content policies we adopt here
2. How we communicate this (can we revise the text below the edit box?)
3. how we enforce these policies (blocking, banning, abuse reports)

AndrewRT 23:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

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

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

I'm happy with people to use their discretion, but if you want to put together a set of guidelines that's fine too. And if anyone thinks my bans have been overly harsh I'm happy to change what I'm doing. I don't think there's any risk of us banning someone who could actually contribute to the project unlike on Wikipedia. To be honest though I think if we required log in to edit that would cut off most of it, and it wouldn't really inconvenience any of us. --Cfp 18:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Except for certain people that will (by necessity!) remain nameless who can't remember to log in... ;) --Tango 22:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I think something on the main page explaining what this site is for is all that's required. I think, given that, it should be pretty obvious what is acceptable use. Any non-obvious cases can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. If we find ourselves discussing the same things and reaching the same conclusions repeated, we can write it down for convenience. (That's how it is supposed to work on Wikipedia - policy pages describe common practice, that's all.) --Tango 22:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Books

Is it possible to get the "books" feature that's recently been enabled on en.wp enabled here? I though it might be nice to get a book printed off of all the newsletters. AndrewRT 22:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

A bugzilla request would be needed, I believe. I'm not convinced it would be of much use, though... Mike Peel 23:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be easy enough to get enabled but, like Mike, I'm not sure of the use. Newsletters are only really relevant at the time, is anybody going to want a copy of historical newsletters all nicely bound together? --Tango 23:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC

Below the edit box

Below the edit box there is a text that says:

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

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

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

Excellent cheers! AndrewRT 20:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous editing poll

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

• No. Too many problems caused by anons editing, and there is nothing to gain. It takes less than 30 seconds to create an account. I've never really thought IP editing was a good idea on Wikipedia, but this isn't Wikipedia. Majorly 22:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
• Yes: anonymous editing is one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia, and we should continue in that spirit unless it causes problems. Mike Peel 23:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
• Yes - as long as it isn't causing significant problems (which it isn't so far), then why not? --Tango 23:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
• No. I don't see what we gain by it, and I do see what we risk by it (vandalism, potentially with legal repercussions). On Wikipedia anonymous editing makes sense. We want to make it as easy as conceivably possible to edit a page, and we do not want people to be put off by the small hurdle of having to register. On this wiki that does not apply. Virtually all our potential (non-vandal/lost) editors will already have Wikipedia accounts and will know the system. Those few that will not (if indeed there are any) will be coming from some other organisation with some specific request, and by dint of having gone to the effort of finding this wiki will not be put off by the five second hassle of creating an account. Note that by "anonymous editing" I understand Andrew to mean "editing from an IP address", which obviously is not particularly anonymous. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should prevent people from editing from accounts which give no identity information (which can often be more anonymous than an IP address). --Cfp 03:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
• Neutral. Yes. People from other chapters may want to edit without wanting to bother making another account. I just realised this wiki, surprisingly, uses Wikimedia's shared user database. If it stays that way, then there's not so much benefit to allowing unregistered edits. Angela 04:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
• Yes per Tango. --BozMo 07:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
• No. This is an area for open debate and comment. Create a new account if you want, but have an identity! LoopZilla 08:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

London Loves Wikipedia Project

I've opened a poll at Talk:Projects/Proposals#Poll_on_London_Loves_Wikipedia_project Please could you comment there. AndrewRT 21:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Page name

The page name shown in the browser window is "Wikimedia" - how can we change that to Wikimedia UK? AndrewRT 11:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is a job for the developers, but I may be wrong. --Skenmy 11:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It's set by "$wgSitename" in LocalSettings.php, which needs a developer to be changed. Will ask around... Mike Peel 11:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

meta:User:Werdna has changed it to "Wikimedia UK". Mike Peel 11:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - thanks! AndrewRT 12:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Chapter Agreement Revision

The Wikimedia Foundation has recently published its proposals for a new standard Chaptar Agreement. They are hoping for all chapters to replace their existing chapter agreements with this new one by the end of June.

They have agreed that we are ok to publish the draft in a public forum so our members have an opportunity to comment.

The existing agreement is at Chapter_Agreement and I have uploaded the new draft to Chapter_Agreement_Revision

Please let us have your comments either on the talk page there or here. AndrewRT 21:39, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Public IRC logs

I've started a discussion at Talk:Meetings#Public IRC logs about whether we should continue to make publically available the IRC logs of old IRC discussions. Please let me know what you think there.

Image copyright

Hi all. We seem to be gathering images on this site that don't make their copyright status clear; see pretty much any image currently listed at [1]. How do we sort this? Should we insist that all images are kept on Commons rather than here? Mike Peel 23:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Why not just say that "everything is under GFDL" applies to images as well as text? --Tango 17:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I second Tango's idea. Can we change the text at the top of Special:Upload to say the same as the text when you edit a page (i.e. release everythign under CC etc) AndrewRT 17:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Loves Art & Freedom of Panorama

I see that one of the Wikimedia UK initiatives is the Wikipedia Loves Art program - with the V&A event detailed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Art/V&A rules.

Why is it that the Wikipedia Loves Art V&A event stresses that only objects created before 1923 may be photographed? I assume the 1923 cut off date is derived from the date works become public domain in the US - commons:Template:PD-US. But in the UK, it's different, our Freedom of Panorama laws are much less restrictive, and we should be embracing those, by taking images of modern sculpture, objects and artwork on display in the UK as part of the initiative.

For future Wikipedia Loves Art events in the UK, the pre-1923 rule should not be applied. - hahnchen 15:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that rule simply makes it easier - the UK copyright law is a bit awkward in that it expires 75 years after the author's death, but it may not always be obvious when the author's death was. It's probably also partly due to the Freedom of Panorama rule not applying to pictures, although not all of the things photographed were pictures. There may also have been concerns about meeting both the US and UK copyright laws (as the servers are located in the US), but I don't believe that applies.

There's also complications in that the events are held inside museums, such that the museums have a say in what goes on, what things can be photographed, etc. It might be good to hold an outdoor event, similar to the original Wiki Takes Manhatten, either at the same time or seperately. Mike Peel 20:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

At an institution such as the V&A, 2D artworks are going to be in the minority. A question may be raised however, regarding the permanence of exhibits that Freedom of Panorama laws permit photographic reproduction of. How can you (or the gallery curator) guarantee that an object or artwork will be displayed in public indefinitely, or until it falls out of copyright in an unknown amount of years time? - hahnchen 18:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't it required that the images be uploaded to commons? Commons follows US law. --Tango 03:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

You raise a good point. I was involved in the WLA event at the V&A - being a global project run out of New York, they used a single set of rules. It seemed at the time to be prudent to go along with that. The forthcoming London Loves Wikipedia might do it differently. AndrewRT 17:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You mean life + 70 years don't you Mike? Jarry1250 20:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I did indeed. I'm not too sure where "75 years" came from... Thanks for catching that. Mike Peel 20:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki links do not conform with other Wikimedia sites

The [[w:]] link should go to en.wikipedia as per m:Help:Interwiki linking. However, it links to the Ukranian Wikipedia, because the Mediawiki software assumes that the uk.wikimedia.org domain is for the Ukranian language. - hahnchen 17:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[[wikipedia:]] should work. I guess getting the [[w:]] interwiki link fixed will require a bug report filing... Mike Peel 20:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought that had been fixed. We'll have to get a dev to sort it out. Whoever made the site originally was a little careless and forgot to change the language from the default. I guess when they fixed it they didn't update the interwiki map thing. --Tango 22:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It is possible to get the domain shifted to wikimedia.org.uk? That would make it more consistent, particularly as uk.wikipedia.org is only a letter different. AndrewRT 18:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Adverts

We've had a spate of advertising on the User namespace. I've created a template {{No adverts}} to use to reply to these situations and I've blanked the advertising. Please use {{subst:No adverts}} on the talk page. Should we write a policy for this? AndrewRT 17:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Are the IPs all in a range? (For that matter, how do you check the IP of a logged in user?) --Cfp 18:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

With Checkuser - i'm a checkuser on another project but not here. --Skenmy 20:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Can crats here give people checkuser? --Tango 02:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nope I understand you need to be a steward to make check users. AndrewRT 18:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should be able to conduct our own CU's. Particularly to comply as much as possible with UK data protection laws. Prehaps filing a bug? Seddon 22:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's try and avoid having loads of policy pages. This is a very small wiki, I think we can handle things on a case by case basis and just keep each other informed here. --Tango 02:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

CU Policy is more involved than "just a bug" for WMF projects, but not sure how that stands up for chapter wikis. The Board of an organisation might have some "right" to CheckUser. --Skenmy 17:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The wonders of Brut

Hi everyone, I've just received a bottle of Champagne in the post with a WMUK label on it, but no cover letter! :-) As a result, I'd like to post a general thanks in the hope that whoever sent it reads this message! So thanks! :-D Colds7ream 14:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Petition

[2]

Jarry1250 20:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

As yet, there has been no firm decision (that I know of) saying the public can't freely use such photographs. I suggest letting the NPG saga play out a little more before lobbying the government. --Tango 01:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

IRC bot

I'd quite like (and am happy to code) a bot that sat in #wikimedia-uk and reported changes on the wiki - it could be turned off using a simple command during board meetings and so forth. Would anyone object? Jarry1250 19:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea. I'd keep it turned on during board meetings - it might encourage people to edit more. ;-) Mike Peel 17:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea. It could send periodic reminders of board meetings, etc. as well. --Tango 17:01, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

From [3] it seems that #uk.wikimedia exists on irc.wikimedia.org - so we already have a recent changes feed on IRC. Mike Peel 17:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course, it's pretty inaccessible, but it's a fairly simple job for me to get them piped over in #wikimedia-uk. So yeah, looks like it should be painless. Jarry1250 17:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully everything should be okay now, with changes being reported. With any luck, even this edit will be :). Jarry1250 18:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The bot times out after about two hours, in which case, click the link in the topic to get it back. Jarry1250 18:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I have now set it to automatically restart every 30 minutes, but I don't think this resets the timeout; thus you could be waiting for up to 29 minutes for it to appear :). Edit: Yes, this functionality appears to be working. Jarry1250 19:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

(un-dent) I strongly recommend and advocate the moving of this bot to a different channel, perhaps #wikimedia-uk-rc. We already have #uk.wikimedia that isn't difficult to watch over, and the bot spams what is supposed to be a discussion channel. It will flood our logs during meetings with needless entries, and alerts me (and others) to chat happening in #wikimedia-uk when nothing is actually going on. While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jarry1250, I honestly do not feel that the bot is needed in #wikimedia-uk. --Skenmy 20:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, obviously I disagree about the utility. For example, neither Mike nor I knew of the existence of #uk.wikimedia before I opened this thread, so we must assume that at the moment, at least, finding this functionality is not easy. On the other hand, #wikimedia-uk remains well advertised. Most people do not check recent changes on-wiki, and consequently this would alert them to new discussions outside of their watchlists. On the logging point, the logger(s) is more than welcome to /ignore the bot temporarily or the whole time. In the meantime, everyone else gets increased transparency over edits. On the flooding issue, there is /ignore, but also I would like to point out that outside of meetings, edits per day rarely exceed 10 (if you look at recent days, be sure to exclude my test edits). Likewise, if WMUK expands (which it does), and non-mainspace edits start flooding both #uk.wikimedia and this, we can filter what gets reported ridiculously easily, so that #uk.wikimedia remains a muddle but this just focuses on "important" edits (measured by whatever metric). So, yes, I disagree, but I am not strongly opposed to having a #wikimedia-uk-rc link in the topic of #wikimedia-uk. Jarry1250 21:46, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a fair compromise to me. What I have a problem with is people forcing things upon a channel that may or may not want or need it - not only in this instance. I've had similar points raised in the #wikinews channel, for instance, whereby we ended up having an RSS feed bot that reported tens of stories every hour - very distracting. The bot was moved to #wikinews-en, which has now become an unofficial "tools" channel, as it was otherwise unused for discussion. #wikimedia-uk is a discussion channel, not a reporting and tool channel. Create a channel for that purpose, if you feel it is needed. You are more than welcome to add a pointer to the channel in the topic - the channel is -t :) --Skenmy 06:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is not a question of whether I would find it useful or whether you would; it's a question of a default setting for the random user. On the topic of rate, we're currently running at a few per hour during peak times, but for most of the day absolutely zilch. If edit rate did rocket, then it would obviously have to go. Jarry1250 19:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

So what do you define as "rocket"? Our peak editing times are generally when people are trying to use the channel for discussion - during board meetings, etc. It seems to me like this bot will be causing a problem, even with its' low amount of lines. --Skenmy 19:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Powerpoint Presentations

I'm new here, although not new to Wikimedia; did some anonymous editing from mid-2004 to end of 2005, haven't really had a proper account, did have some on http://en.wikipedia.org but never had email attached to any of them, so can't use them ever again, but I have just come back to Wikimedia now. Anyway, I'm someone who's into IT and can create a PPT file, which could be uploaded here if anyone wants them, in LocalSettings.php, we'd have to enable .ppt files.

Anyone interested in the idea? --Kexford 16:16, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It would be great if you could assist with creating presentations - as per the message I just left on your talk page, both the Schools Project and Workplace Learning Lunches need presentations writing.

Do we want to use powerpoint files for this, given that they're tied to software that isn't freely available? Would it be better to stick to PDF files here on the wiki? Mike Peel 15:26, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, PDFs would be better. In addition to being a freer format they don't have the same negative connotations that Powerpoint presentations have. I was thinking about presentations a few days ago (in relation to that Italy thing that fell through) - should we put together a template so we can have a consistent look and feel to any presentations we give? That, and it would save time when make them if we didn't have to reinvent the wheel. --Tango 23:03, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• Regarding PDFs, using Serif PagePlus's latest versions is a fairly low-budget, but high-quality way to do this. --Kexford 09:49, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Low budget? Why should we need any budget at all? There are plenty of free options. --Tango 15:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

for example? Saga City 17:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

PDFCreator is a prime example. Quatermass 20:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Usability

Hi all. Two thoughts on usability: 1) should we switch to using the Vector skin (the beta) here as default? 2) should we use LiquidThreads? Mike Peel 16:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

• Beta skin? Absolutely! enWN was first to go totally over to it, the biggest issues are getting used to the moved search box and page move/protect hidden in a drop-down.
• LiquidThreads? Not yet; "conventional" page history links don't work with this.

However, I don't know if anyone has done a Vector skin for WordPress. That might be a prerequisite before changing - just so there's a consistent look-n-feel between blog and site. (I'd also like to "steal" such a blog skin for wikinewsie.org). --Brian McNeil 13:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Considering I wrote the current (custom) monobook skin for WordPress, I don't think that putting together a vector version will be a problem... Although if you want to use it on other sites, I'll have to tidy it up first (it currently pulls stylesheets etc. from a fixed URL)... Mike Peel 14:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Havign just used LiquidThreads on the Strategy Wiki I thoughts it was a great improvement and would like to suggest it's adopted here. However, I saw Brian's comments above about it not working with conventional page history links - what does that mean? AndrewRT 17:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki map

Can someone check and request the relevant "standard" interwiki prefixes in bugzilla?

I at least know that n: (for Wikinews) doesn't work, also n:en: is required to get to English, and 'thinks it's going via the Ukraine. --Brian McNeil 13:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Paying for images

Sorry to bother everyone, just a quick question. On a point of principle, will the chapter consider requests for content partnerships which involve a monetary sweetener? I couldn't find any guidance on this from WMF HQ, but there must be some somewhere. Obviously, it would be done on a case-by-case basis, as a last resort and so forth, but are you - er - allowed to? Thanks, Jarry1250 11:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Direct money transfers, i.e. paying for the content: no. Cultural partnerships are all about two-way beneficial relationships; I don't see money helping particularly there. Plus, there's the obligation to make sure that all of the charity's money is spent on charitable activities. However, doing joint activities where WMUK pays some of the costs would seem reasonable to me - e.g. events, carrying out digitization, etc. Mike Peel 12:31, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I think there's also the problem of licensing: I don't think WMUK (or even the WMF) has the power to "buy" content off someone on behalf of Creative Commons or Free Software Foundation to make the content available as free stuff! --Deryck Chan 12:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikimania 2010

Hey folks, just wondering if anyone would be interested in taking a group trip to Poland in the summer for Wikimania? Colds7ream 08:33, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I would be interested. I think we should try and organise a semi-official UK delegation. --Tango 16:28, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Ditto. Mike Peel 16:43, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! :-) Unless anyone else wants to do it, I'll volunteer to have a go at organising the thing (I took my entire AstroSoc over to Florida last summer to see STS-128). Could we discuss it at the next board meeting? Colds7ream 11:45, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good. I've been thinking we should contact a few airlines and see if anyone wants to give us cheap/free flights. Let's discuss it at the meeting after next - the next one really needs to be about the budget, we've put it off too long already. --Tango 17:25, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Any more developments? Colds7ream 16:46, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Not yet. Perhaps it would be worth having a specific (short) IRC meeting to start planning this at some point, rather than waiting for a board meeting? Mike Peel 16:54, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably a good idea. I propose Monday evening, 8pm. --Tango 14:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I won't be able to make that. Counter offer: some time over the weekend? Mike Peel 14:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm very flexible. It would be best if you suggest a specific time. --Tango 14:59, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Had to cancel my reservation, such a pity. aleichem 17:14, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

American English

Is the usage of the word "license" as a noun on the wiki and blog posts intentional? I shudder every time I read it on a British site. But I could appreciate it if it were deliberate (internationalisation?). Jarry1250 19:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It's probably a mistake. When you spend too much time online you end up accidentally picking up American spellings, however much you try to resist it. Can you give examples of where it is used? In some cases, it might be used because it is the WMF, an American organisation, granting the licence, so we use their name for it. In descriptions, rather than names, it should use the British spelling. --Tango 21:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Members userbox

I've created a small userbox at Wikipedia:en:User:Fæ/Userboxes/WMUK rather than using the current page-wide banner. It would be neat if there were a way of confirming membership and at the same time protect privacy through some sort of Chinese wall process. Fæ 09:59, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Anonymous page creation

Hi all, I've had to delete three spam/vandalism pages in the past two days alone so was wondering about disabling page creation by anoymous users. I can't see any reason why to not do this, as any initiative proposals should be created by a logged-in member. Thoughts? Rock drum (talk • contribs) 19:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

On :en I feel that WP:HUMAN tends to be frequently side-stepped, however I have no such feelings about WMUK which is a space intended for creation by its subscribing members though with (hopefully) much wider readership. Consequently I would not object to some constraints on contributions here, though something as weak as enforcing CAPTCHA for all IP edits might be sufficient to deter 80% of casual vandals. Fæ 22:10, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

This is something I've opposed in the past, as I think we should aim to be as open as possible to all. However, to be honest, over the last few years we've seen very little benefits from letting anonymous people edit the site at all, let alone the issue of creating new pages. Of course, I'm not suggesting that we stop all IP edits! So, I agree that it's sensible to disable new page creation by anon users, so long as that still lets them create talk pages. Mike Peel 22:26, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Chapter board meetings - format

Hi everyone, I am Alan Walker, a director from Wikimedia Canada. We are in the process of figuring out how to hold our directors meetings with respect to process and format. I see this chapter has some seniority and I am interested in hearing from anyone who has any thoughts to share on this subject. It seems your chapter uses a mix of mailing list, the wiki and Skype. The best way to reach me is by email or by my Wikimedia Canada Talk Page. Alan.ca 15:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Does any UK resident want a free 1 year subscription to the London Review of Books?

If so, let me know at my talk page. You'll have to e-mail me your name & address, but otherwise no strings. Johnbod 14:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Interwiki links

Despite two requests above, w: still does not work as an interwiki link - eg. w:Haworth. Also, would it be possible to make en: also work - it does on the Commons - eg. en:Haworth. — RHaworth 23:46, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I have just discovered that {{w}} is available (and now working properly) but I would still like the mods above. RHaworth 00:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Change Username

Can anyone tell me how to change my userna,e on this wiki? Thanks.Harrypotter 08:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

As you are harmonizing all your accounts under your SUL, I would ask (again?) in one bite at Wikipedia:USURP or Wikipedia:CHU/S. Complex cases are sometimes worth discussing on the associated talk page to ensure there is no misunderstanding of what you are asking for. Fæ 12:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Chapter scholarships

Hi there. I was wondering whether something like this was ever considered by WMUK. I think it's viable, and might alleviate the foundation's burden by a bit. :-) Mentifisto 21:09, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

No privacy policy

On IRC someone raised the issue of the lack of a page at Wikimedia:Privacy policy on this here wiki. I have no idea how to resolve this. Perhaps a board member can do so, or maybe we can nick something from Meta. Whatever. It's fairly likely that there's probably some legal requirement for us to have something in the privacy policy page. If not, it's still a link in the footer, so we should probably have something there or just have a page pointing to an overall Wikimedia privacy policy on Meta or on the Foundation site or something. Tom Morris 13:03, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I think whatever Meta has to say is the default here. Is there a particularly good page to point to? Fæ 23:45, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I've set the link to point the the WMF's general privacy policy. I figured it's better to have that than nothing at all. Regards, Rock drum (talk • contribs) 11:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Should we bid for Wikimania 2014?

Do people think we should or should not bid for Wikimania in 2014, and crucially are there people out there willing to put the time in to make this happen? If so please signup at Wikimania bid Thanks (This is the end result of a mailing list thread) WereSpielChequers 19:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Blog skin

Hi there, i am wondering if the blog's skin is released under a free licence and if so, where it can be downloaded.

Thanks, 78.144.19.28 15:14, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Addenda for July Reports?

Hi all, (first post on here) Didn't realise there was a space to pass on this news but on 15th July Simon Smith Tagishsimon ran a Wikipedia workshop for post-graduate students of Archaeology, Cultural Heritage Management, Medieval Studies and Eighteenth Century Studies as part of the King's Manor Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of York. Simon was invited to participate after I met him at GLAM/NRM the month before. He generously did so free of charge. Feedback from the 15 participants was very positive and Simon stayed on for a workshop on interdisciplinary studies of the past and the conference's wine reception. PatHadley 08:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - we spotted that when it was happening, but forgot to include it in this month's report. I'll add it in to the August report. :-) Congrats to Simon for doing the workshop, and thanks to yourself for arranging it. Also, welcome to the wiki! :-) Mike Peel 09:14, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

An invitation that isn't mine to make

Hi all, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but I was wondering about whether WMUK would be up for running a wikilounge/some sort of promo-presence at the year's biggest archaeology conference in Birmingham just before Christmas CentralTAG2010? I'm not an organiser for the conference but am co-running a session on social media and other web 2.0 tech in archaeology. It'd be great to have some wikipedians to direct curious archaeologists to after our session! It would also be a great place to promote projects such as User:Johnbod's Ice Age Art and Bronze Age projects. You'd have to contact the organisers (via the website above) soon as I believe they are trying to put together the schedule and facilities. It'd be a great thing to see! PatHadley 13:37, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Pat, I'm going to punt this around the right folks for follow-up. Cheers Fæ 21:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Email watchlist notification

Anybody know why I can't set my preferences to notify me when a page on my watchlist is changed, and if that can be fixed? I could do without another watchlist to check! Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:08, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

That's interesting. I think there may be a dev around who knows why! (I suspect we're missing some extension or aren't running the same MW version as other WM projects. Deryck Chan 17:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

This function is controlled by $wgEnotifWatchlist (and if you like $wgEnotifMinorEdits too). I think it should take ~5 mins to do once someone gets around to it. (idk if they'll want "consensus" or maybe just some verifiable claim that the request came from a board member. or maybe no proof at all, really don't know. certainly something that looks official wouldn't hurt) Jeremyb 05:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I've put in a bugzilla request to resolve this - hopefully shouldn't take too long for them to do. :-) Mike Peel 10:06, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

... and, fixed. Thanks to User:Reedy. :-) Mike Peel 20:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Charity number

Worth mentioning?

See Main page. --Fæ 08:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Special:WantedTemplates

Can someone explain how this special page is created and why we want all the templates listed? Thanks --Fæ 09:54, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

It is generated based on calls to templates that don't exist. See the links for where the templates were called from, which hopefully shows why they're wanted. ;-) Note that those in blue that are struck through already exist (and will be removed from the WantedTemplates list when it's next updated). Mike Peel 12:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

As to why User:Rich Farmbrough is copying over lots of templates to the wiki at the moment (which I presume is the reason behind your message) - that's a separate question best asked to him. ;-) Mike Peel 12:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Cool, I think some of these are a bit pointless on this wiki, but I'm happy with others so I'll focus on more urgent matters. --Fæ 13:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Disclosure in sitenotice

Why has the disclosure been put in the sitenotice? It is really necessary to have it there? Isn't it normal to put those kind of things out of the way at the bottom of a page? Also, if it does need to be there, is it right that it should be dismissable? Either it needs to be there, or it doesn't, I can't see why it would be the choice of the visitor. --Tango 18:37, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, that's a weird thing to do with a sitenotice. I'd like to understand the rationale or if it was some sort of mistake. Reverted it back to empty in the meantime. --Fæ 18:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with it being dismissable. Like lots of stuff, once you've read it you've read it. But maybe it should jusdt belong on About Wikimedia UK. Rich Farmbrough, 14:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC).

I think those notices tend to re-appear every time you log back in which could be a pain. Otherwise the wiki would have to lay down local cookies, probably not a reliable or welcome way of doing things. --Fæ 23:38, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The ideal thing would be for this to go into the page footer - but I can't see how to do that aside from templates. As far as I understand matters, we have to include it wherever the content is formal/on behalf of WMUK, which probably means most pages here (e.g. it should probably be on the minutes, but probably not on the Wikimania bid pages). The site notice definitely isn't the best place for it, though. Mike Peel 00:28, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

We could try adding it to MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright, I think that would pretty much do it. --Tango 05:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yup, that did it, thanks for pointing it out. :-) Mike Peel 12:52, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

User:WOSlinker

If WOSlinker is a bot, could its owner please create a user page explaining why and what it is up to? Thanks --Fæ 21:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm not a bot. What I'm doing is updating occurences of the -moz-border-radius style (which gives the boxes rounded corners) to use the {{border-radius}} template instead which contains border-radius, -moz-border-radius & -webkit-border-radius styles. This will then mean that the rounded corners, which used to only show up in Firefox & other Mozilla browsers, will also show up on IE 9+, Chrome & Safari. -- WOSlinker 23:56, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, a lot of the styling code that's on the pages could be moved into Mediawiki:Common.css which would make the pages a bit neater. -- WOSlinker 23:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. If you leave detailed instructions on my talk page, I can make the necessary changes to Common.css (I know a little CSS, but I've never done much with Common.css). Thanks for your help! --Tango 05:27, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Admins

Hi, Wikimedia:Administrators is our currently very short and simple process for :wmuk sysops. I'm wondering if we should add a constraint that any administrator completely inactive on the site for more than 12 months will have their sysop privilege expire (they can request them again if they become active). This would avoid the risk of an indefinite number of floating unused sysop accounts. Any views on this change or suggestions for other, simple, improvements? --Fæ 15:46, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that would be a good idea. In addition to the usual powers admins have on wikis, admins here also have a ability to edit "official" pages that are protected because the chapter has legal duties to make sure they say the right things. That's a serious power, so it makes sense to keep close tabs on who has it. Unused admin accounts carry two risks - the admin could come back but be out of touch so make serious mistakes, or the account could get hacked and the admin powers used for malicious purposes (of course, that can happen with active accounts too, but with active accounts the gain from them being able to do administrative tasks outweighs the risk, there isn't really any gain from inactive accounts). --Tango 17:33, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Done --Fæ 00:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Foundation listing

Could someone tweak http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Local_chapters to say that we are a charity? Not in my SUL for some reason. Thanks --Fæ 22:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. The WMF wiki doesn't use SUL since it is closed for general editing - you need a separate login for it. Mike Peel 00:02, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikimania 2012 scholarships

The Wikimania 2012 scholarships page is now online. I'm aware that last year Wikimedia UK helped fund some scholarships on top of those provided by the Foundation budget. According to the FAQ, this year chapter scholarships will universally use the same application system as Foundation scholarships, and that applicants will automatically be considered for chapter scholarships as well, where available. Is Wikimedia UK planning to participate in this? CT Cooper · talk 21:29, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

We have a budget that will support people's attendance at Wikimania 2012, but we haven't yet had chance to discuss the details (such as the number of scholarships, the criteria, and the application method). I'd personally love to see us participating in the main application system, but the timing of this may sadly mean that this isn't possible and we may have to make use of an independent application system. In particular, the board's attention is currently focused on the Fundraising and Funds Dissemination discussion, as well as UK-specific activities, that have prevented us from discussing Wikimania 2012 thus far. Mike Peel 21:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not to fussed about applying multiple times as necessary, and I understand the board has plenty of other things to think about. Thank you for your quick response. CT Cooper · talk 22:22, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Mike: If you want to do a separate application process, that's okay I guess. Or we can allow you to review UK applicants (after Feb 16) to the main scholarship system and select some. Either way, please let us know so we can plan accordingly. Cheers. Aude 21:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll see what we can do - but there's so much going on right now that this probably needs to wait at least a week or so before we can start to think about this in any detail. Mike Peel 00:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

To wrap this up: we are offering scholarships via the main Wikimania scholarships program - so please apply there. :-) Thanks. Mike Peel 20:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Excellent, that should make things easier for applicants. CT Cooper · talk 23:07, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Huge foot

Every page on WMUK includes 3 lines saying "Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited, a Charitable Company registered in England and Wales. Registered Company No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office: 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT" in the footer. Do we really need to do this, it seems unsightly? By the way, the Main page duplicates all this information in the body, which seems doubly unsightly. --Fæ 21:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Or at least: the information in that text needs to be on official pages (and correspondence). It doesn't need to be duplicated, though - so can probably be removed from the body of pages. Mike Peel 21:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering if it can be shrunk down, I'm not sure the Co. no., C. no. and full postal address all need to be there as opposed to on a linked contact page. It might also just be shrunk to an even smaller font or just wrapped in a way that does not take up three separate lines. --Fæ 22:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I thought the address, charity number, and registered name had to be on all official pages and that seems to be the easiest way to put them there. I don't see the extra few lines at the bottom as a big deal—it's about the same as is taken up by This page was last modified on 16 January 2012 at 06:24. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. at the bottom of Wikipedia. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Friendly Space policy

Does anyone have counter suggestions with regard to adopting the WMF policy for dealing with harassment at events (wmf:Friendly_space_policy)? A variation was recently created for DC m:GLAMcamp_DC/Friendly_space_policy. Unless we have a reason to create a UK variation, the WMF policy could be linked to from the Events page. --Fæ 08:27, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the need to create a UK-specific version is pretty clear - e.g. from a quick look it needs to say 'Wikimedia UK' rather that 'Wikimedia Foundation', give the appropriate contact details, and be generalised to include all events rather than just conferences. It also needs to have links to the relevant UK law. There's also a couple of general changes that we'd need to make to our event organisation if we adopt this policy - e.g. ensuring that all organisers are clearly identified (by a badge according to that policy - we may want to go for T-shirts instead or similar). So I'd suggest creating a copy of it here and pointing people towards it for discussion, with the aim of putting it forward for adoption at the 11 February board meeting. Mike Peel 14:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I've copied it over to here and adapted it a little for UK needs, although there is still more work to be done. Regards, Rock drum (talk • contribs) 15:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I suggest further discussion for improvement is at Talk:Friendly space policy rather than here. --Fæ 15:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

2012 election

Would anyone care to look at setting up the 2012 election pages for questions and candidate statements? The Board Interest day (11th February) is not that far away and having these pages to refer to would probably be a good idea when explaining our election process. If anyone has ideas of how to improve the way this works, now might be a good time to put these forward. --Fæ 11:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

UK Wikimedian of the Year 2012

Thoughts? Corrections - Comments welcomed Victuallers 17:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Comparison of UK NDA with WMF NDA

According to Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-02-20/Special_report, the WMF is in the habit of asking Wikimedians to sign a NDA for access to some data. Perhaps someone could track it down on-wiki (assuming it has been openly published) so that we can review Non Disclosure Agreement against their best practice? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I signed their NDA when I was helping out with some fundraising stuff while visiting their office. I don't have an electronic copy, and I don't know where the paper copy is. I made them modify their standard one before I would sign it (to make it clearer than it referred onto to things related to what I was doing in the office). While the non-disclosure stuff in pretty much what you would expect, they also have a non-disparagement clause. I discussed it with Mike Godwin (who was general counsel at the time - Geoff might have changed the standard agreement after he took over), who explained that they idea was to stop people using their privileged information to attack the WMF (as Danny Wool once did, if your wiki-memory goes back that far). I can see the logic in that (which is why I did eventually sign it, once appropriately restricted). --Tango (talk) 14:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I was talking to Geoff about this at the finance meeting last weekend. I've dropped him an email to follow up on that and to see what's available here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

House style

For this website and WMUK reports (e.g. the next Annual Report in production) and documents it would be useful to define a local Manual of Style including topics such as colour, plain English, when to use logo variations and so forth. Obviously if it can piggy-back on existing WMF or Wikipedia guidelines then we can simply defer to those pages. Has any of this been mentioned on another page or would it be useful to start creating it from scratch? --Fæ (talk) 11:21, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the new comms person could prepare something? It would be good to have some community consultation, but most of it should be pretty uncontroversial. --Tango (talk) 19:15, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Compliance with blocks and bans elsewhere

At the moment blocks or bans on :wmuk would be considered on a case by case basis. Is there any reason for us to consider the status of long term blocks or bans on Wikimedia projects such as the English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons? Considering that :en is so closely entwined with most of our events, it might be sensible to take the status of a contributor on that project into account when considering how an account should be handled on this wiki. In particular someone with a history of deliberately disrupting those main projects can be argued to be in a default status of failing to comply with the :wmuk defined mission and values. --Fæ (talk) 10:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

As and when situations arise, then that information should be taken into consideration - but I don't think there's a need for us to take any sort of proactive approach here. Mike Peel (talk) 10:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

No disagreement and should it arise, then I think we ought to take into account any long term disruptive history elsewhere to judge how accounts can be trusted for this wiki. In contrast, for Commons the community deliberately ignore the status of current blocks or bans on other projects as irrelevant unless there has been agreement on :meta for a global ban (which we ought to comply with). In general, our contributor community is likely to stay small, so I doubt this will become a significant policy matter. --Fæ (talk) 12:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. We should consider each case on its own merits, but it makes sense to take conduct on other sites into account. --Tango (talk) 19:18, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Request for bot flag

Hi all! Please may User:Thehelpfulbot have the bot flag, I can run a double redirect fixer to empty Special:DoubleRedirects, this already runs without problems on the English Wikipedia and Meta-Wiki. On a site note, could an admin tweak Sidebar from Membership|Join from 'Membership|Join us? The latter sounds a bit more friendly. It may also be a good idea to add a link to the Board itself, so directly under "Organisation". The Helpful One 23:47, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Sure, sounds good, thanks for volunteering to fix these. :-) The only problem is that User:Thehelpfulbot is not currently registered on this wiki, though (the userpage exists, but not the user account). If you can create the account, then I'll set the bot flag for it.

On the sidebar changes: I've changed it to read 'Join us'. I'm not sure about linking to Board since there's already rather a lot of links in the sidebar...

Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Huh! I was sure that I had logged in on this wiki. Thehelpfulbot (talk) 10:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Done. Mike Peel (talk) 00:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)