Water cooler

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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)
I have only had two responses so far from the Board, but have gone ahead and changed the blog post title to "Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release" in line with your suggestion. Chris Keating is currently considering a second blog post to go out over the weekend, that will discuss our improvement plan and should acknowledge the damage and loss of credibility we have seen in the past week. Thanks for your feedback, particularly your comments at Talk:Risk Register. --Fæ (talk) 17:25, 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)
Lexein I really believe you are way overestimating the influence this storm in a teacup has on public confidence in Wikipedia. There has been no allegation that Victuallers has, at any time, done anything that that was not in the interest of making the encyclopedia better. Not one single edit he has done has been shown to be less than neutral in it's content. His work with Gibraltarpedia has been successful in attracting new editors - the most crucial task facing the WMF today. The discussion has been about what might be seen if you were to look crooked and this discussion has been confined to various Wikipedia insider discussion pages, none of which get more that a few thousand visitors. Meanwhile the encyclopedia has millions of visitors all of whom find interesting and useful information which make them think well of Wikipedia and all associated with it.
If Victuallers is available for hire as a consultant then the WMF should hire him right now, full time, to do for the rest of the world what he has done for Monmouth and is doing for Gibraltar. Filceolaire (talk) 19:45, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
If I'm overestimating, good. But the editor influx rates, editing rates, and donation rates will tell. I have not, and nobody else is, making I have not, and nobody else should have made, (typo corr) accusations of malicious misdeeds. We are concerned mostly about the appearance of impropriety, based on the confluence of events as they played out. That almost more than actual misdeeds, damages public perception of organizations and institutions. Wikipedia is almost an institution in stature, and keeping its house actually in order, and appearing to be in order, is becoming more important over time. I think Victualler's editorial work should continue. His project innovation work too, with attention paid to public perception risk analysis; that's just best practices. There is a disconnect between what Wikimedia boards and staff think the mission is, and what Wikipedia editors think the mission is; one word in focus is "collaboration" as it applies to external entities.
If I'm wrong in thinking that Wikipedia should document, but not serve, entities and people, and should remain stubbornly independent even from donors, well, that's certainly a discussion which should be had. --wikipedia:User:Lexein 22:52, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
(Reprise of my response to Roger's disclosures:
Looking at dates in edit logs and discussions, here's how it looks:
  • The sudden creation/expansion/DYKs of all those Gibraltar-related articles has the appearance of serving Gibraltar's presumed desire for more content accessible to tourists with QR codes.
  • It is an uncomfortable coincidence of possibly innocent events.
  • It is arguably pleasing the benefactor, innocent (enthusiastic volunteers are great!), or not (sense of obligation in the mind of a senior editor, or worse, seeking a goal of more articles for the QRcode plaques). It has an unavoidable risk of appearing not to be fully independent. An encyclopedia must, at its core, be, and appear to be, independent.
  • Combined with the paid training of editors, it is a small predictable synaptic leap to the unhappy conclusions drawn by outsiders, and skeptical editors such as myself. Any PR person will remind us that appearance is reality.
In this case, I claim that the order of events matters more than the senior editor imagined.
If (1) the articles had already slowly expanded, and no DYKs had been sought, then Gibraltar had said, "Cool, we want to QRcode the nation!", my concerns would be largely, but not completely, addressed. Then, any consultation (paid or unpaid) would have been related solely to the creation of QRcode plaques to existing articles, a valid use and access of Wikipedia content, and could have been treated as a firewalled, non-conflicting activity.
If (2) (Roger's disclosures) had been widely publicly announced by Gibraltar and WMUK a) at the announcement of Gibraltarpedia, or b) instantly upon the breaking of the story, the damage may have been severely reduced. IMHO.)
End of reprise Addendum to (2): ... and the story would have gotten little or no traction.--User:Lexein (Talk)23:26, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Lexein, one of the core values of Wikipedia is civility. I'll point out that there are better ways to express disagreement than "your notion of reality is distorted..." This isn't always the reason why people disagree with you.
Expansion and review of lots of Gibraltar-related articles is in line with Wikipedia's mission and also Wikimedia UK's mission "to help people and organisations build and preserve open knowledge to share and use freely." Note that I cite Wikimedia UK's actual mission, not some distorted version from my own mind. Not that Wikimedia UK has directly made GibraltarpediA happen, but from our mission you can see why Wikimedia UK and the wider community should and do look fondly on the project. Your language is a bit opaque as to what exactly is bad about this happening (as opposed to what people will think might bad if they are misinformed).
As for "Any PR person will remind us that appearance is reality." Yes they will. And you'll believe them? I don't: it reminds me of Orwell.
As a side point, why didn't you raise these objections about the MonmouthpediA project?
An enormous part of the work Wikimedia does is in collaboration. To make the whole of human knowledge freely available, we have to work with the people who create, preserve and curate that knowledge. Often that's individuals. Often it's GLAMs, universities, scholarly societies, and so on. We cannot achieve the Wikipedia vision, in its fullest sense, without their help. Hence Wikipedians in residence, joint events and the other kinds of collaboration. Getting a WIR fully funded by the AHRC is a huge success, and well done to the Wikimedians who negotiated it. Wikimedia UK has never hidden this: in fact collaborations are trumpeted on this site, the blog, the annual report and media coverage. You need to spell out in clear language how you demarcate the cases where collaboration violates independence, why GibraltarpediA is such a case, and why Wikimedians being "promotional of Wikipedia" is bad.
Presumably you're not presuming to speak for all Wikipedia editors. I'm a Wikipedia editor, and believe enough in Wikipedia's mission to devote serious time to it, but I don't fit into the "Wikipedia editors" part of your sentence about disconnect. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
"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?" No, there seems to be a logical category error in putting this into a timeline. Gilbraltar always want to increase their tourism and we always want to bring the sum of human knowledge freely to the whole world. Wikipedia articles on every topic should be expanded to be the more reliable and comprehensive; there are no time parameters for when our goals should happen, just opportunities that make them more likely to happen. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Filceolaire, thanks. I agree with you that the neutrality of the editing hasn't been credibly impugned, and I expect that if there had been promotional edits by Roger, Wikimedia UK's detractors would be posting links to them everywhere. I hope the future produces a Bristol-pediA, Highlands-pediA and (literally) Timbuktu-pediA. I hope these things happen all over the world, with the collaboration of local volunteers and organisations, and so bring in many new people and partners who didn't realise how they could actually participate in Wikipedia's mission. So the volunteers who have pushed ahead with this and shown it can be done need to be congratulated, not blocked and disavowed. MartinPoulter (talk) 14:56, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I rephrase: your wish for what the WMUK's mission should be differs from what the WMUK's mission is, and both differ from WMF's mission, and the encyclopedia's mission.
This narrow defense on the grounds of "there's no rule against what was done" is at the heart of the problem. It's narrowminded, sophist, amoral, and stands in arms-folded smug disregard for the intent and spirit of the mission of the encyclopedia. Actions gotten away with are not actions provably good.
I think it's amusing that you're repetitively demanding proof of promotion of Wikipedia, as if that were a standalone complaint. It is not, as I have repeatedly made clear. You have, however, made me aware of a previously unnoticedproblem: quid pro quo. Promotion of Wikipedia on plaques in exchange for promotion of Gibraltar on Wikipedia. Thank you. This whole ghastly affair tears at the heart of Wikipedia's independence from outside influence, when that influence can be traded directly or indirectly.
This pretense of nonunderstanding is appalling. Since you require it, I shall explain the meanings of simple English sentences, and repeat the context of a sentence within the sentence, for you:
"It's fine that articles were written and expanded, but that should have been done long before Gibraltar ever expressed any interest to Wikipedia staff or volunteers in having Wikipedia editors create and expand Gibraltar-related articles for the benefit of Gibraltar tourism. The order of operations matters. The separation of external and internal activities matters. Who does what matters. Motivations matter. It beggars belief that these things do not matter to you.
Wikipedia should serve no master other than its own five pillars and the body of consensus-based policies and guidelines established over time. In my opinion the needs of the encyclopedia (credibility, independence, neutrality) outweigh the "mission" of its parent organization or nascent chapter thereof.
I do not care for Monmouthpedia either. There seems to have been less controversy about it, even though Victuallers claims it was all done exactly the same way as Gibraltarpedia; it obviously was not, for if it had been, it would have received controversial coverage too, and should have been shut, disavowed, and salted.
It's very simple: No Wikipedia project, which is sponsored, driven, demanded, suggested, hinted at, or requested by any external entity, should exist to create or expand articles about that entity, especially where that entity stands to benefit directly or indirectly (financially, for publicity, etc). That is, uncontroversially, the definition of conflict of interest, undue weight, thumb-on-scale, whatever-you-want-to-call-it: it has the stench of corruption, patronage, and non-independence. I have grave concerns about perversion of the aims of GLAM, as well, but that is not my target here. I'm appalled, but not surprised, that you are steadfastly refusing to see the (to me) obvious perversion of the encyclopedia's mission, in deference to your (or your chapter's) self-interested version of mission. No bureaucracy tolerates attention to its operation, or threats to its existence.
Our mission is to expand the documentation of knowledge, but not at the expense, or appearance of expense of independence, neutrality, and credibility. Volunteers are fine. Spontaneous actions are fine. Massaged, managed, or otherwise influenced creation of public relations coups for external entities are not fine. Not at all. --Lexein (talk) 18:03, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree entirely with Lexein, and would like to expand on one point. It is said that no evidence has been produced of "whitewashing" or promotion in the articles written about Gibraltar. Maybe not, but that is not the only way in which bias can be introduced that favours a client. Bias in the UNDUE sense can be produced by helping a tourist board to recruit editors with the specific aim of writing articles about their tourist attractions. When this is done as a project whose declared aim is "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia", Wikipedia has strayed from its educational mission and is being used.
There now seems to be some back-pedalling, with claims that all this is nothing to do with WM-UK, but from the Gibraltar press-releases that is clearly not the impression they have; nor are the distinctions between Wikipedia, the WMF and WM-UK clear to the outside world. The highly undesirable message going out is "Here's a way to do marketing on the cheap: pay some money in the right place and Wikipedia will come and help boost your tourism!""
One reason why Wikipedia does not carry advertising is that our editorial integrity might be compromised, or perceived to be compromised, by a wish to please, or not to offend, the advertisers. Getting into bed with a marketing organization like the Gibraltar Tourist Board carries exactly the same risk. It may be too late to close down Gibraltarpedia, but we should learn from the public perception of it, and never do another. A public announcement that we have understood why it was a mistake might do something to alleviate the damage. --wikipedia:User:JohnCD (talk) 22:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Lexein, I'll repeat that your theories about why people disagree with you are not necessarily correct. From the tone of this latest message and your edit summary, you're not keeping calm in this discussion. Nor are you addressing the points I set out: insisting repeatedly that the truth is obvious to you is not the way to progress a rational debate.
You accuse me of pretending not to understand your points: that's a direct accusation of bad faith. I'm giving you my honest opinions, and if you can't accept that, then what is the point of having the discussion?
In particular the theory that my opinions come from "No bureaucracy tolerates attention to its operation..." at least stands in need of explanation. What bureaucracy do you think I'm part of (apart from Wikipedia)? As for "self-interested version of mission", I quoted and linked the exact wording of the mission to refute your claim that my mind had created a distortion. If you want to insist that the words I quoted and the words on the page I linked are different, then go ahead. MartinPoulter (talk) 23:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Martin, I get it. You're caught out, and you hate it. Your focus on me, rather than the substantive issues, is telling. I ignored your de minimus quote of "to help people and organisations build and preserve open knowledge to share and use freely" as a favor to you. It dangerously omits all mention of integrity, ethical boundaries on promotion, conflict of interest, and the mission of the encyclopedia: to document (but not serve), entities and persons. In fact, that particular quoted wording is, in my opinion, tailored with public relations in mind, with no protections of the encyclopedia's integrity whatsoever. If you maintain that that is WMUK's mission and intention, full stop, then it is a mission which is destined, at every promotional step, to continually undermine the encyclopedia's mission as a high integrity, trusted entity. Is it not your argument that that mission permits steering of creation/expansion of content by anyone who requests it, under rubric of its vague wording? --Lexein (talk) 05:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
John, thanks for weighing in: hopefully you'll be able to get across Lexein's points but in a way that Lexein is unwilling to. Just so that I know where you are coming from, can you set out your stance on cultural partnerships? The donation of thousands of Commons images from the Bundesarchiv resulted in increased commercial interest in that archive's holdings, and arguably a disproportionate weight of content in Commons about German foreign settlements in the 19th and early 20th Century. A local museum, by hosting events for Wikipedians, might benefit in terms of better articles about its holdings and hence increased public interest. It might even be the best use of their time if public interest is what they want (and surely it is). Do these collaborations, which result in more of the world's knowledge and culture being made freely and openly accessible to the whole planet, undermine Wikipedia's educational mission? MartinPoulter (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
No, those collaborations do not, nor do any of the "Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums" at which the GLAM project is aimed, because in all those cases the aim of the institution concerned lines up with our aim, to make knowledge freely available. The difference here is that the aim of the other party is commercial: "marketing Gibraltar as a tourist product through Wikipedia." Wikipedia is not for marketing anything, and I do not know what this project is doing under the GLAM umbrella.
It is alarming to read that Roger Bamkin has been "flooded with invitations from places around the world" who want to exploit Wikipedia in this way. This should be nipped in the bud. I think en:wp needs to set up some kind of gateway or approval mechanism for proposed joint collaborations which imply that Wikipedia is a partner but do not come under the strict definition of GLAM. --wikipedia:User:JohnCD (talk) 11:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I have made a suggestion on those lines at wikipedia:WP:VPR#Pre-approval of collaborations. --wikipedia:User:JohnCD (talk) 22:33, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Agreed (one up), and well stated with links I failed to find earlier, JohnCD. The scale of involvement and the scale of the entity are important, as are the motivations of all involved parties. WMUK can step in and ensure that the motivations of involved parties are on the right side of foundation goals and the encyclopedia's independence and credibility. A museum is a different kind of entity than a government, with proportionally less ability to damage the independence, integrity, and credibility of the encyclopedia. --Lexein (talk) 00:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Martin, the only "increased commercial interest" I am aware of is that some chap started selling the Bundesarchiv images on ebay, pretending he had the rights to them, and that the Bundesarchiv reluctantly ceased its cooperation with Wikimedia as a result. [1] --Andreas JN 11:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm calling wikipedia:WP:UNCIVIL, Martin, for sideswiping me by name, above, while addressing another editor. Good grief. You've taken no stance here but that somehow I owe you something, while ignoring the quite positive interaction with Fae, above. Further, you've ignored scale. Against your not-much quid-pro-quo or arguably small-change examples above, I offer that newspaper and magazine editorial and advertising departments try to maintain a "firewall" between the two departments; where collaboration is unavoidable, it is called "advertorial", or "sponsored section", or "full disclosure of personal interest." We cite those sources, trusting that they will do their best to maintain their independence and editorial integrity, and we refrain from citing their ad-collaborative pieces. Wikipedia does not invite them to soirees to curry more articles we can use, that would be silly.
Alternative to shut/disavow/salt: Wikipedia projects and articles engendered from outside interests should be clearly labeled as follows (example):
This article was created (greatly expanded, pick one) under the auspices of promotional/collaborational project wikipedia:WP:Gibraltarpedia at the request of, and with the assistance from, the government of wikipedia:Gibraltar. At the time of the addition of this notice, the article met Wikipedia standards for neutrality, notability, and verifiability. This advisory tag will be removed in 2017, five years from the date of project-related creation/expansion.
You ask a question which is at once rhetorical, generalist and de minimus, omitting, or refusing to admit, crucial details differentiating those examples from this one. I repeat: The order of operations matters. The separation of external and internal activities matters. Who does what matters. Motivations matter. Martin, I chuckle when it seems you don't understand me, but I straighten up when it seems that you do understand, but still refuse to concede even one of my points, just because I wrote it. I reject any advertising or public relations use of Wikipedia, which implies that Wikipedia endorses, or supports, or is beholden to, or is not independent from, or is in any other way related to, the advertiser. In this case, Gibraltar. (No disrespect, Gibraltar, I'm sure you're very nice. Somebody should have warned you that Wikipedia in order to be credible, must be independent, and continue to also appear to be independent from outside interests, even nice ones.) --Lexein (talk) 05:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Lexein: You phrase all you pronouncements as absolute rules: what you reject; what you demand should be done, but Lexein you do not run Wikipedia and you don't get to decide what everyone else does.
The biggest crisis facing wikipedia is the reduction in editors. One of the the measures WMUK has taken to address this is to reach out to other organisations - museums, libraries, local councils, professional organisations, charities. Under your rules every one of these could be seen as having a Conflict Of Interest. In fact under your rules most editors and contributors to Wikipedia have a COI or at the very least they could be seen to have a COI because what attracts them to edit an article is their Interest in that topic. We work with Cancer UK on cancer articles but some Cancer research uses live animals; does that mean our articles on vivisection are no longer neutral?
Your proposal will drive more editors away and leave us with a Wikipedia which is sterile and pure and frozen in amber.
The Gibraltarpedia project is an experiment. It is different from what we have done before. It may be an amazing success. It may be a colossal failure. It may be somewhere in between. WMUK should encourage this experiment but watch it and see how it turns out. So far we have identified one way in which it is different from our usual practice. The flood of Gib DYKs has got some attention and scrutiny but not one person has found an edit which is improper or fails to improve the encyclopedia so there is no reason to call off this experiment yet. Opening up the patient for a post mortem before they are dead is not appropriate. Lets see how this turns out first. Filceolaire (talk) 18:04, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't see "absolute" in my writing. I do see stern and dire and protectionist. I tire (wouldn't you?) of writing "IMHO" in every single sentence. I despair, and bridle: nobody else is suggesting, or supporting, concrete safeguards to the integrity, credibility, and independence of the encyclopedia from massive interference or grooming from outside interests. Nobody else is suggesting any way to reduce the appearance of impropriety. If 5-year tagging of outside-interest-sponsored-project-driven (farmed) articles will deter article farming, good! Maybe there's a more creative, less heavy-handed, cleaner approach, posing less risk to the encyclopedia's integrity. Consider this: if outside entities are gung-ho altruistically interested in supporting the creation of an encyclopedia for the ages, full stop, then they really shouldn't care what articles are created. Yes, there is self-interest, and that doesn't have to be ignored. So:
  • Second alternative to shut/disavow/salt to diffuse the effects of excessive influence and appearance of impropriety in a single area of article development: write two-for-Wikipedia to get one-for-the-project. To get an (externally-supported) Project (e.g. Gibraltar-related) article through DYK, also create/expand two non-Project DYK-ready articles from (say) the WP:Requested articles queue. This serves encyclopedia expansion, and greatly reduces almost all appearance of impropriety, IMHO. It makes the sponsor look better. This is modeled on DYK itself; effort reaps reward.
It's a non-onerous PR tax, and an influence tax. I'd call it "Here's the deal." The training for the editors is the same, and their experience researching, writing and editing three different article topics has value. Let's face it, who wants one DYK when you can achieve three?
I don't really see the editor attrition problem being addressed by single-purpose-focussed Project article creation sprints - perhaps that's not what you meant. I do value experiments: I wish Gibraltarpedia had been couched that way, but it wasn't, as JohnCD linked above. Finally: I must comment on the assertion that "not one person has found an edit which is improper" - I probably should go through and mark the dubious sources I spotted in one article. But so far, I've edited only wikipedia:Gibraltarpedia for ref expansion, to avoid muddying any of the discussion waters. --Lexein (talk) 00:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Grants and scholarships

I was looking for detailed information on macrogrants, travel grants and scholarships the other day, but was unable to find any on this site.

Would it be possible to update these pages with the missing details, so that we have full transparency? Thanks. --Andreas JN 20:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Andreas, we have all been so busy this week reading your dozens of multiply-posted screeds that other stuff has been piling up. This information would take some time to compile, which is no doubt why the pages have become outdated. I'm not sure when we will be able to do it. I'm sure a good deal of it is on this wiki somewhere, though I'm not sure where. This meta page shows 2012 Wikimania scholarships at 6 full + 3 part for £6,000, which sounds about right, but with Olympic year air fares I expect the actual cost was a bit more more - the air fares were around £550 each. I don't think anyone has used the Macrogrants process. We did award 4 scholarships for India, 3 from the UK (Tony Sant, WereSpielCheckers, Vinesh Patel) & 1 from India. The budget was £2,650 and the actuals about the same. These were in the 2010/11 financial year, before the office took over the accounting function at the start of the current FY this February. Johnbod (talk) 21:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Come on John, behave like an adult. These pages have not been edited for many, many months; it's not a question of last week. Thank you for the informative part of your post. This page here [2] says, "Macrogrants are for grants over £250, typically up to £2,000, and have included activities such as Geovation". That sounds like there has been a macrogrant for Geovation. I understand you're busy right now, but this information should be updated before too long. Andreas JN 23:37, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
You just can't avoid the abuse, can you! I would point out that the first two links listed above are to the same page. These are Mike Peel pages and no doubt he will respond. Johnbod (talk) 02:56, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that needs correction to express this as a possible future grant, I am sure Mike will do so when he has more time. As the GLAM budget holder, I am only aware of some travel expenses (economy train fares) in compliance with our Expenses Policy to take part in the event rather than a grant. In my records I have email correspondence on the 18th June approving expenses for GeoVation Camp but rejecting a request for per diem payments as I required this event to be receipted expenses only. A co-funding proposal has been received and is currently under review as per the minutes of our most recent public and open board meeting. The trustees planned to discuss it and make a decision this week, but we have been fully occupied dealing with unplanned responses to inquiries and allegations to deal with new proposals and so they have been deferred, along with many others, for an undefined period. --Fæ (talk) 05:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. There needs to be clarity whether Geovation, for which Roger and Robin were reportedly awarded £17,500 in funds, is a Wikimedia UK project or not.
At present, there is conflicting information. I have found the following, and please let me know if there are any errors or omissions:
  • The bid said, "Wikimedia UK would be asked to run the scheme, employing Wikipedians, just as the National Library does in London... and the National Museum etc. Their help would be crucial. Welsh Wicipedians have also shown their enthusiasm and would filter out any unwanted vandalism."]
  • Trustee Doug Taylor on the other hand said on Jimbo's talk page, "I am unaware of any WMUK commitment to running the project" and "The Board are hopefully discussing the Geovation bid tonight as stated on the WMUK wiki, so we may be able to update the present position then. I understand that the bid will seek matched funding from one of the Welsh agencies and will include the employment (via an open advertisement) of a manager to run the project, so I think that it is a mistaken reading of the bid to conclude that WMUK will be running it."
  • The project is listed among Roger's Declarations of Interest: "Roger is part of a successful Geovation bid with Andy Mabbett, Robin Owain and John Cummings. This means that he is likely to be talking to many councils in Wales." As declarations of interest are by definition for interests external to WMUK that could generate conflicts of interest, this indicates the Geovation bid is not a Wikimedia UK project (even though its documentation on the Geovation site mentioned an envisaged Wikimedia UK involvement).
So I assume that the £17,500 went to Roger and Robin (and possibly the other names mentioned in his declaration of interest). Now I don't begrudge them the money. This is a good project. But if the money went to them personally, and Wikimedia UK has nothing to do with it, why then should Wikimedia UK have funded their travel expenses? And why should there even have been a request for per diem expenses, if Wikimedia UK was not going to be the recipient of the award money? And why were travel expenses approved if it was not even clear at the time whether this was going to be a Wikimedia UK project or not? The absence of any documentation naming the amount of travel expenses awarded and who the recipients were does not help here either. Andreas JN 13:33, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
There have been changes here - can we get Robain's report to the Board on September 8th up here, linked from the board meeting reports? From memory, the project will now be managed by a new Welsh non-profit company, who will get this and any future grants or WMUK money for this project. Originally we were going to manage it & now we won't. One reason is that a specifically Welsh body can help with getting grants. The project remains well within WMUK's mission, & I think the limited support given so far, plus some future support, is an appropriate use of funds. Johnbod (talk) 16:23, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Are you saying it is an appropriate use of Wikimedia supporters' donations to pay travel expenses for a Wikimedia UK director (and/or other Wikipedians connected with the project) so that he can get a £17,500 grant for himself? Andreas JN 20:46, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
No. The proposal is for a co-funded project with several partners and delivered using open and transparent processes; the project has yet to start or be accepted by Wikimedia UK as we are at the proposal stage. The Mission of Wikimedia UK is to preserve open knowledge to share and use freely, and that is not limited to Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects. The headline here is that for the cost of a few train fares and overnight accommodation from Wikimedia UK (in compliance with our Expenses Policy), Robin and his bid team were awarded £17,500 to spend directly to the benefit of open knowledge projects (as detailed in Robin's presented Venture plan), this includes creating content underpinned by Ordnance Survey open data, mobile use of Wikipedia and use of other open knowledge projects such as Europeana through better use of geotags.
The £17,500 prize money is strictly limited under the terms of the competition to the commitments of the Venture Plan, it cannot be spent on anything else. I have a copy of "Venture Plan Final Draft v3.0.doc" in my email and it matches details presented at the most recent Board meeting in Coventry. Our decision for the charity to cover economy train fares and accommodation for four people to go to the GeoVation Camp was based on this understanding of the project as presented by Robin. To avoid any misunderstanding, I have not uploaded that draft to this wiki, though I am sure Robin can make the final version publicly available, along with other documents that support the proposal, and I will ensure these are published on-wiki as part of our proposal review process.
So far none of the prize money of £17,500 has been drawn down, and for the purpose of meeting matched funding conditions from other prospective funding bodies, it will now probably be placed a Welsh company specifically set up for the purpose. We expect to receive a fuller proposal on this shortly, asking for a grant from Wikimedia UK as part of a range of funders. --Fæ (talk) 06:47, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Fæ.
  1. I take it the four individuals correspond to the four names mentioned here in relation to the bid?
    Yes. --Fæ (talk) 10:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  2. Trustee_Expenses_2012-2013 says it has not been updated since 24 May 2012, and the relevant items are not yet listed there.
    I have no idea if Roger actually claimed any money, that would have to be checked by the Office Manager. --Fæ (talk) 10:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  3. Having the draft venture plan available would be very useful, as this was the plan on the basis of which these WMUK expenses were allowed. Could you make it public?
    Yes, but not the draft. As mentioned above, I or another Board member shall make the Venture Plan public on this wiki when a final version is presented that supports Robin's proposal. Publishing an old draft that may not reflect the current proposal is likely to cause more confusion than clarification. --Fæ (talk) 10:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  4. Most importantly though, does the draft venture plan foresee the provision of paid consultancy or other services by any of these four individuals, in relation to QRpedia or any other elements of the venture? Andreas JN 09:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
    Yes. This is one of the matters that the trustees are currently reviewing with Robin, and asking for clarification on, before Wikimedia UK would consider providing any funding.
    As an addendum to my last comment, the terms of the prize can be seen in Section 11 of Geovation's prize rules here on the GeoVation blog. The Wikimedia UK Board is looking at whether it is possible or desirable for Wikimedia UK to receive the prize money directly. --Fæ (talk) 10:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
    Thanks. Glad to hear it's being looked at. --Andreas JN 11:24, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
    Generally speaking, from an ordinary WMUK member's perspective, it always feels and looks problematic when trustees or other members who have a personal business interest in attending an event have their expenses paid by the charity. It doesn't feel right. They are attending – at least in part – to further their private careers and livelihoods. Cf. [3]. That's not what donors give us money for. It would never occur to me to hand in an expenses claim to WMUK if the trip I was undertaking were intended to end up benefiting my private business. If the job is a one-off, I might adjust my quote to reflect any significant outlay I have had, but that would then come out of the overall project fund, not the WMUK share of that fund. This applies all the more if it is a trustee. --Andreas JN 17:05, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Generally speaking, from this WMUK members perspective, providing a small grant to help get an exciting project, like Geovation, started seems like exactly the right thing to spend WMUK's money on. In this case it seems like a spectacular success in that a grant of a couple of hundred for travel expenses has pried loose a grant of £17,000 from other parties for this project. I hope WMUK will keep in touch with this project and be prepared to come up with more funds if that would help in the next stage. Well done Roger. Filceolaire (talk) 18:22, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think I have a problem with supporting the project, but I do have a problem with financially supporting individuals who are standing to make money from the project anyway. Just think about how it will look to donors and the general public. Andreas JN 20:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
You may find it reassuring to note that my first things I asked the bid team to confirm (on 15 June 2012) when we were asked to pay travel and accommodation expenses included:
  • There is no conflict of interest for the team members that has yet to be declared (noting that commercial value may be part of the benefits of any innovation and QRpedia is a likely part of the innovation)
  • There has been an open process for any other volunteers to take part and take advantage of this sponsorship
  • Any prize money will be committed to related (open knowledge) Wikimedia UK projects
Amongst the responses and documents, Robin sent me an email (18 June 2012) which confirmed in large type "Transparency must be fundamental to any Grant applications". I have no doubt that the documents to support the proposal will provide the transparency we require as part of the Wikimedia UK Values and Robin supports. As pointed out earlier, I will ensure the documents are made available publicly on-wiki well before Wikimedia UK makes a decision either way, as was always our intention. By the way, "Wikimedia UK projects" is odd phrasing of mine, this is not "Wikimedia projects" but projects that Wikimedia UK would recognize under our Activity Plan. I would expect a Welsh coastal path project like this could become one of our projects as it may involve some open knowledge projects that are not "Wikimedia", but it still fulfils our Mission and engages volunteers that can be supported by Wikimedia UK. --Fæ (talk) 21:16, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Okay; but you did confirm above that the draft venture plan foresaw the individuals providing paid services for their own account (which would be an undeclared conflict of interest if they declared no conflicts of interest to you at the time), and that as of now the money is not going to WMUK, but to them (and that you are looking to perhaps change that). Correct? Andreas JN 01:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Summary for GeoVation

The only declarations of interest we currently require to be made to the board or publicly are those of trustees. The Board has previously discussed creating requirements for declarations from members and volunteers, however this is well beyond straight-forward Charity Commission guidelines and we have reached no position to date, a matter you may wish to raise separately. This declaration was made, on 21 July 2012, by Roger while he was a trustee [4] "Roger is part of a successful Geovation bid with Andy Mabbett, Robin Owain and John Cummings." As the proposal has yet to be agreed, the possible future opportunity for Roger to be paid for contract work as part of this project was hypothetical but known to the board from the time of the first drafts from Robin and continues to be a serious question for the proposal to address before Wikimedia UK would consider co-funding, this alone may well be a reason for the proposal review team to recommend rejecting the project, particularly when judged against my question raised on 15 June as to whether "There has been an open process for any other volunteers to take part and take advantage of this sponsorship". To reiterate, we have made no commitment to fund the project.

The question of the flow of money is not straight forward due to requirements of co-funding bodies, this has been discussed and challenged previously in a Board meeting and a decision has yet to be made on how best to implement this in a way that satisfies the requirements of all co-funders. I reiterate, the money cannot be spent on anything other than to the benefit of open knowledge projects as presented to GeoVation. I suggest you take a closer look at the Geovation Terms, especially section 11.3 which acts as a very clear penalty clause.

In summary, as with any large proposal the devil is in the details, there are questions and these must be addressed before Wikimedia UK considers putting any funds into this future proposed project (which comes to us with £17,500 in the black) and I raised these some time ago. The project is an innovative and on-mission open knowledge project. Some details of implementation, especially openness for volunteers, need to be addressed before Wikimedia UK will consider becoming a co-funder but were I to fish for reasons to aggressively shoot it down in flames in public, based on draft documents several months old, just after the Coventry Board presentation and before the bid team has finalized their proposal to Wikimedia UK based on our feedback, this would seem to be creating confusion, carnage and bad faith just for the hell of it. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 06:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

What budget did the team present along with their bid? Presumably they had to give some indication of how they were going to fund the remainder of the budget that isn't covered by the £17,500. Was the bid presented with an assumption that WMUK would be co-funding it? --Tango (talk) 11:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
1. Required or not, you said above that you did ask all participants about conflicts of interest. 2. If people went to the meeting in the expectation of getting paid contract work for themselves from this non-profit project, then WMUK should not have paid their expenses, even more so if as you now say openness for volunteers was in question. That's nothing against the project per se, just a somewhat worrying indication about how private business and charity roles seem to have become mixed and blurred. Please get the pages on this wiki that are supposed to document the various travel grants, microgrants and macrogrants updated so we can see who has received what and why. --Andreas JN 13:39, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

QR codes

After several months of delays we now know that the chapter is not being given QRpedia.org but only qrwp.org. I've been keeping a quarter of an eye on this for some time, but got quite complacent when I saw that board minutes or agendas had been talking about the transfer of QRpedia.

Now that we know that we have one but not the other I've got some concerns.

  1. Currently qrwp.org simply redirects to QRpedia.org, but presumably we could redirect it if in future we chose to part company with QRpedia, or if they parted company with us. Is that the case and if so is the chapter now going to take steps to replace our current use of QRpedia.org?
  2. Are any of the QR code plaques linked directly to QRpedia.org or do they all go indirectly via qrwp.org?
  3. It doesn't seem appropriate for us to be promoting QRpedia as a brand if it isn't ours, it doesn't belong to another compatible charity and while it doesn't currently show an ad to people using it, it could in the future. Can I suggest that the UK chapter stop using the name QRpedia, pick a new name for its QR codes project and announce that to the movement.

On a side note. My thanks to Roger and everyone else involved for developing this wonderful system, for giving us qrwp.org and for releasing the code under an open license. I haven't been a party to the discussions that have brought us to the current sitaution, and I don't want to sound like I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. But now we know what's ours and what isn't, there are some practical steps that need taking. WereSpielChequers (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

That's disappointing, especially after the recent assurance from Jon on the wikimediauk-l mailing list that transferring both domain names was just a formality. [5] What happened? --Andreas JN 17:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Well according to the chapter blog of two days ago they've agreed to give qrwp.org to the Chapter. So unless I've misinterpreted that blog post we are being given less than perhaps some were expecting. WereSpielChequers (talk) 18:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Andreas, could you provide a link where Jon makes the statement you claim? I cannot see it on the email you linked to. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:04, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry; I grabbed the wrong URL. The right one is this (the one I posted was for the post immediately preceding it). What Jon said was, "We have been working on an agreement solidly for the last two months. Should be agreed VERY shortly. No cock ups OR conspiracies just very complicated law. Jon." Apologies again for the mix-up. --Andreas JN 20:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the correction. The email from Jon makes no statement or assurance about "transferring both domain names". As you have pointed out, he does say "just very complicated law", which was probably not intended to give the impression that it was only formality as "very complicated law" is rarely that simple. As all the people involved are busy dealing with other urgent and important events, you might expect this to cause a delay in finalizing our QRpedia agreement. I am not currently involved in the negotiation with Terence and Roger, so I will leave it to those who are to consider how to reply, appropriately, to WSC's questions. --Fæ (talk) 20:20, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Is the negotiation complex? I've donated domains to organisations before, it is a fairly simple process involving... me transferring the domain. Trademarks (and if any exist that seems silly) can be signed over with simplicity. If they want to donate it they can, if they don't (and I wouldn't blame them after the last week) then fine. But as the project is open source it should be fairly easy for WMUK to set it up under a different "brand". Wherein lies the "negotiation"? Makes me cautious. --ErrantX (talk) 21:25, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes it is complicated. Spelling out the precise details of the negotiation would hardly be a sensible thing to go public with, until the negotiation is complete. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 21:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Sounds a little like a waste of volunteer time then. Not to mention oddly secretive. Better just to set up the code ourselves. --ErrantX (talk) 22:04, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
As an unpaid volunteer, I agree that this negotiation which started last summer, has wasted a huge amount of my time. As for secretive, could you explain how to successfully run a complicated negotiation in the glare of the public eye? The code is open source, this means that anyone can set up a similar service, this was never an issue. As mentioned, I cannot answer WSC's questions, so I will step away from this thread and therefore save a bit of my valuable volunteer time. Cheers --Fæ (talk) 22:11, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
It does make sense for complicated negotiations to happen in private, but I think the reason the secrecy seems odd is that it seems very odd for this to be a complicated negotiation. The impression we've been given is that the plan is just for Roger to donate the IP and domain names to WMUK. There is nothing complicated there. You only need to negotiate if Roger is expecting something in return, which would completely change the whole situation and would raise a lot more questions. --Tango (talk) 11:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, sorry. Tom has nailed what I was aiming for; it seems odd that something like this would be complex, as there seems little to negotiate. My presumption has been that there is some stipulation involved which would allow the current owners to continue e.g. marketing the QRpedia plaques and so on. But a year seems a looooong time even for that. --ErrantX (talk) 13:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
The question WereSpielChequers asked, and which occasioned Jon's reply, was specifically about QRpedia.org, not qrwp.org. (That's why I included the previous post's URL.) QRpedia.org is the domain you're not getting. Andreas JN 01:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
This was my question that Jon was responding to:
I don't have a problem with the UK chapter giving a few "how to edit leaflets" out to someone who is encouraging people how to edit.
But I would appreciate a little clarification re QRpedia. Can someone tell me who owns the http://qrpedia.org domain name? If I'm correct in my understanding of QR codes then all the QR codes that we are encouraging people to use point to that domain and are currently repointed to Wikipedia articles. So if we are going to promote QRpedia we need to know that the domain is part of the movement.
So yes I specifically named QRpedia.org. But I did so on my then presumption that this was the domain that the various QR plaques were directly pointing to. Things have moved on since, and I've learned that the domain that most and hopefully all of the plaques directly link to is apparently qrwp.org. There are other implications in our not being given QRpedia.org, but my question was clearly about the domain that the QR codes we are encouraging people to use link to and which at the time I thought was QRpedia.org. If the plaques are indirectly linking to qrpedia.org via a direct link to qrwp.org then Jon's reply was specifically about the domain I was actually asking about in that question. WereSpielChequers (talk) 08:52, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I suggest you email Jon directly, link to this discussion, and ask for a written clarification of what he meant. The impression you appear to have been given does not match my understanding of the negotiation though things may have moved on since Chris became Chair and he and Jon took responsibility and authority for successfully completing the agreement. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:11, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Chris Keating, the WMUK chair, said on Sept. 17th in a reply to me, an hour and a half after Jon's post, "To further clarify - we are not really talking about intellectual property rights. We are talking about the domains [Note the plural – A.] currently used to provide the qrpedia service, which are qrpedia.org and qrwp.org." [6] He also said, "4. QRpedia. QRpedia.org is owned by Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden, who have been maintaining it, along with qrwp.org (where the "qrpedia" links resolve), as volunteers. An agreement between Roger and Terence on the one hand and Wikimedia UK on the other is in the works, shouldn't take more than a few weeks to finish off, and will provide a firm basis for the growing use of Wikipedia-linked QR codes in future." [7] So according to what Chris said last week, the links go to qrpedia.org (not owned by WMUK) but resolve to qrwp.org (the domain that will be transferred to WMUK ownership, according to the above). Andreas JN 10:59, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Note two helpful comments by Tom Morris at the WP village pump: [8] "The QR codes point to qrwp.org. So, if you generate a QR code for the enwiki article for London points to the URL http://en.qrwp.org/London which will then redirect to the Mobile version of Wikipedia for the most appropriate language." [9] "qrpedia.org is simply the website you go to that generates the QR codes. You paste in a Wikipedia URL and it generates the appropriate qrwp.org QR code. You don't have to use qrpedia.org to generate QRpedia codes: you can use any QR code generator. But if WMUK are to have control over QRpedia (which they, or another chapter, or the Foundation, probably should), it kind of makes sense to have both." --Andreas JN 13:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
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