Water cooler

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Why did you volunteer or become a member? Why should anyone else?

Hi all!

I've started a drafting page today (see here) to put together the content and ideas for a dual purpose handout the chapter can use to get expressions of interest from volunteers or potential members.

You can all help massively by dropping by and adding a sentence or two about how either volunteering and membership has led to interesting experiences, projects, or other outcomes. Also, I'm happy for use to draft section content - what would YOU say to get people to get involved?

There is no hard deadline on completing this, though I will probably be running around at the AGM session on writing the new members pack asking similar sorts of questions, so I would hope to see the first draft of that and this ready by the end of June!

Ping me on talk page or email me if you have questions - happy to answer and listen to advice :-)

Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 10:48, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Update! I've now added this into the mix - http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Membership/Promoting - do have a look and add your thoughts :) Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 13:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Simplifying language and avoiding acronyms

Just wanted to re-draw attention to this old discussion. I still think we should say "virtual office hour" rather than "IRC office hour" etc. MartinPoulter (talk) 19:41, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Good point. I've changed 'IRC' to 'virtual' on our front page, events page, and have moved IRC office hours to Virtual office hours. That should make it less likely that will slip bback into the habit of using the acronym again. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:47, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

To me, the confusing bit was always the "officer hours" not the "IRC". What does "office hours" mean? Yaris678 (talk) 21:36, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

London based volunteer - time to help the charity with data?

Hey all, I posted this on the community mailing list a few days ago and no response :( Asking again here in case it catches anyone's eye.

You may have picked up the odd mention in staff reports to the board or passing conversation, but one of the pieces of work I'm responsible for is the Charity's gift aid records and claims.

After delay getting our first claim through, then needing to update our records with HMRC so the right people and bank details were on our record, I'm ready to work on the outstanding data files for the claims for last financial year.

However, it's a big job that can't really be automated - it involves reformatting and then checking through spreadsheets with mixture of search and replace and common sense to make sure the claim records we're submitting are those of individuals (not companies) and include real name data.

Is there someone who would be interested and able to help? It would require at least a couple of days in the office next month - its not really appropriate to do remotely and you would have to sigh an undertaking to treat the data confidentially.

We can support some expenses here (travel, lunch/per diem) but I'm not sure we could pay for accommodation - its therefore most probably an appeal to those who are in/near london based to help.

Do let me know if you think this could be something you could do!

Thanks all :-) Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 10:41, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Mozilla Festival

Hello everyone. I write regarding the Mozilla Festival. It's taking place this October and has as its focus the future of the web and all things webmaking. There's currently a call for session proposals which can be seen here If anyone is interested in putting something together that's Wikimedia-related please do get in touch and let me know if there's anything Wikimedia UK may be able to do to support you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:02, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

This looks very cool. I like the fact that it focuses on practical sessions, rather than talks. No ideas for a session myself but if someone wants someone to bounce ideas off or give feedback then I'm happy to do that. Yaris678 (talk) 21:53, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Opinions on merchandise

Wikimedia UK is currently conducting a review of its merchandise. As part of this we have sent out a questionnaire to some people. If you would like to fill in the survey email me and I'll send you a link. It's a short survey so shouldn't take too long to complete. Alternatively, feel free to leave your opinions here. For reference, I've listed the merchandise we regularly use below:

• Wikipedia globe stickers
• WMUK stickers
• Wikipedia pens
• Wikipedia button badges
• Commons button badges
• A6 notebooks
• Lanyards
• Wikipedia car stickers
• Wikipedia beer mats
• WMUK mugs
• WMUK annual report
• About Wikimedia UK fliers
• Cheat sheets
• Creative Commons flyers
• Education case study booklets
• Welcome to Wikipedia booklets
• Wikipedia t-shirts
• Wikipedia polo shirts

We want to know what in your experience works and what doesn't, and if you have ideas for items not on the list which might prove useful please let us know (especially if you have design ideas...). Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

• Key rings should be added to the list. I collect them, and almost all the tourist places stock them so they must sell. Thryduulf (local talk) (en.wp talk) 15:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Good idea although these are not for sale - rather, give outs at outreach events etc.

• Cheat sheets are useful to hand out at events for newbies, but I'd add space for them to write their user name. Beer mats are good as a promotional item, I gave a few out at the GLAM Wiki conference and they were amazingly popular amongst curators. But generally we need a cash value on the promotional items idea - if we are giving stuff away for free then it needs to be either very cheap, very promotional or very instructional. So an office mug "someone in this office supports Wikipedia with a gift aid donation to Wikimedia UK" would cost a few quid, but would probably be a worthwhile investment as a gift to anyone taking out a direct debit or an existing direct debit person who complete the gift aid form. For Merchandise it is more a matter of what can we profitably do and have fit our brand values. At Christmas I usually give a few people calenders. If Wikimedia sold a calender in the Autumn I might well buy a couple. So I think we could get into the charity calender business and that if we had a calender stocked by the big retailers we could get a serious amount of cash, we would also be promoting Wikimedia as a source of very good images. We could potentially do xmas cards, but in that case we would get into the vexed issue of whether we use seasons greetings or Xmas greetings - I'm not sure that a global culturally neutral organisation should get into such a culture specific product. And then of course we should do flip flops. I would love to walk across a sandy beach leaving [citation needed] on the sand behind me.... That's the sort of merchandise I would buy for myself. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 09:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• A couple of people in the survey noted that while the cheat sheets are useful, we should perhaps revisit their design. They're intended to be taken home to use when trainers or someone who knows wikicode isn't around to help. Is the idea of including somewhere to write their user name in case they forget what it is? Is this a common problem? Last year there was a calendar for the overall winners of Wiki Loves Monuments. I don't know what the print run was or how many were sold, but I'll email around for more details. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:23, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• Memory sticks. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:50, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• You read my mind Michael. I've got a memory stick from my old university with their logo on which I use all the time. I'm going to start looking at options for stuff like key rings, memory sticks, and the other items suggested in the survey. If anyone has any ideas, please do get in touch. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:14, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• I as going to suggest memory sticks. But I forgot... Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:20, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• Plus 1 to Memory sticks. Especially if we can preload them with some pdfs such as a "how to edit wikipedia". Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 13:08, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• I rather like that idea. We wouldn't want to completely fill up the memory stick, but we could even include a short video about Wikimedia UK. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd love a memory stick and a keyring. These are awesome ideas! --Deskana (talk) (email) 10:49, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Flossie conference 8-9 November 2013

Hi All, Flossie is running a two-day event for women who use or are otherwise interested in any aspect of open technology, open knowledge, digital arts, and social innovation. They have a call for proposals that closes on 19 July. It sounds like a perfect opportunity for us to get involved - we are even mentioned in their proposed section 'Open Collaborative Communities'. Would anyone be interested in contributing? If so let me know so I can help. Thanks! Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 13:07, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably worth noting the deadline is 19 July. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 13:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Ashley Van Haeften (Fae) steps down from Wikimedia UK board

Hello everyone, just a quick note to let you know that Ashley Van Haeften (User:Fae) has resigned form the Board of Wikimedia UK. You can see more details on our blog post here. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 15:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to Fae - "thanks and appreciation to Fae for all of the time, effort and expertise he has contributed to the charity over the past two years".... Why don't we appreciate our volunteers more?

If any volunteers are contemplating standing for the board then please have a look at Fae's brief post, which briefly summarises Fae's resignation and Fae's donation of literally thousands of hours of selfless work. It should include that this is the man who put together our first GLAM outreach outside England ( Scotland). He negotiated deals with the British Library, National Archives and the Wellcome Trust. Fae also put together the Chapters group in Berlin together with four other leading chapters. Fae also took a leading role in getting WMUK established as a registered charity and helped us resist pressure from WMF board members and staff to not take part in the fundraiser. Fae took a supporting role with many large projects enabling WMUK to rightfully claim that it was a leader in the GLAM field. The first WMUK committee with delegated powers was led by Fae. Fae also led for WMUK at international GLAM events including New York, London and Amsterdam. Fae recently helped in setting up the WIR roles at the National Science Museum, and ... and ... and

Oh and I should also mention that Fae has categorised more pictures on Wikimedia commons for the UK than Wiki Loves Monuments has for the rest of the world. This is an achievement that when it was first discussed was thought to be beyond value (but it also was thought to be somewhere between "major boring project of unknown duration for a dozen volunteers" and "impossible".)

Doug Taylor also stood down from the board at the last AGM and he too achieved amazing things. I'm not sure why these people's achievements are not being mentioned and I apologise for nor doing a more thorough job here. These people both worked practically full time for WMUK and their contribution should be more than my comment on a talk page, a generic thanks or just a record of when and where they stood down. If we don't appreciate them then we don't deserve these volunteers. Thank you Fae and Doug on behalf of myself at least. Victuallers (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Fae, despite tumultuous drama and events, has been a dedicated and hard-working volunteer for the chapter. For this, he deserves praise for his enthusiasm and diligence. And the same for Doug. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Roger and Tom, thanks for your comments. It's certainly important that we focus on the positive achievements of all of our volunteers. This is something that has been discussed many times but I think it's important that we speak about it again. How can the chapter do a better job at acknowledging the positive contributions of volunteers? Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 09:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

There's a lot to be said for barnstars. Recently I gave barnstars to Johnbod and EdwardX for the time they spent manning a stall at the Open collections trust exhibition. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 09:38, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to add one more comment here if I may. When Doug retired from the Board the chapter offered him very heartfelt thanks, both publicly and privately, and with good reason. He offered endless support to the chapter and his dedication to open knowledge, and Wikimedia projects, is remarkable. This is a good opportunity to reiterate those thanks to Doug. (Sorry, forgot to sign so signing now) Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 13:33, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts Roger and Tom, I look forward to working with you on future projects. --Fæ (talk) 19:21, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Upcoming Wikimedian in Residence projects in the UK

Dear All,

Following from some successful projects earlier this year, Wikimedia UK has been working on setting up further Wikimedian in Residence projects. I am pleased to say that three exciting ones have been approved by the board at the recent meeting:

• York Museum Trust
• The Royal Society, London
• The University of Manchester Library

We are now discussing the details with them. It will be a couple of months before the projects start, but we wanted to share these exciting news with you now. What would you like to see happen within these projects? You can start letting us know now!

Do you live in the area and would like to be on the recruitment panel? Do get in touch as well. (daria.cybulskawikimedia.org.uk; jonathan.cardywikimedia.org.uk

All the best - Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 10:59, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Tender specification for review consultant

At the board meeting on July 14th the Board agreed, in line with the Hudson Review to hire a consultant to conduct a short independent audit of governance, and in particular the progress the charity has made in governance issues this year. Detail of the tender specification are on this wiki. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 10:50, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Looking for potential trustees in Scotland

Wikimedia UK is a maturing charity with passionate volunteers, dedicated staff and devoted Trustees. We’re part of the global Wikimedia movement which supports projects such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikiversity (to name but three).

A review of our governance practices and procedures found was that we’d become even more effective with a larger and more diverse Board of Trustees. This is where you come in.

If you have an interest in Wikimedia projects, a commitment to open knowledge and the desire to help, we would love you to join us in helping to lead the charity through a period of growth and diversification.

To make sure that we genuinely represent the whole of the UK we are particularly keen to recruit someone based in Scotland.

We especially welcome applicants with an experience and understanding of Wikimedia projects but this isn’t essential. Energy, positivity and motivation are equally important.

We hope that this appeals to you and, if so, please contact Richard Nevell, our Office Support Assistant, for more information on 020 7065 0990 or richard.nevell@wikimedia.org.uk

Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 16:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

This reads more like an advert than an update at the water cooler. Am I right in thinking that the above text has been placed in a number of places that potential trustees from Scotland might come across it? Yaris678 (talk) 18:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Bore da Yaris! I've placed a link on Uicipeid na Gàidhlig to the ad. Robin Owain (WMUK) (talk) 06:32, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

It has indeed, and thank you Robin for adding it somewhere else. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 15:51, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Template needed

It works. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 10:08, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Katie. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 22:56, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Instant bot to reverse editor decline

The best ideas sometimes come in strange ways and I thought I'd share this one just in case someone thought it was possible. At our staff training day yesterday a few of us pointed out that we started editing when we saw terrible spelling mistakes but that this is not a big feature of Wikipedia nowadays. So how about a bot that inserts annoying and prominent spelling mistakes to help encourage new editors? ;) Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 07:33, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

What? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 10:47, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Probably a suggestion to hold on to until the morning of April 1, 2014. :-) 86.181.47.13 10:51, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Typos

I've found two typos in Membership/Newsletter/2013/July#Review: Sphingonet Wikipedia workshop. There's an "of" that should be an "or" in the second-to-last paragraph and a "not" that should be a "now" in the last paragraph. Yaris678 (talk) 11:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, fixed. -- KTC (talk) 16:12, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Katie. Yaris678 (talk) 15:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually Katie. I've just read your piece Membership/Newsletter/2013/July#Opinion: Where are the women in Wikipedia?. Great piece. But there are a few typos in there too:

• Paragraph 3 - "Wikiboks", should be "Wikibooks".
• Paragraph 5 - "compare", should be "compared" or "in comparison"
• Paragraph 5 - "reason" should be "reasons"
• Paragraph 10 - "bias that exist" should be "biases that exist" or "bias that exists"
• Paragraph 10 - With "an underrepresented topics", drop the "an" or make "topic" singular.

Yaris678 (talk) 16:32, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 13:38, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the fixes Katie. I have to say, it feels kind of rude to point them out. Any chance that I could be made an admin on this wiki? (Or some other way to give me the edit-protected right.) That way I can just quietly make such changes myself. Yaris678 (talk) 15:44, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Making you an admin sounds sensible to me (I'll vouch for you, for whatever it's worth). Somebody (Katie?) could also give you access to the internal wiki where the newsletter is drafted. Harry Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:09, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Harry. Do I need to apply somewhere or should I just wait for the cogs to turn? Yaris678 (talk) 08:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

There's no formal application process, just asking one of the staff works fine as we all have 'crat tools and we can sort out accounts on the internal wiki. In this case, asking on the water cooler works too as it's a high profile page. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, there is an agreed process for this - as per Wikimedia:Administrators, "certain trusted users are also be made Administrators if they apply to the Board and are approved." That policy's been there since before 2009... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 10:48, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I promise I won't be offended if someone takes the admin bit back off me until the board have had a chance to consider my case. Yaris678 (talk) 12:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

(unindent) To be fair, there are several people (myself included) that have been given admin rights by staff, so you're not the only one following the policy. I have updated Administrators to give both the policy, and the current actual practice. Given the volunteer-driven nature of the charity, it seems a bit backwards to make you have to seek board approval for adminship rights, especially since there's more pertinent matters for them to be focussing on. But I'm not a board member, so what do I know? ;-) --Deskana (talk) (email) 13:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

This is basically a hangover from 2009 when the board did all the work - so the admin rights on the wiki was an important thing. I'll raise it for discussion at the next board meeting, but we can probably just delegate this to the Chief Executive if the board agree. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 14:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014 & Wikivoyage

I know that Wikimania 2014 isn't technically a WMUK project but this seemed a good place to bring it up: With the event happening in London, it would make sense for the London Wikivoyage pages to be improved for the benefit of all the visiting Wikimedians. We have a Wikimedia travel guide; it would be good to use it. While adding a listing to voy:en:London/City of London, home of the Barbican, I noticed that the page status of many London districts can be quite low. The City is at guide status but most are just at usable status and only voy:en:London/Hampstead is star status (the scale goes stub-->outline-->usable-->guide-->star). This is within the chapter's sphere of responsibility but I don't know if this is something the chapter could/would be involved with, or just UK Wikimedians doing bits (I'm going to continue editing but I don't really know enough about the city to cover everything). - AdamBMorgan (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Adam, thanks for your suggestion, which I think is a good one. You're correct that Wikimania itself isn't a Wikimedia UK project but it would make sense for us to try and encourage improvement of WikiVoyage content related to London - and in as many languages as we can, too. Do you have any suggestions on how to do this? If you;d like to deliver / promote a project around this then I'd be more than happy to lend my support and get involved in helping out on this - both as a staff member and as a volunteer :-) Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 14:56, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether this would be a good way to introduce (secondary/high) school children to wiki editing. We have been discussing possible ways to involve school children over the coming year and this may indeed be a relatively useful and certainly interesting way of doing it. --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 08:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

RE: "Do you have any suggestions" -- to be honest, no, not at the moment. At least, I'm not sure how best to do it. I should probably have waited to bring it up at the meet up in August, so I could discuss it a bit first. On the bright side, Wikivoyage is probably the easiest Wikimedia project on which to make micro-contributions. The majority of a standard guide article is made up of template-formatted bullet points, under standard verb-based headings (ie. "See", "Buy", "Eat", etc) which use templates of the same name (ie. {{buy}}, {{eat}}, etc). On top of which, a contribution could be just adding a good local restaurant. - AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:41, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Open Government Partnership annual summit call for proposals

Hello everyone. The Open Government Partnership is hosting its annual summit on 31 October and 1 November. This could be a good opportunity to build networks in this area and find ways that we can demonstrate the value of Wikimedia projects. We may be able to find ways to influence thinking around open knowledge and how this can fit in with public policy. They have issued a call for proposals which has a deadline of 1 September. I wonder if this is of interest to anybody and, if so, this is a good place to discuss some ideas. Many thanks. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 13:10, 31 July 2013 (UTC)