Water cooler

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Diversity Conference - how many UK volunteers are going?

Based on m:Wikimedia Diversity Conference/Schedule I can see that at least two UK staff members are being paid to join this conference but I cannot find any information on how many unpaid volunteers are attending. I know that travel grants from WMUK were offered, so could someone please confirm how many volunteers are being sponsored by Wikimedia UK to attend for this weekend in Berlin, and preferably publish a list somewhere? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:21, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

We are paying for two volunteers to attend and one member of staff, Daria, who has been organising it with WMDE. We had quite a few applicants, as you know, which is a good sign for the future, but made choosing difficult in order to get as broad a range of people as possible You can always phone the office to find out such things.Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 07:31, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing that should be in the monthly reports, not something that should require interested people to phone the office about! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mike, Sorry for the slightly delayed response here, I've just noticed your comment. I agree it should be in the monthly report and it will be in the November report, along with any write-up of the conference which I am sure will be offered by those attending. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 10:58, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not understand this answer, it seems opaque. I can see from the official schedule, both Daria and Katie are going, this makes two members of staff being paid to go, I note that staff expenses for travel and accommodation come from staff budgets not volunteer budgets. Please just list the names of who are going so that the chapter's business can be seen to be transparent. One of the advantages of asking this question on-wiki is that the question is answered once, I cannot see the point of phoning the office and then writing answers I might get back on the Water cooler when you can do it directly and avoid bureaucracy or forcing members to behave like journalists to find out how money is being spent. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 08:38, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

There are some sensitivities here, as you will be well aware of Fae from the treatment you have received in the past. For that reason I was/am reluctant to use people's names in this public forum without their permission. Given that Katie's name is already out there I can confirm that she will be attending but not as a member of staff. She will be attending in her own time as a volunteer and her funding will come from that budget. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 10:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding everybody about the four years of harassment I have endured, it does not seem relevant to this thread. It was certainly never a reason for my activities as a trustee nor for any funding I received from the chapter to be done in secret.

Considering the issues we have seen with a lack of growth (or decline) in numbers of active volunteers, and issues with not appearing a "volunteer-centric" organization, I find it bizarre that the chapter has fallen into the habit of counting staff members as volunteers whenever convenient. According to what you have said here so far, the chapter turned down several applications for travel grants to go to this conference from unpaid volunteers, and has decided to send two members of staff and fund just one unpaid volunteer rather than several. I am concerned that the reasons for obscuring the numbers of staff going and avoiding explaining who is being funded to go, is how this would appear politically. If a volunteer is being paid to spend a weekend in Berlin at a conference, then I can think of no good reasons that could possibly meet the mission and values of the chapter with regard to openness and transparency by keeping this a secret. Spending donated funds on secret projects and secret beneficiaries is not why the chapter was established as a charity.

If there is an undeclared issue here of potential conflict of loyalties with funding, it should be made openly. I remind you of the advice from Stone King last year with regard to making decisions for the charity that involve friends or close relatives. That advice for governance best practice applies to staff as well as trustees and requires transparency when it occurs. --Fæ (talk) 11:10, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I am always happy to respond to questions from members of the community and will try and find them in your post. With regard to the names of the attendees I am unwilling to name anyone going to the conference without asking them first. I have asked Daria to contact the other person and check it is OK with them. I am pretty certain they will not mind but it is common courtesy and good practice to ask first. This is not about secrecy. There is no decline in active volunteers, despite what you assert. We now have 101 people listed which is a steady increase from a year ago of 83. Not enough of course but not a decline. You are extremely adept at jumping to conclusions to justify your assertions, to quote you: 'I find it bizarre that the chapter has fallen into the habit of counting staff members as volunteers whenever convenient'. This is just not the case. I informed the board that we had just enough funding for two volunteers. We had to choose two who represented as broad a range of diversity as possible. Candidates who were not successful were informed and given the chance to talk to me to find out why they had not been chosen. Some took me up on this offer and accepted our reasoning. Katie and her fellow volunteer represent several areas in which we are very weak as a chapter.

Katie applied as a volunteer as she knew she could not go as staff and as she remains an active volunteer, contributing many hours of unpaid volunteer effort, I believe this is entirely justified. Of our ten staff five were leading volunteers before they took up employment. Should they now be banned from being volunteers? To be personal, should I have to stop editing and taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments? If you have evidence that we have fallen into this habit can you let me have it instead of making vague assertions? I don't think we have. Richard S, Richard N, Jonathan, Katie and Toni are extremely careful to differentiate between their staff and volunteer roles. I am really pleased that Katie still wants to spend her own time as a volunteer in addition to the long hours she works as a member of staff.

I hope this is helpful and that we can all assume a little more good faith. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 11:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, it is helpful. The members can now see that the facts are that 2 current employees and one unpaid volunteer are being paid to go to this weekend conference in Berlin.

Your original answer of "one member of staff" was not a complete enough answer to avoid misleading the reader. Please do not parody my question as "banning from being volunteers", I am questioning the logic of reporting paid staff members as volunteers in official statistics or reports, or the trustee judging this as an appropriate way of implementing the value of keeping the charity volunteer-centric rather than being a political trick to by-pass it.

As for the numbers of volunteers, in 2012 we counted (by naming them) 87 active volunteers, not 83. We did not count staff as volunteers as far as I can recall. The figure of 101 volunteers is not one that I recognize, despite this being questioned for several months on this page. QUESTION Could you point me to where this has been published in a report to the board so that I can understand how this is counted (presumably using the logic here, it includes employees and "paid volunteers" rather than just "unpaid volunteers")?

As you are having difficult assessing where questions are, I have highlighted one in this post to avoid ambiguity.

So that we can keep track and show the trend as we have just started to do with membership, I have created Volunteers/numbers, please do add the source reports there. --Fæ (talk) 12:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The document to which you refer was developed as a means of tracking who is involved with the charity. It is not a public document any more than our register of members is public, and has not been something reported on to the board as it is mainly for office use. I can report on the headline numbers, however because it is a working document it has updated periodically rather than kept up-to-date minute-by-minute.

The document was created in July 2012, at which point it was estimated the community had 58 active volunteers. At the end of the 2012-13 financial year this was 59. By March 2013, this had increased to 79. At the end of June 2013, this number was 82.

In September 2013, in our proposal to the FDC we wanted to include the figure to show what kind of volunteer community we have. At that point I updated the document and the number had increased to 101. Part of the jump is because there were some people who had already been volunteers but were not documented in the file. This was not really an issue since it was intended for internal use. At the moment, the number stands at 103 (my apologies to Jon for supplying the out-of-date number of 101 earlier). The volunteer community has grown, which is unsurprising considering how many people have gone through Training the Trainers, how many people have received grants of one sort or another, and have got involved with events such as organising Wiki Loves Monuments or delivering training. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:06, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Richard. I find it odd that Jon should start using this as tangential evidence of volunteer numbers in response to a question from me, if it has not been presented to the Board of Trustees before or used to respond to questions about volunteer numbers raised here over the last few months. In particular the board published figure of 87 volunteers (in Minutes_8Sep12/Strategy_day) was not challenged in 2012 as being at variance with any other document, in fact as a trustee at the time, though this was discussed in great detail with staff, the document you are now raising for the first time in public was not provided to the board.

If this is the evidence to be used by Operations in how we measure numbers of volunteers, the performance of the charity, and it has already been officially used as evidence for the FDC proposal, then I believe it is good practice to publish it openly on-wiki so that everyone can refer to it and understand how it is calculated (for example, counting anyone contributing to WLM might give over-generous figures if we want a count of long term active volunteers). I suggest you add the numbers you have quoted here to the table at Volunteers/numbers. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 14:08, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Having spoken to the second volunteer attending the conference, he is happy to let people know that he is User:Kwaku BBM. He was chosen as he represents BEM users, an area WMUK is particularly weak in, and has an interest in black music and history. Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 08:46, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

What does 'BEM' mean? It doesn't seem to be an acronym that enwp knows (unless he's representing British Empire Medalists, or the endangered Black-eared Miner species). Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Black Ethnic Minorities, or similar. Also known as BME or 'Black and Minority Ethnic' communities. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 10:12, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I've updated the dab page accordingly, although it seems that a relevant article doesn't exist on enwp here. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:43, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not believe it is reasonable to say that Kwaku represents BEM users as his total number of edits on all Wikimedia projects is 15. In comparison my contributions number over a million and I co-founded the Wikimedia LGBT group/proposed thematic organization, making it fair to consider me a potential a representative of LGBT users, yet my application for a travel grant was rejected. This choice of funding verges on the bizarre if there was only sufficient funds to send 3 people, 2 of whom turn out to be Wikimedia UK employees (one employee having their expenses paid out of the volunteer budget) and the remaining applicant is highly problematic as they only registered a Wikimedia account in May this year, and have made no edits since June.

This is a poor use of the charity's/WMF funds, especially in the light of the fact that there were "quite a few applications" from unpaid volunteers who had reasons to contribute to the success of this conference and its expected outcomes. I hope the Board of Trustees will be asking questions on the record about this at the next board meeting. --Fæ (talk) 14:45, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree that this does appear to be a poor choice. Has Kwaku done anything else apart from that 15? Surely someone should have some sort of established track record before we can reasonably call them a volunteer and pay out of chapter funds to send them to Berlin and back? I note that there is a plug for his personal project (www.BritishBlackMusic.com) on his user page which appears to be a commercial site soliciting advertising. Philafrenzy (talk) 15:27, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Firstly to reiterate and I can only hope you understand at last Fae, Katy is NOT GOING AS A MEMBER OF STAFF IN HER OWN TIME. She is going as a volunteer and of course one, who represents the LGBT community, women and an ethnic minority, all areas we can do better in. Secondly Kwaku does not have many edits but has been involved in hosting with WMUK an editathon around Black Music. He has shown a lot of energy and enthusiasm and is exactly the sort of volunteer we need to be encouraging if we are to grow. Given I knew how controversial this decision would be I consulted the board. It is a pity Fae that instead of taking up the offer we made for an explanation of why the decision was made you went straight to a public forum. If I was thinking of getting involved as a volunteer this sort of discussion would put me off. I would get the impression that unless I had done a zillion edits I could never be considered worthy. Our charitable funds are there to develop new talent and editors. I will make sure Kwaku is asked about the link. Perhaps someone form the community could reach out to him and help? Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 16:11, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Jon, this remains a poor use of funds on apparent and unfortunate tokenism, regardless of how you politically reframe this decision, or try to pitch this as somehow my fault for asking very basic questions about who is being sent to a conference where getting factual answers rather than spin, has been like extracting teeth.

Sending someone with just 15 edits under their belt off for a fully paid residential weekend conference in Belin and who has direct COI issues in promoting their website on the English Wikipedia, is an obviously bad choice of how to spend several hundred pounds, when several other applications were made from unpaid willing and experienced volunteers to support this conference. Jon, please do not parody or marginalize this issue as being one of requiring a "zillion edits", this is someone who has barely made any edits, and has made no contributions on Wikimedia projects for the last four months. A justification that we create "new talent and editors" by sending them away for an all expenses paid free weekend in Berlin is not something I would expect the Wikimedia UK Board of Trustees to support. This would be a very, very, poor way to spend our £700,000 budget in order to create new Wikipedia editors.

This was a serious mistake in the way the charity's money is spent, as the CEO you should recognize it as such and make a proper report back to the board on the improvements to the grant process that are required rather than expecting that typing in capitals makes a better justification that "we are doing fine, there is nothing to see here, go away and stop asking questions in public when you should only ask questions of the CEO in private and undocumented phone calls".

Lastly this is not any fault of Kwaku's, he has been poorly advised by the charity as to his suitability to represent BEM users at this conference. --Fæ (talk) 16:33, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I note that britishblackmusic.com has an advertising page which states: "If you want to know about other opportunities please contact our exclusive marketing agents, CyberMedia Solutions on xxx xxxx xxxx alternatively you can visit their website at www.cybermediasolutions.net" I suggest that Wikimedia UK reviews relationships like this rather more carefully, and ask sensible questions openly in relation to grants. --Fæ (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Obviously this is not a Board-level decision, but the decision Jon's taken is quite reasonable in my view, and the Board will not interfere in cases like this. It'll be important for this conference that there are a wide range of perspectives represented, and the idea of sending two volunteers, one a long-standing Wikipedian with an interest in many aspects of diversity and one less experienced on-wiki but who has engaged with us enthusiastically off-wiki, seems eminently sensible. I would be very concerned if we started saying either that people need a certain number of edits to take part in our work, or indeed if we said that staff were no longer allowed to do any Wikimedia-related volunteering.

If I've understood correctly, Fae, you are essentially saying that you ought to have received funding to attend this conference. I can appreciate your disappointment but I don't feel that castigating Jon (or indeed Kwaku) in is an appropriate or mature response. The Land (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Your position as Chairman is that the board of trustees is not prepared to discuss the problem of sending someone with only 15 edits, and who does not current contribute to Wikimedia projects, for a free weekend in Berlin with no commitment as to outcomes, apart from an apparent interest in promoting a sponsored website? I find that at odds with fact that the trustees have a duty to hold the CEO to account in order to ensure that the donated funds of the charity are wisely spent on the mission of the charity, and in line with the values of the charity. This is another case of the charities' money being involved in COI editing, I suggest you take time out to discuss this properly with your fellow trustees rather than dismissing it as an issue.

Jon said there were several applications for grants from volunteers. Please do not take this discussion off on a tangent as being about my application, I am just the only applicant to take time to ask questions about this conference on the Water Cooler. You will note Jon's response was to keep who was being funded a secret and leave secrecy as an option for the sponsored person, this was not in line with the values of openness, transparency and accountability that we value; especially considering the facts of this case. --Fæ (talk) 17:43, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Fae, I don't really know what you mean by "this is another case of the charity's money being involved in COI editing". This suggests two things; firstly that this is a case of the charity's money being involved in COI editing; second that there has been a previous one. I do not know of any evidence to suggest either of those things is true. Please could you either direct me to some, or withdraw your allegation. The Land (talk) 17:54, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

This is not a court of law, I suggest you avoid turning the water cooler into one if you actually want members to freely ask questions here without the impression that they might be prosecuted for doing so. I have made no "allegations". It is merely a fact on record that paid editing or COI editing was a long running project with CIPR. This took staff time and resources of the charity, especially considering the expense of the 2012 AGM where CIPR had members presenting.

If you wish to talk about CIPR further, please create a new thread rather than diverting this one. --Fæ (talk) 18:05, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I read your "the charity's money being involved in COI editing" as saying that the charity was funding people to engage in COI editing, but thank you for clarifying that's not what you meant. I am also struggling to see how to construe last year's CIPR project as "money being involved in COI editing" when the outcome was the CIPR telling people not to break Wikipedia's conflict of interest policies, but never mind.... The Land (talk) 18:15, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

You may wish to note that this thread shows a classic run-around. Jon points to the board of trustees for his authority on this decision "I knew how controversial this decision would be [so] I consulted the board" and you point back to Jon with "Obviously this is not a Board-level decision". I have been asking some basic questions, I do not expect spin and diversions with questions as simple as this. If Jon has full authority and responsibility for this decision, I suggest you make that completely clear to him, not just me, and hold him properly to account for the decision he then makes with how this money gets spent and any mistakes that might occur in the process. It is consequently Jon that has a responsibility to openly and transparently answer questions from members that may arise from his operational funding decisions.

I would be happy to discuss the apparent COI editing that promoting britishblackmusic.com and CyberMedia Solutions represents, should you have any real questions about that, and how this makes funding a weekend in Berlin to do the same, before this is properly and openly reviewed, an unacceptable use of the charity's money and a risk to the reputation of Wikimedia UK. --Fæ (talk) 18:19, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I have had a look at Kwaku's edits and I can't see any "COI editing". He has a link to his site on his user page, which is quite allowed by the user page guidelines, and indeed recommended if there's a risk of getting into any vaguely COI-ish edits. The rest of his edits are clearly those of someone not used to using Wiki markup, but look to me like a good-faith attempt to improve coverage of the topic, very different to someone trying to promote something. Again, I read your post as saying we are sponsoring him to attend in order to promote two websites, which is certainly not the case (and you have no reason to believe it is the case). The Land (talk) 18:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid you did not look closely enough. Luckily I have more experience on that project than yourself, and from my experience as a past Admin (blocking many promotional accounts), I am aware that his user name fails the username policy, as it promotes his website (the shortcut is CORPNAME) and exceptions do not apply as he has promoted it on his user page. In addition, sadly, he appears to promote his own writing off-wiki in a reference in the "Music of Black Origin Awards" article and has only made edits to two articles, the only really meaningful edits happening on 17 May. I think any proper review of this account would find it problematic and Kwaku should be warned to avoid undeclared COI editing, which he has already engaged in, and be required to change his promotional account name. From his one day of problematic edits on the English Wikipedia, this is not someone that Wikimedia UK should be sponsoring for a weekend in Berlin and effectively representing Wikimedia UK. He has neither made enough of a contribution to be considered representative of Wikimedia BEM users, nor understands Wikimedia policies sufficiently to be a reliable representative. Being a member of a minority group of itself is not a reason to pay for a member of the public to have a free weekend in Berlin, they should be an active volunteer on Wikimedia projects otherwise this is just pure and embarrassing tokenism.

It is a pity that this is the first time these questions are being considered by the board of trustees or the CEO, when COI is such an important issue for the board otherwise. The ball has been dropped, please admit this is a mistake and act on it, rather throwing up chaff and defensive spin to make the problem go away. --Fæ (talk) 19:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Is it really wise for you to boast about your experiences on the English Wikipedia? The Land (talk) 19:34, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I think it unwise for you to throw back obvious chaff to divert from the factual and clear evidence presented above showing that this funding decision is an embarrassing mistake for Wikimedia UK. If you wish to write about me and my boasting, I suggest you create a separate thread. --Fæ (talk) 19:44, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and - yes, Jon asked informally for the Board's advice. He felt it was unlikely your application would be supported but was concerned that, in that event, you would probably start some kind of public argument about it. The view I and other Board members expressed was that he ought to use his judgement without taking into consideration what individuals might end up posting on the Water Cooler. The Land (talk) 18:52, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Surprising then that despite this advice, Jon has twice recommended that members not post questions for him on the Water cooler but use private undocumented phone calls instead. --Fæ (talk) 19:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

It is perfectly reasonable to ask these sort of questions in writing in a way other members can see them. How else will we know what is going on? If Fae had not pressed this matter, these facts would never have been disclosed. We need greater scrutiny, not less. If this is all too public, can we please have a place where these matters can be discussed in such a way as not to be indexed by Google. The paid employees of the chapter are not a filter through which every matter relating to the chapter should be directed. There needs to be somewhere here that members can discuss things among themselves. Philafrenzy (talk) 16:51, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I am very uncomfortable having public discussions about whether a given individual should be participating in our activities. This should not become the norm. The Land (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I am not surprised. The charity has many years experience of discussing micro-grants openly that does precisely that (the members have Mike Peel to thank for this commitment to openness and transparency, during his time as a trustee he constantly and consistently reminded the board of this core value of the charity). Secrecy about how the charity's money is being spent, has only become a problem recently for this charity, mostly an aspect of your leadership with Jon. Perhaps the trustees should consider doing rather less of their important business in-camera or in secret, and instead where the members can comment and see that good work is being done. --Fæ (talk) 17:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

A couple of points here:

• I think it would be useful that when a member of staff is going to a Wikimedia event as a volunteer, this made clear. Being a member of staff is not simply a job, but it is also a role and they have a different relationship to the charity than someone who is simply a volunteer. It would have made this thread a lot more straight forward if Jon had reported at the outset that there was a second member of staff going in their own time as a volunteer. Whilst I agree that reading this discussion may be off-putting to volunteers, a little bit of clarity at the outset would have helped a lot.

I did make it clear (although given the length of the string it is easy to miss) Quote 'Given that Katie's name is already out there I can confirm that she will be attending but not as a member of staff. ' The reason I did not do it at once was I did not have Katie around to ask for her permission to mention her name in this context which was not a staff context. Fae outed her and I think that was bad practice. Apologies if I don't reply anymore but away for four days. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 19:57, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Jon's statement that I outed Katie is a serious one, and it is blatantly false. In my first sentence, in fact the third word of it, on this thread I gave a link to m:Wikimedia Diversity Conference/Schedule which gives both Katie and Daria's names as presenters. Asking questions about what has been officially published on a Wikimedia website is not "bad practice", nor can this be construed in any possible way as me outing anyone. After 2 years as CEO of Wikimedia UK, I would expect Jon to understand the distinction of what is outing and what is not. I find the pattern of irrelevant chaff attempting to put blame on me for asking pretty straight-forward questions and highlighting an embarrassing funding error quite incredible. --Fæ (talk) 20:10, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

The basic problem is that you have scarcely asked a "straightforward question" for over a year. You ask questions then pick over the answers to find fault in whatever answer has been given, then leap to an unreasonable conclusion which gives you something else to get angry about, and unless someone denies it straight away you treat it as if it's somehow become an establish fact. Any constructive point there might have been gets lost in the wash. The Land (talk) 20:26, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

• I do not think rhetorical questions about staff being banned from volunteering really helps either. The issue is individuals being funded by WMUK to go to the diversity conference, not simply in participating in WMUK activities or editing WM sites.
• Furthermore I think that WMUK members who are being sponsored to attend an event should be asked to agree before hand about having that fact made public, and perhaps where the costs are significant that they provide a short statement as to how they think their sponsorship will help the Wikimedia community.
• Underlying all this it seems to me that in WMUK, some serious consideration has gone into the gender imbalance in the community and engaging with the Welsh language, I am not sure to what extent this has happened in other areas.

I agree with Philafrenzy that a members only Wiki might be useful for these discussions. Leutha (talk) 19:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Just as a note (I only just got my wiki account setup): I was approached to go this conference (presumably because I have been involved in gendergap activism and because of being openly LGBT). The offer was very kind but I was too busy with work in order to make the appropriate arrangements and fill in the application forms and so on (I also didn't even have time to check whether I'd be able to take time off work). I say this only to note that staff did approach volunteers. The very nature of a diversity conference is going to present issues whoever is selected. I think this presents more of an issue regarding Wikimedia UK as an organisation than the suggestion of failings or bias among the staff: we have a very small number of member-volunteers even before you start talking about diversity in terms of race and gender and so on. It should definitely be one of the aims of the charity to increase the number of members and the number of active volunteer members so that for future conferences and events there is a larger pool of volunteers able to go to these kinds of events. Further bickering at this point seems unproductive. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:26, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I think that if we have an understanding of volunteers going in a personal capacity, rather than "representing" other WMUK volunteers/Wikimedia editors, then that's OK. I agree with Tom that it is a more a matter of looking at how WMUK as an organisation can handle diversity more effectively. I think that serious efforts have gone into the gender-gap and Welsh language, but feel other areas need more attention. Leutha (talk) 12:14, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

+1 Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The end result of the way this has been handled is that 2 WMUK staff are going and there was only enough money to send 1 unpaid volunteer, who happens to have made only 14 edits to any Wikimedia project, whilst other volunteers were rejected. It appears that only one person is attending this conference who has been active with Wikimedia LGBT and he is being paid to fly to Berlin from the USA. I will be able to double check this fact once the registration list is published, as the conference organizers have now promised to do after my request. --Fæ (talk) 14:09, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I need yet again to tell the truth about this, if anyone is still reading this, TWO volunteers are going and one member of staff. Fae might not be happy that he was not chosen by the German chapter to get funding and then not chosen by us. He was not alone, but decisions had to be made and I made them for WMUK knowing how sensitive this decision would be. I wanted a 'delegation' that was as broad as possible. Katie works for WMUK 35 hours a week and then has her own identity as a very well established and highly respected volunteer with an exemplary record of service to the community. She is also a representative of the LGBT community, a woman and from an ethnic minority. That she should choose to spend her own time, unpaid, as a volunteer attending this conference is amazing and should be applauded. As Someone else said Fae you have a habit of repeating what you believe until people give up refuting it. This latest post is misleading and I think that needs saying. Bottom line is when someone works for WMUK can they no longer be a volunteer? I hope not, as someone who still enjoys contributing and I know my colleagues agree. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 09:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I assume this is Jon Davies from the IP address? Perhaps if you made it clear up front when employees are being funded from volunteer budgets to travel to conferences, rather than relating only selective partial facts for members, then there would be rather less to explain later. As for "the truth", anyone that re-reads my post can see it is accurate. You might consider how often on this Watercooler you can been seen deflecting discussions and valid questions about Wikimedia UK Operations and governance into ad hominem political spin about me and speculation as to what might be in my head, rather than actually answering the question; not good practice from anyone or what the public would expect from the CEO of a large and important charity.

That you are turning this question into a defence of Katie is unnecessary spin, when at no time in this thread have I said that Katie should not be funded to go. The question here is a lack of transparency and how budgets and scholarships should be managed so that employees can be funded to go to many events during the year, both as volunteers as well as in paid time, without needing to be in direct competition with volunteers who are not employees or contractors (and who also should be applauded for giving their time for free). This can be improved, however if you spend your time defending the status quo, then as the CEO you create an environment where these questions can only raised in closed meetings or private phone calls and improvement is constantly managed as a threat and a hassle, rather than a benefit to the charity. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 20:16, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Just in case anyone does worry about staff dominating events where the charity pays for people to go we did a quick tally up this morning and since October 2011 when I started volunteers (including trustees) have been supported to go to things 126 times and staff 22 times including the AGMs where we all need to be there. Here come the Tildas! Sorry everyone for forgetting them yesterday! Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 11:19, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for these figures, though they could be more meaningful with context and if the trend can be seen by showing them by year rather than an odd selective period. For the sake of transparency can the figures be separated so that trustee expenses taken from the board expenses budget and employee expenses taken from the employee travel and expenses budget be distinguished from the unpaid volunteer travel and expenses budget? The difference being that the first two methods of paying for travel are not in competition with unpaid volunteers who are not trustees. For example unpaid volunteers who are not on the board were not offered any expenses to attend the AGM - as far as I am aware they never will be, so counting these payments is like comparing oranges with apples. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

WMUK T-shirts

On an IRC with the community several centuries ago there were calls for us to make some t-shirts that would be fun and specifically WMUK branded. With Wikimania coming and as we are running out of our current 'nice but a bit predictable' stock we wonder if anyone has clever ideas for the designs.

Here are some previous suggestions:

• Don’t revert me I’m a Wikimedian.

• WMUK - helping share the world’s knowledge

• Wiki loves monuments survivor

• My difs bring all the boys to the yard

• My friends went to edit Wikipedia and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

• [citation needed]

• You are free to reuse, remix and distribute this t-shirt

• CC-BY-SA

• Rule Britannica!

• Could have the first couple of paragraphs from the T-shirt article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tshirt

(Perhaps with ‘I edit wikipedia‘ on the back? JD)

• A picture of the WP logo: Ceci n’est pas un Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MagrittePipe.jpg

• Break the mold!

• I don’t like “Like”; I like “Edit”.

• Wikipedia, read by hundreds of millions, written by tens of thousands.

• Our mission “To make the sum of human knowledge available to all humanity” Wikipedia

• Ask me about Wikipedia

Feel free to add your suggestions. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 13:20, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

"Don't trust Wikipedia: Improve it!" Leutha (talk) 13:45, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I like this one! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 13:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

I LOVE that one Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 14:20, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Thirded. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 15:10, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Some of the others are a lot more pithy than that, and shouldn't it have a question mark where the colon is? Philafrenzy (talk) 15:32, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I like that one two. And keep the colon. A question mark would miss the point. Yaris678 (talk) 11:46, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I think this would be a hit in Education circles. Well done, Leutha! --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 13:10, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the one that is "I don’t like “Like”; I like “Edit”." It would be good to have images on the T-shirt that look like they are from a screen (but are higher res than an actual screen dump). A possible alternative/varient would be more graphical. It has the two images and then a big red cross through the "like" and a big green tick next to the "edit". Yaris678 (talk) 11:46, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

My favourite is still the redux of Magritte I think. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 15:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Cymraeg Mae dyfodol Cymru yn dy law (Transl: The future of Wales is in your hand! (Handheld pencil with “Wikipedia” written on it).

Template:Angen ffynhonnell (Transl: ‘citation needed’)

Wicipedia Cymraeg - Cefnfor Gwybodaeth! (Transl: WC - An ocean of knowledge)

And why not use any of these I created / adapted around 5 years ago: https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defnyddiwr:Llywelyn2000/Bwrdd_plymio

Our current pop-up says: Wicipedia - Byd o wybodaeth (Transl: A world of knowledge)

Wicipedia - yn RHYDD o’r diwedd! (Transl: WP - FREE at last!)

We can use an image of Rhys Ifans with bubble speak: Dw i’n Wici-Waci-Waciwr! (Transl: I’m a Wiki-Wacky-Whacker) All suggestions from Welsh Wikipedians. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 10:26, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Members registry not public?

Under another heading above it was suggested that the WMUK register of members is not public. Actually it is, and in fact anyone can view it, unless WMUK persuades the court that the information is not being sought for a proper purpose. The information can be found on the Companies House website here Leutha (talk) 18:25, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

I doubt that many members would object to a list of members being published on-wiki. Many other charities make their members lists available on websites and I would have thought that membership is something to be proud of. --Fæ (talk) 19:53, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

This is a timely reminder that the members are actually members of a company registered at Companies House, though I think I am right in saying that a full member list is not necessarily sent with every Annual Return. You can also get an officers report for any company for free here: http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/findCompanyInfo.shtml using the WebCheck service. Interestingly, for Wikimedia UK this shows Alastair McCapra as a Director but not Secretary and a form TM02 having been filed on 3 October noting his resignation as Secretary. I suspect, however, that this is purely a company secretarial matter and all the officers of Wikimedia UK are now simply listed as Directors, regardless of their real position on the board. Philafrenzy (talk) 20:23, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

That's correct. The Board decided to dispense with the role of Company Secretary, and that's what's been updated. The Land (talk) 20:27, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

What's the position with the members list please? Is it filed with every AR, or if not how often? When was the last one filed? Philafrenzy (talk) 20:34, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Will need to get back to you on that! Bear with us... The Land (talk) 20:42, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. This does put a different perspective on the need to keep the membership list in the office up to date, since even if it is not filed with Companies House regularly, I assume that the Companies Act still requires it to be maintained accurately at all times, charity law too no doubt, and to be made available at any time in response to a valid request. (I am not planning on making any such request) Philafrenzy (talk) 21:09, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

That's really bad news. :-( I take it that the role has now been delegated to the office? If so, given how unsupported I was by the office when I was the company secretary, I have zero confidence in it being done well by the office. At the current time of WMUK's evolution, this really needs to be done directly by a board member rather than being delegated.

With regards the members list - this is only held by WMUK, and isn't filed with companies house. It isn't 'public' in the sense of being published online, and we've always steered towards keeping it private (and also towards avoiding it cross-linking to usernames) to protect members' personal information. I don't believe that there is any requirement to file it with companies house - rather, the requirement is to have it available for inspection at the registered office. See Part 8 Chapter 2 of the Companies Act 2006 for the full details. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:27, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

+1, zero confidence. --Fæ (talk) 22:01, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Mike is of course correct that we don't file the list of members at Companies House, and that we're not required to. We do of course hold a membership list, and if we ever received a request to inspect it we would comply with our obligations - I don't recall such a request having been received in the time I've been on the Board. We've never published the membership list online and I am not sure how doing so would square with our obligations under the Data Protection Act.

Regarding Company Secretary, Mike - yes, the tasks involved have been delegated, but you can be reassured that we have several Trustees who are just as vigilant as you were in making sure everything happens. Our annual report and accounts to 2013 were filed here in early October. The Land (talk) 08:09, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

It certainly shouldn't link to user names as otherwise anyone on payment of the fee could discover the identity of every user who is a member. It also certainly should be maintained with the utmost scrupulousness as the Act makes clear that failure to maintain it accurately is an offense on the part of the company and every officer of the company who is in default. I don't believe it can be regarded as a private document. Has anyone run a test to see if it could be produced within the timescales required by law. I am not going to apply for it as I don't want to give Richard a heart attack but I assume our processes for adding or removing people are in accordance with the requirements of the Companies Act? Philafrenzy (talk) 22:02, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

A minor clarification, the list of members is not verified in any meaningful way. Even the address is not verified and you could give any name, it does not have to relate to the membership payment method and never has been tied to a Wikimedia account name. In this situation I would expect anyone terribly worried about their on-line identity would pay for their membership under a pseudonym or several pseudonyms. For the member at least, I don't believe that would even break any law. I raised the issue many times in board meetings. --Fæ (talk) 22:17, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, I think you are correct that in English law a person can give themselves any name and that is not an offense in itself. It could cause considerable administrative problems in the office, however, and in paying subs so I think we must assume that most people have given their real name and address, I did. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:24, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually it is important that members and prospective members are aware that the list is available for public inspection with the proviso mentioned above. Whether a person uses a different name to that which they use in other aspects of their daily life is OK, however if someone registers in a variety of different names then that would be very problematic (20 votes for £100!). I would hope that WMUK has suitable processes in place to ensure that such abuses cannot occur. Leutha (talk) 07:24, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

If you look through past minutes, I publicly objected to passing new unverified members several times in a row, even though I knew the rest of the board would simply outvote me rather than not processing memberships. The reason for this was to put a line in the sand at this significant risk of disruption and entryism. It is public knowledge that rather than £100, £25 worth of memberships would give anyone the ability to force a disruptive EGM (the meeting would legally have to be arranged, even if pointless) and it would probably only take this number to seriously change the outcome at AGMs using proxy votes (only a fraction of the current 220 members would actually bother to vote on any issue or election, a key reason why 220 is far too small a number of members and allowing memberships to decline over the past 2 years has been a serious failure of the CEO). The board has a duty to ensure more than £700,000 is wisely spent, and yet entryism leaves that money subject to a hostile take-over, including replacing the current board, closing down the charity or spending the money in a partisan way. The fact that the only reason against doing something about this risk over the past year was that it would create minor verification work for the staff, who were overworked and too busy, always seemed an incredibly weak one to me, especially as I always supported the idea of contracting out some of the administration.

This may seem far fetched, but consider the fact that WMUK only has 220 members and yet CIPR has 10,500. If CREWE wanted greater representation in WMUK and mentioned this in their members newsletter, it would not be surprising if suddenly we had 100 or 200 members who were partisan to the PR sector (neither staff nor trustees would have any means of being aware of this happening, they would only be congratulating the CEO for increasing membership numbers). This may even happen with purely benign intent and yet would remain a serious reputational risk for the charity as I doubt the FDC or the WMF would take kindly to funding an organization that had the appearance of a partisan membership. --Fæ (talk) 08:34, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Could I just say that the charity is very well aware of these issues which have been under active review by the board for some time prior to them being raised here. That active review is continuing. Discussing in a public forum potential ways in which a hostile take-over could be attempted does not help the board to minimize the risk of such an attempt being made. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Where else would you suggest these matters are discussed Michael? If this is too public then there needs to be somewhere private. Philafrenzy (talk) 17:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

That is a good question, and I've opened an new thread about it, below: #A Water Cooler for members only?. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:24, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Michael, everything I have said here has been said in public on this wiki before (as well as in public off-wiki). It is a problem that should have been solved last year. I am surprised at your suggestion that somehow members should not be allowed to either know about this issue with the charity they are members of, nor be allowed to discuss it with each other. Neither should we be keeping problems like this a secret from the WMF or the FDC.

You may want to go back through the long history of minutes of the in-camera meetings and the related in-camera vote of trustees about this. I would have thought spending well over a year talking, consulting and listening to reasons from the CEO as to why all employees are too busy to take action, rather than finding a way to resolve this serious risk (such as contracting it out if everyone is too busy with more important work), would be far too long for even the slowest charity or much smaller charities than ours, especially in the light of the informal advice I passed on to the board from the charity's excellent lawyers (Stone King) way back in 2012. I hope you and the other newer trustees can implement real changes, and promptly, where I failed to do so. Change is long overdue.

If you want a quick fix, then I recommend the trustees announce a halt to all new memberships until a system of verification is agreed and in place. That way the risk of entryism would be zero, at least from new applications, and members and trustees can discuss the problem completely in the open without accusations against anyone creating risks by being open and transparent. It would have the benefit of putting significant pressure on the CEO to agree prompt and effective solutions. --Fæ (talk) 17:15, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

The Board looked at a couple of potential solutions for this at the July board meeting, and we didn't adopt any of them. It's my view (along with most of the Board) that any additional "verification" step would be offputting for prospective members, as well as an unnecessary administrative headache. I've never seen any advice that such a step is necessary, and in my professional experience of running membership schemes I have never even heard of a membership organisation which does anything like this. The Land (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

You may want to go back to Stone King and get your professional experience balanced with theirs, especially if you are personally taking a lead in advising the board of trustees to take no corrective or preventative action on this risk. Perhaps you can share my summary email from 2012 of the conversation I had with Stone King, with the new board members that have yet to see it? By the way, I am unsure that a vote with a result of 3:2 is best described as "most of the board", in fact I would say that was a difficult vote that the new trustees might want to re-visit and ensure they have all the viewpoints and evidence, especially in the light of your statement "never seen such advice" when it exists in my 2012 email. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:02, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure of how the present charity is set up in this regard, but I was involved with setting up Wiki Educational Resources, the first attempt at a UK chapter (sometimes described as Wikimedia UK 1.0). At that time we considered the possibility of a hostile takeover, and our attitude was that because the single biggest asset (by a long way) was the "Wikimedia" name that that was what needed defending. Accordingly everything was set up so that if a hostile takeover happened, the Wikimedia Foundation could quickly and easily revoke the right to use the name, meaning that the hostile board would be left with little more than a worthless shell. I can't remember if the impetus for this came from the Foundation or from the prospective chapter folks. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 23:38, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

It is an interesting point, however there are two massive differences between a hostile take-over of Wiki Educational Resources and Wikimedia UK, namely access to donated funds of nearly a million pounds and responsibility for employment of 9 people. --Fæ (talk) 09:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

My understanding of charity law (and I accept I might be wrong) is that the board is prohibited from spending any donated funds in a manner contrary to the charity's objectives, which would render some protection (and if the money is spent furthering our objectives that isn't actually a bad thing). I suppose it is possible that a hostile board could change the objectives, but I don't know to what extent that would need to be approved by bodies such as the charity commission. Again IANAL, but I believe that employment law gives protection to employees such that they cannot be forced to act contrary to their terms of employment, and while I don't know the terms on which WMUK employees are hired it would not surprise me if they are required not to bring the organisation into disrepute or similar. That would provide a limited defence against a hostile board acting contrary to the charity's interests. The main point though was to make it an unattractive target or a hostile takeover. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 10:34, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Michael, by the way, I have raised a related question at Status of reports and some numbers underpinning the FDC application which you may wish to consider. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:02, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Review of membership approvals process

Michael, now I have had some time to check through the minutes of the July board meeting in conjunction with Chris' statement on this thread that no action is being taken or planned, I am having difficulty reconciling your statement here of "That active review is continuing". Given the history of board and CEO level discussions and related actions dates back well over a year, could you explain for the benefit of interested members the scope of the continuing review of membership verification, exactly who has been actioned by the board, and when the members will be able to read a public report of the outcomes of the review of this issue? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 09:50, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

The review has been ongoing by email and the issue is likely to be raised at the December board meeting. Chris did not say that "no action is being taken or planned". --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:15, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the partial clarification, though it would be useful for the members to openly know who has been actioned by the board and what the scope of this review is.

I note that a possible date of December to have another discussion, would make this a major risk that has been under discussion by the trustees for over 18 months, without any action, plan or committed resources that members have been informed about.

As for Chris' comment earlier in this thread, I made a reasonable paraphrasing I thought, however to avoid doubt, Chris stated "It's my view (along with most of the Board) that any additional "verification" step would be offputting for prospective members, as well as an unnecessary administrative headache" which to any casual reader indicates that the board has no intention to take any action on this, indeed there appears to be no action in the minutes of the last two board meetings. It is impossible for members to know the contents of unpublished emails between trustees, we can only form our opinion from the comments that trustees have made here. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:58, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

A Water Cooler for members only?

It has been suggested several times above that it would be useful to set up a 'private' water cooler, for members of the charity only, where members can speak openly and raise issues that are perhaps best not discussed in an entirely open forum. I am myself in two minds about that, and it would be good to have a discussion here. As I see it, there are pros and cons:

Pros

• There is nowhere else that members can discuss private issues of interest, nor internal or contentious issues that may not be easy to discuss openly in public. Having to ring the office is not always a good solution for a member who would like to start a quiet discussion.
• Members with concerns would be able to raise issues without contributing to what otherwise - to uninvolved readers - can easily come over as 'washing dirty linen in public' or 'navel-gazing'. Doing everything on a public forum can easily give the incorrect impression that the charity is more concerned about internal in-fighting than actually getting on with its mission.

Cons

• Transparency is part of the charity's mission, and we should not keep things confidential unless there are very good reasons to do so.
• The very existence of a closed discussion forum could and probably would generate suspicion, and provide fuel for conspiracy theories.
• Users with critical views to express may well not want them kept confidential, and may prefer to have an open discussion in a forum (here or elsewhere) where they might hope to garner non-member support. That could largely undermine the purpose of having a confidential forum.

I am sure there are more issues that I have not thought of. Comments and discussion would be welcome. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:21, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

We have long experience of closed wikis, they tend to be used rarely and only by small numbers of the groups they are intended for. If you consider the closed WMUK Board wiki, the closed OTRS wiki and the closed Chapters wiki as examples, they tend to be used as places to dump reference material, none is a good place to discuss any issue and are likely to disenfranchise those that are less wiki-passionate, in fact related open email lists tend to be far more popular. I'm not against an experiment, even if openness is at the heart of the WMUK values, however my expectation would be that few of the 220 members would join (after all only an average of 20 members ever write here) and even fewer would use it for anything. If we increase membership (the target for 2014 being 400), I would expect an even lower proportion to engage in closed wikis or closed email lists.

If the incentive here is to close down discussion of topics such as entryism for this charity, it should be noted that the board of trustees openly published minutes of their vote and discussion on this issue of membership verification. The general way membership functions or fails to function correctly for a public charity, should be a matter of public record as it is of distinct public interest. I struggle to think of any topic that would be of genuine interest to members that should not be discussed publicly that would not create equivalent problems if encouraged to be discussed on a closed forum, for example suspected instances of financial fraud or defamatory allegations that should not be made in any written forum. Especially in the light of the fact that members are effectively anonymous, and we would have no way of stopping any member copying discussions back into an open forum, nor could we take any legal action in such circumstances unless it were a criminal matter or libel. --Fæ (talk) 19:16, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

No 'incentive' here from my perspective. I opened the thread as it is an idea that Philafrenzy has suggested several times, and it seems at the very least to merit discussion. But there are quite clearly serious 'cons'. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:11, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

I will give a fuller reply later but may I point out that it is hardly my original idea Michael. The chapter, and Jon in particular, have been worried for a long time about how the water cooler appears to the rest of the world including potential members and trustees, and I think several people including trustees and Jon have asked whether things raised here could have been raised in private. I am just stating the obvious which is that if this is too public, the only logical response is to make it more private. Philafrenzy (talk) 23:40, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this, Michael. At the moment I would tend towards "no", for two reasons;

• It is useful and possibly important to have non-members looking at, and participating in, the kinds of issues that members discuss. For instance - a Wikimedian who's never quite got around to joining might see something that interested them, and add some useful comments, and then get more involved. Also, there are some people who have valuable input but have reasons for not joining: for instance because of professional reasons, or because they don't want to compromise their anonymity.
• Any shared space is vulnerable to abuse: if the frequency of negative interaction increases too much, people will start to avoid it and find other places to have conversations. This problem is worse in closed spaces which have fewer users. There was an example of this recently on a Wikimedia Foundation email list called internal-l, which used to include many Foundation staff and board members, chapter board members, and the like. Sadly, it became dominated by a couple of people sending shouty emails, a bunch of people unsubscribed, and it's now scarcely used. In general, more interaction, more positive interaction, and more community regulation of the shared space is more likely to make it successful, and these things are on the whole easier in the open.

But it would certainly be worth hearing more thoughts on this. The Land (talk) 08:29, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Some good points there, and in conjunction with Fae's point about the probable lack of engagement with such a forum I am also tending towards "no". More comments would be welcome, though. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:12, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Clearly there are major disadvantages in protecting this page in some way or making it member only and I don't think that two water coolers would work or be necessary. There remains, however, a reason for having a page, perhaps little used, where members only may raise matters that are not suitable for a public forum and which need to be raised in writing with the membership as a whole in a confidential way. I acknowledge the point that such confidentiality is easily broken but that is not an argument for not having such a page.

The page could act as a sort of safety valve that would allow members to "whistle blow" to other members and act as an early warning mechanism for the board that there may be something that demands their immediate attention. It would also give members a choice, which they do not have at present, of how they raise matters with the chapter and the membership and remove the excuse that there was no alternative but to post here. I acknowledge the possible anti-democratic implications of, for instance, having important debates such as about CIPR there rather than here but it is desirable, I think, that members should be able to communicate with each other in writing and in private without having to go through an intermediary on the board or the staff, as we are currently encouraged to do. It is irrelevant that such a page may be little used. It ought to exist for its own sake, much like the emergency brake on a train. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:16, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The Water cooler had many uses, not the least of which showing me that tilde is not spelt like a 70's instant curry! Moving to a private space is not the answer but we need to think hard about how it is or is not functioning.

It is not attracting more than 20 people. That cannot be good. It is uspetting people. That is certainly not good. Despite all the news of good initiatives and opportunities its content tends to be dominated by 'navel gazing'. Even I struggle to understand the nuances of some of the discussions. This IS our public forum after all and perhaps we should make more of an effort to be accessible? I would argue that it is far too introspective. From my observations much of the vibrant dialogue on the community happens on facebook (crosses himself lest the devil takes his open source soul). The watercooler has little levity or humour or lightness of touch. There is often a distinct lack of AGF. One of my staff fears looking at it and told me so this morning. Should I ban staff from using it? That would be so sad. How can we make it more interesting and accessible? We share a lot of brickbats and not enough barnstars on the Watercooler. As one ex-trustee once told me ' we are an organsiation that hasn't learnt to say thank you" Could the Watercooler be part of a change in this culture?

I would like to see a watercooler where my member of staff logged on every morning with enthusiasm hoping to learn more about what people were thinking and feeling ready to contribute knowing people would be polite and even kind to them. I don't think this is impossible.

Tilde time Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with Jon here, particularly when it comes to not moving to a private space, and also when it comes to people fearing to look at this page. :-( This should be a place where everyone can discuss WMUK in a pleasant manner, without aiming to upset anyone. At the same time, though, everyone should be able to honestly and openly express and explain their viewpoints here. I think that introspection is a really important aspect of this - and I'm really disappointed to hear that there is dialogue taking place on facebook, since that excludes a lot of people (including myself since I only participate in personal conversations there!) Levity and humour doesn't necessarily need to be here, although I would hope that this would happen naturally where things are going well. I'm not sure what 'brickbats' means (since enwp also doesn't know this term), and barnstars belong on user pages rather than this page, but it would be good to see more barnstar-worthy comments left here. I'm rather saddened by Jon's last line, though, as it really should be *our* members of staff rather than Jon's. :-( Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to put words in his mouth but I think Jon feels protective of the staff Mike, and that their efforts are under-appreciated and meet only with criticism. I understand why he might feel that way. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

In some ways I agree with Jon here, but I also feel he is also using polarising language: Should the CEO be either commanding staff to use the Watercooler, or banning them from using it. Could not they be given discretion as to how to handle whatever situations arise as they arise? And isn't it the tensions which surface on the Watercooler which upset people, rather than the water cooler itself. Yes, it is a public forum, but not a platform for WMUK to advertise itself. For myself I think one area where clarity would be useful is that I feel we need a clear distinction between Wikipedia/Wikimedia communities, and WMUK which is a firm. In fact they are like chalk and cheese, and whenever they are turned into an amalgam, it will generate problems. When I edit Wikipedia, I am not a "volunteer" so much as an "amateur" (I really dislike the way "professionalism" has come to imply a superior quality of performance, when this is so often far from the case.) When I edit are participate in what Yochai Benkler calls Commons-based peer production. However when I volunteer for Wikimedia UK, I am functioning as an unpaid member of a firm, donating my labour because I wish to contribute to the shared goals of the organisation. Now I realise this all getting somewhat theoretical, but it is my view that this is the only way to develop a way of coping with what I regard as inevitable tensions. Let's see! Leutha (talk) 22:25, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

(after edit conflict with Leutha and Philafrenzy) Wiktionary is more illuminating about what a brickbat is, possibly it could be more so but it is a start. The second sense is the one being used here.

As to the substance of the comment, I can understand why someone may not like reading this page. Far too often I'm seeing comments that read as if they are based on the assumption that the staff and/or trustees are bad, wrong and out to deliberately destroy the charity. Not a single one of the WMUK people I've met (at least two trustees and most of the office staff I think) has been anything of the sort and such attitudes should have no place on any Wikimedia-related project. If staff are frightened to come here how can we hope to attract volunteers?

Linking to Wiktionary has given me an idea for a possible way forward that might be a step in the right direction to fix this problem. At the English Wiktionary there are multiple central discussion spaces, all equally public, but each with their own purpose:

• An Information desk, similar to the Help desk at the English Wikipedia. For minor problems, help and queries
• The Tea Room, and Etymology scriptorium which deal with queries about specific words and etymology (not dissimilar to the en.wp Reference desks).
• The Beer parlour is where policy discussions happen; and
• The Grease pit is where technical requests, discussions and development happens.

I get the feeling that here the Water cooler is trying to be all of them, and isn't doing a good job of it. We don't need 5 spaces, we're not that big. So can I suggest the following reorganisation (but maybe with better names):

• Water Cooler (or maybe Lobby or Pub it wants an image change): A place that focuses on being an open and welcoming space for informal light-hearted discussion among everybody. The welcoming public face that we show the world. The atmosphere should be as friendly and welcoming as the office is.
• Break room: For discussions about internal matters that are not relevant to the world at large. While anyone is welcome to come and join in, it isn't thrust in their faces if they aren't interested. This should still have a welcoming atmosphere, but needn't necessarily be as jovial as the main area.
• Technical lounge (if needed): For technical requests and queries about the wiki. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 22:30, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Since the discussions here are discursive, and making any of them private seems to be off the menu, how will we ensure appropriate use of the pages? Won't it just lead to discussions spread over three pages? Philafrenzy (talk) 22:49, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

QRpedia Donation Update

The last thread on the announced donation of QRPedia to WMUK has now been archived, unresolved(see https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Water_cooler/2013#QRpedia_update for the last discussion).

As of today, whois.com shows ownership of the QRPedia related domains as:

• qrpedia.org – Terrence Eden
• qrwp.org – Bamkin Family
• qrpedia.org.uk – Michael Peel, but with WMUK’s contact details(1)
• qrpedia.net - Wiki UK Limited
• qrpedia.co.uk – Bamkin Family

(1) It appears that qrpedia.org.uk has not been properly transferred to Wiki UK Limited, as qrpedia.net was. I have alerted him to the problem on meta.

Given that it is now more than a year since the first announcement of the donation, more than six months since the last announcement of the donation, three months since the WMUK prepared agreement was provided to Roger Bamkin for signature, and one month since WMUK Chair advised that the situation could not go on indefinitely, could a definite statement on this donation please be given? Please, clearly either decline the donation, or advise a date by which the donation will be resolved and the transfer occur – or of course, better still, an announcement could be made that the donation has been completed, and the domains transferred to WMUK. TheOverflow (talk) 03:37, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Dear TheOverflow, the transfer agreement has been signed by ourselves, Terence but not yet by Roger. This was discussed at the last WMUK board meeting in September and is in the hands of the trustee dealing with the matter. We would all like to be able to report a resolution to this and will do so as soon as there is one. Apologies for the delays. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 11:02, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. By what date to you expect this to be resolved? As I noted above, the Chair has previously advised that this cannot continue indefinitely, but without a date for resolution, it is, effectively, continuing indefinitely. Has the trustee responsible had any recent correspondence regarding when resolution can be expected? TheOverflow (talk) 22:25, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh how I wish I could say but in the hands of the trustee handling it.Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 09:42, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I imagine that is still Saad. From what I understand of the recent governance audit, the approach of using trustees to manage this sort of operational matter is to be avoided in future, and this will become wholly the responsibility and authority of the CEO. --Fæ (talk) 10:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the trustee handling the matter could comment? TheOverflow (talk) 22:56, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

+1 Come on Saad. --Fæ (talk) 23:19, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Saad tells us that a final date in the very near future has been arrived at whereby we take ownership or move away. Fingers crossed. Tilde time. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 14:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Mobile app for EduWiki 2013

Further to my recent announcement on the Water Cooler about trialing a mobile app called EventSpark, which is being considered for Wikimania 2014, at EduWiki Conference 2013: the app is now live and available for download. Full instructions available here. --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 11:45, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Interested in helping Wiki take Leicester?

Hello everyone. I recently met with an editor of the Gujarati Wikipedia to explore some ideas of how the chapter can support outreach efforts to Gujarati speaking communities. The proposal we came up with was Wiki Takes Leicester. This would be a traditional Wiki Takes style event but with a slight emphasis on Indian culture and community. There would also be a parallel session offering editing training, on both the English and Gujarati Wikipedias. The draft proposal is at https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Draft_proposal:_Wiki_Takes_Leicester so please take a look and get involved. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:55, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Engagement with public libraries - a draft proposal

Hello everyone. Recently I spoke with a friend who is a librarian and we discussed how widely Wikipedia is used in public libraries. We got to thinking about how Wikimedia UK could engage with those users effectively. This led me to have a very useful exploratory conversation with the Operations and Data Manager of Thurrock Library Service. We discussed some possibilities and following on from that I've put together some notes into a draft proposal for how we may do this. It's at https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Draft_proposal:_Thurrock_Libraries and I'd welcome your thoughts. Please note that's it a draft at the moment and none of this is set in stone. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:58, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Hearing Loop

We've just purchased a hearing loop for the UK chapter, to make it easier for those with hearing difficulties to partake in discussions and events. The loop doesn't have a huge range, so it's not good for full conferences, and is instead best for smaller meetings of 3-4 people.

We'll work to update the various event pages to include this information in the next few weeks. This loop can be requested by anyone running or attending events (provided we know who's in charge of it). I'd be really keen on hearing from people how it can be "effectively utilised", and doesn't just sit around gathering dust. Every time that it could be used, we want it to be used. We'd be happy to lend it to other chapters for short periods too (although it's a UK/240v charging system). Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 16:54, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Monuments results

We are pleased to announce the winners of Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in the UK. [See the blog for the results and pictures.]

This was a magnificent effort for a band of devoted volunteers who got it all together, Richard Nevell and Katie Chan who offered staff input (and some) and of course the participants.

Wiki Loves Monuments is the world’s largest photography contest. The objective is to collect high quality photographs of some of the world’s most important buildings – in the UK, this means Grade I and Grade II* listed buildings.

Over 570 people took part in the UK competition, contributing more than 12,000 photos to Wikimedia Commons, one of the world’s largest repositories of freely licensed media files. Volunteer editors have already started making use of some of these new images to illustrate Wikipedia.

Steve Cole, one of the competition judges and Head of Imaging at English Heritage, said: ” The Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition produced a fantastic range of subjects and photographic styles. Choosing the winners was no easy task. The views of the judges varied enormously, individual favourites fell by the wayside as they failed to excite the other two judges. The winning images present not only a good eye for composition but also the ability to capture the mood of the moment.”

Bottom line is that Commons now has 12,000 more images that can support our movement. We can't wait for the next one.

Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 10:49, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In buttons

Hello everyone. A volunteer has approached me with the suggestion that it would be a good idea to add Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In buttons to the UK wiki to make it easier to share interesting content with others. I think this is a good idea assuming we can work out things like privacy. I leave that to people with a better understanding! What I'm keen on here is to to understand what other people think. So - any thoughts? Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 13:55, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Certainly I can see the attraction for things like events pages and other things we want to publicise. I'd guess that just linking to a page on here via such a button would be no different privacy wise than copypasting the URL, but I have no actual knowledge. I have no objection if there are no privacy or similar obstacles. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 15:12, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The standard share this page links/buttons leak information on which page someone is on to the social media sites (I'm assuming if you are logged in to the social media sites). It is possible to do share it via two clicks, where the first click activate the buttons, with the second click actually sharing the page that will get over this issue. Will need a more detailed look into how the script work and our privacy policy before definitely commenting that such a solution would be okay. Would do that, if the community think this is something worth having. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 16:06, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Two key issues with social media buttons (such as sharethis, like or vote) and common reasons raised over the last few years every time this comes up:

1. These "social buttons" drive useful discussion and viewpoints out of the Wikimedia community (or any other open community) and moves them to a platform which is closed, spams you with intelligent advertising, and may require membership and logging in to even read. This will discriminate against those Wikimedians who will refuse to have to have to log in to Facebook in order read a discussion there or to set up a Twitter account to express their own views on that platform. Worse, where Wikimedians have driven discussion to off-wiki sites, such as Facebook groups, the discussion does not have to comply with local policies such as avoiding defamatory or discriminatory content. A good example was the Facebook campaign which moved discussion on the issue of sexually explicit content away from discussion pages on Commons, where these views may have actually influenced policy, and instead divided the community, effectively ensuring that a consensus would not be reached through cooperative discussion by sticking to one main on-wiki process.
2. A key element of the Wikimedia UK charity's mission is to "promote an open approach to learning and knowledge", spending donated funds on integrating a Wikimedia site with closed platforms, that may then drive readers and editors away from our open projects in order to express their views on closed sites is the opposite of this mission. It would be better for Wikimedia UK to encourage discussion on this cooperative social wiki, rather than away from it.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 17:07, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree and don't want to have to monitor too many sites to keep up to date with discussions. Already there is a difficulty aggregating opinion in one place in order to form a coherent consensus and this wouldn't help. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:46, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

While I agree with the points you are making, I don't think that what is being proposed here is to divert any discussion away from this wiki. My reading of the initial proposal, and so my earlier comment, was that the buttons would be used to advertise content on this wiki on external sites. For example I know lots of people with an interest in history and archaeology, and we have an informal discussion group on Facebook where we link to various topics of mutual interest. I advertised the Wiki Takes Chester event on that group by linking to the event page on this wiki. I did this by copying and pasting the URI. If I have understood the initial proposal correctly, I could have done exactly the same thing by pressing a "share to facebook" button on this wiki. The aim of such would be to pull contributors from the closed source social network onto this free content wiki, which would be a good thing (in my opinion) rather than to push people away from here (which would be the bad thing you say it would be). I don't know which of us is reading the proposal right or wrong, I am simply pointing out that your (Fæ and Philafrenzy) reading is not the only one and explain the background to my comment. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 00:06, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough, I think it depends on the exact technical mechanism, where the buttons would be, who could click them and what info was passed on to whom. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:32, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Thryduulf has it exactly correct. It's about making it easier for people to share information that they think is interesting with people that they think may find it interesting. It's just another way to encourage people to share information about the chapter and its work. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 08:17, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

This is a tough one but although we are growing gradually as a community not enough people know about what we do and how to get involved. This could help? Tildas Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 11:38, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

If links are being shared on facebook or elsewhere, then it's inevitable that people will start talking about them there (since there's normally a nice easy comment box right below the link), so that is definitely something to bear in mind. It is something that is unavoidable, though - people will share links regardless of whether there's nice easy buttons to do so on a page. For me, it really comes down to whether we want to promote the other websites here, and how we choose which ones we promote. There's the obvious ones like facebook, twitter, etc., but there are also open source alternatives (e.g. status.net) - shouldn't WMUK be giving more of a presence to them? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:06, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no evidence that integrating a Wikimedia project or Chapter wiki with the closed systems of Facebook or similar by adding buttons, would result in more contributions to Wikimedia projects or do anything other than drive discussion that could be held on-wiki to being off-wiki; if there is evidence that editor growth is an outcome then I would be very interested to see it as a justification for the investment, and the apparent deviation from the core values of the charity. However there is case evidence that well written blog posts and providing pieces and interviews for the press or other websites does attract more involvement, if nothing else by seeing the readership and editing of controversial or promoted topics increasing. Essentially the difference is creating media content that is intellectually engaging and attracts the types of people who might actually want to write solid content or publish quality photographs, from the haz cheezeburger twitterati with attention spans typically measured in seconds, even though engaging with the twitterati will give high "media engagement" values, the outcomes are non-existent or at best incredibly shallow, such as just attracting more vandalism or the mobile engagement exercise for Wikimedia Commons that resulted in 90%+ of mobile uploads being copyright violations that were an enormous drain on Administrator's time. Ensuring we had meaningful engagement with the media and high quality pieces that become reference stories for everyone else, is one of the reasons why that when Wikimedia UK started hiring employees, we believed that placing someone in a Communications role was a priority.

To be honest, given an hour or two I could rehash some old code and create a user script to provide any Wikimedia project with "share this/tweet this" type buttons at the side of a page for a whole range of social media sites (so please do not pay a contractor out of donated funds when this can be done by unpaid volunteers). I have never wanted to release code of this type because it is antithetical to our values. --Fæ (talk) 12:13, 31 October 2013 (UTC)