IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-05-26

[09:53am] Pharos joined the chat room.
[09:53am] <Odisha1>: hello..
[09:54am] <StevenW>: Hello!
[09:54am] <GerardM->: Hoi Odisha1
[09:54am] <Odisha1>: sorry i m late..
[09:54am] <Thehelpfulone>: hi
[09:54am] <GerardM->: you are on time
[09:54am] <StevenW>: Sue's just getting in everyone, so it will be a moment still. :)
[09:54am] mindspillage joined the chat room.
[09:54am] <GerardM->: Hoi Kat
[09:54am] • mindspillage waves
[09:54am] <Thehelpfulone>: StevenW: I've spammed most channels at 16:50 UTC, perhaps you can re-do it in 10 mins?
[09:54am] pariaxed joined the chat room.
[09:55am] <StevenW>: Sure thing. Thanks Thehelpfulone.
[09:55am] <Thehelpfulone>: np :)
[09:55am] <Tanvir>: StevenW, the spammer!
[09:55am] <StevenW>: haha
[09:55am] <StevenW>: Hi Tanvir
[09:55am] matanya joined the chat room.
[09:55am] • Ironholds wanders off to have Thehelpfulone blocked
[09:55am] <Tanvir>: Hiya!
[09:55am] <Ironholds>: oh, and StevenW. he's a vicarious spammer.
[09:55am] <Thehelpfulone>: hehe
[09:55am] • Fluffernutter would pay to see Ironholds block StevenW
[09:55am] <Nihiltres>: ah, it's nearly time
[09:56am] • Tanvir locks StevenW and Thehelpfulone with the following comment: Cross-channel spam. :P
[09:56am] <Ironholds>: Fluffernutter: I owe him cookies
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[09:56am] <StevenW>: I haven't done it yet Tanvir. ;-)
[09:56am] <Ironholds>: well, mindspillage owes him cookies, I offered to deliver them if I'm in SF before she is
[09:56am] <Fluffernutter>: Ironholds: so after you block him, he’ll offer you cookies and you’ll knuckle under and unblock?
[09:56am] <Thehelpfulone>: exactly, blocks can't be pre-emptive Tanvir :P
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[09:56am] <Tanvir>: Okay, then I am waiting to press the button StevenW. ;)
[09:56am] <You were granted voice by ChanServ.
[09:57am] <Tanvir>: o.O StevenW is a OP? He can ban me now. :(
[09:57am] <Thehelpfulone>: :D
[09:57am] <Fluffernutter>: better be nice :P
[09:57am] <Tanvir>: Heh
[09:57am] <StevenW>: I am, but I don't usually op myself because there's no reason to
[09:57am] sgardner joined the chat room.
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[09:58am] <sgardner was granted voice by ChanServ.
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[09:58am] <GerardM->: Hoi Sue
[09:58am] <Thehelpfulone>: hi sgardner, you might want to identify so we know it's really you ;)
[09:58am] <Fluffernutter>: that helpful one, so helpful
[09:58am] <GerardM->: <grin> do not think that is necessary
[09:58am] <sgardner>: It's me; StevenW can vouch for me :-)
[09:59am] <StevenW>: haha
[09:59am] <GerardM->: if it is not her *it* gets kicjed
[09:59am] <sgardner>: How are you all? :-)
[09:59am] Courcelles joined the chat room.
[09:59am] <Thehelpfulone>: good thanks :)
[09:59am] <Ironholds>: eh, alright.
[09:59am] <tommorris>: ooh
[09:59am] <sgardner>: What's wrong Oliver?
[09:59am] • tommorris is stalking sgardner logged-out edits
[09:59am] <Odisha1>: evergreen
[09:59am] jvandavier joined the chat room.
[09:59am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: I got bored and decided to map the entire help interface
[09:59am] <Ironholds>: I finished it
[09:59am] <Ironholds>: now I'm bored again :P
[09:59am] <sgardner>: OMG
[09:59am] <Fluffernutter>: sgardner: I WARNED him about the pain involved in that!
[09:59am] <Fluffernutter>: but he didn’t listen!
[10:00am] <tommorris>: Ironholds: there is ths encyclopedia to write...
[10:00am] <GerardM->: <working on an interview by Ting>
[10:00am] <sgardner>: We tried to do that in New York at the wiki meetup -- Fluffernutter you were there, weren't you?
[10:00am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: I actually made it more difficult
[10:00am] <sgardner>: soo painful.
[10:00am] <mindspillage>: Ironholds isn't happy unless he has a huge task to complain about. :-)
[10:00am] <Fluffernutter>: yep, I started the sessions, sgardner
[10:00am] <Fluffernutter>: mindspillage++
[10:00am] <Ironholds>: the diagram is colour-coded with the SMOG Index readability level of each page
[10:00am] <matanya>: hello @ all
[10:00am] <sgardner>: That was a tough session. Eeeee.
[10:00am] SarekOfVulcan joined the chat room.
[10:00am] <sgardner>: Hi matanya :-)
[10:00am] <Ironholds>: mindspillage: I can be happy without complaining
[10:00am] <Ironholds>: sometimes, for example, I'm asleep
[10:00am] <Fluffernutter>: sgardner: and I’m annoyed to this day that once the sessions ended I couldn’t herd cats well enough to actually implement some change :/
[10:01am] <Ironholds>: or have laryngitis
[10:01am] Hedgehog456 joined the chat room.
[10:01am] <sgardner>: Hey Kat :-)
[10:01am] <Hedgehog456>: What's the topic?
[10:01am] MTC__ joined the chat room.
[10:01am] <Fluffernutter>: Ironholds: you can complain through laryngitis. You have a keyoard.
[10:01am] <sgardner>: So can I kick off a little?
[10:01am] <StevenW>: Please do!
[10:01am] Abbas joined the chat room.
[10:01am] <Nihiltres>: Ironholds: next, you need to productively edit every page on the wiki at least once.
[10:01am] <StevenW>: Hi Abbas
[10:01am] <Hedgehog456>: If it's New Edition Retention I have a huge speech to make
[10:01am] <Fluffernutter>: heh
[10:01am] Melos joined the chat room.
[10:01am] <Nihiltres>: ;)
[10:01am] <Hedgehog456>: *Editor
[10:01am] <sgardner>: I had a couple of ideas of things we might want to talk about.
[10:01am] <Abbas>: hi Steven, hi all
[10:01am] <sgardner>: Although I am also totally open to people's ideas; these are just notions.
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[10:02am] <StevenW>: Yeah, we didn't come with an agenda or preset questions this time.
[10:02am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: briefly, do you want me to email you the diagram and associated analysis when I've finished looking through the spreadsheeted results?
[10:02am] <sgardner>: The Wikimedia Foundation's currently developing the 2011-12 annual plan; I thought maybe you would want to know stuff about that -- either the process or the substance of the plan.
[10:02am] <sgardner>: Ironholds: yes, please :-)
[10:02am] <Ironholds>: neato
[10:02am] YairRand_ joined the chat room.
[10:02am] <sgardner>: Although it's possible I'm deluded, and the only one who finds the annual plan interesting .. is me.
[10:02am] <sgardner>: And second...
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[10:03am] <GerardM->: sgardner I wonder how much manouver room will be in there
[10:03am] killiondude left the chat room.
[10:03am] <sgardner>: I was thinking about the board elections, which are coming up pretty soon.
[10:03am] <StevenW>: When GerardM- is elected to the Board I think he will change the annual plan. ;-)
[10:03am] <sgardner>: And I was trying to remember if there's a board member chat before the election, so community members can ask questions, gain info about how the board works, etc.
[10:03am] <sgardner>: LOL StevenW :-)
[10:03am] <Ironholds>: we could always roll both topics into one?
[10:03am] <GerardM->: why do you think so ?
[10:04am] <Ironholds>: Milosh mentioned giving all the contributors a fiscal incentive of 200 dollars-ish to edit. Where's our money? :p
[10:04am] Prodego joined the chat room.
[10:04am] <GerardM->: because it is not how it works
[10:04am] <StevenW>: I was just kidding.
[10:04am] <StevenW>: :)
[10:04am] <sgardner>: And if there is not a chat with board members before the election, I wondered if people wanted to talk about the role of the board member, the kinds of work they do, etc. -- anything like that.
[10:04am] <sgardner>: (Kat is here too, so she could help if people want to do that.)
[10:04am] Bence joined the chat room.
[10:04am] <sgardner>: And now I'll stop talking, and catch up on what Gerard's been saying :-)
[10:04am] <sgardner>: And hi Bence!
[10:04am] brion joined the chat room.
[10:04am] <sgardner>: So tell me what you guys think, what you want to talk about :-)
[10:04am] <StevenW>: Hi Bence, Prodego: we're talking about the WMF annual plan, which is being worked on right about now. If you have questions in mind please LMK.
[10:05am] <GerardM->: tomorrow I am going to publish an inteview with Ting ... what he has to say about board members is really profound
[10:05am] <Nihiltres>: hi brion!
[10:05am] <Abbas>: I'm on the elections committee, although I'm not sure if there's a community IRC scheduled -- but I think we could organise one
[10:05am] <GerardM->: and Kat was so gracious to allow for some questions as well
[10:05am] • mindspillage thinks it's a little awkward to do a board memebr chat, as all of the commuinty-elected members are running again!
[10:05am] <Hedgehog456>: I personally think we should make the Article Incubator mandatory for all new articles and articles below C-class
[10:05am] <geniice>: Abbas given the number of candidates it would be messy at best
[10:05am] <StevenW>: That is true mindspillage
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[10:06am] <Prodego>: StevenW: might I suggest running some sort of free online encyclopedia be part of the plan?
[10:06am] <Ironholds>: Hedgehog456: you appreciate that stub-class articles can be perfectly referenced and formatted, just short? :P
[10:06am] <mindspillage>: (it would be great to have one, actually, without the three of us running participating)
[10:06am] <Abbas>: but there are new candidates as well...
[10:06am] <Courcelles>: Mindspillage, going abck to the trough must mean we're not getting /quite/ enough work out of y'all :D
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[10:06am] <StevenW>: haha Prodego
[10:06am] <Hedgehog456>: Ironholds: okay, remove the C-class thing
[10:06am] <Hedgehog456>: new articles though
[10:06am] <WereSpielchqrs>: I don't know how many candidates there will be for the board but I wonder if IRC would work for a hustings with multiple candidates?
[10:06am] <sgardner>: mindspillage, yeah, it's totally awkward. There are good arguments for and against it. It might make sense to have a chat with the board members who are NOT running, insofar as the purpose would be to try to suss out what makes a good board member, how the board works, what the people do -- that kind of thing.
[10:06am] <Prodego>: everything else is mostly a waste of money
[10:06am] <Ironholds>: Hedgehog456: that's what they're doing.
[10:06am] <mindspillage>: Courcelles: or the sanity has been beaten out of us. Either way.
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[10:06am] <Hedgehog456>: Ironholds: mandatory? O_o
[10:07am] <Ironholds>: Hedgehog456: unfortunately.
[10:07am] <Ironholds>: or, a variation on incubation
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[10:07am] <sgardner>: Oh, sorry, we're talking a little at cross purposes. I wasn't thinking about a candidate chat (although that also makes sense to do); I was thinking about a 'what the heck do board members do anyway" chat.
[10:08am] <sgardner>: (I'm not saying people don't think the board members do any work; I'm saying that they may not know what the work is like.)
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[10:08am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: the board chat would be interesting, and that'd allow for existing trustees to contribute
[10:08am] <Hedgehog456>: Ironholds: So this is what happens when someone vanishes for a while? :P
[10:08am] <Ironholds>: heck, it'd make them the centre of attention
[10:08am] <sgardner>: (And if they knew what it was like, that would help them make their choices for the vote.)
[10:08am] <Ironholds>: and I do so love making mindspillage feel awkward and under pressure :P
[10:08am] <brion>: the board *is* a bit mysterious :)
[10:09am] <mindspillage>: brion: I'mon Facebook. I have no mysteries left.
[10:09am] <brion>: :)
[10:09am] <sgardner>: Would that be interesting for people? Would people have questions?
[10:09am] <Hedgehog456>: mindspillage: Diaspora
[10:09am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: I'd totally show up
[10:09am] <Ironholds>: with questions. I'm all about the pointless questions.
[10:09am] <tommorris>: I'd show up to get my $200
[10:09am] <brion>: i think it would definitely be interesting for folks to get a better idea of what's going on in board-land and how all the oversight & planning works
[10:09am] <Courcelles>: Sounds interesting.
[10:09am] <sgardner>: Okay, so let's do it. I'll ask the board if they're game.
[10:09am] <StevenW>: Cool.
[10:09am] <Thehelpfulone>: sgardner: I'd want to know what they do :D
[10:10am] <GerardM->: Oh well, how do you like this ? http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2011/05/wmfboard-interview-with-patricio.html
[10:10am] <sgardner>: (Maybe there is something scheduled already, just a general chat. We'll check.)
[10:10am] <sgardner>: Thehelpfulone: we could ask Kat, right now :-)
[10:10am] <Thehelpfulone>: indeed, mindspillage what do you do?
[10:10am] <sgardner>: (Pinning her up against the wall, as Ironholds likes :-)
[10:10am] <mindspillage>: ...
[10:10am] <Ironholds>: ...
[10:10am] <sgardner>: LOL :-)
[10:10am] <Ironholds>: NOT what I meant
[10:10am] <StevenW>: She spills her mind, obviously. ;)
[10:11am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: you know the WMF covering psychiatric insurance?
[10:11am] <Ironholds>: does it just cover YOURS, or are you going to pay for the trauma I've just suffered? :p
[10:11am] <sgardner>: Most definitely :-)
[10:11am] <mindspillage>: Mostly, we send a lot of email. So part of it is the basic oversight role: reviewing the budget, the annual plan, evaluating the executive director ::eyes sgardner::. and the general functioning of the org...
[10:11am] <sgardner>: We have a wellness allowance, so people can get whatever help they need :-)
[10:11am] <mindspillage>: It's also looking at the big-picture long term questions>: [10:12am] <mindspillage>: the strategic planning process was a board initiative, for example: where are we going, and how do we set out a road map to get there?
[10:12am] <mindspillage>: And answering questions from the perspective of the long-term stability and success of the organization: who should we partner with to be most effective? Which policies should we adopt globally to ensure that we stay free as in speech and freely accessible? Can we make compromises and should we?
[10:12am] <GerardM->: it is indeed the strategic choices that are influenced by the board
[10:13am] <Abbas>: do contractors also enjoy those allowances?
[10:13am] <mindspillage>: And what can we do to help guide the communities into making good choices and ensuring that success?
[10:13am] <tommorris>: a few well-placed indef blocks...
[10:13am] <StevenW>: Is movement roles sort of like that mindspillage? The strategic planning I mean.
[10:13am] <mindspillage>: sgardner: I think the board could use psychiatric benefits... :-P
[10:13am] <mindspillage>: StevenW: somewhat, yes!
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[10:14am] <sgardner>: Kate, you are on the HR committee; you can make that happen :-)
[10:14am] <mindspillage>: StevenW: the movement roles group is a group with the same concerns and ideals, focused on one particular part of the strategy--it includes some board members also.
[10:14am] <sgardner>: Kate. LOL. typo.
[10:14am] <StevenW>: Ah, gotcha. Thank you. :)
[10:15am] <sgardner>: So for example, one of the issues the board grapples with is (and is currently grappling with) is how much emphasis the Wikimedia Foundation should put on growing its operational reserve fund.
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[10:15am] <StevenW>: Can you translate operational reserve fund to human speak Sue? ;)
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[10:16am] <Courcelles>: Thinks that would be "rainy day fund"
[10:16am] <Nihiltres>: StevenW: the phrase "rainy day" comes to mind
[10:16am] <StevenW>: Yes.
[10:16am] <Nihiltres>: ah, damnit, Courcelles :P
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[10:16am] • Fluffernutter jinxes Courcelles and Nihiltres
[10:16am] <sgardner>: That's a conversation I'm having with the board right now. It's a somewhat dry conversation --we've created financial scenarios going forward seven years, etc.-- but it's a really important conversation, because it's about balancing the importance of programmatic activities (e.g., Visual Editor) against the importance of yes,.., having rainy day funding.
[10:16am] <sgardner>: (Reading now.)
[10:16am] <mindspillage>: there are the arguments over competing concerns: financial stability, potentially having to direct resources away from short-term needs, will it mean having to do more fundraising, what is the likelihood of risks if we don't, etc.
[10:17am] <mindspillage>: (which translates into lots of email, mostly)
[10:17am] <Prodego>: perhaps if less money were spent on other things...
[10:17am] <quanticle>: Such as?
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[10:17am] <Nihiltres>: Prodego: and then some other things don't get done :/
[10:17am] <tommorris>: actually, here's a question for sgardner and others: the editor survey a while back, have the WMF learned anything interesting from that yet?
[10:18am] <GerardM->: the question is also what the effect of money spend now will be for advancing our goals
[10:18am] <tommorris>: I'm pretty sure that had some section on prioritisation of funding
[10:18am] <sgardner>: Yes!
[10:18am] <sgardner>: (StevenW is typing an answer here.)
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[10:18am] <Prodego>: Nihiltres: sure, but the budget has gone up far faster than the site has grown
[10:18am] <StevenW>: tommorris: the results are still being analyzed by Mani (Padne), but hopefully they'll be published very soon
[10:19am] <Prodego>: Nihiltres: that money must be going somewhere that wasn't needed a few years ago
[10:19am] <GerardM->: Prodego there is still underfunding in areas
[10:19am] <GerardM->: money that was not spend because we did not have it
[10:19am] <sgardner>: And incidentally tommorris, I asked the same question (about prioritization of funding) in a survey I did of board members back in January.
[10:19am] <Nihiltres>: Prodego: some, I'm sure. but GerardM- gets it
[10:20am] Abbas left the chat room.
[10:20am] <StevenW>: There are some interesting tidbits though from the editor survey, that sgardner has talked about with staff and I think on GerardM-'s blog.
[10:20am] <StevenW>: Do you want to share those real quick Sue?
[10:20am] <tommorris>: sgardner: I look forward to seeing the difference in results. although i look forward to not seeing any difference more. ;-)
[10:20am] <Prodego>: GerardM-: I am confident that there would be ways to spend more money if it were present, but that's always the case
[10:21am] <Prodego>: personally I'd lean towardds the rooftop rotating wikiglobe
[10:21am] <GerardM->: my point is that money spend now in areas can have a huge impact on achieving our goals
[10:21am] <sgardner>: Prodego: yes, the budget has gone up faster than the site has grown, absolutely. Some of that spending was overdue/remedial (like, we needed to be buying more servers), and some of it is programmatic -- intended to support making the site better.
[10:21am] <Nihiltres>: Prodego: there's always the Wikipedia-in-space meme
[10:22am] <brion>: and keep in mind that the budget's *still* tiny for everything we're doing
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[10:22am] <tommorris>: Prodego: I'm leaning towards a few million for a group of elite mercenaries to go around punishing vandals.
[10:22am] <brion>: we could spend ten times what we do and still be cheap
[10:22am] <Prodego>: sgardner: that's certainly true, and also programs such as the usability initiative that a site as large as wikipedia should definitely have
[10:22am] <GerardM->: another consideration is that we are not bound by commercial considerations
[10:22am] <Prodego>: although I suppose that falls under programmatic
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[10:23am] <mindspillage>: tommorris: that's actually the Community Department. But their methods are subtle; they're trying psychological tactics first.
[10:23am] <sgardner>: Have the results of the editor survey been published yet?
[10:23am] <Prodego>: brion: advertising will fix that, but otherwise I don't think that will be changing all that much
[10:23am] <sgardner>: (Sorry, StevenW and I are scrambling a little to find the binder :-)
[10:24am] <brion>: Prodego, true. :D easiest way to get more stuff done without a clear funding source is to expand partnerships with other non-profit and edu organizations
[10:24am] <brion>: but that's a lot of work too
[10:24am] <Courcelles>: Stupid question. Is there somewhere more detailed financial information has been published than the summary view that was in the annual report?
[10:24am] Ironholds left the chat room. (*.net *.split)
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[10:24am] <sgardner>: Oh yes, definitely.
[10:24am] <sgardner>: (Courcelles)
[10:24am] <tommorris>: quick, you can say mean things about Ironholds while the netsplit ;-)
[10:24am] <sgardner>: If you look on the Foundation wiki, on the left nav there's a section called Financial Statements.
[10:24am] <sgardner>: (Or something like that.)
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[10:25am] <sgardner>: It's got the annual plans, the Form 990 filings to the IRS, and the mid-year financial statements. Plus the audited financial statements.
[10:25am] <brion>: (i'd actually *really* love to see more time & effort going into explicitly educational work. maybe next year there'll be a better chance to bump those up)
[10:25am] <Fluffernutter>: tommorris: and so I was going to say that Ironholds is -- oops :P
[10:25am] <tommorris>: Corporate -> Financial Reports and Form 990
[10:25am] <sgardner>: Do you guys want me to talk a little about what we're planning to spend on next fiscal?
[10:26am] <Ironholds>: sure!
[10:26am] <GerardM->: <grin> riding my hobby horse, we are still not on a level playing field for languages
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[10:26am] <Prodego>: brion: what sort of educational work do you mean
[10:26am] <tommorris>: sgardner: diffs perhaps. any major changes?
[10:26am] <SarekOfVulcan>: Sure, but it's not going to mean anything to me. :-)
[10:26am] • Courcelles loves accounting/financial talk
[10:26am] <Prodego>: sgardner: I'd be interested in that
[10:26am] <Nihiltres>: Wikimedia budget commentary, in comic form: http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=1137
[10:26am] <sgardner>: Don't worry tommorris, I won't do lots of numbers :-)
[10:27am] <brion>: Prodego, wikipedia mostly serves the 'self-serve' adult/young adult crowd
[10:27am] <brion>: primary and secondary education don't fit as well
[10:27am] <brion>: we've basically got nothing that's really a good fit for young children to learn from or work with
[10:27am] <StevenW>: Though
[10:27am] <sgardner>: Hey I don't know if you guys know this: did you know that roughly half our spending is staffing, a quarter is tech hardware and hosting costs, and a quarter is "everything else."
[10:27am] • aude needs $300k for a conference next summer ;)
[10:27am] <brion>: some have had some good work doing wikipedia-related things with teenagers (high school, college) but that only gets you so far
[10:28am] <brion>: if we really want to help the third-world children learn, that's gonna need more work beyond what we're doing
[10:28am] <StevenW>: Speaking of education, there was a really cool story from Maker Faire: we got to meet a primary school teacher who uses Simple English Wikiepedia in her classroom.
[10:28am] <Prodego>: brion: they will become the 'self serve' crowd themselves, if they aren't already
[10:28am] <StevenW>: I think her blog post was in the Signpost too.
[10:28am] <brion>: StevenW, coooool
[10:28am] <Prodego>: (teenagers)
[10:28am] <quanticle>: That makes sense, sgardner, for-profit-businesses have the same cost structure, usually.
[10:28am] <SarekOfVulcan>: Sue -- no, I didn't -- assumed the majority was tech/hosting.
[10:28am] <DarkoNeko>: oops, it already started
[10:29am] <tommorris>: StevenW: a friend of mine who had a team who went on a gameshow in Britain used Simple English to prepare for it. ;-)
[10:29am] <quanticle>: Hardware is cheap; people are expensive, etc.
[10:29am] <StevenW>: haha nice tommorris :)
[10:29am] <sgardner>: SarekofVulcan: yeah. A little over 50% of our spending is on technology, if you include the tech staff in those numbers. But if you put the tech staff into the "staffing" piece of the pie, then it's 50% staffing and 25% technology.
[10:30am] <sgardner>: Just depends which way you want to slice the numbers.
[10:30am] <GerardM->: as we do not consider standards work that benefits language equality, we will fail in many respects.. this ensures that we remain English mostly
[10:30am] <SarekOfVulcan>: Ah, like it better sliced that way, Sue. :-)
[10:30am] <sgardner>: :-)
[10:30am] <quanticle>: Actually, I'm surprised that tech. is that much, though I shouldn't be, given that Wikipedia is one of the few nonprofits that I know of that runs at web scale.
[10:30am] <brion>: GerardM-, that reminds me -- had some great convos w/ some of the langcom folks in berlin
[10:30am] <sgardner>: So here are some of the areas where, right now, we're planning to increase spending next year>: [10:31am] <GerardM->: Brion I know
[10:31am] <brion>: the idea of wikimedia joining things like the unicode consortium could indeed be a smart move in helping push things
[10:31am] <sgardner>: One is what we're calling "Wikimedia Labs," and since Brion is here, maybe he could talk a little about what that is?
[10:31am] <sgardner>: (I will keep going also though, with other things :-)
[10:31am] <tommorris>: sgardner: has there been any consideration of open source bounties for coding, especially for experimental stuff?
[10:31am] <aude>: +1 for wikimedia labs
[10:31am] <sgardner>: Another is the Visual Editor, AKA Rich Text Editor or WYSIWYG.
[10:31am] <brion>: well it's still all a little vague at this point. :) danese could probably elaborate better on overall plans
[10:31am] <GerardM->: we can have out place in Unicode by hiring Michael Everson to fill gaps that hurt us
[10:31am] <brion>: but we're definitely starting up forward-looking stuff
[10:32am] <GerardM->: that will not cost us as much and have a dramatic effect
[10:32am] <brion>: including adapting toolserver-like infrastructure and making it even easier for researchers & experimenters (should be very awesome)
[10:32am] <quanticle>: Or even, publishing a roadmap of proposed enhancements might be nice. Is there one already? Simply knowing which features the Wikimedia Foundation prioritizes would be helpful for us outside programmers.
[10:32am] <brion>: and the visual editor work will lead us farther towards making editing itself easier, and giv ing us more flexibility for templates and such
[10:32am] <StevenW>: yes, it will be. We're already happily factoring the Labs into our research plans for the summer. :)
[10:32am] <brion>: that'll make it easier in future to drop in new interactive features, let template programmers create really cool things
[10:33am] <aude>: brion: wikimedia labs or some place outside of toolserver is needed for maps, for example, and glam metrics, etc.
[10:33am] <sgardner>: Another is mobile. We plan to make a fairly large investment in mobile next year -- both in creating a better mobile experience for readers, creating some features that allow people to participate via mobile (ie upload photos), and also creating partnerships with mobile providers.
[10:33am] <aude>: sooner the better
[10:33am] <sgardner>: The purpose of the partnerships wouldn't be to generate revenue -- it would be to make Wikipedia easier/cheaper for mobile users to access.
[10:33am] <SarekOfVulcan>: AKA "damn, where's the switch to turn this off so I can actually get some work done" :-)
[10:33am] <brion>: aude, exactly
[10:33am] <sgardner>: (I'm gonna stop and read for a minute, then talk about some more new initiatives.)
[10:33am] <brion>: the new labs stuff will be more flexible than toolserver and we'll be able to let folks run more server-ish tools
[10:33am] <tommorris>: on Wikimedia Labs, any thought of collaborating with Mozilla Foundation. they have lots of money and seem to be trying to spend it on cool experimental stuff like Drumbeat and user interface design events
[10:34am] jorm joined the chat room.
[10:34am] <YairRand_>: wysiwyg would only really be helpful for certain projects. it's not going to be made default all over the place, is it?
[10:34am] <Prodego>: sgardner: is the ability to edit via a mobile device all that important? I can see for sites such as facebook the advantages of mobile facebook uploading, but we tend to expect more than upload and forget
[10:34am] <GerardM->: I learned that an incubator project that would be cool will not happen because the cost of bandwidth to the USA
[10:34am] <brion>: YairRand_, we'll be working hard to make it *not suck*. but you'll always be able to do raw source editing too if you like
[10:34am] <tommorris>: christ, after the Pending Changes debacle on enwp, I shudder to think about the rollout of WYSIWYG
[10:34am] <brion>: in a few years the source might not look like what you work with today though!
[10:34am] <Prodego>: so on WMF sites, we will want licensing written out, quite a bit of paperwork
[10:34am] • Jan_eissfeldt wants this bloody _working_ edit button for mobile and not next easter
[10:34am] <DarkoNeko>: pending change debacle ?
[10:34am] <DarkoNeko>: ...that bad ?
[10:34am] <tommorris>: DarkoNeko: the RfCs
[10:35am] <DarkoNeko>: oh
[10:35am] <YairRand_>: WT needs a semantic editor.
[10:35am] <jorm>: hi kids.
[10:35am] <brion>: tommorris, we plan to make the visual editor a lot less... intrusive. it should be possible to beta test it on your own on real sites long before we start pushing it generally
[10:35am] <WereSpielchqrs>: Prodego in much of the world the mobile is the Internet device, not the PC
[10:35am] <StevenW>: tommorris: hopefully no feature work will ever be as painful as Pending Changes was.
[10:35am] <StevenW>: :)
[10:35am] <sgardner>: Brandon! Welcome back :-)
[10:35am] <tommorris>: brion: cool. You'll take Vim from my cold dead hands though. ;-)
[10:35am] <sgardner>: So Prodego.
[10:35am] <jorm>: i'm sick as a dog today but i'll lurk in here.
[10:36am] <brion>: YairRand_, yes -- content-specific editing systems are important; things that work with the data structures on particular wikis
[10:36am] <sgardner>: :-(
[10:36am] <StevenW>: feel better jorm
[10:36am] <brion>: for wikipedia that mostly means your standard 'edit this page', letting you jump into infoboxes without a lot of scary code etc
[10:36am] <brion>: for wiktionary, eventually it's probably going to need very site-specific tools
[10:36am] <sgardner>: So Prodego, I think that -- to the extent that the projects are dependent upon people's participation, then we will need to make it possible for people to participate via mobile, since everything is shifting that way.
[10:37am] <quanticle>: Hmmm... this is sort of a technical question - is there any work being done on the Wikitext syntax? A WYSIWYG editor is nice and all, but the markup that those editors output tends to be pretty horrible if the underlying markup syntax doesn't well support the capabilities of the editor.
[10:37am] <StevenW>: brion: you want to tackle that one? :)
[10:37am] <SarekOfVulcan>: WYSIWIG doesn't excite me, but semantic does. Does that mean "type [[ and start getting titles filled in", or "type {{ and have it start showing infobox parameters"?
[10:37am] <geniice>: brion so infoboxes are going to end up being part of mediawiki rather than template constructs?
[10:37am] <brion>: wikihow for instance has a very site-specific rich editor for creating new pages (which have very specific formats) -- not a great general but fits in to their site well.
[10:37am] <tommorris>: sgardner: did you see this - http://blog.tommorris.org/post/5662997343/custom-css-for-wikipedia-on-ipad ?
[10:37am] <DarkoNeko>: infoboxes integrated in mediawiki ? that sounds pretty evil
[10:37am] <sgardner>: I do not think that it'll ever be possible (that people will ever want to) edit extensively from their phones. Like, really *writing*. But we need to find ways, I think, to engage people via their phones, and hopefully then some small proportion of them will begin to edit extensively from their desktops also.
[10:38am] <brion>: quanticle, basically we're keeping the existing syntax as is and definining it much more solidly. the editor will be very aware of our scary syntax and will be able to handle escaping/etc when making weird nested constructs
[10:38am] <brion>: the good news is...
[10:38am] <brion>: ...all our *new* syntax constructs are actually very clean since parser functions came in :)
[10:38am] <tommorris>: sgardner: the deletionists will love it. You can't necessarily create content on your phone, but deleting it will be really easy! ;-)
[10:38am] <sgardner>: I didn't see that, tommorris. But I'll look at it. StevenW says it looks good :-)
[10:38am] <StevenW>: awesome is more like it actually
[10:38am] Thelmadatter joined the chat room.
[10:38am] <sgardner>: tommorris: gah!
[10:38am] <tommorris>: sgardner: I'm planning to do more with it
[10:38am] <brion>: so as long as we can handle the old stuff, this basically lets us migrate things in the future to a cleaner internal syntax by the time noone will need to care
[10:38am] <DarkoNeko>: doing RC from your phone, eh
[10:38am] <quanticle>: Ah. Okay. So Wikitext is being properly parsed now, rather than run through an arcane PHP interpreter.
[10:38am] garfieldairlines joined the chat room.
[10:38am] <geniice>: sgardner augmented reality
[10:38am] <GerardM->: ipad is said to be broken re Unicode
[10:39am] <sgardner>: So let me say some more things we're planning for next year :-)
[10:39am] <tommorris>: DarkoNeko: we need Android and iOS versions of Huggle
[10:39am] <sgardner>: (This is just rough and loose. It's also not final yet.)
[10:39am] <Prodego>: sgardner: mobile, at least at the top end, is shifting to be more compatable with full featured versions of websites itself. Now Wikipedia does have a lot of space spent on toolboxes, but supporting two full featured versions of the site, not even counting the multiple skins, might be somewhat wasteful of resources.
[10:39am] <brion>: quanticle, right. we'll actually start with a JavaScript implementation, then eventually build a PHP implementation of the clean parser to replace the old internal one
[10:39am] <aude>: sgardner: look at openstreetmap for cool ways to contribute via mobile (e.g. audio, photos, video, editing data)
[10:39am] <brion>: the JS one will be used in the editor
[10:39am] <brion>: and also means that it can be easily prototyped on live sites
[10:39am] <aude>: gps coordinates too!
[10:39am] <Nihiltres>: tommorris: <3
[10:39am] <DarkoNeko>: tommorris > hmmm.
[10:39am] <quanticle>: Oh. Okay, so the editor will actually be interpreting the markup of the page. That's pretty cool.
[10:40am] <brion>: GerardM-, drop me an email about the ipad unicode thing, i'll want to look at that
[10:40am] <sgardner>: The Public Policy Initiative will wrap up in September. This is the project that persuades university students (in this case Americans) to help edit articles on particular topics.
[10:40am] <garfieldairlines>: tommorris: first linux !
[10:40am] <SarekOfVulcan>: "Hi. I'm standing in the middle of Fort Knox with my iPad. Upload the coordinates, please."
[10:40am] <ragesoss>: woot!
[10:40am] <geniice>: SarekOfVulcan we've largely done that
[10:40am] <DarkoNeko>: I dream of being able to map a whole fortress just by walking in it
[10:40am] <sgardner>: And the PPI has been really successful -- the students have contributed LOTS of good content.
[10:40am] <brion>: quanticle, yep. we want it to be very aware of the document structure, so templates and tables and whatnot don't scare the bejeezus out of it. that's the traditional problem with adapting html editors and then trying to convert back!
[10:40am] <Courcelles>: Sgardner, will the PPI be continuing next school year, or is that depending on funding?
[10:40am] <StevenW>: Prodego: on mobile, hopefully that potential waste will be partially mitigated by the rewrite of the site that is moving away from the separate Ruby architecture and toward an extension.
[10:40am] <ragesoss>: woot woot!
[10:41am] geniice left the chat room. (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
[10:41am] <sgardner>: So we are going to want to permanentize (not a word) the most successful elements of that program, and internationalise its work.
[10:41am] <ragesoss>: haha
[10:41am] <tommorris>: eek, sgardner is -izing stuff. too much silly valley
[10:41am] <brion>: :)
[10:41am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: you said "permanetize"
[10:41am] <sgardner>: Courcelles: the PPI was always focused on the United States, not by our choice, but because the funding was restricted to that. So we want to continue it, but with an international focus.
[10:41am] <Ironholds>: are you sure you didn't mean "make permanent"?
[10:41am] <Ironholds>: :p
[10:42am] <RoanKattouw>: permanentify!
[10:42am] <ChristineM>: i stand in support of Sue's use of "permentize"
[10:42am] <sgardner>: LOL thank you Christine. I am illiterate :-)
[10:42am] <mindspillage>: Verbing words that were not previously verbed is perfectly acceptable! It's taking it too seriously that is the problem.
[10:42am] <Thelmadatter>: That will be interesting. as an English teacher Ive had students work on Wikipedia... with mixed results
[10:42am] <ChristineM>: Sue: I'm an anthropologist. We make up words all the time! :)
[10:42am] <Nihiltres>: supportize
[10:42am] <DarkoNeko>: permanetize, hm *adds to wiktionary*
[10:42am] <Thelmadatter>: errr English teacher in Mexico
[10:42am] <YairRand_>: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/permanentize
[10:43am] <tommorris>: right, anyway
[10:43am]<geniice joined the chat room.
[10:43am] <StevenW>: hahaha Yair!
[10:43am] <sgardner>: yay!
[10:43am] <DarkoNeko>: ...actually, that article was created mid 2010 ? haha
[10:43am] • DarkoNeko was pretty sure someone here didit
[10:43am] <tommorris>: sgardner: are there any plans with the PPI and with GLAM to make it easier to get online volunteers more involved. I've thought about that kind of volunteering
[10:43am] <Courcelles>: Mid 2010 and not another edit since...
[10:44am] <tommorris>: but it's kinda not very well documented or whatever
[10:44am] <DarkoNeko>: well, that's wiktionary
[10:44am] <sgardner>: We're also going to fund more 'editor recruitment' in India, and begin some similar work in Brazil.
[10:44am] <Thelmadatter>: is there anything up online I can read with an overall view of how the program worked?
[10:44am] <YairRand_>: checking on google books, it's in used
[10:44am] <DarkoNeko>: *cough*
[10:44am] <sgardner>: Thelmadatter, I don't know. Probably there is: does anyone here know?
[10:44am] <GerardM->: Thelmadatter English or American spelling ?
[10:44am] <StevenW>: tommorris: I think the PPI global take is very specifically looking at educational institutions rather than general GLAM stuff. IIRC
[10:44am] <geniice>: sgardner err have you seen the new internet restrictions in india?
[10:45am] <sgardner>: I got a great report the other day from Frank, and I'm assuming it, or some version of it, is available online somewhere.
[10:45am] <Thelmadatter>: doesnt matter
[10:45am] <sgardner>: geniice: yes. It's worrisome.
[10:45am] <WereSpielchqrs>: GLam definitely has a role for online volunteers, and while I haven't touched PPI I know they requested online mentors
[10:45am] <Jan_eissfeldt>: we have to talk about that in boston, it's tbd
[10:45am] <quanticle>: sgardner: So what does the Wikimedia foundation do regarding editor recruitment?
[10:45am] <sgardner>: It might be on the outreach wiki; StevenW is checking.
[10:45am] <sgardner>: quanticle: you mean, in India for example?
[10:45am] <Nihiltres>: The PPI has created some interesting roles, we talked a bit about it at GLAMcamp
[10:45am] <Thelmadatter>: Ok... Im wondering if US teachers ran into the problems I did
[10:46am] <ragesoss>: (I'm at the convention of the Association for Psychological Science right now, where there is a ton of enthusiasm for Wikipedia class assignments. Check out the booth they've set up for me and User:Piotrus http://www.flickr.com/photos/ragesoss/5762453080/in/photostream )
[10:46am] <sgardner>: Oh Sage is here; Sage can talk about it.
[10:46am] <aude>: we're looking at involving art history courses + glam (for example), with some cross "collaboration"
[10:46am] <tommorris>: basically, it feels like we need a way of co-ordinating online volunteers for things like PPI and GLAM and other outreach. there's lots of people who would be willing to get online to help support outreach events and programmes but it needs better co-ordination
[10:46am] <Prodego>: all it needs is a rotating wikiglobe
[10:47am] <ragesoss>: Thelmadatter: there's no one place to get an overview of how it's gone so far, but I can point you to updates about a lot of specific elements. What are you interested in, in terms of how it's gone?
[10:47am] <Thelmadatter>: My boss told me mid semester last year to drop work in WP supposedly because students complained
[10:47am] <aude>: sgardner: what are you doing to help enable chapters in running PPI -type work, rather than from SF?
[10:47am] <ragesoss>: (The semester is wrapping up, so this summer we'll turn our attention to documenting things in more condensed form.)
[10:47am] <Jamesofur>: ragesoss: Ok that's awesome. You need to pack it up and take it with you
[10:47am] <WereSpielchqrs>: Thelmadatter, what were they complaining about?
[10:48am] <sgardner>: Hi aude. I think probably the biggest thing we would be doing to enable chapters would be the grantmaking program. We're expanding that next year too: so chapters that need funding in order to run something similar themselves, can get it. There's also all the documentation and so forth, on the outreach wiki.
[10:48am] <Thelmadatter>: too hard... too much work
[10:48am] <aude>: sgardner: thanks
[10:48am] <Thelmadatter>: coding for citation
[10:48am] <quanticle>: sgardner: Yes. What's Wikimedia doing to "recruit" users there?
[10:48am] <Thelmadatter>: getting them to paraphrase is "fun" too
[10:48am] <aude>: we definitely want to keep things going at georgetown and support ongoing PPI -type efforts
[10:48am] <StevenW>: Of course, with any chapter program question, there's also the fact that now a lot of chapters have more money than they know how to spend. ;)
[10:48am] <aude>: elsewhere in our region
[10:48am] <ragesoss>: Thelmadatter: yeah, definitely our students also (undergrads, that is) reported the Wikipedia assignments to be harder than conventional assignments.
[10:49am] <aude>: (of course, wiki dc is not yet a chapter and has no $)
[10:49am] <Thelmadatter>: But I would like to work with WP again... in the long run it is worth it... there are gains with my very high level students
[10:49am] • tommorris covers his own mouth and Ironholds' mouth to prevent an expletive-laden rant about Wikimedia UK from gushing out.
[10:49am] <mindspillage>: Thelmadatter: oh, that's sad--I would have loved doing something in undergrad that didn't involve work getting simply thrown away.
[10:49am] <sgardner>: quanticle, the program in India is run by Hisham Mundol (I might be misspelling his surname; I hope not). Hisham is aiming to recruit editors who are similar to the editors we already have -- ie., students.
[10:49am] <Thelmadatter>: there's a frustrating learning curve
[10:49am] <GerardM->: sgardner but English only
[10:50am] <ragesoss>: Thelmadatter: here's our "learning points" from the second term of the PPI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Ambassadors#Public_Policy_Initiative_spring_learning_points
[10:50am] <sgardner>: Because our assumption is that those would be fertile hunting grounds for us. So Hisham will be running outreach programs, with some similarities to the PPI, and with some Wikipedia Academy type elements as well.
[10:50am] <Thelmadatter>: I might be able to get them to let me do it again in August if I have back up from you guys
[10:50am] <sgardner>: GerardM, what's English only?
[10:50am] <GerardM->: what the students are supposed to do
[10:50am] <GerardM->: in India
[10:50am] <sgardner>: No, no, it's not English only.
[10:51am] <ragesoss>: Thelmadatter: you should talk with Frank. At this point, he's trying to strategize rollout by country.
[10:51am] <WereSpielchqrs>: Thelmadatter - I think translation is a cool area for high school kids - I'm sure http://la.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AnnaSophia_Robb&diff=prev&oldid=1264842 this was me correcting someone's homework
[10:51am] <Thelmadatter>: ragesoss... thanks .... looking at the doc
[10:51am] <Thelmadatter>: I have college students
[10:51am] <ragesoss>: so as to be able to try new things each time, to figure out what works better where.
[10:51am] <Thelmadatter>: Business English
[10:51am] <GerardM->: sgardner It is what I hear people in India say
[10:51am] <GerardM->: if it is not communication has failed
[10:51am] <tommorris>: we need Globish Wikipedia. ;-)
[10:52am] <quanticle>: Oh. Okay, I'm asking because I hadn't seen any sort of real recruitment here in the US. As far as I know, most Wikipedia editors became such of their own motivation, rather than because of any encouragement.
[10:52am] <ragesoss>: I think he doesn't have plans to get started in Mexico yet, Thelmadatter, but given that you're teaching an English-based class, it might make sense to make an exception... maybe get in connected with the US ambassador program.
[10:53am] <GerardM->: ragesoss you are making me happy here
[10:53am] <Ironholds>: quanticle: not that I'm at all qualified to talk, but in my experience outreach in that form tends to be chapter-related
[10:54am] <ragesoss>: GerardM-: what we've talked about (tenuously) is getting ambassador programs started in India, Brazil, and maybe Spain in the near term.
[10:54am] <Thelmadatter>: OK... but itll take some doing for me to get an OK again
[10:54am] <sgardner>: We're also hoping to be able to fund a couple of community convenings (gatherings of community members to tackle hard challenges like editor retention)... we're wanting to finally start the shop, so people have easy access to Wikimedia merchandise... and we'll be spending a little more money on legal work.
[10:54am] <sgardner>: Hey, did you folks see that Geoff published a set of core legal policies?
[10:54am] <sgardner>: Which he developed with lots of help from Kat: thank you Kat :-)
[10:55am] <StevenW>: when sgardner says "shop" she means the web store btw ;)
[10:55am] • aude is running low on buttons + stickeres
[10:55am] <sgardner>: Thank you SteveW :-)
[10:55am] <tommorris>: I know that there is discussion going on about trying to reach out to bi- and multilingual speakers to come to Wikimedia events in the UK in order to do translation. Wikimedia outrach to British institutions shouldn't just be about English WP (or indeed just about WP)
[10:55am] <sgardner>: Steve kate, what am I doing?
[10:56am] <Nihiltres>: sgardner: "kate"
[10:56am] <StevenW>: Yeah tommorris I think I heard WereSpielchqrs say something about that :)
[10:56am] <tommorris>: I was talking to a guy at a conference yesterday that had co-ordinated loads of English to Portugese translations. I'm trying to help him copy them over to Wikisource.
[10:56am] <sgardner>: I don't know; I am apparently incapable of typing people's names correctly today. it's sad :-)
[10:56am] <tommorris>: s/yesterday/last week/
[10:56am] <tommorris>: my brain is broken
[10:57am] <StevenW>: So we have about five minutes left. Unless anyone has anymore questions I think Sue wants to say something else about the annual plan.
[10:57am] <sgardner>: So that's basically it for the annual plan, I think. I was going from memory, so it's possible I missed something important. But that's the bulk of it.
[10:57am] <Nihiltres>: sgardner: the "convenings" sound smart
[10:57am] <sgardner>: Oh that's all I wanted to say. And I know it's tough to respond to that, since there were no numbers given. But still, I'd be curious to know if anyone's got feedback / gut responses :-)
[10:58am] <Nihiltres>: every time I have met Wikimedians in person (e.g. GLAMcamp this past weekend) it has been very productive
[10:58am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: the convenings sound awesome; we're organising a sort of editathon-slash-hackcamp-slash-convention in December in the UK. Remind me to pimp the foundation for funds :P
[10:58am] Beria_ joined the chat room.
[10:58am] • Nihiltres high-fives aude, Thelmadatter, Pharos, et al.
[10:58am] <sgardner>: You have money in the UK Ironholds! :-)
[10:59am] <aude>: hi Nihiltres , Thelmadatter , ...
[10:59am] <tommorris>: oh yes, sgardner: on the point Ironholds has raised, is there any policy on running Wikimedia events with some corporate sponsorship?
[10:59am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: correct! and I'd like it to stay that way, which is why I want someone else to actually PAY for stuff :P
[10:59am] • Thelmadatter rubs her very red hand  ;)
[10:59am] • Pharos high-fives all around
[10:59am] <Thelmadatter>: hi aude!
[10:59am] <WereSpielchqrs>: We started with Bangla wiki as there is a big Bangladeshi community in the old east end, the invite has gone out but no takers yet. We do have a couple of London meetup regulars who edit in Chinese and one of the Indian languages
[11:00am] <sgardner>: You don't mean corporate sponsorship from the Wikimedia Foundation, right tommorris? You mean corporations like Mozilla.
[11:00am] • ragesoss wishes he got to meet Nihiltres
[11:00am] <GerardM->: WereSpielchqrs get me more info and I blog about it
[11:00am] <tommorris>: sgardner: more like for-profits like Google
[11:00am] <StevenW>: Well Wikimania has been sponsored partially by companies before tommorris, so I doubt there's a rule against it for conferences etc.
[11:00am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: Mozilla, Google, Blackberry
[11:00am] <tommorris>: but yes
[11:00am] <Ironholds>: that sort o'thing
[11:00am] <quanticle>: I thing Google wouldn't object to funding Wikipedia, given that Wikipedia is the #1 result for so many queries.
[11:00am] <quanticle>: :)
[11:01am] <Ironholds>: quanticle: it's more "Would Wikipedia object to google funding Wikipedia" :p
[11:01am] <Prodego>: google already donated quite a bit
[11:01am] <quanticle>: Ah. Okay.
[11:01am] <sgardner>: Yeah, there is no policy forbidding or restricting corporate sponsorship of Wikimedia events, and I think that generally we are all trusting that chapters etc. will be smart about who we want to be associated with, and who we don't. Kul has helped chapters and Wikimania organizers in the past to construct sponsorship pitches -- if anyone has questions about best practices, past experiences etc., they could speak with him.
[11:01am] Beria left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 260 seconds)
[11:01am] <tommorris>: basically Microsoft are out, but everyone else is okay. ;-)
[11:02am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: brilliant, thanks :)
[11:02am] <sgardner>: I'll say also that we (WMF) don't have a 'bad boy' donor policy. Some non-profits explicitly have people they won't take money from: we don't.
[11:02am] <StevenW>: Alright I have meetings to go to and sgardner needs another cup of tea/coffee/fresca ;)
[11:02am] <Ironholds>: tommorris: if our only option is Microsoft I will take out a loan on my soul to fund it instead
[11:02am] <geniice>: wonga.com If it's good enough for the london underground etc etc
[11:02am] <sgardner>: tommorris: LOL :-)
[11:02am] <tommorris>: don't worry, we won't approach any arms companies or brothels for money
[11:02am] <sgardner>: :-)
[11:02am] <Ironholds>: aww :(
[11:02am] <StevenW>: You all are awesome. Thanks for the nice chat in the morning our time.
[11:02am] <Nihiltres>: ragesoss: another time, I suppose :)
[11:02am] <Prodego>: tommorris: the nazi party may be interested :)
[11:02am] <sgardner>: Okay, we do need to run. They are trying to set up here for a Liam Wyatt presentation, and we're in the way.
[11:03am] <Ironholds>: tommorris, how am I meant to occupy my spare time if I don't have an excuse to hang out with gun-toting prostitutes?
[11:03am] <Ironholds>: sgardner: take care; nice chatting
[11:03am] <tommorris>: thanks sgardner and StevenW et al.
[11:03am] <geniice>: tommorris given millhist I fail to see a problem with arms companies
[11:03am] • mindspillage laughs; I'd say to say hello to Liam but I just saw him.
[11:03am] <ajr>: I love how off-topic these meetings get :p
[11:03am] <sgardner>: You too, Ironholds! nice to speak with everyone :-)
[11:03am] <sgardner>: I will say hi to Liam from everyone,including Kat :-)
[11:03am] <sgardner>: Bye guys!
[11:03am] <ragesoss>: Hi Liam!
[11:03am] <Nihiltres>: sgardner: sounds fun!
[11:03am] <StevenW>: Adios. :)
[11:03am] <ragesoss>: Sorry to have missed you here in DC!
[11:03am] <Nihiltres>: bye!