IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-06-23

[10:39pm] Philippe: OK, I think we're all here 

[10:39pm] StevenW left the chat room. (Remote host closed the connection)

[10:39pm] Philippe: Sorry for the late start....

[10:39pm] OlEnglish: hello

[10:39pm] Ironholds: hey OlEnglish

[10:39pm] Philippe: Sue thought that today might be a good one to find out if you all had any topics that are burning in your minds...

[10:39pm] Mono: Please tell me we aren't talking about enwiki /again/.

[10:40pm] Mono: Philippe: Perhaps Fundraising?

[10:40pm] jorm joined the chat room.

[10:40pm] Rock_drum: enwiki is the WMF's flagship project, though, really

[10:40pm] sgardner: Fundraising would be great 

[10:40pm] Rock_drum: What about minors and Wikipedia?

[10:40pm] geniice: So whats JA up to?

[10:40pm] sgardner: (To talk about.)

[10:40pm] brion joined the chat room.

[10:40pm] Ironholds: Philippe: help page reform 

[10:40pm] Fluffernutter: hah

[10:40pm] matanya: growing vandalism

[10:40pm] tommorris: Mono: but enwiki is the best train crash EVER

[10:40pm] Mono: And an update on WikiGuides, Philippe, would be nice.

[10:40pm] Theo10011: We just had an hour of outage, like 30 min. ago.

[10:40pm] Philippe left the chat room. (Quit: Philippe)

[10:40pm] Mono:  /ignore tommorris

[10:40pm] sgardner: Philippe's laptop just froze up. How hilarious. He is rebooting. We are in bad shape this morning 

[10:41pm] • Ironholds wanders off briefly to murder his boss

[10:41pm] guillom: If I may hijack the meeting for a sec: All sites should now have recovered from the earlier outage. Please report new issues in #wikimedia-tech. A postmortem of the outage will be prepared.

[10:41pm] matanya: growing vandalism would be very intersting for me

[10:41pm] sgardner: Okay why don't we start with talking about fundraising?

[10:41pm] OlEnglish: yes.. how about talking about tech issues..

[10:41pm] sgardner: while Philippe is gone.

[10:41pm] tommorris: sgardner: go for it

[10:41pm] Philippe joined the chat room.

[10:41pm] sgardner: Thank you guillom 

[10:41pm] Ocaasi: and back

[10:41pm] Philippe left the chat room. (Changing host)

[10:41pm] Philippe joined the chat room.

[10:41pm] tommorris: ps aux

[10:41pm] Philippe: .....and back 

[10:41pm] Philippe: So, I heard minors and Wikipedia... anything in particular around that?

[10:41pm] sgardner: tommorris: oh I wasn't going to start! Let's let Mono start..?

[10:42pm] Dispenser: fundraising, could we limit the banner to the main space only this year?

[10:42pm] Rock_drum: Philippe: Umm...

[10:42pm] • Ironholds returns. boss now murdered.

[10:42pm] Mono: Huh, sgardner?

[10:42pm] OlEnglish: i mentioned tech issues.. we just had an outage

[10:42pm] Fluffernutter: that was quick, Ironholds

[10:42pm] Philippe was granted voice by ChanServ.

[10:42pm] sgardner: Mono: didn't you raise the fundraising issue? I figured you might have something particular you wanted to talk about?

[10:42pm] Philippe: Tech issues.

[10:42pm] Ironholds: Fluffernutter: I can't get into work tomorrow if they don't, y'know, send me the damn money. they haven't.

[10:42pm] tommorris: sgardner: is there going to be a global banner opt-out. I'm okay with fundraising banners, but having to opt-out on every language version of every project is... annoying for the regulars

[10:42pm] Rock_drum: Philippe: Perhaps why people are against or in favour.

[10:43pm] matanya: Philippe:  growing vandalism is my topic 

[10:43pm] Mono: sgardner: Well, testing has started, but what's the plan for this year's campaign?

[10:43pm] sgardner: Philippe

[10:43pm] Mono: Perhaps people can refrain from complaining for a moment, tommorris.

[10:43pm] Philippe: tommorris: There will be the ability to dismiss the banners globally if that's what you mean.  

[10:43pm] tommorris: Rock_drum: are there minor issues other than obvious ones like Commons pron and so on

[10:43pm] sgardner: 's going to respond to tommorris's question and I will respond to Mono's 

[10:43pm] zscout370: some areas will be hard to fundraise because of major events, such as the Japanese

[10:43pm] Saibo joined the chat room.

[10:44pm] Rock_drum: tommorris: I mean minors - those not the legal age of majority.

[10:44pm] ldavis joined the chat room.

[10:44pm] Mono: And an update on WikiGuides, Philippe, would be nice.

[10:44pm] tommorris: Rock_drum: yep, so do I. 

[10:44pm] Philippe: OK, as these meetings continually get larger crowds, can I ask that folks please limit the cross talk?

[10:44pm] Mono: (later)

[10:44pm] Philippe: it will be easier for everyone, and keep us from having to go to a moderated mode.

[10:44pm] Mono: PMs are great 

[10:44pm] Keegan joined the chat room.

[10:44pm] • jorm yawns.

[10:44pm] Keegan: Oh yeah, this thing

[10:44pm] Mono left the chat room.

[10:44pm] Mono joined the chat room.

[10:44pm] Gfoley4 left the chat room. (Quit: AFK.)

[10:45pm] sgardner: Mono: the plan is essentially unchanged from previous years, because the fundraising has been going very well. So, it will be a normal campaign conducted in the ordinary way. The biggest change this year is that we will try to create banners featuring editors (and maybe also readers) to give people a break from Jimmy. We don't want to over-expose Jimmy and 'use him up.'

[10:45pm] killiondude: More noise.

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[10:45pm] effeietsanders: sgardner: what order of magnitude will this year's target be (assuming your planning works out)

[10:45pm] Ocaasi: that's huge, keep Jimmy in the bullpen if possible

[10:45pm] sgardner: Speaking of jorm yawning, has everyone seen the jorm test?

[10:45pm] geniice: sgardner have we hired any consultants this time?

[10:45pm] Mono: OK. Do you plan to use the same "Please read:" format for the campaign or are you just testing that?

[10:45pm] Ironholds: sgardner: jorm test? "stick a jorm in a material, and depending on what colour he turns you can tell the acidity"?

[10:46pm] Philippe: Jorm test results:  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Test_Updates/June

[10:46pm] Mono: geniice: They sort of have - I believe they have some new fundraising employees.

[10:46pm] Theo10011: sgardner we call him jesusjorm 

[10:46pm] Philippe: Read and enjoy  

[10:46pm] Mono: sgardner: ^

[10:46pm] Wnme joined the chat room.

[10:46pm] Ocaasi: Philippe: are you planning to solicit community banners again?

[10:46pm] RoanKattouw: jorm: Congrats with almost meeting the "Beat Jimmy" challenge 

[10:46pm] Dispenser: I though the better written landing pages were the reason why Jimmy's banners did better

[10:46pm] Philippe: Ocaasi, I'm not in charge of fundraising 

[10:46pm] Ocaasi: oh

[10:46pm] jorm: I *did* beat jimmy

[10:46pm] Philippe: I did it for one year 

[10:46pm] sgardner: effe: yes. The revenue target for 2011-12 will be something around 30 million.

[10:47pm] Ocaasi: 30!

[10:47pm] tommorris: holy moley. $30m

[10:47pm] Mono: Philippe: Who is, this year?

[10:47pm] Ocaasi: wow i thought 20 would be ambitious

[10:47pm] RoanKattouw: jorm: Right, just continued reading and now it says you did win?

[10:47pm] tommorris: Jimbo is going to be out there in London selling the Big Issue. 

[10:47pm] sgardner: 30 million is up 24% from 2010-11 actuals.

[10:47pm] Philippe: Regarding consultants:  we did have some last year, and we've got some for this year.  They bring critical skills that would be too expensive for us to keep around all year round, for instance.

[10:47pm] • OlEnglish is planning to donate again, soon

[10:47pm] sgardner: It's a stretch, but a lesser stretch than what actually happened in this past year compared with the previous year.

[10:47pm] Mono: Philippe: Who is, this year?

[10:47pm] Philippe: Mono:  Megan Hernandez is Head of Fundraiser and the Creative Director 

[10:47pm] sgardner: I should clarify: this is what I have presented to the board. It is not yet approved, so it's not yet final.

[10:48pm] MC8 joined the chat room.

[10:48pm] Zuzak left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 246 seconds)

[10:48pm] Beria: sgardner, how long will be the Fundraising?

[10:48pm] Mono: Philippe: Last year, you did a great deal of work with the fundraising. Now what do you plan to work on?

[10:48pm] jorm: Yes, though it must be understood that it's a "single day" test and i don't know if the trend will hold.

[10:48pm] Philippe: It's important to point out that Sue's not saying that the fundraising campaign will bring in $30M....

[10:48pm] Philippe: she's saying that's the total revenue for the Foundation.

[10:48pm] Philippe: Including major gifts, Foundations, etc.

[10:48pm] tommorris: Philippe: so what's the planned target for the fundraiser?

[10:48pm] sgardner: (Revenue was 23.8 this year, 2010-11.)

[10:48pm] Mono: Philippe: Last year, you did a great deal of work with the fundraising. Now what do you plan to work on?

[10:49pm] effeietsanders: sgardner: is that 30M only for WMF or for the movement?

[10:49pm] Philippe: tommorris, I believe (please don't quote me) that it's $24M

[10:49pm] Ironholds: Mono: rumour has it he has a year-round job.

[10:49pm] Mono: effeietsanders: the WMF

[10:49pm] Philippe: It's very close to that.

[10:49pm] Ironholds: only rumour, though. [citation needed]

[10:49pm] Mono: Ironholds: Yes, I know that. My question is "what will he do?"

[10:49pm] PeterSymonds: We gathered.

[10:49pm] sgardner: effe: For the Wikimedia Foundation only (including the revenue share from the chapters). It doesn't include the amount that the chapters raise and keep themselves.

[10:50pm] Philippe: Mono, I've returned back to my role as Head of Reader Relations, where I have responsibility for a pretty wide portfolio of projects, all pointed at addressing community health and sustainability issues.  I do eveyrthing from laise with volunteer committees to work with the legal team in addressing issues, to whatever else Sue comes up with.  

[10:50pm] effeietsanders: sgardner: and just to be sure, that is only "small donations" right?

[10:50pm] sgardner: Like sitting with me right now -- yay,. Philippe 

[10:50pm] Philippe: you know, make coffee, stuff like that 

[10:50pm] kibble joined the chat room.

[10:50pm] effeietsanders: (because it sounds like a lot... twice the target of last year almost  )

[10:51pm] Mono: Philippe: Could you give us a WikiGuides update? I talked with Jamesofur a little about a proposal, but I was wondering what's up with that.

[10:51pm] sgardner: effe, no. It's the whole revenue target, including for example any earned income, foundation grants, etc.

[10:51pm] Mono:

[10:51pm] Philippe: Mono, it's on the list of things, but let's stick to the topic at hand for now.

[10:51pm] sgardner: It

[10:51pm] sgardner: 's up 24% 

[10:51pm] Philippe: If we don't get there, I'll follow up with you.

[10:51pm] Theo10011: sgardner: any major grant announcements expected for the year?

[10:51pm] Mono: OK. Sounds good.

[10:51pm] Rock_drum: About Children and Wikimedia

[10:51pm] effeietsanders: ah, ok - but which part do you expect to raise through the "fundraiser" ?

[10:51pm] Philippe: effeietsanders: Right around $24M

[10:52pm] Rock_drum: I think it would be good to have a discussion on why people are against/for and stuff

[10:52pm] sgardner: Theo, yes, there'll be one major grant announcement coming up pretty soon.

[10:52pm] Beria: in 60 days Philippe ?

[10:52pm] sgardner: I don't want to announce it here because I don't want to step on anyone

[10:52pm] Theo10011: oh excellent.

[10:52pm] sgardner: 's toes -- there's a press release planned and so forth.

[10:52pm] Philippe: Beria, around that, yes.

[10:52pm] Theo10011: I understand.

[10:52pm] sgardner: But it actually should be announced within a few days, I think.

[10:52pm] sgardner: I should say though: we do expect the amount of revenue brought in from foundation grants and major donors to stay flat, or even decline.

[10:53pm] tommorris: sgardner et al.: are there any plans to increase the amount of social media (Twitter etc.) engagement there is during the fundraiser. 'cos answering people's "why is Jimmy staring at me?!" questions is quite important.

[10:53pm] Philippe: tommorris, I'm not certain what they're planning for that level of detail, but I'll find out.

[10:53pm] Dispenser: a like button on the landing pages...

[10:53pm] MC8: (could we have less creepy pictures next time? Thanks)

[10:53pm] Philippe: If you'd like to email me, I can get an offline answer to you. 

[10:53pm] sgardner: We made a considered decision to move towards the strong focus on many small donors, and that will mean that other revenue sources will atrophy a little, by design, so that we can focus on the small donors.

[10:53pm] killiondude: I think engaging in the modern internet (social media) is good.

[10:53pm] sgardner: [reading]

[10:53pm] Philippe: MC8:  Creepy or not, they worked 

[10:53pm] killiondude: +1 tommorris.

[10:53pm] • tommorris sighs slightly that he said "social media" as he hates that term.

[10:53pm] Mono: tommorris: that did OK last year, but it didn't really work great. A lot of people tweeting the same message and not the numbers we wanted. Then afterward, it all died.

[10:54pm] Theo10011: it was good last year Mono.

[10:54pm] Rock_drum: The @WikiContribute account could be re-started

[10:54pm] Ironholds: Mono: I suggest you leave sgardner et al to answer questions.

[10:54pm] Theo10011: we had a handle we used with volunteers.

[10:54pm] OlEnglish: i think social media is a very apt term

[10:54pm] Demiurge1000 joined the chat room.

[10:54pm] Mono: Ironholds: I suggest you be quiet.

[10:54pm] sgardner: tommorris: I don't know. I know that there is a social media team that works with Moka, but I don't know what their plans are for this year's campaign. But I agree with you on the general issue, that it's important to be responsive during the campaign via social media.

[10:54pm] Ocaasi: we could use a blog response team.  lots of questions were raised on various internet articles and forums that were left unanswered

[10:55pm] Theo10011: calm down you two. (Mono, Ironholds)

[10:55pm] Mono: Theo10011: it was, and it should have continued, and probably promoted even more 

[10:55pm] Theo10011: I agree Mono

[10:55pm] effeietsanders: Ocaasi: would you be willing to help out in such a team?

[10:55pm] Wnme left the chat room.

[10:55pm] Ocaasi: sure, i do it informally now

[10:56pm] sgardner: I want to talk just a little about what MC8 raised -- the 'creepiness' of the Jimmy banners.

[10:56pm] killiondude: By all means.

[10:56pm] effeietsanders: because I think that scales best  if many people help out a bit

[10:56pm] sgardner: Just because I'm not sure if everyone knows the general approach we're taking, and why.

[10:56pm] • mindspillage notes that there were a bunch of Wikimedians on Reddit giving good answers last year.

[10:56pm] zscout370: and we have Wikimedians on Twitter

[10:57pm] sgardner: So thus far in the campaigns, the Jimmy banners have been massively successful, far more so than anything else we've tried. They really are the tentpole: we would not raise the money we need without them.

[10:57pm] Mono is now known as Mono[Cloud].

[10:57pm] Philippe: One clarification:  we can meet the banners in clickthrough - it's the conversion to the donation where we get hung up.  Only Jimmy's letters actually close the deal.

[10:57pm] sgardner: But ... last year for the first time, we did start to see lots of social media (and conventional media) starting to mock them. (Making fun of Jimmy staring at them all over the internet.) it was pretty gently and I think meant to be funny, but it was still a signal to us.

[10:57pm] tommorris: mindspillage: a bit of light coordination (Reddit, Twitter, Hacker News etc.) would be useful. It isn't about fundraising, it's about reassuring the technology influencer crowd that the Foundation cares, so they don't 'block' the message being spread

[10:58pm] sgardner: That people were starting to get a bit fatigued by Jimmy.

[10:58pm] sgardner: Which is dangerous for us, because we are so dependent on him.

[10:58pm] geniice: Wikipe-tan

[10:58pm] tommorris: no staring banners on the article about fear of being stared at.

[10:58pm] Ironholds: geniice: don't make me delete that again

[10:58pm] Rock_drum: Wikipe-tan isn't a real person though

[10:58pm] Philippe: tommorris: I wish we had the ability to do it on the per-article level.

[10:58pm] Philippe: We can't subset banners that way, sadly.

[10:58pm] sgardner: So my view is that Jimmy will always be the heart & soul of the campaign, because he's the founder, and also because he's got lots of general appeal: he seems friendly, pleasant, neutral.

[10:59pm] sgardner: But

[10:59pm] Ironholds: that'd be useful. English law articles being topped by "READ A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM LORD PANNICK"

[10:59pm] geniice: kidnap larry?

[10:59pm] Ocaasi: there are variations besides using his face.  maybe photos of him with other wikimedians

[10:59pm] tommorris: geniice: getting larry back now he is back on the Citizendium Management Council might be... difficult.

[10:59pm] sgardner: We need to start bolstering Jimmy with other appeals. Which means we need to start getting really good at working with editors and readers, to craft compelling messaging that can compete with the Jimmy banners.

[10:59pm] sgardner: So you all probably know this...

[10:59pm] Philippe: Ocaasi from a purely graphical viewpoint, we experimented with that.  Because of the variability in size and resolution of monitors, it's quite difficult.

[11:00pm] sgardner: but the other day, Brandon Harris (jorm) appeared in a banner, and actually beat the Jimmy banner we tested him against.

[11:00pm] • jorm waves

[11:00pm] tommorris: there are far creepier people we could use than Jimmy. 

[11:00pm] geniice: sgardner we know from general research that human faces in general are good for getting money out of people

[11:00pm] Philippe: (rock star)

[11:00pm] killiondude: It might be because he's a new face.

[11:00pm] tommorris: jorm: were you staring?

[11:00pm] Philippe: killiondude: Yes, absolutely.

[11:00pm] Beria: probably killiondude

[11:00pm] jorm: that's my take on it.

[11:00pm] geniice: sgardner Ward Cunningham?

[11:00pm] Beria: but Lilaroja waas a new face last year too

[11:00pm] sgardner: This was a huge big deal, because the implication is that we can crack the code -- we can successfully augment Jimmy with other folks who are just as appealing. it's good news for the financial sustainability of the movement 

[11:00pm] matanya: why won't use selebrities?

[11:01pm] Beria: i don't like that matanya

[11:01pm] Ironholds: because it means we're not screwed if Jimmy has a massive stroke? 

[11:01pm] Rock_drum: We use people who are relevant to Wikipedia

[11:01pm] killiondude: What about Danese?  Open source diva?

[11:01pm] • tommorris suggests someone create Wikipedia:Request for Staring Contest Participants 

[11:01pm] Philippe: matanya: Celebrities require a huge amount of coordination, and they usually want messaging control. 

[11:01pm] sgardner: killiondude: Probably not because he's a new face. There were a bunch of new faces tried out during last year's campaign,. and they didn't perform anywhere near as well as Jimmy does.

[11:01pm] Mono joined the chat room.

[11:01pm] mindspillage: Of course the jorm banner won. Jimmy looks like he is staring at your reading material. jorm looks like he is staring into your soul.

[11:01pm] Dispenser: We should test a "artistic" with lots of images.  Have there been any eye tracking studies done yet?

[11:02pm] Rock_drum: mindsipllage: Jimmy looks like he's reading your mind

[11:02pm] Philippe: Jorm has a great blog at www.gaijin.com by the way

[11:02pm] matanya: I suggest using short videos

[11:02pm] Theo10011: lol mindspillage

[11:02pm] sgardner: mindspillage: yes. "Give money or he will eat your soul," or something, was what one of the blogs said 

[11:02pm] killiondude: He has an interesting twitter feed, too.

[11:02pm] Philippe: Matanya, that's one thing we wanted to experiment with last year and didn't have time to.  

[11:02pm] tommorris: sgardner: professional photographers at Wikimania to take photos of possible people?

[11:02pm] matanya: poeple telling us how wikimedia helped them

[11:02pm] OlEnglish: can someone link me to the jorm image?

[11:02pm] Theo10011: jorm's twitter feed rocks. 

[11:02pm] Philippe: The industry knowledge tells us that videos are a conversion killer, but we're not sure if that holds true.

[11:02pm] killiondude: tommorris: guillom is an excellent photographer! 

[11:02pm] matanya: I can create it

[11:03pm] Philippe: OlEnglish: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Test_Updates/June

[11:03pm] Ocaasi: OlEnglish: check out http://www.gaijin.com/

[11:03pm] • MC8 votes Stephen Fry

[11:03pm] jorm: uh, i'm, uh, R-Rated.  Just fyi.

[11:03pm] • tommorris slaps himself for saying 'professional photographers' when we have Commonists

[11:03pm] sgardner: geniice: yes, you're correct. It looks like we need interesting faces to get people to click, and then compelling authentic personal stories to get them to donate once they've clicked.

[11:03pm] Ironholds: tommorris: I've been to Wikimania and have yet to see anyone who would not terrify the viewer

[11:03pm] Philippe: matanya, we've got it built 

[11:03pm] guillom: aww, thanks killiondude 

[11:03pm] Beria: OlEnglish, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Test_Updates/June

[11:03pm] geniice: Ward Cunningham wants you to donate  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/%22Brion%22_and_Ward-edited.jpg

[11:03pm] Ironholds: although that might be a good thing. "give me your money or I eat your frontal lobe"

[11:03pm] Mono: matanya, those kill the servers. 

[11:03pm] sgardner: matanya: we don't think celebrities will really work for us.

[11:03pm] OlEnglish: thanks

[11:03pm] geniice: Ironholds zombies are getting a bit past it]

[11:03pm] matanya: celebrities will, if we give them a good reason

[11:04pm] killiondude left the chat room. (Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.87 [Firefox 3.6.7/20100713130626])

[11:04pm] jorm: Mostly they want money.

[11:04pm] matanya: and being on a site with so much traffic is

[11:04pm] Beria: true

[11:04pm] matanya: a good reason

[11:04pm] Beria: but and donations?

[11:04pm] geniice: tommorris very few if any commons photographers are worthwhile portrait photographers

[11:04pm] Ocaasi: much better for the community to do it with *our* celebrities

[11:04pm] effeietsanders: sgardner: I guess it also depends on the kind of celebrity (relevant or not) and which cultural background

[11:04pm] Beria: why a celebrity did to help Wikipedia?

[11:04pm] OlEnglish: so many programmers have long hair

[11:04pm] Mono: Beria, I think they once got Craig from Craigslist 

[11:04pm] geniice: yes

[11:04pm] Philippe: Mono, we did... it wasn't enormously successful.

[11:05pm] matanya: get larry page

[11:05pm] sgardner: I think that the notion of 'celebrity' is kind of antithetical to Wikipedia. We're a collaborative endeavour.... and also we're the encyclopedia that anyone can edit -- we don't rely upon the sanction or endorsement of authorities. So any 'appeal to authority,' I think, will fall upon relatively deaf ears among our users. They're probably unusually unlikely to be swayed by that kind of appeal, I think.

[11:05pm] Mono: I can't remember the other ones.

[11:05pm] tommorris: what about someone like Stephen Fry or Dawkins - Dawkins says he's a bit of a Wikipedia fan, and Fry has done stuff for FSF before

[11:05pm] Ocaasi: he's the right kind of celebrity to try though (craig)

[11:05pm] Mono:

[11:05pm] Ironholds: tommorris: yes, but Dawkins is also incredibly divisive.

[11:05pm] Mono: I never knew there was a Craig from Craigslist until I saw that banner, Ocaasi

[11:05pm] Theo10011: Philippe I think if jorm was tested during the last fundraiser it wouldn't have had the same effect.

[11:05pm] Ironholds: just because you and I are secularists doesn't mean everyone else is. I mean, personally, I hate dawkins 

[11:05pm] sgardner: effe: Yes, there might be some celebrities who would be a better fit than others. People have been talking about Stephen Fry -- who of course has done some amazing work for the FSF.

[11:06pm] tommorris: Ironholds: yes, but he is a bit of a scientific celebrity.

[11:06pm] Philippe: With Craig, we discovered that 1) Craigslist is very US centric and 2)  we had trouble connecting people to WHY they should do what Craig suggests.  

[11:06pm] Ironholds: tommorris: but a substantial chunk of the population dislike him 

[11:06pm] killiondude joined the chat room.

[11:06pm] sgardner: He (Stephen Fry) is kind of in our bailiwick, I would say, brand-wise. He is smart and literate and has a little edge.

[11:06pm] Philippe: Theo10011: Almost certainly not, but we do know that Jorm is the closest we've ever been to breaking through the Jimmy-barrier.

[11:06pm] Mono: I could see that. Will there be any testing for non-banner messages?

[11:06pm] effeietsanders: sgardner: it should indeed not be political or harmful

[11:06pm] geniice: sgardner Tim Berners-Lee ?

[11:06pm] Theo10011: I bet if we test Sage again he would be closer than jorm.

[11:07pm] tommorris: sgardner: or a wide variety of the CBC/BBC Radio 4/PBS/NPR contingent.

[11:07pm] Philippe: Mono:  I'll see if we can get Megan to come to office hours sometime to answer specific questions.  I don't want to answer and get it wrong. 

[11:07pm] Beria: Philippe, we know what closed the deal? The appeal or the banner?

[11:07pm] Philippe: Theo10011: I actually disagree there.  

[11:07pm] matanya: geniice: no one know him

[11:07pm] effeietsanders: (if we do Stephen Fry, we need a spoken banner!)

[11:07pm] Theo10011: I thought the sentimentality of that banner was much heart-warming, no?

[11:07pm] geniice: matanya he invented the web

[11:07pm] Mono: Oh, she left...hmm.

[11:07pm] Philippe: Beria: always always always the letter.

[11:07pm] Ironholds: I think a lot of people know TBL's name. I doubt a lot of people know his face.

[11:07pm] tommorris: Rock_drum: wanna raise your question?

[11:07pm] Philippe: Banners do not close the deal.

[11:07pm] Beria: so we know what to do 

[11:07pm] OlEnglish: "a spoken banner".. why not?

[11:07pm] Rock_drum: tommorris: About children and Wikipedia? Sure.

[11:07pm] matanya: geniice: I know, and other geeks too, but not others

[11:07pm] Mono: OlEnglish, servers.

[11:08pm] Beria: i admit i still remember Lilaroja's appeal from last year campaign 

[11:08pm] sgardner: geniice: I don't think most people would recognize Tim Berners-Lee... and I think the people who do know him, wouldn't be surprised to find he support Wikipedia, so I am not sure there'd be a big win there. But yes, from a brand perspective he is for sure in our ballpark. He would be appropriate.

[11:08pm] Rock_drum: It'd be cool if we could chat - as a community - about the topic.

[11:08pm] Philippe: OlEnglish: it's tacky to have websites play sound on load.  

[11:08pm] OlEnglish: i guess 

[11:08pm] sgardner: But really, I don't think the celebrities will be a fruitful path for us.

[11:08pm] Mono: Rock_drum, that's not really a WMF issue.

[11:08pm] effeietsanders: Philippe: i know, it was a joke 

[11:08pm] Dispenser: How about stories of people 21 and under?  Passing the knowledge to the next generation/Help your kid get through school.

[11:08pm] matanya: to point, I'll do a test

[11:08pm] geniice: sgardner most people haven't heard of jimmy.

[11:08pm] Rock_drum: Mono: It's relaed to the WMF - it's about Wikimedia projects

[11:08pm] sgardner: i think we will do a billion times better with ordinary editors and readers.

[11:08pm] Theo10011: Dispenser: that's what the sage banner was closer to.

[11:08pm] matanya: who here is wiling to be recorded?

[11:09pm] Beria: geniice, not anymore 

[11:09pm] sgardner: geniice: yes, you're right. Jimmy doesn't work because he's famous; he works because he's the founder and because his appeals are well-written.

[11:09pm] matanya: Beria: would you?

[11:09pm] Philippe: There's a page on meta for coordinating the 2011 Fundraiser....  I suggest that topic or technological ideas be posted there... http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011

[11:09pm] sgardner: (Plus, like I said before, I think he has a broad general appeal -- he seems nice, friendly, smart, etc.)

[11:09pm] Beria: do what?

[11:09pm] Mono: It seems personal.

[11:09pm] Beria: be recorded to Fundraising?

[11:09pm] • guillom still loves the Puzzly banner.

[11:09pm] guillom: (but I know I'm biased 

[11:09pm] matanya: be recorded for a short video?

[11:09pm] effeietsanders: sgardner: I understood that jorms success came partially from long interviewing and reaping many good quotes that way. Are there plans to do that a few more times during Wikimania when we have people together anyway?

[11:09pm] Beria: if they come here film me why not?

[11:09pm] sgardner: Mono: Jimmy's appeal?

[11:09pm] geniice: sgardner and if we trace back along the founder line it's Ward Cunningham and Tim Berners-Lee

[11:09pm] Mono: yes, sgardner.

[11:09pm] sgardner: effe: yes, I hope so.

[11:09pm] Mono: Philippe, will that ever become more than a list of links?

[11:10pm] Mu574n9: Hi

[11:10pm] matanya: sgardner: would you agree to be recorded for a short video?

[11:10pm] Ironholds: geniice: yeah, but Ward Cunningham is not going to have the same impact. I mean, I didn't know who he was until long after I started editing, f'rinstance.

[11:10pm] sgardner: Do you folks know about the storytellers?

[11:10pm] Philippe: Mono, again, I'm not in charge of it.  But, ya know, it's a wiki. 

[11:10pm] killiondude: Mono, nope, never.

[11:10pm] killiondude: *cackle* &c

[11:10pm] geniice: Ironholds yes but again same with jimbo

[11:10pm] Ocaasi: 'I'm Ward Cunningham and I invented the wiki' ... that'd be cool

[11:10pm] jorm: i wouldn't call it a "long" interview.  It was about an hour.

[11:10pm] Mono:

[11:11pm] geniice: Ironholds so if we phrase that another way and if we trace back along the founder line it's *the guy who invented wikis* and *the guy who invented the web*

[11:11pm] OlEnglish: Larry Sanger 

[11:11pm] effeietsanders: jorm: I'm sure not everybody is as dense as you 

[11:11pm] Mono: Jimmy is better with writing appeals than recording videos.

[11:11pm] • Philippe agrees with effeietsanders

[11:11pm] matanya: another idea is 30 sec "commarcial"

[11:11pm] Ironholds: geniice: yeah, but Jimbo is constantly in the media tagged not as "Jimmy Wales, he won some money on the markets once" and "Jimmy Wales, he created wikipedia"

[11:11pm] tommorris: "I'm Gregory Kohs. Give the Foundation money and watch me get pissed off." 

[11:11pm] sgardner: The storytellers are three people who are working with us to pull out stories/appeals from people like jorm, editors, etc. I think Zack is planning to have them come to Haifa to interview Wikipedians there. I'm not sure if it's confirmed; he was checking finances to see if it was possible.

[11:11pm] matanya: instead of the banner

[11:11pm] jorm: i'm not sure i understand what you mean in that context - "density"

[11:11pm] Ironholds: I don't know if there's the same ground for Cunningham

[11:12pm] tommorris: Cunningham is fairly obscure among programmers. among the general public, nobody knows who the fuck he is

[11:12pm] geniice: Ironholds how many people actualy read that bit of the media and donate to wikipedia

[11:12pm] matanya: who will join my test?

[11:12pm] effeietsanders: jorm: not talking about your weight, don't worry - but about how many quotes you can stuff in a minute

[11:12pm] sgardner: He's a soundbite machine, the storytellers tell us 

[11:12pm] jorm: oh, that.  heh.

[11:12pm] sgardner:

[11:12pm] Mono: What about Bitcoin donations?

[11:13pm] Philippe: So, let's move on to our next topic.....

[11:13pm] Ironholds: Mono: har

[11:13pm] geniice: tommorris "hi I'm Hu Jintao and wikipedia makes me cry"

[11:13pm] Ocaasi: oh, bitcoins...

[11:13pm] aude left the chat room. (Quit: leaving)

[11:13pm] Philippe: ....which was minors and Wikipedia as requested by Rock drum

[11:13pm] • Mono clicked 'Report spam' for that already

[11:13pm] Ironholds: bitcoin = worst. fake. currency. ever.

[11:13pm] sgardner: Mono: we're not going to accept bitcoins 

[11:13pm] Mono: OK.

[11:13pm] Ocaasi: maybe next year

[11:13pm] OlEnglish: minors..

[11:13pm] Philippe: Rockdrum, did you have anything in particular, or a statement to get us started?

[11:13pm] sgardner: Did you read the EFF post? It was short but useful.

[11:13pm] Mono: So Rock_drum?

[11:13pm] Rock_drum: I - personally - think it's good for various reasons

[11:13pm] RoanKattouw: Of *course* jorm is a soundbite machine

[11:13pm] geniice: Ironholds eGold? liberty dollars?

[11:13pm] OlEnglish: so how are we defining minors? under 17? under 13?

[11:13pm] Mono: *Bitcoins (sorta) just got hacked.

[11:13pm] Rock_drum: It's good for the child - educationally

[11:13pm] Rock_drum: under 17

[11:13pm] sgardner: Roan, did you fix the wikis?

[11:14pm] jorm: Speaking of tests, a new one is going to start in a few minutes.

[11:14pm] RoanKattouw: I don't understand how anyone who's met him has not realized that

[11:14pm] OlEnglish: k..

[11:14pm] RoanKattouw: sgardner: Tim did, at 2:30am his time

[11:14pm] Mono: why 17, Rock_drum?

[11:14pm] Rock_drum: although probably more towards the 13-17 line

[11:14pm] sgardner: Bless him 

[11:14pm] Rock_drum: becuase they come of age at 17 Mono

[11:14pm] sgardner: (Mark is on vacation, right?)

[11:14pm] RoanKattouw: He removed a setting and boom, everything came back up instantly

[11:14pm] Philippe: So, Rock_drum I think we're in agreement that Wikipedia = good for minors.  

[11:14pm] Mono: in the UK?

[11:14pm] RoanKattouw: According to the calendar that was until yesterday

[11:14pm] sgardner: Roan: thank you 

[11:14pm] Rock_drum: But the minor can also be good for wikipedia

[11:14pm] RoanKattouw: But he texted back saying he was not near a computer yeah

[11:14pm] matanya: minors usually=vandalism

[11:14pm] RoanKattouw: We're still not sure exactly what it was, Tim was musing about it a bit then went back to sleep

[11:14pm] Mono: I think some minors can be.

[11:14pm] Rock_drum: Many people - either wrongly or rightly - will now be violently shaking their heads

[11:14pm] Philippe: matanya: I disagree.

[11:14pm] Philippe: Strongly

[11:14pm] Rock_drum: But...

[11:15pm] aude joined the chat room.

[11:15pm] Philippe: The wikis were built on the backs of the time given by minors.

[11:15pm] Mono: But most don't have the 'maturity' overall.

[11:15pm] Ocaasi: minors are great assets to the community but have their own vulnerabilities and educational needs

[11:15pm] sgardner: (Sorry, guys. I will stop the cross-talk; I just hadn't heard yet if we'd figured out what happened to the site this morning.)

[11:15pm] Beria: mono that s prejudice

[11:15pm] Rock_drum: There are various users who have self-identified as minors and have been greatf ro the wiki

[11:15pm] Beria: is like say that girls don't like wikipedia

[11:15pm] matanya: before age of 15 no real contribution

[11:15pm] Rock_drum: but we - of course - do get annoying 12 year olds who spend their time writing "aww that is teh epic lolz XD"

[11:15pm] Beria: sorry

[11:16pm] Beria: one of the best crats ptwiki had was 13 yo

[11:16pm] OlEnglish: sgardner: tech issues is the next topic i believe

[11:16pm] Mono: I'd like to take the time to point out a nice essay by Fetchcomms at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fetchcomms/Children_and_Wikipedia

[11:16pm] matanya: Beria: that is very rare

[11:16pm] Rock_drum: Yes

[11:16pm] Rock_drum: That's a good essay

[11:16pm] Ocaasi: we should encourage 'ready' minors to contribute

[11:16pm] Beria: it is?

[11:16pm] Rock_drum: But he makes a number of assumptions

[11:16pm] Beria: we know how old are every user?

[11:16pm] Rock_drum: No

[11:16pm] matanya: and we shouldn't

[11:16pm] Rock_drum: But a number have self-identified and a number are obviously kids

[11:16pm] Beria: so how do we know they aren't minor?

[11:17pm] Rock_drum: They act maturely... I dunno.

[11:17pm] Beria: yes

[11:17pm] matanya: if one can't write maturly, they are kids, most likely

[11:17pm] Philippe: Beria raises a good point.  I'd wager that there are a lot of users taht we THINK are adults that aren't.

[11:17pm] Beria: true

[11:17pm] Rock_drum: Fetchcomms says in this essay that he thinks under-16s shouldn't edit

[11:17pm] Mono: Sorry to get off topic and sorry to sgardner but $30 million is quite a large budget.

[11:17pm] Beria: but if they write maturly

[11:17pm] Mono: for a non-profit like Wikimedia which makes me doubt "You might not know this, but the Wikimedia Foundation operates with a very small staff. Most other top-ten sites have tens of thousands of people and massive budgets. But they produce a fraction of what we pull off with sticks and wire."

[11:17pm] Theo10011: heh @Philippe

[11:17pm] [Pmlineditor]: IMO, maturity > age.

[11:17pm] Beria: how can we prove they are +18»

[11:17pm] Mu574n9: Theo10011: hi

[11:18pm] Rock_drum: I know of a number of editors who have self-identified as being under-16 and are valuable editors

[11:18pm] mindspillage: I wish that minors were the only people on the projects who acted immaturely; saldy, I find this is not true.

[11:18pm] Mono: Barras, that's impossible.

[11:18pm] Theo10011: Hi Mu574n9

[11:18pm] Ocaasi: is there an issue with minors Rock_drum wanted to bring up?

[11:18pm] Mono: Rock_drum, who?

[11:18pm] Philippe: Sue, while the minors conversation plays on, would you like to begin an overview of the tech restructure?

[11:18pm] matanya: we all know some outstanding minors

[11:18pm] Keegan left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 250 seconds)

[11:18pm] Beria: i agre with mindspillage

[11:18pm] Rock_drum: Ocassi: I wanted to see what the community, thought, really.

[11:19pm] sgardner: Mono: yes. That's true still, even at a 30 million dollar budget  Google has 26K staff; Facebook has 3K. Even Twitter has 750 staff, I think.

[11:19pm] sgardner: We are very, very small.

[11:19pm] Ocaasi: Rock_drum: as long as they're not being exploited or vandalizing, they have the same opportunity as anyone else

[11:19pm] Mono: The growth rate seems huge, though.

[11:19pm] Rock_drum: Yes

[11:19pm] mindspillage: (I also think that silly kid vandalism is some of the easiest to undo, as opposed to the adults who prefer subtler forms: libel, marketing spam, being a complete jerk while using very polite words)

[11:19pm] sgardner: (And just to be super-clear -- what's called for in next year's plan is just under 30m in revenue. Spending is lower.)

[11:19pm] Hedgehog456 joined the chat room.

[11:19pm] Rock_drum: I think that as long as they're not MYSPACEing or whatever, we should treat them as equal editors

[11:19pm] Rock_drum: Rather than ruling them out completely

[11:19pm] matanya: I agree with mindspillage

[11:19pm] Mono: sgardner, so you'll be storing some of that away for a rainy day fund?

[11:20pm] Beria: sgardner, you said someting about change the tech part 

[11:20pm] sgardner: Mono: It totally depends on where you're coming from. By Silicon Valley standards the growth rate is laughably slow. By conventional nonprofit standards it is very fast.

[11:20pm] Hedgehog456: what is the topic?

[11:20pm] Philippe: Mono, we've had reserves for years

[11:20pm] Philippe: it's just prudent 

[11:20pm] sgardner: The reserves get larger every year.

[11:20pm] Theo10011: no set topic Hedgehog456

[11:20pm] sgardner: Hi Hedgehog456 

[11:20pm] Mono: I recall seeing a discussion about balancing reserves vs. development.

[11:20pm] Hedgehog456: Thanks Theo10011, hi sgardner and Theo10011

[11:20pm] sgardner: Oh whoops!, I just saw what Philippe wrote above.

[11:21pm] • Philippe loves bossing the boss.... it's fun... 

[11:21pm] Barras: I was pinged?

[11:21pm] sgardner: Yes, I can talk briefly about the tech restructure if folks want. Why don't I recap it, and then you guys can say if you have any questions or comments...?

[11:21pm] Rock_drum: I think the pinger meant Beria

[11:21pm] sgardner: Did everyone see the announcement from Erik?

[11:21pm] Theo10011: I don't think intentionally Barras.

[11:21pm] Mono: Sure, sgardner. But mostly, why is it important/useful?

[11:21pm] Barras: Mh...ok...back idling then.

[11:22pm] [Pmlineditor] left the chat room. (Quit: Interesting quit message goes here)

[11:22pm] matanya: I saw some downtimes, and some security breaches lately

[11:22pm] Philippe: Sue is clicking away....  

[11:23pm] matanya: lets take advanage

[11:23pm] sgardner: The gist of it is this: we've been planning a tech restructure for many many months, and now it's finally in place. It's overdue. The result of it is that we've now got three senior 'individual contributor' 'individual expertise' roles -- architects -- Brion, Tim and Mark. And four director roles, who are in charge of sub-departments inside Technology. Those are CT, Robla, Alolita (in an acting role) and Tomasz.

[11:24pm] Mu574n9: ok.

[11:24pm] OlEnglish: what about Danese?

[11:24pm] sgardner: The purpose of the restructure is just to make things clearer and simpler. So people know who they report to and what their responsibilities are. It's a simple restructure, like I said, long overdue -- and the result should be that we are able to be more effective and get more stuff done.

[11:24pm] Philippe: OlEnglish: Danese announced that she's leaving the WMF in July.

[11:24pm] sgardner: Danese is leaving.

[11:24pm] Mu574n9: sgardner: Do we have some one in charge of India yet ?

[11:24pm] sgardner: Yeah, in July.

[11:24pm] OlEnglish: oh. musta missed that

[11:24pm] Mu574n9: sgardner: I know.

[11:24pm] sgardner: Hisham Mundol, Mu5749.

[11:24pm] Theo10011: Mu574n9: for several months actually.

[11:25pm] Mu574n9: sgardner: No the technial support.

[11:25pm] Mono: The office hour is scheduled to end in about 5 minutes. What's the plan?

[11:25pm] Mu574n9: Alolita wanted me to apply but we could not get a interview going ?

[11:25pm] jorm: whup.  there we go.  banner ads running again.

[11:25pm] Mu574n9: ignore the ? 

[11:25pm] Beria:

[11:26pm] sgardner: We are not setting out right now to hire a replacement CTO. Erik Moeller is going to be the VP of Engineering (and Product Development) for the forseeable future. We're going to do a check-in a few months down the road and see how that's working.

[11:26pm] Beria: for how long this time jorm ? 1 hour?

[11:26pm] sgardner: Mono: what's what plan?

[11:26pm] Philippe: We're going to throw some resources at internationalization, Mu574n9... if you're in conversation with Alolita, please do follow up.  We're going to be focused on some feature development to support India and other areas where we think we can beef up participation with some tech help.

[11:26pm] jorm: I don't know.  I don't have anything to do with it.  I was just informed that they are running.

[11:26pm] Mono: for the office hour.

[11:26pm] Hedgehog456: 5 minutes?

[11:26pm] Theo10011: one hour I think.

[11:26pm] Theo10011: the test

[11:26pm] Philippe: Mono, we're just gonna run for a bit 

[11:26pm] Hedgehog456: I had a huge speech to make!

[11:26pm] Mono: OK 

[11:26pm] • Hedgehog456 goes into the corner and sulks

[11:27pm] sgardner: hedgehog, make your speech 

[11:27pm] Mu574n9: Philippe: ok.

[11:27pm] Mono: Let's hear it.

[11:27pm] Mu574n9: Philippe: Sure will do.

[11:27pm] Hedgehog456: I'm writing

[11:27pm] Hedgehog456: Well

[11:27pm] Mono: That's a deep subject.

[11:27pm] Theo10011: I suggest you start with ....friends, country-men, wikipedians....

[11:27pm] Hedgehog456: At the moment, the Wikipedia article deletion process isn't friendly for newbies in my opinion

[11:27pm] Mono: Of course not.

[11:28pm] Ocaasi: Hedgehog456: it's gotten slightly better recently

[11:28pm] Ocaasi: easier to contest

[11:28pm] Hedgehog456: The policies can be hard to grasp and most articles can be saved, with some effort, which the newbies would be willing to carry out if they understood some of it.

[11:28pm] Hedgehog456: Okay, randomly delete half of that

[11:28pm] Hedgehog456: When articles are deleted, they are deleted.

[11:29pm] Mono: What we need is an article wizard that works.

[11:29pm] Mono: Extension:ArticleWizard

[11:29pm] Mono: like the upload wizard

[11:29pm] Hedgehog456: There should be an article incubator

[11:30pm] Hedgehog456: A compulsory one

[11:30pm] jorm: What we need is Less Spock, More Kirk.

[11:30pm] Ocaasi: Articles for Creation = Incubator

[11:30pm] Philippe: Hedgehog456: Yep, there are myriad challenges.  Luckily, I think the issue is finally starting to get attention, and that makes me happy.  

[11:30pm] Theo10011: like the onwe russian wp has.

[11:30pm] Hedgehog456: Where newbies work on their articles, receiving structured opinions and support

[11:30pm] jorm: or everyone to follow Bill and Ted:  "Be excellent to each other."

[11:30pm] Beria: i'm sorry be the bad guy, but why we are having this talk in office hours? That is a internal problem of en.wikipedia

[11:30pm] Mono: except better. I tagged at least 19 copyvios yesterday all asserting own work. jorm, might you have any idea how to fix it?

[11:30pm] Hedgehog456: Beria: Is it? Oh, sorry. I'm sure I meant all Wikipedias

[11:30pm] tommorris: Beria: +1

[11:31pm] Mono: Beria: +1

[11:31pm] Fluffernutter is now known as Fluff|mtg.

[11:31pm] Hedgehog456: Okay, I'll run away then. Thanks for listening

[11:31pm] Ironholds: Hedgehog456: if it helps, I just sent a fuck-off big plan to the foundation about reforming how newbies are treated in our help documentation. feel free to prod me about it later and we can work on it.

[11:31pm] guillom left the chat room. ("All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.")

[11:31pm] abartov left the chat room. (Read error: Operation timed out)

[11:31pm] Ironholds: luckily it did not use words like "fuck-off big plan" otherwise they would not take it seriously 

[11:32pm] Theo10011: heh "fuck-off big plan" sounds promising. 

[11:32pm] Ironholds: Theo10011: I used "stakeholders", though!

[11:32pm] sgardner: Hedgehog456: thanks. If you're interested, you should take a look at Lennart's account creation page project. It's having some interesting results connecting new editors to wikiprojects, who mentor them.

[11:32pm] Ironholds: it made me want to stab myself in the eye. I hate that word.

[11:32pm] sgardner: Small-scale, I think, but there are some promising things happening.

[11:32pm] Mono: Speaking of that, I was wondering how the WikiGuides program was going.

[11:32pm] Philippe: Mono, as I said, I'll send you info offline

[11:32pm] Philippe:

[11:32pm] sgardner: Ironholds: you are reminding me of Sumana here in the office. She gave a talk the other day on how technical people can talk with 'suits.'

[11:33pm] matanya: what about tech issuses?

[11:33pm] Ironholds: sgardner: sounds like we'd get on. Management speak hurts my tiny pea-brain.

[11:33pm] sgardner: She used phrases like 'opportunity cost,' and the engineers all fell down laughing.

[11:33pm] sgardner: I was totally befuddled 

[11:33pm] Ironholds: wait, Sumana, short-haired Sumana? with the glasses?

[11:33pm] sgardner: Ironholds: yeah 

[11:33pm] Philippe: matanya, what issues in particular?

[11:33pm] Ironholds: the one who looks like harry potter?

[11:33pm] Ironholds: yeah, I met her in NYC. She's awesome.

[11:33pm] Philippe: I'm not sure what the question to Sue is 

[11:33pm] matanya: downtimes for example

[11:33pm] sgardner: yeah, she is really super. Funny, energetic 

[11:34pm] Philippe: Well, they happen.  We hate that. 

[11:34pm] matanya: they are more of them

[11:34pm] Philippe: The annual plan (which Sue's about to talk about) addresses that specifically.  The goal is 99.85% uptime in 2011-2012.

[11:34pm] OlEnglish: are they?

[11:34pm] OlEnglish: happening more often?

[11:34pm] matanya: not like in 2005

[11:34pm] Philippe: I actually don't think they're happening more frequently.

[11:34pm] matanya: but more than 2009-2010, as I feel

[11:34pm] OlEnglish: has there been any statistics of downtimes over the years?

[11:35pm] Mono: Philippe, I've PMed you and I'll email you later so we can start a conversation sometime :0

[11:35pm] Philippe: Honestly, I don't know but I'll find otu 

[11:35pm] Mono: *:)

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[11:35pm] Theo10011: I was talking to the tech staff about this. all through the last downtime, watchmouse/ status.wikimedia showed the projects were up.

[11:35pm] Philippe: We are tracking downtime, though.  And aimed at reducing it.

[11:35pm] Mono: Yeah, why did we pick them again?

[11:35pm] Mono:

[11:35pm] Philippe: Mono, let's call that off-topic for right now... we've got the wrong folks in the room to address that 

[11:35pm] Philippe: Sue and I could fake it, but it would involve a song and dance number.

[11:35pm] Philippe: and I left my tap shoes at home 

[11:36pm] OlEnglish: brion's here..

[11:36pm] OlEnglish: i think

[11:36pm] Philippe: But since I mentioned the annual plan....

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[11:36pm] RoanKattouw: Theo10011: Yeah, we know. This downtime exposed a small flaw in our watchmouse checks, I think ops is adding additional checks to cover this

[11:36pm] Philippe: Sue, do you want to give us a quick overview of the annual planning process, and then we can wrap up?

[11:36pm] sgardner: It's a good topic though, worth talking about. Maybe we can have CT do an office hours, with Mark Bergsma?

[11:36pm] matanya: and security issuses as well, I personaly address more of those

[11:36pm] sgardner: I am not sure that Brion's actually here. He may be half-here but not paying attention.

[11:36pm] RoanKattouw: (Basically Watchmouse just grabs the main page, which is cached. We want to add cache-bypassing checks as well)

[11:36pm] sgardner: So yes: annual planning.

[11:36pm] Theo10011: k, thanks, RoanKattouw. 

[11:36pm] mindspillage: sgardner: it's actually his cardboard cutout. 

[11:36pm] sgardner: Let me just do a quick set-up for what happens next.

[11:36pm] Philippe: "Flat Brion"

[11:36pm] sgardner: mindspillage: lol 

[11:37pm] sgardner: So the board has the annual plan right now, and they are cogitating/talking.

[11:37pm] Philippe: ...and half the channel goes to wiktionary for "cogitating"

[11:37pm] sgardner: The resolution to approve it has been put on the board wiki, and the board is starting to vote. I think the vote is scheduled to conclude June 29.

[11:37pm] sgardner: And then the plan will be released a few days after that.

[11:37pm] brion: hey all

[11:37pm] sgardner: Brion 

[11:38pm] Theo10011: hiya Brion

[11:38pm] • brion just caught up on backscroll mostly 

[11:38pm] sgardner: I think that this year, there is more 'meat' to the plan than in prior years. In for example 2007-08, the plan was mostly just numbers.

[11:38pm] Theo10011: you got pinged a couple of times. 

[11:38pm] brion: yeah i'm poking bugzilla so irc already pings me, i didn't see em in the other chan too 

[11:39pm] sgardner: But this year there is a detailed "risks" section that is really interesting reading (and useful), and there are specific targets for active editors (including in the Global South, and women).... and mobile pageviews.

[11:39pm] Beria: talking about that

[11:39pm] Beria: and the mobile project?

[11:39pm] geniice_ joined the chat room.

[11:39pm] sgardner: And there is a more detailed-than-normal recap of the prior year's finances and activities.

[11:39pm] sgardner: This is all good: it's good that every year the plan gets richer and more substantial.

[11:40pm] brion: i don't know if we'll hit all those targets but it's great to have them specifically called out!

[11:40pm] Philippe: targets are only targets when they're a reach.  I think it's healthy to occasionally work really hard and miss... that's okay, you know?

[11:40pm] sgardner: And I'm hoping the community this year will engage with the plan -- reading it, talking about -- because there is more to talk about than there has normally been in the past.

[11:40pm] Philippe: It means we're defining things that are hard

[11:41pm] • Beria 's question was ignored

[11:41pm] Philippe: Beria, what was the question, specifically?

[11:41pm] Theo10011: brion: we're waiting to hear something about the WYSIWYG related parser-work. 

[11:41pm] Beria: how is the mobile project going 

[11:41pm] Philippe: Theo10011: Another time, please.... we're about to wrap up here.  

[11:41pm] Beria: i don't read much about it lately

[11:41pm] geniice left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 258 seconds)

[11:41pm] geniice_ is now known as geniice.

[11:41pm] Mono: Philippe, I just emailed  you 

[11:42pm] sgardner: It's also the case that in previous years the Wikimedia Foundation consisted mainly of a technical department plus fundraising/admin/accounting etc. And now we are beginning to build out Global Development (India, Brazil, other Global South country activities) plus the Community Department. That is deep community work, it's experimental, and it's somewhat controversial. So I think there's lots to talk about.

[11:42pm] Mono: We'll have plenty to talk about some other time 

[11:42pm] sgardner: There's a project page for mobile -- Philippe is hunting it up.

[11:43pm] Mono: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile

[11:43pm] sgardner: Tomasz is in charge and my understanding is that they are slightly ahead of schedule. But there is tons of work to do --- different types of work. Technical/product development work, but also business development, via Kul.

[11:43pm] brion: Theo10011: we'll have more to show on that in a few weeks  we're still putting early pieces together

[11:44pm] sgardner: Anyway, that is all I had to say about the annual plan. I just wanted to give you all a heads-up that it'll be published in 10 days or so, and that it will be worth reading, and thinking about, and commenting upon.

[11:44pm] Theo10011: Thanks, Good to know brion. 

[11:44pm] brion: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Future is the overall home for that stuff and still needs a little more reorg'ing to show the project status better. status updates will be hitting wikitext-l (and big news on wikitech-l also)

[11:44pm] Philippe: Corrected link for mobile:  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects

[11:44pm] Theo10011: sgardner: will it go up on Meta or strategy wiki?

[11:44pm] sgardner: Thannks Philippe 

[11:45pm] sgardner: Theo: yeah. It always goes up on the foundation wiki, with a detailed FAQ.

[11:45pm] Mono: When will we kill strategy wiki?

[11:45pm] sgardner: (Veronique is writing the FAQ, I think, right now.)

[11:45pm] Theo10011: k, thanks.

[11:45pm] Philippe: OK, so let's try to wrap up here....

[11:45pm] Ocaasi: you could try putting it in talk page notices on Wikipedia

[11:45pm] Philippe: As always, thanks for coming!  And if you have follow up questions, please feel free to email them... probably the best thing is to send them to maggie, our community liaison, at liaison@wikimedia.org.

[11:46pm] Philippe: She can be sure that the right staff person gets it and track for answers that way. 

[11:46pm] sgardner: Is Maggie here?

[11:46pm] sgardner: Just curious.

[11:46pm] ChristineM: she is@

[11:46pm] Ironholds: sgardner: Moonriddengirl. Appears so.

[11:46pm] Theo10011: she is idling.

[11:46pm] Mono: Yes, Moonriddengirl is here.

[11:46pm] • ChristineM points at Moonriddengirl

[11:46pm] Moonriddengirl: Yes, I'm here. 

[11:46pm] sgardner: Excellent  I am hoping she will help us roll out the plan, elaborate the FAQ, and so forth 

[11:46pm] Ironholds: [citation needed]

[11:46pm] Philippe: (oh yeah, Maggie, you're going to get questions from office hours... I should tell you that before I tell the world...)

[11:46pm] sgardner: Hi Moonriddengirl 

[11:46pm] Moonriddengirl: Hi, Sue. 

[11:47pm] sgardner: Okay! great, thank you Philippe.

[11:47pm] Philippe: So with that in mind, I think we're probably done here.    As always, I'll get a log up.  

[11:47pm] sgardner: Nice to talk with everyone: we'll talk agains soon. Oh and congratulations to Kat being re-elected. I've said it before, but I will take every opportunity 

[11:47pm] Philippe: Indeed 

[11:47pm] Ironholds: sgardner: it's awesome!

[11:47pm] Philippe: Thanks everyone, thanks for coming today.  

[11:47pm] Ironholds: I get to go "I told you so" constantly

[11:47pm] Ironholds: happy as a pig in shit, I am.

[11:47pm] Philippe: (note to self:  dont' visualize.)

[11:47pm] sgardner: It _is_ awesome 

[11:48pm] sgardner: Thanks guys -- bye bye