IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-08-18

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[09:53am] StevenW: Hey FloNight :)

[09:54am] FloNight: hi :-)

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[09:55am] Hedgehog456: Is this a generic office hours?

[09:56am] Beria: according with meta page, yes Hedgehog456

[09:56am] StevenW: Yes

[09:56am] Hedgehog456: Ah.

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[09:57am] Hedgehog456: There is a rather large issue on Meta regarding IRC which it may be ideal to mention here in order to bring in a wide range of consensus and discussion.

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[09:57am] Beria: about ops in IRC Hedgehog456 ?

[09:57am] Hedgehog456: Beria: about Group Contacts and the community's involvement in group management

[09:57am] Hedgehog456: some of you may have already seen it.

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[09:58am] Beria: i saw that discussion in some channel

[09:58am] Hedgehog456: either #wikimedia-ops or #wikipedia-en

[09:58am] Theo10011: You are blowing it our of proportion Hedgehog456.

[09:58am] Jan_eissfeldt: link?

[09:58am] Hedgehog456: unless people have been discussing in other channels

[09:58am] kibble: Beria, -ops where people were all opposing it? ;-)

[09:58am] Theo10011: It's not a large issue. it is your proposal.

[09:58am] Beria: true kibble :)

[09:59am] Hedgehog456: I'm sure we had supporters on enwiki

[09:59am] Theo10011: You are the sole voice proposing this Hedgehog456.

[09:59am] Theo10011: At least on that day.

[09:59am] Beria: you can get support in en.wiki to anything

[09:59am] Hedgehog456: but the one person who supported me and indeed persuaded me to the create the proposal appears to have gone

[09:59am] Beria: is a huge community

[09:59am] Hedgehog456: Meta would be more appropriate.

[09:59am] Hedgehog456: Meta:Babel

[09:59am] Beria: get meta consensus so :P

[10:00am] Hedgehog456: there's two proposals there

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[10:00am] Hedgehog456: one is milder than the other, and retains the current GC system

[10:00am] Jan_eissfeldt: thx

[10:00am] Theo10011: 4 opposes on Meta from what I remember.

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[10:00am] Beria: there are a link Theo10011 ?

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[10:00am] Hedgehog456: i like the second one better at the moment because the current gcs are good

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[10:01am] Hedgehog456: Theo10011: that's because mainly people who oppose it have found it

[10:01am] Theo10011: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Reform_of_Wikipedia_IRC

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[10:01am] kibble: Hedgehog456, the second "proposal" is actually how things are at the moment.

[10:01am] StevenW: Okay

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[10:01am] Hedgehog456: kibble: is it?

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[10:01am] StevenW: I guess we'll go ahead a get started. I think Sue is just finishing up an email. :)

[10:01am] Hedgehog456: kibble: the testimony of some users seems to contradict that

[10:01am] kibble: If there's a problem, the Wikimedia IRC community discusses it or the people inside the channel.

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[10:01am] Hedgehog456: kibble: but then the 2nd proposal is just to retain the current system then

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[10:02am] sebmol: greetings

[10:02am] aude: hi folks! :)

[10:02am] Jan_eissfeldt: kibble: +1

[10:02am] StevenW: Morning sebmol :)

[10:02am] Beria: Hi Sebastian :)

[10:02am] kibble: (Except for the "discuss on-wiki" part. That's not always needed, but it's an option where that's the best place to talk.)

[10:02am] sgardner: Hey folks! :-)

[10:02am] kibble: But anyway, I don't think we should hijack Sue's office hours to talk about this. :-)

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[10:02am] sgardner: (I am finished my e-mail.)

[10:03am] Ironholds: *have

[10:03am] • Ironholds 

runs

[10:03am] Theo10011: Agree with kibble.

[10:03am] Hedgehog456: kibble: yes, I just wanted to get some more consensus. good luck with being a GC, you do a great job

[10:03am] • Hedgehog456 

agrees with kibble

[10:03am] Ironholds: I misread that as couscous for a second and got all confused

[10:03am] Ironholds: "why does kibble impact on your lunch choices?"

[10:03am] kibble: ;-)

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[10:04am] StevenW: Okay, so we didn't set a topic per se, so if anyone wants to start us off with any questions you came prepared with that would be okay

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[10:04am] StevenW: Hi Courcelles

[10:04am] Hedgehog456: "Kibble, a component of dog food or cat food"

[10:04am] Courcelles: StevenW:  Afternoon

[10:04am] Seth_Finkelstein: Ms Director! Ms Director! Regarding the "image filter referendum" can you respond to the allegations that the decision to implement some sort of restrictive system is a done deal, and the current discussion is just bread and circus?

[10:04am] apergos: hmm I have one but it's not very politically correct

[10:04am] • Ironholds 

sighs

[10:04am] StevenW: I think you can call her Sue.

[10:04am] Beria: oh god :(

[10:05am] StevenW: It's okay

[10:05am] Theo10011: Hi Sue

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[10:05am] StevenW: Hi Sarah

[10:05am] kibble: At least there's an easy one to start with! ;-)

[10:05am] sgardner: Seth, you're asking me when I stopped beating my wife. Why don't you take a crack at reformulating that question into something answerable.

[10:05am] SarahStierch: Hi Steven!

[10:05am] sgardner: Apergos, what are you wanting to ask?

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[10:05am] Seth_Finkelstein: Huh? Sue, that's OPEN ENDED. For heaven's sake, it's a softball.

[10:05am] Hedgehog456: I also have one, but I need to feed my do

[10:05am] Hedgehog456: *dog

[10:06am] Seth_Finkelstein: Here, want me to Answer it for you?

[10:06am] apergos: what is yourr opinion about the en wikipedia proposal to restrict article creaition to autoconfirmed users?  actually, there is a bugzilla request in about it

[10:06am] apergos: (sorry for the typos)

[10:06am] StevenW: Anyway, I think it's okay if folks want to talk about the referendum. Let's just keep it civil.

[10:06am] aude: hi SarahStierch

[10:06am] SarahStierch: Hey Aude

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[10:06am] apergos: by "your opinon" I guess I want to know if

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[10:06am] SarahStierch: oops

[10:06am] Seth_Finkelstein: "Seth, I'm glad for the opportunity to reply. We value the community consensus ..."

[10:06am] sgardner: Yeah, go ahead, apergos.

[10:06am] apergos: you are in the loop, what people are thinking about as a response, if there is one.

[10:06am] sgardner: Sure, I can take a crack at that.

[10:07am] Seth_Finkelstein: "We certainly are not going to do anything that the community would not be able to support ..."

[10:07am] Tempodivalse: Hi wub

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[10:07am] sgardner: I would start, Ariel, by saying that I'm not super-knowledgeable about that proposal. People have talked with me about it, but I haven't read the page discussion, so I am not up to speed on all the thinking that's been done.

[10:07am] Hedgehog456: Is the following email representative of WMF opinion? http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-June/030884.html

[10:07am] apergos: ok

[10:07am] Seth_Finkelstein: "Etc."

[10:07am] StevenW: For reference, the bug apergos is referring to is https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30208

[10:07am] Ironholds: Hedgehog456: I would suggest waiting until the current discussion is over first ;p

[10:07am] sgardner: The reason I say that is just to acknowledge that all I can give is one not-very-informed person's opinion; I am not saying I'm right. I might not be.

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[10:07am] StevenW: and there is current discussion on en wiki at WP:ACTRIAL

[10:08am] Hedgehog456: Ironholds: oops, sent it at the wrong time

[10:08am] Hedgehog456: sorry

[10:08am] apergos: ok

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[10:08am] sgardner: But I think in general that proposal is probably not going to actually help. It feels to me --at face value-- that it would act to create more restrictions, more walls, more impediments .... rather than acting to be welcoming. That's my gut feel.

[10:08am] Ironholds: amen!

[10:09am] Hedgehog456: amen

[10:09am] sgardner: :-)

[10:09am] Beria: apergos, i imagined that en.wiki was already close to ip creation of articles

[10:09am] apergos: is the wmf liable to try to influence the proposal?

[10:09am] Ironholds: "hello, newbies! In an effort to ensure you don't hurt yourselves, iiif you would like to jump through this here flaming hoop..."

[10:09am] sgardner: what do you think, apergos?

[10:09am] sgardner: Sorry, I didn't see your question apergos.

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[10:09am] Courcelles: Beria, enwp is closed to IP creation.  The proposal is to limit creation to autoconfirmed.

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[10:09am] Beria: oh god why?

[10:09am] Hedgehog456: apergos: the WMF respects the opinions of all Wikimedia communities, I believe

[10:10am] Courcelles: IP's, and new accounts, if proposed, would have to go through an articles for creation process

[10:10am] Hedgehog456: except where impractical

[10:10am] sgardner: I think there was some conversation between WMF staff and community members at Wikimania about whether the WMF should take a position, or try to bring a perspective to the discussion.

[10:10am] sgardner: I wasn't there though.

[10:10am] apergos: ok

[10:10am] sgardner: I think StevenW was, and Ironholds.

[10:10am] Ironholds: there was, and I was :P

[10:10am] Beria: i'm not from en.wiki Courcelles but i think a bit stupid that

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[10:10am] Peter-C: Question: Will their be safe guards against spaming the "report" button if we implement an image filter? The last thing we need is for teenagers to say that Rebecca Black's face is to graphic for other people to see and it would cause unnessessary backlog (which is backlogged already).

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[10:10am] StevenW: Yeah, we were

[10:10am] apergos: perhaps one of the people present will be willing to summarize either here or off-channel.

[10:10am] apergos: thanks

[10:10am] StevenW: I would say that, one thing that hasn't been made clear enough from discussion between WMF and En community members about it is that we're committed to thinking about new ways to deal with the ton of new page creation that happens. Software-wise.

[10:10am] Ironholds: it was pretty good, but (speaking as someone who sort of wasn't given anything to do at the end of it) I get the impression the wheels are still turning. Not much help, I know ;P

[10:11am] MuZemike: Or Justin Bieber's image is offensive because people think he is a douchebag.

[10:11am] Peter-C: ^

[10:11am] Tempodivalse: ^

[10:11am] Hedgehog456: ^^^

[10:11am] Theo10011: +1

[10:11am] Tempodivalse: I wondered about that too.

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[10:11am] StevenW: Sue you want to take Peter's question?

[10:11am] sgardner: Sure.

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[10:12am] Herodotus: Heh. They did use Pokemon in the example.

[10:12am] MuZemike: FWIW, people will game and grief the system, just like with the Article Feedback tool.

[10:12am] sgardner: Really, I can't answer the question, because I don't know what the team designing the feature has got planned.

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[10:12am] Tempodivalse: MuZemike: The "I am highly knowledgeable on this topic" button only invites trouble

[10:12am] Tango42: I'll have a go at rephrasing Seth's question (although it didn't look particularly loaded to me): Sue, what is the WMF's goal for the image filter referendum? What do you hope to gain by holding it?

[10:12am] StevenW: I don't see any evidence that there's been gaming of AFT, but that's another discussion I think... :)

[10:12am] sgardner: Oh, jorm is here, LOL.

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[10:12am] kibble: Herodotus, well we couldn't really use a picture of a big naked person. :-)

[10:12am] sgardner: Very good :-)

[10:12am] jorm: i just got in.

[10:12am] SarahStierch: jorrrr,

[10:12am] SarahStierch: mmmm

[10:12am] jorm: sup, nerds?

[10:12am] vvv: Huh, am I allowed to ask questions or there is some sort of queue?

[10:12am] SarahStierch: :P

[10:12am] sgardner: I will say a little bit of stuff, and maybe someone can reask the question for jorm.

[10:13am] kibble: jorm, question Sue's answering now: <Peter-C> Question: Will their be safe guards against spaming the "report" button if we implement an image filter? The last thing we need is for teenagers to say that Rebecca Black's face is to graphic for other people to see and it would cause unnessessary backlog (which is backlogged already).

[10:13am] Beria: vvv go for it

[10:13am] StevenW: vvv: there's not a formal queue but sue is answering another right now.

[10:13am] MuZemike: Tempodivalse: Yes, at it can imply ownership (i.e. playing "keep away" with said article)

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[10:13am] jorm: yes.

[10:13am] kibble: vvv, you can just ask the question and then SteveW will keep track of them.

[10:13am] jorm: so, a report system like that, it's not really gamable if you do it right.

[10:13am] sgardner: All I would say is that, in general: most people are going to try to be helpful. Right? That's one of the basic things that Wikipedia's success has proved. So in general, I think we want to design for that (helpful constructive behaviour) rather than designing for edge cases that are negative.

[10:13am] jorm: basically we crowd-source the question "is this image bad?"

[10:13am] Tempodivalse: MuZemike: a lot of the user-feedback features are double-edged

[10:14am] sgardner: Because there won't be a lot of negative behaviour -- or at least, it will be a minority.

[10:14am] jorm: and start ignoring spams.

[10:14am] sgardner: I will leave the rest to jorm :-)

[10:14am] Ironholds: sgardner: it'll probably mostly be me, to be honest

[10:14am] Tempodivalse: It's helpful, but then it's not because someone will always game the system.

[10:14am] sgardner: Ironholds, LOL -- you and me :-)

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[10:14am] Ironholds: there's a reason a suprising number of English law articles have got incredible AFT ratings

[10:14am] MuZemike: Tempodivalse: True, just like "anyone can edit" (that is, anyone can also abuse)

[10:14am] Peter-C: ^

[10:14am] Ironholds: and it's not because they're high-traffic and brilliantly written :P

[10:14am] StevenW: Does that answer your question Peter-C?

[10:15am] StevenW: Or would you like us to elaborate more?

[10:15am] Peter-C: Yep :)

[10:15am] StevenW: Okay great.

[10:15am] StevenW: vvv, did you have a question?

[10:15am] vvv: Yep

[10:15am] Beria: someone asked something before StevenW

[10:15am] Beria: <Tango42> I'll have a go at rephrasing Seth's question (although it didn't look particularly loaded to me): Sue, what is the WMF's goal for the image filter referendum? What do you hope to gain by holding it?

[10:15am] Tempodivalse: MuZemike: except when someone's gaming the feedback system it's not possible to determine what's "vandalism" and should be undone

[10:16am] Tempodivalse: most of the time

[10:16am] StevenW: Oh thanks Beria. Sue will take that.

[10:16am] sgardner: I missed Tango42, thanks Beria.

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[10:16am] Beria: :)

[10:16am] Theo10011: StevenW: BTW is philippe around?

[10:16am] StevenW: No, he's out sick.

[10:16am] StevenW: There is a cold stalking the office after Wikimania.

[10:16am] Tango42: (I thought you had finished answering the previous question, so asked mine at a bad time - sorry!)

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[10:16am] Theo10011: K, Mono was looking for him here earlier.

[10:16am] Ironholds: StevenW: "cold"

[10:16am] sgardner: So, personally, I am extremely curious to see the results of the referendum.

[10:16am] sgardner: And I guess there are two primary purposes for it.

[10:17am] kibble: Theo10011, haha. :-)

[10:17am] Theo10011: Hiya Jan-Bart :)

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[10:17am] Jan-Bart: Hi :)

[10:17am] kibble: ("he has a cold" / "mono was looking for him..." ;-))

[10:17am] Pharos: (I caught the Wikimania bug too :P)

[10:17am] Theo10011: Pharos!!!

[10:17am] SarahStierch: hi sage

[10:17am] sgardner: One is, we want to know to what extent, in general, the editing community is favourably inclined towards the idea of the feature. I believe that is the first question in the referendum.

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[10:17am] sebmol: it is

[10:17am] Tango42: No, sue, that isn't the first question

[10:18am] sebmol: it's the first question in the referendum

[10:18am] Tango42: The question is about how important the feature is, not whether people are in favour of it

[10:18am] Beria: it is Tango42

[10:18am] Tango42: those are very different things

[10:18am] sebmol: only to mathmaticians

[10:18am] sgardner: And second, we want to get a sense of which attributes/characteristics of the feature people feel are most important. So that as the feature is being built, the developers have information that can help them make tradeoffs in its design/functionality.

[10:18am] sgardner: (reading now)

[10:18am] sgardner: sebmol, LOL.

[10:18am] WereSpielchqrs: I suspect AFT is more gameable than the image filter because there is no logging of AFT votes, but anyone categorising a popstar they don't like as a penis photo can easily be blocked

[10:19am] Tango42: "not important" is a neutral opinion, it is possible some people are not just neutral but actively against it

[10:19am] Tango42: (I'm personally in favour of it, but I'm sure not everyone is)

[10:19am] Beria: WereSpielchqrs, help me, what AFT means?

[10:19am] sgardner: I would interpret a 0 as against it, wouldn't you? (If I am remembering the scale correctly.)

[10:19am] Ironholds: Tango42: in which case they hit "not important" on all of it, surely

[10:19am] sebmol: the people who are against it are most likely to give a 0 at that question

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[10:19am] StevenW: Beria: AFT = article feedback tool

[10:19am] Beria: oh, thanks :)

[10:19am] Tango42: sebmol: They might, but how do you distinguish them from people that don't really care either way?

[10:19am] apergos: is it a forgeone conclusion that the feature will be developed? (I ask only because of the language "as the feature is being built")

[10:20am] jorm: we log aft votes; we just don't make those votes public.

[10:20am] apergos: (that's my second question, if that's an abuse you can nix it)

[10:21am] WereSpielchqrs: Who gets to see the AFT logs? Will admins have access?

[10:21am] jorm: no one.

[10:21am] StevenW: There is private data in the AFT logs I think... so there may be issues there.

[10:21am] sgardner: I want to say one more thing in response to Tango42, then I'll answer apergos.

[10:21am] jorm: we release rollups, and analysis.  but the individual logs we do not.

[10:22am] sgardner: So, I am personally extremely curious to see what kind of write-in comments we get in response to the referendum. I love free-form write-in comments; I think they can be enormously useful.

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[10:22am] Beria: can i ask why jorm ?

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[10:22am] sgardner: I gather than 3K+ people have responded to the referendum so far. (Probably actually significantly more by now, because that was yesterday's data.)

[10:22am] jorm: because there's non-anonymized data in those logs.

[10:22am] ChristineM: i am with Sue on that one... write in questions give so much more amazing data and viewpoints than pre-chosen answers!

[10:23am] Tango42: Can I be cheeking and ask a quick follow-up question? Why didn't you simply have "Are you in favour of this proposal?" as one of the questions?

[10:23am] sgardner: And I am really interested to see how their comments might or might not be different in tone and substance, from the comments that have been happening on-wiki. I don't have any preconceived ideas about how they might be different, but I will be interested to see.

[10:23am] Beria: like what jorm? (i have no idea what you people log, so... )

[10:23am] Tango42: Write-in questions can be very interesting - they are far far harder to analyse, though.

[10:23am] jorm: like ip addresses.

[10:23am] Beria: oh :P

[10:24am] Beria: now i got it ;)

[10:24am] Beria: thanks jorm

[10:24am] sgardner: Because it may be that different types of people are attracted to different venues -- like, some people talk on-wiki, and different people respond to referendums. So at a more metal level than the feature itself, I am really interested to see if this kind of referendum tool would be useful for surfacing community opinion in general.

[10:24am] sgardner: (Done on that, reading now)

[10:24am] StevenW: You mean like yes/no Tango42 ?

[10:24am] sgardner: Yeah, I will answer Tango42 and apergos at the same time :-)

[10:25am] Tempodivalse: Question: has the idea of blocking entire articles with the filter, not just images, ever been brought up?

[10:25am] Tango42: StevenW: Well, it could be "Completely opposed/Slight oppose/Neutral/Slightly in favour/Completely in favour" if you want greater resolution.

[10:25am] StevenW: okay

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[10:25am] WereSpielchqrs: Will a high vote on the feature being culturally neutral be interpreted as not allowing moslems to filter out cartoons of Mohammed because only one culture wants to do that, or will it be interpreted as allowing that and similar filters?

[10:26am] sgardner: I wouldn't say it's a 100% forgone conclusion that the feature will be built, but I would say that it's extremely likely. The Board has asked me to build it, and so it is almost certainly the case that I will build it. I think that part of the purpose of the referendum is just to surface if there were in fact overwhelming opposition to the feature. And if there were, I would probably go back to the Board (or the Board would call me back) and

[10:26am] sgardner: we would have a difficult conversation about how to handle that.

[10:26am] Theo10011: Hi mindspillage

[10:26am] StevenW: Tempodivalse: short answer I can give on that is that the Board resolution on controversial content said that the way we handle possibly controversial text is just fine as-is.

[10:26am] kibble: Tempodivalse, I don't think that has been brought up and it's not the case for this proposal.

[10:26am] Tango42: WereSpielchqrs: The feature would be completely pointless if it could only be applied to things everyone finds offensive. If everyone finds something offensive, it shouldn't be on the site at all. (Although I can't think of anything that would fit that description.)

[10:26am] sgardner: Maybe JB and mindspillage want to add here.... or maybe not ;-)

[10:27am] Tempodivalse: OK, thank you. Just a random thought I'd briefly considered.

[10:27am] sgardner: But in general, the answer to apergos's question is yes, it is extremely likely that the feature will be built.

[10:27am] apergos: ok. thanks

[10:27am] sgardner: And now I'll answer Tango42.

[10:27am] StevenW: WereSpielchqrs: no gets to filter anything for anyone else. it's totally individual choice and only impacts one user.

[10:27am] Pharos: I find lots of things offensive that I think should be on the site :P

[10:27am] Beria: vvv, if you don't ask your question no one will answer it ;)

[10:28am] StevenW: I have vvv's question handy :)

[10:28am] sgardner: So there was a lot of discussion about how to construct the referendum -- what to ask and so forth. I think even just me and Phoebe and Sam spent about 10 hours discussing it.

[10:28am] sgardner: And we kicked around all kinds of things.

[10:29am] vvv: Beria: I have to do a heavy irritation filtering

[10:29am] WereSpielchqrs: re o StevenW - yup I get that you choose whether to filter anything. I'm just trying to understand what the foundation will interpret one questions answers as meaning

[10:29am] StevenW: ah

[10:30am] sgardner: And ultimately I guess we felt that to flat-out ask people if they were in favour of the filter might be assumed to imply that if they voted against it, it would not happen. That it was a binding referendum. Which it was not intended to be. So ultimately we decided to ask a similar question, but not that exact question, because we didn't want to accidentally create expectations that weren't accurate.

[10:30am] sgardner: I hope that makes sense.

[10:31am] Seddon: so there is a chance that the foundation may go ahead with this either way?

[10:31am] sgardner: (reading)

[10:31am] sgardner: Hi Joseph :-)

[10:31am] Beria: let me get that straight sgardner , you saying that the filter will be bilding even if that got a 100% oppose? (not likely, but only to make the point)

[10:31am] Seddon: Hi sue :)

[10:31am] WereSpielchqrs: So rather than a referendum it is a consultation about the details of how to implement this?

[10:31am] sgardner: Let me answer you both :-)

[10:31am] Seddon: Beria, thats not what sue said

[10:31am] sgardner: or all three :-)

[10:32am] StevenW: Let me take a crack at rephrasing Sue's answer to answer that Seddon et al

[10:32am] StevenW: :)

[10:32am] Tango42: sgardner: Yes, that makes sense. Thanks. I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion, but it makes sense.

[10:32am] sgardner: I will rest my typing fingers for a few minutes :-)

[10:33am] StevenW: The short answer: the Board has asked the WMF to explore this feature and build it. But we never want to do potentially very big or controversial things without knowing what kind of community response there will be. What people really feel about it overall, as best we can tell.

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[10:34am] sgardner: Tango42: yeah, the people who designed the referendum are probably not 100% thrilled with it, as a perfect tool that's going to do exactly what is wanted. It's a bit of a mucky hack. But I am really hugely looking forward to seeing how it plays out. I think that we may learn all kinds of useful and unexpected things from it, from for example cross-cultural analysis or from the write-in comments. And if it turns out to be useful, we can aim to

[10:34am] sgardner: use this kind of tool again in future.

[10:34am] sgardner: (reading StevenW now)

[10:34am] StevenW: So yeah, we started the referendum with the idea that the Board and the WMF think we should probably build this feature, but the referendum is happening because it really matters what everyone thinks.

[10:34am] StevenW: If it turns out there's 100% opposition, we're not just going to carry on our merry way without stopping to consider the consequences of going forward. That would mean there was no point in holding the referendum.

[10:35am] Beria: :)

[10:35am] jorm: heh. i hadn't built those designs, btw, thinking that there would be a referendum on it.  i built them with an audience in mind of, like, only the board.

[10:35am] StevenW: heh, jorm :)

[10:35am] apergos: sucker :-P

[10:36am] Beria: the results will be out StevenW ?

[10:36am] sgardner: I think that's accurate, StevenW. To Beria's point, yes, if there is serious opposition to it, we would stop down and figure out what to do with that.  But to Joseph's point, yes, my assumption is it will get scheduled to be built post-referendum, because the Board has asked for it.

[10:36am] Tango42: What you are describing isn't really a referendum, it's a consultation. By calling it a referendum you are giving exactly the impression Sue just said you didn't want to give - that's it's binding (or, at least, it will play a very large role in your decision)

[10:36am] Beria: oh sorry

[10:36am] StevenW: Yeah perhaps it's the wrong word for it Tango.

[10:36am] Beria: when the results will be out*

[10:36am] sgardner: It's slightly complicated by the fact that the purpose of the feature is to help readers -- people who don't want to be surprised by stuff they don't want to see.

[10:36am] Seddon: thanks sue :)

[10:36am] jorm: and who do not get a vote!

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[10:37am] StevenW: It's going to run for at least a week or two Beria. Not sure of the exact date but that should give you an idea.

[10:37am] sebmol: would that include pictures of spiders in the article on arachnophobia?

[10:37am] tommorris: It seems like there's kind of a murky relationship here between the community, the board and the Foundation. sgardner, are there any plans to formalise that relationship any time soon? ;-)

[10:37am] sebmol: just to throw out an example

[10:37am] jorm: a fact which is one of the most important things to consider and remember.  this is NOT a feature for editors.

[10:37am] Moonriddengirl: The vote is scheduled to end 30 August.

[10:37am] StevenW: Thanks :)

[10:38am] Theo10011: jorm it still does affect their work.

[10:38am] StevenW: Not really...

[10:38am] sgardner: It's important to know what editors think because 1) they are also readers, 2) they deserve a voice because of their contributions to the project, and 3) they are among the people whose help will presumably be needed to help implement, or at least maintain, the feature.

[10:38am] Moonriddengirl: The schedule says results on September 1st, technology willing....

[10:38am] apergos: but editors are the folks who can vote.  sure would be nice to figure that out sometime

[10:38am] jorm: right; that's my point.  the bulk of our readers don't get to vote.

[10:38am] sgardner: So we definitely, obviously, need to hear from editors -- and we are and will, in a variety of ways, not limited to the referendum. (Like, the discussion page of the feature, etc.)

[10:38am] apergos: I guess one could do a reader poll, costs $ but there are companies that do that sort of thing professionally

[10:38am] Courcelles: It would have been nice to have held a consultation with IP's, perhaps under a one IP, one vote, rule, to see what the readership thinks

[10:39am] Courcelles: Because I anticipate the readers are going to expect this thing to /work/, and be very upset if it fails, and something bad gets through.

[10:39am] Beria: Courcelles, easy to manipulate

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[10:39am] StevenW: But wouldn't one IP one vote mean all of the BBC or a whole school have one vote Courcelles? :) Maybe we'd have to filter for shared IPs...

[10:39am] StevenW: Anyway, not to get side tracked.

[10:40am] sgardner: But really the primary stakeholder is the reader. We did consider polling readers, but yes, it is expensive, and probably not all that helpful. We know that a substantial group of people does want and use this kind of feature on many, many sites, so it seemed kind of asked-and-answered that people would want it on the Wikimedia sites.

[10:40am] sgardner: (sorry, catching up reading now)

[10:41am] sgardner: Tango42: yes, I know :-(  I agree with you.

[10:41am] StevenW: That was a good question tommorris. I think Sue is going to answer Sebastian then take that one. :)

[10:41am] tommorris: sgardner: would a personal image filter be something each individual wiki would be able to opt out of? I can see the case for, say, Commons - someone might not want to see porn. but take wikinews? people don't get to opt out of seeing gory pics in the newspaper. there's a different expectation there

[10:41am] Dragonfly6-7: StevenW - shared IPs, and dynamic IPs, and...

[10:42am] vvv: StevenW: which one?

[10:42am] Tango42: I agree, asking readers wouldn't be very helpful. Readers will fall into two groups - those that would use the feature and those that wouldn't. Those that would use it would obviously be in favour of it. Those that wouldn't, probably wouldn't have a strong opinion on it at all.

[10:42am] tommorris: (I apologise if I don't acknowledge a response, sgardner, as I'm on crappy 3G on the train.)

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[10:42am] WereSpielchqrs: re Courcelles. This won't work 100%, but if it is implemented then we have an easy answer when people say "why did that penis slip through the filter" we can just say "it was only a little one but we've now categorised it and the filter will pick it up now".

[10:42am] Beria: tommorris, as far as i understood, that is personal. So you might need to configure that in each wiki

[10:42am] sgardner: sebmol: ideally I think we would be able to give people the ability to not view anything they don't want to view. Because who are we to say what's controversial, or objectionable, or problematic. Having said that, I think there are some challenges in implementing that in a user-friendly way -- although I am not an expert, and people like jorm and Erik have done lots of thinking about this that I haven't. My view is, if we can make it possible

[10:42am] sgardner: for people to not view spiders if they don't want to, of course we should. But not if it makes the project significantly more expensive to run.

[10:42am] sgardner: (probably not)

[10:43am] sgardner: jorm you should add if you want :-)

[10:43am] jorm: there are limitations -technical ones - that make it difficult.

[10:43am] SarahStierch: I also think people reading an article about "spider things" will expect to see photos of spiders. But, if you look up an article about "anime" you don't expect to necessarily see some really raunchy anime photos.

[10:43am] jorm: one of the issues is that we really only have "categories" and not "tags".  which limits things.

[10:44am] ChristineM: It kind of goes back to that principle of least astonishment.

[10:44am] jorm: another is that storing the kind of data - say, if you want to hide specific images - that gets to be a nightmare very quickly.

[10:44am] MuZemike: Depends on what type of anime or manga you are looking up :)

[10:44am] sebmol: SarahStierch: that is true. but someone who suffers from arachnophobia might be interested in learning about that affliction on wikipedia

[10:44am] Theo10011: Sarah: that's the point, define 'raunchy' ?

[10:44am] sebmol: without being confronted by one of them

[10:44am] Theo10011: It's relative.

[10:44am] sebmol: *with

[10:44am] StevenW: BTW, in response to tommorris second question about opt-out...

[10:44am] tommorris: SarahStierch: the fear of being stared at article (forget what the name is) - during the fundraiser with Jimbo staring at you. ;-)

[10:44am] StevenW: I think the current answer is all or nothing. Either it is appropriate to have a filter that readers can have, or it's not worth it.

[10:44am] tommorris: thanks StevenW

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[10:45am] sebmol: but actually, my question wasn't really meant seriously

[10:45am] sebmol: i do have another one though that is

[10:45am] MuZemike: Needless to say, many people out there still have a hatred for anime/manga because it's un-American and that they automatically equate it to Hentai.

[10:45am] SarahStierch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnophobia

[10:45am] SarahStierch: Beware of cartoon spiders.

[10:45am] Dragonfly6-7: spider-man

[10:45am] Dragonfly6-7: sgardner - what about shock sites?

[10:45am] Dragonfly6-7: *ahem*

[10:45am] Theo10011: Hello bnewstead

[10:45am] Pharos: that picture is shocking

[10:45am] Pharos: spiders, eek!

[10:45am] Dragonfly6-7: Pharos - I meant more along the lines of Goatse, but....

[10:46am] sebmol: SarahStierch: try this: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnophobie - years of discussion on whether that picture should be there or not...

[10:46am] Courcelles: For a shock site, wouldn't that be more suitable for the spam blacklist, than an image filter?

[10:46am] Dragonfly6-7: sebmol - we have an article about Goatse, and we've had some nasty disputes over whether it should include a photo of Goatse

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[10:46am] SarahStierch: I actually suffer from Myrmecophobia. And it looks like there isn't even an article about that!

[10:46am] sebmol: Dragonfly6-7: i'm not surprised

[10:46am] sebmol: StevenW: whenever you're ready

[10:46am] • MuZemike 

has arachnophobia

[10:46am] StevenW: Shoot sebmol

[10:46am] StevenW: :)

[10:46am] Dragonfly6-7: sgardner - if you don't know what goatse is..... you don't WANT to know.

[10:47am] jorm: there is an image blacklist that is different.

[10:47am] StevenW: I think the interesting thing is...

[10:47am] Pharos: sarah- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiningen_Versus_the_Ants

[10:47am] StevenW: with an image filter where people can choose what to see or not

[10:47am] sebmol: presumably, one of the main catalysts for this discussion and the feature was muhammad images

[10:47am] sebmol: right?

[10:47am] SarahStierch: Do I even dare Pharos?

[10:47am] SarahStierch: Pictures don't scare me. It's in the flesh.

[10:47am] jorm: no, i don't think muhammed images was a catalyst.

[10:47am] SarahStierch: real life ants.

[10:47am] Dragonfly6-7: sebmol - and the Bab images

[10:47am] SarahStierch: offline ants, whatever

[10:47am] jorm: though it was something i thought about during the design process.

[10:48am] sebmol: educate me

[10:48am] sebmol: bab?

[10:48am] apergos: *cough*californication*cough*

[10:48am] Dragonfly6-7: SarahStierch - ah, there are ants in your flesh?

[10:48am] SarahStierch: Bab! Ba'hai Gardens Bab.

[10:48am] Dragonfly6-7: SarahStierch - yes,  *that* Bab.

[10:48am] sebmol: can someone give me a link? I haven't heard about this before

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[10:49am] sebmol: anyway, it seems to me that out of some specific instances

[10:49am] sebmol: someone felt the need to generalize

[10:49am] • StevenW 

listens to Sue composing a long answer...

[10:49am] sebmol: and then try to find a technical answer to what primarily is a complex human problem

[10:49am] jorm: when we get into specifics is when we start designing for edge cases, and we just can't do that.

[10:49am] Theo10011: wtf is bab Dragonfly6-7?

[10:49am] SarahStierch: Bab is the first prophet of the Ba'Hais

[10:50am] SarahStierch: Saw his burial site in Haifa at WIkimania.

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[10:50am] sebmol: jorm: I don't disagree, provided this requires a technical solution

[10:50am] sebmol: i question that it does

[10:50am] sgardner: tommorris: so you described the relationship between the board, the community and the Wikimedia Foundation as "murky," and asked if there are any plans to formalise it any time soon. (With a winking smiley face, LOL.)

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[10:50am] jorm: well, we can't seem to convince people that pornographic images may not be appropriate for every page in the encyclopedia.

[10:50am] sgardner: Thank you: it's such an interesting, and accurate comment. It's true that the relationship among those three entities is pretty unclear.

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[10:51am] sgardner: It's not a 'normal' hierarchy relationship, with board on top, staff below and community below that. (Nor is it a normal hierarchy relationship with board on top, community below, and staff below that.)

[10:51am] sgardner: Sometimes in practice I get the sense that the Board may feel like it needs to mediate between the staff and the community, but I think that's a bad model, because it implies and perpetuates strife between the community and the staff, that I think is in no way inherent/unavoidable. Even the role of the Board itself is fairly unclear, in terms of its 'authority' over the community and the chapters. (Its authority over the staff is undisputed,

[10:51am] sgardner: LOL.)

[10:51am] Theo10011: Dragonfly6-7 SarahStierch: I would have thought the FP controversy on main page of commons a few months ago might have been a bigger pre-cursor but ok.

[10:51am] sgardner: So yes, you're right -- the relationship is unclear.

[10:51am] Dragonfly6-7: Theo10011 - actually, I was thinking of Baha'ullah, the prophet of the Ba'hai, of whom two photographs are known to exist.

[10:51am] Dragonfly6-7: and Ba'hai are politely requested to not look at them.

[10:52am] Dragonfly6-7: which is problematic for if they're looking at the Wikipedia article about him.

[10:52am] vvv: sgardner: do you know what the originally intended hierarchy was?

[10:52am] sgardner: I actually think that is okay. It can be problematic and messy and mucky, but I think that we are building something new here, and so there are no perfect models for us to adhere to. We're making it up ourselves.

[10:52am] sgardner: vvv: I'm not sure -- do you?

[10:52am] Pharos: (they do look at the photo, but only in the sacred context of pilgrimage)

[10:52am] vvv: Well, I feel like I do

[10:52am] Herodotus: In theory there is no hierarchy on Wikipedia.

[10:52am] sgardner: vvv: please go ahead.

[10:52am] sgardner: :-)

[10:52am] sebmol: jorm: right. but in fact, I find the questions of whether readers must  be exposed to sexual organs in articles about sex and whether readers must see depictions of muhammad in articles about muhammad or islam

[10:53am] sebmol: two very separate ones

[10:53am] sebmol: and it's highly unfortunate that they are conflated into one alleged issue

[10:53am] vvv: It was community and "the Foundation" created if the community needs something in terms of legal or technical support

[10:53am] vvv: Just as local chapters now do

[10:53am] apergos: Herodotus: I think admins and oversighters and crats and stewards are roles in a hierarchical structure; whether they were supposed to be is another matter

[10:53am] SarahStierch: Theo - I started that drama.

[10:54am] Theo10011: I remember. ;)

[10:54am] SarahStierch: ;)

[10:54am] sgardner: Upshot: we have a variety of forums and venues for figuring this stuff out -- primarily right now, the Movement Roles 2 process -- and I think people who are interested should get involved in helping define it. But I am personally more-or-less okay with the murk we have today.

[10:54am] sgardner: (reading, catching up)

[10:54am] StevenW: Hey now that there's a pause I wanted to throw vvv's earlier question in... Does WMF plan to develop non-PayPal donation systems where PayPal is not popular or problematic?

[10:54am] Theo10011: Movement Roles 2?

[10:54am] Herodotus: apergos: I was just responding to the part about the "originally intended hierarchy". It's patently false to say there isn't one, of course.

[10:54am] sgardner: vvv: that kind of feels to me like the hierarchy model, no? Board > community > staff, is what that feels like.

[10:55am] apergos: ok, gotcha

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[10:55am] vvv: sgardner: community -> board -> staff, but it is extremely inaccurate description

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[10:56am] sgardner: tommorris said he's on a train and can't necessarily talk, so I will just hope that this answers his original question. Happy to stay on the topic if other people want, too.

[10:56am] Theo10011: where do the chapters go vvv?

[10:56am] sgardner: vvv: yeah I agree, it's not accurate. I'm not 100% sure it's desirable either.

[10:56am] vvv: The problem here is that "hierarchy" is not the adequate word to describe the relationships within movement

[10:56am] StevenW: Right

[10:56am] vvv: Theo10011: chapters are WMF minus servers plus localness

[10:57am] vvv: So, just to reword that, WMF = chapter + server + global-mindedness

[10:57am] Beria: not quite right vvv

[10:58am] apergos: what do you think (I am asking my third question, so seriously, if someone else has one, ask it), is the most important initiative the wmf is pursuing in order to get/retain new editors?

[10:58am] Beria: and the WMF - chapters relation and hierarchy vvv ?

[10:58am] apergos: asking for a personal opinion here.

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[10:58am] sgardner: Theo10011: you know what Movement Roles 2 is, right?

[10:58am] sgardner: (Aren't you involved?)

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[10:58am] Theo10011: No one contacted me about any specifics Sue.

[10:58am] sebmol: apergos: my answer would be the visual editor

[10:58am] Theo10011: I was involved in Movement roles up till Berlin.

[10:59am] Seth_Finkelstein: jorm - Quick q to you, I'm curious, did you read, or even get, some of the civil-liberties material that was submitted to the consultation process? (I know in response to an inquiry I mentioned a White Paper I co-authored, I wonder if it made it into whatever briefing was done)  Personally, the politics around this strikes me as very weird - sort of distilled reactive and dysfunctional.

[10:59am] sgardner: Theo: I didn't know; thought you were/are still involved.

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[10:59am] the_wub: StevenW / vvv: the fundraising team are busy looking at additional options to PayPal, hopefully there will be more news on that front soon

[10:59am] Beria: what is MR 2 ??

[10:59am] apergos: sebmol: it will be great to see that rolled out.  truly a huge leap forward, no question.

[10:59am] StevenW: Thanks the_wub :)

[11:00am] sgardner: I need to wrap pretty soon, but I think there were a few questions outstanding.

[11:00am] Theo10011: Sorry Sue, I thought I was too.

[11:00am] jorm: I don't really think that sue's office hours are the appropriate place to talk about the design process.  sorry, seth!

[11:00am] sgardner: Apergos, I think, and there was also a question about PayPal, I think.

[11:00am] StevenW: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_roles

[11:00am] apergos: ah right, I'll wait. paypal first

[11:00am] Beria: that is the one StevenW

[11:00am] sgardner: so apergos was asking, what is the single biggest thing we're going to do this year

[11:00am] Beria: what is the 2?

[11:00am] sgardner: ha, apergos, no you are first :-)

[11:00am] apergos: aww shucks :-)

[11:01am] sgardner: to increase editor retention. Am I right that's the question, apergos?

[11:01am] StevenW: Two is just the second iteration of it that's on Meta now at that link. I think the "1" version was the Movement Roles work done during the strategy process.

[11:01am] StevenW: Confusing, I know.

[11:01am] Theo10011: StevenW not really.

[11:01am] Beria: not really

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[11:01am] Beria: and would be easier to continue to call "MR"

[11:02am] StevenW: It was to me, I meant. Since it's not called 1 and 2 on Meta.

[11:02am] sgardner: I don't think there is one single thing, honestly. I don't think there's a magic bullet. I think we need to try lots of things and see what works, and I think that we'll discard experiments that turn out not to help. But there will be lots of projects that will help, and there will need to be lots of projects.

[11:02am] apergos: yes.  I don't know if conversion of readers to editors is included or if we're

[11:02am] apergos: just focusing on retention, so whichever it is...

[11:02am] sgardner: So for example -- the outreach to schools will help a lot. the India and Brazil projects will help. Localization will help. Visual Editor. Jorm's projects. etc.

[11:02am] Beria: talking about India and Brazil

[11:03am] sgardner: There is some really interesting data coming out of the summer of research, too, that paves the way to good initiatives.

[11:03am] jorm: (heh. i figured out how to turn the image filter into a participation on-ramp, btw.  i think about this stuff 24/7 now.)

[11:03am] Beria: we would have a Office hour for that (i remember someone talking about that)

[11:03am] apergos: yes, I had a good time looking at those reports. what a productive summer

[11:03am] Beria: any idea when?

[11:03am] Seddon: summer of research is fantastic :)

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[11:03am] StevenW: Beria: yes, we're doing a wrap-up presentation here at WMF and I want to do an office hours too

[11:03am] StevenW: to share more results, talk about it, etc.

[11:03am] sgardner: for example, I did not know until yesterday that before 2006 all interactions with new editors were manual (real people talking manually). Today, something like 80% of new editor interactions are tool-based -- Huggle, Twinkle, etc.

[11:04am] SarahStierch: Wow.

[11:04am] StevenW: 76% actually, but the meaning is still the same :)

[11:04am] jorm: cluebot.

[11:04am] StevenW: Yeah

[11:04am] vvv: Beria: (was away) chapters and WMF are peers since they have the common role

[11:04am] sgardner: It's easy to imagine how tool-based interactions can create a tone or user experience that feels institutional rather than fun.

[11:04am] sgardner: cluebot, yes :-)

[11:04am] Theo10011: cluebot is the most awesome thing on en.wp

[11:04am] vvv: The basic idea is that the community is the raison d'etre of the Foundation and of the chapters

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[11:05am] Beria: no one is saying anything against that vvv :P

[11:05am] sgardner: Superfast on PayPal: yes, the Wikimedia Foundation is working towards utilizing a global service that will enable us to offer many more payment options that will suit people who don't like PayPal. We haven't finalized anything yet, but we've been working towards it.

[11:05am] Theo10011: One can try competing with it with huggle but it is scary good.

[11:05am] sgardner: I forget who asked that question (maybe it was tommorris) but I hope that answers it :-)

[11:05am] vvv: Theo10011: I used to beat it many times

[11:05am] StevenW: I think it's time to wrap up.

[11:06am] sebmol: vvv: to be honest, I don't know what that means

[11:06am] sebmol: thanks sgardner, for taking the time

[11:06am] Tango42_ joined the chat room.

[11:06am] sgardner: This was a funny office hours: way more substance than usual. Normally lately we've been just hanging out socially :-)  But this was good.

[11:06am] StevenW: Thanks for being here everyone, it was nice to have a little bit larger office hours again. :)

[11:06am] sgardner: Thank you all :-)

[11:06am] WereSpielchqrs: night all

[11:06am] Seth_Finkelstein: Thank you, Ms. Director.

[11:06am] sgardner: Bye guys :-)

[11:06am] sgardner left the chat room. (Quit: Leaving)

[11:06am] WereSpielchqrs left the chat room. (Quit: Page closed)

[11:06am] tommorris: thanks sgardner