IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-10-14

[09:58am] StevenW: Hi all

[09:58am] SarahStierch: Hello!

[09:58am] Fluffernutter: thanks for the reminder StevenW

[09:58am] StevenW: we'll start in just a few moments

[09:58am] StevenW: np :)

[09:58am] SarahStierch: Yes, thanks

[09:58am] Jan_eissfeldt: +1

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[09:59am] Yukon: StevenW: What's the general topic?

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[09:59am] Ironholds: Yukon: "Wikimedia" :P

[09:59am] Yukon is now known as Mono.

[09:59am] Mono: Urm, yeah.

[09:59am] StevenW: Mono: there isn't one single one.

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[09:59am] Mono: I figured that out, Ironholds :)

[10:00am] StevenW: I think Sue happy to talk about the last board meeting, the image filter, and whatever else people are interested in.

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[10:00am] Fluffernutter: oh god, image filter? *hides*

[10:00am] Ironholds: hey, the_wub

[10:01am] StevenW: we talked about that last time, Fluffernutter, so it may be quieter this time

[10:01am] Mono: I hope that's not all there is.

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[10:01am] the_wub: hi Ironholds :)

[10:01am] Ironholds: StevenW: it couldn't be LOUDER :P

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[10:01am] Ironholds: the last image filter discussion reminded me of the Black Hole of Calcutta

[10:01am] Ironholds: only with more screaming and stabbing

[10:01am] Jan_eissfeldt: hehe

[10:01am] Ironholds: and, this being Wikipedia, fewer women ;)

[10:01am] SarahStierch: Yeah, it was rather terrible to read the transcript.

[10:01am] Theo10011: Yes, hello.

[10:02am] Ironholds: yo, Theo10011

[10:02am] Ironholds: also, hey sgardner, who nobody has said hi to yet ;p

[10:02am] Mono: The channel is now being logged.

[10:02am] Theo10011: hi Sue

[10:02am] sgardner: Hello folks -- good morning from San Francisco :-)

[10:02am] SarahStierch: Afternoon from DC :)

[10:02am] Jan_eissfeldt: good evening from europe

[10:02am] StevenW: Or evening or afternoon, depending on where you are :)

[10:02am] Ironholds: stop making us jealous, it's 6pm here and I've been up for 32 hours

[10:02am] sgardner: Seriously, Ironholds?

[10:03am] StevenW: Wikipedians never sleep.

[10:03am] Mono: I can't do more than a day.

[10:03am] Ironholds: sgardner: meeting with Howie on Friday at 4:30pm your time..or close to 1 in the morning here. Kinda borked my schedule.

[10:03am] StevenW: They just cat nap while watching IRC. ;)

[10:03am] sgardner: I have been experimenting with melatonin lately (prompted by Gwern's blog) and I am getting lots of sleep as a result :-)

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[10:03am] sgardner: Ironholds: eek.

[10:03am] StevenW: Hi Fae

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[10:03am] StevenW: Hi Fred

[10:03am] Ironholds: sgardner: and you think you make the EMPLOYEES work punishing schedules :P

[10:03am] sgardner: I have never seen Fred in office hours! -- hi Fred!

[10:04am] Fae: Hi

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[10:04am] Ironholds: evening, James

[10:04am] Fred_Bauder: Hi, thought I would see what happens

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[10:04am] sgardner: Hello Fae -- I am going to see you in about a month, aren't I?

[10:04am] StevenW: So if anyone has any questions or topics they'd like throw out there or private message to me, the floor is pretty open.

[10:04am] sgardner: (When I come to the UK Board meeting.)

[10:04am] StevenW: I'm happy to collect topics for a bit while people come in.

[10:04am] Fae: Yes, looking forward to meeting you again (last time was 2010!)

[10:04am] Ironholds: StevenW: image filter, but a useful question

[10:05am] sgardner: Great :-)

[10:05am] Ironholds: specifically "are alternative technical avenues being investigated? If so, when will we see them?"

[10:05am] sgardner: So let me throw out some stuff we could choose to talk about, while you folks are thinking about topics as well.

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[10:05am] Mono: I don't know, the fundraiser is coming up

[10:05am] sgardner: We had the board meeting last week, so I can talk about that if anyone is interested.

[10:05am] Mono: and new editor support is always an issue

[10:05am] Ironholds: sgardner: that'd be cool!

[10:05am] Jamesofur: evening Ironholds

[10:05am] StevenW: Yeah, there will be an office hours about fundraising with Zack, next week. :)

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[10:05am] • SarahStierch 

waves at Philippe|Wiki

[10:05am] Ironholds: yo, pb

[10:05am] Philippe|Wiki: heya :)

[10:05am] sgardner: We had our annual all-staff meeting a few days ago (Wednesday and Thursday) -- it's the one time every year that all staff gather in San Francisco. I can talk about that, if you want.

[10:05am] Mono: Hmm, it's Philippe|Wiki.

[10:05am] Ironholds: not spoken to you in a whiel :P

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[10:06am] sgardner: There's always the image filter; there is always gender stuff happening.

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[10:06am] sgardner: New barnstars and awards, I think.

[10:06am] SarahStierch: :)

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[10:06am] sgardner: And I think Aude is here, so we could talk about Wikimania 2012 if we want.

[10:06am] • SarahStierch 

pings harej

[10:06am] Ironholds: hmn. Start with a general recap of the WMF over the last month? I appreciate that's a bit broad, but whatever you think we'll find interesting

[10:06am] sgardner: Plus I have an upcoming trip to Europe -- so anyone from the UK or Germany or the Netherlands could tell me what folks would like to talk about when I get there, so I can prep.

[10:06am] sgardner: Those are some notions :-)

[10:06am] jsalsman: hi, Ironholds, how are you?

[10:06am] Ironholds: *shrugs*. me no ideas man :P

[10:07am] Ironholds: hey jsalsman. Good! Yourself?

[10:07am] sgardner: I will wait for you all to kick up some issues :-)

[10:07am] Ironholds: sgardner: do give me a poke when you come over. James and I owe you dinner, iirc

[10:07am] Fred_Bauder: I'm a campus ambassador, India project, but have looked at others. I'm concerned that a lot of students are having hard time, not getting the attention they need. They, on their part, seldom ask for help

[10:08am] jsalsman: Ironholds: well, thanks.  sgardner: I posted my outstanding issues at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Office_hour_topics

[10:08am] sgardner: Ironholds, I would love to have dinner with you and James :-)

[10:08am] Mono: I concur with Ironholds

[10:08am] Ironholds: sgardner: smashing! Let me know the dates and free times.

[10:08am] Abbasjnr: I'm interested in knowing how WMF forms mobile partnerships. What does the WMF has t offer mobile carriers for them to allow their subscribers to use Wikipedia for free?

[10:08am] Ironholds: James being James he can take time off whenever and claim he's working :P

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[10:08am] SarahStierch: I'd rather not talk about the image filter, it seems to really derail any valuable conversation we could be having.

[10:08am] Fluffernutter: SarahStierch++

[10:09am] SarahStierch: It doesn't appear anything too interesting has developed regarding Wikimania

[10:09am] StevenW: That's the third vote for that, so heard.

[10:09am] SarahStierch: Though I think they might be changing venues

[10:09am] Jan_eissfeldt: Fred_Bauder: the steering committee meeting is next week, afaik

[10:09am] Mono: Oh, really?

[10:09am] Fred_Bauder: I'll see if I can figure that out

[10:09am] sgardner: Why doesn't everybody just toss out one or two things that interest them most, and we'll go with the majority. meanwhile, I'll prep a little recap.

[10:09am] Mono: SarahStierch: Are you sure?

[10:09am] SarahStierch: Mono: yes

[10:09am] Mono: How come?

[10:09am] • SarahStierch 

lives in DC and follows the planning pretty closely

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[10:10am] SarahStierch: Folks with interest in Wikimania can always hang out in #wikimedia-northeast

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[10:10am] Ironholds: Mono: as I understand it, 2011 caused the prospective numbers to inflate, and the old venue saw them and blanched

[10:10am] SarahStierch: Mono: I don't want to make any assumptions about the change in venue. Let's just say the suggestions I have made are being investigated and hopefully something will be solidified as soon as possible.

[10:10am] SarahStierch: And Ironholds is correct, but there is more to it than that, as well.

[10:10am] Mono: Ah.

[10:10am] jsalsman: Try to address admins. At their attrition rate they will be gone in seven years, but the editors have already leveled off in steady-state.  That's not sustainable without action

[10:10am] sgardner: let's stay on Wikimania for a second, why don't we?

[10:10am] SarahStierch: Regarldess, this is office hours with sgardner  not me :)

[10:11am] Theo10011: heh

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[10:11am] • SarahStierch 

waves at tommorris

[10:11am] sgardner: The Wikimania local planning team is coming out to SF in a few weeks to meet with the staff who handle stuff on WMF's end.

[10:11am] Seth_Finkelstein: Sue, can I just get a quick answer to the following - Can you confirm or deny the allegation that the Wikimedia Foundation is under some pressure from large donors regarding "controversial images"? (I assume it's going to be "deny", but this is for the record)

[10:11am] Ironholds: hey tom

[10:11am] tommorris: hey SarahStierch

[10:11am] sgardner: I am concerned that there's no venue yet. That's not normal. Normally there would be a venue by now.

[10:11am] • tommorris 

is on the train again ;-)

[10:12am] Mono: The original venue seemed conveinient.

[10:12am] • SarahStierch 

agrees

[10:12am] sgardner: And I'm also interested to know if the local team has hired an events coordinator, or is planning to hire one.

[10:12am] StevenW: Seth: considering that no one on the Board or on staff has ever said that anything on controversial content comes from major donors, the answer is no.

[10:12am] jsalsman: who is on the wikimania committee?

[10:12am] SarahStierch: Mono: It's actually not, in relevance to how DC is layer out and transportation issues. It's also a capacity problem and something about Georgetown "not getting back to people."

[10:12am] SarahStierch: sgardner: No, not yet. They have not.

[10:12am] sgardner: That's part of why Haifa worked so well -- because the volunteers didn't try to do everything themselves: they farmed out a lot of the logistical work.

[10:12am] sgardner: Which was very successful.

[10:12am] sgardner: Sarah, who are the key planners, do you know? James Hare... who are the others?

[10:13am] Mono: I don't know DC very well, so I'll trust you

[10:13am] SarahStierch: James Hare (harej), Katie Filbert (aude)

[10:13am] SarahStierch: Umm....

[10:13am] sgardner: Hi tommorris, by the way :-)

[10:13am] Seth_Finkelstein: StevenW - what you just said does not logically follow, but I'm under no illusions anyone is going to say "Yes"

[10:13am] sgardner: How involved is the woman from the Smithsonian?

[10:13am] Mono: StevenW: It might be nice to discuss what the WMF plans for the next 6 months.

[10:13am] sgardner: Tiffany?

[10:13am] SarahStierch: I actually was on it, for special events, but, I have to work on my masters, my work and more pressing matters at this time.

[10:13am] Theo10011: harej just left 15 min. ago. I pinged him to come online again.

[10:13am] SarahStierch: sgardner: Let me look real fast

[10:13am] Mono: There are some interesting tech projects going on.

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[10:13am] SarahStierch: sgardner: What woman from the Smithsonian?

[10:13am] sgardner: Yeah. This is part of what is concerning me; I feel like the team is shrinking, not growing.

[10:13am] • SarahStierch 

is at the Smithsonian

[10:14am] sgardner: SarahStierch: Isn't her name Tiffany? The woman who was at Haifa.

[10:14am] SarahStierch: sgardner: Yes..

[10:14am] sgardner: LOL, I am conflating two people, whoops.

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[10:14am] sgardner: You are from the Smithsonian; Tiffany Smith is at some other GLAM institution, I think.

[10:14am] SarahStierch: Tiffany works at the Library of Congress I think, but that is irrelevant.

[10:14am] SarahStierch: :)

[10:14am] jsalsman: if the problem is that the selected venue blanched due to large numbers of participants, we can reactivate the Stanford bid, but their catering is kind of expensive, and they're a private school.  Open WiFi is difficult, and they recently closed JSTOR and similar databases to visitors

[10:14am] sgardner: Ah.

[10:14am] SarahStierch: Yes, the issue is the lack of experience, and that I think is a concern for a lot of people.

[10:14am] sgardner: I am thinking about the woman who was at the wikichix lunch in Haifa.

[10:14am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: It goes beyond that, actually.

[10:15am] sgardner: She's got dark curly hair, very energetic and smart.

[10:15am] SarahStierch: Hm

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[10:15am] Philippe: Yeah, that's Tiffani

[10:15am] SarahStierch: Yes, I'd say so

[10:15am] SarahStierch: She's at the state department, actually

[10:15am] SarahStierch: anyway

[10:15am] sgardner: Hm. I am hoping she is involved in the local planning, because my understanding is that she has lots of event organizing experience.

[10:16am] sgardner: I don't know who is coming to SF -- it's James +1 I think, or maybe +2.

[10:16am] SarahStierch: I think experience is the big concern, and I think that the Wikimania "crew" will require some type of management structure above them making sure things are being taken care of.

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[10:16am] Ironholds: sgardner: she is involved, yes

[10:16am] SarahStierch: sgardner: I think Katie, James and I'm not sure who else.

[10:16am] SarahStierch: Another board member

[10:16am] Ironholds: (I know this because James had a meeting with State thanks to her involvement earlier today)

[10:16am] sgardner: Anyway -- I am a little concerned about where the planning is, and I am hoping people outside DC can help them get things underway, if necessary. e.g., for the program committee and so forth.

[10:16am] sgardner: It's normal for the schedule to slip, and it's normal for me to be anxious about progress at this point.

[10:17am] sgardner: But I think it's time for people to start rallying to help :-)

[10:17am] • SarahStierch 

sighs

[10:17am] sgardner: Yeah :-)

[10:17am] Theo10011: sgardner, since James or aude aren't here to comment on the Wikimania status, I suggest we move to another topic?

[10:17am] sgardner: Okay, maybe that's enough about Wikimania. I am hoping to escalate it a little to people's attention.

[10:17am] sgardner: Yep.

[10:17am] • SarahStierch 

nods at the_wub

[10:17am] SarahStierch: oops

[10:17am] • SarahStierch 

nods at Theo10011

[10:17am] sgardner: Okay. Shall I recap some Foundation stuff?

[10:17am] StevenW: Sounds good.

[10:18am] SarahStierch: (http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Organizing_team  btw)

[10:18am] sgardner: Here are a couple of things.

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[10:18am] sgardner: A few big grants lately. We received 3.6 million from the Stanton Foundation, which is our biggest grant ever.

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[10:18am] • SarahStierch 

claps

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[10:18am] sgardner: We got 10K pounds from the Indigo Trust.

[10:18am] Philippe: (yay for Stanton… re-upping! )

[10:19am] Yukon: Was it directed in any way?

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[10:19am] sgardner: Those are both unrestricted -- meaning they fund core operations rather than specific activities that wouldn't otherwise have happened. That's good: we made a deliberate decision to move away from restricted grants because they are too .. restrictive.

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[10:19am] sgardner: So this is good, and an endorsement of everybody's work.

[10:19am] Theo10011: Ah people were wondering if the stanton foundation grant was restricted like the last time.

[10:20am] Ironholds: yeah, the press release gave the impression it was

[10:20am] Ironholds: albeit with very broad restrictions

[10:20am] sgardner: Yukon: the Indigo grant was for operating funds (general operations) -- although the reason they gave for funding us is that they are interested in the mobile work.

[10:20am] tommorris: sgardner: can I bring a topic up? Namely, Italian Wikipedia and the Foundation's response to it.

[10:20am] Yukon: Do restrictive grants not allow a type of focus not available with non-restricted grants to reduce overhead for a certain project?

[10:20am] sgardner: Yeah, Ironholds -- Stanton gave us money to offset our technical costs, and as an endorsement of our technical strategy. But the money isn't restricted -- it will go towards funding our core technical operations.

[10:20am] Ironholds: sgardner: awesome!

[10:21am] sgardner: I realize the press release might have been a little confusing on that point.

[10:21am] Theo10011: ya, I dont think anyone clarified or followed up on foundation-l.

[10:21am] tommorris: sgardner: it's great that the Italian government backed down, but I'm rather concerned that editors of good conscience have disagreed with the Foundation's endorsement of what they see as a NPOV princple - for instance, http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:Dendodge

[10:21am] sgardner: Yeah, it is a great grant. I had a really lovely phone call with Liz from Stanton about it: she is very, very pleased with the Wikimedia Foundation's strategy and the work we've been doing, and of course she is a huge supporter of Wikipedia :-)

[10:21am] sgardner: hi tommorris -- and yes, let's talk about Italy.

[10:21am] Yukon is now known as Mono.

[10:22am] sgardner: I haven't read the Dendodge page: he has left Wikinews?

[10:22am] Mono: I do believe so.

[10:22am] tommorris: sgardner: yep, one less admin and talented writer on an ailing project

[10:22am] sgardner: So what do you folks think about the Italian shutdown?

[10:22am] Mono: Wikinews sort of walked out, but OpenGlobe isn't successful either.

[10:22am] Beria: did you call me Mono ?

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[10:22am] SarahStierch: We talked about it on the podcast…btu I think the link is still dead..

[10:22am] tommorris: sgardner: I'm in support of it, but I think we need a principle up front for future situations like this

[10:23am] Mono: No...

[10:23am] StevenW: Well, I think it should be said that -- at least according to my understanding -- that the Foundation isn't supposed to be neutral.

[10:23am] jsalsman: sgardner: when you say that it is an endorsement of everyone's work, I wonder if you would even include annoying people

[10:23am] tommorris: sgardner: next time this happens, whether WMF endorses such an action needs to be decided by principle rather than by politics and circumstance as it seemed to be this time

[10:23am] StevenW: It's supposed to support editors who are collaborating to fulfill the mission.

[10:23am] sgardner: Can anyone quote Kat's note to foundation-l here? I thought it was relevant, and true.

[10:23am] Theo10011: StevenW, elaborate please?

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[10:23am] sgardner: jsalsman, sometimes people are both annoying and productive :-)

[10:23am] DarkoNeko: Mono, yes ?

[10:23am] Beria: Mono, you pinged me ;)

[10:23am] jsalsman: even Greg Kohs?

[10:23am] sgardner: tommorris, what do you mean?

[10:24am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: +1

[10:24am] Beria: that is the same as calling, because my client tell me you did

[10:24am] DarkoNeko: oh, is it IRC office hour now ?

[10:24am] StevenW: Yep

[10:24am] Mono: Hmm. I am using a new client.

[10:24am] Seth_Finkelstein: It is unclear to me whether IT Wikipedia got "played". It's difficult enough to parse one's own country's politics, let alone another.

[10:24am] Theo10011: heh welcome DarkoNeko

[10:24am] • DarkoNeko 

is amashed to have missed that

[10:24am] DarkoNeko: should have kept more informed :)

[10:24am] tommorris: sgardner: basically, next time something like this happens, it'd be nice to know whether the WMF are going to support such moves or not

[10:24am] sgardner: Tommorris, why don't I tell you (all) why we responded the way we did?

[10:24am] Mono: I installed Ubuntu 11.10 on a VM and I just used the one from the top of the list.

[10:24am] SarahStierch: Let me find the link that phil and i created

[10:24am] ChristineM: Kat to Foundation-l: " Our existence itself is not politically

[10:24am] SarahStierch: errr

[10:24am] ChristineM: neutral, and I do think that WMF, as well as local chapters and

[10:24am] ChristineM: communities, should get involved in policy where it affects the

[10:24am] ChristineM: ability of the sites to operate (actually, this has already been on

[10:24am] tommorris: sgardner: that'd be a good idea

[10:24am] ChristineM: the agenda for this weekend's board meeting). And this is exactly the

[10:24am] ChristineM: kind of thing where the Wikimedia community can and should use our

[10:24am] Beria: you still have 45 min DarkoNeko ;)

[10:25am] ChristineM: voice (as opposed to things that are only distantly related, such as

[10:25am] ChristineM: global warming, or election procedures)."

[10:25am] ChristineM: (owch that didn't work well, sorry gang!)

[10:25am] SarahStierch: philipe and i started and others expanded on about "wiki protests" on meta

[10:25am] sgardner: Christine: thank you.

[10:25am] Theo10011: ChristineM, stop please.

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[10:25am] sgardner: Can someone post the link to the meta page on protests?

[10:25am] SarahStierch: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project-wide_protests

[10:25am] sgardner: So here's why we handled it the way we did.

[10:25am] StevenW: Christine if you have a link that would be awesome :)

[10:25am] Philippe: Theo10011: That's a good quote, I'm glad ChristineM posted it.  :)

[10:25am] • ChristineM 

points Theo to the apology immediately after that

[10:25am] • SarahStierch 

was trying to find it and got her tongue twisted by ChristineM's good intentions :)

[10:25am] sgardner: First: we didn't get a heads-up from the Italian community. Nobody told us they were considering a shutdown, until it was already underway.

[10:25am] Mono: sgardner: What does the WMF plan for the next 8 months?

[10:26am] Philippe: (some of us liked not getting a notice, so we didn't worry.  Others wished we'd gotten notice.)

[10:26am] sgardner: (I am pretty sure that's true. Some people had been following discussions about the proposed law itself for several months, but I don't think anyone knew a shutdown was on their radar.)

[10:26am] DarkoNeko: it must have been a pretty awkard position for the foundation

[10:26am] StevenW: Right

[10:26am] DarkoNeko: like "OMG they did *what* ?"

[10:26am] sgardner: My initial reaction was, I wished they had pulled us into the loop earlier, so we could have helped them think it through.

[10:26am] Theo10011: sgardner, in their defense they did reach out to enwp IRC channels a day before the protest. Some of us saw the statement in somone's userspace.

[10:26am] sgardner: DarkoNeko: kind of awkward, but not awful.

[10:27am] DarkoNeko: hm

[10:27am] sgardner: Ultimately, after thinking it through, I thought it was fine that they did not inform us, or pull us into the discussion.

[10:27am] ChristineM: ah ha, found it: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/252674#252674

[10:27am] Theo10011: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum/Italian_Wikipedia

[10:27am] SarahStierch: I agree, I think it's nice that they just took it upon themselves to do it. Sometimes consensus only needs to be developed by those intimately involved.

[10:27am] Mono is now known as Mono[Away].

[10:27am] SarahStierch: And I think it made it more powerful :)

[10:27am] • Mono[Away] 

is away: Be right back.

[10:27am] • tempodivalse 

waves, am I too late to the party?

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[10:27am] SarahStierch: no tempodivalse

[10:27am] Theo10011: hey tempodivalse

[10:28am] • SarahStierch 

waves at jorm

[10:28am] tempodivalse: heya

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[10:28am] jorm: oop.

[10:28am] \Mike|afk is now known as \Mike.

[10:28am] sgardner: Because I am honestly not sure what we would have added to the conversation. The Italian community understood the proposed law, they understood its implications (our own counsel in Italy confirmed their understanding for the Foundation) -- and really, it is and should be a community decision.

[10:28am] Jan_eissfeldt: it's difficult for a lot of western europeans. on the one hand it's a core component of our image to stay out of this stuff (at least on this side of the pond), on the other hand the bill looked really nasty. thus, i'm not surprised that we lost some people, while the italians pressing to get rid of this proposal

[10:28am] Ironholds: Jan_eissfeldt: personally, speaking as a western european, I think it should be acceptable to go "okay, speaking as editors we think this is A Bad Idea"

[10:29am] sgardner: We understood that the Italian community had reached a decision after good internal discussion, via a good community process.

[10:29am] Ironholds: first, we're speaking as editors, not speaking as an encyclopedia

[10:29am] DarkoNeko: now that this action has been done once, I think other communities might be tempted to do it too at some point. But it wouldn't be the same effect anymore

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[10:29am] Ironholds: second, it's something that threatens the very existence of said encyclopedia. A choice between breaking NPOV once and seeing a project turn into a wasteland isn't a choice.

[10:29am] jsalsman: by the way, I fixed a typo and added informative links: http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Sue_Gardner&diff=2990901&oldid=2990874

[10:29am] sgardner: Sometimes IMO small wikis are vulnerable to making bad decisions, because there are too few people involved to reach a good consensus, which leaves the community vulnerable to people who are pushing a point of view, or who are just plain wrong.

[10:29am] DarkoNeko: it had a huge novelty effect, adding to the impact

[10:29am] tommorris: sgardner: so, for the inevitable parry - if deki were to do a shutdown against the image filter, would you be there any problem?

[10:29am] DarkoNeko: now if it was to happen every month, the media wouldn't even mention it anymore

[10:29am] tommorris: *dewiki, of course

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[10:29am] sgardner: But when a lot of editors are involved, and the process looks good, then good decision quality is usually the result.

[10:29am] Beria: but it.wiki is not small sgardner

[10:30am] Jan_eissfeldt: we should have invented a proper dissociation first hand, Ironholds, imo

[10:30am] Ironholds: Jan_eissfeldt: dissociation?

[10:30am] sgardner: Beria, yeah, that's exactly my point. That's why we trusted they had made a good decision.

[10:30am] • SarahStierch 

facepalms at the sight of "image filter"

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[10:30am] sgardner: So we were happy to support them, on the understanding that it was a good process.

[10:30am] Fae: sgardner: WRT IT; As a Wikipedian (on :en) I don't like the use of Wikipedia this way and cannot imagine it ever happening on :en, as a WMUK board member I would be happy that the local community decision supports our mission (and as a charity supporting this action would not be a problem for us). The WMUK board did discuss making a comment but as we are just changing our constitution, it...

[10:30am] jsalsman: has anyone at dewiki objected to using stoplists instead of centralized categories, tommorris and sgardner?

[10:30am] Fae: ...might have been poor timing to say anything. Personally I had no problem with statements made by WMF and I thought it was the right thing to do if assessed against the mission.

[10:30am] • Beria 

heard "image filter" and run

[10:30am] sgardner: two more quick things I want to say on this:>

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[10:30am] StevenW: tom: we won't forget your question

[10:30am] Jan_eissfeldt: seperating "going into lobby-stuff" vs. getting rid of a potentially deadly piece of legislation

[10:31am] Ironholds: ahh

[10:31am] DarkoNeko: Jan_eissfeldt, thin line to not cross

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[10:31am] Jan_eissfeldt: (a perelmanian term)

[10:31am] tommorris: Fae: to be fair, the only reason it wouldn't happen on enwiki is due to enwiki's chronic inability to gain consensus on anything other than our ability to gain consensus

[10:31am] Philippe: but very important, DarkoNeko… and I think this community can do it.

[10:31am] tommorris: hey dendodge

[10:31am] dendodge: hey

[10:31am] tempodivalse: hi tommorris :-))

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[10:31am] Ironholds: tommorris: actually, that discussion stalled

[10:31am] Seth_Finkelstein: After all (and I know people won't like this, but please think about it), Wikipedians where not very support about LArry Sanger's view of Wikipedia being in violation of US obscenity law, despite a similar textual argument about legal violation.

[10:32am] Jan_eissfeldt: DarkoNeko: excactly, as tom said: we have to think hard about how to deal with this stuff to be prepared (it will come up)

[10:32am] Fae: tommorris: Luckily, I can rely on that chronic inability ;-)

[10:32am] Theo10011: I asked a couple of from it.wp to join.

[10:32am] sgardner: 1) There is also a practicality issue. I wanted to speak up fast in support of the Italians, because once a decision like that is made and implemented, the Wikimedia Foundation needs to act fast. Otherwise the editors might be anxious and unsure of their ground, and we wanted them to feel supported. Also, if we did not speak up in support, it would have hurt their cause. By speaking up, we made it likelier that they would be successful in inf

[10:32am] sgardner: luencing the law. By not speaking up in support, we would have undermined them to no benefit.

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[10:32am] updown: Thei10011 thx for that :)

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[10:32am] Pigr8: hi

[10:32am] Theo10011: np guys

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[10:33am] StevenW: Not to mention that the press look to the WMF for comment, so we didn't have a choice to say nothing.

[10:33am] Theo10011: sgardner, we have some italian wp regulards above.

[10:33am] Theo10011: *regulars

[10:33am] jsalsman: "Bob Platt, Venue and Catering Coordinator" -- http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Organizing_team yet Bob is not hyperlinked.  Does anyone have an email for him?

[10:33am] sgardner: 2) You don't make good policy in a crisis situation. There's a time for reflection, and it's afterwards. So that's why I'm pleased we have a page on meta, where people can kick around pros and cons of that kind of action. Every circumstance is different, and needs to be assessed on its own merits. But now is the time to reflec ton what kind of situation warrants such an extreme action, and I'm glad people are doing that.

[10:33am] SarahStierch: Bob is banned from English Wikipedia

[10:33am] DarkoNeko: most of the press made it look like "wikipedia" made "its italian version" blackout, rather than it being an internal community decision

[10:33am] DarkoNeko: well, most of what I've seen at least

[10:33am] tempodivalse: DarkoNeko, same here

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[10:34am] SarahStierch: But he's' a self-nominated board member of WM DC and a coordinator at Wikimania

[10:34am] tempodivalse: in general the media oversimplifies things to do with the WMF

[10:34am] jsalsman: self-nominated?

[10:34am] sgardner: To Fae I would say that yes, there are lots of pros and cons, and you certainly wouldn't want to do a shutdown (or anything similar) lightly. Reasonable people can definitely disagree about what's best, and there are certainly situations where I personally wouldn't want to support a shutdown. But on balance, in this instance, I think it was probably the right decision. And I support the community process that got us there.

[10:34am] DarkoNeko: yes. that tend to annoy me to no end, but I'm probably too nick-ticky

[10:34am] SarahStierch: jsalsman Yup. They had all self-nominations for their board. go figure

[10:34am] sgardner: I am gonna read and catch up for a second, see if I missed any question here......

[10:34am] Seth_Finkelstein: tempodivalse - Yes. "WikiMedia" is a very unfamiliar name.

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[10:34am] jsalsman: did he also nominate himself to be Venue coordinator?

[10:35am] tempodivalse: Seth_Finkelstein, interesting that if you change the m to a p, everyone knows what you're talking about

[10:35am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: He's actually a reason why a number of folks aren't involved in Wikimania planning, actually.

[10:35am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: Yup

[10:35am] DarkoNeko: SarahStierch, uh, are self-nomination uncommon in US ?

[10:35am] tommorris: okay, dendodge: just fyi, I pointed to your WN user page. do take the opportunity to make your feelings know to assorted WMF people. ;-)

[10:35am] SarahStierch: DarkoNeko: Not that I know of

[10:35am] jsalsman: well, so should we dust off the Stanford bid or not?  Who's on the committee?

[10:36am] sgardner: DarkoNeko, tempodivalese, yes. That's another reason for WMF to speak up in support. The media don't distinguish well between all the involved parties, and I didn 't want it to look like 'civil war at Wikipedia', internal dissent, la la la.

[10:36am] dendodge: tommorris: Did you? Then they've already seen my feelings - I elaborated a little further on the talk page.

[10:36am] SarahStierch: DarkoNeko: I work in non-profits and I'm getting my masters in the administration of cultural non profits and to be "self nominated" is something I have never seen before, but, perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places.

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[10:36am] dendodge: Mainly, I'm jut here to watch.

[10:36am] DarkoNeko: sgardner, that would have been pretty bad

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[10:36am] StevenW: I think Sue is going to answer Tom's question from earlier now.

[10:36am] DarkoNeko: SarahStierch, oh

[10:36am] sgardner: Let me talk about the image filter and the Germans for one second (WRT a shutdown or similar) -- and then we will move on :-)

[10:36am] sgardner: I will keep it short! :-)

[10:36am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: Stanford? Jame hare is the "president" or whatever of the planning committee - harej

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[10:37am] jsalsman: why is everything crossed out on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2012/Bids/Timeline ?

[10:37am] Philippe: Cuz that stuff is done.

[10:37am] sgardner: Basically, I think that if the WMF were to aim to roll out a feature on every wiki (as asked for by the Board) and the German admins disabled it following a community process (like the poll they already staged), that would be a terrible thing for the movement.

[10:37am] SarahStierch: i don't know.

[10:37am] StevenW: Let's not get sidetracked on Wikimania stuff too much, since we talked about it earlier and DC coordination isn't of interest to everyone.

[10:37am] sgardner: This is what I talked about with the Board last weekend.

[10:37am] DarkoNeko: it's bad, when I read stanford, I think "introduction to artificial intelligence" rather than their grant (you know, the 3 free classes the stanford universities are offering this quarter)

[10:37am] • SarahStierch 

nods at StevenW

[10:37am] DarkoNeko: -their+the / not the same entity

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[10:38am] SarahStierch: Yeah if you're interested in Wikimania planning you can stop by #wikimedia-northeast they seem to hang out there a lot, and #wikimania

[10:38am] • SarahStierch 

moves on

[10:38am] sgardner: It's just a place we never want to get to -- it would be indicative of terrible internal dissent and lack of alignment. Nobody wants that. I will do everything I can to avoid us ever getting there. We all should do everything we can to avoid getting there.

[10:38am] sgardner: That's my comment on tommorris's question.

[10:38am] sgardner: What now?

[10:38am] Ironholds: sgardner: anything else from the board meet?

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[10:38am] Ironholds: other than image filtery stuff

[10:38am] StevenW: Jan wanted to know what your goals for the Europe trip are Sue.

[10:38am] sgardner: Ah.

[10:38am] sgardner: Okay :-)

[10:38am] DarkoNeko: visiting the eiffel tower and the Louvre !

[10:38am] DarkoNeko: what else is to see, anyway ?

[10:39am] • DarkoNeko 

runs

[10:39am] Philippe: (Philippe's goals for Europe:  Chocolate.  Wine.)

[10:39am] Theo10011: Sue, anything more about the German community's feeling on the filter?

[10:39am] TorstenK: sgardner: but en.wp has in several cases very different rules from the other Wikimedia projects, e.g. new users can't start new articles

[10:39am] sgardner: LOL, I had a holiday in Paris a month ago. I ate mango caramels in the Marais for six days, it was lovely.

[10:39am] sgardner: So this trip: [10:39am] SarahStierch: +1 Philippe

[10:39am] mindspillage: basically it's really difficult for the board to say anything regarding the image filter--we have a really wide range of opinions still, so trying to figure out the points of agreement and where we can work from is still difficult.

[10:39am] Avruch: TorstenK: difference is Board initiative intended to cover the whole community.

[10:39am] DarkoNeko: TorstenK, I was particulary annoyed about the "can't create one's own discussion page" on enwiki. I just wanted to put a link to my home wiki's talk page

[10:39am] Theo10011: mindspillage, would the board be willing to speak out individually?

[10:39am] jsalsman: someone should perhaps ask James Hare why the committee chose D.C. over South Africa when South Africa had a venue and D.C. didn't

[10:39am] Theo10011: since that discussion is also going around.

[10:40am] sgardner: My goal is to mostly listen to folks. I've been to Germany maybe a dozen times, for example, but mostly for chapters meetings and so forth; I have not spent a lot of time with the German editing community. I know a few people fairly well, but the people I know best are chapter leadership.

[10:40am] sgardner: (Hi Kat!)

[10:40am] TorstenK: Avruch: so why is there no board decision about the rights of new users?

[10:40am] jsalsman: sgardner: has anyone objected to third party stoplists?

[10:40am] Seth_Finkelstein: mindspillage - I'm put in mind of some saying about it being difficult to solve a problem if you don't know what the problem is in the first place.

[10:40am] DarkoNeko: a board decision about  a local enwiki thing ?

[10:40am] mindspillage: Theo10011: some are; a few have commented on foudation-l (and I plan to but I am the world's slowest writer). It is more useful if we can in fact come to agreement and then say something we can all stand behind--but that's really hard, and involves a lot of back-and-forth; changing minds takes time,

[10:40am] Avruch: TorstenK: because they haven't felt the need to address it, I suppose

[10:40am] sgardner: So I am keen to go and just listen to Wikimedia editors in Europe. The timing works out such that I will be mostly at chapter events, e.g., the UK board meeting, and the German chapter AGM -- that's not deliberate: it's just a function of timing.

[10:41am] jorm: The first step to successfully designing anything is to understand the problem.

[10:41am] mindspillage: Seth_Finkelstein: probably true, yes.

[10:41am] Theo10011: got ya mindspillage

[10:41am] sgardner: I wish I had been able to go to Nuremberg for the earlier meeting, which I gather is more of an editors' event. But I am sure I will still meet with lots of editors.

[10:41am] TorstenK: Avruch: so it's a "because we want to" approach, I can't see the systemic difference

[10:41am] sgardner: I did a tiny bit of analysis yesterday on editor trends in Europe, and it was very interesting.

[10:41am] sgardner: hang on one second, and I will get some stats.

[10:41am] jsalsman: perhaps the completely unofficial and entirely self-nominated California Chapter should reach out to the D.C. chapter and offer the Stanford bid as a backup in case they can't come up with a venue by.... when's a good deadline?

[10:42am] Avruch: sgardner: Speaking of data, is the data from the survey close to being released?

[10:42am] Theo10011: Has anyone taken a look at this?

[10:42am] Theo10011: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Controversial_content/Brainstorming

[10:42am] Ironholds: Avruch: the editors survey? the last batch was released

[10:42am] Avruch: the by-project data?

[10:42am] Avruch: Must've missed it

[10:42am] Ironholds: Avruch; http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/08/29/report-for-editor-survey-april-2011/?

[10:42am] sgardner: I'm going to try to paste in something -- this may break from a formatting perspective -- let's see.

[10:42am] DarkoNeko: Theo10011, a pixelisation system ? gmmm

[10:42am] sgardner: Croatian (down 11.7%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Norwegian (down 8.9%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Bulgarian (down 8.1%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Swedish (down 8%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Hungarian (down 7.7%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Turkish (down 5.7%)

[10:42am] Jan_eissfeldt: sgardner: thus, you intend to visit primarily the community and not the chapter. you will hardly find a few dozen active editors on a regular german AGM

[10:42am] sgardner: Slovak (down 4.7%)

[10:42am] sgardner: German (down 4.7%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Polish (down 4.4%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Catalan (down 4.4%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Danish (down 2.4%)

[10:42am] sgardner: Portuguese (down 2.2%)

[10:43am] sgardner: English (down 1.6%)

[10:43am] sgardner: Vietnamese (down 1%)

[10:43am] Avruch: ah, Ironholds - I meant the filter survey ("referendum")

[10:43am] sgardner: Let me explain what those numbers are.

[10:43am] jsalsman: are those year-over-year figures?

[10:43am] BobTheWikipedian: stock...lol

[10:43am] DarkoNeko: vietnamese.. in europe ?

[10:43am] Philippe: Avruch, we now HAVE the data, in our grubby paws, but it's being masked to be sure that you can't identify individual votes from it.  It should be soon, provided the committee agrees to release of it (as they are the ones charged with defending the santcity of a secret ballot)

[10:43am] Theo10011: lol BobTheWikipedian

[10:43am] sgardner: Those are decline-in-active-editors, measured by just comparing August 2011 against August 2010. So, they are clunky and imperfect and not as meaningful as they might appear at first glance.

[10:43am] DarkoNeko: (also ,does it mean france's trend is a up ?)

[10:43am] sgardner: But they do likely indicate general trends.

[10:44am] sgardner: France is flat I think.

[10:44am] Fae: Hmm, languages != europe BTW.

[10:44am] sgardner: Let me check.,

[10:44am] StevenW: Active editors as 5 edits/month

[10:44am] DarkoNeko: :o but but but. we have mountains too !

[10:44am] Ironholds: Fae: yes; people had noticed.

[10:44am] BobTheWikipedian: lol darkoneko

[10:44am] Beria: lies DarkoNeko :P

[10:44am] sgardner: France is up 6%.

[10:44am] Beria: me needs proofs ;)

[10:44am] BobTheWikipedian: alps

[10:44am] DarkoNeko: wow

[10:44am] sgardner: Here's some more: [10:44am] sgardner: Serbian (up 2.1%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Lithuanian (up 1.7%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Greek (up 9.4%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Romanian (up 8.9%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Persian (up 15.6%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Ukranian (up 22%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Hebrew (up 15%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Czech (up 7.6%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Thai (up 5.6%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Arabic (up 1.9%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Korean (up 8.5%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Finnish (up 1.6%)

[10:44am] sgardner: Indonesian (up 34%)

[10:44am] Avruch: Philippe: You didn't even have it before? ;-P That's progress I guess, thanks.

[10:44am] BobTheWikipedian: NICE :)

[10:44am] sgardner: Dutch (up 0.3%)

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[10:45am] sgardner: Chinese (up 6.4%)

[10:45am] sgardner: Japan (up 0.9%)

[10:45am] sgardner: Spanish (up 7.1%)

[10:45am] sgardner: Russian (up 5%)

[10:45am] sgardner: Italian (up 1.4%)

[10:45am] Philippe: Avruch, correct.  It was fire walled into SecurePoll.

[10:45am] sgardner: French (up 6%)

[10:45am] sgardner: So the trends I think are really interesting.

[10:45am] Jan_eissfeldt: Avruch:  the committee has not yet reached agreement (several sticking points)

[10:45am] Fae: I thought one could do analysis on "editor trends in Europe" rather than just language analysis.

[10:45am] sgardner: Here's what I make of those numbers. I think it's interesting that so many of the northern European languages are declining in terms of active editors.

[10:45am] BobTheWikipedian: go china embracing wikipedia :)

[10:45am] Avruch: It seems like releasing stats by project should be pretty easy to do with sufficient anonymization.

[10:45am] Theo10011: Its really hard to follow that by language, for exmaple India has close to 2000 official languages, you will always see 0.x% of editors and only decline.

[10:45am] sgardner: I think we probably all know the narrative there -- we've heard it repeatedly from folks like me, Ironholds, etc. Lots of us are telling this story, and figuring out how to interpret it.

[10:45am] Philippe: Avruch, "should" being the key word.

[10:45am] jsalsman: English Wikipedia Admins (down 14% for the past three years in a row) larger than all editor declines

[10:45am] Philippe: I agree, it shoudl.

[10:46am] DarkoNeko: sgardner, do you happen to have a link for these ?

[10:46am] Beria: fae good luck with that, i made a question about the editors trends we already have and is in Mani Pande desk since August

[10:46am] Theo10011: BTW

[10:46am] Ironholds: sgardner: I got a shout-out? Aww ;p

[10:46am] Theo10011: can someone ask Mani to respond please?

[10:46am] Philippe: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/scratchpad/Movement_Fund-raising_and_Fund-disseminating

[10:46am] Philippe: linky

[10:46am] TorstenK: BobTheWikipedian: embracing or rejecting less?

[10:46am] sgardner: I am particularly worried about five languages in that list.

[10:46am] Theo10011: its been more than a month since people left questions for her.

[10:46am] Philippe: Theo10011: I'll poke her.

[10:47am] sgardner: English and German -- because they are the #1 and #4 most popular language versions of Wikipedia, and they are often considered the most mature. So they are canaries in the coal mine, IMO, for the rest.

[10:47am] Avruch: sgardner: do the declines roughly correlate with the measures of project maturity?

[10:47am] jsalsman: failing to shift focus from editors, which are generally in steady-state world wide, to flagship project admins, is courting disaster

[10:47am] BobTheWikipedian: torstenk: hmmm...probably both

[10:47am] sgardner: And I am also quite worried about Portuguese, Vietnamese, Turkish.

[10:48am] Beria: and she will answer me that time, Philippe ? Because 1 month and half had passed and i send 3 mails to remember her

[10:48am] TorstenK: BobTheWikipedian: there are 200 million internet users in china :-)

[10:48am] Fae: sgardner: It is probably unhelpful to characterize English as a Northern European language.

[10:48am] Beria: and not even a "I'll look" comes up

[10:48am] sgardner: I'm worried about those three because they have enormous potential for editor growth and reader growth, and yet their editor numbers are declining.

[10:48am] Thparkth: has there been any kind of research done on why editors become inactive? sorry if that's a beginner-level question for this discussion :)

[10:48am] BobTheWikipedian: which defines an "active contributor"? a single edit?

[10:48am] Philippe: Beria, I can't promise anything…. I can't make her do it.  :)  But I can poke her and let her know it was raised.

[10:48am] Beria: again?

[10:48am] Ironholds: Fae: Northern European in origin. The same issue could be raised with Spanish, French, Portugese..

[10:48am] Beria: she can't read her mail?

[10:48am] Thparkth: improving retention is more efficient than improving recruitment...

[10:48am] sgardner: Fae: LOL, that is true.

[10:48am] sgardner: (English.)

[10:48am] foks joined the chat room.

[10:49am] Theo10011: sgardner, is the focus going to shift away from geographies to languages now?

[10:49am] TorstenK: sgardner: but is the maturity itself a cause for decline in participation?

[10:49am] Ironholds: Thparkth: not necessarily

[10:49am] foks: Hello

[10:49am] Ironholds: even if you get retention to say..90 percent, you're still going to see a cumulative decline if you don't keep recruitment numbers steady

[10:49am] Philippe: BobTheWikipedian: we define "active" as 10 or more edits per month.  :)

[10:49am] • Theo10011 

waves at the fox

[10:49am] TorstenK: Philippe: 5

[10:50am] sgardner: Avruch: there isn't much to these numbers, really. They are super-rough, just comparing two data points. But I think it would be fair to say that projects that are mature are seeing editor decline -- ie English, German.

[10:50am] foks: :)

[10:50am] Philippe: Sorry, you're right

[10:50am] Philippe: 5

[10:50am] jsalsman: sgardner: how can you be worried about projects losing 2.2%, well within the expected variation, when admins on enwiki have been falling 14% over the past three years?

[10:50am] Philippe: I blame sleep deprivation.  And the fact that it's beautiful outside.  :)

[10:50am] BobTheWikipedian: philippe: ah....i wonder if i made it into that category then...i've been rather inactive the past month

[10:50am] tommorris: hey foks

[10:50am] foks: o/

[10:50am] DarkoNeko: Thparkth, having new blood is important too

[10:50am] Philippe: jsalsman: you're aware that there's a working group on that?

[10:50am] TorstenK: Philippe: there are statistics based on 10 edits/month

[10:50am] StevenW: Thparkth: the number one reason according to the last few surveys was that people simply have less time because of life changes like school, jobs, kids etc.

[10:50am] BobTheWikipedian: ah well i definitely had 5 at least

[10:51am] DarkoNeko: jsalsman, doesn't that mean there were just too many admins for the needed amount of work ?

[10:51am] Thparkth: StevenW: that may be the answer people give, but it doesn't ring true - those things haven't changed in a significant way for human beings in the last ten years

[10:51am] tommorris: okay, the maturity thing, an example: when at Citizendium, I probably created a few hundred stubs. at Wikipedia, I've probably made about 15

[10:51am] sgardner: But I also think there's an additional factor at play here. I think that the northern European languages have been influenced by the German and English Wikipedias -- influence by Siegenthaler, by Jimmy's 2006 Wikimania presentation on quality, by the German Wikipedia's strong consistent emphasis on quality ....... to overvalue quality against growth (that is oversimplified, but I'm sure you get the gist).

[10:51am] Thparkth: I think people leave because the easy stuff is all done, and there is no incentive to do the hard stuff

[10:51am] BobTheWikipedian: stevenw: that's my reason...plus the internet gets shut down after 10 at my house now...don't ask, lol

[10:51am] jsalsman: Philippe: yes I am.  Has any progress been made on the survey?

[10:51am] Ironholds: Thparkth: objective data sez different.

[10:51am] DarkoNeko: well, there's probably the awful election process that cool down people's ambitions, I think

[10:52am] Philippe: jsalsman: I'm honestly not sure.  I'd encourage you to check the project page.

[10:52am] • SarahStierch 

just wrapped up a survey of women wikimedians, and will have a data round up hopefully at a brown bag at WMF at the end of the month..and that includes data on why women don't edit or contribute as frequently...

[10:52am] Thparkth: Ironholds: self reported data is never 100% objective

[10:52am] sgardner: So in effect, I think that the Swedish Wikipedia, the Danish, Norwegian, have 'matured early.' Does that make sense, do you know what I mean?

[10:52am] Ironholds: Thparkth: nothing is 100 percent objective. yeah, it's self-selective, but it's better than nothing;

[10:52am] Ironholds: *.

[10:52am] DarkoNeko: Thparkth, there are plenty of easy stuff left to do in some domains

[10:52am] sgardner: (Reading now.)

[10:52am] DarkoNeko: (manga and light novel, in my case)

[10:52am] jsalsman: Philippe and I had a strong disagreement about the survey, which resulted in repeated removal of my suggestions to ask about administrator health.  I would like to resolve these issues

[10:52am] Fluffernutter: SarahStierch, i wish your survey had happened a few weeks later than it did. All the juicy stuff happened to me AFTER i filled it out

[10:52am] TorstenK: sgardner: I think you have to take in account how many uinternet users speak the language

[10:52am] Ironholds: sgardner: taking influence from the other flagship projects they've approached our current intellectual state faster than is normal?

[10:53am] Philippe: jsalsman: I think we're talking about different things.

[10:53am] Ironholds: they haven't needed to work it out for themselves

[10:53am] sgardner: Jsalsman -- you said 'why would we be worried about editor decline when admin decline is so much steeper.'

[10:53am] DarkoNeko: I have so many articles to create and so little time :D

[10:53am] tommorris: sgardner (or any WMFer): any idea when we're gonna see the Visual Editor? my parents want to edit. ;-)

[10:53am] Philippe: I'm talking about the working group that's dealing specifically with the RFA process now.

[10:53am] Thparkth: darkneko: OK, substitute "high value easy stuff" for "easy stuff". When I joined in 2004 I could make a major difference to important articles like "Geology". That's very difficult now.

[10:53am] jsalsman: yes

[10:53am] Fae: sgardner: Are there credible comparison number for increase/decrease of Access rather than total numbers of unique editors. Access is probably a better goal for improvement.

[10:53am] Ironholds: it's like a creature nabbing genetic code from the nearest thing it sees instead of relying on trial and error. you end up with the same flaws.

[10:53am] TorstenK: sgardner: en.wp is surely cannibalizing northern european languages

[10:53am] StevenW: tommorris: we're on target to have a demo live for use, perhaps on a smaller project, by December

[10:53am] SarahStierch: Fluffernutter: I'm bookmarking things like that, so feel free to send me anything else you stumble across or into, I'll be sharing them with some folks in a few weeks.

[10:53am] Fluffernutter: oh good, SarahStierch

[10:53am] DarkoNeko: Thparkth, I don't really like the "high value". it's like there are "important, encyclopic" stuff and the "crappy" stuff I'm writing

[10:54am] TorstenK: sgardner: everybody there speaks english, why should they write every simpsons article in Swedish?

[10:54am] sgardner: That's a fair comment. I think that we are seeing the effects of editor decline manifesting in admin decline. Basically -- we should be seeing new editors 'graduating' into admin roles and relieving the workload on current admins. But because there is no 'next generation' of editors, the admins are feeling overloaded and pressured. So I think admin decline is a downstream effect of editor decline. Does that make sense?

[10:54am] • SarahStierch 

is happy to hear about the visual editor.

[10:54am] Philippe: jsalsman: I'm not sure how the survey from two years ago is germane to that task force then.  But let's not pull things off topic now.  :)

[10:54am] Thparkth: darkoneko: whether you or I like it or isn't the issue... the issue is, do people perceive it that way, and does it affect retention?

[10:54am] harej joined the chat room.

[10:54am] jsalsman: Philippe: was the survey ever administered in any form?

[10:54am] SarahStierch: I wonder if it's become "harder" to become an admin.

[10:54am] Theo10011: ohai harej

[10:54am] DarkoNeko: Thparkth,  hmmm

[10:54am] sgardner: (I am reading.)

[10:54am] TorstenK: sgardner: the admins feed overloaded since 2005 :-)

[10:54am] StevenW: On the admin issue/retention/why people leave

[10:54am] TorstenK: feel

[10:55am] StevenW: I think there's a really important turning point that should be discussed

[10:55am] StevenW: in Tech

[10:55am] Fluffernutter: sgardner, I think there *is* a solid "next gen" of editors. It's just that they're assimilating the message that they're not welcome or not qualified to hit RFA

[10:55am] Philippe: jsalsman: I honestly don't recall right off the top of my head.  Again, I suggest you check the project pages.

[10:55am] harej: Je viens!

[10:55am] Theo10011: he lives!

[10:55am] tempodivalse: hi harej :)

[10:55am] \Mike left the chat room.

[10:55am] jsalsman: sgardner: what is the evidence that editor decline is causing administrator decline? The admins are falling faster, so all other things being equal, it should be the other way around

[10:55am] harej: hi tempodivalse

[10:55am] mindspillage: SarahStierch: I'm just about certain it has and I think that's unfortunate.

[10:55am] SarahStierch: Fluffernutter: Absolutely. I don't feel that I'd ever be voted in as an admin.

[10:55am] TorstenK: sgardner: surely the admins are a bit repellent against newbies sometimes. You have to make some deeper looks into the social dynamics of some of these languages

[10:55am] • SarahStierch 

nods at mindspillage

[10:56am] StevenW: Because of the way features like UploadWizard have been received, tech staff now really clearly feel that whenever they build something that brings in tons more people or content (like UploadWizard) that they are obligated to also build or improve the curation features that let the community handle that stuff.

[10:56am] tommorris: SarahStierch: I'd vote for you at RfA. ;-)

[10:56am] SarahStierch: tommorris: I just don't feel like being crucified. :P

[10:56am] Avruch: I wonder if the decline in some N. Europe projects is a result of "maturation" or of drift by those populations to languages they often speak that have a larger natural constituency, like English

[10:56am] TorstenK: sgardner: how is the social dynamic of admins in Chinese Wikipedia compared to German and French

[10:56am] Pyb joined the chat room.

[10:56am] sgardner: TorstenK: you are correct about cannibalization, I'm sure. I hear it from editors all the time. In India for example there are some editors who are proud to grow the smaller language versions such as Tamil. But there are many more who aspire to be read by a large number of people (and sometimes, to bring Indian culture/knowledge to the rest of the world) -- those people don't even consider writing in eg Hindi; they just want to write in Engli

[10:56am] sgardner: sh.

[10:56am] • DarkoNeko 

thinks that on big wiki, the expectation people have of admins becames bigger and bigger, sometimes unrealistically so

[10:56am] jsalsman: Philippe: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Task_force/Community_Health/Former_administrators_survey&diff=74141&oldid=74133

[10:56am] sgardner: (Reading again.)

[10:56am] Philippe: SarahStierch: wise.

[10:56am] • tommorris 

has only one criteria: sanity. and he has no reason to think SarahStierch isn't sane.

[10:56am] DarkoNeko: but it's the community that has to work that out

[10:56am] Philippe: James, that's not the task force I'm talking about.

[10:56am] • SarahStierch 

is not sane

[10:56am] SarahStierch: oops

[10:56am] jsalsman: Philippe: url?

[10:56am] Fae: SarahStierch: I've never voted at RfA, it's like looking someone in the face and kicking their shins for fun.

[10:57am] Theo10011: fun

[10:57am] mindspillage: (I still think anyone who's basically clueful and has been actively editing for a few months without causing problems should be an admin.)

[10:57am] DarkoNeko: I think that even if it blocks until there are very few admins for people to realize and chance things, it's alright too

[10:57am] Philippe: jsalsman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RFA2011

[10:57am] Fluffernutter: SarahStierch: and that's the root of it, I think. "newer" editors see RFA, se crucifixions, and go "yeah no thanks." I mean, I passed overwhelmingly, and I STILL sort of expect someone to be like "whoops, that was a mistake, you're obviously not ready for this. yoink!"

[10:57am] tommorris: Fae: I'll embarrass her, but look at Fluffernutter's RfA. ;-)

[10:57am] DarkoNeko: it's just a temporary down, a blimp

[10:57am] Avruch: sgardner: that should be possible to determine objectively, right? Someone may already know, the distribution and growth in editing of en.wp by geographic area

[10:57am] Fluffernutter: tommorris, mine was a pretty exceptional case that brought together luck and a complete lack of work in contentious areas

[10:57am] sgardner: jsalsman: the interactions are obviously complex -- all the variables influence each other. But what's clear to me is that we need some emphasis on recruitment of new people, and we also need some emphasis on making things easier for experienced people, particularly those whose work is triaging new people's contributions. Like the page patrol issue -- did StevenW post that link?

[10:57am] Avruch: So you can tell if, for instance, a lot of people from India are en.wp editors, maybe more than on Hindi

[10:57am] Thparkth: it would be nice if there was some meaningful recognition for experience and hard work *other* than the admin bit

[10:58am] jsalsman: mindspillage: I understand that the chair of the Wikimania committee is banned from the English Wikipedia.  Can you confirm this?

[10:58am] foks: SarahStierch, there is absolutely nothing to say that you will never be voted in as an admin. I think the sort of opposes that one recieves at RfA spark others to reconsider voting for them, and it just rolls into defeat. This is, unfortunately, a trait of humaniy and there is very little we can do about it.

[10:58am] DarkoNeko: jsalsman, ...huib ?

[10:58am] Theo10011: well Fluffernutter an OS within a month of becoming an admin.

[10:58am] TorstenK: there are surely external factors who have to be taken into account. If there is an deep political divide in a country, it puts much pressure on the admins and they are accused by both sides to help the other party

[10:58am] StevenW: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_creation_workflow and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_Page_Triage are what Sue meant.

[10:58am] sgardner: Avruch: yes. and I believe it's true that the majority of editing from inside India is to the English Wikipedia. I haven't checked the stats lately, but I would be surprised if it weren't true.

[10:58am] mindspillage: jsalsman: I'm not the person to ask; I'm not even certain who is on the Wikimania committee.

[10:59am] Philippe: jsalsman: I think you mean the chair of the venue committee.

[10:59am] TorstenK: sgardner: I have a controversial suggestion. Poll if experienced users and admins appreciate if editing becomes easier

[10:59am] jsalsman: mindspillage: I'm sorry, the self-nominated D.C. Wikimania venue and catering director is apparently banned from enwiki

[10:59am] SarahStierch: Fluffernutter: Absolutely. I feel like I am a very competent person who has only the best interest in Wikimedia in my heart and soul, but, others seem to disagree, and frankly, as a professional who works in the nonprofit industry and understands how one has to get "nominated" to committees, there is no reason that I should have to be "bullied" by people who think they are "smarter than others" in order to assist in making Wikimedi

[10:59am] SarahStierch: better, safer, more educational place.

[10:59am] the_wub: Avruch, sgardner : it's very true. stats are here: http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerCountryBreakdown.htm

[10:59am] Avruch: thanks the_wub

[11:00am] • tommorris 

wonders idly whether Jimbo could come down to the Brighton MediaWiki hackathon in November. ;-)

[11:00am] Theo10011: Avruch, no one is on hindi wikipedia.

[11:00am] SarahStierch: No reason I have to expose myself to that junk for a few extra buttons. I can just ask other admins for help <3

[11:00am] Fluffernutter: heh

[11:00am] Theo10011: It should be dead, if not for 5 people.

[11:00am] Avruch: jsalsman: I think that was confirmed earlier, and DC discussion was directed to #wikimedia-northeast or #wikimania

[11:00am] tommorris: SarahStierch: that's exactly the problem. if it is just a few buttons, why should we have such a toxic process for giving them out?

[11:00am] jsoby left the chat room. (Read error: Connection reset by peer)

[11:00am] jsalsman: sgardner: it would be best if the Foundation did something concrete to encourage admins on all projects.  I would suggest starting with 10% of the effort and fund's you've been using on editor recruitment

[11:00am] sgardner: TorstenK, yes. Frank Schulenberg used to say to me that 'it won't help for me to invite in new people, if they just get murdered upon arrival.' (He didn't literally say that: he is much more understated than I am.)

[11:00am] jsalsman: funds*

[11:01am] SarahStierch: tommorris: Right, people fear abuse. I've been contributing to Wikimedia for quite sometime, and there are way bigger jerks than me who have access ;)

[11:01am] DarkoNeko: tommorris, SarahStierch again, that's a local community issue, which I feel they should work for themselves

[11:01am] jsoby joined the chat room.

[11:01am] foks: SarahStierch, like me, mwahaha.

[11:01am] Philippe: SarahStierch: don't talk about me like i'm not here :)

[11:01am] Fluffernutter: tommorris, SarahStierch. The process works just often enough, I think, that there's a hesitance to just burning it all down. People point to me and go "see, it can be fine!" But they overlook all the cases where someone with a more contentious history got run out of town on a rail, not for being a bad editor, but for being not the "approved" sort of editor

[11:01am] Avruch: So sgardner, what can the WMF do (if anything) to improve the way new editors are treated? ArticleWorkFlow makes it easy to contribute mechanically, but doesn't improve the environment.

[11:01am] • SarahStierch 

pokes Philippe and demands he give her all his chocolate and wine

[11:01am] • Philippe 

pouts

[11:01am] Theo10011: foks is such a jerk :P

[11:01am] jorm: there's a ton.

[11:01am] foks: Also, I really really hope #wikimedia-northeast is full of Geordies.

[11:02am] StevenW: Avruch: ideas welcome on that front.

[11:02am] sgardner: And I think he (Frank) was correct. some people's work at the Wikimedia Foundation is about inviting in new people and helping them get started via Wikipedia Ambassadors, mentoring, and so forth. That is the work of eg the Global Education team. Other people's work is helping to make it possible for new editors to be successfully absorbed into the community. That's the work Brandon is doing on the new page patrol etcf.

[11:02am] BobTheWikipedian: trekkies?

[11:02am] TorstenK: sgardner: greet Frank from me :-)

[11:02am] SarahStierch: Being nice and reaching out, it's amazing how simple it is.

[11:02am] Avruch: StevenW: I have a tough time imagining interventions that wouldn't get the same response as the image filter

[11:02am] • SarahStierch 

pets the n00bs

[11:02am] jsalsman: sgardner: you could start by hiring a statistician who has experience running surveys and ask them whether the health-related questions in http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Task_force/Community_Health/Former_administrators_survey&oldid=74133 are appropriate

[11:02am] jorm: you'd be surprised, actually.

[11:02am] Fluffernutter: SarahStierch, i hope you're planning to share Philippe's chocolate when you get custody of it!

[11:02am] StevenW: But if you're interested, I am working on a pilot project on the topic of a better environment.

[11:02am] sgardner: Avruch -- yes, this is the work Brandon is aiming to do (among other people). Sarah does some of it too, I think, in a very different way.,

[11:02am] StevenW: can talk about it if you want

[11:03am] jorm: small interventions - usually based around rewriting text to be more friendly - have larger effects than you'd expect.

[11:03am] SarahStierch: Fluffernutter: I'll be sure to do so. You bring your namesake ;-)

[11:03am] Fluffernutter: mmm

[11:03am] sgardner: Jorm -- why don't you talk about your project?

[11:03am] • SarahStierch 

will bring Philippe plenty of wine and chocolate from Sonoma when she's out at the end of the month <3

[11:03am] • SarahStierch 

nods at jorm

[11:03am] SarahStierch: Just being nice, and warm, it's amazing how simple it is.

[11:03am] jorm: the New Page Triage stuff?  sure, I can speak to it for a few.

[11:03am] Avruch: StevenW: sure, is that what you needed some volunteers for?

[11:03am] StevenW: yeah, that's part of it

[11:03am] tommorris: cripes, I was gonna send jorm a screencast of me NPPing

[11:03am] StevenW: that's the post-hoc analysis party

[11:04am] StevenW: part *

[11:04am] StevenW: heh

[11:04am] tommorris: sorry about that jorm - will try and do it tomorrow

[11:04am] sgardner: Avruch, I just realized you're Nathan. Hello! I truly loved what you wrote the other day on the gender gap mailing list. I felt schooled (in a good way) -- wish I had written it myself :-)

[11:04am] Fluffernutter: SarahStierch, yes! And we seem to have so few people who can handle being nice and warm. I had an experience in the help channel this morning with that that made me want to tear my hair out.

[11:04am] jorm: So, the first point of contact between a new user and the community is *usually* one of the patrolling systems.  New Page Patrol, Recent Changes, etc.

[11:04am] Avruch: sgardner: Hi! ;)

[11:04am] jorm: And with Twinkle.  Or Cluebot.

[11:04am] jsalsman: sgardner: I would also ask that you examine the possible censorship on http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thread:Talk:Task_force/Community_Health/Former_administrators_survey/Separate_health_issues%3F

[11:04am] Fred_Bauder left the chat room.

[11:04am] jorm: most of these messages that get left are rather mechanical and "spocklike".  unfriendly.

[11:05am] harej: Hey, if I got answering machine messages from Spock I'd be pretty set!

[11:05am] sgardner: (I am quiet now, listening to Brandon.)

[11:05am] jorm: and, in the case of new page patrol, confusing.  people get excited, make a page, and then BAM!  5 minutes later it gets speedy deleted.

[11:05am] StevenW: two minutes is the average actually

[11:05am] StevenW: :)

[11:05am] SarahStierch: Fluffernutter: Just remember, all female users like jewelry

[11:05am] jorm: very discouraging. especially since the only notification they get (usually) is that the article is missing.

[11:05am] • Fluffernutter 

snickers

[11:06am] jsalsman: sgardner: the "thread summary" there was repeatedly changed to include falsehoods more convenient to those who did not have the support of the peer reviewed secondary medical literature

[11:06am] jorm: (even if they get templated, lots of people don't understand that they have talk pages)

[11:06am] Fluffernutter: jorm, one thing that'

[11:06am] jsalsman: sgardner: I am not certain whether that will be evident from the liquid threads history

[11:06am] jorm: so we're working on a new page patrol system that has about 40 goals to it.

[11:06am] Thparkth: jorm: there is a basic tension between "yes, you can create a page!" and the fact that the community doesn't want to keep such a large proportion of the created pages. I'm not sure that changes in interface or procedure can resolve that.

[11:06am] Pyb left the chat room.

[11:06am] TorstenK: Is there any progree in building offices in India und Brasilia? Where can I find the latest reports about that?

[11:07am] TorstenK: progress

[11:07am] Fluffernutter: jorm: one thing that struck me is how many people "contest" a speedy by copying "this page should not be deleted because <your reason here>." Literally. Like either the instructions are unclear or they're just not thinking.

[11:07am] jorm: one of them - a primary one - is to tightly couple the idea of *positive* messaging in with the patrolling ("Hey, thanks for making this article!") along with making the entire process easier.

[11:07am] • SarahStierch 

claps at jorm

[11:07am] SarahStierch: yay

[11:07am] foks: Really late, catch you later.

[11:07am] tommorris: seeya foks

[11:07am] foks: o/

[11:07am] Pigr8: bye, boys

[11:07am] Pigr8 left the chat room.

[11:07am] foks left the chat room. (Quit: DINGOES!)

[11:07am] SarahStierch: uh

[11:07am] • SarahStierch 

looks at the women

[11:08am] tommorris: sigh.

[11:08am] jorm: you can even write your delete messages nicelike and it has a major change.  "Thanks for creating this article!  Unfortunately, I'm afraid it doesn't meet the criteria for notability..."

[11:08am] Philippe: TorstenK, I'm going to try to find you some links and email them…. will that work?

[11:08am] guest__ left the chat room. (Quit: Page closed)

[11:08am] BobTheWikipedian left the chat room.

[11:08am] Philippe: I know we've got some stuff out but can't put my hands on it immediately.

[11:08am] Fae: jorm: The problem is giving NPP patrollers more CLUE rather than changing the messages. I see a lot of poorly thought out speedies.

[11:08am] TorstenK: Philippe: sure, you got my email adress :-)

[11:08am] SarahStierch: Yeah, it's amazing how simple just explaining, being polite (like you should be…I mean, come on..) can change an entire environment. Professional, friendly and helpful.

[11:08am] Philippe: Yup :)

[11:08am] StevenW: We hear this from other patrollers Fae

[11:08am] jorm: we also want to make the patrolling easier.  right now, no two people do it the same.  we want to make it easier to share the burden more, to do better crowdsourcing.

[11:08am] jorm: Fae, there's a plan for that!

[11:09am] jorm: if you go here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_Page_Triage

[11:09am] dendodge left the chat room. ("Leaving")

[11:09am] jorm: you can read about it.  but how we plan to combat this kind of problem is with user rights and multiple patrolling.

[11:09am] Philippe: and chocolate?

[11:09am] SarahStierch: mmm

[11:09am] Mono[Away]: Oh, hi Philippe.

[11:09am] Mono[Away]: :)

[11:09am] • DarkoNeko 

think patrolling tend to attrack cowboys

[11:09am] jsalsman: are there any other office hours besides fundraising between now and the 150th anniversary of the first transcontinental telegraph message in the US on Monday Oct. 26?

[11:09am] Mono[Away] is now known as Mono.

[11:09am] • Mono 

is back.

[11:09am] Avruch: jorm: so are you aiming for a culture change, or some technical / automated method of being nicer?

[11:09am] Mono: jorm: the new wizard looks quite nice

[11:09am] • DarkoNeko 

is front. could you disable your away message ? :)

[11:09am] Fluffernutter: Fae: yep. I had an interesting experience in another channel where a user linked to a page he'd tagged and said "Can an admin go speedy this?" Two of us looked, and were like "that article isn't deletable under the tag you used." And the user was like "Well but, it's crappy! Delete it anyway!"

[11:09am] jorm: Avrunch:  both.

[11:10am] sgardner: And Brandon -- sorry if I missed this but, I think we are also aiming to make it easy for people to express praise to new editors via NPP, right?

[11:10am] SarahStierch: Avruch: why not both?

[11:10am] SarahStierch: jinx

[11:10am] Mono: DarkoNeko: Sorry, just learning how this client works

[11:10am] jorm: yes, i mentioned that a bit up there, but didn't highlight it so much.

[11:10am] sgardner: Yeah Avruch --- I think we are aiming for a tool that makes the work easier, and creates affordances for culture change, by making positive interactions easier.

[11:10am] updown: Theo10011 thx for inviting , see ya next time, by all

[11:10am] updown: *bye

[11:10am] Theo10011: bye.

[11:11am] tommorris: jorm: I had a discussion with various people about starting a New Page Patroller's School on enwiki, much like we have a New Admin School.

[11:11am] updown left the chat room.

[11:11am] jorm: we want the interface to be self-learning.

[11:11am] • tommorris 

has to get off the train, so I'll read the response in scrollback. ;-)

[11:11am] Ironholds left the chat room.

[11:11am] Philippe: tommorris, can you and i talk about that later?  I have a couple ideas.

[11:11am] Avruch: that sounds really promising

[11:11am] DarkoNeko: jorm, but then, it will take over the wiki and ban us all

[11:11am] • SarahStierch 

coughs about an otrs training too

[11:11am] Avruch: I hope there is a really well developed plan for getting community support for it :P

[11:11am] tommorris: Philippe: sure, I'll be home in about half an hour

[11:11am] Mono: Avruch: it's like all the other new features

[11:11am] Fluffernutter: yes, OTRS trainign would be fantastic

[11:11am] Philippe: SarahStierch: That's obviously a huge hole in the OTRS program.

[11:11am] sgardner: And I think there is also some discussion about making it possible for people to approach NPP as triage, right? Such that, an editor could whip through a queue in normal speedy style, trashing stuff that obviously needs to be trashed....... but also maybe deferring to another queue stuff that needs some time.

[11:11am] SarahStierch: Philippe: Yar…oh sensei

[11:11am] Mono: it will simply be implemented and you'll be stuck with it :p

[11:12am] • tommorris 

grumbles about lack of speedy response to applicants.

[11:12am] jorm: also, a goal (for the future) is to set it up so that you can just get your phone and then quickly go through a ton of pages:  "is this spam? y/n" or whatever.  that doesnt' mark them patrolled, but it helps towards generating better consensus and better tools.

[11:12am] Fluffernutter: promoting people with common sense for OTRS *helps*, but it's still a hole that needs to be plugged

[11:12am] Philippe: SarahStierch: … politely… Template:Sofixit  :-)

[11:12am] sgardner: I am not sure we are actually doing that, but it was a notion that I think we kicked around a little, since it seemed to make sense with the NPP style of working.

[11:12am] jorm: exactly that.

[11:12am] SarahStierch: Philippe: pay me

[11:12am] SarahStierch: heh

[11:12am] Mono: Wikimedia things don't tend to be fixed easily.

[11:12am] Fae: jorm: Perhaps service medal type recognition for NPP cowboys would help increase CLUE?

[11:12am] SarahStierch: oops did i say that outloud

[11:12am] jorm: if 5 people say "this is spam" it probably is.

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[11:12am] Philippe: Sarah, I think that's a great volunteer role, and bringing it in house would be tragic :)

[11:12am] sgardner: Sarah LOL.

[11:12am] Theo10011: Are we going longer for this office hour?

[11:12am] StevenW: Hi Mathias :)

[11:12am] Fluffernutter: service medals only increase our culture of "ooh, a shiny bauble. i must be important!"

[11:13am] sgardner: Nah, we need to wrap up pretty soon. Or at least, I need to wrap up :-)

[11:13am] SarahStierch: ;)

[11:13am] • Philippe 

likes shiny stuff

[11:13am] Mathias_WMDE: Good evening. Sorry for being late.

[11:13am] Thparkth: fluffernutter: like the admin bit? :)

[11:13am] jorm: there's other things that can/should be done (like making patrolling not about edit count), but those are longer term goals.

[11:13am] StevenW: we have until 11:30 (SF time)

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[11:13am] sgardner: Mathias, how are you :-)

[11:13am] jsalsman: SarahStierch: if you were paid it might not be fun anymore as you starve. I read that in a Continuing Medical Education review

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[11:13am] Theo10011: Cool.

[11:13am] Avruch: I'm not sure how much impact OTRS really has on general trends, but it should be fairly simple (if not easy) to get better OTRS outcomes

[11:13am] TorstenK: Mono: in ten years of existence Wikipedia build up the resistance against innovations of an 200 year old

[11:13am] Mono: Mathias_WMDE: are you involved with the Toolserver?

[11:13am] Fluffernutter: Thparkth, yeah, some admins use their bit as a bludgeon too

[11:13am] Mathias_WMDE: sgardner: thanks, I am fine. How are you?

[11:13am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: I'm a starving grad student. i'd rather be able to afford cardboard ;)

[11:13am] Mono: TorstenK: :)

[11:13am] Fae: Fluffernutter: They are not for everyone, but good for some, much as barnstars in our GLAM programme.

[11:13am] Mathias_WMDE: Mono: only very very very remotely.

[11:13am] sgardner: I'm well. I'll see you in a few weeks, I hope, at the AGM.

[11:13am] • SarahStierch 

coughs http://adainitiative.org/2011/10/new-wikipedia-awards-ada-lovelace-and-mind-the-gap/

[11:13am] SarahStierch: oops

[11:13am] Philippe: Avruch… OTRS suffers from a crippling lack of good software design :)

[11:14am] Mono: Mathias_WMDE: is there anyone to point me towards?

[11:14am] sgardner: Does anyone know if Achim Raschka will attend the AGM?

[11:14am] jsalsman: SarahStierch: just be glad you still have colloquia in walking distance, or you'd need a bike

[11:14am] TorstenK: Mathias_WMDE: that's what ssh is for

[11:14am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: Sadly I sold both my legs for rent.

[11:14am] Fluffernutter: o_O

[11:14am] sgardner: Sara, would you kindly tell us about the new gender awards? :-)

[11:14am] Fae: jorm: Yes that's what I was fishing for, service quality medals rather than just a count.

[11:14am] sgardner: *Sarah, gah.

[11:14am] mindspillage: Heh. OTRS training used to be one of the admins talking you through it on IRC for a while. Was much easier where there were not so many people involved.

[11:14am] Mono: Philippe: BTW, I tried Sugar for my business loosely and I found it quite tedious

[11:14am] Mono: to use

[11:14am] Avruch: Philippe: Collectively determine best practices and basic standards, put it in a web presentation, get someone who is good at leading training seminars, and webcast / conference it.

[11:14am] jsalsman: sgardner: I updated http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Office_hour_topics and hope you will reply

[11:14am] Avruch: Bam, a training program for OTRS - cost = zero.

[11:14am] SarahStierch: Thanks for the H Sue, and yes, I have both my legs, Fluffernutter

[11:14am] • Fluffernutter 

slips SarahStierch a spare leg, just in case

[11:15am] Mono: TorstenK?

[11:15am] SarahStierch: SO! A few weeks ago I thought it'd be cool to have a barnstar for people who are working hard through outreach, article creation, content expansion, media contributions, and other manners in regards to the gender gap.

[11:15am] Fluffernutter: mindspillage: that's actually how I got started in OTRS. I sat down on irc with an experienced OTRSer and had him work me through tickets. If I hadn't gotten that, I don't know *how* I'd have ever had the confidence to start out

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[11:15am] Mathias_WMDE: Hi everyone, I just have a quick question: Does anyone mind if we change the meaning of "M" in GLAM from "musea" to "media"?

[11:15am] TorstenK: Mono: just a little joke

[11:15am] SarahStierch: I found a feminist organization from London who had a cool logo, and they were kind to donate the design to Commons and with Jutta's help we cleaned it up and made a cool "Mind the Gap" Award

[11:16am] Fae: Cheerio, chef is ringing my high tea bell. :-)

[11:16am] Mono is now known as Yukon.

[11:16am] sgardner left the chat room. ("Leaving")

[11:16am] StevenW: I think the Internet died for sgardner and phillippe, but we should go

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[11:16am] sgardner joined the chat room.

[11:16am] StevenW: Oh there she is

[11:16am] TorstenK: wp San Francisco

[11:16am] Philippe: Avruch: Absolutely.  I hope someone will pick that up and run with it.

[11:16am] Philippe: Sadly, I don't have time :(

[11:16am] TorstenK: wb

[11:16am] sgardner: Whoops sorry, I dropped off the network.

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[11:16am] jsalsman: sgardner: I updated http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner#Office_hour_topics and hope you will reply

[11:16am] sgardner: Thanks jsalsman.

[11:17am] sgardner: Did Sarah talk about the gender awards?

[11:17am] Philippe: Avruch, if you'd like to try to catalyze that, I'd be very grateful :)

[11:17am] jsalsman: my pleasure as always

[11:17am] SarahStierch: Then Valerie Aurora contacted Sumana and I and asked to donate an amazing illustration of Ada Lovelace to Commons, and I decided to make an award, so now we have Ada Lovelace Award, which is given to people who  have made significant contributions to Wikipedia about women and technology

[11:17am] ChristineM: I know the folks who handle the .de queues have regular trainings/sessions... i'd love to see what they do and see if it can be scaled to be used for the other queues

[11:17am] SarahStierch: Please use them, earn them, and enjoy them :)

[11:17am] ChristineM: (in OTRS that is)

[11:17am] Jan_eissfeldt: Mathias_WMDE: unchallenged -> accepted  ;)

[11:17am] SarahStierch: done!

[11:17am] jorm: okay.  i have a meeting.  but i'll lurk in here and answer questions maybe later, if need be.

[11:18am] Mathias_WMDE: Jan_eissfeldt: as good as a board resolution :)

[11:18am] jsalsman: anyone hear anything about Girl Scouts from Pharos?

[11:18am] DarkoNeko: nope ?

[11:18am] SarahStierch: I thought the GIrl Scouts were not willing to work with Wikipedia due to the boy Scots

[11:18am] SarahStierch: scouts

[11:18am] SarahStierch: But that was months ago, in May.

[11:18am] DarkoNeko: ...what ?

[11:18am] Fluffernutter: yeah, we've made multiple overtures to the girl scouts but generally haven't heard anything back, i think

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[11:19am] SarahStierch: I actually met the director of the Girl Scouts for DC/MD/VA/WV. They prefer to not work with the boy scouts due to disagreements in code and ethics.

[11:19am] Mathias_WMDE: the scout movement could introduce the "featured article merit badge"

[11:19am] Yukon: Mathias_WMDE: is there anyone to point me towards?

[11:19am] SarahStierch: So it makes sense that they'd rather not be a part of "WP:Scouting" I suppose

[11:19am] sgardner: Thanks brandon!

[11:19am] jsalsman: how about the Blues Clues producer on PBS?  Do you think she will help with a public service announcement to encourage girls to edit?

[11:19am] Jan_eissfeldt: Mathias_WMDE: as good as a proper global knife edge vote ;)

[11:19am] sgardner: I need to run too -- I've got a meeting in 3 minutes.

[11:19am] SarahStierch: jsalsman: I do think that female spokespeople will be something we'll have to think hard about.

[11:19am] StevenW: okay, well I will post the logs from thus far, as usual

[11:19am] Philippe: Thanks, as always…. Torsten, I owe you some links .  :)

[11:19am] StevenW: thanks everyone

[11:19am] SarahStierch: It was one of the biggest things stated in my survey by women

[11:19am] SarahStierch: I have to run also!

[11:19am] sgardner: ChristineM, you're right to be interested in what the Germans are doing there BTW -- I've heard really good things about it.

[11:20am] SarahStierch: Thanks sgardner ! and everyone else.

[11:20am] jsalsman: Mathias_WMDE: the international scouts could add a "online encyclopedia improvement" merit badge without trademark conflicts

[11:20am] sgardner: Thanks everyone -- it was interesting today; I appreciate you all turning up.