Engine room

Welcome to the engine roomThis is a place to ask about and discuss the inner workings of the charity. To discuss our external projects and activities, see how you can get involved or suggest ideas that could help our charitable mission, head over to the water cooler.

2013
2014

Museum photography

Would it be worth putting effort into trying to make this list as extensive as possible for the UK:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:WikiProject_Arts/Museum_photography

04:46, 3 April 2014 (BST)

There are something like 2,500 museums in the UK. A comprehensive list noting how suitable they are for photography would be a pretty serious undertaking. Maybe if we narrow it down to something like the 100 most frequently visited museums. It could very easily end up that the UK would need it's own table or even a separate page. I think it would probably be a useful undertaking. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:49, 3 April 2014 (BST)

I wonder if this would be something best done via Wikipedia or Wikidata, rather than commons. On Wikipedia, it could maybe be done with an additional infobox parameter that categorises the museum's article into an appropriate hidden category. On Wikidata, I guess it would need an additional parameter to be added that would allow the (referenced) addition of the information. I'm not sure I can see the point in doing this just on Commons for the Commons community nowadays, when it could be done much more generally. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:11, 4 April 2014 (BST)

wikivoyage would be the other interested project. Trying to find out for all of them makes it a decent crowdsourced project. 100 isn't far off what I could dig out of my own archives.Geni (talk) 05:42, 16 April 2014 (BST)

Something more proactive?

Perhaps we should be doing something more proactive here, and setting out the types of permissions we'd like to see museums give their visitors, and persuading the museums to adopt those permissions? Something along the lines of Creative Commons, but for museum photography permissions? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:17, 21 April 2014 (BST)

I suspect a good starting point for defining that is to understand what permissions different institutions currently grant. There is no sense in inventing a wheel before we know whether one has already been invented. Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 13:19, 22 April 2014 (BST)

I think the commons page gives a reasonable cross-spectrum of the types of permissions that institutions currently grant. I'd agree, though, about reinventing the wheel - I don't know if standard guidance exists for museums here or not. I guess the first step might be to ask an organisation like collections trust or culture24 if they have standard advice they give out at the moment that could be built on, if there's the interest in doing this. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:45, 28 April 2014 (BST)

There was some interesting discussion here, but I'm not sure anything has really come of it. Does anyone want to suggest a way forward? Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:44, 2 June 2014 (BST)

We have barely a handful of active volunteers who are interested in spending time on GLAM photography projects, read this wiki and contribute to guidelines on Commons, and I would advise against making this an employee created initiative. I have to say, there is far greater impact to be had by focusing on other areas of concern, that do not create a guideline wiki page that itself creates volunteer maintenance burden as the page will go out of date every year. At Wikimania there will be representation from several major UK GLAMs, it may be an idea to workshop some ideas there. The NY GLAM workshop in 2012 was bouncing around the idea of a website icon showing the GLAM's commitment to open knowledge, the level to which they allow public photography could be a part of this (e.g. the BM allows photography but not in special exhibitions) which could then be automatically data-mined to supply the sort of guideline table that has been discussed here. I would not underestimate the difficulty of implementing anything pragmatic—the 2012 concept was simple and highly "sell-able", it has yet to get anywhere and for that reason I would not want to be responsible for delivering it. --Fæ (talk) 15:38, 2 June 2014 (BST)

Where can I find 2014 programmes as opposed to just budget?

I was wondering where last year's ideas for activities around this year's centenary of the First World War had gone, or what outcomes there had been in this area even if it had been reduced, considering there was originally £20,000 agreed by the trustees to be spent on it. Checking 2014 Activity Plan/GLAM Outreach I was surprised that this document contains no details of any GLAM projects, in fact it only appears to link to a budget for 2013 and the section on "timelines" remains blank apart from the note please add details.

Where can I find a tangible 2014 plan for GLAM, with details that can be measured as opposed to reports of stuff that has already happened? --Fæ (talk) 11:07, 9 May 2014 (BST)

Based on the fact that it has now been a week, this appears to be a "non-success".

I suggest that the board of trustees consider changing the Activity Plan wording so that there is a realistic expectation given to members that when we discuss plans, the charity means standard budget forecasts, reports of what happened in the previous quarter and actions (not plans) for the coming quarter.

These would normally be called "reports" and in addition one would expect the CEO to ensure a schedule spanning the funded programmes is maintained (the next 12 months in the case of this charity) and a work breakdown with associated measurable outcomes. The board of trustees may find this a useful strategic discussion at some point soon, in order to help provide the quality of oversight that most large national charities would expect. --Fæ (talk) 12:21, 15 May 2014 (BST)

While it has been almost a week since your question, our GLAM Organiser is part-time. A considerable amount of his time has been spent on helping with FDC reporting for Q1 so you may have to wait for an answer. When he is next in I will ask Jonathan Cardy when he has time to answer. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:49, 15 May 2014 (BST)

I was expecting either a link to the plan so I could look at it, or a statement saying there is no plan. My question was not intended to be directed at anyone, I certainly am not asking employees direct questions. This could be answered by the CEO, any trustee as they follow and review these documents, or another unpaid volunteer up to date on programme reporting, who might be comfortable answering.

As it happens I have been in discussion with Jonathan on other matters in this time. I note that the Activity Plan does not name Jonathan as being responsible for a plan, and that the supporting detailed document says "Daria Cybulska with delegated support from Jonathan Cardy" which I was aware of, but had made no assumptions about. --Fæ (talk) 15:09, 15 May 2014 (BST)

Likewise Daria and the CEO have been extraordinarily busy in particular with drafting the FDC report. I'm afraid an answer will have to wait until staff workloads are more manageable. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 16:10, 15 May 2014 (BST)

Thanks. I am sorry that the last week had been a bad time. Again, it was never my intention for this to be seen a question directed to an employee.

@MichaelMaggs: Would a trustee or a knowledgeable volunteer like to answer my question? It seems a simple and short one if anyone knows the answer. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 16:57, 15 May 2014 (BST)

It has now over ~~2 weeks~~ a month since my question "Where can I find a tangible 2014 plan" was raised. I am sorry if this has been seen as a trick question of some sort, it was not intended that way. --Fæ (talk) 00:16, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Proposed amendments to update charity's security and data protection policies: Revised Deadline of 5th June!

Hi all,

I am going to be working over the next few days on amending the charity's policies that refer to processing and storage of personal information to bring them up to date or better reflect actual operational practice. What I will do is create sub-pages of the existing policies under a 'proposed revisions' page and then post those links under my posting here.

I would welcome help by either discussion on the broader themes that may interest our community (balancing the requirements of the law with flexible working and being able to be transparent) here, and specific suggestions for amendments or questions for why I have made amendments on the talk pages of the proposed revision drafts.

If there is anything I've missed I'm open to hearing about it - some gaps I know we need to fill in the coming months are a data retention policy in line with the Foundation's and a broader statement on data governance and risk which I hope to develop with GovComm. Anything else the (many!) savvy types on privacy and data issues want to highlight - please do. I will try and drop a line linking back here on talk pages to those who I know have expressed interest in these issues in the past.

This is quite a bit of work so I'll be pushing on with it on top of other things over the next two weeks with a view to propose amended versions to the Board in June by the end of next week (May 23rd) as I will be on annual leave the following week (27th - 30th May)

If there are policies that are causing obvious concern however I'm prepared to hold back on those to extend the discussion period so please do make that point if you need to. Lets try and keep things to Wiki but if you're concerned I'm not responding promptly please email me (katherine.bavage[@]wikimedia.org.uk).

Thanks all - links to proposed amends pages to follow! Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 16:44, 13 May 2014 (BST)

After discussion with Michael as Chair he has agreed that these changes, while important, do not need to be submitted in order to meet deadlines for Board papers, because the board can review and approve/refuse recommended changes on wiki around the meeting rather than at it. This does not preclude there being more high level consideration of data governance matters at board or committee meetings in future - indeed I am envisioning there will be - but that we need to amend these now to ensure the charity remains in compliance with the law and staff are supported to use best practice in carrying out their work.

I am therefore proposing an extended deadline, both because it allows more time for community comment should there be some additional, and because it will allow me more time on my return from annual leave* to put in place some completed supporting documentation and other changes. If there are comments made in my absence I am sure other members of staff will respond to requests for info where they can, and of course I'll pick up on my return.

* I am on annual leave 26th May - 30th May inclusive and will be back answering emails and working on this following 2nd June. Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2014 (BST)

There is no issue with this decision, however are two lines of logic to this which may need the board to revisit trustee processes, so I'm separating them:

Out of meeting decision making - As I recall, a key reason that the board introduced votes of trustees outside of board meetings was to easily enable trustees to make decisions on policy changes in advance of a board meeting. This nicely reduces the workload for meetings and trustees can take a more relaxed approach to reviewing material and asking questions (because on-wiki votes can run for a month). In practice, Operations then consider the decision made, however the legal ratification has to still occur at the scheduled board meeting, for technical reasons more than common-sense ones. From what I have seen this year, I am unsure how well this is being practically applied by the board, or if it is particularly helpful if the board has become less proactive than in years past.
CEO authority - There is a division between operational procedures/detailed policy, and policies that require authorization by the board of trustees. Having delegated a scope of authority and responsibility to the CEO, practical decisions at the operational level should be up to the CEO, which may include changing practices to adopt a draft policy. He is then held to account for outcomes of whatever practical decisions he has made in-between board meetings. In the case of data policies, there may well be immediate need to make operational decisions against currently authorized policy, however this would be the difference between handling an incident and correctly communicating it, and legally agreeing how the articles are implemented by the charity.

In the second issue of CEO authority, I doubt that the way that authority has been delegated to the CEO makes the boundaries very clear, this is not necessarily a "non-success", as within a slowly maturing organization it is often better to let bureaucracy be changed by experience rather than dubious hypothesis. Certainly, wiki-lawyering it to death would be unhelpful. --Fæ (talk) 15:55, 23 May 2014 (BST)

Page links

International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance part two

Hello everyone. I wanted to bring this back on the agenda. For clarity, I initially proposed that Wikimedia UK gets involved with this somehow here last year. The reason I am bringing this up again is because the Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it has signed the principles. Essentially, the principles make a statement against mass surveillance of internet users. Again, I think that this is in scope and showing support for these principles is important. I hope that we can revisit this issue. You can read the principles here. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:19, 14 May 2014 (BST)

I am surprised and disappointed that this is being lobbied for a second time. The text has not changed or improved since the previous discussion here. The document will be offensive to many, as LGBT minorities have been explicitly excluded from the "Legitimate Aim" section, despite "sexual orientation" being mentioned in the unenforceable preamble. Were the board of trustees to choose to support this document they would be going against the spirit of, and possibly be in breach of, "Wikimedia UK as Service Provider" in Diversity and Equalities Policy and value 5 of Vision, values and mission.

I am not aware of the WMF seeking any consultation with the community. I would be happy to be provided with some links if this has happened. I have posted the same request on the WMF blog post.

I have alerted the Wikimedia LGBT group here. --Fæ (talk) 18:33, 14 May 2014 (BST)

For those interested, Roshni Patel of the Wikimedia Foundation addresses Fae's concerns directly:

"Hi Fae,

Prior to signing on to the Necessary and Proportionate Principles, we consulted the advocacy advisors. You can find that here.

The list of prohibited discriminations under the “Legitimate Aim” principle is non-exclusive and includes “other status.” Given that sexual orientation was listed in the preamble, it would certainly be included under “other status”.

I am certain that if LGBT groups were directly excluded the Wikimedia Foundation would not have signed the principles. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 09:54, 15 May 2014 (BST)

Patel has given a tangential reply rather than a direct response to the issues. I'm afraid Patel's assumption is unfounded, from this it can be seen that there has been no community consultation where interested groups, such as Wikimedia LGBT, might be allowed to have a voice before the WMF made this irrevocable action. It should be noted that Patel's post is not a statement for the WMF. Though she is being employed or sponsored by the WMF as a 'Fellow', her profile on the Foundation website is quick to ensure that nothing she publishes represents the WMF, unless explicitly stated otherwise. I will be responding, probably later today.

With regard to your being "certain that if LGBT groups were directly excluded the Wikimedia Foundation would not have signed the principles", you are welcome to hold those beliefs, however I am discussing the blog post and can only go by what is written there and the words of the document that the WMF has now committed itself to. Based on advice I have been given on the Advocacy Advisors email list, the WMF should follow their own consultation policy, and this appears to have explicitly not happened in this instance.

Wikimedia UK does not need to have an opinion on these principles, the charity can just say "good work" or similar. Again I am disappointed to see this being lobbied for so hard here, when the previous community discussion was, at best, controversial. --Fæ (talk) 11:20, 15 May 2014 (BST)

I have not been following the discussion which led to the WMF signing up to these principles and don't intend to go trawling over loads of discussions to find out who was consulted and who thought what. The WMF will no doubt have had good reasons for wanting to sign up. However I also feel that a set of principles which has a section on legitimate use of surveillance and specifically omits sexual orientation from a list of exclusions is very seriously defective. WMUK should consider whether it is in the best interests of the charity to sign up to a set of principles which, for example, the Ugandan government could comply with while undertaking surveillance for the purpose of targeting gay men for arrest and imprisonment. Since our signature is not needed on these principles I will take a lot of persuading that they are a good thing for us to do. Mccapra (talk) 17:33, 17 May 2014 (BST)

Trustee Expenses

Details posted on the engine room in response to a request at Engine room/2014#Attendees at the Wikimedia Conference 2014?

As the previous discussion has been manually archived here, I have created this second thread so that the costs which are due to be reported by 22 May (2 days time) can be linked and may be discussed by volunteers on this noticeboard. It should be noted that some of the expenses have been declared on Expenses 2013-2014, it cannot be presumed to be a complete declaration. --Fæ (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2014 (BST)

Hello Fae! I was going to create a new post, don't worry. I have posted the Q1 expenses at Expenses 2014-2015. The board are going to be discussing what level of expenses is appropriate - the policy as written needs more clarity. The general feeling is that expenses will be dealt with using a quarterly summary against named persons, split into appropriate groups of travel, accommodation, subsistence, per diems, etc. The board will be discussing this on 7 June but I don't want to pre-empt their decision. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 15:41, 21 May 2014 (BST)

I have changed the title back to be more accurate.

What was requested, and committed to, in the archived discussion was "When the total costs are published, could someone add a link here so that future volunteers can find it more easily?" The total costs as defined earlier in the same discussion were "the costs of sending 8 people to this conference", not just those that happen to have been trustees at the time. Again, this is not a request from me to any employee. If the WMUK treasurer wants to give a summary of these costs as a follow unpaid volunteer, that would be cool. --Fæ (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2014 (BST)

I have changed the title back because the page covers more than the Wikimedia Conference (and using the same title as a previous thread it would have made the information more difficult to find once archived) and have added a link back to the Berlin discussion at the start of this section. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 16:50, 21 May 2014 (BST)

You may wish to think about an accurate title rather than simply reverting, the original point of this thread is not addressed by an update of Trustee Expenses, as that would only obscure what the actual total costs of sending attendees to the conference was, which would not be a benefit with regard to transparency and could not be considered a matter of privacy for any individual. It might be an idea to follow the BRD principle on the Engine room, it works well on the projects. --Fæ (talk) 23:12, 21 May 2014 (BST)

Perhaps it would be best to avoid using 3LAs in public conversations without at the very least a link explaining that BRD means Bold Revert Discuss. People more familiar with say the conventions and discourse of Wikimedia Commons than that of Wikipedia may find that such jargon is not immediately accessible. So perhaps we should try not to exclude people where a few extra key strokes would makes things clearer ;-) Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:28, 22 May 2014 (BST)

Well, being the Engine room, I suspect that all likely readers of this will know it is 'bold' rather than 'block'. Being a supporter of plain English and mindful of international projects, I have designed wiki tools to help convert wiki acronyms to phrases, however the context matters with these things. --Fæ (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2014 (BST)

Hi Fae. I'm sorry, I misunderstood your previous post and thought you were asking for trustee expenses. I'll see what I can pull up with regard to total cost of the conference and post it in a new section here. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 10:57, 22 May 2014 (BST)

Hello Fae: this is a quick reply to say that finding the total cost is proving more difficult than I first expected. I cannot easily distinguish spends from this event as I didn't plan to do so in advance, and as a result I would have to complete a line-by-line review of the purchase ledger for the month prior to and the month after the event to pull out the full costs. This would be several hours of work and it wouldn't be cost-effective. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 17:34, 30 May 2014 (BST)

Then an efficient way of replying to my request made five weeks ago, when there were commitments to report the total costs of (highly controversially amongst the international volunteer community) sending 8 people to the Wikimedia Conference 2014, would have been that "no, those costs are never going to be reported". It seems a great pity that so much volunteer and paid employee time was not saved by answering the original question with "no". --Fæ (talk) 17:47, 30 May 2014 (BST)

Not wishing to put my hand too far into the hornets' nest, but perhaps it might be possible to come up with a rough estimate (presumably air fares and hotel bookings would be relatively easy to find, but I'm only guessing)? Harry Mitchell (talk) 21:50, 30 May 2014 (BST)

If I did, I could't guarantee any useful level of accuracy. Some people drove there, some flew, and not everyone flew from the same country IIRC - and some people took entirely different flight companies. Again, if I'm remembering it correctly, some of our staff were asked to stay an extra day to meet with the WMF and help work on metrics together, and the WMF reimbursed us for bits of that, but not all of it. It's very complex, and I don't want to give a figure that would be misleading. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 23:28, 30 May 2014 (BST)

I'm not sure I understand why it's so complicated. Isn't it just a matter of getting the amounts from the 8 claim forms, plus any flights and hotels that were paid for directly? That should be possible to do accurately, even if it's not 100% complete... Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:06, 31 May 2014 (BST)

Not really... I'd be looking at a list of transactions from two bank accounts spanning two months, and ALTO card transactions for five cards for the same period. There aren't necessarily eight claim forms either - there could be more than or fewer than eight. This is one of the reasons it's so complex - in addition to that, they're all mixed in with other transactions, and some of the claim forms are claims for more more than one event, and some are receipts in German, etc etc. Our system isn't designed to report on individual projects - it's designed to report on whole budgets. Drilling down lower than that is a lot of work. Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 13:35, 31 May 2014 (BST)

I would like to propose to the board of trustees, and especially the treasurer, that the charity immediately changes its financial management system to one that can efficiently report expenses by date they were incurred and claimant, without requiring "several hours of work" for an employee. Can someone (not necessarily a paid employee) advise where that would best be proposed? Implementing such an improvement to standard reports by the charity in order to ensure transparency and openness, might be a good response to my email to wikimedia-l. In the case in hand, filtering expenses by 8 names for the conference period, and then finding any additional pre-booked travel in the month before for the same set of names, should take an employee minutes rather than hours; a system that cannot provide this is not fit for purpose.

For those of us that remember back to a time before the charity had employees, let alone the 17 we have now, expenses were entirely reported and managed by unpaid volunteers. It was not an efficient or effective system, but compared to the many hours it now takes to create a simple report of expenses against a major annual conference event, after 4 years of improvement and investment, the current system and processes are no more effective at producing the reports we need to ensure transparency, from the point of view of members who would like to be able to see meaningful and appropriate financial reports in a timely fashion.

Note: link added at Talk:Agenda_7Jun14, though unsure if notes from members are welcome on the agenda or will be ignored. --Fæ (talk) 07:18, 1 June 2014 (BST)

There is no intention to hide the costs to the chapter of the Chapter's involvement in the Wikiconference in Berlin, but it is not a simple calculation. I hope the detail below re-assures those who are interested.

One person was asking for trustee expenses, others are asking how much we (WMUK) spent on the entire conference (including staff, volunteers, speakers, trustees etc). I hope to clarify this here.

So for trustee expenses: it is worth reminding ourselves that not all of the board went as trustees, as two (at least) were invited as speakers - reporting that as a trustee cost wouldn't be accurate so needs to be accounted for differently. As to staff – I attended as the Chief Executive, but the other two staff were also invited speakers. One of the staff had some costs paid by the Foundation.

As to the cost mine was probably on the low end, as I booked my flight early and always use public transport or bicycles, but from recollection (and I have to sign off all trustee expenses) the total cost to the chapter is close to £2600 but sometimes expenses come in very late and there could be a plane fare lurking somewhere. My expenses are here and give a good baseline.

The trustees are discussing how best to itemise expenses in a way that ensures an appropriate level of transparency at the board meeting this Saturday. It also needs to take into account the staff time involved in doing this which could be better spent supporting our programme.

I do not know why anyone would call the conference a 'junket', that needs a citation I'd think, but it was, as I have explained before in detail, a productive working three days at a reasonable cost to the chapter. If you think it was a junket then the whole conference could be judged a waste of money and the previous ones as well - and they aren't. The reality is that these are important working conferences where chapters and other organisations meet to discuss best practice.

I know that what I have written will not satisfy everyone but it is offered in good faith and the spirit of transparency we aspire to.

Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 12:35, 2 June 2014 (BST)

Thanks for your interim response here Jon. Three points:

Nobody has mentioned a "junket" in this discussion. Please do not confuse parties writing here with those writing (or trolling) on wikimedia-l or wikipediocracy.
The concerns raised were the value to Wikimedia of sending 8 people to this conference, which was 3 more than any other chapter, with the vast majority of chapters wisely limiting themselves to a maximum of 3 attendees. This is not the same as claiming the conference was a waste of money. Please do not exaggerate legitimate questions about the finances of the charity, in a way that makes them appear to be critical statements about other parties that they obviously are not.
Transparency is a firm requirement for the charity, that is why we ensured it is explicitly in our mission when we created the charity. This makes it more than an aspiration for the Chief Executive, as the charity's performance must be measured on its delivery against this requirement.

--Fæ (talk) 13:28, 2 June 2014 (BST)

For reference: Jon's message was also posted on mailing wikimedia-l list. In that context, the bit about 'junkets' was in response to Russavia's comment and it does not appear there was confusion, merely replying to two emails in one message. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:42, 2 June 2014 (BST)

Thanks for the link. Jon was replying to my proposal on 1 June with "If you think it was a junket". Any reader of this page would presume that his reply to my proposal was a reply to my proposal, further my point number 1 addresses this issue. --Fæ (talk) 15:22, 2 June 2014 (BST)

Thanks for posting a rough figure, Jon, and for the explanation as to why it's not so easy to arrive at a precise figure. Personally, I find this useful—I'm not sure members and interested others gain any greater understanding by having a to-the-penny figure—but I do agree that it should be easier to track down a more precise figure for a given event or project. Hopefully the board will make some progress on this in their discussion at the weekend. Harry Mitchell (talk) 15:50, 2 June 2014 (BST)

It is not clear from the agenda for Saturday's meeting of the board of trustees that they will discuss the format for these expenses. I have raised a request that it is discussed at Talk:Agenda 7Jun14. @HJ Mitchell: I suggest you add your support to my request on the agenda talk page if you wish to see this actually discussed. My experience of getting answers to simple and direct questions to the board has been poor over the last few months, some never getting an answer. This could be because my questions are coming from "Fæ" rather than due to their content or validity. --Fæ (talk) 11:02, 4 June 2014 (BST)

Non-renewal of our fundraiser agreement

Wikimedia UK regrets to have to announce to the community that the Wikimedia Foundation’s outgoing Executive Director, Sue Gardner, has given us formal notice of her decision under her mandate from the WMF board not to renew our fundraising agreement, thereby excluding us from this year’s fundraiser. Wikimedia UK has written an open letter to Sue regarding this decision, a copy of which can be found here. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 08:03, 21 May 2014 (BST)

For those wishing to copy parts of the text to use in discussion, I have created a wiki version of the letter. This can be found here. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 08:27, 21 May 2014 (BST)

I notice the questions contain the phrase "a year with a demanding target." Is there any reason to believe this year's target is more demanding than next year's? Or could the phrase be replaced by the simpler phrase "a year"? Yaris678 (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2014 (BST)

As an open letter, it is not easily revised. If Jon had wished to consult members, this would have happened in advance of publishing it, I doubt there is much value in highlighting phrasing issues. --Fæ (talk) 08:45, 31 May 2014 (BST)

Yaris678 is criticising one of the questions set for us by Sue Gardner, not with WMUK's reply. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:33, 1 June 2014 (BST)

Thanks, I did misunderstand it. Personally, were I the Chief Executive, I would have taken Sue's question as an opportunity to explain, in non-defensive simple terms, why it would be best to minimize any delay in renewing the fund-raising agreement now that the UK Charity had met all the governance requirements that the Foundation had previously expressed an interest in. Put in terms of massive year on year losses to the Wikimedia movement, the answer does not appear "impossible" to answer based on my reading.

However, there seems little point in adding more here. My views on the strategic value of the charity's decision to publicly reply to Sue with this negative and apparently emotive letter just as she is leaving her position, have been made on Wikimedia-l (where the charity chose to announce it), which anyone can refer to. --Fæ (talk) 14:00, 1 June 2014 (BST)

2014 Annual General Meeting

Ongoing preparations for this year's AGM can be found at 2014 Annual General Meeting and the linked pages for anyone who wants to follow or join in. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:37, 27 May 2014 (BST)

BBC article - Wikipedia and health

Article here and well judged comments from Stevie. Philafrenzy (talk) 00:51, 28 May 2014 (BST)

Thank you, Philafrenzy. For you, and others interested, the story also ran on the Mail, Telegraph and Independent. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 10:55, 28 May 2014 (BST)

But where do doctors get their information? That is the question. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/doctors-1-source-for-healthcare-information-wikipedia/284206/ Philafrenzy (talk) 11:00, 28 May 2014 (BST)

An interesting parallel! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 10:40, 29 May 2014 (BST)

Makes you think about the responsibility we have taken on doesn't it? Not only are ordinary people using Wikipedia as their first source for medical information, but doctors are too (though they at least are able to evaluate its reliability). Good job most people don't know how the sausage is made. The idea that our activities carry no responsibility and no obligation and that nobody has to use Wikipedia, is clearly false. For many people there are no other sources of information. But I am giving a lecture now. Philafrenzy (talk) 11:44, 29 May 2014 (BST)

In many ways I agree with you. While as a chapter we don't control content of course, I'm really proud of some of the things we do that have a real and positive impact in terms of content improvement. John Byrne's residency with Cancer Research UK, for example, is a project that will help to improve the content on important articles relating to cancer and cancer treatment, with input from experts and access to the very latest research. Most people's lives are touched by cancer to some extent and those articles are important. I am looking forward to us developing high level and high profile partnerships that work in similar ways in future. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 12:29, 29 May 2014 (BST)

"Wikipedia, like any encyclopaedia, should not take the place of a qualified medical practitioner." (emphasis mine). Such a good line. That point is worth more than the research that the article is based on. 10 articles! Just 10 articles. And the analysis of each article seems scanty. No analysis of whether important information is missing. And a fact about best practice counted as incorrect, despite being in the NICE guidelines. Yaris678 (talk) 22:49, 29 May 2014 (BST)

While the message not to diagnose yourself using Wikipedia remains sound, an interview in Wikipedia Weekly here explains in detail some of the errors in the original research. Note particularly that the author is apparently an osteopath from the "soup university" (Campbell University) who invented a new method of research just for this paper. Philafrenzy (talk) 22:16, 31 May 2014 (BST)

Great interview. I've given the guy a barnstar. Yaris678 (talk) 15:22, 1 June 2014 (BST)

Affiliate-selected seats on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation - results

Following our notice last month on the Engine Room, the WMUK Board decided to vote for Alice Wiegand and Patricio Lorente in the election for the two affiliate-selected seats on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. The result of the election has just been announced, and the two winning candidates were Frieda Brioschi and Patricio Lorente. Congratulations to both of them. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:21, 3 June 2014 (BST)

Q1 report card

A summary of how Wikimedia UK is doing against its KPIs now available. If you want more detail, there's a link at the top of the page to the charity's report to the FDC. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 17:05, 5 June 2014 (BST)

I wanted to give public thanks to all those who were involved in creating the report card - it's a great step forward for our reporting, and a good example of how we can meet the calls for us to report on KPIs and measure our impact. I look forward to seeing (and supporting) its development. Sjgknight (talk) 13:45, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Query regarding G1.2 quality of content

Could someone explain how the 6.5% value for "Percentage of WMUK-related files (e.g. images) in mainspace use on a Wikimedia project (excluding Commons)" was calculated? I estimate this as half that value simply using the GLAMourous report. --Fæ (talk) 18:07, 5 June 2014 (BST)

Of course. It is explained here under 'Progress against these objectives'. Let me know if you need more information. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 18:17, 5 June 2014 (BST)

No, the calculation is not explained in the FDC report, only the result, which appears untrue.

Here's the logic - the figure claimed for Q1 is 37,715 images. The GLAMorous report today shows that 0.94% of images in 2014 are in use, this is a total number of images of 55,387. On the *best case* assumption that of all additional images, zero count towards the total, this would mean that a maximum of 1.38% (i.e. 0.94%*55387/37715) is possible, not 6.5%.

If these figures are reported incorrectly, then the Q2 report will be in danger of showing a catastrophic drop in the percentages to a level which would be impossible if Q1 figures were true.

--Fæ (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2014 (BST)

Catscan v2 was used to produce a report of how many files were uploaded to Commons between 1 February and 30 April. Catscan also includes data on which files are in use. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 18:30, 5 June 2014 (BST)

Could you give a breakdown here, along with the links you used? It should be possible reproduce the figures. I have some experience with catscan and I uploaded most of these files both on Commons and the Welsh Wikipedia, so I am familiar with the outcomes. --Fæ (talk) 18:38, 5 June 2014 (BST)

You learn something everyday. Catscan v2 does indeed report on file usage, just scroll across the screen and it is the column furthest on the right. Here is a link to Catscan v2. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 18:43, 5 June 2014 (BST)

Could you perhaps explain more clearly what you mean by "give a breakdown"? I suspect you don't want a list of all the files Catscan return reproduced here. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 18:44, 5 June 2014 (BST)

I will return to your question some time tomorrow. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 18:46, 5 June 2014 (BST)

By a breakdown, I mean a more detailed explanation of how 6.5% was calculated so that a volunteer or a member of the FDC can reproduce it for themselves. Presumably some of this was Commons, but it cannot mean the usage of the 37,715 files declared in the FDC report, as the usage of those is well below 2%.

A link to the catscan reports you used would be useful, against each resulting figure. The only relevant catscan report I can see in the FDC report is http://tools.wmflabs.org/catscan2/catscan2.php?language=cy&categories=Llwybrau+Byw&ns[6]=1&before=20140430235959&after=20140201000000&only_new=1&ext_image_data=1&file_usage_data=1&doit=1 which does not seem to give any usage information in the table, only the list of files uploaded by me.

Note that on cy.wp, Categori:Llwybrau Byw has been used, but more accurately the uploaded book covers are in Categori:Prosiect Llyfrau Gwales where there are slightly more images included.

Breaking this down again, the FDC Q1 report states:

Overall 6.5% (below our target of 13% average for the whole year, but see below), this breaks down into:

2.6% of files (980 individual files) uploaded to Commons this quarter are in use on Wikimedia projects excluding Commons.

The 2,891 files uploaded to the Welsh Wicipedia are part of a long-standing project to improve coverage of Welsh-language publications. Unfortunately, CatScan does not include file usage for the Welsh Wicipedia, though statistics for the overall project (last updated 11 April) show that 57.4% of the files are in use. Scaling this down to account for the files uploaded in Q1, this means about 1,660 of the files are used, a very impressive amount.

It is not clear how the "2.6%" of the 37,715 uploaded to Commons is calculated. There is no link in the FDC report to deduce this figure. GLAMorous would seem to be the best tool to show this, and as highlighted above it appears to indicate a lower figure.
The figure for cy.wp of 57.4% usage was a report generated by me which I am not currently maintaining.[1] It was not created using catscan or catscan2, which (as the FDC report states) does not include usage figures. I could probably amend my Faebot report to produce an accurate usage figure based on filtering dates from the File Version History using the API on cy.wp, but this Faebot generated table was designed for a bit of fun within the Llwybrau Byw project, and not designed to be used for FDC reporting.
Quoting a 6.5% "blended" figure includes cy.wp book cover usage where the images are fair use only, and are problematic. Firstly, as Robin and I have discussed in the past; cy.wp does not have a "mature" policy on Fair Use, however uploaded files should be on a time-limited basis unless they are in use in articles, consequently many unused files should be deleted at some point and then "100%" of uploaded files would be in usage - this would distort the usage metric as it would be changing the sample space for the metric after the event. Secondly the book cover images are only in use on cy.wp, it is unlikely that they will be used elsewhere and each file would need to be transferred to other projects; a *very* small percentage of covers are out of copyright or ineligible for copyright, however there are no current plans to upload these to Commons. I do not believe this fairly interprets the intention of G1.1 in the Q1 Report Card, it would be more accurate to keep the percentage use figures separate and report them as a tuple, or just stick to the figure from Commons reports and make a note of the success on cy.wp without distorting the more intuitive figure so that the FDC report is as straight-forward as possible.

--Fæ (talk) 05:29, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Thank you for removing the postscript from your earlier post, it's tone was surprisingly defensive. It doesn't matter how long you've been using a tool, if you're using it a set way you're unlikely to explore it's potential. As such it's perhaps not surprising you're unfamiliar with Catscan's ability to report back on file usage, but I can assure you it is there just as I said. The column for file usage is quite clearly there in this query for example. It is worth noting that the function does seem to be restricted to files on Commons, which perhaps tripped you up.

The reason there is no link to the query in the FDC report is that took more than one run. Of course I would have liked to include a single link, however at the time the resources allocated to Catscan v2 meant that it could not perform queries that large, ie: tens of thousands of files. What I had to do was break the three-month period down into manageable chunks, run that query, and then collate the data in a spreadsheet. I am pleased to say that in future, it should be much easier thanks to the sterling work of Magnus Manske. Even as it stood before, it was a tremendously useful tool.

Here is the query. It returns a total of 37,688 files. The difference of 27 from the figure given in the FDC report is most likely due to the occasional double count in the course of collating the queries. That is down to human error on my part. Usage has now increased to 1,007 files (give or take one or two which may be in a non-article mainspace), but is close to the figure of 980. Catscan is admittedly a less popular tool than GLAMourous but its versatility leant itself to our needs, particular its ability to filter by date range.

It is a shame you are not maintaining the report linked on cy.wp, certainly Robin was under the impression you were when I talked to him about the Q1 report. However, the tools for reporting on file usage on specific wikis outside Commons is an area which appears under covered.

Excluding files on the Welsh Wicipedia from the report on overall usage because they "distort" the figures is a curious logical inconsistency. Perhaps therefore mass uploads should be excluded because usage falls below 1%? Certainly that would be unacceptable cherry picking, so the approach of cherry picking what files get included is not an acceptable approach. It is made clear in the FDC report that the 6.5% figures includes files on Commons and those on cy.wp. The argument that the files should be treated separately because they have a different licence may have more to it, however I think this is mitigated by the fact that we are open about how this figure is reached. As a middle ground I have added a note to the Q1 report card to prevent this kind of confusion in future. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 10:28, 6 June 2014 (BST)

From my point of view, as an unpaid volunteer for open knowledge who devotes a significant of my time in ensuring public domain media is preserved and accessible for the public benefit, I am disappointed that Wikimedia UK is significantly distorting its performance reports to the FDC, using material that is not freely reusable and has all rights reserved. The distortion actually trebles the figure reported to the FDC. My work on this was never supported by Wikimedia UK, nor any Wikimedia UK equipment, I acted as an independent volunteer doing a personal favour for Robin. The report does not meet the intention, nor the spirit of the mission or values we agreed and published as the basis of why we created this national charity.

For the time being, I will put a halt to my support of Robin's request for further uploads of book covers for cy.wp as I do not appreciate the outcome of my personal freely given volunteer effort being misreported in this way and would not want the Q2 report to be similarly distorted. I will review the situation with Robin, and may change my view depending on that discussion, or if the board of trustees is wise enough to come to realize that the current method of reporting "G1.2 The quality of Open Knowledge continues to improve" is misleading and inappropriate, leading to a significant distortion in the top level KPI figure by including media that is not reusable, nor free. The aim of G1 is "We will increase the quantity and quality of open knowledge on the Wikimedia projects and other freely licensed resources", the figure of 6.5% does not meet that aim.

Separately, I shall take time to review the numbers and the links you have referenced in order to understand whether these figures are accurate and why GLAMorous gives a completely different answer to the same question.

I have yet to review any of the other figures of the Q1 report to the FDC. --Fæ (talk) 13:27, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Fae, your desire for the charity to report different KPIs, in different ways and with different definitions, is noted but these are the ones we have committed to publish and will be publishing quarterly from now on. If you spot any factual errors do please let us know. We are not aware of any, but having volunteers such as yourself who are able to commit the time to checking the KPI data can only be useful. Thank you. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:52, 6 June 2014 (BST)

All Rights Reserved does not equal freely licensed resources, this will be self-evident to all members of the charity and our donors. If at the board meeting tomorrow the trustees accept the Chief Executive's report of the performance of the charity without questioning this misrepresentation, you will be allowing the values the board has formally agreed to become meaningless in their implementation. At the board meeting you should reject this figure as inaccurate by not meeting the defined aim it purports to be measuring. --Fæ (talk) 14:07, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Reply to query re: G1.2

Hi Fae The 6.5% figure you object to measures the “Percentage of WMUK-related files in mainspace use on a Wikimedia project”. It sits under our Strategic Goal 1.2 which reads “The quality of open knowledge continues to improve”.

This KPI does not count the number of images that have been uploaded, but rather the improvement in quality of open knowledge as a result of their use in articles. It is the articles themselves that are the ‘open knowledge’ here, and the quality of those articles is clearly being improved by the presence of images, fair use or not. Presumably your intent in uploading the images was precisely that they should be used in this way - to improve encyclopedia articles.

Now, as you indicate, fair use images are not in themselves considered to be open knowledge, and they are therefore not to be counted under the first KPI in the table, "Number of uploads", which sits under the goal G1.1 “The quantity of open knowledge continues to increase”. That is the reason that that KPI includes 37,715 images that were uploaded to Commons, but not the 2891 Welsh fair use images. To ensure that that distinction is quite clear to the reader I have deleted the wording “plus 2891 book covers uploaded to the Welsh Wicipedia” from the coloured Results column. Those uploads are in addition to the measured open knowledge images, and are correctly listed separately in the notes field. Sjgknight (talk) 18:20, 8 June 2014 (BST)

All Rights Reserved does not equal freely licensed resources, a term carefully included in the aim that governs the definition of the outcomes for G1. As you know, Fair Use images cannot be freely reused, they can not be used in the majority of Wikipedias or on Wikimedia Commons. The charity that we created should be sponsoring freely reusable images, and only counting those as achieving the mission.

Per the WMF Resolution, "the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free content license" and "[Exceptions] must be minimal". The WMUK board of trustees is interpreting strategy in a way that is now not in compliance with this resolution; indeed the majority of the success of 6.5% being reported in the Q1 figures is for non-free content, a situation that I find bizarre and misleading, regardless of the small print in footnotes.

I guess there is no point in me explaining further, there seems firm determination to drive this through, regardless of the contradiction in values and the lack of any evidence of appropriate consultation and feedback from members on what this means for our future, as we are under this philosophy able to fund projects generating non-free content, through the rationale that an "Exemption Doctrine Policy", sometimes exists on some Wikimedia projects, for time-limited and non-reusable content - for example these images cannot be reused in the UK by anyone, as we have no equivalent to the US fair use copyright loophole. --Fæ (talk) 19:21, 8 June 2014 (BST)

Your comment doesn't respond to the points in my reply. This is all the more confusing given you were the volunteer who very generously freely donated their volunteer time to enriching the encylopedia with these images. Sjgknight (talk) 19:43, 8 June 2014 (BST)

I uploaded fair use copies of book covers, only usable on the Welsh Wicipedia, for the reasons I explained previously on this page. I was not supported by Wikimedia UK and the images are not part of any Wikimedia UK funded project as far as I was aware, or am aware of now, as there were no employees, nor funding involved at any point and these were not part of the plan for the Living Paths project. My upload script was created in December 2013 and uploads completed in early February 2014, not being part of WMUK work that was later to be supported by a supplied Macmini. Had I known that the board of trustees would allow the Chief Executive to tactically count these as the majority of evidence to the FDC of operational performance against the goal of delivering media for open knowledge, I would have walked away rather than have my ethical stance and my freely given volunteer efforts compromised. I am very sorry indeed that the board of trustees finds this confusing, and prefers to defend an inappropriate top level key performance indicator based on non-free media. Sadly I have to take the precaution of not cooperating with uploading any further fair use material on cy.wp until I have assurance that the charity will cease using them in this way. --Fæ (talk) 21:59, 8 June 2014 (BST)

Ok, I've replied to your points, your disagreement is noted. Thanks. Sjgknight (talk) 08:07, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Fae, the excellent work you did between December and February in improving the quality of open knowledge articles on the Welsh Wicipedia by uploading fair use images is much appreciated. Your decision not to contribute further is noted with regret. MichaelMaggs (talk) 08:40, 9 June 2014 (BST)

To avoid any misinterpretation, I said "Sadly I have to take the precaution of not cooperating with uploading any further fair use material on cy.wp until I have assurance that the charity will cease using them in this way." You need only provide this assurance and I will feel able to ethically work with Robin on finishing the uploads (which is actually the vast majority of images). The choice here, is clearly that of the board of trustees by allowing the Chief Executive to use performance statistics based on non-free images, that were never part of any Wikimedia UK project, despite a re-writing of history to make it appear so. I sincerely hope that my other volunteer work on Commons that is not part of Wikimedia UK projects does not start getting claimed as such. I am *completely* clear as to which is which, you need only look at my WMUK report which is kept up to date month by month. --Fæ (talk) 09:57, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Our Wales Manager was involved, which was the WMUK connection. The conditional nature of your decision is understood, but as Simon had already explained clearly why the KPI reporting is correct (and his analysis has board backing) your decision has no doubt already gone into effect. If any assistance is needed with further tranches of book cover uploads we will have to find another volunteer. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:50, 9 June 2014 (BST)

I'm afraid the board of trustees appears to have been misinformed. This was never a project done in correspondence with Robin as an employee of Wikimedia UK, but Robin as a volunteer using his personal Avant Garde Software email address, not his WMUK address. I have emails on record with Katie discussing these uploads at the beginning of February 2014, it was perfectly clear at that time that *further* uploads might be declared as part of Faebot's future supported work but not existing uploads.

Unless Wikimedia UK is officially now advising all volunteers that employees and contractors for the charity must be assumed to be always acting in their employed capacity when volunteering on Wikimedia projects (which is opposite to a long history of statements by the Chief Executive and several trustees), then your Wales Manager had nothing to do with this, only Robin as my friend and fellow volunteer for the Welsh Wicipedia. --Fæ (talk) 11:11, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Other staff were involved, as you know, and I repeat that we consider the KPI reporting to be quite correct as it stands. The issue will not arise for future reports given your decision not to upload any more fair use book covers. This conversation has become unproductive and I consider it now closed. Your disagreement is noted. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 12:59, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Er, checking my correspondence, no other staff were involved. As the only person that actually did all the planning and execution of the uploads, my email records are complete. These uploaded non-free files are not part of any Wikimedia UK project and the Q1 report is misrepresenting these facts to the FDC and providing a significantly distorted top level performance report. --Fæ (talk) 13:11, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Different again; now you didn't discuss with Katie (or you did but not in a way that 'involved' WMUK). As I said, your disagreement is noted. I will not be prolonging this discussion. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:27, 9 June 2014 (BST)

No, not "different again", please assume good faith. My email with Katie was not in any way part of my uploads of these images, in fact the emails clarified that this was before any Wikimedia UK support of Faebot's work.

This matter has been raised on the FDC Q1 discussion page on meta. As you have confirmed that the board of Wikimedia UK is not prepared to discuss the facts with the unpaid volunteer who actually did the work, that seems the only way that any factual corrections would ever be made now. --Fæ (talk) 13:43, 9 June 2014 (BST)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Highlighted for the Funds Dissemination Committee at meta:Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round1/WMUK/Progress_report_form/Q1. --Fæ (talk) 16:49, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Note re: timeliness of publication

It should be noted that the Q1 report card was published on 5 June. The board meeting is tomorrow, 7 June. The board agreed with the Chief Executive that reports for a board meeting would be published at least seven days in advance, so that the board and interested members of the charity had the opportunity to review the board pack and raise questions in time for the board meeting. I would be surprised if all trustees are happy in being given two days to review top level reports from the Chief Executive, rather than the agreed minimum of a week. Why have the trustees accepted receiving late reports on this occasion, particularly the most important ones which are of interest to the FDC?

As an active volunteer, I cannot review the report card and its supporting evidence to ask sensible, or well researched, questions in time for the trustees to benefit from any issue raised. I doubt that many members of the charity will notice this report and review it in time to raise questions, I would not be surprised if my question about a single number were to be the only one raised today, being the last day before the board meeting. --Fæ (talk) 14:17, 6 June 2014 (BST)

(ec) The report was made available to the trustees on 28 May. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:23, 6 June 2014 (BST)

The board meeting does not close community comments. Anyone can raise ask questions at any time. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 14:26, 6 June 2014 (BST)

I note that you do not disagree with the fact that "The board agreed with the Chief Executive that reports for a board meeting would be published at least seven days in advance". This has not happened.

The practicalities are that if any member of the charity raises a concern about a report going to the board meeting, they need to raise it today in order for it to be dealt with. If I raised my above question about 6.5% on Monday, after the board meeting, based on my experience with other questions (such as #Where can I find 2014 programmes as opposed to just budget? which has been waiting for nearly a month for the answer "it does not exist"), I have little doubt that I would be likely to be indefinitely ignored or given non-answers resulting in no corrections being made. By the board of trustees accepting these reports last week, yet allowing the Chief Executive to delay their publication on-wiki until just two days before the meeting, members and volunteers of the charity are actively being dis-empowered and disenfranchised by not being granted the privilege of a timely voice that might influence board decisions.

<personal attack removed by me. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:31, 6 June 2014 (BST) > --Fæ (talk) 15:19, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Refactoring under discussion. --Fæ (talk) 17:03, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Digital design work required

Hello everyone. Wikimedia UK has today uploaded a call for quotes to provide two pieces of digital design - a small website and some email templates. Quotes are welcome from all parties and should be provided by the end of 13 June 2014. You can see the brief here. For more information please email stevie.bentonwikimedia.org.uk. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 17:24, 6 June 2014 (BST)

I am not entirely convinced by the need for the extra website, if it reflects our way of working and values etc I suspect it could look much like the existing one but I think that discussion has been had. As for the professionally designed newsletters - at last! Not everything needs to be done in house just because people are willing to take it on. I hope this will pay for itself 10 times over in increased donations and volunteering. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:29, 6 June 2014 (BST)

Good point Philafrenzy. Was there a discussion with the community about creating a (presumably entirely employee controlled website) to serve as a front for the UK charity, thereby replacing this wiki for that function, which has always been open to active volunteer control and participation?

I recall a past discussion which can be found in the archives, where the majority of volunteers rejected this approach. --Fæ (talk) 17:48, 8 June 2014 (BST)

The board considers that this approach is required to increase our reach and hence our charitable impact, particularly within the huge pool of potential new volunteers and supporters who are aligned with our aims but who are not already committed Wikimedians. This will be of particular importance in the coming months as the charity's website starts to receive increased visibility due to Wikimania. The charity wishes to avoid focusing exclusively on the relatively small Wikimedia activist communities and to reach out more widely to all who support our aims. The board is aware of your opposition and of the previous discussions on this topic. Nevertheless, we think it the right thing to do, for the reasons which are very well set out in the brief. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:42, 8 June 2014 (BST)

To be clear, I mentioned previous community discussion, not my viewpoint. Please do not marginalize community discussion as "your opposition", thanks.

Thank you for confirming that there has been no subsequent discussion with the community since this was last discussed, instead this is purely an initiative of the board. --Fæ (talk) 18:48, 8 June 2014 (BST)

Thanks for the reply. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2014 (BST)

I hope my previously expressed concerns about this have also been taken into account. Having a separate website that isn't a wiki and excludes volunteers from being able to contribute it, without a clear technical reason for why that can't be the case, still seems like an incredibly bad idea to me. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2014 (BST)

Yes Mike, all expressed concerns have been taken into account. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 20:13, 8 June 2014 (BST)

What is the nature of this taking account? Is there a list somewhere of the expressed concerns and and what was concluded about each? e.g. "concern can be mitigated by..." or "This is highly unlikely to actually happen." or "This is an issue that we need to manage. If managed well, the negative effect will be more than outweighed by the positive effects of the website."

Yaris678 (talk) 15:50, 9 June 2014 (BST)

I don't think anyone has done anything quite that procedural, no. When this was discussed on wiki some were in favour and some some were against. The board has concluded that on balance it is the right thing to do, primarily for the reasons listed above. The approach is a common one and has already been adopted by quite a few chapters, including WMSE, WMCH, WMDE, WMNL and WMFR. We understand and respect the fact that some in the UK community have strongly-held differing views. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:33, 9 June 2014 (BST)

Hello Yaris, there's a few points worth noting here that I hope will help. The wiki is not going anywhere and will remain the primary resource. For those who wish to go straight to the wiki, there will be a simple option on their first visit to add a cookie which will take them to the wiki at every subsequent visit. This is a requirement of the brief. Each page of the website will directly link to the wiki, especially the volunteer, GLAM and education areas. The website will include portals for GLAM, education and volunteering as well as a home page and an about page. These pages will build on existing, community-driven content. This is not an abandonment of our values. Several other significant chapters, including many listed in the brief itself, have websites as well as wikis - this is very much bringing us in-line with the work of other chapters. It is not something new or something that is a departure from the work elsewhere in the movement. It is also a chance to make sure that stuff that is really important for those new to WIkimedia UK, and aren't Wikimedians, is highly accessible. Our wiki, like pretty much any Media Wiki installation I can think of, is not very accessible. We haven't really made any progress with this and it is extremely important that we do so, one way or another. I also want to clarify that existing Wikimedians are not the key audience for this. We want to have a space for newcomers, too. I'm confident this will help us actually grow our volunteer community. I hope this helps, and I'm happy to answer direct questions on my talk page if you would like me to, although here is obviously fine as well. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 17:30, 9 June 2014 (BST)

I'm not massively against having a website, especially if done in the way described. I am just wary of statements like "all expressed concerns have been taken into account." Or was that some kind of in-joke between Michael and Mike?

I've had a look at WMDE and WMSE. WMDE seem to be using MediaWiki in a similar way to our current system. WMSE has a nice-looking non-MediaWiki website, but it doesn't look that different from WikiVoyage. I suppose the main difference is that it doesn't have the tabs at the top and the menu down the side. Is the aim to hide these to newcomers and present them only with things that they can "get" easily, so that we don't overwhelm them?

Yaris678 (talk) 08:15, 16 June 2014 (BST)

I quite like Wikimedia Sweden's site, and also WMCH's. Though I think they should have a clearer link to the Chapter's Wiki. But, I think a Chapter's site is essential to how it's viewed by external organisations and people. Something that is more evocative of our identity, location and work is important to this audience. Additionally, though Wikipedia is the flagship project, Wikimedia isn't just about MediaWiki, and will be increasingly less so as Wikidata grows.

I think it would be interesting to hear from WMDE on what they think about this. A different site is something they might have considered or might be considering, so it would be interesting to hear their views on this.--Stuart Prior (WMUK) (talk) 14:36, 16 June 2014 (BST)

Yes, opinions from other selected chapters would be useful input, and something to be carefully taken into account before making changes rather than afterwards. It remains unclear as to why the process for deciding on this change is no longer a suitable one to be that could ever be reached by consensus with volunteers. Past discussion was not encouraging, nor was general opinion from volunteers on Wikimediauk-l. Value 3 "Community" of Vision, values and mission suggests that our decision making processes should always be designed to put the volunteer at the centre of driving fundamental changes. When opinion is divided, I would expect reasonable consensus with volunteers to become more important to achieve, rather than a situation where the Chief Executive and the board of trustees are not successfully bringing significant proportions of volunteer opinions along with their plans.

As has been highlighted above, "all expressed concerns have been taken into account" appears dismissive and intended to firmly close down any potential discussion, rather than remaining cooperative and consultative in line with our values put in place to underpin the way the charity operates. --Fæ (talk) 15:35, 16 June 2014 (BST)

Non-transparency

Briefly looking through Reports 7Jun14, I am surprised to see some of the documents listed that are being kept secret to board members and employees. Unfortunately I can only see the titles. Could the following have explanations added as to why it is critical that they are kept as secret documents? My assumption is that the trustees are taking care to ensure the number of non-transparent reports, documents and plans are kept to an absolute minimum, such as for serious legal reasons or personal privacy matters.

Draft annual report 2013-14 (confidential) - unless I am misunderstanding what this is, I believe the basics of the draft annual report was public in past years and volunteers could help correct and prepare it.
Audit and Risk Committee minutes - there was a previous commitment by the ARC to publish minutes on the public wiki.
Wikimania budget (confidential) - Wikimania 2014 should be run as an open book project, rather than with secret budgeting restricted to the UK Chapter. It is run on behalf of the global movement and should have the collaborative support of other organizations which means keeping plans and preparations as open and transparent as possible.
Memorandum of Understanding for accepting a Gift in Kind (draft) - a draft generic MOU would be based on best practice, and should have nothing confidential in it.
State of Wikimedia UK, June 2014

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:05, 11 June 2014 (BST)

Strangely enough that very question is scheduled for discussion at a meeting tomorrow. I will report the outcome here. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:53, 11 June 2014 (BST)

OK, now have some answers:

1. Draft annual report 2013-14 - this actually refers to the formal Annual Report and Financial Statements that the charity has to lodge as an annual return with the Charity Commission. That becomes a public document once it has been shared with our members and been lodged with the Charity Commission. You'll be able to see it then.

1a. There is as I am sure you know a separate non-statutory Annual Review that is published both online and in the form of a brochure that can be handed out at the AGM. That document includes all the legal stuff and in addition has an overview of the charity's work during the last 12 months. As in previous years, an early draft version of the Annual Review will be made available to members and volunteers to ensure good community input. That is likely to be in a week or so when the draft initial layout comes back from the designer and we are ready to start work on the content.

2. Audit and Risk Committee minutes - the ARC is actively checking the minutes now and they will be published shortly, probably in full but the committee chair just needs to confirm that.

3. Wikimania budget - will be published within the next 24 hours.

4. Memorandum of Understanding for accepting a Gift in Kind (draft) - this is a specific legal agreement with a specific organisation that is under active negotiation and is correctly held in confidence. If a draft generic MOU comes out of it, that will be published as a draft for discussion and as a potential guide to best practice.

5. State of Wikimedia UK, June 2014 - this document included some confidential matters that were presented to the board. Those matters are being redacted and the document will be published within the next 24 hours.

I understand that it's not always easy, or indeed possible, to work out solely from the title of a document exactly why it is listed as confidential. From the next board meeting we will be publishing our reasons for confidentially alongside the title of each document that we are not able to make available publicly. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:37, 12 June 2014 (BST)

3. Done. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 17:56, 12 June 2014 (BST)

MichaelMaggs Thanks for the prompt response. Since Mike Peel left the board, who always acted as our conscience when it came to minimizing use of in-camera reports, he was certainly mine, it is good to have the impression that there are current trustees who take this as seriously. I look forward to better annotation against in-camera documents, this will be a worthwhile improvement. --Fæ (talk) 23:05, 12 June 2014 (BST)

The ARC minutes, 'State of Wikimedia UK', and Wikimania budget are all now public. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 13:48, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Removal of sysop rights

Could someone re-add my sysop rights? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:05, 13 June 2014 (BST)

I am afraid that community admin rights on the charity's websites are restricted to members of the charity only. MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:24, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Firstly that is not actually true, as you can judge if you look at the current list of admins, secondly I already renewed my membership of the charity before my sysop rights were removed. Could someone provide a link to where it was agreed that all admins had to be active members of the charity? Thanks --Fæ (talk) 15:27, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Your application for membership has yet to be considered. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 15:30, 13 June 2014 (BST)

It would be quite hard to explain why the current Chief Executive would not let a previous Chairman of the charity pay for membership, and be denied a voice in the coming elections, while active Wikipediocracy "hasten teh day" lobbyists were given no barriers to membership. My question to MichaelMaggs remains, where was this agreed? As someone who was part of agreeing the early definitions of what the role of administrators should be on this wiki, I would have thought I would remember it.

In the meantime, while folks consider the nature of bureaucracy, please restore my sysop rights which I have used effectively on this wiki for a good many years, indeed long before most of the current members of the board considered becoming members of the charity. Good faith should apply to me and hopefully some good will, even if I have raised difficult issues about the charity and its performance, most of which have in the long term been supported by published facts and unfolding events. --Fæ (talk) 15:35, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Under our rules we cannot allow anyone who is not a member, contractor or member of staff to have sysop rights. Our membership rules are generous allowing members six months in which to renew. The board will be considering your application for membership and until that happens nothing more can be done. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk)

Please provide a link to where it was agreed that non-members could not retain sysop rights. Perhaps someone could identify all current administrators that are not current paid up members too? --Fæ (talk) 17:13, 13 June 2014 (BST)

The change seems to have been made by Michael Maggs at [2]. It's not clear whether that document has been re-approved by the board, or whether it's a change made by Michael alone. I find the change a bit puzzling - given that the strategic goals of WMUK were focused on 'volunteers' rather that 'members', I don't understand why things have gone the opposite way in this case. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:07, 15 June 2014 (BST)

~~Here's the time-line from my point of view:~~

On 9 June I raise a public whistle-blowing complaint as an alert to the Funds Dissemination Committee with regard to the Chief Executive's report misrepresenting figures, after having exhausted local discussion on the UK wiki.[3]

On 10 June I get an unexpected note against WMUK supported Commons project that a condition of funding was to publish relevant source code. An hour later I provide a link to where source code had been published in April.[4]

At 16:43 on 13 June, I got a reminder about my membership with a warning list about what might happen should I not renew. I was visiting Cancer Research UK in the afternoon to advise on a forthcoming image project for Commons, and stayed out late for dinner with Johnbod, discussing issues related to his Wikimedian in Residence as funded by the UK Chapter, so did not notice it until after 10pm.

On 14 June @08:21 (today), based on yesterday's prompt, I paid my membership.

At 13:09 my sysop rights on the UK Wiki were removed.

At 15:46 my payment was rejected by the UK Charity, according to Paypal, with no courtesy correspondence from the UK Charity.

~~At 16:45 in follow up to my previous advice to The Royal Society, I receive an email with information that will help me to support their on-going image releases under the UK funded project there.~~

Please refer to timeline below. --Fæ (talk) 21:43, 13 June 2014 (BST)

In what way is this a normal process? Do all members get handled like this? By the way, my understanding is that the Chief Executive has responsibility and authority for membership, only reporting to the trustees, this was changed by the board of trustees some time ago, in fact the change happened while I was still a trustee so I recall it fairly well. I'm surprised to see the Chief Executive is claiming the trustees need to make this decision when as far as I can tell, this was officially delegated. --Fæ (talk) 16:47, 13 June 2014 (BST)

The charity does not publicly discuss any application made by an individual for admission as a company member, and will not be doing so in this case. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:14, 13 June 2014 (BST)

I think the charity can discuss my application with me, it has not.

It would be entirely appropriate for my general questions about Chief Executive delegation and process to have public answers with links to the relevant agreed policies or process. --Fæ (talk) 17:17, 13 June 2014 (BST)

I don't want to get into an unproductive and long discussion but in defence of the staff and our systems you may have forgotten that like all members who had forgotten to renew you were reminded on quite a few occasions, on newsletters for example, and most recently on 14 May, 14:49 when you were emailed about expired membership, on 21st May, at 10:30 sent a reminder about the previous email, on the 21st May, 12:43 you acknowledged receipt and stated the first email had ended up in spam. The rules for admins are here https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Permissions_Policy Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Why would you ask someone to rejoin by sending out reminder e-mails if you do not want them to rejoin. Just accept Fae's payment, restore his sysop permissions and stop being awkward. 87.113.201.2 21:13, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Can you guys please publish the email that Richard sent to Fae on 12 June. Let's put the entire thing in context shall we. Russavia (talk) 17:59, 13 June 2014 (BST)

I made some minor amendments to the timeline above. As these have all been reverted, sadly without checking with me so that I could sort this out myself and avoid pointless escalation. Instead I'll repost the timeline again here, so there can be absolutely no confusion. Please ignore the above timeline as irrelevant, and consider this one my intended statement: Here's the time-line from my point of view:

Monday 9 June, I raise a public whistle-blowing complaint as an alert to the Funds Dissemination Committee with regard to the Chief Executive's report, after having exhausted local discussion on the UK wiki.[5]
Tuesday 10 June, I get an unexpected note against my WMUK supported Commons project that a condition of funding was to publish relevant source code. An hour later I provide a link to where source code had been published in April.[6]
Thursday 12 June, at 16:43 I get a reminder about my membership with a warning list about what might happen should I not renew. I was visiting Cancer Research UK in the afternoon to advise on a forthcoming image project for Commons, and stayed out late for dinner with Johnbod, discussing issues related to his Wikimedian in Residence as funded by the UK Chapter, so did not notice it until after 10pm.
Friday 13 June, at 08:21 (today), based on yesterday's prompt, I paid my membership.
—At 12:00 I refresh a batch upload in response to email correspondence, now hitting 15,000 images to Commons as part of a special collaboration with Andy Mabbett, shortly to be the subject of a post on the UK blog. All are marked as supported by the Chapter.[7]
—At 13:09 my sysop rights on the UK Wiki were removed.
—At 15:46 my payment was rejected by the UK Charity, according to Paypal, with no courtesy correspondence from the UK Charity.
—At 16:45 in follow up to my previous advice to The Royal Society, I receive an email with information that will help me to support their on-going image releases under the UK funded project there.

--Fæ (talk) 21:43, 13 June 2014 (BST)

For the reasons for this please refer to User talk:Fæ#Retrospective 'improvement' of your posts. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 21:48, 13 June 2014 (BST)

Login errors - clarifying text needed

Can we get some text added to the log-in page, telling people that their Wikipedia/ sister project login will not work here, and that a new account is required (but can use the same user name)? Twice recently, people have contacted me, asking why they can't log on, as a result of that issue. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:45, 14 June 2014 (BST)

+1 I've had similar contacts from experienced editors who automatically presume SUL will work. --Fæ (talk) 13:28, 14 June 2014 (BST)

Engine room

Contents

Museum photography

Something more proactive?

Where can I find 2014 programmes as opposed to just budget?

Proposed amendments to update charity's security and data protection policies: Revised Deadline of 5th June!

Page links

International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance part two

Trustee Expenses

Non-renewal of our fundraiser agreement

2014 Annual General Meeting

BBC article - Wikipedia and health

Affiliate-selected seats on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation - results

Q1 report card

Query regarding G1.2 quality of content

Reply to query re: G1.2

Note re: timeliness of publication

Digital design work required

Non-transparency

Removal of sysop rights

Login errors - clarifying text needed

Navigation menu

Engine room

Museum photography

Something more proactive?

Where can I find 2014 programmes as opposed to just budget?

Proposed amendments to update charity's security and data protection policies: Revised Deadline of 5th June!

Page links

International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance part two

Trustee Expenses

Non-renewal of our fundraiser agreement

2014 Annual General Meeting

BBC article - Wikipedia and health

Affiliate-selected seats on the board of the Wikimedia Foundation - results

Q1 report card

Query regarding G1.2 quality of content

Reply to query re: G1.2

Note re: timeliness of publication

Digital design work required

Non-transparency

Removal of sysop rights

Login errors - clarifying text needed

Navigation menu

Search