Wikimedia New York City/2012July25

On 25 July 2012 at 8pm local time Wikimedia New York City held its regular monthly conference call. There was no pre-announced agenda.

Participants edit

Minutes edit

  1. Richard reminded the group of Wiki Loves Monuments, the September 2012 contest, and proposed a NYC walking tour wherein people take pictures in order to participate in the event.
  2. DGG stated his interest in supporting the NYPL in developing articles on the arts. The NYPL has had an open call for an unpaid Wikipedian in Residence in the performing arts.
  3. At Wikimania, some Boston meetup organizers invited some NYC members to come to a Boston meetup before the end of August. Various people on the call expressed tentative interest
  4. The status of officership in Wikimedia New York City was raised. Previously at the annual meeting the members of the organization accepted nominations for 9 officers and executed the election. At the time, no officers were named. It was re-confirmed by all participants in the call that the positions of president, treasurer, and secretary are essential to name, and then all remaining officer positions can have any title. The previously elected president, treasurer, and secretary were all on the call and expressed that they would be happy to serve in these capacities. The participants in the call all stated support for the continuation of the past titles until the next election.
  5. Pharos described his attendance of the Wikipedia Education Summit which happened for the two days after the Wikimania conference. He reported that the WMF has called for the Wikipedia Education Program to be adopted by an independent organization. We discussed the problem that there is no identified leader in the United States to head this program.
  6. The group was talking about the history of Wikimedia NYC and we decided that it was not properly recorded. Blueasberry, DGG, and Roman stated special interest in developing history.
  7. Bluerasberry introduced Doc James’ proposal to start a Wikimedia Medicine. He shared the link to the proposal page for this topic. The possibility of this project being based in NYC was raised. The members also talked about other proposals for thematic chapters, including an Education Program chapter, an LGBT chapter, and an Open Access chapter.
  8. Becksguy stated that the organizational bank account held about 1500 and that there was about $200 in the Paypal account. The question was raised as to why money was in the paypal account. The consensus was that there was no particular reason why money was in paypal.
  9. We talked about whether it would be useful to have a Wikimedia NYC grant manager and someone to seek funding possibilities.
  10. The members raised planning issues for Wikipedia Loves Libraries 2012 and called for outreach to more libraries.
  11. Roman raised the issue of Wikimedia NYC’s acceptance of bitcoin donations. The group said that this may cause problems. Judgment deferred.