Open Board meeting, August 2005

A meeting was held on IRC on August 27, 2005 to discuss general Foundation-related issues. The meeting was open to anyone. The full transcript is included below. Another log is visible here (different presentation and timestamp included; pick up the best for you :-)). An agenda was published at [1].

* brion changes topic to 'MEETING NOW | Open Wikimedia Foundation Meeting | 27 August, 20:00 UTC (see http://tinyurl.com/alsfg) | Agenda: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda#August_week_4

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<JamesF> VampWillow> Yes, #wikimedia.

<Anthere> second, angela, do we keep the wikinews topic ?

<yannf> i would like to announce that 16 subdomains were created for wikisource, thanks to brion for creating them

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<brion> woo

<mark-> no, I made the subdomains!

<mark-> brion created the wikis ;-)

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<mark-> *will shut up now*

* brion thanks mark- profusely

<Anthere> issues listed are here : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Board_agenda#August_week_4

<yannf> mark-, brion, ok thanks to mark- for creating the subdomains, and to brion for creating the wikis ;)

<Anthere> note that the log will be publicly posted on meta

<Anthere> so, say only what you wish to be public

<TimShell> Ant - we were requested to discuss the Dutch Royal Library issue first

<Anthere> who requested this ?

<soufron> yes

<empoor-effe> i did

<GerardM> ah

<TimShell> empoor

<Anthere> for which reason in one line ?

<soufron> this was not on the topic?

<empoor-effe> no, effe

<Jtkiefer> so what was the issue?

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<TimShell> He bicycled across Holland and is tired

<Angela> I think the wikinews thing should be discussed. It isn't acceptable for some of them to continue with this confused GFDL thing

<Angela> and I thought Tim asked to Danny to chair, but I don't mind

<Anthere> Tim did not tell me

<TimShell> Anthere can chair if she wants

<Anthere> effe, why do you ask to change the day ?

<empoor-effe> i got no day at whitch it should be discussed

<Anthere> right

<Anthere> so

<Anthere> # KB - contacts and cooperation

<Anthere> # Status of Wikicouncil

<Anthere> # Wikinews: license and Chinese version

<Anthere> # seed wiki for potential new projects

<empoor-effe> in first i thought i couldn't be here

<Anthere> # Possible wiki closures: Simple, Klingon, Sep11, Others...?

<Anthere> KB, 5 mn

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<Anthere> wikinews 10 or 15 ?

<Anthere> seed wiki 5 ?

<Phroziac> Angela: what is this confused gfdl thing?

<Anthere> closure 5-10

<Anthere> rest for wikicouncil

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<Anthere> is that all right ?

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<Anthere> I would suggest we end up with council

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* the_Epopt moves to accept the agenda.

<soufron> yes

<dannyisme> yes

* Phroziac too

<apper> yes

<soufron> I am in romania in the middle of my hollydays

<soufron> so please...

<Anthere> angela, tim ?

<TimShell> Good plan Ant

<soufron> lets keep up with the agenda first

<Angela> sure

<Anthere> KB 5 mn

<empoor-effe> The KB offered to give us inn the idea of the project " Het geheugen van nederland" 85.000 pics. there is not yet sure with whitch licence or what, bur it might be very well possible that it's gonna be something like

<empoor-effe> no-commercial

<empoor-effe> or just-wiki

<empoor-effe> not sure anything

<Angela> it's a shame Jimbo isn't here since he wanted to explain why non-commercial wasn't acceptable

<soufron> well

<Anthere> so, a bit like NASA stuff

<dannyisme> would we accept it under those terms

<empoor-effe> and some requests about the linking to the database

<JamesF> Hmm. That's bad.

<Anthere> non commercial only

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<soufron> the thing is that

<soufron> this content MAY be public domain

<MessedRocker> i want to donate to wikipedia, but i need the money i have for lunch

<apper> non-commercial is bad

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<Jtkiefer> Angela, I think non commercial isn't preferential because that would disallow wikimedia from releasing the information on a CD or other media device

<soufron> then, they would like to license it somehow... but if its PD who cares about the license

<JamesF> Angela> It's quite simple why it's bad - it stops people (say, us) from selling printed versions of it to fund, say, handing out printed copies to villages in Africa.

<Anthere> agreed

<soufron> first of all we need to know the statute of this content

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<soufron> and the kind of license they want to propose

<kim_bruning> that wins over Anthere :-)

<soufron> it s pointless to discuss now

<the_Epopt> non-commercial is bad, and drastically limits our future developments

<soufron> we know nothing

<JamesF> Yes.

<Anthere> who can discuss with them ?

<soufron> we all agree that NC is not a viable option

<JamesF> The ban on NC must stay.

<kim_bruning> just frame limitations for empoor-effe

<kim_bruning> Anthere, empoor-effe is the contact IIRC

<empoor-effe> i can discuss with KB

<apper> wikimedia and wikipedia stand for free content and so we should try to get the pictures as free as possible

<dannyisme> effe, can you clarify what the status will be?

<Angela> why is there a dispute on nl about this? Is anyone saying we should accept non-commercial?

<kim_bruning> Angela, Nl community iirc

<soufron> empoor-effe can we stay in touch on this one ?

<empoor-effe> no, not yet

<Jtkiefer> what would people think of the eventual phasing out of non commercial license choices in terms of users licensing their content

<Jtkiefer> just an idea

<empoor-effe> soufron, of cource

<VampWillow> is there any margin in a non-commercial licence that permits commercial exploitation direct by WM and its projects?

<soufron> empoor-effe great

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: i would agree with that.

<soufron> empoor-effe then, when could you enter in touch with them ?

<kim_bruning> VampWillow, not good enough

<empoor-effe> but

<JamesF> VampWillow> Only if we were assigned the copyright. And (a) we don't want to do that, and (b) we /really/ don't want to do that.

<empoor-effe> i have to mention

<VampWillow> kim_b ... I agree, but I hate to lose content

<Jtkiefer> Vamp, I think you can give wikimedia certain extra rights but I don't think that follows entirely under the philosophy

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<empoor-effe> that the KB is planning to give a lot more of sourcemateria;l

<JamesF> VampWillow> Because if, say, the WMF was sued into the ground, the plaintiff would now own the copyright.

<empoor-effe> if this works out well

<kim_bruning> VampWillow, free content only, we're going to lose most of the 20th century anyway. let's make sure we don't lose the 21st at least

<empoor-effe> a lot of books

<empoor-effe> and more photo=material

* Anthere wonders if we should not write a little something to explain why NC is bad...

<JamesF> empoor> But it's only going to work out well if it's non-commercial.

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<MessedRocker> What -is- non-commercial?

<Anthere> to clarify both with editors and externals

<soufron> stop this

<soufron> we dont need to talk about NC or stuff

<GerardM> When we get a major historical resource then we should use it a repository. Not only for ourselves. IT is GFDL or CC-by and how much more would be acceptable.

<kim_bruning> Angela, nl.wikipedia sometimes has this idea that they should be heard on all wikimedia projects in .nl

<Angela> MessedRocker: it means the images can't be used for commercial purposes

<soufron> we just need to know how to get ni touch with kb

<JamesF> MessedRocker> A licence that prohibits use in commercial situations.

<mindspillage> HM. There must be somethign somewhere already written as to why NC is bad, if only on mailing list discussion and hidden in a few paragraphs on Meta...

<soufron> and on what basis

<kim_bruning> Angela, (rightly or wrongly)

<Anthere> summary, empoor-effe, you handle this and keep us informed

<Anthere> okay ?

<MessedRocker> Apparently Angela, but how does this affect Wikipedia?

<Anthere> if necessry contact juriwiki-l

<GerardM> Commercial mirrors are allowed under our license and not allowing them to see these pictures is bad

<MessedRocker> You're referring to copyrighted images being used under fair use?

<britty> kim_bruning many wikis do exactly so; without fair use - en wiki is out of standard at this point

<kim_bruning> mindspillage, don't forget the entire fsf.org :-)

<empoor-effe> i'll keep ionformed

<Anthere> good

<soufron> great

<the_Epopt> messedrocker, no, this has nothing to do with copyright

<Anthere> so next point are wikinews

<Angela> I don't see how he can handle it if the community want to have these images and aren't accepting that they can't be NC

<Anthere> big mess

<empoor-effe> is there a contact to inform?

<kim_bruning> britty, en.wikipedia has fair use, not all others do though

<Anthere> angela, can you summarize wikinews issues to us ?

<Angela> we shouldn't just ignore this issue and let the uploads go ahead

<kim_bruning> britty, or do you mean most wikis don't do fair use?

<Jtkiefer> Angela, so you'd be in favor of favoring out NC licenses

<Ed_Poor> I think we should avoid anything that opens up WMF to being 'sued into the ground'. We should also pre-emptively protect against involuntary assignment of copyrights by making SURE everything we need to have GFDL'ed *cannot* be taken over by tricky legal strategems.

<Jtkiefer> err phasing out

<Angela> I think we can't have them on Wikimedia projects

<britty> (nods to kim_bruning

<Jtkiefer> Ed, what you are talking about would eliminate all free use

<Phroziac> I agree with Ed_Poor

<Jtkiefer> which I agree with as well

<soufron> ???

<dannyisme> agree with ed poor

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<kim_bruning> britty, wisely imho :-)

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: hmm, i don't agree.

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<JamesF> Jtkiefer> Phasing out? We can't phase them out, because we don't accept them right now.

<MessedRocker> I think for the CD or DVD edition of Wikipedia, we replace all copyrighted images with free-license types

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<JamesF> Ed_Poor> Agreed.

<Jtkiefer> JamesF, enwiki does, none of the other ones do

<Jtkiefer> JamesF, should have clarified that

<GerardM> The thing is the KB sees this as an experiment with Wikipedia. They want an reliable partner. If this material is unusable for many of our own projects I think we fail miserably in the reliable department

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: sure, it could get us sued, but fair use should be usable. it's *made* to be used.

<Angela> is there anyone from nl here who can explain this to those not here so that the uploads do not go ahead?

<Ed_Poor> JTK, what I am *worried* about would eliminate all free use. We must be pro-active. I think FSF can help with legal wording.

<MessedRocker> KB being...

<kim_bruning> But lets negotiate with KB

<kim_bruning> worst case Nothing Happens XYZZY

<VampWillow> en WP has "fair use" images but would be better if it didn't, especially as "fair use" is defined differently in different countries ...

<kim_bruning> MessedRocker, Koninklijke Bibliotheek (dutch royal library)

<Jtkiefer> PHroziac, it's not fair use that concerns me it's the fact that people are claiming everything under the sun fair use

<soufron> Ed_Poor the fact that anyone can edit an article is enough of a legal threat

<mindspillage> Jtkiefer, enwiki doesn't accept NC images. We just don't speedy on sight but rather list them as copyright problems if they were uploaded before a certain time.

<soufron> Ed_Poor and only authors and uploaders are liable

<dungodung> there is no fair use in Serbia

<Phroziac> What about fair use only on obvious things like logos?

<soufron> so plise

<GerardM> When we have organisations like the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (akin to the Library of Congress) you do not want to apear amateurish

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<JamesF> Vamp> I agree, Fair Use imagery is often worse than with-permission.

<MessedRocker> yeah

<Angela> we don't have time to discuss fair use today, but can we have some agreement that these NC images are not going to be uploaded?

<MessedRocker> like making a first impression to the queen of england

<MessedRocker> if you screw it up, you're screwed

<MessedRocker> no pun intended

<britty> en wikiquote avoid free use also, though it can enjoy fair use

<Phroziac> Angela: i agree

<VampWillow> far worse, James, as 'fair use' in USA isn't 'fair use' in UK or Germany!

<apper> Angela: I agree

<kim_bruning> Angela, we don't know if they'll be NC, they won't be uploaded without further discussion

<the_Epopt> Yes, NC images are Not Allowed.

<Angela> right, but if they are, they can't be uploaded?

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<kim_bruning> Angela, errr, yeah

<TimShell> I think this is settled

<kim_bruning> Angela, Mu

<David59> I have an idea (probably, you have got same idea), i think we do one cd for one portal (one big portal) exemple:one cd mathematics (or sciences) one other transportation (with planes, cars...)

* MessedRocker crowns angela

<britty> Angela agreed

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<Angela> ok

<David59> you have got this idea?

<Jtkiefer> I move to continue on to wiki closures since this discussion is going nowhere

<TimShell> Someone will go and get clarifications from the Dutch Royal Library about this

<mark-> until then there will be no uploads

<kim_bruning> TimShell, and we'll see where it goes from there!

<empoor-effe> still KB?

<mark-> next issue!

<empoor-effe> or wikinews?

<kim_bruning> empoor-effe, just closing now

<VampWillow> Dutch Royal Library need to confirm in writing what they licence us to do with the image

<kim_bruning> next issue

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<Ed_Poor> I'm deeply concerned about this, because the Encyclopedia Project plans to use (via GFDL) tens of thousands of articles intact; another large group professionally modified (and then, of course, re-released to the world IAW GFDL). They'd hate to spend $$$ and have it on shaky legal ground.

<Anthere> WE ARE ALREADY 5 MN LATE FOR SOMETHING NOT ON THE SCHEDULE

<empoor-effe> and the contact

<empoor-effe> to inform

<David59> and i think. It's important to create one other portal (portal:basic encyclopaedia)

* the_Epopt calls for the orders of the day.

<kim_bruning> ORDER!

<britty> (counts the number of WN projects - 14

<Anthere> so, Angela, can you remind us of the two wikinews issues ?

<Angela> some Wikinewses are GFDL

<Austin> That's bad.

<dungodung> e.g.?

<britty> and other(s) CC-BY

<MessedRocker> TimStarling?

<soufron> ?

<MessedRocker> Where have I heard of TimStarling before...

<MessedRocker> Probably on Wikipedia

<Angela> http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikinews-l/2005-August/000286.html - Dariusz writes "The Spanish, Serbian and Romanian editions are all licensed under the GNU FDL, and the Japanese edition is licensed under CC-By."

* Meanos is now known as jd_

<soufron> well

<SonicR> others are public domain

<TimStarling> sorry I was late, it's 6:18am here

<kim_bruning> some wikinewses are public domain too

<Jtkiefer> Angela, what is the preferred license

<kim_bruning> hello TimStarling , good morning

<Phroziac> Angela: wow, i thought they were all pd

<Angela> they were supposed to all start as PD

<Austin> For practical reasons, I'd say PD.

<soufron> ..

<dungodung> Angela: who said sr wikinews was GFDL?

<soufron> wikinews cannot be PD

<britty> Austin legally impossible

<Anthere> french is PD

<Angela> sr.wikinews.org says it

<dungodung> where?

<soufron> its impossible in many legislations to renounce your copyright

<britty> that is why ja has chosen cc-by

<TimStarling> cc-by should be good enough for any reuser

<soufron> wikinews using PD are simply illegal

<soufron> and they made a big mistake

<Phroziac> soufron: why?

<soufron> you cant chose your content to be PD in may countries

<Jtkiefer> soufron, the license it as you much but release all rights

<dungodung> .........: ...... ..... .. ......... .. ........ .... ......... ...... ...... ... . .. .. ...... ...... ..... .. ...... ......, ... .. .. .... ...... ......... ......

<JamesF> CC-BY is essentially EU-PD, of course.

<Angela> and Erik tried to make a page to discuss it, but Dan100 got upset that it was put on meta to be discussed internationally and not only on English Wikinews

<soufron> and there are no equivalents like there are with fair use

<dungodung> translated in short: you are denouncing every right

<soufron> for example, the french wikinews is simply... proprietary !!!!

<Austin> It needn't be recognized as PD everywhere.

<Austin> Elsewhere it's simply "free reuse."

<soufron> because it cannot be PD under french law

<Angela> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License

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<soufron> its better to use a very simple license

<kim_bruning> soufron, Ouw, broken

<Med> soufron: it will ... in many years ;)

<Jtkiefer> soufron, you can still give all rights to reuse

<kim_bruning> soufron, Okay.

<soufron> Med exactly

<SonicR> what happens to the PD contend when another licence will be chosen?

<kim_bruning> soufron, what do you propose?

<soufron> Jtkiefer yes, I would call it a very simple and dangerous license

<Angela> SonicR: content already PD stays PD

<cspurrier> Dan100 was not upset that it was put on meta, just that it was not also announced on en wikinews

<britty> austin agreed

<Phroziac> soufron: kinda like CC-BY?

<soufron> Jtkiefer but its better than plain said-to-be-PD

<kim_bruning> CC-PD?

<dungodung> ... ........ .. ........... .. . ...... .......... - everything written here is in public domain

* kim_bruning wonders

<VampWillow> aiui the problem is that in some places PD doesn't exist so can't carry to a re-user for that content to stay as-near-PD-as-possible

<Ed_Poor> Can we use American law for "WikiNews in French"?

<Austin> The practical upshot is the same.

<soufron> Phroziac yes

<Jtkiefer> soufron, I agree only if PD is legally not allowed

<dungodung> Angela: serbian wikinews is PD

<JamesF> Vamp> Yes.

<Angela> it was announced on the mailing list, read by hundreds of people who edit en wikinews. It's hardly my fault not a single one of them could be bothered to copy it there

<kim_bruning> places where PD don't exist seem very sick to me

<britty> btw i heard some complaints and afraid from ja blogsphere

<soufron> Ed_Poor thats not possible at all

<kim_bruning> doesn't exist too

<kim_bruning> brion, go ahead?

<kim_bruning> britty, go ahead even

<kim_bruning> (sorry brion)

<britty> on the fact JAWN has chosen

<JamesF> Ed_Poor> We can, but French contributors, say, can't. Which makes it, well, useless.

<britty> CC_By

<Phroziac> But if it's put in PD here, why does it matter if it's not else where? We won't sue anyone for anything stupid, will we? What about "licensing" it for those areas, so, "use it, we won't sue"?

<Austin> Keep in mind that the French are rather backward re Internet publishing.

<soufron> kim_bruning thats to protect authors

<apper> dungodung: on every page: "Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License."

<britty> specially from media people

<kim_bruning> britty, why is this a problem?

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<Austin> (Everyone knows the recent Yahoo suit, yes?)

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<britty> it would be a possible copyvio

<Phroziac> No, I don't Austin

<kim_bruning> soufron, it only does so to an extent though

<dungodung> apper: then why "accuse" 3 wn's

<Angela> would it be best to make the poll at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License_straw_poll more formal and advertised across all projects?

<Chiacomo> Probably.

<soufron> kim_bruning no trolls, we dont care about the reasons

<britty> in case WN articles are summaries of existing other news articles

<soufron> kim_bruning later

<MessedRocker> yeah

<Phroziac> britty: oh.

<MessedRocker> the neutral summaries

<MessedRocker> which is love

<kim_bruning> britty, Oh dear. Are there any .jp copyright lawyers?

<Jtkiefer> Austin, slightly off topic but we already could be in trouble in France since we don't block them from viewing the articles on Nazism ans cuh

<kim_bruning> soufron, fair deal, don't intend to troll

<brion> what?

<britty> kim_bruning for ja community no

<brion> oh

<Jtkiefer> can PD be used in Japan

<Jtkiefer> or does japanese law not allow it

<britty> pd can used

<soufron> Jtkiefer no

<Angela> acn everyone add their arguments to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License rather than here, and agree on whether there should be a vote and when?

<britty> but japanese people can't release their work in PD

<Austin> Jtk: indeed.

<Phroziac> Sure Angela

<Ed_Poor> What's wrong with GFDL for WikiNews? Let people assign the copyright of their donated texts to WMF and then we license anyone to copy or modify it? Why does it HAVE to be public domain?

<britty> and PD is not the solution here

<soufron> britty normally you cannot decide to put your work under PD in japan

<cspurrier> the issues License straw poll have changed so much that a new poll is the only fair thing

<dannyisme> Angela, can we have a deadline for that?

<britty> Soufron agreed

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<soufron> wikinews can use PD content

<Angela> the deadline was August 17. Maybe make it September 17?

<the_Epopt> Ed, I thought you agreed that WMF shouldn't own any copyrights.

<soufron> but wikinews authors cannot decide that their own works will be PD... they must chose one or several licenses

<SonicR> a new poll would be allright

<cspurrier> Ed_Poor: because GFDL kills Audio Wikinews and the Print Edition

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<soufron> and I srongly suggest

<soufron> they chose A LOT of licenses

<Angela> can everyone from Wikinews here go and advertise this on their projects?

<soufron> massive dual licensing

<britty> WN summary type article can become a sort of copyright laundering

<Angela> this - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/License

<soufron> so that users will be able to pick up the license they want for WN

<britty> or just considered copyvio from the original news agent

<dannyisme> Summary: A page will be opened on meta. Each wikinews will advertise the discussion there. A decision will be made on september 17

<kim_bruning> cspurrier, we still need to talk with Eben Moglen, a lot

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<kim_bruning> cspurrier, maybe we should just pay him

<Angela> or a vote will start Sept 17?

<dannyisme> ok

<kim_bruning> cspurrier, so he can make time free for ys

<kim_bruning> for us

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<dannyisme> a vote, lasting one week will start on sept 17

<Anthere> cspurrier, could we have different licenses depending on materials ?

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, for licence for wikinews?

<britty> but most of editors aren't aware of this possibility (they are young and lack experience to deal with issues - they haven't even written a paper

<VampWillow> danny - definition of electorate?

<dannyisme> yes

<soufron> kim_bruning I am supposed to talk to Eben

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, you can't vote on that

<soufron> kim_bruning soon

<kim_bruning> soufron, YAY!

<britty> a clear guideline abount copyright is necessary imo

<TimStarling> you should have used +zm moderation for this, and enforced some traditional rules of order, an open meeting doesn't have to be a shambles

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, voting to break the law might be a bad idea

<Anthere> one week is too short

<Austin> No kidding.

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<britty> at least 2 weeks

<yannf> dannyisme, one week is not enough for the vote

<dannyisme> kim_bruning, if this is a legal issue, then there is no point in discussing it

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, I suggest consensus finding

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<kim_bruning> dannyisme, it's a legal issue.

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, next point?

<soufron> yes, no vote

<tsca> ppl at PL.wikinews are going to discuss disallowing fair use on the project. It seems many editors are in favour of banning fu. Perhaps also that could be discussed globally ay the same time?

<soufron> plus we are not in a hurry

<soufron> they have been using PD for a while...

<dannyisme> then the legal department will have to report on it

<Jtkiefer> Tim, I disagree, since this is a meeting between all users not just a Q and A with users and the board

<soufron> well 1 or 2 more months wont be a big issue now

<dannyisme> rather than people discussing "what if"

<kim_bruning> tsca, set up a page on meta for that

<Austin> Jtk, simply voice one person at a time.

<JamesF> Jtkiefer> Agreed.

<soufron> I already wrote several mails on thsi topic

<soufron> I suggest

<soufron> to remember me to put them on meta

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<soufron> so that people can comment them

<soufron> I will advertise these pages to legal people

<Jtkiefer> anyway, is it time for the next topic?

<Austin> And for free-for-all discussion, we hav emeta.

<soufron> on juriwiki-l and for other people I know

<soufron> would it be ok ?

<Anthere> chinese wikinews....

<Anthere> summary, soufron completes the page on meta

<dannyisme> what is the issue with chinese wikinews

<Jtkiefer> soufron, yeah, juriwiki should help since they know the respective laws

<TimStarling> Jtkiefer: I wasn't suggesting otherwise

<Anthere> and someone tries to start a vote mid sept ?

<Anthere> againnnnnn

<Angela> I'm not sure there's much point bringing this up now since Jimmy isn't here

<Anthere> agreed

<Jtkiefer> k

<soufron> ko

<dungodung> someone call Jimbo ;)

<soufron> I ll complete the page on meta

<soufron> and we ll talk about it when people will have contributed

<Angela> Anthere: postpone that for now?

<Anthere> agreed

<britty> Angela already advertised on en and ja

<TimStarling> postpone chinese wikinews?

<Anthere> in any cases, we would need some chinese wiki editors

<Anthere> to comment

<Anthere> or a wikicouncil to decide :-)

<MessedRocker> boy am i going to be excited to talk to jimmy-jimmy when he gets here

<dannyisme> next topic

<MessedRocker> that's his birth name? jimmy?

<Anthere> seed wiki for potential new projects

<dori> I don't think the individual wikinews should decide the license, it should be by the foundation for all of them, otherwise it's notfair to future wikinewsies

<Anthere> nota, can you explain this ?

<JamesF> MessedRocker> Yes. He blames his Southern rootes. :-)

<TimStarling> from what I understand from Isaac Mao's Wikimania talk, the chinese wiki editors have already decided

<Anthere> not really

<notafish_> Anthere: the seed wiki?

<MessedRocker> Yeah, because I've never heard of anyone being assigned the name Jimmy

<MessedRocker> James, yes

<Anthere> I talked with 5 of them... and it was not obvious

<Phroziac> I like the idea of a seed wiki..

<Angela> TimShell: what have they decided?

<Angela> the vote was completely split the last I heard

<Anthere> yup

<Jtkiefer> what is this seed wiki proposal?

<TimStarling> don't call me TimShell

<Anthere> :-)

<Angela> sorry. don't have the name Tim

<TimStarling> but we can move on to the next topic if you like

<Anthere> who can explain the seed wiki then ?

<dannyisme> next topic

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<notafish_> ok, seed wiki idea is as follows: Have a wiki where one or more projects co-exist to see if there is potential for them

<britty> shizhao has been busy to prepare zh wikinews though

<dannyisme> this would include new languages

<Angela> new projects as well as new languages?

<dannyisme> NO MORE ZH WIKINEWS

<dori> dannyisme: sounds bad to me, new languages, if legit, should have new wikis

<Jtkiefer> notafish, would it be trimmed as the new wikis are accepted or rejected?

<yannf> dori, the problem is "if legit"

<Anthere> why are the current ones developing on meta, allowed to develop on meta and not anywhere else ?

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<dori> yannf: not a conlang IMO

<dannyisme> dori, this gives them a chance to test themselves, without taking up space on meta

<notafish_> Jtkiefer: yes, although I suppose we should have a set of policies about who can get on the seed wiki

<Angela> currently, they don't get a wiki until there are 5 people wanting it. They're more likely to convince people to want it if they've made some test pages in that language

<notafish_> who stays, who's out etc.

<dannyisme> which is already getting crowded and messy

<Jtkiefer> notafish, yes, otherwise it would grow huge with spam pages

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<dori> can't they start them on wikicities and move them over if approved?

<dannyisme> i would actually like to hear node's view on a seed wiki, as node is our best known advocate of new languages

<the_Epopt> dori, it's the definition of "legit" that's causing the pain.

<britty> dannyisme that is why i objected to test wikis on meta on february

<Angela> we have a WikiLab at http://scratchpad.wikicities.com but some people want this to be within Wikimedia

<mindspillage> I like the seed wiki idea; I concur with Angela's comment.

<dori> the_Epopt: well, the board could establish a baseline

<Anthere> would anyone think wikiversity could go there ?

<Anthere> or should it n ot ?

<Angela> if there is a seed wiki, the board isn't going to have time to approve or not approve every proposal that people want to start there, so there needs to be some policies and a community who can enforce those

<dannyisme> dori, can you describe what you mean about a baseline

<Jtkiefer> I also agree that it would be a good idea but only if there are guidelines

<Jtkiefer> Angela, agreed

<yannf> dori, imho, it is not for the board to decide that

<TimStarling> what domain do you want it at?

<dannyisme> seed.wikimedia.org?

<notafish_> seed.wikimedia.org ?

<dannyisme> lol

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<dori> dannyisme: something along the lines of: 1) have evolved naturally, been spoken x number of people as primary language, etc.

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<Jtkiefer> that would probably work

<dannyisme> ok

<Austin> But how will people remember it?

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<Angela> please don't create it before there are any policies on what can go there

<dannyisme> if a project doesnt take off, will it be erased?

<dori> yannf: why not? of course the board would take community opinion into account

<TimStarling> well, start by creating a seedwiki meta page if there isn't one already

<notafish_> ok, I propose that a team of people work on the policies

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<notafish_> who's interested?

<dannyisme> me

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<yannf> dori, then i call that a community decision, not a board decision

<TimStarling> propose some policies, wait a week, if there's no comments, declare them law and ask me or brion to create the wiki

<Anthere> yannf is correct

<dori> yannf: not really, ultimately the board will decide

<notafish_> TimStarling: good thing

<dannyisme> can we have a seed wiki committee?

* VampWillow raises hand ...

<mindspillage> dannyisme: I'd say not erased but moved at least, or given a dump they can put somewhere else.

<dannyisme> who will join?

<JamesF> VampWillow> Hmm?

<dannyisme> good idea, mindspillage

* Angela thinks it will end up being a fork of Wikicities

<dannyisme> that way they can be revived if there is interest at a later date

<JamesF> Angela> There is that danger. Pre-approval would aide.

* VampWillow raises hand at danny's request ...

<yannf> notafish_, i am

<notafish_> ok, we have dannyisme, VampWillow, yannf

<notafish_> who else

<dori> Angela: I see no reason not to have seed wiki on wikicities

<notafish_> ,

<mindspillage> Angela, why not suggest projects unltimately not accepted by WM move to Wikicites itself?

<TimStarling> I'd be happy if it was used for new languages of approved projects only

<dannyisme> tht could be part of the policy, mindspillage

<mindspillage> Eventually there comes a point where it's the seed sprouts, so to speak.

<VampWillow> there is an issue that something that appears on 'offocial' wiki domain will be perceived as 'official' even if test by only a couple of people without control

<TimStarling> or semi-approved projects like wikiversity

<elian> VampWillow: can be solved with sitenotice

<VampWillow> elian> agreed ...

<notafish_> VampWillow: that's part of the policy making :)

<TimStarling> certainly not for those hundreds of crazy proposals on meta

<Angela> please don't call it seedwiki. That already exists - http://www.seedwiki.com/

<TimStarling> most of them belong on wikicities

* mindspillage doesn't want the responsibility of being on a committee but will probably comment on the ideas

<dannyisme> wikubator

<JamesF> WikiSeeds is nicer.

<elian> but I strongly favour a preapproval

<JamesF> More like scattering in soil and watching them to see if they grow, as it were.

<notafish_> I don't think we should be discussing the policies now

<JamesF> elian> Me too.

<JamesF> Agreed.

<dannyisme> agreed

<notafish_> seed wiki on meta

<mindspillage> Concur with elian and JamesF.

<JamesF> Close the topic?

<notafish_> the people in the team start something

<VampWillow> are we almost heading for a wikicities >> wikiseed >> 'real' wiki process?

<the_Epopt> And not at all like burying them out of sight....

<notafish_> advertise

<notafish_> etc.

<dannyisme> yes

<notafish_> and then we'll see

<TimStarling> I don't think the board has to worry about the costs of approval

<TimStarling> it doesn't take long to say no

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<dannyisme> next topic

<dannyisme> wikicouncil

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<Angela> I thought possible wiki closures was next

<Angela> anthere wanted to leave wikicouncil till last

<dannyisme> oh, sorry

<JamesF> Yes.

<JamesF> Closures.

<dannyisme> closures

<the_Epopt> Closures! Closures!

<Austin> Close them all!

<dungodung> close 'em all

<JamesF> Close everything! ;-)

<dungodung> lol

* JamesF laughs.

<Angela> people are constantly suggesting Simple, Klingon, Sep11, etc are closed, but nothing is ever done about them

* dori flips open sign to closed

<britty> simple?

<VampWillow> Q1: what happens to content. locked or deleted?, Q2: justification of why do so ...?

<mark-> klingon IS closed/locked by brion afaik

<Austin> I approve wholeheartedly of closing all three.

<mindspillage> ....Sep11 isn't closed yet?

<yannf> sanskrit wikipedia should be closed

<Austin> Klingon is locked.

<JamesF> mindspillage> Not yet. :-(

<Austin> Not technically closed.

<JamesF> yannf> Is it inactive?

<dungodung> I'd create a trashwiki (a dump for all closed wikis)

<the_Epopt> wikiwaste?

<Angela> they could be archived as HTML

<JamesF> dungodung> Sounds like a value-judgement.

<dungodung> yeah

<JamesF> Bad idea.

<yannf> yes, and no content, except historical works, to be moved to wikisource

<Angela> rather than being wikis

<JamesF> Angela> DB dump?

<elian> make database dumps available for download

<VampWillow> need some way to recreate if required, do DB dump for preference

<Angela> but how should it be decided which wikis are closed?

<JamesF> Yes.

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<britty> vote?

<djevrek> hii all

<VampWillow> although I hate the idea of losing data and availability thereof even if not presently active

<JamesF> Consensus on meta.

<Jtkiefer> I'd support the closure of several of those wikis

<mindspillage> Angela: Long, drawn-out, and contentious arguments, same as everythign else.

<JamesF> Or the wikiseeds committee could have the roles.

<JamesF> WikiGardeners and all that.

<britty> VampWillow you can get dump even it is closed

<britty> or not ?

<JamesF> Reap as well as sow.

<mindspillage> JamesF: careful, you're about to get yourself a title.

<VampWillow> James: in one sense they are two sides of the same coin ... testing the validity of a concept

<the_Epopt> Lock 'em, and wait a week. If no one notices, delete 'em.

<JamesF> mindspillage> Bah, I've already got enough angst. :-)

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<Angela> would there be any objection to voting on this, say in 2 months time after discussions on each proposed closure?

<JamesF> VampWillow> Exactly.

<yannf> the_Epopt, good point ;)

<dungodung> I wouldn't just delete someone's hard work

<TimStarling> sep11 obvioiusly doesn't need to be editable

<dungodung> but rather collect it to a garbage area

<britty> 2 months sounds not bad

<TimStarling> like brion says, it's an archive, not a project

<JamesF> 2 months is a bit long.

<VampWillow> Angela: what would process be for someone to suggest a closuyre though, ie prevent frivolous suggestions

<Jtkiefer> Angela, I suggest a meta page for a vote on this

<JamesF> Make it one?

<TimStarling> somewhere to dump the sep11 articles that were created on wp

<mindspillage> By "closing" we mean removing the content from wikimedia domains entirely?

<Angela> perhaps the vote would only be on ones the board approved for closure first?

<Anthere> should we make a policy page just as was done for the creation then ?

<Jtkiefer> Tim, since that's no longer really a problem why not lock sept11

<the_Epopt> No one is allowed to vote /against/ closure unless they have edited the wiki they are voting to save.

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<JamesF> Angela> Hmm. Bit too strongly top-down, perhaps.

<Anthere> let us see a real example

<EdPoor> Is there an established policy for closing one of our wikis? Do we give people a chance to copy a dump, or something?

<JamesF> Angela> And becomes Yet More Work For The Board (tm).

<Anthere> since some of you want the closure of wikispecies

<TimStarling> Jtkiefer: that's what I'm asking

<Anthere> how would you perceive asking for it ?

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<JamesF> Ed_Poor> No, no established policy.

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<Angela> for example, we don't want to waste time voting on whether to close English Wikipedia just because a troll lists it there

<britty> the_Epopt neat

<kim_bruning> So now we have a Wiki For Deletion process? ;-)

<VampWillow> I can envisage someone deciding that because "their" project has been deleted they try to push for enWP to go ...

<JamesF> kim_bruning> Fun.

<kim_bruning> JamesF, let's not do that ;-)

<the_Epopt> And then Wikis for Undeletion....

<JamesF> We shouldn't have a vote. We should try to establish consensus.

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<mark-> pure wiki deletion system...

<Anthere> JamesF, how do you suggest we do so ?

<dungodung> pure bureaucracy

<Jtkiefer> and I meant I'd support immediate locking of Klingon and Sept11 pending a vote on meta

<britty> Angela "no natural language is the object of this poll"?

<the_Epopt> I like that, britty.

<VampWillow> britty ... "simple" though?

<britty> it is not a natrual langauge

<kim_bruning> britty, I think that shows the limitations already :-)

<JamesF> Anthere> Prolonged discussion on meta (a month). Big notice in both English and the target language in the MediaWiki:Sitenotice.

<EdPoor> My interest is in preserving knowledge. Why delete an entire project like wikispecies, without giving people a few month notice so they can make a copy and/or merge the data into Wikipedia?

<mindspillage> "simple Egnlish" isn't really a natural language.

<Phroziac> I support locking klingon. And sept11 maybe. But not simple. I think that would be very useful. it's NOT a conlang!

<Phroziac> mindspillage: it's not a natlang or a conlang in my opinion ;p

<dungodung> Simple has many interwikis

<Anthere> JamesF; what would you suggest for wikispecies ?

<TimStarling> regarding closure method: zh-tw.wikipedia.org was moved to closed-zh-tw.wikipedia.org so that data could be moved off it, then I think it was eventually switched off entirely

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<kim_bruning> Ed_Poor, good point. Actually keep backup copies around

<JamesF> Ed_Poor> We don't want Wikispecies's data wiped out. We want the communities merged.

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<kim_bruning> Ed_Poor, people took the time to collect that data

<Phroziac> Was wikispecies closed? when?

<kim_bruning> JamesF, wikispecies merges with whom?

<Angela> shall we aim to have a vote on this at the end of October? we have 2 months to work out the details of how wikis can be nominated etc

<Phroziac> i would've helped merge that if i knew about it.

<elian> EdPoor: all wikipedia biologists I know are against it

<Phroziac> Angela: i agree.

<JamesF> Anthere> Right now, nothing. When Wikidata comes along, examine it to see if Wikispecies can be made a data-project.

<Jtkiefer> would it be feasible to have a dump wiki for all the dumped content from closed wikis?

<Angela> I don't think that needs to be a wiki

<dungodung> yeah

<mindspillage> Jtkiefer: not even a dump wiki, just keep it on the dowlnloads page in a section of their own.

<Jtkiefer> mindspillage, or that

<JamesF> Anthere> I forsee us having backend and frontend projects quite soon - Commons, Wikisource, and Wikispecies are backends; Wikipedia, Wikitionary, etc. are frontends.

<TimStarling> you don't need two months for sep11

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: isn't that the point of closing them, without deleting for a while?

<JamesF> Tim> We don't need two minutes.

<TimStarling> right

<Angela> TimShell: I was thinking it should avoid the wikinews license vote though

<Jtkiefer> Phroziac, well we should keep copies of the last dumps just in case

<Jtkiefer> and have them available somewhere

<JamesF> Yes.

<Angela> voter fatigue, so keep them a month apart

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<TimStarling> if Angela or Anthere will say the word, I'll do it now

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: absolutely. but that doesn't need a wiki, just keep them on the download page. besides, maybe someone would want to make a wikicity with it, or use the information to make a conworld... ;)

<Anthere> I won't :-)

<Angela> me neither

<mark-> jimbo said the word at wikimania, brion did it

<Jtkiefer> Phroziac, I'd support that

<brion> gimme a list of things to lock, i'll lock em

<TimStarling> can you tell me one reason why you might want sep11 to remain editable?

<brion> i'm a locking machine

<Phroziac> when was wikispecies closed?

<Phroziac> TimStarling: not personally.

<Angela> it wasn't

* mav-away is now known as mav

<JamesF> Heya mav.

<dungodung> Phroziac: it's noy

<dannyisme> before closing wikispecies may i comment

<JamesF> Phroziac> It's not.

<dungodung> *not

<mav> hi

<dannyisme> we actually received money for wikispecies

<Angela> I think there needs to be a period for people to raise objections before just shutting it

<EdPoor> Tim, there's no reason to keep a *memorial* site open for editing.

<mav> close wikispecies - yes PLEASE

<Austin> Oh crap, money.

* the_Epopt is now known as the_Epopt-confused-by-mav

<Anthere> dannyisme good point

<TimStarling> there's no sep11 community, there never has been

* dungodung is against closing wikispecies

<TimStarling> I was one of the people who helped move pages from wikipedia to there

<mav> close sep11 too

<Austin> Let's give said money to whoever locks it.

<britty> close sep11 please

<Anthere> but does that mean that any group giving us money, sometimes indirectly, should see his pet project be preseerved ?

<Angela> just locked it doesn't solve the problem

<Austin> Thus it can be said that the funds went to working on it.

<mav> it was just a dumping ground for stuff we didn't want in wikipedia

<Angela> it's still seen as a Wikimedia project and sits there looking bad

<mav> danny - the experiment failed

* Jtkiefer moves to immediately lock Sept11 wiki

<Angela> if we're going to close it, I think we should dissociate it from Wikimedia

<brion> for fuck's sake

<JamesF> Angela> Indeed.

<mav> end of story

<dannyisme> i think that if we made an obligation to develop a project and received money for it, we cannot later vote to close the project

<brion> its sole purpose is to not be on wikipedia

<TimStarling> (which gives you some idea of how long it took, that was in 2003)

<brion> what do we have to do to please people?

* the_Epopt seconds jtkiefer's motion.

<JamesF> Jtkiefer> Seconded.

<VampWillow> All projects have two sets of users though ... editors and the general public. How many hits does Sept11 and speciies, etc get actually looking up data rather than editing it ...

<britty> dannyisme you thinks too narrowly imo

<Anthere> there are editors on wikispecies

<TimStarling> but the move to sep11 was completely finished in 2003, it's been idle since then

<Jtkiefer> brion, I think there's agreement to at least lock Sept11 wiki

<dannyisme> britty, are we prepared to return that money?

<brion> lock oh yes

* the_Epopt suggests to the Chair that we consider one wiki at a time for closure.

<brion> it should have been locked a couple years ago

<Anthere> brion, hold on....

<mark-> is there anyone who objects to locking sep11?

<JamesF> Anthere> Indeed. Let's not rush into things for Wikispecies.

<mav> dannyisme ; how much money was it?

<JamesF> mark-> The ayes have it.

<Jtkiefer> dannyisme, and who from?

<dannyisme> part of a 40k grant from lounsbery

<dori> dannyisme: for what?

<dannyisme> developing wikispecies

<Angela> I don't want it locked to editing but looking like it is still a wiki. Can you just link to an archive of it instead of keeping the actual pages up?

<mav> dannyisme ; that was for, and I quote "Operating expenses for the first quarter of 2005"

<VampWillow> as a semi-aside, what is the *benefit* of closing a project though ...?

<EdPoor> WikiSpecies might be an example (even a weak one) of a project which originally had a lot of collaborative work, but then "finished". Once a collection of knowledge reaches stability, maybe it doesn't need to remain editable any more.

<britty> i know it but it is not the whole of their donation objects

<mav> I saw nothing that was about wikispecies

<Jtkiefer> Angela, I assume that would mean all pages just being up in html format

<dori> dannyisme: did it say the info couldn't be in wikipedia?

<dannyisme> no

<Austin> Using Wikispecies to sell the project isn't the same thing.

<dannyisme> it was to get the project off the ground

<Anthere> or could the info be in wikidata ?

<Angela> just something that makes it clear it isn't an open project

<dannyisme> the question i woudl ask, is the info off the ground

<JamesF> Anthere> Yes, I think it can.

<mark-> simply changing the layout could work

<mark-> a bit of CSS work

<Austin> How about "THIS PROJECT IS CLOSED" in big, friendly letters?

<Phroziac> Angela: what about a sitenotice that says "This project is closed. Feel free to merge the content elsewhere"?

<mark-> if we can't provide static html dumps...

<mav> lock it and then make sure all the data in it is in wikipedia

<TimStarling> Angela: yes it's possible

<Angela> Wikispecies could be in Wikidata, but that possibility is still quite a few months off

<Phroziac> Austin: bah you beat me!

<JamesF> Anthere> Wikispecies was one of the original pushes towards Wikidata.

<TimStarling> or you can just use the HTMLDump skin

<TimStarling> it's got no edit buttons

<dannyisme> when will wikidata be ready?

<Jtkiefer> Phroziac, then people would try to merge it back to enwiki

<dannyisme> any estimate?

<brion> months/years/decades

<Anthere> I think just closing that way is NOT acceptable, due to it having editors right now

<Jtkiefer> Phroziac, which is why sept11 was created in the first palce

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: what's wrong with it? i've never been there.

<Angela> not till next year

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: OH. i thought we were talking about species...sorry.

* mav is happy Wikispecies is going away - he almost left wikimedia when it was setup

<kim_bruning> Ed_Poor, wikispecies can't be finished

<Jtkiefer> Phroziac, neither have I, but the reasoning behind it, and correct me if I'm wrong, was to get rid of the excess amount of sept11 articles on enwiki

<kim_bruning> mav, why's that?

<mav> IT IS A FORK

* the_Epopt really wishes we could talk about one wiki at a time.

<Phroziac> Jtkiefer: yes, thats what i'm told.

<dori> I personally don't have anything against wikispecies as long as it doesnt duplicate wikipedia

<kim_bruning> mav, eh?

<mark-> people are talking about both sep11 and wikispecies now, which is confusing

<Joolzer> the_Epopt: seconded :p

<kim_bruning> dori, AH!

<Phroziac> So is there anything wrong with merging wikispecies data into wikipedias?

<mav> the same thing it was doing was being done on wikipedia

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<Joolzer> Deal with sep11 first?

<Austin> kim, you can see mav repeat this phrase and others many, many times in the mailing list archives.  :)

<Anthere> I think we could set a page for policy for closing of projects or languagees

<EdPoor> Kim, a project can be suspended or put on hold or simply become "idle". I second Mav's motion to close WikiSpecies to further editing.

<Anthere> and we could propose sept 11

* Jtkiefer again moves to lock sept11 wiki and place a big notice on the mainpage stating this wiki is closed

<Anthere> not wikispecies right now

<britty> sep11 might be the clearest case

<Angela> is anyone going to make that page?

<mav> sep11 too

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<Anthere> who feels like making it ?

<mark-> someone very brave

<Anthere> bah

<mav> I'll close it :)

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<Anthere> right

<Anthere> I'll do it

<EdPoor> To Meeting Chairman: point of order, which should we talk about first, sep11 or wikispecies?

<JamesF> Brilliant.

<Anthere> (not close)

<mav> we lost the registration of wikispecies.org last month anyway

<Anthere> the page

<JamesF> mav> Whoops. To a squatter?

<Anthere> we settled sept11

<Angela> did we? I thought we still had wikispecies.org

<Anthere> I suggest wikispecies waits till we have wikidata

<Angela> it's still redirecting to http://species.wikipedia.org

<MessedRocker> i think Sept11 Wiki should be merged with a new Memorial Wiki

* Angela agrees with Anthere

<JamesF> Anthere> I completely agree.

<dori> mav: eh, who owns it now?

<mav> registration lapsed ; the password to the GoDaddy acount was changed so I could not fix that

<Jtkiefer> Angela, yes, I belived we settled to lock sept11 and put a closed notice up

<kim_bruning> Anthere, I never thought I'd hear you say that. I agree

<Anthere> ?

<kim_bruning> Anthere, :-D

<Angela> mav: are you sure Jason didn't re-register this?

<Anthere> right, are we ready for next point ?

<TimStarling> wikispecies was always meant to wait until there was special software

<Joolzer> A set of criteria about dealing with dead or moribund wikis seems like a good plan to me.

<Anthere> (I'll wait for the domain issue to be settled)

<kim_bruning> next point!

<terinjokes> 9/11 will be remembered forever

<Jtkiefer> who's the chairperson here anyway?

<britty> Wiki closure policy?

<Anthere> is that okay Angela ?

<notafish_> Anthere is

<Anthere> if so, wikicouncil

<TimShell> Anthere is chairing

<Jtkiefer> terinjokes, but not edited forever

<mav> damn - looks like Jason did re-register it

<kim_bruning> TimShell, she is?

<Anthere> did anyone read the proposal written by Angela ?

<kim_bruning> Okay, else I'd have volunteered

<TimStarling> I didn't know there was one

<kim_bruning> Anthere, which proposal (link?)

<TimStarling> was it announced on the ML?

<dori> mav: is there a list of all wikimedia domains somewhere?

<JamesF> mav> Bugger.

<Anthere> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil

<mav> major bugger

* EdPoor endorses Anthere as chair

<Anthere> Jimbo did I think

<Anthere> did he ?

<Angela> it's not my proposal. this was mostly from an email by Jimbo, especially the tiers bit, which I'm not sure are workable yet.

<kim_bruning> wikicouncil

<kim_bruning> roger

<Jtkiefer> britty, yeah, that's a good idea

<kim_bruning> I read that

<mav> dori - yep on meta

<Jtkiefer> we need a concrete closing policy

<kim_bruning> waerth wanted to grill folks mercilessly, but seems to have connection problems

<Angela> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil - this still needs a lot of discussion on what the purpose of this council would be. What I wanted to know for now is whether there is any support for the proposal at all. Is it worth developing further?

<kim_bruning> Angela, what's the point of it?

* kim_bruning listens carefully

<JamesF> Angela> I slightly tweaked the wording just now, BTW.

<kim_bruning> I can see that there's a lot of structure

<akl_> Angela: it is

<mav> we help! That's the point :)

<britty> Angela: it depends - on its purpose imo

<mav> er, we need help

<dori> seems like more bureaucracy to me, will this new council really help?

<kim_bruning> but I'm not entirely sure what the objective is that people try to reach with it

<Angela> it's a formalisation of what used to be Wikimedia Embassy

<kim_bruning> Angela, Hmm

<Austin> I helped write that, and I'm still not sure it's an effective idea.  :)

<Angela> and it's more democratic since people would be voted into their positions

<Anthere> yeah

<mav> there are simply too many random people going in and out to run this org

<elian> bye

* elian has quit IRC ("leaving" )

<akl_> dori: if we grow some more years like we do now we need some kind of bureaucracy

<britty> embassy is inactive though - i suspect who wants help from embassy actually

<Anthere> the initial proposal was made by akl, nota, elian and austin if I remember well

<notafish_> Anthere: not exactly

<EdPoor> I prefer stable, committed people like Anthere, Mav and Angela to run things.

<dori> akl: some kind being the keyword, I suggest it be the smallest kind possible

<mav> one rep per wiki may not be workable though

<Angela> the idea is that they would decide stuff people keep expecting the board to decide, and *not* to decide stuff that should be decided by the community, but to represent their communities

<Anthere> not exactly ?

<Anthere> I may be mistaken

<kim_bruning> actually, we can skip the whole numbers of representatives

<akl_> Anthere: not at all

<kim_bruning> since that's only needed for voting

<britty> Angela: otoh any one can list themselves on embassy - more volunteered than council by vote

<Anthere> no ?

<Anthere> please correct

* VampWillow becomes a politician again and says "Proportional Representation"!

<Anthere> EdPoor, we are too few people

<kim_bruning> we can request each community to send representatives

<Anthere> and we should not take all decisions

<kim_bruning> VampWillow, we have consensual representation!

<TimStarling> will this wikicouncil vote?

<kim_bruning> and it doesn't matter how many they send really

<JamesF> Vamp> No, we actively want disproportionate representation.

<TimStarling> I don't see this specified anywhere

<kim_bruning> TimStarling, if they do, I'm opposed!

<mav> each language should have their own rep

<akl_> Anthere: no, we didn't. but we talked a little bit with jimbo about it

<Angela> I think it would have too many people to manage without votes

* EdPoor reflects that making unilateral decisions is *often* bad for the project - but not *always* ;-)

<VampWillow> one per project seems a little ... wrong ... somehow ...

<mav> they would represent all projects in their language

<soufron> I dont understand a word here

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<soufron> there are too many people talking of too many things

<britty> mav: elected from a certain but represent all projects?

<akl_> soufron: including you ;)

<britty> or just in their language?

* Solensean[ is now known as Solensena

<JamesF> mav> And pan-lingual projects?

* Solensena is now known as Solensean

<Anthere> okay, let us clarify it

<VampWillow> en-GB -v- en-US anyone?

<TimStarling> I don't mean will they sometimes set up a vote on a wiki page somewhere, I mean will they use a formal decision making process

<Anthere> what will be the goals of this council ?

<Angela> there would be different reps for different languages

<TimStarling> will they produce decisions, and will the board take their decisions into account?

<mav> the German rep would represent the German versions of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, etc

<Angela> TimStarling: hopefully, yes

<britty> mav thanks for clarification - but i don't like this idea

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<mav> there will be too many reps otherwise

<TimStarling> well, you might want to have some voting rules specified in their constitution

<dannyisme> how would reps be chosen?

<JamesF> VampWillow> Well, indeed.

<mav> and we will have the same problems as we do now

<Angela> please remember it's just a proposal. There aren't any answers to these questions yet since nothing has been decided

<Anthere> why ?

<dannyisme> and wouldnt wikipedias, which are larger, always outway the interests of smaller projects

<dannyisme> like wikibooks and wikisource

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<VampWillow> James ... and I've already seen a de-DE -v- de-CH argument too ...

<dori> TimStarling: constitution? that's really taking it too far, I really don't like all this bureaucracy

<mav> danny ; each project would have their own rep as well

<TimStarling> the meta page is the constitution

<dungodung> dori: word

<TimStarling> it doesn't have to use legalistic language

<mav> just one rep for all wikipedias, for example, in addition to language reps

<JamesF> Vamp> I went to Wikimania. Believe me, they exist.

<TimStarling> that's all I meant

<Angela> any projects large enough should have a rep. So, English Wikitionary might have one because it has x number of users, but the other wiktionaries might share a rep

<dori> I think this wikicouncil could be replaced by a global notice board, it would need software changes, but I think it would be way more efficient

<mav> otherwise we will have 6 x 3000 reps

<VampWillow> I mean, I think the proposal has merit, I just can't see it working in practice in terms of reducing hassle for the editorship at large ...

<mav> 3000 is enough :)

<mav> er, 3006 :)

<dannyisme> how about having regional reps instead of project reps

<britty> Angela or how about 2nd election by reps or just they rotate their roles among reps

<TimStarling> in any case I'll probably vote against it

<notafish_> Angela: if anything of the sort happens, I would vote against it, I would say everyone should have at least one rep, probably unmanageable though

<dannyisme> it seems silly for basque and spanish to have the same weight

<mav> danny ; that is also a good idea

<TimStarling> on principle

<dannyisme> or luxembourgish and german

<Angela> I think we need to decide first whether to do this at all, rather than going into the details of how it could be if we do have it

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, regional reps is BAD

<kim_bruning> Angela, well, what's the problem with embassy?

* kim_bruning listens carefully

<Angela> TimStarling: why would you vote against it?

<Anthere> kim, the problem is simply that it does not work

<Angela> kim_bruning: it doesn't seem used for anything. Most people aren't aware of it

<britty> embassy is seldom updated

<TimStarling> because only 3 out of 33 representatives come from the english wikipedia

<Angela> people don't know how to get on it or how to get bad people off it

<Anthere> mostly, I think, it is seen as totally useless, in part due to no power

<britty> for translation i found frequently embassy members left the project

<Phroziac> I oppose any legalese language.

<dannyisme> then the question isnt whether we should have a wikicoucil, but whether embassies should be reinvigorated

<britty> Anthere power?

<dannyisme> i wrote a proposal about that a month ago

<Anthere> power, yes, I think Britty

<dannyisme> about a year ago

<Angela> TimStarling: can you suggest alternative ways of deciding how many reps per project then at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicouncil#How_representation_is_calculated ?

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<britty> hmmm interesting but it hasn't been in its scope or not

<dannyisme> each project should be told to appoint an ambassador

<Anthere> it was not

<mav> how about this ; each chapter has one rep ; that's it

<britty> mav most of langs has no chapter

<Austin> Chapter?

<Anthere> ?

<dannyisme> not enough chapters yet

<mav> britty ; then that is motivation for them to get one :)

<Anthere> mav, this is not really a good idea

<Anthere> a chapter is a lot of work, it requires a big community

<mav> each chapter gets one rep and each project gets one too

<Anthere> and it is NOT the community

<Austin> Inactive chapters can be worse than no chapters.

<mav> 6 + the number of chapters

<britty> austin agreed

<JamesF> mav> Biased against things without chapters, chapters without pan-project users.

<TimShell> I suggest working out these details on the wiki

<JamesF> Anthere> Indeed.

<JamesF> Yes.

<Angela> in general, is there any support for a Wikicoucil (not counting specific details that could be worked out later)?

<Anthere> my problem is more this one

<mav> I don't want to have any wikicouncil that will have more than 50 reps

<britty> the current problem is what is the demerit of embassy and the merit of wikicouncil are unclear imo

<mav> at this time

<Anthere> if it is only representation, I fear people will no more be interested than in embassy

<JamesF> mav> Current proposal won't.

<mav> embassy can be separate

<VampWillow> Angela> Yes, but I think the makeup of the membership of said council is problematic ..

<britty> or what kind of issues are expected to be resolved in the council

<Anthere> my main problem is that editors are not informed about what the board does, and the board have problem to get informed itself

<Anthere> third problem is work load

* dori brings up global notice board idea

<Anthere> might the wikicouncil help ?

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<Anthere> such as in making some decisions ?

<TimShell> the work load problem is not solved by advisory committees but by delegation of authority

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<Anthere> such as banning editors from more than one project ?

<JamesF> Indeed.

<britty> it sounds wikicouncil is a proxy or herald of board

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<Austin> Agreed with TimS.

<Anthere> TimShell, how do we know who to delegate authority ?

<Anthere> how do we know who is trusted on chinese wikipedia ?

<dannyisme> also agree with TimShell

<mav> anthere ; full faith and credit

<Anthere> editors there know

<dori> wouldn't stewards be in the same position as council members?

<mav> that is all that is needed to have pan-bans

<Anthere> mav, how many chinese editors do you know ?

<TimShell> I would say we rely heavily on local community consensus

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<TimStarling> I know 3

<Anthere> so, that means a representative :-)

<mav> a person is banned in one wiki, the others wikis have the choice to extend the ban to their wiki

<soufron> yes

<TimStarling> oh, 4, if you count node ;)

<Anthere> :-)

<dannyisme> based on what would they extend the ban

<mav> no need for more bureaucracy

<mav> bureaucracy kills communities

<TimShell> There's a difference between a representative who is meant to convey community opinion and an official who is granted decision-making authority

<VampWillow> mav> beueaucracy also allows and helps communities to grow ...

<JamesF> Yeah.

<kim_bruning> mav, let's not do that

<VampWillow> Tim ... needs to be a two-way street to *some* extent, agreed

<dannyisme> at one time, we had people report on the state of their wikis

<kim_bruning> mav, some wikis ban too quickly

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<dannyisme> coudl we revive that?

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, that would be good

<kim_bruning> currently the foundation has no linkage to the wikis

<mav> Vamp ; not it does not - it just slows things down

<JamesF> danny> Bit hard. I don't actually think anyone could do that for w:en, for example.

<kim_bruning> I already proposed old wikipeople and so to sometimes edit on wikis

<soufron> sure

<britty> "wikimedia news with other news of milestones"?

<dannyisme> james, i dont think en is teh problem

<kim_bruning> to get an impression of what's going on

<JamesF> danny> However.

<dannyisme> i would like to knw about a lot of other wiiis

<britty> the problem i found during WQ experiences

<kim_bruning> dannyisme, en has a lot of problems dealing with massive growth and massive size

<dannyisme> i wuld like to know how ukrainian is doing

<mav> britty ; a page on meta already does that

<mav> two pages in fact

<kim_bruning> JamesF, well we have the english signpost

<britty> mav but it doesn't work

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<britty> i don't think to give power to reps will solve this issue,

<mav> wikicouncil should grow organically ; based on need and the activity of people already doing things ; we should just then recogize that by giving those people an official title

<britty> even if it makes this work more attractive

<mav> so we first need to cultivate things in such as way as to encourage people to particpate

<britty> communiction between wikis will need such gimick

<mav> embassy was an idea, but failed

<mav> we need to find out why it failed and try to revive it

<Anthere> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports

<soufron> yes

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<dungodung> ambasadors don't have any priviledges

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<dungodung> they are just figures

<britty> no, but its' not the problem

<dungodung> maybe some priviledges would motivate people

<britty> its problem is its invisibility and inactivity

<dori> the reason embassies and the council will fail is due to the number of editors and commitments of those editors in the various wikis, not everyone has/wants to spend as much time on these matters

<Angela> shall we try this global noticeboard first and if that doesn't work, come back to the council idea?

<britty> Angela sounds good

<britty> noticeboard but in which language

<dannyisme> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports

<Anthere> what is exactly the global notice board ?

<Angela> all languages. Some way of easily translating messages on it

<mav> dungodung ; then the board should ask ambassadors to participate ; the board should seek out their council ; the ambassadors should be chosen by their comminites.

<dori> Angela: that would only work if it's a gobal page on every wiki, write-only on meta, read-everywhere

<kim_bruning> Angela, global noticeboard would be SO COOL!

<VampWillow> could someone who is a sysop on meta stop an IP going mad creating nonsense pages please (I'm not a sysop there so can't)

<kim_bruning> who's going to advertise?

<britty> neat idea but the problem is

<britty> 1) translation

<kim_bruning> can we all translate to english and then to local langauges?

<britty> 2) the information local people want to let others know and the others want to know are frequently different

* kim_bruning listens to britty more

<Angela> if there are software changes needed for it, can someone make specifications for those on meta?

<kim_bruning> britty, too true!

<kim_bruning> so we need wikispies ;-)

<kim_bruning> Angela, I think a plain set of wikipages will do fine!

<Angela> really?

<Angela> how would anyone be notified about messages there?

<mav> what the heck is the difference between clicking on a link that takes you to a page on meta vs a page on the same subdomain?

<mav> it is *still* a click

<mav> one click

<dori> mav: people won't bother to click

<britty> so good organizers and a sort of info market is necessary imo

<Angela> if it was that easy, people would read Wikimedia News, Goings-on etc

<kim_bruning> Angela, Hmm... good point...

<dori> it's a different wiki, hence a different universe

<Angela> but they don't, and they complain they don't know what's going on

<kim_bruning> Let me ponder on that!

<mav> dori ; why the hell would they click if it is internal vs on their own wiki?

<britty> "xx community wants to know on copyright issues on XX"

<kim_bruning> Angela, Indeed they do!

<mav> how the hell would they know!!??

<kim_bruning> 2 ways about it

<Angela> I'd like some sort of "you have new messages" box appear on any wiki when there are new global noticeboard notices

<kim_bruning> we can have a human infrastructure

<kim_bruning> or a software infrastructure

<kim_bruning> if we're going to start experimentally, it's going to have to be a human infrastructure anyway

<dori> mav: the local page is part of that community, the meta page is off somewhere else, smaller wikis have enough trouble keeping people interested in that wiki, they're not going to bother with another wiki, and that's what's happened so far

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<kim_bruning> no poijnt writing software if we don't know what it is we should be writing! :-)

<kim_bruning> no point

<Angela> if no software changes are needed, we can just keep updating the news section on meta. I don't believe that is enough though

<mav> dori ; global issues are put on meta

<dori> mav: yes, and they stay there

<kim_bruning> Angela, we need to get volunteers to disseminate the information

<britty> dori true

<kim_bruning> Angela, let them do this for a couple of weeks

<kim_bruning> Angela, see what they're doing

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<kim_bruning> Angela, and then maybe have bots assist them

<kim_bruning> Angela, in a while the infrastructure will evolve :-)

<dori> kim_bruning: won't work, volunteers come and go, we need to push not to disseminate information

<kim_bruning> Angela, as long as we strongly encourage for the infrastructure to exist :-)

<britty> one of problems of meta is it is written in english

<mav> but I do like the idea of trans-wiki template messages

<kim_bruning> dori, well yes, that's why we aid them with code as much as possible

<mav> those could be used for fund drives

<britty> most of ja people think it "english prj"

<kim_bruning> britty, we don't have a universal language

<kim_bruning> britty, I'm quite aware of that problem on nl projects too

<dori> english is the de facto language of the internet

<Angela> trans-wiki template messages are possible now. We're using them on Wikicities

<kim_bruning> dori, sort of

<kim_bruning> Angela, Oh interesting!

<kim_bruning> Angela, if we have those templates, let's apply them!

<mav> we need to ability to switch the languge interface based on adding somthing like &lanag=xx t

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<britty> trans-wiki template solves information problem to some extent

<Angela> mav: that's possible too

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<britty> like share wikimedia news on every project

<cormaggio> what about a "Wikimedia news" section for each project below the equivalent of "in the news" on the main page - again by volunteers or bots?

<Angela> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&uselang=ar

<britty> locally they can translate it, if preferable

<mav> then people who enter from a Japaneses wiki, for example, will see an interface in Japanese *without* have to log-in

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<kim_bruning> I'll hear more about transwiki templates later?

<kim_bruning> mav, now THAT would be useful, and a minor prob?

<britty> cormaggio sounds good but partly

<britty> i heard some complaints even to commons

<mav> I don't think it would be too hard to setup - since people can already change their language interface in their prefs

<kim_bruning> submit to bugtracker?

<mav> we just need a way to trigger it for anons - and for cookies to remember

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<EdPoor> I wrote a script that converts romaji to hiragana, if that helps.

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<mav> Ed :)

<Angela> it already works for individual pages. It just forgets when you next click on a link - http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&uselang=ja

<EdPoor> I could put it in my monobook.js

<mav> wow!

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<mav> somebody just needs to do the cookie thing\

<Anthere> hmmmm

<Anthere> right, but this will inform poeple only one way

<kim_bruning> EdPoor, cute, can it also go for kanji?

<kim_bruning> EdPoor, actually ask TAW maybe, he might already know ways to do that

<britty> sound neat but i said the problem for ja people are stuffs written in english

<kim_bruning> britty, we need translators, ne?

<mav> can we get brion to do the cookie thing? Or do we ask a volunteer?

<britty> it is impossible to provide all translation of meta or shared project VP discussion

<TimStarling> so what sort of wikimedia news were you thinking of announcing? just software changes?

<britty> kim_bruning agreed

<mav> I think a large part of the problem is that meta is seen as an English thing

<brion> mav: is that not already done? probably not hard if the url param is there

<Anthere> well, it is

<Angela> no, not just software changes

<mav> brion ; it is done that way alredy - it just needs to remember

<mav> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&uselang=ja

<brion> ok

<Anthere> how can we mix that with the wikimedia announcement mailing list ?

<britty> mav and people are happy with translation but few are happy to engage to translate the stuffs they want to read

<Anthere> and how can we avoid only top down announcement ?

<mav> another ml?

<britty> ml woundn't work i'm afraid

<TimStarling> what exactly does wikimedia do that's worthy of announcement on ja.wikipedia?

<mav> simple announcements can be done on meta

<britty> some sort of policy like privacy policy

<kim_bruning> TimStarling, quite a lot, possibly

<mav> official announcements can also be done on wmf wiki

<britty> i read once "privacy policy on meta has no legitimacy to appy on ja

<britty> apply

<Anthere> why more interesting on en.wikipedia than on ja.wikipedia tim ???

* kim_bruning kerscrams

<kim_bruning> laters folks!

<akl_> i would prefer a blog for announcements. you know, this kind of software was made for this ;)

<TimStarling> Anthere, what do you mean?

<britty> "because it's another wiki"

<Anthere> let me show you a link I found today

<Angela> TimStarling: the point is so everyone can know what is going on with the whole project if they want to have that information. Why should only en wikipedia be told that tlh or wikispecies are closing?

<Anthere> I think it might amuse some of you

<Anthere> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_site_feedback#Interface_languages

<TimStarling> thank you Angela

<Anthere> Tim, I think that if something Wikimedia do is worthy of announcement on en.wikipedia, then it is equally worth on japanese wikipedia

<Anthere> or even more

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<mav> hi jason

<Angela> I think we may as well experiment with the blog idea

<kim_bruning> would using babelfish help at all?

* kim_bruning ducks

<britty> kim_bruning almost nothing

<kim_bruning> right

<VampWillow> NO NO NO NO!!!!!

<kim_bruning> how about UW?

<akl_> Angela: let's set up blog.wikimedia.org and see what happens

* kim_bruning also was wearing ear-protection so vampwillows cries come through quite muffled

<mav> kim ; just link to babelfish - do NOT use it to post transaltions that appear official

<kim_bruning> mav, that's what I was thinking ;-)

<Anthere> blog open to who ?

<kim_bruning> babelfish did need mentioning though

<mav> good idea - when/until a translation is made

<akl_> Anthere: trusted people ;)

<britty> (to reps ?)

<kim_bruning> long term, omegaT and ultimate wiktionary might be able to help (cue GerardM)

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<Angela> anyone with an account of wikimediafoundation.org ?

<kim_bruning> but we don't have those yet :-)

<kim_bruning> Ok, off I go

<kim_bruning> laters!

<Angela> bye Kim

<Zscout370> Babelfish was somewhat helpful, but I think we could just post the report in English and try to have natives translate them text. Plus, how frequent will these "state of the Wiki" messages be posted?

<JamesF> Angela> Other than you? :-)

<JamesF> Bye kim.

<mav> Speaking of which, we need to get more people editing the foundation wiki

<britty> (waves to kim

<Anthere> akl_ few even make the update of the news template :-(

<VampWillow> au revoir Kim ...

<Angela> I mean the people allowed to access the blog could be anyone with an account of wikimediafoundation.org

<Anthere> bye kim

<kim_bruning> au revoir, ja ne, etc :)

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<mav> why is blog needed?

<mav> a blog

<JamesF> mav> The people who edit it have to be rather more trusted than average, though.

<britty> to exchange information and announcement ?

<Angela> to give announcements in a format that people can subscribe to and be notified of

<akl_> Anthere: yep, perhaps because nobody gets feedback on the posted news. a blog would allow this

<mav> jamesF ; whoever is on the council should be able to edit

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<Anthere> akl_ good point

<britty> nods

<JamesF> mav> Yeah, I suppose.

<britty> it motivate bloggers

<Angela> people could add different parts of the blog to their rss readers, so if you only want french server news, you would only see stuff in that category

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<akl_> Angela: *nod*

<JamesF> Angela> Cool idea. Not sure if that's possible, though... ?

<Angela> perhaps this could be automatically syndicated onto the wikis in future

<mav> this sounds like the bb idea all over again - that didn't go well either

<brion> as for blogs... we could do an aggregator rather than running our own group blog.

<notafish_> JamesF: Wikimedia Deutschland has done it on their front page

<JamesF> mav> The off-site boards? They were hated.

<VampWillow> I would much prefer to see something transcluded into the front page though rather than rely on people to sign up to something extra

<JamesF> notafish> The topic-segmenting?

<notafish_> JamesF: no, the blog :)

* Angela likes brion's idea

<JamesF> VampWillow> Well, SUL will alow the blog to be accessed the same...

<JamesF> notafish> Oh, right. Yes. OK, cool idea of Wikimedia DE. :-)

<TimStarling> transclusion doesn't automatically translate things

<britty> not opinion but observations and announcement

<akl_> and if some people prefer mails, we already have a blog->mail wordpress extension in use on wikimedia.de

<JamesF> brion> Eww. That requires, well, posters to have their own blog.

<TimStarling> if you want to disseminate information to other languages, it has to be done by translation

<britty> like announcment already existed on their wiki into other languages

<Anthere> brion, would it require that people have their onw personal blog to make it work ?

<brion> JamesF: live effing journal ;)

<TimStarling> and while you're translating, you may as well move it to another wiki

<JamesF> brion> Doesn't it? Because needing to have a blog to post is a bit of a pain.

<VampWillow> but the blog should be included into a section of the front page (or better community portal)

<mav> TimStarling ; the people on Chinese wikipedia can read Chinese just as well as those on the Chinese Wiktionary

<JamesF> brion> No-effing-way? ;-)

<brion> bwahaha

<JamesF> brion> Why bother getting a personal blog just so that you can edit.

<mav> no need for separate copies on each wiki

<JamesF> It's rather antithetical.

<brion> depends on what this thing is supposed to do

<Angela> I would just rather we tried *something* instead of discussing it forever. Just go with one idea, for a month, and then see if it worked, rather than trying to guess whether it would

<JamesF> Disseminate official information.

<brion> official, eh?

<JamesF> Quasi-official.

<brion> well that's a scary matter then.

<mav> just use meta

<JamesF> Official by means of being a statement by and with members of the community.

<TimStarling> we have the quarto too

<brion> well i'd love an aggregator anyway (like planetgnome and all those)

<Anthere> blog will have no translation

<JamesF> With feedback.

<Anthere> I am not very happy with this

<mav> once anons see an interface in their own language, then things will be better

<brion> an announcement feed could be set up to provide translation

<brion> but that might be more work

<Angela> Anthere: why couldn't it be translated?

<TimStarling> we could buy our own instance of systran and use it to translate these messages, if it wasn't for the whole free software only thing

<Anthere> a blog ???

<britty> on blogs (like bloggers) you can hve your language interface

<Anthere> how could we translate a blog ???

<JamesF> Carefully.

<JamesF> (Sorry. :-))

<Angela> in the same way we translate the news section of wikimediafoundation.org

<mav> why reinvent the wheel? Aren't we a *wiki* community?

<Anthere> Angela, would you consider translating your own blog in 15 languages ???

<VampWillow> Anthere> I agree with you - seems the wrong way to go about it to my mind .. overkill!

<notafish_> I think we should just stop with the translation thing. If it's not translated, well, too bad, if it is, all the better

<Angela> is this really so different from a blog? http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:News-en

* Anthere is totally confused

<Anthere> well, I know on which page to go to translate

<Anthere> I can not translate your blog

<akl_> Anthere: look at the wikimedia news section in different languages. is it really helpful if people that choose another language than english are months behind the current news ?

<Angela> Anthere: if people want to translate it, they should do so

<notafish_> the problem with translation is either you have an army of people whoa re ready to do it at your back and call, or things stay untranslated for ever

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<notafish_> which is worse than having them in just one language, imvho

<JamesF> Angela> It's the pointwise-response that we'd like, I think.

<JamesF> notafish> Yeah.

<akl_> Anthere: better one language than more that are not accurate

<britty> Angela most of editors don't think it is the space they CAN submit something

<britty> or don't want to

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<Anthere> akl_ I am really unconvinced

<notafish_> Angela: look at the german version of the news on wikimediafoundation

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<Anthere> this a lazy opinion

<britty> or just don't think their info deserves to issue there

<notafish_> Angela: i's 4 months old

<notafish_> Anthere: no, it's practical

<notafish_> not lazy

<Anthere> the main issue is that on WMF we have few editors

<Anthere> so it is not translated

<mav> we need more editors, yes

<Angela> so if wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Template:News-en was on meta, it would be more translated?

<mav> but how to choose them?

<Anthere> but if the issue is there, I can put all my announcements in french from now on

<JamesF> How many, BTW?

<britty> Angela see TR

<britty> I put en and fr versions on meta

<Angela> james: 55

<britty> before two weeks but they haven't been translated

<JamesF> Angela> I'm surprised there are so many, TBH. I suppose all the chapter people...

<Angela> so we just need a better organised translation team?

<mindspillage> Aren't there translators' noticebaord and translators' mailing lists to coordinate efforts like this? Why aren't they doing this, if it is such a great concern (and it is).

<britty> the place woulnd't be the problem - how to motivate people to translate those things is the problem

<britty> like embassy

<Angela> there is a translators mailing list. It's not very often used

<dungodung> I think that meta and WMF should be merged

<dannyisme> meta and wmf should not be merged

<mav> just make embassy official and have the ambassadors elected for terms of one year

<Anthere> it could be possible with group access

<dungodung> why not?

<britty> in concur with danny

<notafish_> Angela: we need a paid tranlation team ;)

<JamesF> dungodung> Hmm. No. meta is the community wiki, WMF is the Foundation's organ.

<britty> notafish_ that is what i have been thinking

<dannyisme> because most people cannot edit wmf

<akl_> dungodung: we need a dedicated place for official stuff

<notafish_> and we need a few "official" languages

<VampWillow> danny ... no; they have different remits altohugh a lot of cross-over

<JamesF> notafish> Eurgh. Expensive.

<britty> payment or some sorts of incentive is necessary imo

<mindspillage> WMF I see as the "glossy" version of the site. How we present ourselves to the world outside the community.

<dungodung> then quit bitching about how few people there are on WMF

<JamesF> notafish> How about "English".? ;-)

<TimStarling> you could use machine translation on your home computer

<notafish_> I am sorryu, but in my opinion, it is completely unrealistic to think we can translate all news in "real time"

<TimStarling> forget to tell anyone that it's not free software

* JamesF nods.

<britty> notafish_ agreed

<JamesF> We just can't do that.

<dannyisme> agreed

<britty> but if necessary we can provide several language within some hours

<VampWillow> JamesF> please refer to earlier comment about en-XX !!

<mav> my original idea for the foundation wiki was to transclude the whole thing from protected pages on meta

<britty> like yahoo! news

<mav> I still think that is the best idea

<JamesF> VampWillow> en-GB, with .ogg versions spoken in RP. Obviously. :-)

<britty> over five langs wre provided within a half hour

<cormaggio> FWIW, I think Sabine Cretella is working on a sort of "LETS" style currency for translators

<britty> so the motivation is the key

<VampWillow> JamesF> indeed. no estury (sic) for us!

<notafish_> that Quarto, for example, should be translated, is good, and that should definitely be kept

<JamesF> VampWillow> Innit.

<notafish_> but I think that news on wmf website in English are fine

* JamesF fights the urge to shout "respec'".

<Anthere> :-)

<VampWillow> JamesF> I should refer you to my LiveJournal rants on the subject of "english" usage earlier in the weel ...

<mav> don't fight it - let it go :)

<Anthere> the WMF site is not an english only site

<Angela> perhaps it would be more useful to arrange a separate meeting to discuss translation issues. I don't think a lot of the people involved with translations are here now, and this meeting has been going on for nearly 2 hours

<JamesF> Vamp> Looking (even though I don't believe in blogs).

<britty> "communication meeting" ?

<Angela> perhaps

<mav> I agree with Angela - this is a complicated issue that we are not prepared to settle here and now

<JamesF> Angela> Yeah, I'm getting a little tired.

<dungodung> should we call it a day?

<mav> so have we decided *anything* during this meeting?

<Anthere> anyway, should we try a common blog ?

<Anthere> would it be beneficial ?

<VampWillow> tbh, the translation issue is never going to be "settled" anyway (cf. Euro parliament)

<mav> no blog

<akl_> Anthere: yes

<Anthere> ...

<britty> it worths to try

<notafish_> yes blog

<notafish_> :P

<dungodung> no blog

<Anthere> et ben

<mindspillage> I think the common blog will just end up being mostly English anyway and duplicate the content already posted in too many different places. :-/

<TimShell> 1) No uploads of Dutch library stuff; waiting for more details from them

<Anthere> it is gonna be easy....

<mav> again ; what can a blog do that we don't do now but need?

<VampWillow> no blog ... no benefit over a wiki page

<Anthere> mav, as akl said, comments on posting

<TimShell> 2) wikinews needs different licensing; all wikinewsies need to be informed of the issue

<Angela> shall we say 7 September for the translation meeting?

<britty> mindspillage for ja editors it is a problem en is too large to crawl

<Anthere> which is notreally possible on WMF rightnow

<TimShell> 3) Sep11 wiki to be locked

<mav> anthere ; ever seen that talk page tab at the top of pages?

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<britty> signpost is oriented to local interest and not helpful for such editors

<mav> we can have talk page links for *every* post

<TimShell> 4) wikispecies kept in hold pattern pending wikidata

<mindspillage> britty: I'm sure it is... I just don't think a blog is the best solution.

<akl_> mav: ever tried to click it on the wmf "wiki" while you were not logged in?

<Anthere> mav, talk page tab on WMF is not so interesting for most readers

<Anthere> as they can not edit

<mav> and transclude each post onto one page

<TimShell> 5) incubator wiki committee to form and debate rules on a wiki somewhere

<Angela> TimShell: are you going to post notes from this meeting?

<Anthere> Tim, I disagree on point 3 totally

<mav> Anthere ; the talk page would be on meta - or on the foundation wiki if that can be done

<Anthere> we said "make a policy page for closing of wiki, then propose sept 11"

<TimShell> Ant - what did we decide about that one ?

<Anthere> mav, we can try this

<TimStarling> Anthere and Angela seem to be the only ones disagreeing on point 3

<TimStarling> I'm not sure why

<Anthere> lol

<mav> I still like the trans-wiki transclusion idea

<notafish_> mav: that's shuttling between two wikis, that won't work

<Angela> you can just point the talk pages at meta with templates like this - http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Talk:Meetings/August_14%2C_2005

<VampWillow> Tim ... I'm not sure #3 was a firm decision ... seemed opne still at end of discussion

<mav> notafish ; ideally all talk pages on the foundatio wiki should be editable

<TimStarling> well, we'll just leave it to gather spam for another month or two shall we?

<mav> this is *needed* rather badly, imo

<TimStarling> and come back next meeting to see if anything's changed?

<mindspillage> Concur with mav.

<TimShell> Yes, I'll post brief summary and link to log

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<britty> mav how about redirection to meta

<cormaggio> Is the incubator wiki committee relating to seed wikis?

<Angela> mav: they shouldn't. That wiki needs to be kept free from junk

<notafish_> mav: yep

<Anthere> I thought we agreed to set up a policy page for closing wikis ?

<TimShell> seed = incubator

<dannyisme> i agree with angela here

<Anthere> I even think I volunteered and several agreed

<Anthere> did I understand well ?

<TimShell> since seedwiki is used by someone else I used term incubator

<Angela> yes

<dannyisme> wmf is our face to tyhe world

<mav> Angela - it is a talk page, each talk page on the foundation wiki could have a disclaimer

<dannyisme> it should be kept as clean as possible from all spam

<cormaggio> TimShell: thanks

<Angela> mav: meta is for talking

<JamesF> danny> Yeah.

<Angela> just use {{meeting talk}} and send people to the right wiki

<mav> Angela ; then have all the news there

<VampWillow> "incubator" is best terminology I feel

<dannyisme> wikubator

<Angela> the news should be transcludable wherever people want to see it

<TimShell> That's 2+ hours

<britty> how abut wikicradle

<TimShell> I move Anthere says "meeting done"

<mav> then the *only* news on the foundation wiki will be stuff that is *directly* related to the foundation ; such as getting a grant

<notafish_> Angela: going from one wiki to another is not an option, in my opinion

<Anthere> hmmm

<Angela> that's why you transclude it into the place you want it

<mav> nota ; then keep the news on meta

<Anthere> well, if we agree on the conclusion, yes, it can be done

<Anthere> but now, I feel confused

<Anthere> oh well

<mav> did we agree to anything this meeting?

<Anthere> not to create a wikicouncil for now it seems...

<VampWillow> "wikibator" sounds like a sex shop should sell it though ... ;-P

<notafish_> mav: we need to talk further on this talk page issue ;)

<Anthere> not to close wikispecies

<mav> that is a horrible name

<soufron> ...

<Angela> we agreed when the wikinews vote would be, and when the translation meeting would be

<britty> and wikinews in pd won't be in the future

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<brion> winkubator

<soufron> "wikibator... good vibes for you and us"

<mav> sounds like masterbator to me

<Anthere> wikalbator

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<notafish_> Anthere: LMAO

<VampWillow> wikimake?

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* notafish_ chante..; Albator, Albator, bien plus fort que la mort

<Angela> why not just demo.wikimedia.org?

<mav> just have it be a subdomain of wikimedia

<Zscout370> so, what is going to happen to Simple English and the Klingon Wikipedias?

<mav> demo is a great idea

<notafish_> Angela: I like demo

<britty> nods

<Angela> if you try to give it a flashy name, it's going to appear even more like a new wiki hosting site

<VampWillow> I don't think anyone has suggested deleting Simple-en ?

<Anthere> demo speaks to everyone I think

<britty> but opposed by several

<Angela> Zscout370: nothing for now

<notafish_> and wikiquote? ;)

<mav> but things don't get put there w/o a process\

<VampWillow> 'demo' suggests not serious though ...

<mav> its not

<Zscout370> Thanks Angela

<Angela> it's a demo of serious stuff

<Anthere> I agree with Angela

<Angela> wikinews is still called demo, and it doesn't come across as less serious

<mav> it is just an experiment to see if an idea a set of users want to try may work

<Anthere> okay, so meeting close

Session Close: Sat Aug 27 22:07:29 2005