Charles Matthews

Hello, as we said on Election, could you please set your mail preference on meta? We cannot begin the procession of your confirmation for now.

Also, I'd like you notice there is a discussion some of global community prefer to see candidates have their "ask me questions" page not on a certain local wiki, but meta for several reasons. See further relevant talks on Election,

Cheers, --Aphaia 10:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, meta email is now confirmed. I'll look into the questions page location. Charles Matthews 10:21, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Mail sent. Check your mailbox and if you haven't got anything, please let me know(mail). Also thank you for your interest. --Aphaia 10:28, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have the mail. Charles Matthews 10:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Board of Trustees elections

Hello!

The Wikipedia Signpost, a community-newspaper in the English Wikipedia, is covering the Board of Trustees elections and will be featuring each of the candidates in next week's issue. As such, we would appreciate it if you would take some time to answer a few interview questions. Each candidate will be asked the same questions; by no means, though, feel obligated to answer any (or even) all of them, though we would greatly appreciate it if you did.

Some of the questions may be a bit redundant to the candidate information you have filled out already. This is both for convenience and for giving you the opportunity to expand on some of them a bit. However, we ask that you keep all responses brief, limiting them to no more than one or two paragraphs each.

You may leave replies to my English Wikipedia talk page, my meta talk page, or email them to me. I would appreciate it if responses are in on or before this Saturday, August 26; please have them in at the latest on Sunday the 27th in order for them to be included in Monday's issue.

As always, the Signpost reserves the right to re-distribute the questions and replies, shorten any responses if necessary, and take any other editorial action deemed appropriate.

Thanks again for your time, and please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

1. Your name:
   Charles Matthews
2. Your username most commonly used:
   Same
3. Your current geographic location, along with your age:
   Cambridge UK, 52
4. Projects with significant contributions (please both name the language and project, and link to your contributions)
   English Wikipedia, where I have one of the highest edit counts.
5. Do you have any rights (i.e. admin, bureaucrat) or positions (i.e. dispute resolution, CheckUser, etc.) on any of those projects? If so, which ones? When did you get elected or promoted for each one?
   enWP admin (2004), Arbitrator (2006 election).
6. Do you hold any universal rights (i.e. steward, etc.) for Wikimedia Projects? If so, since when?
   N/A
7. When did you first start contributing to Wikimedia projects? Why and how did you initially join?
   2003. Drawn in via Meatball Wiki. I was already very active on the go wiki, Sensei's Library.
8. Briefly describe your career ("real-life"). How do you think this will help you be a successful Board member?
   Academic mathematician to 1989, since then volunteer, writer, househusband, parent.
9. Of all the candidates right now, why do you stand out from the field? What makes you the best candidate?
   If one thing, it would be breadth of background. I also think I'm an effective communicator, as writer and public speaker.
10. A knowledge of several languages has been cited as a key requirement for a Board member. Do you speak any other languages other than English? Why do you think language is or isn't critical to the Board?
    I speak decent French, studied Russian (a little rusty, but I understand spoken Russian OK). Bits of Japanese, several European languages (can read some technical German). Monoglot doesn't mean lacking in cultural sympathy, necessarily, but when cultural issues come up languages are going to be in play.
11. What do you expect to do while serving on the Board? What are your expectations?
    I would be expect to be busy learning, but there are a few things (see Anthere's questions to me User:Charles Matthews/WMF Board Election 2006#Anthere's questions).
12. What can you bring to the Board? What can you contribute to the Wikimedia Foundation?
    I have wiki and world experience, time, ability to communicate.
13. Describe the one issue that you think is most pressing and pertinent to the Foundation right now, and how you would approach the situation.
    We have to get on top of the 'biographies of the living', and defend the whole project from defamation litigation. Some attention has to be paid on the software side for tools to do that.
14. What is your vision of the Board in the Foundation hierarchy? How do you feel about the current leadership?
    So far, things have been handled fine. 'Leadership' in such a broad, even diffuse voluntary project has to take account of atmosphere and intangibles, as well as the obvious pragmatic issues.
15. As a Board member, you will be serving as a representative of the communities. Do you think you can represent the community and understand its concerns? Why?
    I'm an old-school Wikipedian, with wiki roots going back further than that. No mystery about the 'community'.
16. What do you think of the Wikimedia Foundation and its mission in general? If you could change one thing about the running of the Foundation, what would you change?
    I have said that internal communications need a review. Maybe we need more focus on things other than mailing lists, and in any case we might need clearer routing (complaints this way, general policy discussion over there, that kind of thing).
17. If elected, can and will you devote the appropriate time and other resources needed to serve on the Board?
    Yes, though that would cut into editing time.
18. Have you ever attended Wikimania or any other meetup? What role do you think these meetups play?
    Unforunately not: bad timing this year.
19. Please list (and link) any other pages where you have gotten questions and comments pertaining to the Board elections; we are compiling all of the questions and would appreciate this.
    The Meta page User:Charles Matthews/WMF Board Election 2006 is the designated place for questions related to my candidacy.
20. What would you say to a potential voter who is undecided right now?
    I'm not a tech person, I'm a 'human factors' person.
21. Is there anything else you would like to mention?
    My efforts in Uganda to raise the profile of WP.

Thanks again.

Dutch translation

Gebruikersnaam	Charles Matthews
Echte naam	Charles Matthews
Locatie	Cambridge, Verenigd Koninkrijk
Leeftijd	52
Gebruikerspagina's	en:User:Charles Matthews
Wikimediamedewerker sinds	2003
Projecten waarin ik deelneem	en-wikipedia
Talen waarin ik deelneem	Engels (vertalingen in het Engels, en interwiki)
Links naar de overzichten "Bijdragen gebruiker"	[1]
Je kandidaatstellingsverklaring	Ik ben een kandidaat met ervaring en nuttige vaardigheden voor de Board van Wikimedia. Ik ben niet een technisch persoon, and ik ben niet in Wikimedia zaken actief geweest, maar ik heb me geconcentreerd op de Engelse Wikipedia. Ik kom zonder een specifiek raamwerk voor de WMF. Als program zou ik zeggen dat we nog een paar dingen moeten samenbrengen. Het implementeren van de beste ervaringen in afstandsleren, waar we weten dat de feiteninhoud een long tail heeft (om hippe woorden te gebruiken), betekent dat we zowel gezamenlijk slim als beter in de geesteswetenschappen moeten zijn. Het doel is om alomvattend te worden, maar ook op wereldschaal begrijpbaar en begrijpend. Dit zijn ambitieuze slogans. Achtergrond: Ik heb 10 jaar ervaring (1978-1989) als een post-doc in de universitaire wereld aan de universiteit van Cambridge met een paar jaar in Frankrijk en de VS. Daarna werd ik een vrijwilliger in verschillende contexten, zoals public relations en het vinden van sponsorgelden. Ik heb twee boeken geschreven (een conventioneel, en een met een Koreaanse vriend dat online is gepubliceerd) en meer dan 100 artikelen. Ik heb gereisd, buiten de gebaande paden voor toeristen, door Japan, Zuid-Korea, en pas geleden in Oeganda waar ik in juni een goedbezochte lezing over Wikipedia heb gegeven. Ik spreek vrij goed Frans, en een beetje Russisch. Ik was gedurende al deze tijd getrouwd met kinderen. De rol van de Board: Welke andere uitgestrekte gemeenschap online kan zijn eigen medewerkers inhuren? De Board draagt de verantwoording over het allerbelangrijkste stuk hypertekst. Sommige immateriële zaken, zoals 'wikicultuur', 'motiverende werkomgeving', en 'waarde toevoegen', zijn net zo belangrijk als geld. De schaal van de Wikimedia projecten betekent dat normale managementtechnieken soms toepasbaar zijn, maar de grootste uitdaging blijft om ervoor te zorgen dat alle mensen die op de wiki's schrijven aan het grote schema bijdragen. Dit betekent dat we niet de oude denkbeelden uit het oog kunnen verliezen in de alledaagse bestuur van de websites. In het kort: Ik heb ervaring buiten Wikimedia, communicatievaardigheden en een traditionele wiki-benadering.
Voor vragen, voeg die hier toe	User:Charles Matthews/WMF Board Election 2006

I didn't quite understand what you meant with "match up some things", so I translated it as "bring some thing together". Also, I found that "married parent" sounds quite strange in Dutch, so I translated it as "married with a child"; should that be "married with children"? If you wish to reply, please use en: wikipedia. -- Jitse Niesen 12:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It's now "children" instead of "child". I never realized this, but the plural of "child" in Dutch has exactly the same irregularity as in English. I guess that can be explained if you know some more linguistics. Sigh, there's so much to learn ... By the way, my fee is a teaching game next time we meet ;) -- Jitse Niesen 13:40, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Can I let you win, or is it the expensive kind where I care? Charles Matthews 13:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Ru translation

Dear Charles, could you please check if the Russian translation is adequate enough? Thank you! Dr Bug (Vladimir V. Medeyko) 08:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Prekracno! Charles Matthews 13:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

AYUDA

Pienso que como muchas personas yo ingrese a participar en Wikipedia muy animadamente, sin embargo me tope con una gran traba, los wikipedistas que se creen dueños del saber y esta web, yo soy un novato en wikipedia y las veces que he entrado me dedico mas a procurar ver como arreglo la web de una artista joven latina, que viene sobresaliendo en el mundo del espectaculo.

Me parecio lindo poder colocar una biografia de ella, pero mi colaboracion primero llevo el irrelevante, no si el arte sea irrelevante o es irrelevante porque es una propuesta de un extraño... bueno en fin , luego de irrelevante paso a copy nose que? pero de alli le quitaron ese calñificativo y paso a votacion para borrado ???? whath??? y mas contrariado cuando dicen que pse puede editar bien para que no sea eliminado, porque no usan el tiempo en corregior los trabajos malos en vez de usarlo para crear foros y otros? porque no le dicen a uno como corregir los trabajos????

Luego veo quienes solicitan el borrado, al parecer gente que les gusta les llamen duquesa, excelencia, divinidad??? queeeee, esta es una pagina que pretende revolucionar la educacion??? hacer que persista el por siempre las cosas que deben de serlo??? no me parece que sea el criterio usado el mejor ç, usted como uno de los lideres por favor ayude para que existan estos cambios en la conducta de los administradores, bibliotecarios y en fin

Bueno sino nuevamente perdi el tiempo aca en este reino de brujas, condes, duquesas y reyes del saber :(

Ahhhhh mi contribucion fue sobre Mia Rauz

indignodewiki 20:21, 05 Septiembre 2006

Heads up

Image:CRM election photo.JPG tagged for deletion as needing a license. giggy _(:O) 02:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Upcoming IdeaLab Events: IEG Proposal Clinics

Idea Lab

Idea Lab

Hello, Charles Matthews! We've added Events to IdeaLab, and you're invited :)

Upcoming events focus on turning ideas into Individual Engagement Grant proposals before the March 31 deadline. Need help or have questions about IEG? Join us at a Hangout:

• Thursday, 13 March 2014, 1600 UTC
• Wednesday, 19 March 2014, 1700 UTC
• Saturday, 29 March 2014, 1700 UTC

Hope to see you there!

This message was delivered automatically to IEG and IdeaLab participants. To unsubscribe from any future IEG reminders, remove your name from this list

Photos from Cambridge

Hi Charles

The photos I took on my camera are now on Commons in commons:Category:22nd Cambridge Wikimedia meetup. I didn't manage to remember everyone's names, so it would be good if you could go through and improve the captions where you are able.

The photos Katie and I took on the WMUK camera haven't been downloaded yet afaik, but will be added to that category when they are. Thryduulf (en.wikt,en.wp,commons) 11:04, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, the one I'd have chosen. I've added a caption with names. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Notification of meets

I gather you and Cmglee have been discussing the problem of local users knowing when a meet is going to take place. The thought has occurred to me that we can predict the name of meeting pages, e.g. Meetup/Cambridge/25 for the one after Meetup/Cambridge/24, so maybe one can just add future pages to one's watchlist. To this end, I've just set up such a page (click the link to go to it), and I'll now test the idea by editing it. ... Nothing has happened yet, but the process may well take time. However -- I've just realised that watchlist does not inform you of your own edits, so I can't expect it to tell me on this occasion. --Brian Josephson (talk) 18:06, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

The standard mechanism is the watchlist site notice. As of today my English Wikipedia watchlist is showing the Cambridge meetup on 8 November, and the London meetup on 9 November. This is fallible in various ways, certainly, and I suppose it gives only a couple of weeks notice. If for some reason your IP doesn't geolocate within the UK, you may not see it at all.

In practice people could watchlist en:User:Charles_Matthews and watch for edits to the "Meetups" section. It is also possible to watch template pages that are updated, or go to https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Events. Charles Matthews (talk) 12:07, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I've discovered that the reason why I wasn't getting notifications is that while I had enabled emailing of changes in watched pages in w'pedia this preference hadn't carried over to w'media.

Research has uncovered a process that should work for being notified by email of new Cambridge meets. Reduced to its bare essentials it is to go to https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Cambridge/nn, change the nn to the forthcoming meet number, e.g. 25, and go to the modified URL, then click the star to watch this page. It doesn't matter at all if that page doesn't exist yet, you will be notified regardless when someone sets it up. Make sure that in the email options list at the bottom of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences you have checked 'Email me when a page or file on my watchlist is changed'. --Brian Josephson (talk) 12:59, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

What I do is to click Edit raw watchlist, paste in something like

Meetup/Cambridge/25
Meetup/Cambridge/26
Meetup/Cambridge/27
Meetup/Cambridge/28
Meetup/Cambridge/29

- make sure that there is only one on each line - and save. This saves the hassle of conjuring a URL for a non-existent page and watching it individually. --Redrose64 (talk; at English Wikipedia) 18:26, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's how I did it originally myself in fact. The important thing is to recognise that it is possible to predict the pages for future events (though if someone were to change the convention, as has happened occasionally in some locations, you'd come unstuck).--Brian Josephson (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

3D SVG

You have new messages

Hello, Charles Matthews. You have new messages at [[User talk:Meetup/Cambridge/26|User talk:Meetup/Cambridge/26]].
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Thanks for arranging the meetup!

Very glad to have come along. I felt somewhat in awe of the distinguished company. Moreover, I learned much that would have taken me many more hours to learn solo. An excellent use of time! Zazpot (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Next one might be in February. Don't be a stranger. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:32, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

JSTOR account redistribution (The Wikipedia Library)

Hi - according to our records you received a free account for JSTOR through The Wikipedia Library. Because we’ve used up all of our allocated accounts, and it’s been some time since they were distributed, we want to redistribute any accounts that aren’t being used to users on our waitlist.

If you’re still using, or plan to use, your JSTOR access, no problem! Simply head over to the Library Card platform, log in, and request a renewal of your account. You should be able to do this from your user page, or the JSTOR signup page. If you can’t find the renewal button, or have any other issues or questions about this, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. We’ll begin redistributing inactive accounts in September; if you request renewal after then we will only be able to reactivate your account if we have spots remaining. Thanks, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikimania 2019

Hi Charles,

How are you? As you've presented in previous Wikimanias, would you happen to know if scholarship applications have opened? I remember they used to be around this time of year previously.

Thanks,
cmɢʟee::τaʟκ 13:58, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

@Cmglee: Nothing yet, as far as I can see. I think things got started in March, in 2018. Charles Matthews (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Charles. I'll keep an eye out. Cheers, cmɢʟee::τaʟκ 15:05, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Meetup at Microsoft Research

I'd be interested in giving a repeat of my presentation Wikidata is a language at the upcoming Cambridge meetup if there is space in the programme. Deryck C. 17:26, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, please do. Charles Matthews (talk) 18:57, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

London book event for "The Editors"

Hello - Reaching out because I saw that you previously expressed an interest in a London Wikipedia meetup.

I am a writer who has covered Wikipedia for Slate, The Washington Post, and other publications.

My novel The Editors is inspired by Wikipedia and was published earlier this month. As part of the book tour, I will be in London on Thursday 29 of August at 6:30 PM at Newspeak House.

Details about the event here: https://lu.ma/ubri3176

Sorry for the short notice, but if you are able to attend the event, it would be great to see you there! No RSVP required; just show up at Newspeak house on Thursday evening. Stephenbharrison (talk) 22:26, 27 August 2024 (UTC)