Hi Oliver and others - let me check around quickly to see what your best next steps would
be, or where to take your questions. Principally we're comfortable with chapters or
newly-forming chapters to be speaking publicly about initiatives and efforts to make
things happen. Formally speaking, I believe you do require official status to use the
Wikimedia name and the official marks of the foundation (Wikimedia mark and Wikipedia
marks, including others).
Great news either way though - and I look forward to seeing things come together!
On Sep 6, 2010, at 4:59 AM, Oliver Moran wrote:
Jay,
I got your address from Mike Peel of Wikimedia UK. I'm writing in connection with a
discussion on-going to establish a Wikimedia chapter in Ireland.
We have set a date for a meet-up (the 25th of this month) with the possibility of an
Irish chapter on the table. Ahead of this, we plan to issue a press release to advertise
the meet-up and the possible discussion around the establishment of an Irish chapter to
the largest possible audience.
Mike suggested that you may be able to advise on this and supply us with with some
information about use of Wikimedia projects in Ireland (number of active editors, page
hits, etc.). Both the en.wiki and the ga.wiki are of interest; and both the Republic of
Ireland and Northern Ireland (though possibly as separate data sets). Is there any advice
you would offer on the content of such a release? I would also appreciate it if yourself,
someone else, the Wikimedia Foundation, Jimbo, the Board of Trustees, etc. could supply us
with some statements on the possible establishment of a Irish chapter, Irish Wikimedians,
Wikimedia in Ireland, etc. that we could use in a press release of this kind.
Finally, for the purposes of emailing the press, our colleagues in the UK have graciously
offered to register wikimedia.ie in trust for us. (The .ie domain overlaps with .uk in
Northern Ireland and an unincorporated association would likely be unable to register it
owing to rules around the registration of .ie domain names.) Is the foundation OK with
this? Or would it be possible to use a
wikimedia.org email address until such time as we
can register our own? Mike has advised us that this is likely a question more suited to
Mike Godwin. If so, could you forward this question to him?
I have CC'ed the Wikimedia Ireland mailing list but included your email address as a
BCC as you may not want it in the public domain.
Kind regards and many thanks in advance,
Oliver Moran
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.org
blog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw