Peter Bartlett wrote:
> >>I think I know better than you Pete, who I have
met in my life, and
>>apart than in dream, I have never met Jimbo.
> > > This is an obvious and serious mistake on my
part. Please accept my
> apologies - I got the wrong end of the stick of an
IRC discussion.
Perhaps
> if the discussion had been face-to-face I wouldn't
have made such a
facile
> error! :).
> > I will endeavour to respond to the rest of your
email when it is
isn't just
> after pub closing time!
> > Pete
I wonder if in a couple of years, when we all have
very good internet
lines, we might not discuss on irc with camera
displaying each other
faces or perhaps even disambodied corpses floating in
the living room
:-)
That might not be so fun actually. I just got home
today with new
glasses, so I look decent again. I broke the other
ones about 3 weeks
ago, and have been looking like a nerd with my
self-repaired glasses
meanwhile :-)
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Corey Burger wrote:
I think the point being missed here is that the board is NOT going to
run
Wikipedia or any other project. They are there to make it easier to run
the project, primarily by getting funding for us, coorinating people and
hardware, etc. The actual job of writing the
encyclopedia/dictionary/etc.
will still be where it needs to be, in the hands of the users.
Indeed. And if the opportunity of meeting face-to-face and sharing some
physical space and common experiences (even if only staggering back to
the hotel too drunk to stay on the sidewalk) helps them to do THAT job
better, then I'm willing to part with a few bucks. My promise is to
double my promise.
Anthere, I can relate. I live 15 km from one of the major entry points
to the Canadian Rocky Mountains. I was able to afford to make a real
trip in only once this past year, because a friend helped out. It sucks
not being able to appreciate what your own country has to offer. So. If
Angela decides to go, ten bucks. If Anthere can go, ten bucks. If
neither decides to go, I'm going to spend the 20 bucks for gas and a
Parks admission and soothe my soul in the Rockies for a day.
Denni
Angela represents for me what it is to be a real Wikipedian. Not to say
that the rest of us aren't, and there is a fair crowd of people I admire
here, but if I could do half as much as Angela in twice the time, I'd be
pretty pleased with myself. As I am presently between jobs, I cannot
afford to contribute a great deal, but I will offer a Euromoneyorder for
$10 CDN to cover some miniscule portion (some 8 air kilometres or so) of
her trip, and would be grateful for a mailing address.
Denni
--
"The difference between extra-marital sex and extra marital sex is not
to be sneezed at." --George Will, on hyphen use
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Visit my Wikipedia user page at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3ADwindrim
Do you ICQ? I do - 276534369 Magpie
>I think I know better than you Pete, who I have met in my life, and
>apart than in dream, I have never met Jimbo.
This is an obvious and serious mistake on my part. Please accept my
apologies - I got the wrong end of the stick of an IRC discussion. Perhaps
if the discussion had been face-to-face I wouldn't have made such a facile
error! :).
I will endeavour to respond to the rest of your email when it is isn't just
after pub closing time!
Pete
[crossposted from a discussion that originated on wikiEN-l]
Delirium wrote:
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> well, this is very unfortunate for you, because Angela and I will
>> strongly favor use of multilingual meta over mailing lists.
>
>
> I do think we've had a vote on this on en:, which also contained about
> five pages of arguments back and forth on both sides, as it came up on
> the Village Pump about 5 or 6 separate times, but I can't seem to find
> where it got moved to. Links, anyone?
I found it: several separate discussions are archived on [[en:Wikipedia
talk:Mailing lists]].
The votes were mostly inconclusive...
Question: Should we have meta-discussions on:
* mailing lists? 9 yes, 12 no, 3 neutral
* web forums (boards.wikimedia.org)? 2 yes, 11 no, 5 neutral
* the Wikimedia wiki (meta.wikimedia.org)? 12 yes, 9 no, 2 neutral
* on Wikipedia itself (en.wikipedia.org for en: discussions)? 4 yes, 6
no, 7 neutral
Of course, these are more like straw polls than a real vote, so can't be
said to be conclusive, even if they had shown a strong preference one
way or another, which they don't. But clearly people are fairly
strongly divided on the issue. Allowing simultaneous wiki and email
discussion is probably next to impossible as a compromise, but if the
pro-wiki-discussion people would be willing to compromise on some
web-based discussion interface other than a wiki, probably a gateway of
some sort could be set up to allow posting and reading by either email
or web, depending on personal preference. gmane does some of this now,
but perhaps some better web-email gateway interface is possible.
-Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces(a)wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces@wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Viajero
>On 06/22/04 at 02:32 AM, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> said:
>> And, I don't think calling such meetings "perks" is an overstatement.
>> I've observed quite a few non-profit meetings, as well as meetings and
>> conferences in academia, and they rarely have much real work being
>> done. They're social and networking events, and the most "real work"
>> that gets done is at best finding out about something that you make a
>> note of to look up and read later. The actual real work gets done via
>> email or telephone (or both) either before or after the conferences. H.
>> Cheney's recent email indicated he's had similar experiences on the
>> non-profit boards he's sat on, so this seems to not simply be my
>> personal experience.
>I think these comments reflect a grave misunderstanding of the importance
>of meetings.
>In the past, I've been involved in a number of EU-funded projects among at
>times quite disparate participants, and it was always a given that such
>projects -- after being approved for funding -- got off to a start with a
>meeting with everyone involved. Sometimes this was the only time the
>participants met; they then went back to their respective countries and
>spent the duration of the project working in their offices and
>communicating by email and telephone. But that initial face-to-face was
>critical; it isn't something that can be measured in cold person/hour
>metrics but rather reflects some as yet not entirely well-understood
>psychological truth: long-distance, distributed projects work better when
>the participants have first met.
>If Jimbo, Anthere, and Angela will be working closely together in the
>coming months and years, as appears to be the case, than it is entirely
>appropriate, no, *imperative* that they meet each other. I would therefore
>be in favor of Angela being reimbursed for her travel expenses to attend
>the Paris meeting.
There may very well be in truth in this. However whatever the arguments in
favour of the trustees meeting, wouldn't these same arguments be equally
applicable to the developers meeting, say? The developers at least have a
long and proven track record. So far the board has not had the chance to
prove its worth above the old, board-less, way at all - thus we are being
asked to take on trust that such a use of funds would be a best use. Perhaps
it's a shame that a certain amount of that required trust has already been
used by the refusal to publish the election results, despite explicit
(albeit informal) assurances to the contrary before and during the
elections.
Further Jimbo and Angela and Jimbo and Ant have already met. Thus it is only
Ant and Angela who don't have a face to put words too. As these two trustees
are much closer geographically, there is more scope for taking time and
waiting for the most cost-effective opportunity for them to meet.
Pete/Pcb21
Hello,
I know that the Wikimedia is currently strapped for cash. However, I would
like to propose that we cover certain key expenses for our elected board members
relating to their participation in Wikimedia work. For instance, telephone
calls overseas should be covered by the Foundation, and not the elected
representatives. A broadband connection should be covered by the Foundation as well.
While every participant is doing their work on Wikipedia and the other
projects voluntarily, Ant and Angela are expected to represent us, the users. We
should make it as easy for them as possible.
I hope you support my proposal.
Danny
In a message dated 6/22/2004 2:33:09 AM Eastern Standard Time,
delirium(a)hackish.org writes:
Erik Moeller wrote:
>Face-to-face meetings are much more productive than IRC simply because
>real human interaction has a much higher bandwidth than letters in a
>window on a computer screen.
I completely agree with this. In fact, I will suggest that a breakdown of how
the money we have will be used is probably very important at this stage. I
suggest something along the following lines:
60% --- servers and hardware
20% --- bounties for software development (let's face it, there are certain
things we need, and we can't just wait for people to develop them)
10% --- incrementals, to include this board meeting and other outstanding
expenses, for instance, as people begin to fill positions, they should be issued
with business cards so that they can meet with others professionally. This is
especially important for fundraising purposes. You have to invest money if you
want to make money. This will also cover postage, letterhead, and, of course,
board meetings. Of course, this should also be limited to a set portion of
the budget and not exceed that. It can also be used for salaries for lawyers,
accountant, etc. if the need be.
10% --- Emergency use. This should be locked in a high-interest account at
three-month intervals. It can serve as a back-up reserve just in case. The sum
should be augmented regularly, but the interest would be split between the
various projects.
This is only a preliminary sketch of how money might be allocated. While it
prioritizes hardware, it recognizes that there are other expenses that should
be covered if we are to grow.
Assuming we have about $25,000, it should cover start-up costs.
I also want to pledge to donate a certain amount each month, provided an
arrangement can be made to take it directly from my bank account at regular i
ntervals. I hope others will be willing to do the same. This sum can be part of the
steady income that we will also require. Fund-raising drives are great, but
we also need to know that every month a certain amount is coming in dependably.
Danny
Hello all,
(translation, original text below)
I am something irritated by some suggestions on meta regarding the
international structure of Wikimedia. There are made suggestions,
aligning local Chapter at a language, instead of aligning at a country,
for example Wikimedia Francophone and Wikipedia Esperanto. IMHO that is
the wrong way. Please look at other international non profit
organizations how they do that.
The following points are important to me:
* There should be as clear as possible a separation between projects and
chapters because all projects are international and should remain widely
self-determined.
* Chapters should not primarily spend their money for projects in a
certain language but on all projects, as far as legally possible.
* There should be no sub-chapters on national level (i.e. Wikimedia
Austria as a sub-chapter of Wikimedia Germany). Each national chapter
should be directly assigned to the Foundation. Exceptions could be
meaningful for regional chapters, which could be subordinated to the
national chapters.
The bylaws of Wikimedia Germany consider these principles. I would be
glad, if future chapters would do this likewise.
We should create an international organization to promote *together* all
international projects and not create an accumulation of single
organizations, which primarily promote "their" projects.
-akl
Original text (german):
Ich bin etwas irritiert über einige Vorschläge auf meta in Bezug auf die
internationale Wikimedia-Struktur. Dort werden Vorschläge gemacht,
lokale Chapter an einer Sprache, statt an einem Land auszurichten, zum
Beispiel Wikimedia Francophone und Wikipedia Esperanto. IMHO ist das der
falsche Weg. Bitte schaut Euch mal andere internationale
non-profit-Organisationen an, wie die das machen.
Folgende Punkte sind mir wichtig:
* Es sollte eine möglichst klare Trennung zwischen Projekten und
Chaptern geben, weil alle Projekte international sind und weitgehend
selbstbestimmt bleiben sollten.
* Chapter sollten ihr Geld nicht primär für Projekte in einer bestimmten
Sprache ausgeben sondern möglichst für alle Projekte, soweit wie
rechtlich möglich.
* Es sollte keine Sub-Chapter auf nationaler Ebene geben. Jedes Chapter
sollte direkt der Foundation zugeordnet sein. Ausnahmen könnten sinnvoll
sein für regionale Chapter, die dem jeweilgen nationalen Chapter
untergeordnet werden könnten.
Die Satzung von Wikimedia Deutschland beachtet diese Grundsätze. Ich
wäre froh, wenn zukünftige Chapter dies ebenfalls machen würden.
Wir sollten eine internationale Organisation schaffen, um *zusammen*
alle internationalen Projekte zu fördern und keine Ansammlung von
Einzelorganisationen schaffen, die primär "ihre" Projekte fördern.
-akl