Water cooler/2009

We need somewhere for random chatter, so here is somewhere! --Tango 22:52, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Transferring stuff from meta

Ok, I've started transferring stuff over from meta, but we probably want something a little more organised than the random copying and pasting I'm doing at the moment (I thought it important to get the key information copied over ASAP so we can actually start pointing people to this site). How do we want to do this? Proper importing? Starting from scratch? Make it up as we go along? --Tango 23:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I think people should import, and those who wish to do it should ask for sysop rights from a bureaucrat. GFDL and all that... Majorly 23:01, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Importing to start with, before starting to generate new content. I'm currently trying to figure out how to enable importing (it seems to be disabled at the moment...) Mike Peel 23:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Leave a message on m:SR/P asking someone to give you import rights on this wiki. Cbrown1023 talk 23:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

When I try, it says I need to be a sysop. Does being a sysop not help? We need to discuss user rights at some point, too... --Tango 23:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I have 'crat status here, as does cfp (and the other board members will have too once they sign in). Who gets to be a sysop needs to be discussed... But atm, I can't import anything. Mike Peel 23:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

By default, there are no import sources specified for sysops to import. To get around this, you will need to ask a steward on m:SR/P to give you import rights so that you can export the pages on Meta and import them by file upload here. This is a lot faster than opening up a bug and asking them to set the import sources. Cbrown1023 talk 23:07, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

User rights

No major urgency on this, but I thought I'd start this discussion. We need to decide how we are going to structure user rights on this site. We've already decided (I think) to use protection to handle official pages, so I suggest we request user groups of "Board member" and "Member" be created and restriction levels (ie. options in the list when protecting a page) created for them (having a "Member" group allows us to do online polls very easily - you just protect it to members only and suffrage sorts itself out). I suggest sysop and crat be kept as an independent hierarchy, since there is no need for the board to be the ones handling admin stuff here. --Tango 23:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, is all that necessary? Majorly 23:10, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Thing like Template:WikiUKDisclosure are legal requirements and it shouldn't be possible for any random vandal to fiddle with them. --Tango 23:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

We can just protect them then. It seems like a lot of bureaucracy to be honest. Sysopship for trusted users. Bureaucrat for board members. Nothing else is needed imo. Majorly 23:21, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just my programmer mentality, but I like to keep separate things separate. Authority in the charity and ability to administrate the website seems like separate things to me. And I do think a Member group to facilitate polls would be very useful. --Tango 23:26, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Member group does sound like a good idea. Though there's a danger it might end up being over used (too many pages protected as members only). I'm happy to make anyone I trust a sysop, but I guess we should run things past the board first.--Cfp 23:54, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The only pages I see any point restricting to members only are polls are other official uses of member powers. Other pages can be semiprotected (ie. restrict to autoconfirmed) if necessary. --Tango 00:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Categories

What is the point of Category:Wikimedia UK (which should contain the whole site) and Category:Templates (which should contain the whole Template namespace)? --Tango 11:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I created them so that things would be easier to find, without having to go through Special:Allpages. Not every page will end up in the Wikimedia UK category; it should end up more like meta:Category:Wikimedia UK once everything's been imported. Mike Peel 14:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

Thanks Tango for spotting and deleting the offensive usernames; can we have a debate about:

1. which behaviour and content policies we adopt here
2. How we communicate this (can we revise the text below the edit box?)
3. how we enforce these policies (blocking, banning, abuse reports)

AndrewRT 23:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you are giving me credit for other people's work, there, but thank you anyway! (I deleted an irrelevant page, other admins have done some similar work as well.) I think our current implicit policy of just trusting the judgement of admins is working pretty well. Do we need explicit policies? --Tango 14:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I think I meant cfp! Admins are doing a great job in deleting accounts but this is about doing more. Do we need official policies? You can't do anything about misuse unless people misusing the wiki have a reasonable understanding of what is allowed and what isn't. First stage has to be designing policies and applying them. It only needs to be brief and simple - I'll put something together to show what I mean. 155.202.254.82 13:18, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy with people to use their discretion, but if you want to put together a set of guidelines that's fine too. And if anyone thinks my bans have been overly harsh I'm happy to change what I'm doing. I don't think there's any risk of us banning someone who could actually contribute to the project unlike on Wikipedia. To be honest though I think if we required log in to edit that would cut off most of it, and it wouldn't really inconvenience any of us. --Cfp 18:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Except for certain people that will (by necessity!) remain nameless who can't remember to log in... ;) --Tango 22:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I think something on the main page explaining what this site is for is all that's required. I think, given that, it should be pretty obvious what is acceptable use. Any non-obvious cases can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. If we find ourselves discussing the same things and reaching the same conclusions repeated, we can write it down for convenience. (That's how it is supposed to work on Wikipedia - policy pages describe common practice, that's all.) --Tango 22:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Books

Is it possible to get the "books" feature that's recently been enabled on en.wp enabled here? I though it might be nice to get a book printed off of all the newsletters. AndrewRT 22:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

A bugzilla request would be needed, I believe. I'm not convinced it would be of much use, though... Mike Peel 23:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be easy enough to get enabled but, like Mike, I'm not sure of the use. Newsletters are only really relevant at the time, is anybody going to want a copy of historical newsletters all nicely bound together? --Tango 23:46, 21 March 2009 (UTC

Below the edit box

Below the edit box there is a text that says:

"Please note that all contributions to Wikimedia are considered to be released under the GNU Free Documentation License with the possibility of migration to CC-BY-SA 3.0 (see Wikimedia:Copyrights for details). If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK WITHOUT PERMISSION!"

It is possible to change this and if so, how? AndrewRT 22:34, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes; edit MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning, and/or possibly MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning2 (I'm unclear on the difference between the two). Mike Peel 23:04, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Excellent cheers! AndrewRT 20:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous editing poll

Should anonymous editing be allowed on this wiki? Please put yes or no below with your reasons and signature. AndrewRT 22:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

• No. Too many problems caused by anons editing, and there is nothing to gain. It takes less than 30 seconds to create an account. I've never really thought IP editing was a good idea on Wikipedia, but this isn't Wikipedia. Majorly 22:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
• Yes: anonymous editing is one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia, and we should continue in that spirit unless it causes problems. Mike Peel 23:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
• Yes - as long as it isn't causing significant problems (which it isn't so far), then why not? --Tango 23:48, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
• No. I don't see what we gain by it, and I do see what we risk by it (vandalism, potentially with legal repercussions). On Wikipedia anonymous editing makes sense. We want to make it as easy as conceivably possible to edit a page, and we do not want people to be put off by the small hurdle of having to register. On this wiki that does not apply. Virtually all our potential (non-vandal/lost) editors will already have Wikipedia accounts and will know the system. Those few that will not (if indeed there are any) will be coming from some other organisation with some specific request, and by dint of having gone to the effort of finding this wiki will not be put off by the five second hassle of creating an account. Note that by "anonymous editing" I understand Andrew to mean "editing from an IP address", which obviously is not particularly anonymous. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should prevent people from editing from accounts which give no identity information (which can often be more anonymous than an IP address). --Cfp 03:29, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
• Neutral. Yes. People from other chapters may want to edit without wanting to bother making another account. I just realised this wiki, surprisingly, uses Wikimedia's shared user database. If it stays that way, then there's not so much benefit to allowing unregistered edits. Angela 04:51, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
• Yes per Tango. --BozMo 07:27, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
• No. This is an area for open debate and comment. Create a new account if you want, but have an identity! LoopZilla 08:33, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

London Loves Wikipedia Project

I've opened a poll at Talk:Projects/Proposals#Poll_on_London_Loves_Wikipedia_project Please could you comment there. AndrewRT 21:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Page name

The page name shown in the browser window is "Wikimedia" - how can we change that to Wikimedia UK? AndrewRT 11:20, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is a job for the developers, but I may be wrong. --Skenmy 11:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

It's set by "$wgSitename" in LocalSettings.php, which needs a developer to be changed. Will ask around... Mike Peel 11:25, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

meta:User:Werdna has changed it to "Wikimedia UK". Mike Peel 11:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Excellent - thanks! AndrewRT 12:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Chapter Agreement Revision

The Wikimedia Foundation has recently published its proposals for a new standard Chaptar Agreement. They are hoping for all chapters to replace their existing chapter agreements with this new one by the end of June.

They have agreed that we are ok to publish the draft in a public forum so our members have an opportunity to comment.

The existing agreement is at Chapter_Agreement and I have uploaded the new draft to Chapter_Agreement_Revision

Please let us have your comments either on the talk page there or here. AndrewRT 21:39, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Public IRC logs

I've started a discussion at Talk:Meetings#Public IRC logs about whether we should continue to make publically available the IRC logs of old IRC discussions. Please let me know what you think there.

Image copyright

Hi all. We seem to be gathering images on this site that don't make their copyright status clear; see pretty much any image currently listed at [1]. How do we sort this? Should we insist that all images are kept on Commons rather than here? Mike Peel 23:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Why not just say that "everything is under GFDL" applies to images as well as text? --Tango 17:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I second Tango's idea. Can we change the text at the top of Special:Upload to say the same as the text when you edit a page (i.e. release everythign under CC etc) AndrewRT 17:13, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Loves Art & Freedom of Panorama

I see that one of the Wikimedia UK initiatives is the Wikipedia Loves Art program - with the V&A event detailed at Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Art/V&A rules.

Why is it that the Wikipedia Loves Art V&A event stresses that only objects created before 1923 may be photographed? I assume the 1923 cut off date is derived from the date works become public domain in the US - commons:Template:PD-US. But in the UK, it's different, our Freedom of Panorama laws are much less restrictive, and we should be embracing those, by taking images of modern sculpture, objects and artwork on display in the UK as part of the initiative.

For future Wikipedia Loves Art events in the UK, the pre-1923 rule should not be applied. - hahnchen 15:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that rule simply makes it easier - the UK copyright law is a bit awkward in that it expires 75 years after the author's death, but it may not always be obvious when the author's death was. It's probably also partly due to the Freedom of Panorama rule not applying to pictures, although not all of the things photographed were pictures. There may also have been concerns about meeting both the US and UK copyright laws (as the servers are located in the US), but I don't believe that applies.

There's also complications in that the events are held inside museums, such that the museums have a say in what goes on, what things can be photographed, etc. It might be good to hold an outdoor event, similar to the original Wiki Takes Manhatten, either at the same time or seperately. Mike Peel 20:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

At an institution such as the V&A, 2D artworks are going to be in the minority. A question may be raised however, regarding the permanence of exhibits that Freedom of Panorama laws permit photographic reproduction of. How can you (or the gallery curator) guarantee that an object or artwork will be displayed in public indefinitely, or until it falls out of copyright in an unknown amount of years time? - hahnchen 18:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't it required that the images be uploaded to commons? Commons follows US law. --Tango 03:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

You raise a good point. I was involved in the WLA event at the V&A - being a global project run out of New York, they used a single set of rules. It seemed at the time to be prudent to go along with that. The forthcoming London Loves Wikipedia might do it differently. AndrewRT 17:11, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You mean life + 70 years don't you Mike? Jarry1250 20:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I did indeed. I'm not too sure where "75 years" came from... Thanks for catching that. Mike Peel 20:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki links do not conform with other Wikimedia sites

The [[w:]] link should go to en.wikipedia as per m:Help:Interwiki linking. However, it links to the Ukranian Wikipedia, because the Mediawiki software assumes that the uk.wikimedia.org domain is for the Ukranian language. - hahnchen 17:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[[wikipedia:]] should work. I guess getting the [[w:]] interwiki link fixed will require a bug report filing... Mike Peel 20:07, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought that had been fixed. We'll have to get a dev to sort it out. Whoever made the site originally was a little careless and forgot to change the language from the default. I guess when they fixed it they didn't update the interwiki map thing. --Tango 22:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It is possible to get the domain shifted to wikimedia.org.uk? That would make it more consistent, particularly as uk.wikipedia.org is only a letter different. AndrewRT 18:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Adverts

We've had a spate of advertising on the User namespace. I've created a template {{No adverts}} to use to reply to these situations and I've blanked the advertising. Please use {{subst:No adverts}} on the talk page. Should we write a policy for this? AndrewRT 17:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Are the IPs all in a range? (For that matter, how do you check the IP of a logged in user?) --Cfp 18:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

With Checkuser - i'm a checkuser on another project but not here. --Skenmy 20:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Can crats here give people checkuser? --Tango 02:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nope I understand you need to be a steward to make check users. AndrewRT 18:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that we should be able to conduct our own CU's. Particularly to comply as much as possible with UK data protection laws. Prehaps filing a bug? Seddon 22:08, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's try and avoid having loads of policy pages. This is a very small wiki, I think we can handle things on a case by case basis and just keep each other informed here. --Tango 02:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

CU Policy is more involved than "just a bug" for WMF projects, but not sure how that stands up for chapter wikis. The Board of an organisation might have some "right" to CheckUser. --Skenmy 17:25, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The wonders of Brut

Hi everyone, I've just received a bottle of Champagne in the post with a WMUK label on it, but no cover letter! :-) As a result, I'd like to post a general thanks in the hope that whoever sent it reads this message! So thanks! :-D Colds7ream 14:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Petition

petitions.number10.gov.uk/publicdomain/

Jarry1250 20:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

As yet, there has been no firm decision (that I know of) saying the public can't freely use such photographs. I suggest letting the NPG saga play out a little more before lobbying the government. --Tango 01:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

IRC bot

I'd quite like (and am happy to code) a bot that sat in #wikimedia-uk and reported changes on the wiki - it could be turned off using a simple command during board meetings and so forth. Would anyone object? Jarry1250 19:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea. I'd keep it turned on during board meetings - it might encourage people to edit more. ;-) Mike Peel 17:23, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea. It could send periodic reminders of board meetings, etc. as well. --Tango 17:01, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

From [2] it seems that #uk.wikimedia exists on irc.wikimedia.org - so we already have a recent changes feed on IRC. Mike Peel 17:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course, it's pretty inaccessible, but it's a fairly simple job for me to get them piped over in #wikimedia-uk. So yeah, looks like it should be painless. Jarry1250 17:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Hopefully everything should be okay now, with changes being reported. With any luck, even this edit will be :). Jarry1250 18:49, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The bot times out after about two hours, in which case, click the link in the topic to get it back. Jarry1250 18:17, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I have now set it to automatically restart every 30 minutes, but I don't think this resets the timeout; thus you could be waiting for up to 29 minutes for it to appear :). Edit: Yes, this functionality appears to be working. Jarry1250 19:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

(un-dent) I strongly recommend and advocate the moving of this bot to a different channel, perhaps #wikimedia-uk-rc. We already have #uk.wikimedia that isn't difficult to watch over, and the bot spams what is supposed to be a discussion channel. It will flood our logs during meetings with needless entries, and alerts me (and others) to chat happening in #wikimedia-uk when nothing is actually going on. While I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jarry1250, I honestly do not feel that the bot is needed in #wikimedia-uk. --Skenmy 20:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, obviously I disagree about the utility. For example, neither Mike nor I knew of the existence of #uk.wikimedia before I opened this thread, so we must assume that at the moment, at least, finding this functionality is not easy. On the other hand, #wikimedia-uk remains well advertised. Most people do not check recent changes on-wiki, and consequently this would alert them to new discussions outside of their watchlists. On the logging point, the logger(s) is more than welcome to /ignore the bot temporarily or the whole time. In the meantime, everyone else gets increased transparency over edits. On the flooding issue, there is /ignore, but also I would like to point out that outside of meetings, edits per day rarely exceed 10 (if you look at recent days, be sure to exclude my test edits). Likewise, if WMUK expands (which it does), and non-mainspace edits start flooding both #uk.wikimedia and this, we can filter what gets reported ridiculously easily, so that #uk.wikimedia remains a muddle but this just focuses on "important" edits (measured by whatever metric). So, yes, I disagree, but I am not strongly opposed to having a #wikimedia-uk-rc link in the topic of #wikimedia-uk. Jarry1250 21:46, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

That sounds like a fair compromise to me. What I have a problem with is people forcing things upon a channel that may or may not want or need it - not only in this instance. I've had similar points raised in the #wikinews channel, for instance, whereby we ended up having an RSS feed bot that reported tens of stories every hour - very distracting. The bot was moved to #wikinews-en, which has now become an unofficial "tools" channel, as it was otherwise unused for discussion. #wikimedia-uk is a discussion channel, not a reporting and tool channel. Create a channel for that purpose, if you feel it is needed. You are more than welcome to add a pointer to the channel in the topic - the channel is -t :) --Skenmy 06:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is not a question of whether I would find it useful or whether you would; it's a question of a default setting for the random user. On the topic of rate, we're currently running at a few per hour during peak times, but for most of the day absolutely zilch. If edit rate did rocket, then it would obviously have to go. Jarry1250 19:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

So what do you define as "rocket"? Our peak editing times are generally when people are trying to use the channel for discussion - during board meetings, etc. It seems to me like this bot will be causing a problem, even with its' low amount of lines. --Skenmy 19:19, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Interwiki map

Can someone check and request the relevant "standard" interwiki prefixes in bugzilla?

I at least know that n: (for Wikinews) doesn't work, also n:en: is required to get to English, and 'thinks it's going via the Ukraine. --Brian McNeil 13:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)