User talk:Sj

Please leave me a message here

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Older notes, 2005-2012

Summarized comments

Separate simple... ratings scheme offense, IRC defense... black ants! Angela Uueh, Thanks! Sj Hi. improving interlingual ties : interesting and meaningful. I have some new ideas, too... Press Corps 17-yr cicada req. attracted en:User:Lupo, who added some photos. :-) User:Tomos hello :-) bad browser on meta? adding space between caracters. Anthere UTF-8 codes breaking! Please care about it. please. Suisui ugh! And sometimes it adds an "e" at the end of a block of text. And replaces certain international characters with a literal "?" [ :( ] Sj Multilingualism : Something has to be done on multlingual communication on wiki... one of its main powersouces I think. I contacted Arno Lagrange, Anthere. -- MattisManzel

wmf miscellany - jd ৸, August 2006

Communitas and thoughts on Wikipedia interlanguage priorities - user:Quinobi, July 2006

ludism's WikiNode preview in late '06 (NTS)

Fantasy, June 2007, asking about iswiki flagging (for sitenotice editing in '06)

user:Guaka gets a laptop, June 2007

Craig Franklin on a Brisbane bid, February 2008.

KTC statement thanks, and privatemusings talk request, May-June 2008 (UTC)

Mikhailov Kusserow revising a speedydel of userpages, March 2009 (UTC)

What do you think about commons:Commons:Village pump#Russian Copyright Law issues concerning edits in Wikipedia made by Russian citizens?

Hello Sj, this edit is correct? Greetings, 21:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC) (both from someone logged in as me!)

Image license for Wp 4juillet-board.jpg (early 2007, jusjih, pathoschild)

You've got email. Dragons flight, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Quality Assessment tools for readers -AG

Managing translations --Nemo, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Software development transparency: see mw:Development process improvement and comments: 1, 2 which lead to this suggestion; and chat log starting at about 20:34. Cheers, Nemo 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Budget stuff (2005)

Hey - nice work on organizing this. :) I consider the budget passed today as a second beta budget, the next one will be a full version and I'd like your help beforehand in putting it together (need to start work on this early in March).

Some notes: We did not have enough money for a reserve this time (other than just saying that anything we take in that is over $75K is the reserve), but all the board members present indicated that this is very important and should be a budget item in the next budget. Your idea of 3 months' operations expenses is the standard recommended amount by GAAP for non-profits, so that is what I'm going to push for but it will likely not be that large until the end of the year. My proposed budget had $20K for special projects (such as outreach, WikiReaders, yada yada, Mother Teresa-type stuff, etc), but that was tied to being half of the Lounsbery grant. In the meeting I found out that that money was marked for 'physical expenses during quarter 1 2005', which wiped the special projects item (the $0 item). Once again, great work and I look forward to working with you. --Daniel Mayer 06:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

PS - If you are interested, IRC is a good place for us to work together. #wikimedia is the logical choice so long as it stays fairly quite. I'd also like us to eventually form a real finance committee with at least one board member being an active participant (Anthere seems to be obvious choice). A way to logically coordinate what is put on meta and what goes on the foundation wiki also needs to be worked out. We also need to draft a contract for Brion and maybe for Chad. Sensitive stuff like contract development may need to happen on the grants wiki. --Daniel Mayer

Wikimedia budget/2005/Q4

Any help, esp on the detail pages, would be greatly appreciated. :) --Daniel Mayer 00:04, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikimedia Quarto

Hi Sj, is Wikimedia Quarto still active? If not, I am thinking about a reviving, how do you think of it?--Wing 08:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you speak of two very critical points. The one is recruiting authors, the other is translating. How was these done in the past? On the authoring side I am thinking of invite people write articles, and I would also accept people write articles in their own language and try to find translators to do the translation for them. How do you think of this?--Wing 13:36, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

It has been dormant, but I think the need for something like it across the projects has only grown over time. I would love to spend some time recruiting new authors and translators, showing them how we produced that sort of visual newsletter without too much trouble. +sj | help with translation |+

Replies on your talk page . +sj | help with translation |+

Wikizine move

Sj, if you wish to move all Wikizine editons to Meta, many are there already, look at this, and all others are in a simmilar form at the wikizine wiki. All editions must be somewhere in the "construction-layout". --Walter 12:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Super, thanks. It's on my weekend plan while in Chicago :) I commented it out until I have time to work through the list. -- sj | help translate |+ 20:16, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Babel

Translation offer

You probably have enough people already, but if you ever need help here on Meta translating between English and German (in either direction), drop me a note on en.wikipedia. Cheers, --Goodmorningworld 19:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Just so you know, we're not ignoring you... Alex and I are just thinking about it. ;-) A quick question though, does it just have to be "technical improvements" (as in related to technology)? Cbrown1023 talk 22:19, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Not at all. most tech solutions have social equivalents and vice-versa. I think some of the most telling changes would be social. Simply stating there are core languages that should be considered equal for the purposes of a main jumping-off point for localization, or a canonical document about the Projects, would be a significant change for language issues. Or conversely, the proposed explicit statement that all strategic planning be done in English will define how groups are formed and discussions started. For outreach, wiki and social issues about where presentations (or conference papers) are shared and archived, where event calendars are posted and updated, & how requests to talk are shared are all relevant. -- sj | help translate |+ 23:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: New languages

At the very least, you could bring up the topic at the English Wikipedia's village pump. But before any change can take place, we need to involve a very broad swath of the Wikimedia community.

We could conduct a poll similar to the various logo selection processes. Each of the Wikipedia editions would have to carry a visible notice about the poll, because the portal is by far the most visible of Wikimedia's webpages, and every language (at least the 100+ languages) would be affected to some extent. And of course, we can add a little blurb on the portal itself, maybe just below the search bar. Ideally, we'd involve the translation community here; visitors from non-English projects may feel left out of the decision if we allow most of the discussion to take place in only English.

So far, the only serious proposals I know of are Catherine's current design and Forseti's. We should expect a good deal of support for the current design, so we'll have to make a good case for changing it (internationalization, expandability, newer is better, etc.). We also need to make clear the new design's requirements, based on our experience as admins having to maintain the portal regularly. For example, we can't just say that every language with over 100,000 articles gets to be at the top, unless we have some way of accommodating 15 or 20 languages up there, even on lower-resolution screens. (Because we should expect the new design to last awhile.) We also need to keep an eye on page size, load time, and accessibility. So although a clickable Flash map of the world would be a cool way to select a language, we really can't use it.

By involving the wider community in designing the portal, the portal will seem like less of a temporary hack (which it is currently), and maybe the developers will finally get around to fixing bugs like 4501, 1534, 15518, and 15758. We could really excite volunteer designers with a well-publicized poll.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly a long-term discussion. And strange that only those two proposals have been considered seriously -- this is a famous and highly visible page! Now that Jack and others are actively working on improving the page, it seems like a good time to get new designers involved. Thanks for highlighting those related bugs; I've been trying to gather important bugs for various long-term projects, since we don't have a unified set of priorities at the moment (or even a list of a hundred different clusters of priorities belonging to different groups).

Before any large poll is started, existing discussions about the portal should be consolidated -- they are hard to follow, especially for someone coming in fresh. The odd naming convention for the portal pages doesn't help. We need to convert something like Initiatives into a meta-equivalent of w:Wikipedia:Wikiprojects, and organize a discussion there - that is something that visitors from large wikipedias might be more comfortable with. -- sj | help translate |+ 06:31, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the poll that decided the current design was between Catherine's design and a temporary design that really no one liked. [1] (It looked something like the current "Wiki does not exist" error page.) Unfortunately, Forseti introduced his design just a bit too late for the majority of voters to take notice, and efforts to merge the two designs as a compromise never resulted in much change. Forseti's design did get reused for some Toolserver tools and the old server downtime message.

But none of these designs really did anything about the severe usability issue of choosing between hundreds of languages. Plenty of websites feature a language selection page upfront, but Wikipedia's the only site I know of that suffers from the issue to that extent. Even a clickable Flash world map wouldn't work for us, because of geopolitical issues and the sheer number of minority languages represented here. So not only do we need designers to step up, but we also need to engage usability experts. WikiProject Usability at the English Wikipedia might have some professional usability/HCI contacts who might be of help in creating a new proposal.

 – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Things of beauty

Things of beauty or things that make you smile? Perfect. :-) What a wonderful question. I'm going to use that often. --Philippe 02:05, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Fundraising booklet: frdisc

I herd you like quotes! you should send that to comcom; v. useful.

Sent! –SJ talk | translate   17:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Strategy

Strategy Wiki

Hi SJ,

I'm Serita Cox, a member of the strategy development project team, and project manager from Bridgespan. Tyler forwarded me your message as it expanded beyond her area of focus (Content stub) into process and I wanted to respond to the entirety of your posting.

First, thank you so much for your input, it is greatly appreciated. To answer your questions: 1- Process. Yes, the project team has now thought through the process sufficiently that we have identified activities, roles, timelines, and deliverables for the entire strategy development process and are looking to post them for Community input this coming week. We wanted the Community to have something logical to react to, but given your comment re: Content/Quality stub being "too polished" I worry we might get similar reactions to posting the process. It is a fine balance to strike between giving the Community some starting point and appearing too set/decided. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated on how to hit this right balance.

2- Your message around editing the Content/Quality stub couldn't have been more timely. I had that very day raised the concern that these stubs were not getting the kind of traction we were hoping in terms of views, edits, inputs, comments. Clearly, they are sub-optimal in engaging the Community. Their purpose is to provide a place to start collating and analyzing data around Content/Quality, Participation, Reach so that the Community Task Forces set-up in Phase II have a starting point to begin analyzing and defining potential strategic opportunities and priorities for expanding reach, expanding content, improving quality and expanding participation. It is true that the Bridgespan-side of the team is tasked with providing the first development and subsequent synthesis of these fact bases which is why you see large postings, but again, it would be very helpful to us to get your thoughts and input on how we can clarify the purpose of these fact bases, the continuous "work in progress" nature of these fact bases, and how best to frame/layout these fact bases for maximum Community engagement.

I would really appreciate any feedback you can give us regarding our transparency of process, clarity of purpose, and desired engagement with the Community. You can reach me via my User page http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Serita

Thanks, Serita

Hi, Serita -- I responded on stratwiki. I'll get over my concerns about founding a new wiki one I have a process for synching it with meta... -- sj · translate · + 15:53, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Future of Wikimedia Workshop

Rich Farmbrough 21:01 14 July 2012 (GMT).

Policies, namespaces

Would love to have your take on this: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babel#Namespace_for_Iberocoop_in_Meta . Cheers, notafish }<';> 22:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Local uploads policy

Hello, I'd like to hear your opinion here. I'm happy to see that the board is engaging in community discussion more (as in the proposals for new projects) and I think this issue is worth such an effort as well, with some sort of support from the board, as the board's licensing policy is completely ignored on most projects. Frankly, we've seen many resolutions with negligible impact (as with BLP and Openness), but this seems a good area for the board to start making its own resolutions effective. Thanks, Nemo 12:00, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Child protection revert

Hi. Using rollback on a non-vandal edit is unusual. Did you mis-click or was this intentional? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:28, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

No special intent, meant as a normal revert. –SJ talk 

Hi Sj. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this, and I've seen you editing since it was posted so please respond. Thanks --Krenair ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Hello MZM and Hi Krenair, nice to meet you. This looked to me like an epic troll being set up on Meta, after gradually creating increasingly provocative new pages here. Pedophilia advocacy is a flash point for communities everywhere on the Internet -- and a favorite topic to use to rile others up. An easy way to start a flame wary is to start a thread claiming pedophiles are being oppressed, defending them, and playing off anti-pedophilia and anti-censorship factions against one another. I see he is continuing a new essay in this vein using flamebait about strawberry ice cream.

This tactic has been used to disrupt online communities for years... including our own wiki communities. The author has a history of playing games with / exasperating communities (cf. when user:sarsaparilla and socks were asked to leave en:wp).

I would like to hear more about why you two are defending and interested in the the cross-promotion of this writing. At any rate, the pages seem suited to userspace if anything. While I would like to see a serious discussion of viewpoint censorship, the current page is not one; it is a soapbox. –SJ talk  19:58, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

This is a valid topic to discuss, I would not call it a trolling tactic, even if such things have been used as a trolling tactic in the past, here or elsewhere on the internet (They certainly can be, but not everything bound to start a discussion on the subject is automatically a trolling tactic. In fact, considering it as such would be very, very dangerous in my opinion.).

I don't know much about the author, so what does this have to do with w:User:Sarsaparilla? I just checked the author's enwiki account and it seems he's been blocked by the Arbitration Committee there... But neither the block log nor his user talk page actually give any reason (?!).

I'm defending it here because it's obviously relevant to the page you attempted to remove it from. ("editors [...] who advocate [...] will be indefinitely blocked" is blatant viewpoint censorship.) Because this sort of page is bound to cause disagreements, such is the nature of the topic, I was also under the suspicion that your removal of the link was because you disagreed with the page (based on your response so far, this doesn't appear to be the case). --Krenair ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:32, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Sj, «Pedophilia advocacy is a flash point for communities everywhere on the Internet -- and a favorite topic to use to rile others up»: true, but this argument can be used against either side of this (IMvvvvvvHO) completely uninteresting/useless debate, and you removed the link to one opinion but not to its opposite (right above it). I'm not sure this works very well as an anti-troll tactic, but you surely have more experience than me. --Nemo 22:18, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

A good point - neither link belongs as a 'see also'. You're right that this debate is a distraction. But any subject of policy or interest on the Projects, as well as philosophical essays, are fair topics for Meta. Let's keep further comments on the essay talk page.

Thanks for explaining, Krenair. The author's talk page on en:wp does explain the block: he is Sarsaparilla, banned there in the past for some combination of canvassing, socking, and hoaxes. –SJ talk  01:12, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Well I don't know how the hell I missed that. Maybe I was looking at the wrong page. --Krenair ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

On «neither link belongs as a 'see also'», FYI someone seems to disagree. --Nemo 17:27, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I see a pattern of censorship. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 19:11, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm arriving kind of late to this discussion, but oh well. In my opinion, a large part of the point of essays is so that you can write a lengthy post laying out your thoughts in detail, without either (1) editing them down to a short sound bite suitable for posting to a talk page, but inadequate to fully state all the nuances of one's opinions or (2) clogging up talk pages with lengthy posts. They allow for the conversation on a topic to be split into subtopics discussed separately. They also diminish the temptation to repetitiously post the same opinions in one venue after another by allowing one to satisfy oneself that one has fully vented one's spleen; and if one comes up with anything further to say on the subject after that, one can revise the essay accordingly. Essays are, therefore, highly useful vehicles for a variety of expressive purposes.

Typically a troll seeks to annoy people. Part of the point of writing an essay, at least in this case, is to avoid annoying people by, instead of hijacking their thread with a lengthy analysis of viewpoint censorship (which could end up covering a lot of topics unrelated to the original thread), starting a new thread, and posting a link to it, which doesn't take up too much space. Some people can't handle frank discussions about topics such as pedophilia without getting angry. I used to be the same way about certain political topics, including wiki-politics; it's one of the reasons I got banned from enwiki. Well, that along with some mischievousness (e.g. the Obuibo Mbstpo hoax).

Events since then, including some learning experiences that weren't all that pleasant, have crushed my spirit, and/or altered my attitudes, to the point that I don't fight in the ways that I used to. Although the ability to successfully push for reform is sometimes frustratingly lacking, I've come to view humanity's progress as an evolution that will be a marathon rather than a sprint, and therefore requires patient application of effort where it can yield some good, since there is usually at least some endeavor available that meets that description. E.g., lately I've devoted a lot of work to MediaWiki.org, since it's pretty easy to improve the documentation and codebase without getting into a lot of arguments; unlikely public policy matters, it's usually not a zero-sum game where one person's getting what he wants prevents others from getting it. This is largely due to the software's modularity and the ease of establishing verifiable facts (something that is not nearly as easy when dealing with, say, economics or history; see Wikipedia cannot be neutral).

Also, I've grown a few years older; with age, people have a tendency to become more serious, and I think I have become less mischievous than in the past. Therefore I probably wouldn't get banned again if I were given another chance over there. Whether that chance will be forthcoming or not remains to be seen.

Perhaps I'm not helping my cause by delving into controversial topics on meta, but those are some of the same topics I would probably be covering on enwiki, so if the ArbCom frowns on the edits I'm making here, they'd probably also frown on the edits I'd be making at enwiki. Therefore, in the final analysis, it probably makes little difference. I don't think it's always a good idea to censor oneself for the sake of pleasing others; sometimes it feels good to stand for principle, whatever persecution may come. Self-censorship can be a real drag. Leucosticte (talk) 06:04, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for this comment. I'm glad my worries seem to have been unfounded. –SJ talk  00:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Ombudsman

As you may be aware there have been significant governance issues on en: concerning Arbcom, checkusers and the Audit Subcommittee at least.

Only for the abuse of checkuser is there an offical path of escalation, in the form of the ombudsmen. It appears, however, that this group is moribund, therefore there are no apparent constraints on the abuse of power on en:.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Penyulap#Update for more details.

All the best, Rich Farmbrough 15:23 16 December 2012 (GMT).

Thanks for the note. I'll look into it next week. Less moribund than in need of a public noticeboard that registers when new requests are made at least... so it seems to me.

Also, I could use some pointers on bot manipulation... I have a batch of 6000 pronunciation files I'd like to post to WikiData and add to appropriate en:wp articles, and I'd like to learn how to do it properly myself :) –SJ talk  03:33, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

That would have to be very carefully done. For example editors are complaining about Arbcom releasing their personal information supplied in confidence, adding this to a public noticeboard would be to further publicise the leaked information. In this case the editor was completely open about his alternative accounts, and chose to post the complaint on his user page in the spirit of openness. Not all complaints will be so open. Moreover complaints can be made about abuse of process which involve third parties who have a right to privacy.

There are additional questions coming to the fore, concerning freedom of information and whistle-blowing - these might be worth having in the back of ones mind over the coming weeks and months.

Hit me up when you are ready to do some work with the pronunciation files.

Rich Farmbrough 11:24 17 December 2012 (GMT).

I think "registers when new requests are made" is sufficient. It doesn't need to say who made the request, or who received it, or what it was about. It's enough if every request gets a single public pip, and someone from the commission replies to each and says "being handled" or some such to ensure it hasn't fallen through the cracks. The noticeboard mechanism could add "noise" of a few days to avoid people correlating requests to some specific on-wiki event, if that matters. –SJ talk  17:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes that sounds like a suitable idea. I think the details of each case should be as open as possible, but cannot be pre-judged. Entries like:

• Case 1234 based on email received (MD5 checksum xxxx), responsible ombudsman Joe Blogss, opened 00:48, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

and also updates to status. Rich Farmbrough 00:48 19 December 2012 (GMT).

Purpose of wmf:Home

You may be interested: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Foundation_wiki_feedback&oldid=4865819#Purpose_of_wmf:Home>. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:19, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Request for an account on the Foundation wiki/header lists the current requirements for obtaining an account on wikimediafoundation.org. Perhaps you could amend the rules appropriately? I think your edits will hold more weight than mine. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:20, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

+1, tell me what you think. Other specific suggestions? –SJ talk 

Thank you. Your edits look good to me. Now it's just a matter of recruitment. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Links you may be interested in:

• Talk:Non-disclosure agreements
• Legal docs
• Foundation wiki feedback/Changes to home page (spring 2013)

I'm seeing a lot of needless resistance lately. :-/ --MZMcBride (talk) 06:37, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting, I see useful progress, particularly on publishing legal docs - much more than last year. Your being testy on wmfwiki isn't helping, I think. –SJ talk  15:50, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably not. I'm annoyed at the mess (uncategorized, out-of-date, and obsolete pages), which I'm now working to clean up. The annoyance gets compounded when, while I'm in the middle of trying to clean up, someone comes along and tries to take ownership of the wiki (or just its main page, I suppose). It isn't Jay's wiki or the Wikimedia Foundation communications department's wiki, as Philippe and others seem to keep casually suggesting. (And frankly, I'm not sure why Jay or anyone else would want to claim ownership for a wiki that's been overrun by outdated, un-curated, and uncategorized content.)

Thank you for the edits to Legal docs. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm very happy you're cleaning up there; thank you. I think it's just questions about the main page that people are worried about. (This happens to all sites, community wikis and foundation wikis and grassroots org websites... it's one of those shed-painting issues: it's a question that affects many people's casual daily experience, everyone has an opinion, both about design and about who should determine it, and there's no obvious way to choose among conflicting opinions.) Though setting a reasonable admin and access poilcy is a broader question. Warmly, –SJ talk  20:06, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia exit interview ← I'm trying to tread lightly. I asked Jan-Bart what he thought.

User talk:Jan-Bart is indefinitely semi-protected. :-/

I've created Legal protection, as I think the "word of caution" section in particular isn't well documented. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:20, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

2013

Welcome to the future past!

Email

Sj, did you see the email that I sent to you? I'm hoping that you can send a reply to Wikimedia-l. Thanks and happy new year. --Pine^✉ 07:12, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I did and glad you asked. I will respond soon; I'm still thinking about it. I am impatient in my own way, so on the one hand I always want us (as a board and movement) to do more; and on the other I have to actively take time with some responses to reflect on them. Warmly, –SJ talk  22:39, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I understand. Thank you. --Pine^✉ 23:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi SJ. Some time has passed. Are you still working on the email, or did you send one and I missed it? Thanks, --Pine^✉ 00:06, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

I wrote one, asked a friend for feedback, and life's little disasters got in the way. I will get back to it this week; it is a topic that was dear to aaronsw's heart too. –SJ talk  02:38, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I was sad when I heard about Aaronsw. I'm glad to see that the Wikimedia community is remembering him in numerous ways. I look forward to your email, but maybe it would be best to have this conversation a few days from now after we've all had a chance to do some emotional processing. Could you send the email on Thursday or later this week? Thank you, --Pine^✉ 19:35, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi SJ. A month has passed since I first wrote to you. Are you still planning to respond? --Pine^✉ 02:04, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Re: Translating board resolutions

I've replied on my talk. :) --Nemo 07:39, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

And again. (Thanks for the other edit, sorry for the surreal discussion.) --Nemo 11:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

FYI

Hi, I thought you might have useful perspective on this: Talk:Special Interest Groups -Pete F (talk) 20:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

TDC

Re: "I would love to see not just a FDC but a tech dissemination committee where people can apply for tech support for projects." -- this is a lovely idea. –SJ talk 

Thanks SJ. Wondering how I should pursue it? I and many other I am sure need tech support for the work we do on Wikipedia / Wikimedia projects. And while I am even willing to pay someone I have no idea about hiring people who know how to edit Media Wiki software.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I think you want a Tech version of the GAC, actually. Most tech needs are in the 1-2 developer range for a few months, for a fixed result. (The FDC equivalent would be a small dev-team for a year for an unrestricted variety of projects.) I suggest starting by proposing requests to the GAC, asking for tech time rather than $$, and see what they say. They may have good ideas. –SJ talk 

Thanks will give it a try :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

This is a fantastic idea. -Pete F (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what sort of tech support you're talking of and coming from whom, but Sumana seems to see Lead our development process as a product adviser or manager as something somehow similar to this. --Nemo 07:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Tech support would come from the WMF. The WMF is an expert in hiring people who do tech work. Wikipedians are not. So even if we have money / get money through an IEG this may not be what people need.

For example I need this or some equivalent tool to work in more languages than English [2]. User who created it is to busy to adapt it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:08, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Community logo and derivatives

Thank you, Sj. :) I've spoken to the legal team about this, and Michelle Paulson put some thoughts here that might be useful consideration. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 12:43, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Lovely, thanks Maggie. SJ

Endowment

Sj,

You might notice that there's a new page at Endowment here. In the links at the bottom is a question about your edit here. You may wish to comment as to where that discussion happened... or not. :) Philippe (WMF) (talk) 11:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Bureaucrat discussion

Hello. A bureaucrat discussion has been opened to decide the outcome of this request for de-adminship. It is opened for more than three days now and it has only received one comment so far. If you could please pass by and leave your comments over there it would be really appreciated. Best regards.

— Delivered via Global message delivery on behalf of MarcoAurelio, 15:21, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Marco. I commented there... –SJ talk  23:18, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Wanted

to get ur attention on that discussion: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Elections/2013_Chair#Are_u. Thanks.--Angel54 5 (talk) 01:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikinews...

have you forgotten one purpose for Wikinews? to serve as a record of what was known at a given point in time? - Amgine/^{meta wikt wnews blog wmf-blog goog news} 21:49, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that too. This is partly addressed by historical revisions. More detailed comparisons of the value of "record v. persistent context" would be useful. I'm sure there are examples where one of those uses dominates, and others where both matter.

The record/snapshot of the full set of things popularly discussed is likewise important to put in context. Right now we don't have any way of capturing that : we don't work well on wn with other data feeds; today there are a number of compatibly licensed news sources that don't generate entries of any sort on WN. So I think there are many useful conceptual updates that could be sorted. –SJ talk  03:39, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Grantmaking Barnstar

	Individual Engagement Grant Barnstar
	SJ, thanks for the thoughtful participation in IEG discussions - hope to have your ideas and input again in round 2! Siko (WMF) (talk) 20:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

chocolate leftovers...

... here notafish }<';> 00:53, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia loves the DPLA

Hi SJ,

I have emailed Emily Gore and Pam Wright. Below is a copy. Love to hear your comments.

Emily and Pam – We are a group of Wikipedians who would like to be the DPLA’s “first customers”.
The group will download NARA metadata from the DPLA to Wikimedia Commons. To this end, digitized item-level materials from NARA’s ARC database that have corresponding empty categories in the NARA-Commons partnership have been identified. The categories will be filled, and the images will be made available for Wikipedia editors – as an example of the power of the DPLA and its partner agencies.
The initial download includes NARA Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1921 – 2008; however, if there is another preference, please let us know.
This collaboration - between Wikipedians and the DPLA, and using NARA records - is an amazing first step: NARA data is used first, furthering the agency goal to bring materials to Commons in a structured way, the DPLA has a high profile “first customer”, and Wikipedians are first in the door of what is the future of records aggregation.
After the completion of the first download, NARA records can continue to flow on to Wikimedia Commons, using the templating, categorization, and naming structures already in place.
The DPLA Technical Development team has expressed support of the plan, and will let us know when the download can begin.
This effort brings together diverse groups for a common goal – your input is welcome.
Emily – When appropriate, we will tweet, blog, and FB during the live download. We can provide you with the url of the Commons page the data will flow to, so you can watch the progress as well. It should be exciting!
Pam – As mentioned above, Record Group 330 seems like a good choice – military images are popular on Wikipedia. If NARA has another preference, please let us know.

Best, User:Bdcousineau User:Michael Barera User: Sarah Stierch User:Smallman12q

cc: SJ Klein, via user page

Thanks. Bdcousineau (talk) 16:13, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Great start! One thing we should consider: becoming a DPLA hub (say, along with WikiTeam), for both existing Wikipedia data, and perhaps providing curation services for repositories and communities that don't know how to get their material into the proper format, but are happy to contribute it to the DPLA through us (as a community hub) . [think of the smaller collections of primary sources, or sites like geograph.org that are busy gathering new data and may not have time/experience to scriptably massage the data into new formats. –SJ talk  17:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Great idea of Wikipedia as a DPLA hub; I'd love to be involved any way that is appropriate. I've always thought Wikimedia is missing all the materials from so many small county and regional historical centers/museums.

Sadly, NARA is not so enthused about the DPLA/Commons/NARA collaboration. The team has decided/is discussing a different download, perhaps the 10k ARTStor images that are in DPLA. Research shows they are also PD. We will check in again. Thank you for your time and support. Bdcousineau (talk) 00:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Young Innovators Competition for Diversity of Digital Content

Hi Samuel,

I wanted to tell you about ITU Telecom Young Innovators Competition's new challenge on preserving diversity of digital content. We are calling for concept papers or start-ups from all around the world, started by young women and men (age 18-26) who work to inspire the creation of local content in a less frequently used on the Internet language. We recognize the dis-balance of digital content available and are devoted to help diversify the content by supporting talented young entrepreneurs who have projects in this field. We accept concept papers or start-ups (already up and running and in need of further help to scale up). We offer up to USD 10 000 of seed funding to the best 10 submissions, and we really hope that some of them will be for our challenge on digital content.

More information at our website .

Any questions, as well as applications, should go to young.innovators@itu.int

Thanks if you can spread the word for us in your networks.

Dimitrina

Thanks, Dimitrina! I will definitely spread the word. This looks like an amazing effort. Are you asking them to release their work under a free license? –SJ talk  23:44, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Self-redirect

Hi. Can you please fix Wikimedia user group? It redirects to itself. PiRSquared17 (talk) 19:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Done. –SJ talk 

Ha! So I'm not alone. :-)

I updated groups groups. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Wikimedia exit interview/Sue Gardner is underway.

New option on interproject links

Hi, thanks for participating in the RFC for interproject links. There is a new option that might be interesting to explore. Please check Dropdown next to title 1 and Dropdown next to title 2. They are part of Option 5.--Micru (talk) 14:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

FDC round 2

Dear Samuel,

If they had any trouble they should indeed talk about it. I am glad to help, the extent of my participation depends, however, on the content of their trouble in round 2. If they wish they can contact me at FDC portal/Appeals regarding FDC process/2012-2013 round2 or by e-mail susana.morais@wikimedia.pt.

If they wish to complaint about the FDC recommendations to the board, it is better to discuss them directly with the board representatives on the FDC.

Regards from Lisboa! Lusitana (talk) 15:25, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Forced user renames coming soon for SUL

Hi, sorry for writing in English. I'm writing to ask you, as a bureaucrat of this wiki, to translate and review the notification that will be sent to all users, also on this wiki, who will be forced to change their user name on May 27 and will probably need your help with renames. You may also want to help with the pages m:Rename practices and m:Global rename policy. Thank you, Nemo 16:52, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Forced user renames coming soon for SUL

Hi, sorry for writing in English. I'm writing to ask you, as a bureaucrat of this wiki, to translate and review the notification that will be sent to all users, also on this wiki, who will be forced to change their user name on May 27 and will probably need your help with renames. You may also want to help with the pages m:Rename practices and m:Global rename policy. Thank you, Nemo 16:52, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Forced user renames coming soon for SUL

Hi, sorry for writing in English. I'm writing to ask you, as a bureaucrat of this wiki, to translate and review the notification that will be sent to all users, also on this wiki, who will be forced to change their user name on May 27 and will probably need your help with renames. You may also want to help with the pages m:Rename practices and m:Global rename policy. Thank you, Nemo 16:52, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Methinks your EdwardsBot is a bit trigger-happy... I thought the page in question says that renames will happen by August? Where is the May 27 deadline from ? –SJ talk  18:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

It was actually supposed to be done in May, but James realised that it would cause huge problems for checking voter eligibility in the Board and FDC elections, see his email to Wikimedia-l. Thehelpfulone 18:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

typo!

"and" = "amd" in your statement. -- phoebe | talk 18:06, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

The irony is that there's one in your statement too, "foward-looking". :D Thehelpfulone 18:07, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Ha! See, if only someone helpful had told me about it... thanks MzM for the fix. To the below, I am aware things are editable; but a statement is a particularly personal piece of writing, not meant to be changed. It would be especially inappropriate I think for the candidates to start editing each other's statements, even something as minor as spelling. To SJ: apparently this is what happens when we don't proof for each other. :) -- phoebe | talk 00:30, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the catch! And fixes. I'm using... antiquated technology this week to edit. Definitely throws off the proofreading reflexes :) –SJ talk  18:30, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Just a gentle reminder: this site is a wiki. ;-) Be bold, &c. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Now, now ..:) Someone other than me did fix the typos (thanks!). And it's reasonable for one candidate to avoid touching another's orthography, touching on how touchy some are about touching. What if I were using a statement generator based on the 'optimal # of typos in trusted communication'? –SJ talk  18:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Making all Chapter Agreements public

Hey SJ, just following up from the discussion a couple of months ago about publicly publishing the chapter agreements that are currently only on the private (and soon to be closed down?) internal wiki. I see Geoff replied a few days ago to your message on his talk page. From a quick count I see that there are 12 links to internal on Chapter Agreements. Do you know who the best people to contact would be to get these chapter agreements published? Thehelpfulone 18:39, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Let me take a look. –SJ talk  18:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I also just thought that it might be good to add columns for FR2012 and FR2013, and possibly FDC eligiblity. What do you think? Thehelpfulone 19:33, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Geoff suggests the WMF is fine publishing the custom versions, but the chapter has to agree. Most of the links to internal were to the stock template from 2007, which I've published here.

Candidate statement

Hi Sj - Please note that I have trimmed your candidate statement to 1200 characters, as specified by the published rules of the election. You may wish to confirm that it still appropriately conveys the points you wish to convey, or rewrite it if not. I left the trimmed part in the raw wikicode, so you should be able to see it in the edit mode. For the election committee, Philippe (WMF) (talk) 01:44, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

on WMHK's alternative option

Thanks for your creativity, SJ. But frankly, we DO NOT see such alternative fesible, as most of cost for chapter-survival (paid staff, audit cost) either lay in long term paid staff, or concurrent expenditure. Even your dear grant adiminstrator can block us on spending the previous remain fund on concurrent expenditure like audit cost. If we cannot finish the audit report, it is a criminal offence, and the whole board can be get sued & fined by the HK gov't [3] [4]. So what can we do? Yes, the FDC decision just force us to disband the chapter. -- ※ JéRRy ~ 雨雨  ※  Was?  ※  18:36, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

That sounds... like an alternate reality to me. If you need funds this year, grants are available. For next year and beyond, there are both grants and FDC. If you get (any) new grant, the previous funds can be applied to that. –SJ talk  22:35, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost

Dear Samuel,

I've emailed you on a Signpost matter.

Kind regards, Tony (talk) 02:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)