Talk:Wikimedia Café/Archive 1

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Casual chat, once a month, one hour, in video, about wiki!

Seems cool to me! Let's try it! Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:23, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

My zoom instance at my university

My university in the United States provides a zoom account to use for this meeting.

It offers toll free numbers for some countries but not others. I regret, for example, that I have no toll-free number for India.

I am not sure if this is typical or uncommon. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:14, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Layout for maintaining this page

As a layout model for this page I propose the one for the

This group has met for about a year at this point and is at a point to better present and archive its meetings and notes. Not all parts of that model apply here but having a landing page and meeting minutes archive probably are. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

More visibility on Wikimedia Space

Hello, I'd like to suggest adding this event to the calendar of events on Wikimedia Space. We're seeing about a thousand daily page views with over 500 users at this point. Users receive summary emails (not unlike mailing list digests) that include new events as they are added. You can login with your Wikimedia account and the process takes only a few minutes. If you need help, let me know and I'd be glad to lend a hand. Good luck with future Café events! CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:20, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I will pass on the idea to others. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:27, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Added March Event RhinosF1 (talk) 06:54, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Invitations for the November 2019 meeting

Hi Bluerasberry, I put an announcement on the Meta Main page. Last month's event was well attended, I think partly because you sent calendar invitations. Would you be willing to send calendar invitations again for this month? In future months that might not be necessary, but because we're continuing the conversation from last month I think that it would be good to remind the people who attended last time about the November meeting. Thank you, ↠Pine (✉) 07:48, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Tentative change of time and date for January 2020 meeting

See this change. ↠Pine (✉) 23:37, 28 December 2019 (UTC)


March 2020

@Pine: Is there a plan for a March Meeting? RhinosF1 (talk) 16:53, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Hi @RhinosF1: yes, although I was too busy last week to set up announcements. I sent an email to User:Bluerasberry, and I'm pinging him again here. He may also have been so busy last week that he didn't get around to the setup for the Café. The short version is that the next Café will be on March 28th at the same time as last month's Café. ↠Pine (✉) 05:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
@RhinosF1: You have my most sincere invitation to put whatever you want to discuss right at the top of the live agenda. Please join this casual conversation. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I’ll let you know if I can make it. RhinosF1 (talk) 20:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Daylight savings time

A daylight savings time change happened. Either those of us who had a DST change will start the meeting one hour later, or those not observing DST will start the meeting one hour earlier. I think that we should keep the UTC constant, which would mean the former, and I'll change the page to reflect this. Pinging User:Bluerasberry, User:RhinosF1, and User:Nosebagbear. Please ping me if you comment here. Thanks. ↠Pine (✉) 20:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes UTC FTW Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:26, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

1 hour insufficient

Given the agenda today, I just feel either we need a longer cafe, or another meeting one week away (rather than a month) - there's no way the official topic of the cafe (which is an extremely serious topic) can be discussed in sufficient detail if the dreaded c-topic also is covered in reasonable depth, as would be desired. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: We stayed an unscheduled extra hour today. I would like to keep to a schedule so that people know how much time there will be to discuss issues but with COVID-19 and interest today it just went on this time. Thanks for coming, thanks for speaking out. Add items to the agenda and if you have specific questions you want answered or addressed then add them to a future meetup.
I am indifferent to the topics of discussion other than they should be of broad interest, and I think you have a civil way of raising points which are challenging to discuss on wiki. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Bluerasberry: - you did of course do so, and I should have followed this up to say I was very appreciative it was significantly extended to deal with having two major topics. Yours, Nosebagbear (talk) 20:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Taking turns when there is high attendance

I think that the March 2020 Café had the highest attendance so far, with 17 people at the peak. In the future if we get more than approximately 8 people then I think that we should increase the formality of taking turns, perhaps by requiring people to raise hands to be unmuted and with time limits of 2 minutes per turn. The host could be responsible for making sure that this happens. What do others think? Pinging Bluerasberry in particular. Thanks to everyone for the good attendance today. ↠Pine (✉) 23:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Topic and date for April 2020

Hi User:Bluerasberry, for April 2020 do you have a preference for the date being the 18th or the 25th?

For a topic, how about Wikidata? We can invite Lydia or one of her staff to come. ↠Pine (✉) 22:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: You suggested previously non-WMF sources of funding. I thought about that and like the idea. Do you want to have a go? Otherwise we could do Wikidata. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:11, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: How about having three topics in the pipeline, and any topic from this list that we don't get to during April we can discuss in May? The three topics, in this order would be 1. fundraising from non-WMF sources, 2. maps on Wikimedia projects, and 3. Wikidata. By the way, the ping template only sends someone a notification if you use that template and sign in the same edit. ↠Pine (✉) 20:05, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Sure if we talk about maps then Ɱ might be available to present en:List of COTA bus routes. Check that out, click the "show" button, it is a new and powerful application. If we talked about Wikidata then a good start could be in d:Wikidata:Tours, which has been mostly down for 3 years but just reopened. It is for beginners and John Cummings is soliciting people to draft scripts which he would stage for conversion into a tour if someone wanted to teach a particular task, like for their own project or outreach. The themes are great. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:18, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@Ɱ, John Cummings, and Bluerasberry: are you available to meet on April 18th or April 25th? The time on either day would be 9:30 AM Pacific time / 12:30 PM Eastern time / 4:30 PM UTC / 10 PM IST. Thanks, ↠Pine (✉) 23:48, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I've got nothing planned until life resumes... Ɱ (talk) 00:55, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@Ɱ: sounds good. @Bluerasberry: would you be willing to send an email announcement? You can choose the 18th or the 25th. Also, please mention that we will change the format slightly to require people to raise hands and wait to be recognized so that the meeting can handle a larger number of participants. Also, please mention this announcement from Zoom which addresses some privacy problems but advise people to decide whether they are comfortable taking the risks that are associated with using Zoom, and remind people that participating in the Café is entirely optional. Finally, to avoid Zoombombing, when you start the meeting, please disable screen sharing for everyone except the host, and disable file transfers, private chat, and annotation. There is a Zoom blog post that discusses these points at https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2020/03/20/keep-uninvited-guests-out-of-your-zoom-event/. Thanks, ↠Pine (✉) 06:08, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Redesign of page

I set up Template:Café and some subpages to be more tidy and making the setup of future meetings easier. If anyone has comments then please share. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Hi @Bluerasberry: I finally took a few minutes to look at the design update. Overall I like it. I'm not sure that the Wikimedia Café/about page is necessary, and I removed CWUG from the list of sponsors for that page because as far as I know the CWUG organization isn't involved with the Café. I added a few images back to the header that seemed to be lost from the previous design. We can talk more soon. ↠Pine (✉) 05:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Topic suggestions for future meetups

These topics were suggested at the conclusion of the April 2020 meetup:

  • Wikimedia 2030
  • Lack of gender diversity; reliability of statistics on gender diversity
  • Copyright
  • Introducing Wikimedia to newcomers

↠Pine (✉) 18:30, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

  • @Pine: These are the suggestions from the past meeting. There was also interest in more Wikidata discussion, which is a broad request. You select any topic and I will add talking points and try to invite some people over. I expect that when we have the topic then we can advertise the next meeting within a day.

Topic for May 2020

I archived the notes at Wikimedia Café/minutes 2020 04. Another outcome is that User:Ɱ drafted a version of his talk for The Signpost and as as a guide for anyone to repeat what he did. That is a great outcome of this last meeting. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Pine: Sure, that topic is great, and we can do 30 May. I changed the date and confirm the meeting. Can you come up with topics and speakers, and ask me if you need more? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:28, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, @Pine:, and for the great timing. We have just announced the release of the recommendations and would be happy to speak about them in the Café. I am pinging my colleague @MPourzaki (WMF): to coordinate with you all. Thank you for including us again! -Nicole Ebber (WMDE) (talk) 16:40, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
I'd love to take part again. @Pine: 30 May at 4:30 PM UTC works well for me, looking forward to it. MPourzaki (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi @Bluerasberry and MPourzaki (WMF): If we have many people attend then we may need more than one hour. Are you both OK with this meetup being two hours long? Attendance and the amount of discussion are difficult to predict. I would also be fine with this meeting being shorter than planned, but I think that we should plan for two hours in case people want to talk for that long. I can create a slightly more detailed schedule for meeting and include a break. ↠Pine (✉) 20:10, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Agenda for May 2020

@Bluerasberry and MPourzaki (WMF): A tentative agenda follows. The idea is that at the start of the time block for each recommendation, MPourzaki would share a 1 minute overview, and then there would be 4 minutes of discussion. After we have discussed all 10 recommendations then there would be time for some follow up discussions regarding any of the recommendations before the conclusion of the meeting.

  • 0:00 Welcome, introductions, and overview of agenda
  • 0:20 Recommendation 1
  • 0:25 Recommendation 2
  • 0:30 Recommendation 3
  • 0:35 Recommendation 4
  • 0:40 Recommendation 5
  • 0:45 Recommendation 6
  • 0:50 Recommendation 7
  • 0:55 Break for 10 minutes
  • 1:05 Recommendation 8
  • 1:10 Recommendation 9
  • 1:15 Recommendation 10
  • 1:20 Follow up discussions
  • 1:45 Concluding agenda items
  • 2:00 End

I would like to hear your thoughts regarding this schedule before I send emails to Wikimedia-l and Wikitech-l. Thanks, ↠Pine (✉) 18:48, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Hi MPourzaki (WMF), as you may have seen, I sent a notification to Wikimedia-l and Wikitech-l. I will wait to finalize the agenda until I hear from Bluerasberry. I think that there will be more discussion regarding some recommendations than others. If a discussion regarding a recommendation goes for less than the allotted time then we can move on to the next recommendation and add the saved to time to the portion of the agenda that is for follow up discussions. ↠Pine (✉) 07:07, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Recording these talks

I am interested in recording all or parts of these talks.

If it happens that we have WMF staffers in the talks, then I am especially interested in recording what they say and community interactions with them. For people close to official WMF processes and who represent WMF programs, I am interested also, but can understand not recording if they request. For community only meetings I like the idea of at least part recording.

I am not sure what kind of social issues come into play but I want to experiment. One possible light experiment for a community meetup when some people are shy is to ask for volunteers either in the last 10 minutes or in ten minutes after the full hour, and the volunteers summarize what they said. That may be repetitive and unnecessary. Somehow my intent is just to get more records of meetings out, and to do any small experiment sooner to see how this could work. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:31, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

@Pine: How do you feel about me doing speech to text of the entire meeting? Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:54, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
  • My preference is no for the Café, but the organizers of WikipediaWeekly do record their conversations, and I'm fine with that. I'll add a discussion about this point to the agenda for the May meeting. If there is consensus for text to speech or for audio recordings then I'll go along. ↠Pine (✉) 19:33, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Note re Wikimedia Cafe schedule

Hi @Pine:. as requested, I am writing to you on this talk page. Please feel free to respond, and we can discuss alternate possible days and times to hold the Wikimedia Cafe. I appreciate your help. Please ping me when you reply. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 16:07, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Sm8900: as I mentioned, I am interested in having a second Café meetup each month that is offset from the current Café time by 12 hours, and choosing a different day of the week is possible also. The earliest that I can start a second Café meetup each month is probably July. It is possible that Bluerasberry and I will not attend every Café session but at least one of us will attend and/or we will try to find another host who is experienced with the Café's format. I am willing to set up a poll to request input regarding the day of the week for the second Café meetup. @Bluerasberry: do you have any thoughts regarding this? ↠Pine (✉) 21:45, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Pine:.. that all sounds fine. re the day and time. I would suggest a weekday evening, like around 8 pm eastern time. right now, it so happens I can attend some Zoom calls in the daytime, but in general weekday evenings are the best. I would suggest Monday or Tuesday, as I feel most people are usually home and not out on those weeknights. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 17:02, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi @Sm8900:, one difficulty is that a weekday evening in one timezone may be in the middle of a typical work day in a different time zone. Looking at both my personal calendar and the time zones that I'd like to accommodate in a second Café meetup, I think that the most likely time for a 2nd meetup is approximately 03:00 AM UTC on Sunday. I realize that some people work most weekend days, but I think that 2 meetups per month is the maximum that I can support, and my current schedule gives me the most flexibility on weekend days. However, I have another idea. Are you familiar with the WALRUS meetups? Those happen on Mondays at approximately 9 PM Eastern time, and those may be a good fit for your schedule and interests, especially if you live in North America. ↠Pine (✉) 19:43, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Pine:. well, I'm a WikiPrairie Dog. will anyone there mind if I attend? lol! hope that made you smile. take a look at the page for the WikiPrairie Dog. it's brilliant, if I do say so myself. lol!
anyway, moving right along, let me respond to your points above.
  • the WALRUS meetings sound fine. I will try to attend.
  • re the Wikimedia Cafe meetings, that sounds interesting as well. Sorry; I do understand the need to accomodate multiple time zones. however, 3:00 am? might it be possible to move forward that just a bit? 3:00 am is the worst possible time at night to expect people to be up. and it would be 8 am in England! they could use a little later time slot as well. might it be possible to simply move it two or three hours later?
I can plan to be up at 6 am for a call. even 5am would be doable. it's just that 3:00 am is really difficult for me to show up for. I'm not as springy as I used to be, when it comes to being up at all hours! ok, so is there a chance of maybe considering a small change to the time slot for this? thanks!!
thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 02:43, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Sm8900: that is 03:00 AM UTC, which would be 10 PM Eastern or 11 PM Eastern depending on daylight savings time. The equivalents in US central time would be 9 PM or 10 PM, and the equivalents in US mountain time would be 8 PM or 9 PM. ↠Pine (✉) 06:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi @Pine:. Oh! well... okay then! well, that certainly changes things, doesn't it?? now that's a en:Horse of a different color!! lol!!! well, I sure appreciate that. thanks for letting me know! I will be glad to attend at those times. I'm glad to hear about this. this is very helpful. thanks!!! cheers! --Sm8900 (talk) 12:32, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
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