Discuss Board Meeting

Raw transcript:

Mark: Um. So yeah, I wanted to talk to you all about this. Uh,

Mark: I I mean, you're talking about Cloud architect and scaling and stuff like that. Uh, we're having that problem right now on Wiki apiary um, and I talked yesterday with I heck

Mark: uh,

Mark: and he said, you know,

Mark: maybe he could get one of his guys to look at it, or or they're kind of tied up right now. But he said, you know maybe they would have time later.

Mark: Um!

Mark: He also offered to host it for us. But i'm not sure. We want to do that, he he said. I'll just take you know. Let let Wiki tech take it. And

Mark: yeah, I i'm I That would be a solution.

Mark: I i'm not sure. I like it. But um

Mark: the the uh. So with the eight here, I think right now, what we're down to on with the Api is database problems database contention for resources

Mark: um,

Mark: and and maybe maybe uh

Mark: you lost your You launch your cloud architect, but you do. You still have your database architect? Uh,

Markus: and the

Mark: No. Uh in the rock store,

Markus: of course. Um,

Mark: i'm. So what are the

Mark: what I've observed on wiki a here seems to be that

Mark: it's not really a matter of the machine isn't,

Mark: you know we don't have enough resources as far as the size of the machine. It's It's the fact that there's contention for those resources that

Mark: go do not query the database directly,

Mark: so they go through media wiki

Mark: um. They use a media wiki api, I think. I'm,

Mark: you know, like for getting a list of pages, a a list of sites, the query and stuff like that. They use semantic media with queries, I believe.

Cindy: Um, so. Is it a semantic media wiki scaling issue. Maybe

Mark: I don't know. So that that's that's the whole thing. I i'm wondering uh

Cindy: it may just be that it's It's gotten big enough that it's just too much for

Mark: exactly that. That's awesome for the technology to handle

Mark: um, anyway. So that's

Mark: That's

Mark: I. I wanna I i'm looking at my agenda here, and I have four items, and so I want to table that one and come back to it because the other one is really quick, and I think I can knock it out.

Mark: Um, we do have a new physical mailing address now, and it's all taken care of. I've signed all the forms, and it can get all the mail now, and we can set up people who can log in and look at it. So

Mark: So I was. Uh, we are charged five dollars a month for every additional person who looks or who grants the ability to look. At least that's my understanding. I was thinking i'm setting up um.

Mark: Brian is the other person to be able to do that?

Mark: Um!

Mark: And anyone else you all wanted. But I think at least Brian

Mark: um, and then and then I have some work to do uh with Brian, I guess, to get all the mail routed over there.

Mark: Um, it is in in case, for whatever reason, we get something that we need to have shipped, or someone ships it to this address, and we need to go pick it up. It's, you know, thirty minutes from where I live, so I can get

Mark: um.

Mark: Let's see. Uh. So Smw: Con, Do we have anything to follow up there are we gonna wait for next week?

Cindy: Um! It seems like we came out ahead.

Cindy: I'm not entirely sure how much? Because the spreadsheet Eric Johnson was half in dollars and half in euros, and the number for

Cindy: the um ticket revenue didn't match event. What event? Bright thought the number was for ticket revenue. But

Cindy: i'm confident that it You know that it's close enough that we can assume that we came out ahead, which is excellent.

Cindy: Um, I think it was a good concert conference. We had um

Cindy: twenty-eight people, I think,

Cindy: um in person,

Cindy: and one hundred and thirty people registered with hop, in some of which, up to twenty-eight of which were the same people.

Cindy: Um,

Cindy: but um not everybody who was present in person.

Cindy: Um registered for pop for hop in as far as I understand. So there were probably

Cindy: in the order of a hundred and ten people

Cindy: virtually, and um twenty-eight in person. I think the high watermark was forty-seven people at the same time online.

Cindy: Um, so, um, which is not bad.

Mark: So I don't think they were quite that big, but

Cindy: the one in Berlin the very first one I went to. I want to say I thought was more like seventy people, but I could be wrong. I could be well.

Cindy: So so Yeah, I think it was. I think it was successful.

Cindy: Um, Lex was there. He could say if he thought it was successful. I thought it went well.

Cindy: Um.

Cindy: It was good to see people. We only got um as far as they know. One positive Covid case.

Cindy: Um

Cindy: as far as I know it didn't spread. I realized what actually I realized afterwards when I was thinking about um,

Cindy: the the person who tested positive from Covid, who I kept on saying that Jeffrey and I were the only people from the United States. But that's not true. There was a couple there who um! And she was the one who tested positive, and her husband works for something like the port of Philadelphia.

Cindy: Um! I believe they came from the United States, and I realized I never actually spoke to them, and I realized with just twenty-eight people there I should have had a conversation with absolutely everybody there, and I realized,

Cindy: after the fact that there were a lot of people that I actually, you know I I had plenty of conversations with the people I already knew, and it was lovely to see them again, and I had a few conversations with people I had never met before, and i'm very disappointed to myself for not having actually reached out and spoken to

Cindy: every single person that was there at the conference. Twenty-eight people. There's no reason I couldn't especially if this guy works at the port of Philadelphia. That's just up the road from you. Exactly. Yeah. I'm like there is no excuse for the fact that I didn't have a conversation with them,

Cindy: but I would assume you culturally adopted to the Uk way of not talking to other people. Yep.

Cindy: Do you have any comments from the conference, Alex.

Lex: No,

Lex: no, No, only that it was great to actually meet again in person. I deeply appreciate that

Lex: very motivating.

Mark: That's good. I I wish I had been there. I wish I could have been there so. Oh,

Cindy: it's! There's a possibility that the next um em W. Con will be in the spring in Austin. Jeffrey would like to arrange it, and he went to school there. So he's confident that even from Seattle he could be the local chair.

Cindy: Um!

Cindy: And then I think Bernard wants to.

Cindy: Uh host the next smw. Con next fall in Vienna,

Cindy: which is just a hobby. It a jump from you. Right,

Cindy: Marcus.

Markus: It's a three hours by three.

Mark: Yeah, you. You were in Vienna last time we were there, so we we expect you to show again,

Cindy: and just like every conference, even though Mark wasn't there in person. Um the story of Mark, and, as you know, Laurel got told, and not by me, of course, of course that was me.

Mark: Um,

Mark: yes, anyway. Uh So moving on.

Mark: Uh.

Mark: Do you have any news on the media Wiki stakeholders dot org website,

Lex: all right. Uh lots of uh I spent a lot of time with um, Alexander gazin

Lex: mostly in beer holes.

Lex: But we have. I wouldn't know what happened that last night. Yeah, I tell you. I tell you I wanted to go home. I said he said he would be royally disappointed if I left him alone on the abandoned streets of bed on.

Lex: And then I said, Okay, but at least then I want some of your expertise.

Lex: So over um over a couple of beers I have to say, and he at the end he ordered the gin tonic. But I was. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back I had this whole gym tonic in front of me, and he he said that was the Bavarian secret of not having headache in the next morning,

Lex: and I didn't really I don't think that's true. But I drowned myself in water so surprisingly. I was fine the next day,

Lex: and uh, no, we were. We were really working working in there, and no, it's fantastic. We had a great and did you and a tiano travel to Paris together, or that I know she'll sort of uh left. But we had breakfast with Wendy. Oh, good. Yeah,

Lex: not at Tiffany's, but with Wendy, with Wendy and Wendy, or my two colleagues from Africa, who um were able to come to the conference, which was very nice. It was lovely to see them,

Mark: they So yeah, that that is true. That's a what what part of Africa are they from

Cindy: Wendy is from Ghana, and the tiano is from Kenya.

Mark: So those are both closer to the equator. I think. Right?

Mark: Yeah. So yeah, it it's a few hours flight then, to Europe. But that's not too bad.

Cindy: Well, and actually, Wendy is currently in Madrid. Um for eleven months for a graduate program

Cindy: which she thinks is very cold, and she's going to think is even colder about two months from now.

Mark: Yeah. So I did. I One time, years ago, years ago, I did travel down to Uh

Mark: Rwanda and Uganda, which are right on the equator. Basically And it was. It was February when I left. I was wearing a coat

Mark: is big, you know. And then I got there, and it was like how this is lovely.

Cindy: Yeah. Well, that it was interesting because I said I think it was Wendy. Um. I said something to her about em. W. Khan is usually in the spring, and she said,

Cindy: and what season is that? And I was like, Oh, my God, that's my slowing. I'm like

Cindy: April, May, April May time. Time. Yeah, I was like it totally blew my mind.

Mark: I'm like spring. It's spring

Mark: trees change and stuff like that.

Markus: So I remember um. So when I spent a year abroad I meant this Brazilian, and she was eighteen. I was eighteen. Um! And that was actually. She saw that was in England, and she's so snow for the first time in her life, and it's so fascinated to see a young adult. She's slow, but she was so fascinated That was

Mark: yeah. It's. I can imagine, from our right. So it it it's not hard for me to imagine. But um

Mark: the uh I I have seen the snow, but it's not hard for me to imagine someone who has not seen snow because does not have a lot of snow. So

Mark: Um:

Mark: yeah, anyway. Um,

Mark: yeah. So uh Cindy you mentioned, and and i'm gonna have time. Probably later. I'm trying to. I'm trying to use my time to learn Russ right now. But uh,

Mark: uh, i'm probably gonna have time to work on with Wiki apiary You mentioned there was someone else at the foundation, I believe, who was uh

Cindy: database I mean Amir Amir Sarah. But Sarabadani is um knows everything about the databases. Um,

Cindy: he's the one who did the um

Cindy: abstract schema for media wiki um. He's based in Berlin. He used to work for Wikipedia Deutschland.

Cindy: Um.

Cindy: He also was one of the big complainers about the media wiki release um plan.

Cindy: So

Mark: um! It would be good to get to know him better.

Cindy: Um, i'd say, you know,

Cindy: following on the just smw kind of discussion. Um, you know. I think it was good that we made a profit on the conference. Um

Cindy: and um Generally these conferences have been profitable. Um, we did. We? We backed the Houston Conference, but not entirely in the same way. Is that correct,

Mark: like, or did we do exactly the same thing? So actually, you, you triggered my memory here. I think we did. The same thing basically is, and we came out ahead on that one as well. Yeah, yeah, you triggered my memory. That uh, I did want to say um,

Mark: I I think i'm a little,

Mark: you know. I'm glad it worked out as far as how the finances worked, and everything. But i'm a little uh frustrated that we couldn't

Mark: that we had to reimburse. Uh. We can eat wiki base. And now uh I mean they were good about it. But you know I I wouldn't that we that we couldn't pay for things up right right,

Cindy: and what and that. But that happened that was mostly the timing of getting um, Eric on the ability to use the credit card. Is that correct?

Mark: No, he said he had the credit card. It didn't work. I think that the reason for that was because we didn't tell Bank of America, hey? This card is in Europe. So I think, if I understand correctly, he and Brian sat on the phone, together with Bank America and got that all straightened out

Cindy: so hopefully that should not be the case in the future.

Cindy: Um! Well, if if Brian or are we? We'll have to ask them next week,

Cindy: but to have a discussion about um what our role can be going forward because we've had a lot of plans to do different things over time and um,

Cindy: none of them has really

Cindy: been as successful, I would say, as the effort of you know, backing conferences which we have actually successfully done, complete, completed, brought to fruition and made money on. You know, we talked about various different extensions that we were going to spend some resources working on

Cindy: and um, but then never took the next step of actually

Cindy: um doing the work. We've talked many times about building out an extension store, and I would still love to see that happen. But again we never took the next step of actually setting up a project and actually doing it.

Cindy: Um, i'm not saying that we shouldn't do those things. But um

Cindy: yeah, we need to have focus. And I think that this conference thing

Cindy: um For one reason or another we have been able to accomplish um, you know, and I would say that it's interesting because of you know, the Committee chairs for Smw. Con. Three of the four

Cindy: were um board members

Cindy: Um, and the fourth works for a company. That's a member company of the Um stakeholders group. So it was very much a stakeholders group effort.

Cindy: Um, Now I did talk about wanting to have

Cindy: uh, maybe an open Csp Hackathon or something or another open Csp. Focused conference. Um,

Cindy: Wolfgang

Cindy: um

Cindy: was there, and he is the same Wolf King that he was the very first time I met him. He knows how to talk.

Cindy: Um! And once he starts talking

Cindy: he doesn't stop talking. Um!

Cindy: So I had several conversations with him. Um! And he's followed up by email already. Several times since I got back. What he would like to do is to have associated with a conference,

Cindy: a um

Cindy: workshop,

Cindy: and he would like to have us, you know, and and as a workshop it needs to have people with

Cindy: particular credentials. Um, in the editorial board.

Cindy: And so you know, he was talking about different people, myself included. Since I do have a doctorate that you know. That qualifies me, I guess. Um and certain number of publications. So um. He very much wants to move forward with this idea of um

Cindy: doing the workshop right now. Honestly, i'm just burnt out from s Andw. Con, and I've got like

Cindy: my day job that I've got to get back to. So I have not written back to him.

Cindy: But um, maybe that's something for us to think about whether we want to. As the video with you stakeholders group get involved in having that, you know we're already potentially doing two conferences a year.

Cindy: Um, I don't know that we have the really the um resources in time to get further involved.

Cindy: But if we want to build our membership, which I think I there. So there's It's a domino thing. There's a certain number of things that I think that we need to do in order to move forward as an organization. I think we need to have a full time employee. I think we need to have somebody whose day job it is to be the Media Wiki stakeholders group.

Cindy: Um, and we can't do that until we have enough income to support the salary of somebody working for the Media Wiki stakeholders. Group, and we can't have enough income until we have a big enough base of members and sustainable, you know, in order to be able to promise somebody actual income.

Cindy: Um,

Cindy: and it's a cyclical thing, because unless we have something to show for it, we're not going to have people joining, and we still have a case where I think most of our actual members. Um, despite our best efforts of getting additional people to sign up, which I think we did have a couple who signed up

Cindy: uh because of the conference in order to get the discount rate. Um, I including, I think, the two people from the United States. Um!

Cindy: If i'm not mistaken, I think at least one of them joined up for the stakeholder group. And then there was somebody else who joined actually during the conference.

Cindy: But we're still having a problem getting members, and and we're not going to get members until we have some re something to show. You know something that looks worthwhile for them to join for

Cindy: um, and I don't think we can really do that until we have somebody who is full time a job that is to

Mark: spend time on it on the stakeholders group. So But with that said, I think I think we do have something to show is that we can offer these discounts on the on the on the conferences. So I think that is a way of bootstrapping in there.

Cindy: But of course, of course, offering discounts on the conferences means that we bring in less money, which you know. Still, it's a good way to get more members. But the ultimate goal is for us to get enough money to be able to sustain the organization.

Mark: Um, yeah, I

Mark: Marcus, you're a businessman. Do you have any ideas on this.

Mark: No,

Markus: you know we we've been discussing this for the stakeholders for quite a while. Um! There's so many opportunities to make money, but then all of them require a lot of time investment by people not making money.

Markus: And Um, that's yeah, I I I guess no one really has the time at the moment. Um, my my best guess would. Um. I was thinking about um, you know. Next proposal um to to become a

Markus: to to uh, as he said to Bootstrap. Um this first position um, but that again requires a lot of time investment by some one in this case. Um and um

Markus: I mean in in in in the next scenario. Uh we could think about a I don't know if that works kind of a forward compensation. So something like, if this runs you get an extra bonus of X.

Markus: Um. But I don't know if that um if that we need to have some realistic prospects that we're going to. Yeah. Um. And by the way, I think the best um the best guess we best thing we have is um corporate from membership. Um, I mean? That's because they they the most

Markus: um and um uh, I

Markus: uh, I you say, uh, my! My estimation was, we get about zero. One corporate sponsorship. So corporate memberships. Um, but I think currently it's the majority of our memberships as corporate. Um, so maybe that's a model that I just didn't see it

Cindy: just afraid that at some point they're all going to come and call their sixteen hours worth of um.

Mark: That is, that is something that we need to clarify that we're We're gonna I I think we

Mark: okay. I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to back off of that. Uh and say, you know this. What we're focusing on now is conferences, and you get discounts for the conferences. Um! And and we're backing off these hours thing. And I think we need to.

Mark: I I think that that's something that we can have a member vote on. You know that we need to have something that the members vote on. I think that could be it. Um! I was just looking at the who which membership we have one new member in the past, you know, few months,

Mark: and it was a

Cindy: He was at the conference,

Cindy: and her husband was there as well. Who's the one, I think, looks personally with the port of Philadelphia.

Cindy: Um! There's also. There was another who was sitting next to you, Lex, who was trying to join.

Cindy: Oh, by the way, I have somebody coming from my office, and I got to leave. Actually, I had a meeting that started a minute ago that I have to present at at some point. So I should go and rejoin that.

Mark: Yeah, you can mention, I answer that next meeting we we all have to go. Okay,