Event:1

Date (UTC):	8 August 2014 - 8 August 2014
URL:	https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wm2014-mwusergroup
Etherpad:	https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/mwstake-2014-08
Attendees:	Alexis Hershberger, Anja Ebersbach, Bawolff, Bernhard Krabina, Darren S, Greg, Kunal Mehta, Maarten, Mark Hershberger, Markus Glaser, Matt Senate, Natasha Brown, Richard Heigl, Robla, Siebrand Mazeland

How about a MediaWiki Consortium? (<- richard)

Volunteer: Welcomes Markus Glaser(<- alexis)

Mglaser (mg): Hello everyone, this session will be about MW entity, title" MediaWiki Con. Share idea about how to improve, a need for those groups to be supported more in whole ecosystem, I am part of release team with Mark Hershberger

Mg presents a rough outline and questions he hopes to answer (read through outlines)

If you have questions ask anytime, at the end there will be discussion

Need

Image of unicycle, cool, people riding are looking for, requires skills and training, essential the state of MW, you need a lot of skills to set up services, server to make scalable, tarball you down load and again you need the skills, the idea is to make a unicylce to a bicycle. The foundation, the main stakeholder but its main task is to run site but not does not provide same level support as Wikipedia, it will become decreasing support to others

MediaWiki as a product is not focus of Wikimedia Foundation.

MW is worth the effort, because it's an important tool for knowledge sharing. Within scope, a real pity if there is a big diverge o

Woman: What is annoying tic?

3rd parties have different needs Mg: It is a fuse, countdown to start of user group? Continue...3rd party use have divergent needs of installer, integration, skinning, customizing. There is an huge set of technological 3rd need but this is not wihtin the scope of WIkipedia. That will not be developed. lots of use cases, single server instance, wikifarms

trademark, pay careful attention, we are not not talking about Wikimedia

Scope of Organization Similar, done by volunteers and professionals, separate efforts that do the same, a bit of coordination will do good here. We found that core deve as it focuses on Wm sites does not care so much that they break extensions that they don't use, recent a change introduce into the core break SMW

Seibrand: was there

Mg: the efforts of external entities cannot expect WMF to look for everything, an advocate group to advocate 3rd party needs is needed to think about changes core team want to implement in the future, in the long run this group of people interested coulld implement features that no one wants to work on like config database, bring all stakeholders together to get a common group of communication

Kunal: we are already working on configuration database

(Conversation here with Siebrand & ??? about snickering and here work being done and tone to use.)

Mg: who are potential stakeholders? WMF, tarball users, small scale users, (see list on slides), list is not complete but gives an idea

How do we (louder?) find out about these stakeholders...those are slides I typed up 5 minutes ago so listen because I know what I want to talk about

ES: better to ask the stakeholders instead of just assuming you know, several step process, do several interviews and get a sense of the overall needs and willingness to contribute, if it turns out there is willingness, survey later to subsutanitae with number to get better idea of where we are heading in the end

Long term task: one of the things is documentation needs to improve, it is not at state where new users can use it, the level of documentation varies, extenstion not used but have great documentation that serves a great role model, the coordination between individual efforts, bring people together who are about to start similar efforts, authentication, actual developement needs resources, at some point pay developers or contract with them, aim for people for extension programers dedicated to make ths happen

Impact Why is it worth the effort? There is a good indication that there well be good impact. Group will be able to comment on road map, but it will also be a bridge for developers which is good because it gives them additional sense of how important their work is. This is a good chance on various sides of this to be part of somome shaping the future of MediaWiki.

We have been thinking about this idea for a while, but we are not the first ones. "MW Consortium" was the title when this talk was submitted, and you can see how it evolved to now: "Wiki Co-Op".

What is good from ???, how can we shape this?

US-based? I don't have final opinion, but makes sense to be near WMF and have similar structure

Option 501(c)(6) or (3)? at some point we started to develop a nonproft but because of the work involved we stepped back to see if it was actually needed and talk to you and see what you think before we proceed

Consortium of different stakeholders? We could get corps like Microsoft. There are pros and cons. One con is that you need to convince organisations to commit for long time, and it hard for orgs to join for the long term and commmit resources like this.

LLC: commercial, for proft org, this may seem unusual but there are benefits. For example: hosting services

B-Corp: for profit with public benefit

Finances We will need money in the end to make things happen (see list). Ideas: •Donations: corporations who use for free and give back (CSR)

•Grant: foundations and other that we can apply for and ask

•Membership based: "Gold"membership

•Services: For instance hosting service that is free for small scale, but if you use for traffic you pay

Inclusion: of course there is a community and effort, don't think this will not be a separate but integrated and part of community, MediaWiki.org will continue to be where documentation lives. We don't plan on setting up a secret cabal.

Sebrand: I'm out.

Mg: you are out then?

Hahaha

Mg: focused effort, call Wiki Co-op

So, we've concluded that we don't want to start out with something that isn't a WMF-affiliated org and the User Group is a good form for this. We want people to be able to sign up, there is no need for instituation or legal entity, but the user group can be used to build up critical mass, start definiing need, and, once we know the legal form we want this to take, then we can decide on the next step

man: you did not mention unincorporated

mg: The user group is within, unincorporated, main drawback is the money issue. We talked to the WMF and they are willing to act accept donations on behalf of this if we can determine how to do that, if someone wants to donate. Alternatively, Mark and I both have our own orgs that can recieve money, so we can bootstrap that way if we need to.

Tasks

Here are the ideas we have for what you can do to help us. The scope is rather big and there is lots to do, but what can we do next week?

We have a vision for doing this within two years. There are a few things that are immenient.

•We need regualr communication.

•We want to scan WMF's roadmap and look for pitfalls for 3rd party wikis , comment, and communicate back to the WMF

communicate back could the foundatio's part of this

•Monitor for breaking changes which are usually marked in Gerrit, but we also need to find those that aren't.

•Write our own roadmap, we need to identify things that belong on that and develope it. Part of this is assessing if the things for the RM are realestic, For example, maybe the outside world would favor a wiki written in java, that isn't going to happen). But if we find that what we really need is to help create Mediawiki farms, then is within scope.

Identify implentation: Who does it? Identify vounteers AND developers who are capable. Need people who are capable who can assess

Volunteer: 10 minutes for discussion

Mg: 2 more slides

Timeline: suprise, 2pm follow, join us, start application for user group

Siebrand: What room?

Mg: Garden room. Comment

M; I appreciate what Chad said, I talked to Moz, configured and deelope rm to have configure by this date.

Legoktm: I am not Chad

M; I would be great for you....

L: RFC

Mg: the IRC will

M: I am sorry I mistook your voice for Chad and he was working ont hsi tofr years

Mg: Anyone in here interested? Any other questions? I would prefer to continue this disscusion

End: 12:09PM

=

Start: 2:04PM London User Group Meeting 3rd floor

Attendees: Mark mah@everybody.org Richard heigl@hallowelt.biz Alexis alexis@everybody.org Greg greg@wikimedia.org Siebrand siebrand AT kitano.nl Markus glaser at hallowelt.biz Anja ebersbach@hallowelt.biz Legoktm legoktm.wikipedia@gmail.com Bawolff bawolff+wn@gmail.com Robla robla@wikimedia.org Darren darren@gestaltweb.me.uk Bernhard krabina@kdz.or.at Matt mattsenate@gmail.com Maarten maarten@dammers.nl Natasha learnrussianspeakrussian@gmail.com

Mg: welcome to the first meeting of proposed user , there's no agenda, outcome will be a page with people to sign to go to AFFcom, decide on name, scope of group, put up page on mw.org. Is any one here with expectation different than outline?

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals

Few proposed groups, we need to fill in/ add to current proposals, there is a feedback period, put up page/proposal, have a week or two for others to join, hoping to come to a good

Should agree on scope, don't worry about mailinglist, name "Wiki Co-op", says that we have multi-stakeholders, until settle on trademark "Wiki"

M: motion has passed Mg: motion has passed

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/Proposal_template

Wiki Co-op will be the name (Wiki Coopoeration)

discussion on Wiki Coop, chicken coop

• I think "Coop" is better for disambiguation problems. Strongly

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Groups/Proposals/Wiki_Co-op

mg: areas of collaboration: brainstorm on etherpad, communication among 3rd party developers, initiiatives/needs

This group will advocate the needs of all users of MediaWiki. It especially targets use of MediaWiki outside the Wikimedia Foundation.

Goals include:

• Communication and coordination among MediaWiki users
• Coordination between different groups of MediaWiki developers
• Foster the ecosystem around MediaWiki
• Facilitate implementation of MediaWiki features
• Improve documentation of extensions and MediaWiki visibility
• Contribute to the development of MediaWiki

nickname: Sunflower users group

Greg: partial to

L: 3rd party users

S: sunflower user group M: second? Greg/L/D

G: where will this name be used?

S; has no connection

G: worry about professionalism

S: I don't want to held responsible for this five years down the line

hahaha

"Are you a sunflower?'

S: is it possible for us not to use "3rd party?"

Mg: afraid "users of MW" means editors

S: if you are a 3rd party, then who is the primary user?

M; foundation

D: 3rd means people using release

Robla: derivative, mw developement not intended to use on it run

M: ...specially user of MW outside of the foundation

Mg: list of things we can do, communication, this group wants to (best phrase) work with core developers and extent developers 

M: coordinations between different types of developers

Mg; people see new features, other people provide deve services, exchange

g; by exchange, focial point, the central place, the outside person wants use case looking for someone to use it, exchange right word?

m; yes

mg: fostering ecosystem, the exchange be part of that, we  should not go into detail here, because it is a general use, is 

finances/resources; is it a goal to put in here, necessary?

m: it is necessary

mg; implementation, are we working towards, does

D: depends on features, extensions

mg: conversial example, some people want max imput, user group provide information

m; once exchange function, naturally to put stuff like that there

l: there's a project like that with bounty, doesn't work because bug is hard, lots of complexity

B: get tip model?

g: bounty program won't work,

mg: we are talking about paying people, one case, we have three companies want MS import...cor

R: you must be secure that your ext fit to the releases and know what will come, what hooks, if you have to program everything again, crazy, you can't help external 3rd

G; anyone can write feature, whether it will incorporate into core this user group will help, liason

r: need sort of process, which extention will, who will get gold standard

mg: media wiki visiablity, improve documentation

r: extension management?

mg: the user group an work towards making this happen, I would not put this in as key point, we are tlking about big pin

matt: the first few goals are broad dont' overlap, the others are more specific, "the broad overall goal..." can drill down later

mg: yeah, I like that idea

• • connection problems

mg: developement, we need a verb, don't want to say "develop" mw, that is core competencies of foundation

d: contribute

matt: very good mg: very nice, we will have our own developement road map to go on there, is there anything we haven't covered it?

m: can we read over it? I will read over it, can someone condense

g: leave and leave for poeple not here to critique

mg: announce over mailinglist and request for comment for one or two week period, this is not cut in stone, it should be something we all can identify with, I will put this (see bullet list above ) on Wiki Co-op page and clean up afterwards

two more things to talk about today:

   *woudl be great to have you sign up today to ahve broad base of support
   **once we leave how we keep in t ouch
   
   S: that would be Sunflower hel
   
   M: why not use MW Enterprise list
   
   L: four lists (wikitech, mediwiki-l
   
   s: isn't there a lot of overlap
   
   discussion/debate about list
   
   mg: use mediawiki-l
   
   g: concern about the noise we create that keeps people from asking for help
   
   m: I can see one advanatage of mw-l, allows us publicity, targets exact people, what else?  We are done?
   
   mg: would suggest collecting email addresses?
   

s: list of names at line 135, put emails there

g: any ?/concerns/ anything we haven't addressed?

m: want to talk about volunteers

mg: tasks, we hope people involved will contribute, tasks, I don't know if this is the right place for this but we can do , first thing is go through foundation road map, useful for us to watch RFC and identify those that are, does anyone know to look for RFC

m: how will we notifiy, is sumanah?

g: sumanah is transitioning, quim is taking care of it, rfc you want to progress forward, ping the authors

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Rfc

mg: anyone here want to go through RFC within the next two weeks

l: lot so RFC good but need someone to take care of breakage

m: highlights problems

l: lots of don't need RFC but someone to merge them

mg: let's try differnt approach, 2 weeks for RFC discussion, come up task list that is sent to all of us, things to do to achieve the goals, chat in IRC, can we agree? silence is consent

time zones: EU, America, Eastern

l: RFC meeting, rotate time zones

s: we should try to get a healthy mailing list going, so they can respond when it is convenient for them, keep interactive meeting limited, as time goes on we should reduce

mg: anything else? monitoring Wiki Co-op, sign up now

s: are we