IRC office hours/Office hours 2011-04-28

[09:51am] ChristineM joined the chat room.

[09:51am] Theo10011:

there we go.

[09:52am] brion:

office people whee

[09:53am] StevenW:

Howdy

[09:54am] Abbasjnr joined the chat room.

[09:54am] Abbasjnr:

hello

[09:54am] Pml joined the chat room.

[09:54am] StevenW:

Hi Abbas

[09:54am] StevenW:

Sue isn't in yet, so we're still waiting. :)

[09:55am] Abbasjnr:

OK

[09:55am] PM|AFK left the chat room. (Read error: Connection reset by peer)

[09:55am] Theo10011:

Hi Abbas

[09:55am] Thehelpfulone:

exciting :)

[09:55am] Thehelpfulone:

hi StevenW

[09:55am] Abbasjnr:

hi Theo

[09:55am] Ziko_ joined the chat room.

[09:55am] StevenW:

Hi Thehelpfulone

[09:55am] StevenW:

Hi Zikio

[09:55am] StevenW:

Ziko^

[09:55am] Pml is now known as PM|AFK.

[09:55am] Ziko_:

hi swalling

[09:56am] preilly joined the chat room.

[09:56am] Thehelpfulone:

StevenW: do you want to start canvassing?

[09:56am] Thehelpfulone:

in the other IRC channels I mean :)

[09:57am] StevenW:

Sure, I was kind of waiting for Sue to get around. But anytime is good.

[09:57am] Thehelpfulone:

gives people more time to join I guess

[09:57am] brion_ left the chat room. (Quit: brion_)

[09:58am] Fluffernutter joined the chat room.

[09:58am] Fenix2 joined the chat room.

[09:59am] Fenix2:

pre-office hours buzz

[09:59am] MRB[afk] joined the chat room.

[09:59am] Maryana joined the chat room.

[09:59am] Thehelpfulone:

Fenix2: so exciting! ;)

[09:59am] Alchimista joined the chat room.

[09:59am] StevenW:

Heh. Hi Fenix2, Fluffernutter :)

[09:59am] Fluffernutter:

hiya

[10:00am] apergos joined the chat room.

[10:00am] PM|AFK is now known as [Pmlineditor].

[10:01am] Theo10011:

ahh channels spammed.

[10:01am] Kingpin13 joined the chat room.

[10:01am] matanya joined the chat room.

[10:01am] StevenW:

Yep, channels were spammed.

[10:01am] StevenW:

)

[10:01am] Thehelpfulone:

Theo10011: any need to spam #commons? :)

[10:01am] • Thehelpfulone 

can spam it if you like ;)

[10:01am] Theo10011:

nah

[10:02am] Theo10011:

I got #wikimedia-stewards channel.

[10:02am] StevenW:

Isn't the usual one #wikimeida-commons?

[10:02am] • Beria 

already did in commons ;)

[10:02am] Thehelpfulone:

Beria: just now :P

[10:02am] Theo10011:

heh

[10:02am] StevenW:

Thanks Beria

[10:02am] Theo10011:

Beria I thought you weren't gonna attend? ;)

[10:02am] Beria:

yep :D

[10:02am] Beria:

bah, since i'm already here :P

[10:03am] Beria:

but if you want i can leave ;)

[10:03am] Theo10011:

awww

[10:03am] daisokawa joined the chat room.

[10:03am] Theo10011:

won't be fun without you.

[10:03am] Beria:

D

[10:03am] sgardner joined the chat room.

[10:03am] Beria:

but "be here" and "talk" is two diferent things Theo10011

[10:03am] StevenW:

Hi Sue!

[10:03am] Beria:

Hello sgardner

[10:03am] Theo10011:

Hey Sue.

[10:04am] sgardner:

Hey folks! StevenW, where are you :-0

[10:04am] sgardner:

oops

[10:04am] sgardner:

-)

[10:04am] mokapantages_ joined the chat room.

[10:04am] StevenW:

I am OOO for office hours, ironically.

[10:04am] sgardner:

Oh LOL. I have just corralled Moka into sitting with me, so I don't feel alone :-)

[10:04am] sgardner:

And James is ill today :-(

[10:04am] mokapantages_:

)

[10:04am] sgardner:

Hello Mokaaaa!

[10:04am] Thehelpfulone:

hi sgardner

[10:05am] Theo10011:

Aww you still have us sgardner.

[10:05am] • Fluffernutter 

waves to sgardner

[10:05am] ChristineM:

you're never alone on the internets

[10:05am] Abbasjnr:

hello Sue, Moka

[10:05am] StevenW:

Oh, sorry about James. I was wondering why he wasnt online.

[10:05am] Theo10011:

howdy Moka.

[10:05am] mokapantages_:

hey guys!

[10:05am] Jan_eissfeldt:

Beria: we should talk about Ripchip bot-updates on de.wp after this session

[10:05am] Thehelpfulone:

StevenW: perhaps give yourself and sue +voice ?

[10:05am] StevenW:

yeah

[10:05am] SMP_ca joined the chat room.

[10:06am] Narodnik joined the chat room.

[10:06am] sgardner:

Yeah, poor James. Hi Theo, Abbasjnr, Christine, Jan, Thehelpfulone, anyone I missed :-)

[10:06am] Catrin_WMDE left the chat room.

[10:06am] Beria:

Jan_eissfeldt, we can talk during in a private chat also

[10:06am] You were promoted to operator by ChanServ.

[10:06am] guillom joined the chat room.

[10:06am] sgardner was granted voice by ChanServ.

[10:06am] mokapantages_ is now known as mokapantages.

[10:06am] Avicennasis joined the chat room.

[10:06am] Thehelpfulone:

now it starts to get busy ;)

[10:06am] MRB[afk] left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 258 seconds)

[10:06am] • Jan_eissfeldt 

waves to Sue and all other attendees

[10:07am] Theo10011:

Hey Jan

[10:07am] StevenW:

So do you feel ready to start Sue, everyone?

[10:07am] • Fenix2 

culrs up with a bowl of steming hot food

[10:07am] MRB[afk] joined the chat room.

[10:07am] YairRand joined the chat room.

[10:07am] Mentifisto_ joined the chat room.

[10:07am] woosters joined the chat room.

[10:07am] StevenW:

Hi Yair, Mentifisto

[10:07am] Mentifisto_:

Hi

[10:07am] YairRand:

hi

[10:07am] sgardner:

I am ready :-)

[10:08am] StevenW:

Okay

[10:08am] StevenW:

)

[10:08am] sgardner:

Fenix2 LOL.

[10:08am] StevenW:

So when Sue and I talked briefly, we were thinking of talking of a few things.

[10:08am] • matanya 

waves hi @ all

[10:08am] StevenW:

Then I thought of a new more that we might like...

[10:08am] Abbasjnr:

So are we sticking to the agenda? Or can we ask general Qs as well?

[10:09am] StevenW:

We can definitely ask general questions

[10:09am] StevenW:

Can I throw out a list of the things we sort of proposed first, and then maybe if anyone is interested...?

[10:09am] sgardner:

I personally don't have anything in particular to talk about today, so I would love for i) StevenW to lay out topic areas, which probably mostly will be based on the work the community dept is doing lately, and ii) general questions are fine with me too :-)

[10:10am] sgardner:

Perfect, StevenW.

[10:10am] RoanKattouw_away is now known as RoanKattouw.

[10:10am] sgardner:

And FYI everyone, I will need to leave sharp in 50 minutes, because I have a CFA hiring interview and also James is not here, so if I'm not conscious of the time I will slide off schedule for the whole day :-(

[10:10am] sgardner:

Go ahead, StevenW :-)

[10:10am] StevenW:

Yes, thanks Sue :)

[10:10am] StevenW:

Okay, so as one first thing, I wanted to maybe talk about the research myself, Maryana, Philippe, and others have been doing in the Community Dept.

[10:11am] StevenW:

For anyone who doesn't know Maryana, she and Victoria Doronina wrote that great, huge, funny, history of the Russian Wikipedia. :)

[10:12am] StevenW:

So we blogged about one of the short projects we worked on last week... http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/04/15/neweditorsquality/

[10:12am] Ziko_:

I can't tell what was funny about the history of ru.WP, it contained some very serious conflicts

[10:13am] Ziko_:

a serious piece of work, by the way

[10:13am] deniz joined the chat room.

[10:13am] Maryana:

I'm continually amazed by the diversity of reactions to that...

[10:13am] sgardner:

(Ziko: congratulations :-)

[10:13am] MRB[afk] is now known as matthewrbowker.

[10:13am] StevenW:

I think there was some humor interjected into it, to make it more readable and not just the serious conflicts, but maybe Maryana can tell us if they meant to be funny sometimes...

[10:14am] StevenW:

)

[10:14am] Ziko_:

-)

[10:14am] Maryana:

I definitely wrote it to be entertaining. But Ziko is right -- for the folks in the ru.wiki community, there's a lot of serious stuff in there.

[10:15am] StevenW:

It turns out it's really hard to be NPOV about Wikipedia history. ;)

[10:15am] apergos:

it might be useful for folks if several specific examples of edits were available via click, so people could look themselves and say "oh, yeah, it's acceptable" or "what are these people smoking?"

[10:15am] apergos:

(for the new editor quality project)

[10:15am] StevenW:

Sort of oversight of oversight?

[10:15am] Thehelpfulone:

StevenW: these edits you looked at in your blog post, were they main space only ones?

[10:16am] apergos:

no, I don't intend for it to be oversight

[10:16am] StevenW:

Yeah, only the first mainspace edit of a new editor Thehelpfulone

[10:16am] apergos:

I intend that we all look at the same data and then, if there are disgreements about your standards we have that discussion

[10:16am] Thehelpfulone:

ok

[10:16am] MC8 left the chat room. (Remote host closed the connection)

[10:16am] apergos:

(and if there aren't, we get a lot of buy in pretty fast, I'd think)

[10:17am] StevenW:

Yes, we've definitely been thinking about a kind of interface to do that sort of thing apergos. I know Philippe has been thinking about something like as being useful for the WIki Guides project.

[10:17am] sgardner:

So StevenW, are you essentially going to go through a couple of examples of the work the Community Dept is doing, with Maryana's Russian history as one example?

[10:17am] StevenW:

Yeah

[10:17am] sgardner:

Okay :-)

[10:17am] StevenW:

So the next one is the kind of thing in that blog post

[10:18am] StevenW:

where we take a question about what's going on in the community that we have a hunch about, mostly from talking to folks like you and some of our editing experience...

[10:18am] StevenW:

and do randomized sampling of editing history in order to look at what's really going on

[10:19am] Ziko_:

great

[10:19am] Theo10011:

StevenW: About new editor retention. The idea of a newbie incubator has been brought up multiple times.

[10:19am] StevenW:

Yeah, it's definitely a persistent idea.

[10:20am] sgardner:

e.g., this: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/04/15/neweditorsquality/

[10:20am] StevenW:

right.

[10:20am] StevenW:

The one we worked for the last couple weeks is how have user talk page interactions with new editors over time?

[10:20am] sgardner:

(As an example of one of the small research experiments the community dept is doing)

[10:20am] Maryana:

One of the awesome innovations discovered by the Russians, btw.

[10:20am] mindspillage joined the chat room.

[10:20am] Saibo joined the chat room.

[10:20am] apergos:

changed over time?

[10:20am] Theo10011:

I saw samal from ru wiki who invented that, made this application.

[10:20am] Theo10011:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Proposals/Newcomers_Incubator

[10:21am] StevenW:

Yeah, in terms of the type of message they might be getting. e.g. is it a warning? Is it a template? Is it just a paragraph of text explaining how to sign your edits? What?

[10:22am] Prodego joined the chat room.

[10:22am] Maryana:

I'll just chime in with my plug about community histories here... the other project the Community Department is working on is finding more cool stuff like the newbie incubator from various language Wikipedias.

[10:22am] aude:

oooh, office hours

[10:22am] StevenW:

hey aude

[10:22am] Theo10011:

Hi aude

[10:22am] aude:

talking about newbies?

[10:23am] StevenW:

yes, starting off with what the Community Dept. is up to research-wise

[10:23am] StevenW:

Kingpin13 asked a really good question privately...

[10:23am] StevenW:

what happened with the new edit section button testing, and if that actually improved the number of "good" edits from newbies?

[10:23am] StevenW:

That's another experiment we ran with Tech.

[10:23am] Ziko_:

(i actually closed my piece on "Wikipedia international" for the German book with the hint that in the various language versions some good ideas can be found)

[10:24am] aude:

what do people think of having something like http://help.openstreetmap.org/ for wikip/media?

[10:24am] StevenW:

Isn't there a proposal up for a wiki/Wikimedia related one Aude?

[10:24am] sgardner:

So StevenW, can you talk a little about what we've learned so far... what are some of the things we know now that we didn't know before?

[10:25am] aude:

StevenW: something on stackoverflow, i thought which is good

[10:25am] kaldari joined the chat room.

[10:25am] StevenW:

Sure. Then I do have an actual question for Sue from Abbasjnr :)

[10:25am] matthewrbowker left the chat room. (Quit: Back to class :()

[10:25am] sgardner:

StevenW: sure :-)

[10:26am] StevenW:

So it's important to keep in mind that this particular sample-based style of research isn't perfect, but that first batch we did ala http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/04/15/neweditorsquality/

[10:26am] MC8 joined the chat room.

[10:26am] StevenW:

I think it tells us something we only had hunches about before: most edits by newbies are actually quite helpful.

[10:26am] StevenW:

We really had no idea about that, from a data standpoint.

[10:27am] StevenW:

It could have been that we're rejecting more  newbies nowawadays  because they just make terrible edits. ;)

[10:27am] Kingpin13:

It's interesting to see the massive increase in vandalism though, the article doesn't really talk about that

[10:28am] StevenW:

Yeah, vandalism did go way up.

[10:28am] Ziko_:

i took some samples once, but of course it's good to have real research about the usefulness of newbie's contributions

[10:28am] StevenW:

But it made us curious

[10:29am] StevenW:

because if vandalism went up like that but most of the first edits are good, then how have the messages given to new editors changed? Are we warning and maybe even blocking way more people?

[10:30am] StevenW:

That's why we worked on that this week, and the results are sort of shocking. We did another randomized sample, slightly larger this time and over all years not just 2004 and 2011.

[10:30am] GerardM- joined the chat room.

[10:30am] Maryana:

Over all years *between* 2004-2011, that is :)

[10:30am] StevenW:

Right

[10:30am] StevenW:

And by this year, templates made up 75% of the messages given to newbies. About half of those were warnings.

[10:31am] Maryana:

Some of the newbie talk pages from this year are downright terrifying. Dozens and dozens of warnings. Nothing else.

[10:31am] YairRand:

those warning templates really need to be fixed up...

[10:31am] GerardM-:

get rid off ?

[10:32am] StevenW:

Perhaps. I think it's interesting to remember that our first level warning templates, on English Wikipedia anyway, are actually very gentle.

[10:32am] Kingpin13:

But we have a lot of editors complaining about us concentrating on being too nice to vandals and spammers, and not to good faith contributors...

[10:33am] GerardM-:

how do you know a vandal troll  from a newbie

[10:33am] StevenW:

It's a good point to make.

[10:33am] GerardM-:

it is a social thing

[10:33am] Maryana:

You can spot a vandal pretty easily.

[10:33am] StevenW:

Actually one of the ideas that's been kicked around is a way to flag new good faith contributors

[10:33am] GerardM-:

you can be known by your friends

[10:33am] Maryana:

Trolls are harder, though, yes.

[10:33am] StevenW:

in MediaWiki

[10:33am] Fluffernutter:

that's an interesting suggestion, StevenW

[10:33am] kaldari:

Jan Paul and I are working on expanding the WikiLove user script into an extension so people on other projects can use it. Hopefully that will improve the percentage of positive messages given to newbies.

[10:33am] StevenW:

)

[10:33am] Fluffernutter:

Kind of like "I checked this guy's contribs and it looks like they're worth working with if they mess up"

[10:34am] StevenW:

Indeed.

[10:34am] Theo10011:

Has anyone tried answering queries in #wikipedia-en-help lately?

[10:34am] Jan_eissfeldt:

i'm not very concerned about the regular spam&vandal-activity but about the collateral damage of the counter measures. in adapting to the challenge, we may have overexcited ("handle it _all_ according to the book") and it would be great to have a report regarding that question, especially related to tunnel-like tools like huggle & co

[10:34am] Ziko_:

flagged newbies

[10:34am] StevenW:

haha Ziko

[10:35am] Ziko_:

has this something to do with the difference between registered and unregistered users?

[10:35am] YairRand:

we need the regulars to be able to spy on the newbies editing and tell them "you're doing it wrong" (in the most gentle way as possible of course) :)

[10:36am] StevenW:

That is exactly right Jan. It looks like, according to the samples we took and looking at the percentages of good faith activity and warnings etc, that it's not there hasn't been a big increase in vandalism. There has. But it also definitely looked like we have overcorrected, in terms of how harsh we've been in patrolling.

[10:36am] GerardM-:

why not have a web of trust ... you are known by your friends ...

[10:36am] Myra:

QUESTION: Can someone fix the blog to not load enormous image files?

[10:36am] Myra:

Thumbnails are free.

[10:36am] GerardM-:

and ask friends to help out newbies

[10:36am] StevenW:

Will keep in mind Myra :)

[10:36am] StevenW:

Thank you

[10:36am] Myra:

Thanks. :-)

[10:37am] StevenW:

GerardM- wants to be able to "friend" people on Wikipedia. :)

[10:37am] kaldari:

And we need to convince people that "needs clean-up" isn't a criteria for deleting new articles.

[10:37am] StevenW:

Anyway, I think sgardner wants to jump in...

[10:37am] GerardM-:

by not accepting what is good in social media we become backward

[10:37am] Ziko_:

it seems to me to be a big part of the problem that many newbies don't find it necessary to read instructional texts.

[10:37am] Myra:

kaldari: First we need to convince people what should and shouldn't be in an encyclopedia.

[10:37am] Beria:

i agree with Ziko_ :P

[10:38am] apergos:

reading for 30 seconds, maybe. reading for 2 hours. nope.

[10:38am] GerardM-:

it seems to me that we became less of a wiki and more of a nupedia with all our rules

[10:38am] sgardner:

Hey So yeah, thanks StevenW, I did want to jump in with two things.

[10:38am] Myra:

The wiki model discourages reading.

[10:38am] Fluffernutter:

Ziko_: true, but it's also true that our instructional texts are the most dense, impenetrable, difficult-to-locate shit ever

[10:38am] Beria:

i talk a lot with newbies and they ask question there are in the {{welcome}} template :P

[10:38am] kaldari:

Myra: check out this recent example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Domestic_violence_and_pregnancy

[10:38am] Maryana:

I don't think anybody who joined in 2004-2006 read any of the rules, either :)

[10:38am] StevenW:

Go ahead sgardner :)

[10:38am] Maryana:

At least, judging by their first edits.

[10:38am] sgardner:

I wanted to make sure that we're sharing here what we've learned from some of the experiments.

[10:38am] odisha1 joined the chat room.

[10:38am] Ziko_:

we had that discussion in NL board. would it help to have brochures, better help pages? no, they said, people won't read them

[10:38am] Sebaso_WMDE joined the chat room.

[10:39am] Beria:

Maryana, rules there were different ;)

[10:39am] apergos:

that is because there is too much stuff in the welcome template.  if you want them to learn something better make it three (at most) points, with *nothing else*, simple, clear, and makin sense in the context of their first edit(s).

[10:39am] sgardner:

So in the first one StevenW referenced, that little study posed the question: how many contributions by new editors are made in good faith and are worth retaining or improving?  And the answer turned out to be "more than 65%." More than 65% of edits by new editors were rated as either excellent, good or fine. That is a small finding (and it was also a small sample) but I think it's worth noting nonetheless. The majority of edits by new people

[10:39am] sgardner:

are good faith.

[10:39am] Maryana:

Beria: Yep, they were easier. And they still weren't followed! But it was okay to mess up :)

[10:39am] sgardner:

It's interesting because a few weeks ago here on IRC I think we were talking with some page patrollers, and IIRC someone guessed that maybe 90% of edits were vandalism. I think that person was being kind of facetious but still: for people who have assumed that most edits are vandalism, we now know that's probably not true. Most edits from new people (who are obviously likeliest to be vandals) are actually trying to help :-)

[10:39am] Myra:

kaldari: Well, yeah. That's a bit of an odd case.

[10:40am] Myra:

That article wasn't "needs cleanup." ;-)

[10:40am] sgardner:

So I think we are learning some small useful things, and that we need to be sharing them as we learn them :-)

[10:40am] StevenW:

Thanks sgardner!

[10:40am] GerardM-:

Sue how are we going to get that message out ?

[10:40am] Maryana:

We'll also be scaling these small things and probing them more in depth as we go.

[10:40am] StevenW:

Well us blogging more is one start.

[10:40am] sgardner:

Hey GerardM -- just blogging, and so forth, I expect.,

[10:40am] GerardM-:

just publishing it will not cut it

[10:40am] Beria:

sgardner, the problem is that people who fight vandalism don't really "see" good contrubitions :)

[10:41am] Kingpin13:

well, that study didn't include IP addresses, apparently

[10:41am] StevenW:

No

[10:41am] sgardner:

GerardM, why won't publishing it work?

[10:41am] Kingpin13:

In Huggle, most editors (in general) only ever look at IP editors

[10:41am] apergos:

most peple never even see the blogs

[10:41am] apergos:

they don't even know the blogs exist

[10:41am] GerardM-:

because you bring us the arrival on a destination and no travelling plan

[10:41am] sgardner:

Kingpin13, the study was tiny, not perfect. But what it tells us is that 99% of edits aren't vandalism, the overwhelming majority of edits aren't vandalism. Most edits are good faith.

[10:41am] StevenW:

That is interesting to hear Kingpin13. We should do an IP-only version of the study

[10:42am] kaldari:

agree, the foundation relies too much on blogs and listservs in my opinion. The real community discussions are on-wiki.

[10:42am] GerardM-:

when you read many of the WMF blogs they do not have an author, no illustration and too many words

[10:42am] StevenW:

The Signpost definitely helps get the word out on-wiki though. :)

[10:42am] apergos:

if the results got an announcement on a centralnotice sort of spot, that mgiht be overkill.  but it would reach a heck of a lot of people.

[10:42am] GerardM-:

worst is the lack of follow up

[10:42am] sgardner:

Kaldari, it's actually interesting because the Editor Survey that Mani has just done asks exactly that question: where do editors get their info.

[10:43am] mono joined the chat room.

[10:43am] Myra:

QUESTION: Who decided to hire a full-time merchandise person?

[10:43am] apergos:

we did?

[10:43am] sgardner:

And the answer is: multiple places. Different people go different places. There is no majority place.

[10:43am] GerardM-:

the survey did not get to me ... it died prematurely

[10:43am] Myra:

apergos: I'm not sure what you're asking there. :-)

[10:43am] Maryana:

Kaldari: But you can't link to an on-wiki discussion thread on Facebook :)

[10:43am] Kingpin13:

Well, actually the Huggle "threat" detector ranks IPs above registered users, but if you're fast you can get though them all ;).

[10:43am] apergos:

we hired a ..?? nevermind it's off topic

[10:43am] guillom:

apergos, recent job opening

[10:43am] kaldari:

Myra: We have merchandise?

[10:43am] StevenW:

Myra, that person will be working for/with Jay Walsh in communications.

[10:43am] RoanKattouw:

apergos: Are hiring. There's a JD up since like this week

[10:43am] GerardM-:

we should have

[10:44am] Myra:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Wikimedia_Merchandise_Manager

[10:44am] guillom:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Wikimedia_Merchandise_Manager

[10:44am] apergos:

ok well it is off topic, I'll look later. new editors...

[10:44am] RoanKattouw:

OK I was *this* close to also pasting that URL :)

[10:44am] Myra:

Yeah, sorry. Hasn't been hried yet.

[10:44am] Myra:

hired, also.

[10:44am] StevenW:

Before sgardner's time runs out Abbasjnr had a question from earlier...

[10:44am] sgardner:

I can speak to this a little if you guys want. The merch job?

[10:44am] StevenW:

Go for it

[10:45am] apergos:

(however since apparently we are going to talk about it, I have had a number of pedians ask how they can get one of the wp hoodies, the black ones with multiple languages on the back)

[10:45am] sgardner:

It's really simple. Basically we are setting up a shop to sell affiliative swag. Lots more t-shirts and bags and umbrellas and water bottles and so forth.

[10:46am] Kingpin13:

Why?

[10:46am] odisha1 left the chat room. (Ping timeout: 276 seconds)

[10:46am] sgardner:

The purpose isn't to make money: we expect the shop to break even, in part because we are aiming to ship things more cheaply than is normal.

[10:46am] StevenW:

Mostly because people ask for it all the time.

[10:46am] GerardM-:

because it makes us more visible

[10:46am] Myra:

Wikipedia has very low visibility.

[10:46am] sgardner:

Kingpin13: to enable people to express their affection for the projects, basicallty.

[10:46am] Ziko_:

all true

[10:47am] sgardner:

People love Wikipedia (and some people love the smaller projects :-) ---- we want to enable them to express that publicly. And they want to be able to do it :-)

[10:47am] Kingpin13:

Myra, are you being sarcastic? ;)

[10:47am] Myra:

sgardner: That isn't something that can be done by Cafepress or wherever?

[10:47am] Myra:

Kingpin13: Yes.

[10:47am] sgardner:

Nah.

[10:47am] Myra:

'cause WMF getting into the business of selling swag seems silly when there are a zillion places that do this full-time.

[10:47am] sgardner:

Cafepress and Zazzle and so forth don't really meet our needs. In part because their products can be very expensive for people in some parts of the world, and/or entirely unavailable.

[10:47am] Kingpin13:

Isn't it effectively advertising under a different name?

[10:47am] sgardner:

We need a custom solution for our custom needs.

[10:48am] StevenW:

Sue: here's that question from Abbas if you want to take a crack at it... With all the uprising in Libya, and the Middle East/ North Africa; will the Foundation still proceed with it's strategy plan in those regions? eg opening an office there, etc?

[10:48am] mono:

Just wanted to mention that Commons' Picture of the Year contest begins tomorrow - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2010

[10:48am] StevenW:

Thanks mono :)

[10:48am] sgardner:

Kingpin13, sure, you could characterize it as advertising. It's certainly branding, word of mouth support....

[10:48am] apergos:

so are the hoodys going to be available?

[10:48am] sgardner:

Thanks Abbas.

[10:48am] GerardM-:

<grin> I am known for wearing Wiki t shirts

[10:48am] Kingpin13:

Okay, that's what I'm going to call it then :P

[10:49am] Abbasjnr:

)

[10:49am] mono:

StevenW: I've PMed you :)

[10:49am] GerardM-:

some say it defines me

[10:49am] mokapantages:

apergos:  i expect there will be hoodies. :)

[10:49am] StevenW:

Gotcha mono

[10:49am] apergos:

\o/

[10:49am] Fluffernutter left the chat room.

[10:49am] mokapantages:

or hoodys

[10:49am] StevenW:

Sue has to leave in about a minute...

[10:50am] Kingpin13:

me too, it's been good talking, guys :)

[10:50am] aude:

sgardner: what about chapters to sell stuff

[10:50am] aude:

rather than shipping it halfway around the world?

[10:50am] sgardner:

So AbbasJnr, I don't think we can say with any certainty how the MENA protests are going to affect our plans for MENA.

[10:50am] • aude 

assumes chapters already do

[10:50am] Abbasjnr:

Aha

[10:50am] sgardner:

Obviously things are changing really quickly.

[10:51am] Abbasjnr:

In some countries for the better, while in others, for the worse

[10:51am] sgardner:

India is underway now, and Brazil will be beginning soon, and we are certainly thinking about MENA actively. But we're in the research/thinking/information-gathering stages there right now -- there are no actual firm plans to upset or not upset.

[10:52am] Abbasjnr:

OK

[10:52am] StevenW:

MENA is Middle East North Africa, FYI :)

[10:52am] sgardner:

Thanks StevenW :-)

[10:52am] StevenW:

Okay Sue, you have to hit the road.

[10:52am] GerardM-:

when are we going to have an office hour not about en,wp ?

[10:52am] mono:

StevenW: so do you have access?

[10:52am] sgardner:

GerardM, we tried!

[10:52am] StevenW:

mono: short answer yes. Email me?

[10:53am] mono:

Sure.

[10:53am] sgardner:

It was interesting: we held an office hours late in the day Pacific Time, and specifically asked for nonen editors.

[10:53am] apergos:

we could have one about commons :-P

[10:53am] Bence joined the chat room.

[10:53am] Beria:

Brazil will do what soon, sgardner ?

[10:53am] apergos:

tbh I only know about these cause I see a note in the channel

[10:53am] sgardner:

And it didn't work -- it was still vast-majority-English.

[10:53am] mokapantages:

abbasjnr: also, since MENA is likely at the latter end of our 5-year plan, it's not really practical to speculate now, when it'll likely be a few years before we get there..

[10:53am] apergos:

I bet none of the people I edit with knows about them at all

[10:53am] sgardner:

Maybe we should try harder, publicize earlier.....?

[10:53am] sgardner:

Hi Beria!

[10:53am] StevenW:

haha, it was also St. Patrick's Day, so it was a little weird then.

[10:53am] Abbasjnr:

ok, moka

[10:53am] Beria:

Hi sgardner ;)

[10:54am] StevenW:

I think so sgardner.

[10:54am] sgardner:

Yes, St. patrick's day.

[10:54am] Beria:

what brazil will have soon?

[10:54am] sgardner:

Beria, I was essentially just saying that we are planning for activities in Brazil next year. Our work in India started in 2010-11, and our work in Brazil will start in 2011-12.

[10:54am] sgardner:

Okay, I need to go!

[10:54am] StevenW:

Yes, you do!

[10:54am] apergos:

see ya

[10:54am] Beria:

oh ok :D

[10:54am] StevenW:

Thanks sgardner

[10:54am] sgardner:

-)

[10:55am] sgardner:

Thanks so much guys; this was fun :-)

[10:55am] Beria:

that is a point for a next office hour ;)

[10:55am] Fenix2:

take care

[10:55am] Theo10011:

Bye Sue.

[10:55am] Ziko_:

bye sue

[10:55am] sgardner:

Sure. We should have Barry do another office hours soon.

[10:55am] aude:

bye

[10:55am] StevenW:

Good idea

[10:55am] Beria:

)

[10:55am] sgardner:

Bye bye :-)

[10:55am] Beria:

bye sue

[10:55am] StevenW:

Bye!

[10:55am] Abbasjnr left the chat room. (Quit: Page closed)

[10:55am] sgardner left the chat room. (Quit: Leaving)

[10:55am] mokapantages:

later guys!

[10:55am] kaldari left the chat room.

[10:56am] Beria:

now everyone is leaving ;)

[10:56am] mono:

Done, StevenW

[10:56am] mono:

)

[10:56am] StevenW:

Thanks mono

[10:56am] StevenW:

See y'all later. :)

[10:56am] Theo10011:

Later.