[Wikimediauk-l] Re: Wikimedia UK recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees

[Fæ]

That's really helpful Chris.

So glad that we've all moved on and forgotten about events that
happened so long ago that my grandparents, uncle, niece, and three
relatives that did not have proper funerals last year were alive back
then.

I guess there's more important things for us volunteers to worry about.

Cheers,
Fae

On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 21:36, Chris Keating  wrote:
>
>
>> I really didn't want to get involved in this, but I'm impulsive. However, my 
>> impulsiveness and my prudence have agreed that all I will do is acknowledge 
>> that, yes, the Chair of any charity is a special role with special 
>> responsibilities.I encourage members to think about that.
>
>
> Yes, that's true. Though so far in Wikimedia UK's history, we've always 
> trusted the Board to appoint a Chair who's effective in the post. It's mainly 
> worked pretty well, and I have a lot of confidence in the current Board to 
> find someone good.
>
> However, it is worth thinking about what happens if someone turns out to be a 
> poor Chair. In which case, it's a simple matter for the Board to remove them 
> - there only needs to be a majority vote in a board meeting. Or more likely, 
> they'll quickly get the message and resign before they're sacked.
>
> Chris
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[Wikimediauk-l] Re: Wikimedia UK recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees

[Fæ]

On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 21:01, Chris Keating  wrote:
>>
>> Just to note that "Co-opted directors are not lesser, inferior, or less 
>> capable than elected board members or hold any less of a mandate, nor should 
>> they be perceived to be" is an opinion rather than fact.
>
>
> Not really. It's a fact that nothing in the Wikimedia UK constitution, 
> Charity Commission guidance, or the law differentiates the roles of trustees 
> who are elected or appointed.

Yes, nobody can make a clear statement about the *perceptions* of the
members unless they are asked.

>>
>> Elections exist for the express purpose of providing a mandate.
>
>
> Again, according to the articles of association, elections exist for the 
> express purpose of selecting trustees. There is no concept of a 'mandate' in 
> charity law.

This seems very tangential considering that the CC was not being
quoted. The dictionary definition of mandate puts it in the context of
elections, the concept of elections and votes is about creating a
mandate. "Mandate" is not charity law but as was pointed out, there is
no requirement to have elections anyway, so no mandate and no
democratic process, if this is about what the *minimum* in law is.
Again discussing CC guidelines is a tangent.

Though trustees might be elected, the basic point of this thread is
that they are also co-opted, so the statement about "express purpose
of selecting trustees" is incomplete without adding "except for
co-opted trustees".

>>
>>  The change is worthy of discussion among the trustees
>
>
> I imagine they have discussed the matter, though that is pure supposition on 
> my part.
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[Wikimediauk-l] Re: Wikimedia UK recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees

[Fæ]

Thanks for your views.

Just to note that "Co-opted directors are not lesser, inferior, or less
capable than elected board members or hold any less of a mandate, nor
should they be perceived to be" is an opinion rather than fact. Elections
exist for the express purpose of providing a mandate. Nobody on this email
thread can provide the perceptions of the majority of members on whether a
Chair for the charity ought to always be an elected trustee, or whether
they believe that an unelected Chair can be seen as 100% as "legitimate" as
an elected one.

The role of Chair is special for the charity, so the change from elected to
unelected is an important one, which can be challenged as reducing
democratic accountability in a fundamental way, by co-opting the role to
someone the members never voted for. The change is worthy of discussion
among the trustees, presumably this is already available in
published minutes, but probably could be usefully put to the membership to
find out for sure how fitting with the published values this is perceived
to be, rather than reading comments from the small number of people who
write to this email list.

The board's published statements are interesting when compared with this
strategic change, and might be the basis of useful discussions before
making the change by default:
"Our vision is of a more tolerant, informed and democratic society."
"Ensure that Wikimedia UK’s own policies and practices support diversity
and inclusion"
"Develop Wikimedia UK’s community of contributors, volunteers and members"
Ref: https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_Strategy_2019%E2%80%9322

Thanks again,
Fae

On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 20:18, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> I'm a member and if the board feels that currently they lack either
> someone with either the capacity, desire or expertise to become chair they
> it is ethically right they try to find someone interested and qualified.
>
> Co-opted directors are not lesser, inferior, or less capable than elected
> board members or hold any less of a mandate, nor should they be perceived
> to be.
>
> There are plenty of formal mechanisms through which the membership can
> express its opinion if it so desires and it would be foolish to make
> assumptions about the member body's perceptions.
>
> On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 7:47 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
>> It is legally correct, whether anyone on the board is elected is not
>> mandated by the Charity Commission's guidelines, that's why it would be
>> foolish for anyone to make such a claim.
>>
>> It is astonishing the types of charity recently approved in the UK, such
>> as a very notably transphobic lobbying group, which may indicate that the
>> theoretical bar of the CC guidelines is not a high one.
>>
>> Anyway, whether the Wikimedia UK board thinks it's more or less ethical
>> to have an unelected Chair for the first time in the charity's history, is
>> their call. Whether the members are allowed to have a voice in this
>> decision, is also the call of the board of trustees. One might be concerned
>> about how this would be perceived by the members, which only matters if
>> members are important stakeholders or their votes are meaningful or timely
>> enough to make a difference.
>>
>> Thanks for your reply.
>>
>> Fae
>>
>> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 19:27, Lucy Crompton-Reid <
>> lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Fae
>>>
>>> Thanks for your email. I think you are almost certainly right, and that
>>> this is the first time that the Chair has been recruited externally -
>>> although it's quite common practice in the voluntary sector more generally.
>>> It is very possible that one of the existing trustees may become the Chair.
>>> However we are casting the net wide in order to reach the biggest pool of
>>> potential candidates with the skills and experience outlined in the person
>>> specification, and bearing in mind advice regarding best practice in
>>> trustee recruitment to ensure a diverse board.
>>>
>>> The charity's Articles allow for seven elected directors and three who
>>> are co-opted (with the provision to co-opt a fourth trustee if it is deemed
>>> necessary to get the right balance of skills and experience on the board).
>>> We currently have seven elected trustees and two co-opted trustees (the
>>> latter two being our Treasurer and the Chair of the Audit and Risk
>>> Committee).
>>>
>>> Although I have been working broadly on the basis that the board would
>>> co-opt the person recommended by the recruitment panel, this does

[Wikimediauk-l] Re: Wikimedia UK recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees

[Fæ]

It is legally correct, whether anyone on the board is elected is not
mandated by the Charity Commission's guidelines, that's why it would be
foolish for anyone to make such a claim.

It is astonishing the types of charity recently approved in the UK, such as
a very notably transphobic lobbying group, which may indicate that the
theoretical bar of the CC guidelines is not a high one.

Anyway, whether the Wikimedia UK board thinks it's more or less ethical to
have an unelected Chair for the first time in the charity's history, is
their call. Whether the members are allowed to have a voice in this
decision, is also the call of the board of trustees. One might be concerned
about how this would be perceived by the members, which only matters if
members are important stakeholders or their votes are meaningful or timely
enough to make a difference.

Thanks for your reply.

Fae

On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 19:27, Lucy Crompton-Reid <
lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:

> Hi Fae
>
> Thanks for your email. I think you are almost certainly right, and that
> this is the first time that the Chair has been recruited externally -
> although it's quite common practice in the voluntary sector more generally.
> It is very possible that one of the existing trustees may become the Chair.
> However we are casting the net wide in order to reach the biggest pool of
> potential candidates with the skills and experience outlined in the person
> specification, and bearing in mind advice regarding best practice in
> trustee recruitment to ensure a diverse board.
>
> The charity's Articles allow for seven elected directors and three who are
> co-opted (with the provision to co-opt a fourth trustee if it is deemed
> necessary to get the right balance of skills and experience on the board).
> We currently have seven elected trustees and two co-opted trustees (the
> latter two being our Treasurer and the Chair of the Audit and Risk
> Committee).
>
> Although I have been working broadly on the basis that the board would
> co-opt the person recommended by the recruitment panel, this doesn't
> necessarily have to be the case. The timing of the recruitment process,
> with interviews scheduled for mid-June, means that if necessary the
> preferred candidate could stand for the trustee elections at this year's
> AGM. To clarify (for others reading this email, as I'm sure you're aware),
> the appointment of trustee roles such as the Chair, Treasurer etc is for
> the board to decide, rather than the full membership.
>
> Your email implies that the charity's constitution specifies that officer
> roles on the board have to be elected trustees. I can't find anything to
> that effect although it's entirely possible that I've missed it! In which
> case, we will need to revise our process/plans accordingly.
>
> As I said in my email, I would encourage all members and volunteers to
> think about applying, if you meet the criteria. Please don't be put off by
> the open recruitment process as I know that the panel, and other members of
> the board, highly value community experience.
>
> Best wishes
> Lucy
>
>
> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 18:14, Fæ  wrote:
>
>> Could you confirm this is the first time that the Chair of Wikimedia UK
>> has been externally recruited rather than the role filled after being
>> elected by the charity members as a trustee?
>>
>> Has the process for searching for "role" trustees and electing them
>> changed, and the charity's articles been amended and published accordingly?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
>>
>> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 16:52, Lucy Crompton-Reid <
>> lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all
>>>
>>> Our excellent Chair of Trustees, Nick Poole, will be stepping down at
>>> the AGM in July after six years as a trustee (which is the maximum term)
>>> and just over a year as Chair. We are therefore recruiting for a new Chair,
>>> and are advertising the role externally as well as promoting the
>>> opportunity amongst our existing trustees, committee members, volunteers
>>> and wider networks.
>>>
>>> *Please do consider whether this might be the right opportunity for you*.
>>> If so, do feel free to contact our Communications and Governance
>>> Co-ordinator Katie on katie.cramp...@wikimedia.org.uk to arrange an
>>> informal conversation about the role. If not, we would be very grateful if
>>> you could help us to promote the role by circulating it amongst your own
>>> networks. Katie will be promoting the opportunity on social media so if
>>> you follow us there, pl

[Wikimediauk-l] Re: Wikimedia UK recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees

[Fæ]

Happy to accept your reading of the Articles*, which would mean that the
Chair of the Charity would be a "co-opted trustee" under the current
Article definitions.

Having an unelected Chair for the first time in the history of the charity
does not seem likely to be perceived by the majority of members as the best
way of giving members a meaningful vote on who represents them in their
charity.

* https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Articles_of_Association

Fae


On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 18:38, Joseph Seddon  wrote:

> This does not require any amendment.
>
> Thanks,
> Seddon
>
> On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 6:14 PM Fæ  wrote:
>
>> Could you confirm this is the first time that the Chair of Wikimedia UK
>> has been externally recruited rather than the role filled after being
>> elected by the charity members as a trustee?
>>
>> Has the process for searching for "role" trustees and electing them
>> changed, and the charity's articles been amended and published accordingly?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
>>
>> On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 16:52, Lucy Crompton-Reid <
>> lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all
>>>
>>> Our excellent Chair of Trustees, Nick Poole, will be stepping down at
>>> the AGM in July after six years as a trustee (which is the maximum term)
>>> and just over a year as Chair. We are therefore recruiting for a new Chair,
>>> and are advertising the role externally as well as promoting the
>>> opportunity amongst our existing trustees, committee members, volunteers
>>> and wider networks.
>>>
>>> *Please do consider whether this might be the right opportunity for you*.
>>> If so, do feel free to contact our Communications and Governance
>>> Co-ordinator Katie on katie.cramp...@wikimedia.org.uk to arrange an
>>> informal conversation about the role. If not, we would be very grateful if
>>> you could help us to promote the role by circulating it amongst your own
>>> networks. Katie will be promoting the opportunity on social media so if
>>> you follow us there, please do share/retweet etc.
>>>
>>> The ideal candidate might come from a wide range of professional
>>> backgrounds but will have a good understanding of charity governance, the
>>> skills and experience to run productive meetings, and a collegiate,
>>> collaborative approach in keeping with the ethos of the Wikimedia movement.
>>> They will also bring a strong commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
>>> and understand how important this is to an organisation like Wikimedia UK.
>>> It goes without saying that they will need to be passionate about open
>>> knowledge and understand the importance and value of Wikipedia and the
>>> other Wikimedia projects.
>>> To see the role description and/or download the recruitment pack, please
>>> go here:
>>>
>>> https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Chair_of_the_Board_of_Trustees
>>>
>>> The deadline is Sunday 6th June and interviews are likely to be on 14th
>>> June.
>>>
>>> Thanks and best wishes
>>> Lucy
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>>>
>>> Chief Executive
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> <https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk/>
>>>
>>> Wikimedia UK <https://beta.wikimedia.org.uk/> is the national chapter
>>> for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement.
>>>
>>> Wikimedia UK is a Registered Charity No.1144513.Company Limited by
>>> Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
>>>
>>> Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street,
>>> London SE1 0NZ
>>> <https://maps.google.com/?q=5+-+11+Lavington+Street,+London+SE1+0NZ&entry=gmail&source=g>
>>> .
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ___
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>>> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>
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[Wikimediauk-l] Re: Wikimedia UK recruiting for a new Chair of Trustees

[Fæ]

Could you confirm this is the first time that the Chair of Wikimedia UK has
been externally recruited rather than the role filled after being elected
by the charity members as a trustee?

Has the process for searching for "role" trustees and electing them
changed, and the charity's articles been amended and published accordingly?

Thanks,
Fae

On Tue, 25 May 2021 at 16:52, Lucy Crompton-Reid <
lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:

> Dear all
>
> Our excellent Chair of Trustees, Nick Poole, will be stepping down at the
> AGM in July after six years as a trustee (which is the maximum term) and
> just over a year as Chair. We are therefore recruiting for a new Chair, and
> are advertising the role externally as well as promoting the opportunity
> amongst our existing trustees, committee members, volunteers and wider
> networks.
>
> *Please do consider whether this might be the right opportunity for you*.
> If so, do feel free to contact our Communications and Governance
> Co-ordinator Katie on katie.cramp...@wikimedia.org.uk to arrange an
> informal conversation about the role. If not, we would be very grateful if
> you could help us to promote the role by circulating it amongst your own
> networks. Katie will be promoting the opportunity on social media so if
> you follow us there, please do share/retweet etc.
>
> The ideal candidate might come from a wide range of professional
> backgrounds but will have a good understanding of charity governance, the
> skills and experience to run productive meetings, and a collegiate,
> collaborative approach in keeping with the ethos of the Wikimedia movement.
> They will also bring a strong commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
> and understand how important this is to an organisation like Wikimedia UK.
> It goes without saying that they will need to be passionate about open
> knowledge and understand the importance and value of Wikipedia and the
> other Wikimedia projects.
> To see the role description and/or download the recruitment pack, please
> go here:
>
> https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Chair_of_the_Board_of_Trustees
>
> The deadline is Sunday 6th June and interviews are likely to be on 14th
> June.
>
> Thanks and best wishes
> Lucy
>
> --
>
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>
> Chief Executive
>
>
>
> 
>
> Wikimedia UK  is the national chapter for
> the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement.
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Registered Charity No.1144513.Company Limited by
> Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
>
> Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street,
> London SE1 0NZ
> 
> .
>
>
>
> ___
> Wikimedia UK mailing list
> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk



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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia Foundation survey for contributors/members

[Fæ]

The Affiliate Membership survey has been subject to objection by
members of the WMLGBT+ user group in a meeting this week with WMF T&S.

The information about gender is potentially highly identifying. It is
unclear in the WMF privacy statement in which circumstances the WMF
would release information "by law", as in US law this may include
general agency investigations, which could target "foreign" groups,
"political" groups, or considering recent events, groups that simply
have a private discussion group on Telegram.

The survey is run by a 3rd party, so their terms apply. This means
that the data controller is in the USA and they explicitly reserve a
right to retain contact information, payment information (notably this
survey includes questions about your bank accounts), it may mix this
information with information from 3rd parties, including your IP
address and any tracking data from other 3rd parties for that address.
The 3rd party stores your data indefinitely, under a range of
conditions, none of which includes a requested deletion or correction.
Explicitly state agencies are given access.

As the UK is no longer in the EU, the "Privacy Shield" requirements
may not legally apply to submissions from the UK, it's certainly
legally unsure. This may make it impossible to pursue complaints, or
claims for damages, for example, if data is lost or exposed by
accident.

I stopped on page 4 and abandoned the survey. I strongly recommend
that contributors opt for "rather not say" on any personal
information, as if the form were being posted publicly on Facebook,
the terms are that open to misuse or accidental mishandling.

References:
https://www.qualtrics.com/privacy-statement/
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_Membership_Data_Survey_Privacy_Statement

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
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On Mon, 18 Jan 2021 at 13:42, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
>
> Dear all
>
> The Wikimedia Foundation is running an Affiliate Membership survey that they 
> have asked me to share with Wikimedia UK members. Looking through the 
> questions, this feels most appropriate for active Wikimedia contributors, 
> rather than people who are members but don't volunteer their time. I would 
> therefore be grateful if those of you who tick both of these boxes felt able 
> to complete the survey, the deadline for which is, I believe, Friday 29th 
> January.
>
> There are two ways of taking the survey:
>
> Anonymously, through the following link (making sure not to close your 
> browser until you have finished):
>
> https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e5s72QFWkLzUm8t
>
> Or via a personalised link sent to your email address. To request this, go to:
>
> https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4UdVzTCXbnwqgcZ
>
> The survey should take 20 - 30 minutes to complete, and you can find the 
> questions asked in the survey on meta if you want to read/download before 
> starting the actual survey.
>
> Many thanks, and best wishes
> Lucy
>
> --
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
> Chief Executive
> Wikimedia UK
> +44 (0) 203 372 0762
>
> Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge 
> movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to 
> support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered 
> supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
>
> Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 
> 6741827
> Registered Charity No.1144513
> Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London 
> SE1 0NZ
>
> The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate 
> Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit 
> charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its 
> contents.
> ___
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> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk

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[Wikimediauk-l] British Museum, copyright and public domain images

[Fæ]

Dear Lucy,

It's just over 3 months ago that your offer to talk with the British
Museum about claiming copyright over public domain images, and
consequently charging academics and other reusers large fees to use
images which should be free to the public. Has there been any progress
and what came of the plan to discuss this topic at the recent AGM?

As a further reference case study of the British Museum continuing
using what Wikimedians call "license laundering"[0], this week they
have claimed all rights reserved for my own photograph released on
Wikimedia Commons a decade ago to support Wikipedia editathons working
with the Museum, as CC-BY-SA.[1][2] The BM has removed EXIF data, and
not attempted to apply a simple attribution, or perhaps fail to
understand what is required to respect moral rights. A remarkable
failure considering the museum and their online presence sets the
standard for many other UK GLAM institutions.

Thanks,
Fae

Links
0. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:License_laundering
1. 
https://web.archive.org/web/20200812105445/https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2020/08/jewels-make-the-virgin-queen.html
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Gold_Cup_lid.jpg

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On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 16:20, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
>
> Dear all
>
>
> As a number of people have noted already, it is indeed disappointing that the 
> British Museum has released these images under a non commercial licence, 
> given the obvious restrictions to people actually accessing and using them. 
> Whilst staff at Wikimedia UK have many partnerships within the cultural 
> sector, including larger institutions, the BM is not currently one of them. 
> However I will get in touch with them and point out the issues with the 
> licence they’ve chosen. If anyone has any contacts at the Museum they would 
> be able to share with me that would be very helpful - and of course, you are 
> also welcome to lobby them as individuals.
>
>
> I’m not sure that I quite agree with the characterisation of Wikimedia UK as 
> “advocating for a position at variance with that of the wider movement when 
> it comes to claiming non commercial copyright on out of copyright material”. 
> Indeed, in a talk I gave at a Westminster Media Forum policy event on the EU 
> copyright directive last year, I said:
>
>
> “Access to and re-use of centuries old paintings, part of our cultural 
> heritage, is being increasingly restricted by an array of laws and in-house 
> rules within cultural institutions aiming to maintain control of their 
> digital copies. This causes many classical works, for instance, to be 
> unavailable to the public online, despite them being part of the public 
> domain.
>
>
> Part of the social balance under copyright and related rights is that at some 
> point the exclusive economic rights expire and the works become part of our 
> shared cultural heritage. This makes up a large portion of the public domain 
> and ensures wide access to our culture and the freedom to create and 
> innovate. Unfortunately, in the past decades we have seen increasing attempts 
> to restrict our cultural heritage by claiming copyright on public domain 
> works, or by establishing new rights on exact digital copies of old works. 
> These practices complicate and sometimes prevent the digitisation of and 
> digital access to our culture.
>
>
> The [EU copyright] Directive therefore provides for a safeguard of public 
> domain works. We must make sure no new rights are applied to digital copies 
> of artworks whose copyright has expired. This includes both no copyright term 
> extension for such rules and no related rights. The current situation in the 
> UK on this is quite inconclusive, with works that would be considered to be 
> public domain under US law potentially subject to copyright under UK law. 
> Indeed the courts in the UK traditionally applied a very low test for 
> photographic originality, based on the "skill and labour" required to capture 
> the image. In the IPO’s updated copyright advice notice in 2015, it 
> acknowledges that there is a degree of uncertainty regarding whether 
> copyright can exist in digitised copies of older images for which copyright 
> has expired. However it also states that according to the Court of Justice of 
> the European Union, copyright can only subsist in subject matter that is 
> original in the sense that it is the author’s own ‘intellectual creation’. 
> This higher standard should be unequivocally applied to UK cultural heritage 
> institutions, who might be inadvertently engaging in copyfraud.”
>
>
> Previously, at a ministerial roundtable on the directive, I raised this very 
> point with the Minister (at the time), who seemed completely unaware of the 
> practice of copyrighting digital reproductions of public domain works, and 
> remarked that this was certainly “outside of the spirit” of existing law and 

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] British Museum makes 1.9m images available under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

[Fæ]

Thanks WSC,

Though our recent experience in UK chapter AGMs is that they neither
have hustings nor honestly welcomed "debates" for a few years now. As
this year's AGM will be a yet to be detailed virtual event, it's even
more unlikely that sufficient of the 500{{cn}} registered members will
take part actively to make meaningful hustings, or more than 10% of
the members to be engaged enough to vote on anything even if enabled
remotely using more than passive broadcast methods.

With regard to the British Museum, as Mike notes, some of us have been
educating through to lobbying them about better copyright policies for
a decade, frequently with individual curators as supportive of better
policies as we are. It is no coincidence that my own photograph of an
object in the BM collection is the lead image on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud. Facts are facts, those of us
passionate about open knowledge should not be so worried about an
institutional or middle-management focus on PR that we fail to be
openly critical in plain English about their commercial choices that
seriously damage open knowledge or the free use of public domain
works.

Fae

On Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 12:21, WereSpielChequers
 wrote:
>
> Andy makes some important points.
>
> We know that even if editors in the UK respect what the British Museum is 
> doing and don't upload those images to Commons or Wikipedia; where they are 
> public domain images under US law, it is just a matter of time before someone 
> in the movement, anywhere in the world, uploads any of those British Museum 
> images that are of old two D objects to Commons as Public Domain images that 
> can be used without attribution to the photographer or the institution.
>
> Of course large parts of the British Museum collection would involve images 
> of three d objects. In those case we can't use the BM images, but outside of 
> lockdown people can either go there and take photos, or if  you can't get 
> yourself to the British Museum with a camera,  make a request via the London 
> Meetup, and if the object is on display we can get results such as at 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_altarpiece_(WB.232)
>
>
> The chapter remains in the awkward position of liaising with institutions 
> that regard it as acceptable to claim  a non commercial copyright on out of 
> copyright material, and of in effect advocating for a position at variance 
> with that of the wider movement.
>
> One option that the chapter could consider would be to shift policy and 
> instead start to diplomatically lobby UK Museum's to, as Andy put it, stop " 
> trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all." Perhaps those on this 
> list who are still members of the chapter might consider raising this for a 
> debate at the next AGM?
>
> Regards
>
> Jonathan
>
>
>
> On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 21:06, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 11:43, Owen Blacker  wrote:
>> >
>> > That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's 
>> > still a little better than nothing…
>>
>> With the emphasis on the "little". There are two things wrong with
>> this, which we as a movement (and individually) need to challenge; at
>> very reasonable opportunity.
>>
>> Firstly, there's the way they're spending public money making non-free
>> original content. we need to persuade GLAMs - and lobby funders - that
>> such material should be freely reusable.
>>
>> But far more troubling is the attempt to claim copyright in works
>> whose copyright - if the work didn't pre-date copyright completely -
>> expired decades or centuries ago. The latter means, in effect that
>> they are trying to appropriate rights that belong to us all.
>>
>> --
>> Andy Mabbett
>> @pigsonthewing
>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>>
>> ___
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>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimediauk-l Digest, Vol 177, Issue 8

[Fæ]

Public domain for 2D works applies for old 2D artefacts, like
manuscripts or flat decorated objects. The examples I've seen include
objects like 15th C. drawings, which the claim of "copyright of the
Trustees" may be safely ignored as there is no new creativity in the
likely automated scans being made. Obviously, if the 2D object is
modern and has some original copyright, then reproductions of it are
copyrighted.

There are past archived discussions on Commons, including deletion
requests, which cover this specifically for the unrealistic and
unenforceable claims of copyright of public domain material by the
British Library.

Hopefully, you recall this is a very old discussion, indeed Roger and
myself presented many years ago to a full staff meeting at the British
Library on this exact topic. As a result, most of the BL website had
the copyright claim removed, so it's unfortunate that this
announcement is effectively walking back that progress for open
knowledge and instead promotes the use of "noncommercial" which very
much hampers public value and reuse, including scaring off many
academics from using public domain images in publications.

Fae

On Wed, 29 Apr 2020 at 17:39, Rex X  wrote:
>
> I'm pretty sure CC BY-NC-SA is not compatible with the licences on Commons.
>
> They could be uploaded and used on en-wiki with a fair use rationale, the 
> same as any other non-free image.
>
> --
>
> Rexx
>
>
> On 29 April 2020 at 13:30 John Byrne  wrote:
>
> So can we put them on Commons?  Or use them from a Wikipedia file?
> John
>
> On 29 April 2020 at 13:00 wikimediauk-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
>
>
> Send Wikimediauk-l mailing list submissions to
> wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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>
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>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Wikimediauk-l digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. British Museum makes 1.9m images available under CC BY-NC-SA
> 4.0 (Owen Blacker)
> 2. Re: British Museum makes 1.9m images available under CC
> BY-NC-SA 4.0 (Katie Crampton)
>
>
> --
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 11:43:06 +0100
> From: Owen Blacker < o...@blacker.me.uk>
> To: Wikimedia UK list < wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Wikimediauk-l] British Museum makes 1.9m images available
> under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
> Message-ID:
> < calh-06k65dctkxk9vbd_8y6bfedpt0yygk_y17hbsaxqytz...@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> That it's a non-commercial licence is really disappointing, but that's
> still a little better than nothing…
>
> https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2020/04/28/british-museum-makes-1-9-million-images-available-for-free/
>
>
> The British Museum has revamped its online collections database, making
> over 1.9 million photos of its collection available for free online under a
> Creative Commons license.
>
> Under the new agreement the majority of the 1.9 million images are being
> made available for anyone to use for free under a Creative Commons 4.0
> license < " rel="noopener" target="_blank" 
> data-mce-href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/>">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/>.
>  Users no
> longer need to register to use these photographs, and can now download them
> directly from the British Museum.
>
> Under the terms of the Creative Commons license, you are free to share and
> adapt the images for non-commercial use, but must include a credit to the
> British Museum.
> [continues]
> --
> Owen Blacker, London GB
> @owenblacker < http://twitter.com/owenblacker>

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Help with Wikipedia’s coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic

[Fæ]

There were some great references to Wikipedia in this video too
* https://twitter.com/i/status/1248214342618628096

Being certified is a classic.

Fae


On Thu, 9 Apr 2020, 23:15 Rex X,  wrote:

> For anybody doubting the value of our Covid-19 coverage, take a look at
>
>
> https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-wikipedia-is-immune-to-coronavirus-1.8751147
>
> Haaretz is a well-respected Israeli newspaper with a fairly liberal
> outlook; the article itself is hugely complimentary about Wikipedia's
> coverage and gives real validation to time spent by Wikipedia editors in
> producing that content and keeping the quality high.
>
> Keep safe all,
>
> Rexx
>
>
> On 09 April 2020 at 18:00 Richard Nevell 
> wrote:
>
> Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Medicine are creating a joint initiative to
> help tackle the issues around information about Covid-19 on Wikipedia, and
> we need your help.
>
> There are three "top-level" articles:
>
>
>
>- The pandemic:
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
>- The condition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019
>- The virus:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2
>
>
>
> as well as over 750 related articles. These related articles are where we
> want to concentrate our support efforts. Coverage changes very rapidly and
> there is considerable concern about ensuring that the information provided
> is factual and accurate, as well as up-to-date.
>
> There are many dedicated editors involved in WikiProject Medicine and the
> recently created WikiProject COVID-19, but the task of keeping myths,
> misinformation and poorly-sourced content out of the large number of
> articles is huge.
>
> We are therefore asking our regular editors in the UK to do what you do
> best. We need help fact-checking and editing the Covid-19 articles. Whether
> you feel able to spare fifteen minutes from your regular editing, or bold
> enough to make it a regular task, every bit helps.
>
> We have a wiki page to coordinate efforts, share resources, and have
> discussion:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_COVID-19/WMUK-WPMEDF_Joint_Support_Task_Force
> So please add it to your watchlist.
>
> One starting point is
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic 
> from
> where you can find something that interests you. Just picking an article,
> reading its references, and correcting text that needs it would help. As a
> useful extra step (though hardly compulsory) once you’ve gone over an
> article it would be useful to add a note in this section:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_COVID-19/WMUK-WPMEDF_Joint_Support_Task_Force#Progress
>
> If anybody needs familiarity with the sourcing standards for medical
> articles, take a look at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)
>  -
> although most of the content will only need to meet the usual standards for
> sourcing that you're used to.
>
> *Richard Nevell, on behalf of Wikimedia UK*
>
> *Doug Taylor, on behalf of Wikimedia Medicine*
> --
> Dr Richard Nevell
> Project Coordinator, Wikimedia UK
> 020 3372 0765
>
> *Wikimedia UK* is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open
> knowledge movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from
> individuals to support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you
> considered supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
> Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered
> No. 6741827
> Registered Charity No.1144513
> Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5–11 Lavington Street, London
> SE1 0NZ
>
> The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate
> Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent
> non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility
> for its contents.
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Parliamentary constituencies

[Fæ]

Isn't the 'official' data via
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/election-maps

... which presumably means it's a copyright headache.

Fae

On Fri, 7 Feb 2020 at 14:23, Lewis Cawte  wrote:
>
> I'm sure I can casually chip away at some (when I get bored of working on 
> Tanzanian government ministries - don't ask, I can't quite explain it) - do 
> you have a "good"/"okay" example?
>
> -- Lewis Cawte
>
> On Fri, 7 Feb 2020 at 14:16, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>>
>> It turns out that UK Parliamentary constituencies are not well
>> represented in Wikidata; for example many lack details of adjoining
>> constituencies, coordinates, and shape files.
>>
>> A query highlighting the missing data, and a tool for finding
>> neighbouring constituencies, can be found at:
>>
>>
>> https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_British_Politicians/Constituencies
>>
>> with discussion on its talk page.
>>
>> If you can help with improving these items, please do!
>>
>> --
>> Andy Mabbett
>> @pigsonthewing
>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] November 27 tagging incident

[Fæ]

Thanks for the sources Charles.

Having previously chatted with Jess during an LGBT+ event about the
Wikipedia "experience", it is entirely fair and factual to say that
the environment is hostile. When running and planning newbie events,
we have to be honest about how deeply unpleasant things are promoted
on Wikipedia under the guise of "free speech" and how the effective
protection of trolls drives away minority viewpoints. Though one can
play the system and work around many of these issues, you are still
treated as a biased lobbyist or extremist if you are seen as
undermining the dominant view which keeps male and heteronormative as
the central tone and default "normal" of Wikipedia.

The situation is worse in most non-English Wikipedias.

That the press has picked up on this story, could be seen as an
opportunity to embrace the criticism and to do more to make the
environment less hostile for committed contributors like Jess.
Regardless of the trivial of this incident, the underpinning issues
are real and measurable and are the real reason for this long-running
perception of Wikipedia culture.

Fae

On Mon, 9 Dec 2019 at 10:32, Charles Matthews
 wrote:
>
> A notability tagging incident on English Wikipedia some ten days ago is 
> receiving ongoing media attention. It would be a good idea to get the facts 
> straight.
>
> The rather curt onwiki discussion is at
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1024#IP_mass_tagging_notable_mostly_women_scientists_for_notability
>
> The articles targeted were some of those authored by User:jesswade88, who is 
> known for her work on STEM and the gender gap.
>
> That ANI report makes it clear enough that this was a spree resolved by 
> blocking an IP address. Nothing is said there about any actual deletions. It 
> would be helpful if it could be confirmed that nothing was actually deleted 
> on grounds of lack of notability.
>
> Jess Wade was on Woman's Hour,  BBC Radio 4 speaking about this incident. She 
> began with comments about WP demographics that made me wince a bit. She made 
> clear her positive feelings about WP, editing and Wikimedia, but that of 
> course is less sensational than the narrative of a "hostile environment". 
> There was quite a lot of Twitter comment, with some people swearing off 
> editing WP: which is pretty much what the spree was designed to achieve, 
> surely. Others indicated they were inspired to edit.
>
> There have been articles in the Daily Telegraph:
>
> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/12/07/physicist-embroiled-sexism-row-wikipedia-female-scientists-wrote/
>
> And in the Daily Mail:
>
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7769415/Physicist-accuses-white-men-North-America-Wikipedia-editors-sexism.html
>
> These are pretty bad journalism, in terms of respect for the facts. It 
> appears to me that the enWP admin response was perfectly adequate, rather 
> than there being a systemic problem there.
>
> The Woman's Hour interview was reasonable, the press reports unreliable. I 
> think the point here is that good intentions aren't enough to curb the 
> latter: the Mail's article of 2 January about Jess's project
>
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6544657/London-scientist-creates-Wikipedia-page-underrepresented-group-DAY.html
>
> is of course very upbeat, but that hardly entitles the Mail to a hatchet job 
> in December.
>
> Charles

-- 
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] QRpedia: Ongoing issues

[Fæ]

As I understood it when we were signing off the organizational
strategy, we set up a separate legal entity to manage/own QRpedia so
that WMUK would not have to be responsible. Considering the
significant number of non-Wikimedia GLAM organizations that have
invested in this QR technology on the presumption that QRpedia will be
a reliable and simple mobile service, we may be overdue properly to
unhook QR Pedia from the local UK chapter and instead make it a
separate international GLAM organization with funding from more
diverse sources.

Should WMUK be diverted to other things, or say, end up having no
staff to handle GLAM outreach or coordinate on technical problems,
then the board of QRpedia should be free to have their own
GLAM-stakeholder-agreed support plans which may be dependent on the
WMF and its funding, or not.

Thanks for chipping away at this Andy. When the handful of us involved
in the set up are no longer following QRpedia issues, I suspect it
would remain submerged permanently below the waterline.

Cheers,
Fae


On Mon, 11 Nov 2019 at 11:18, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>
> It seems that there are still issues with QRpedia:
>
>   https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T210050
>
> Can we have some input from WMUK, about the likelihood of a fix, please?
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
--
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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[Wikimediauk-l] AGM voting

[Fæ]

Could someone confirm if there is going to be any member voting on
anything this year?

As a member I was expecting there to be some information about proxy
voting, presumably the board does not expect everyone to travel to
Bristol to use their vote. So far, there has been no information sent
out.

Thanks,
Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride London photographers

[Fæ]

Hi Raya,

The submission to the Pride events mentioned "We’re currently
reviewing all requests and you can expect to hear back on the week
commencing Monday 24 June with an update about your press pass
application and the 2019 press pack." So hopefully we'll hear back
before the 24th and based on the contacts given I'll ask to have you
added as part of the WM-LGBT+ User Group.

If these passes don't work out, there's no need to worry. Having a
pass is nice, but being polite and confident while waiving a camera
goes a long way too. Some of our best Pride related photographs are
folks partying and posing for photographs, and that happens
everywhere. :-)

Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 at 18:08, Raya Sharbain  wrote:
>
> Hi Fae, any chance I could also sign up as a photographer?
>
> في الجمعة، ١٤ حزيران ٢٠١٩ ١٥:٢٢ Fæ  كتب:
>>
>> Good news, I got a quick email back with a link, and have filled out
>> the media application form. I have added your name and email in as a
>> second photographer for WMLGBT+. It's still just an application, but
>> hopefully based on our website presence and active Twitter stream,
>> they might just rubber stamp it and email us the details. If you do
>> get a press pass (probably a wrist band and lanyard pass), then you
>> should be able to get photographs in the more secure stage areas.
>>
>> If this does not work out, I'll be there as a steward around the main
>> stage and Trafalgar Square, so can probably get access to most areas,
>> and will try having a session taking photographs around the parade
>> assembly area before my 'shift' officially starts, however it is a
>> *very* busy event this year and with several different areas as well
>> as nearly 600 organizations taking part so even if we had several
>> photographers with passes, there is so much going on we can only aim
>> to have an interesting sample.
>>
>> P.S. If we set this up next year, we should do the applications in April!
>>
>> Fae
>>
>> On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 at 12:33, Josie Fraser  
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Fae, I’ll be attending UK Black Pride in July this year and was 
>> > planning on taking photographs. Do you know anything about the application 
>> > process for photographer access at that event? Or is anyone else planning 
>> > on attending to take pictures?
>> >
>> > Best, Josie
>> >
>> > > On 14 Jun 2019, at 13:11, Fæ  wrote:
>> > >
>> > > As it's been a fortnight, so I have written to the Pride London events
>> > > team about photographer access. I believe that it is too late this
>> > > close to the event for them to register passes for Wikimedia
>> > > photographers, however I have asked on behalf of the WMLGBT+ user
>> > > group and we'll see if they can make an exception.
>> > >
>> > > Thanks,
>> > > Fae
>> > >
>> > >> On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 16:43, Fæ  wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> Training of stewards has started for Pride (6 July) and I was
>> > >> wondering if WMUK will register a list of photographers for passes
>> > >> again this year? Media info is at
>> > >> https://prideinlondon.org/media-centre. As there are 580 organizations
>> > >> and several centers to the event, getting varied coverage in photo and
>> > >> video on Wikimedia Commons would take several photographers.
>> > >>
>> > >> I went along to steward training last week, if anyone would like to
>> > >> volunteer for one of the support roles, you can find out more at
>> > >> https://prideinlondon.org. The event needs 1,000 stewards, with an
>> > >> expected viewing public of a million during the day.
>> > >>
>> > >> Thanks,
>> > >> Fae
>> > >> --
>> > >> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>> > >
>> > > ___
>> > > Wikimedia UK mailing list
>> > > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> > > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>> >
>> > ___
>> > Wikimedia UK mailing list
>> > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride London photographers

[Fæ]

Good news, I got a quick email back with a link, and have filled out
the media application form. I have added your name and email in as a
second photographer for WMLGBT+. It's still just an application, but
hopefully based on our website presence and active Twitter stream,
they might just rubber stamp it and email us the details. If you do
get a press pass (probably a wrist band and lanyard pass), then you
should be able to get photographs in the more secure stage areas.

If this does not work out, I'll be there as a steward around the main
stage and Trafalgar Square, so can probably get access to most areas,
and will try having a session taking photographs around the parade
assembly area before my 'shift' officially starts, however it is a
*very* busy event this year and with several different areas as well
as nearly 600 organizations taking part so even if we had several
photographers with passes, there is so much going on we can only aim
to have an interesting sample.

P.S. If we set this up next year, we should do the applications in April!

Fae

On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 at 12:33, Josie Fraser  wrote:
>
> Hi Fae, I’ll be attending UK Black Pride in July this year and was planning 
> on taking photographs. Do you know anything about the application process for 
> photographer access at that event? Or is anyone else planning on attending to 
> take pictures?
>
> Best, Josie
>
> > On 14 Jun 2019, at 13:11, Fæ  wrote:
> >
> > As it's been a fortnight, so I have written to the Pride London events
> > team about photographer access. I believe that it is too late this
> > close to the event for them to register passes for Wikimedia
> > photographers, however I have asked on behalf of the WMLGBT+ user
> > group and we'll see if they can make an exception.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> >
> >> On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 16:43, Fæ  wrote:
> >>
> >> Training of stewards has started for Pride (6 July) and I was
> >> wondering if WMUK will register a list of photographers for passes
> >> again this year? Media info is at
> >> https://prideinlondon.org/media-centre. As there are 580 organizations
> >> and several centers to the event, getting varied coverage in photo and
> >> video on Wikimedia Commons would take several photographers.
> >>
> >> I went along to steward training last week, if anyone would like to
> >> volunteer for one of the support roles, you can find out more at
> >> https://prideinlondon.org. The event needs 1,000 stewards, with an
> >> expected viewing public of a million during the day.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Fae
> >> --
> >> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
> >
> > ___
> > Wikimedia UK mailing list
> > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
> > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride London photographers

[Fæ]

As it's been a fortnight, so I have written to the Pride London events
team about photographer access. I believe that it is too late this
close to the event for them to register passes for Wikimedia
photographers, however I have asked on behalf of the WMLGBT+ user
group and we'll see if they can make an exception.

Thanks,
Fae

On Thu, 30 May 2019 at 16:43, Fæ  wrote:
>
> Training of stewards has started for Pride (6 July) and I was
> wondering if WMUK will register a list of photographers for passes
> again this year? Media info is at
> https://prideinlondon.org/media-centre. As there are 580 organizations
> and several centers to the event, getting varied coverage in photo and
> video on Wikimedia Commons would take several photographers.
>
> I went along to steward training last week, if anyone would like to
> volunteer for one of the support roles, you can find out more at
> https://prideinlondon.org. The event needs 1,000 stewards, with an
> expected viewing public of a million during the day.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] north yorkshire county council appears to be filtering our trangender article

[Fæ]

Like any such service the network blocking will be contracted out. No
doubt NYCC use a standard database and their filter might also be
using keyword filtering. There ought to be exceptions for the
Wikipedia domain, which appears to be missing, but even then there may
be additional keyword filtering. The school or institution can
normally request additions to the whitelist if they think that LGBT+
or sex education related Wikipedia articles should be allowed.
Hopefully Wikipedia in total is not being blocked because of getting
classed as "sexuality sites", even though the screen shot appears to
show that.

A wider response from the chapter would be to have practical
guidelines for all institutions about recommendations for internet
filters and blocks that might accidentally be filtering Wikipedia, it
might even be useful to turn those guidelines into a user essay on
Wikipedia itself, especially if there are best practices for schools
and general secondary education that can be referenced. The specific
case, based on a Reddit post, should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Fae

On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 at 17:51, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
>
> Wow! Thanks for flagging this up Geni. We're just discussing this in the 
> office and thinking about the best approach. As a starting point - although 
> I'm not sure how far I'll get - I just called North Yorkshire County Council, 
> but it's now out of their office hours so I'll try again tomorrow.
>
> Cheers
> Lucy
>
> On Wed, 12 Jun 2019 at 17:36, geni  wrote:
>>
>> Not the best of sources but perhaps something we should look into:
>>
>> https://www.reddit.com/r/traaanns/comments/bzpizg/my_school_doesnt_block_tp_hentai_but_blocks/
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> geni
>>
>> ___
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>
>
>
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> Chief Executive
> Wikimedia UK

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[Wikimediauk-l] Pride London photographers

[Fæ]

Training of stewards has started for Pride (6 July) and I was
wondering if WMUK will register a list of photographers for passes
again this year? Media info is at
https://prideinlondon.org/media-centre. As there are 580 organizations
and several centers to the event, getting varied coverage in photo and
video on Wikimedia Commons would take several photographers.

I went along to steward training last week, if anyone would like to
volunteer for one of the support roles, you can find out more at
https://prideinlondon.org. The event needs 1,000 stewards, with an
expected viewing public of a million during the day.

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Strategy Meeting on Wednesday 30th January

[Fæ]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 at 15:26, Michael Maggs  wrote:
>
> The disclaimer has been carefully worded and is correct:  WMUK is legally 
> independent from the Foundation. The two entities co-operate of course, and 
> have contractual understandings, but they are nevertheless independent. 
> Indeed, it is an essential requirement of our English and Scottish charitable 
> status that we are and that we remain independent.
>
> Michael

Thanks Michael, that is what a trustee would explain to the Charity
Commission, and it's how we pitched our world view when we applied for
charity status, many years ago. However we are discussing an email
footer, that the public and unpaid volunteers are supposed to make
plain English sense of, not a narrowly scoped legal position statement
for charity lawyers to scrutinize.

The murky realpolitik, is that the UK Chapter signed a Chapters
Agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation. It is legally binding, and a
firm requirement if the UK Chapter wishes to use any Wikimedia
branding in any of its publications, such as the Wikipedia logo. Among
other implications, the UK Chapter is not allowed to do any
fundraising using the Wikimedia websites. The past few years have
demonstrated very clearly that the WMF will never again allow any
Chapter to do any fundraising this way, regardless of how well they do
in any year, or ever improve in the future.[1]

WMF management can choose to remove WMUK's Chapter status, and
consequently deny any future central funding at any time for any
reason (regardless of existing FDC decisions), including the WMF
suddenly deciding it does not like the idea of having Affiliates any
more, or vaguely deciding that something about the UK Chapter does not
sufficiently align with the WMF's organizational goals.

In the mind of any casual reader of WMUK's email footer, the claim
that the UK Chapter is "independent", when the Foundation has full
control of these core aspects of the operation of the Chapter is not a
plain English use of the word "independent". Good UK Charity practice
is to use common sense plain English and avoid misleading its members
with legal jargon. As there is no actual real benefit to this email
footer, the Chapter can drop these without any risk to its operations.
Anyway, you are probably are all too keenly away that boilerplate
disclaimers in public emails from charities offer no protection in the
case of a legal action, so these extra sentences have no value apart
from a faux sense of comfort to the writer. Including them in every
email is irrelevant to addressing, say, the ECommerce Regulations,
which do not apply to these types of public discussion.[2]

Links
1. Probably because WMF senior management really like having full
control of the money in their own U.S. bank account. Despite the tax
and exchange costs of taking a UK donation, holding the cash in the
USA, then paying it back to an affiliate in the UK via an FDC funding
decision. The end to end avoidable costs and administrative burden of
doing fundraising this roundabout way have not been published by the
WMF in recent years, as they have avoided publishing almost any
appropriately detailed statements of expenses.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Commerce_Regulations_2002

Thanks,
Fae

> On 22 Jan 2019, at 15:16, Lucy Crompton-Reid 
>  wrote:
>
> Hi Fae and all
>
> Yes indeed, happy to publish the draft on meta.
>
> I see what you mean about the disclaimer...pretty sure it's just what I 
> inherited but will certainly review.
>
> Thanks and best
> Lucy
>
> On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 at 13:32, Fæ  wrote:
>>
>> Hi Lucy,
>>
>> For as long as the Chapter has created strategic plans, these have
>> been published and developed on-wiki, with all the normal benefits of
>> being open for consultation.
>>
>> In the light of issues with the local chapter wiki, and the fact that
>> funding related reports are already published on the (WMF operated)
>> meta wiki, could the draft be published on meta this time? Doing this
>> will make it much easier for non-London and even non-UK resident
>> Wikimedians to provide early feedback. For example, all those active
>> volunteers that help other WMF Associations with reviewing strategies
>> and budgets.
>>
>> P.S. Could you revisit the disclaimer on the UK Chapter email footer?
>> This states "The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia
>> Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia
>> UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over
>> Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents", which most readers
>> would presume means that WMUK is independent of the Wikimedia
>> Foundation, though the Chapters Agreement means that it legally, and
>> litera

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Strategy Meeting on Wednesday 30th January

[Fæ]

Hi Lucy,

For as long as the Chapter has created strategic plans, these have
been published and developed on-wiki, with all the normal benefits of
being open for consultation.

In the light of issues with the local chapter wiki, and the fact that
funding related reports are already published on the (WMF operated)
meta wiki, could the draft be published on meta this time? Doing this
will make it much easier for non-London and even non-UK resident
Wikimedians to provide early feedback. For example, all those active
volunteers that help other WMF Associations with reviewing strategies
and budgets.

P.S. Could you revisit the disclaimer on the UK Chapter email footer?
This states "The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia
Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia
UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over
Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents", which most readers
would presume means that WMUK is independent of the Wikimedia
Foundation, though the Chapters Agreement means that it legally, and
literally, is not.

Thanks,
Fae

On Mon, 21 Jan 2019 at 12:50, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
>
> Dear all
>
> This is just a reminder about the meeting on Wednesday 30th January from 4pm 
> - 7pm to discuss and develop Wikimedia UK's new strategic plan, for the 
> period February 2019 - January 2022. This is a key opportunity for volunteers 
> and other stakeholders to input into the development of the charity's future 
> direction, and so we'd love to see as many of you there as possible. We can 
> cover travel costs, subject to prior approval, as we don't want cost to be a 
> barrier to anyone's attendance.
>
> Please do email ka...@wikimedia.org.uk if you are planning to attend next 
> week, and let her know if you need Wikimedia UK to cover your travel costs. 
> We need to know who's coming so that we can ensure we have a suitably sized 
> space (and pizza), and also so that we can let attendees know of any changes 
> to the schedule or venue. I will be sharing an agenda for the meeting and the 
> draft strategic framework later in the week.
>
> Thanks and best
> Lucy
>
>
>
>
> --
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
> Chief Executive
> Wikimedia UK
> +44 (0) 203 372 0762
>
> Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge 
> movement, and a registered charity. We rely on donations from individuals to 
> support our work to make knowledge open for all. Have you considered 
> supporting Wikimedia? https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
>
> Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 
> 6741827
> Registered Charity No.1144513
> Registered Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London 
> SE1 0NZ
>
> The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate 
> Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit 
> charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its 
> contents.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Recent changes and watchlists on the UK wiki are still broken

[Fæ]

Seems negative Harry. This is surely the outcome that everyone
expected when the WMUK board was professionalised by going from
volunteer led, to appointing trustees without even minimal Wikimedia
project experience. Add to this a significant reduction in
transparency and reducing elections, while claiming improved
governance, means that volunteers are disengaged and uninformed. We
all saw this happening a long time ago.

As evidence that something is amiss, the last AGM failed to be
quorate, but this was spun as a great success. Underpinning this was
the weirdness over membership numbers, which I guess is not important
as members no longer have access to any regular reports of membership,
so we cannot really make any comment about it.

WMUK is a very different organisation from the one we established, and
its function appears to be mostly as a funding partner for GLAMs to
set up residential programmes, with a few editathons, rather than
fostering a creative community of open knowledge volunteers doing new
and different stuff. If us unpaid volunteers think we need
coordination rather than just acting individually, then it makes sense
that we go back to the way things used to work before 2010 and
coordinate ourselves as a free society, rather than waiting for a
charity which no longer has those skills, and certainly will not
allocate the employee time, to do it to us.

P.S. before someone sends me a haranguing email telling me what a
terrible person I am, I refuse to feel bad about spending my volunteer
time supporting open knowledge, or my lack of interest in covering
every issue with soft soap.

Thanks, and I hope everyone is planning lots of fun stuff for the New
Year, not just talking about Brexit,
Fae
-- 
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On Mon, 7 Jan 2019 at 20:49, Harry Mitchell  wrote:
>
> The Wikimedia UK wiki used to see a lot of activity. It was never coherently 
> organised, but the staff and volunteers who were running projects used it as 
> a sort of filing cabinet for documentation of events etc, and a small group 
> of us used to keep an eye on the recent changes for spam and other rubbish 
> but those days seem to be long gone.
>
> With the key functions of the wiki non-functioning, it is close to useless as 
> a coordination hub and discussion venue and therefore the WMUK community, 
> such as it is (a smaller subset of the community on this mailing list with a 
> more specific function) is essentially homeless. That this does not seem to 
> be a high priority, much less cause for alarm, is in my opinion a reflection 
> on the fact that there is nobody in any senior position at WMUK with any deep 
> background on the Wikimedia projects - something it's hard to shake the 
> feeling is a deliberate hiring decision.
>
> Harry Mitchell
> http://enwp.org/User:HJ
> +44 (0) 7507 536 971
> Skype: harry_j_mitchell
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 6, 2019 at 10:09 PM Lucy Crompton-Reid 
>  wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Chris, and apologies that these issues are still not resolved -  I 
>> appreciate that this is very frustrating. I'll need to look into this over 
>> the next few days and get back to you, but just wanted to acknowledge your 
>> message in the meantime. Cheers, Lucy
>>
>> On Sun, 6 Jan 2019 at 17:27, Chris McKenna  wrote:
>>>
>>> This issue was raised on the wiki and this mailing list at the end of
>>> November. We were assured then that the problem, apparently also affecting
>>> QRpedia among other things, and action was in hand to resolve this problem
>>> and prevent similar issues in the future.
>>>
>>> However, over a month later (albeit with Christmas in the way) there is no
>>> evidence that anything has happened (I have made two edits to the sandbox
>>> today, should anyone wish to do their own testing).
>>>
>>> This leads to some questions:
>>> -Is it really the case that there is only a single volunteer who can fix
>>> the wiki?
>>> -If so, how and why has this been allowed to happen?
>>> -What contingency plans does WMUK have in case this volunteer dies or
>>> otherwise becomes permanently (or long term) unvailable, with or without
>>> warning?
>>> -If not, why has the problem not been fixed yet?
>>> In either case:
>>> -What is the timescale for fixing the problems?
>>> -What concrete actions have been undertaken since November to prevent this
>>> happening again?
>>> -What concrete actions are pl

Personal and confidential, please do not circulate or re-quote.anned
to be undertaken in the future to
>>> prevent this happening again (short and long term), and what is the
>>> timescale for them happening?
>>>
>>> 
>>> Chris McKenna
>>>
>>> cmcke...@sucs.org
>>> www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
>>>
>>>
>>> The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes,
>>> but with the heart
>>>
>>> Antoine de Saint Exupery
>>>
>>>
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>>> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/lis

[Wikimediauk-l] Encouraging GLAMs to use free Commons images

[Fæ]

Finally got around to visiting the Ashurbanipal exhibition at the
British Museum.[1] The exhibition is near first class.[2] If you are
in London, treat yourself. The use of light projection to help
illustrate the ancient friezes was smart, and done in a way that still
let you examine the original objects in their normal state.

I was taken aback when I realised that at the start of the exhibition,
the delightful twenty foot across print of a panorama of a modern
location in Iraq was sourced to Alamy.[3] Later in the exhibition, the
modern location photographs I noticed were sourced to Alamy with
credits to the photographer. Considering how much impact the Wiki
Loves Monuments projects have had over recent years,[4] it is a shame
that long established GLAM partners of our Wikimedia projects like the
BM, still appear to prefer the ease of commercial stock photography
libraries, rather than finding and trusting free images from Commons,
or thinking of asking our Community for assistance if high quality
photographs of historical locations are missing from our free
collections, and might help future exhibitions.

Does the UK chapter have any plans to do more to promote GLAM reuse of
our free archives, or to bang the drum a bit more in GLAM journals
where this happens successfully?

# Links and footnotes
1. https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/ashurbanipal.aspx
2. The convention of style over technical precision seems the norm.
Failing to include accession numbers on descriptions, a lack of
seating and displaying the fantastic library of cuneiform tablets in a
case ten foot high and with no useful labels at all, tend to be
considered bold choices rather than anything the museum wants to
improve
3. The technical photographer within me noticed the slight focus
anomalies, possibly due to the way software joins were done, and
avoidable with either a far more expensive camera with panoramic
features, or by stacking a much larger number of multiple shots
4. https://www.wikilovesmonuments.org

Thanks
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Recent changes and watchlists broken on the WMUK Wiki

[Fæ]

On Fri, 30 Nov 2018 at 13:31, Charles Matthews
 wrote:
>
>
> Trust me nobody is more frustrated about it all than me.
>
> The whole "three wise monkeys" approach by WMUK to its wiki has been going on 
> for years, and is quite unacceptable.
>
> Charles
>
> ___
> Wikimedia UK mailing list

Now would be a good time for the WMUK board to review whether having
its own wiki is worth the on-going investment in scarce volunteer time
or employee time. Running a blog does not need a wiki, and many other
chapters happily use meta to publish reports and documents which can
be discussed by anyone there, with zero budget or consultancy needed.

When we created the charity's own wiki, there was a vibrant and highly
active UK charity volunteer community of hundreds. A significant
proportion of the most active volunteers used our entirely volunteer
driven wiki to coordinate the projects and policies of the evolving
charity. Those reasons no longer exist. Projects can, and probably
should, be coordinated on WMF supported sites, such as project pages
on Meta, Wikipedia and Commons, with the obvious benefits that
volunteers globally can easily link to it, find it (via standard
search), and participate, rather than being directed to a peculiar
chapter wiki that they will have no special incentive to use for
discussion and is increasingly subject to outage and maintenance
headaches.

For QRpedia, current and potential usage is far wider than the UK.
Discussing its maintenance and long term future should be widely
promoted and can easily justify a specific WMF funding case.

Thanks
Fae
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[Wikimediauk-l] People's Vote march 20th October

[Fæ]

If you were at the march yesterday and took photographs, or have
friends who took photographs, remember to share them on Wikimedia
Commons.

The category to use is
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People%27s_Vote_March,_20_October_2018

The press and newspapers are full of stock photographs from the usual
suspects, but Wikipedia (and bloggers/journalists hunting for good
free media) has very few options to illustrate the People's Vote
article right now. I have uploaded a few of my photographs from the
day, but I did not manage to get photographs of the notable people
mentioned several times in the press as being at the event, such as
Sadiq Khan or Delia Smith.

Thanks
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK 2018 AGM

[Fæ]

Last minute forgetfulness - I think that attendees were supposed to
print out something for voting. Checking Eventbrite, there are no
tickets, just registration, so nothing to print there, and searching
my email I cannot find any prompt like this. Was there a need to print
something?

PS I'm presuming lunch will have the most common dietary options as
good practice, or maybe the plan is for everyone to pay for themselves
in the central cafe.

Thanks,
Fae

On Thu, 31 May 2018 at 11:30, Katie Crampton
 wrote:
>
> Good morning all
>
> I'm pleased to confirm that this year's Wikimedia UK AGM will be taking place 
> on Saturday 14th July at the Flett Lecture Theatre, the Natural History 
> Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2HF.
>
> The detailed schedule for the day is currently being finalised. But we will 
> start the event at 10:30am with talks and workshops from 11am, including a 
> keynote speech from the Campaigns Director of Liberty, Corey Stoughton, a 
> look at our work with the Welsh Government from Welsh Digital Language 
> Specialist, Gareth Morlais, and an introduction to the challenges and 
> successes of the Natural History Museums' new Data Portal with Helen Hardy.
>
> The actual AGM order of business is scheduled for 3 pm - 4.30 pm, but we 
> would encourage you to come and stay for the whole day. All volunteers, 
> editors and partners are welcome, but only members will be eligible to vote 
> on AGM matters.
>
> To attend, you must please let us know you're coming. The registration page 
> on Eventbrite can be found here. For security and catering we must have an up 
> to date attendee list, so if you can no longer attend after registering 
> please email me at katie.cramp...@wikimedia.org.uk
>
> Any member who wishes to bring forward a resolution for consideration at the 
> AGM must inform the charity, and supply a copy of the suggested text, by no 
> later than Friday 8th June 2017. The suggested text may either be sent by 
> email to the chair of the board at i...@wikimedia.org.uk or may be posted 
> online at 
> https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/2017_Annual_General_Meeting/Resolutions
>
> If you have any questions do let me know. I'll be emailing and updating the 
> wiki with further details, including the agenda, over the coming weeks.
>
> With best wishes
>
> Katie
>
> --
>
> Katie Crampton
>
> Membership, Fundraising and Operations Assistant
>
> Wikimedia UK
>
> +44 (0)203 372 0761
>
> Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge 
> movement. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make 
> knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? 
> https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and 
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered 
> Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ.
>
> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia 
> projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst 
> other projects).
>
> Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over 
> Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
>
>
> ___
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride in London

[Fæ]

Hope that everyone who got to join in at Pride in London or the
parallel events had a great time!

Don't forget to upload some of your photos to Wikimedia Commons. A
category has been started at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pride_in_London_2018

If you are on Twitter, it would help to retweet this invite to upload
photos: https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/1015928844312772608

Thanks,
Fae

On Tue, 5 Jun 2018 at 14:43, Fæ  wrote:
>
> A nudge for your calendar, Pride in London is going to be on Saturday
> 7th July. Just a month away if you want to plan a big day out in
> London! The parade itself is for registered groups, but is a lot of
> fun to watch and makes a great photography subject.
...
> Cheers,
> Fae
> --
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK 2018 AGM

[Fæ]

I would like to schedule a question for the AGM about membership
numbers and I note the deadline of this Friday. However with
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Membership/Numbers frozen as of October
2017, it appears that this information about the performance of the
charity is no longer being publicly reported, making it impossible for
me to pose a question based on the facts.

How can I receive an update this week on the trend in membership over
the last 8 months, or have a later submission on this subject
accepted?

Thanks,
Fae
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On Thu, 31 May 2018 at 11:30, Katie Crampton
 wrote:
>
> Good morning all
>
> I'm pleased to confirm that this year's Wikimedia UK AGM will be taking place 
> on Saturday 14th July at the Flett Lecture Theatre, the Natural History 
> Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2HF.
>
> The detailed schedule for the day is currently being finalised. But we will 
> start the event at 10:30am with talks and workshops from 11am, including a 
> keynote speech from the Campaigns Director of Liberty, Corey Stoughton, a 
> look at our work with the Welsh Government from Welsh Digital Language 
> Specialist, Gareth Morlais, and an introduction to the challenges and 
> successes of the Natural History Museums' new Data Portal with Helen Hardy.
>
> The actual AGM order of business is scheduled for 3 pm - 4.30 pm, but we 
> would encourage you to come and stay for the whole day. All volunteers, 
> editors and partners are welcome, but only members will be eligible to vote 
> on AGM matters.
>
> To attend, you must please let us know you're coming. The registration page 
> on Eventbrite can be found here. For security and catering we must have an up 
> to date attendee list, so if you can no longer attend after registering 
> please email me at katie.cramp...@wikimedia.org.uk
>
> Any member who wishes to bring forward a resolution for consideration at the 
> AGM must inform the charity, and supply a copy of the suggested text, by no 
> later than Friday 8th June 2017. The suggested text may either be sent by 
> email to the chair of the board at i...@wikimedia.org.uk or may be posted 
> online at 
> https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/2017_Annual_General_Meeting/Resolutions
>
> If you have any questions do let me know. I'll be emailing and updating the 
> wiki with further details, including the agenda, over the coming weeks.
>
> With best wishes
>
> Katie
>
> --
>
> Katie Crampton
>
> Membership, Fundraising and Operations Assistant
>
> Wikimedia UK
>
> +44 (0)203 372 0761
>
> Wikimedia UK is the national chapter for the global Wikimedia open knowledge 
> movement. We rely on donations from individuals to support our work to make 
> knowledge open for all. Have you considered supporting Wikimedia? 
> https://donate.wikimedia.org.uk
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and 
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered 
> Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ.
>
> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia 
> projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst 
> other projects).
>
> Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over 
> Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
>
>
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[Wikimediauk-l] Pride in London

[Fæ]

A nudge for your calendar, Pride in London is going to be on Saturday
7th July. Just a month away if you want to plan a big day out in
London! The parade itself is for registered groups, but is a lot of
fun to watch and makes a great photography subject. If you want to
officially take photographs for Wikimedia Commons and get privileged
access, media passes can be requested up until 22 June.[1] Remember
that we have an easy way to put freely released LGBT+ related
photographs on Wikimedia Commons, see the LGBT Free Media
collective.[2]

Throughout June the international WikiLovesPride is running, so
regardless of where you are, it's a great time to take a look at
improving Wikipedia articles on LGBT+ history or biographies.[3] The
history of the London gay rights marches and Pride parades looks
skimpy and out of date, missing changes like the growing size of the
event, now the third largest LGBT+ parade in the world, being awarded
the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service, and there being no mention of
UK Black Pride events which run in parallel and are notable enough for
a stand alone article. It's these primary Wikipedia articles and
related photographs that journalists rely on when they are reporting
on Pride events.[4]

Pride in London training for stewards has started, and lots more
volunteers are needed (it takes hundreds of stewards for the Parade
alone). It's easy to book yourself in and the session lasts an hour.
If you cannot get to Southwark for training, there will be remote
digital training sessions too. I went on the first course last
weekend, and for the first time I'll be a senior steward on the day.
Drop me a note if you want to ask about it. If you are media savvy and
can help out with tweets and photographs to support the event, there
are calls for volunteers for those activities too.[5][6]

Links
1. https://prideinlondon.org/media-centre
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:LGBT_Free_Media_Collective
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride/2018
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_London
5. https://prideinlondon.org/volunteer
6. https://twitter.com/PrideInLondon/status/1003924645106671616

Cheers,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] GDPR?

[Fæ]

Thanks Mike, I had the same email today, it is useful to see the relevant links.

The apparent ability to keep almost any data about (effectively)
anyone interacting with the charity whether virtually or at events,
for three years after the person was known to the charity, seems an
excessive way of writing the data policies. Volunteers, members, or
other interacting with the charity are unlikely to be aware that they
have agreed to a wide scope for long term data retention. The approach
of requiring an optional and positive opt-in, rather than opt-out will always be
perceived as more ethical.

It was interesting to read that WMUK leaves cookies on your systems.
This is phrased very generically, but in practice the only use of
cookies is for login and user preferences. It would be reassuring for
the reader/user to state this explicitly in the website privacy
policy.

It is surprising to see that there appears to be no expiry defined in
policy for the deletion of IP and browser header logs, apart from the
3 years after you last did anything with the charity. It would make
sense officially to adopt the Wikimedia Foundation's 90 day limit and
to be honest, I rather suspect this is how it currently works,
considering there is a relationship between the WMUK wiki and stewards
on meta (according to the policy). Retaining the detailed website logs
without specific cause is highly unlikely to be of legally legitimate
use to anyone, and they are more likely to pose a risk if retained for
several years.

Fae (one time technical auditor)

On 23 May 2018 at 15:03, Michael Peel  wrote:
> Ah, I got the email from WMUK today. Copy below in case anyone’s interested. 
> Thanks to whoever at WMUK has been working on this!
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
>
> "Good afternoon
>
> Like everyone else, we need to remind you that we are holding your contact 
> details and to say that if we have similar reasons to contact you as when you 
> first provided us with your contact details, we may do so.
>
> If you’d rather we didn’t, that’s fine. All you need to do is click on the 
> ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of this message. Unless we have lawful 
> grounds to keep your data, we will delete it. You can also ask us to send you 
> what data we have by emailing yourd...@wikimedia.org.uk.
>
> For further information about how we process your personal data, please see 
> our updated Data Protection Policy, or for more information on how we collect 
> cookies please see our Website Privacy Policy.
>
> Thank you for being part of the Wikimedia UK community and please let us know 
> if you have any questions.
>
> The Wikimedia UK team"
>
>> On 22 May 2018, at 22:48, Michael Peel  wrote:
>>
>> I haven’t spotted any emails from WMUK about this yet, are they coming soon 
>> or is everything already OK here?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Mike
>> ___
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>
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] UK chapter membership numbers

[Fæ]

Yes, at the AGM the tripling of membership numbers was explained as
being due to an increase in members joining. No meaningful facts were
presented to the members, but the impression given by the Chair and
the CEO was that there would be more information publicly available.

My question was "why". Sharing information about any discussion the
trustees have had on improving protection against entryism, would be
healthy for transparency, as would sharing exactly what happened that
caused this massive, overnight, leap in membership totals. Currently,
there is zero information on the nature of who joined, which may have
been down to how they joined. As an example, if 351 people joined at
an academic conference in London, then the people joining would be
academics who go to events in London and if the 351 new members were
found due to appeals by the CEO on Facebook, then the new members
would be limited to people who follow or network with the CEO on
Facebook.

It appears that the jump in numbers was a one-off event, there has
been no continued growth since whatever happened. Should the chapter
start maintaining the published membership report again, then it will
be possible for people apart from chapter employees to have access to
the latest facts.

Thanks,
Fae

On 9 April 2018 at 22:01, Richard Nevell  wrote:
> Dear Fae,
>
> As was explained at the AGM the increase in the number of members was the
> result of a successful membership drive.
>
> Regards,
> Richard Nevell
>
>
> On 9 Apr 2018 21:34, "Fæ"  wrote:
>
> During the last UK Chapter AGM, it was asked why the membership
> numbers had radically changed, there was no specific answer to the
> question. Was any analysis done on this afterwards? When reviewing
> membership it seems likely that the charity's trustees would have been
> concerned at these figures so shortly before the AGM, due to the
> potential risk of entryism.
>
> Membership jumped from a total of 147 (a five year low) in May 2017,
> to the all time record high the following month of 498, i.e. new
> sign-ups that month more than *tripled* the total membership.
>
> A second question - the report of membership numbers has been updated
> every month for the past five years.[1] It has not been updated since
> October 2017. Could anyone confirm what the most recent membership
> numbers are so the report can be updated?
>
> P.S. the links in the FAQ about the register of members are out of
> date, the companylawclub link is a 404 error and the companieshouse
> link advises to go to their new website.
>
> Links:
> 1. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Membership/Numbers
> 2.
> https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Volunteers_-_Frequently_Asked_Questions#Why_do_you_keep_a_register_of_members.3F
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
> --
> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>
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>
>
>
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[Wikimediauk-l] UK chapter membership numbers

[Fæ]

During the last UK Chapter AGM, it was asked why the membership
numbers had radically changed, there was no specific answer to the
question. Was any analysis done on this afterwards? When reviewing
membership it seems likely that the charity's trustees would have been
concerned at these figures so shortly before the AGM, due to the
potential risk of entryism.

Membership jumped from a total of 147 (a five year low) in May 2017,
to the all time record high the following month of 498, i.e. new
sign-ups that month more than *tripled* the total membership.

A second question - the report of membership numbers has been updated
every month for the past five years.[1] It has not been updated since
October 2017. Could anyone confirm what the most recent membership
numbers are so the report can be updated?

P.S. the links in the FAQ about the register of members are out of
date, the companylawclub link is a 404 error and the companieshouse
link advises to go to their new website.

Links:
1. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Membership/Numbers
2. 
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Volunteers_-_Frequently_Asked_Questions#Why_do_you_keep_a_register_of_members.3F

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Possible news story about Wikipedia tomorrow

[Fæ]

As far as I could see this story lacked any facts, not even one tangible
example of attempted manipulation. I'd appreciate a link if I misunderstood
the press coverage.

It might be a good use of resources to just keep saying "please provide an
example" before responding to what is probably itself fake news. Otherwise
one keeps on focusing on flying teapots rather than stuff that matters for
open knowledge.

Thanks,
Fae
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LGBT+
http://telegram.me/wmlgbt


On 12 Jan 2018 21:48, "Lucy Crompton-Reid" <
lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:

Dear all

I just wanted to give the Wikimedia UK community a heads up that Wikipedia
may be in the spotlight in the coming days, as the Daily Mail and the Sun
are planning to run a story tomorrow about how MPs have (apparently) been
given briefings about concerns Russian trolls are planting ‘fake news’ on
Wikipedia to corroborate the false information they spread on Twitter. The
stories are likely to say that not enough checks are being done by
Wikipedia to make sure the content on the site is not fake.

I'm not personally aware of any such briefings to MPs regarding Wikipedia,
although the most recent oral evidence to the DCMS Fake News inquiry does
refer to known Russian sources on WikiLeaks (with particular reference to
the US election). Obviously I'm assuming that the UK press will know the
difference between Wikipedia and WikiLeaks, but the claims are apparently
linked to the inquiry and this is all I've been able to uncover this
evening.

The Wikimedia Foundation press team has sent a short response to these
claims, as follows:

Wikipedia’s open, transparent model is uniquely resistant to
misinformation. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, to fix mistakes or expand
articles, provided their contributions are neutral and based in reliable
sources. Thousands of people do just this on Wikipedia every day. Nearly
every edit ever made to Wikipedia is available to the public, so anyone can
see how an article has changed over time. Wikipedia is always improving,
and this open model creates accountability and means that bias tends to be
rooted out quickly, leading to a more balance version of the facts over
time.

Best wishes

Lucy

-- 

Lucy Crompton-Reid

Chief Executive

Wikimedia UK

+44 (0) 203 372 0762



Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ.

Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The
Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate
Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10, 560 - a complete mid 19th century map of Britain

[Fæ]

On 18 December 2017 at 09:05, geni  wrote:
> On 17 December 2017 at 13:59, Fæ  wrote:
>> All the maps can be found in sub-directories by county from Cornwall
>> to Orkney at 
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560.
>
>
> Hmm we're going to need a new copyright tag. The images are not
> faithful photographic reproductions since someone (well The Andrew W.
> Mellon Foundation) has been pretty brutal with the levels. Not
> original enough to qualify for copyright mind. Just wish I could get
> access to the raw scans.
>
> --
> geni

The copyright statement seems adequate. To be a "faithful
reproduction" does not require a technically fault-free reproductive
process, just one where the intention is to create a reproduction. All
digitizations reduce quality in some way.

I agree that the levels are abrupt on the scans, but they are a
usefully high resolution. It would be a great future project to use
some WMF or other funding to pay for a better digitization.

Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10, 560 - a complete mid 19th century map of Britain

[Fæ]

Good news! Just in time for Christmas, the full 19th Century UK series
of Ordnance Survey 1:10560 maps has been completed.

This took /3 months/ to complete as this needed assembling tiled
images and transcoding to tiff and jpeg versions on my simple desktop
and then uploading via my (standard speed) home broadband connection.*
The TIFF maps were between 55MB to 220MB each, and in the end this
meant uploading more than an eye-watering 1 terabyte of data, which I
think is the largest single batch upload I have done to date by total
file size.

All the maps can be found in sub-directories by county from Cornwall
to Orkney at 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560.

* I've been pondering whether paying to upgrade my broadband speed for
similar projects might be worth it, or even to cover one-off costs of
better/faster graphics processing kit, anyone with feedback on whether
this would be reasonable use of a small WMF personal grant is welcome
to comment.

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On 27 September 2017 at 22:37, Fæ  wrote:
> On 23 September 2017 at 13:01, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>> On 23 September 2017 at 12:03, Fæ  wrote:
>>
>>> In addition to the first series of 1:10,560 maps, the Ordnance Survey
>>> 1:2500 first series is being uploaded
>>
>> Thanks, Fæ, for this superb contribution.
>>
>> The maps are full of rich data, and so a time-sink for anyone, like
>> me, interested in local history - you have been warned!
>>
>>> Andy has suggested using
>>> navigation templates at the map level, so you can click in each
>>> compass direction to jump around the map, see on example image page
>>> for Birmingham
>>
>> I'd also suggest adding categories to individual tiles, for major
>> settlements and significant features.
>>
>> --
>> Andy Mabbett
>> @pigsonthewing
>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>>
>> ___
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>
> Good news everyone! The 1:2500 OS maps series have finished uploading.
> We can confirm that cities these cover are:
> Birmingham, Cardiff, Chester, Chichester, Colchester, Coventry,
> Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lichfield, Liverpool, City of London,
> Manchester, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Oxford, Portsmouth, Salisbury,
> Southampton, Winchester, Worcester and York.
>
> You can find all the categories at
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500.
> This week I used the 19th C. Newcastle map to track down a Jewish
> cemetery ( "Jews Old Burial Ground") that now is virtually impossible
> to find due to being built over in the 1910s, as well as a surprise
> find of a "Fever" hospital and a glass factory up against the medieval
> city walls, where there is now no indication that there was ever
> anything there but virgin grassland.
>
> If you want to try creating a gallery of the maps for your favorite
> city, then it's best to have a look at the way the London gallery
> works: 
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500,_Map_of_City_of_London_and_its_Environs
>
> P.S. The complete 1:10,560 series has got as far as "Cheshire" in the
> alphabet, so expect a couple more weeks before it's ready for serious
> use. 
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560
>
> Thanks,
> Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Museum fees for images

[Fæ]

On 6 November 2017 at 13:25, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> On 6 November 2017 at 11:01, Fæ  wrote:
>
>> Volunteers interested in GLAM may be interested to read the letter to
>> The Times today from an extensive list of highly respected academics
>> and museum directors, lobbying against arbitrary image fees charged by
>> UK national museums and their doubtful claims of copyright.
>
> Images of the text of the letter, and full list of signatories, are on 
> Twitter:
>
>https://twitter.com/arthistorynews/status/927434064222662657
>
>https://twitter.com/arthistorynews/status/927434156992290816
>
> Has anyone from WMUK reached out to Bendor Grosvenor, and. or the
> other signatories?
>
> If not, I'd be wiling to contact the former, with whom I have
> previously corresponded.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

Andy, did you hear back from anyone in the UK chapter in the past
week? I'll be happy to support any initiative involving the Wikimedia
community and Grosvenor's work to put pressure on UK museums to give
free access to high quality public domain images. It would be a
reasonable activity to ask for WMF grant money, should there be any
related volunteer expenses.

Thanks,
Fae
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[Wikimediauk-l] Museum fees for images

[Fæ]

Volunteers interested in GLAM may be interested to read the letter to
The Times today from an extensive list of highly respected academics
and museum directors, lobbying against arbitrary image fees charged by
UK national museums and their doubtful claims of copyright.[1][2]

Quote: "Fees are also charged despite the fact that the artworks in
question are not only publicly owned, but out of copyright (that is,
made by artists who died more than 70 years ago). Museums claim they
create a new copyright when making a faithful reproduction of a 2D
artwork by photography or scanning, but it is doubtful that the law
supports this. Museums' rules for using images are confusing and
inconsistent, and do not raise meaningful funds once costs are taken
into account."

Copyfraud used by GLAMs has been discussed within the Wikimedia
community many times in many forums. This letter may be a useful model
for the UK chapter to follow and to have a stronger public position
on. The potential of GLAM projects using WMF funding may take the
requirement correctly to license public domain images as public
domain, as an ethical precursor for any GLAM partnership to be
proposed.

Links:
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Museum_fees Letter text
and summary article for research purposes
2. http://www.arthistorynews.com/articles/4810_Museum_image_fees__a_call_to_arms
Bendor Grosvenor's article "Museum image fees - a call to arms"
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyfraud Definition of copyfraud

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Videos on You Tube --> CC

[Fæ]

This is a slight tangent from YouTube, but it is unfair to say "no
progress". As per Rex, when the encoding is assessed as open* then
there is plenty of interest to ensure Wikimedia Commons accepts the
new standards. More generally there was a big discussion on Commons (2
years ago I think) about whether to allow MP4 encoded video, the
community came to a consensus to stick to a firm compliance to open
standards. If there is something to push on, it would be having easier
and better transcoding tools. Something that has been on the wish-list
for a long time, but never made a priority for WMF dev.

Examples of new file formats being allowed include hosting 3D models,
still under some final discussion on the Commons Village Pump, and the
change to allow MP3 audio files.[1][2]

BTW, within YouTube, videos are always made available in webm format,
so a really smart import does not even need to do any transcoding.
Anyone wanting to invest some technical time in it should explore the
YouTube API which is well documented.[3] I would do more on this, but
I only have one lifetime.

(*) Open is subject to interpretation. It's complex, so sometimes it
is worth making a proposal somewhere like the Commons VP and seeing
what happens. Sometimes the issue is complex enough that the best way
of proceeding is to get a handful of people together to discuss the
details over a pizza in a hackathon, and then come back to the wider
community with facts and recommendations.

Links
1. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T3790
2. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T115170
3. https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/

Fae
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On 25 October 2017 at 02:22, Rex X  wrote:
> Commons does not allow "normal video file types" because many of them contain
> proprietary coding.
>
> Part of our mission is to encourage the growth of open resources and that
> includes open software and open standards. Commons takes that seriously and 
> it's
> important that we do as well. Even if it seems inconvenient at times.
>
> --
> Rexx
>
>
>> On 24 October 2017 at 13:51 John Lubbock 
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Is the plan to transfer them from YouTube via Video2Commons? In the past,
>> I've found that this tool often fails. It really is a shame that no
>> progress has been made on allowing normal video file types.
>>
>> John Lubbock
>>
>> Communications Coordinator
>>
>> Wikimedia UK
>>
>> +44 (0) 203 372 0767
>>
>>
>>
>> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
>> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Office 1,
>> Ground Floor, Europoint, 5 - 11 Lavington Street, London SE1 0NZ.
>>
>> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The
>> Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate
>> Wikipedia, amongst other projects). *Wikimedia UK is an independent
>> non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility
>> for its contents.*
>>
>> On 24 October 2017 at 10:50, Michael Maggs  wrote:
>>
>> > Change at You Tube would be best actually, but I'd understood from your
>> > message that for whatever reason S4C have not managed to change the
>> > publicly visible You Tube licences.
>> >
>> > Shall we discuss in more detail off list?
>> >
>> > Michael
>> >
>> > On 24 Oct 2017, at 10:39, Robin Owain  wrote:
>> >
>> > Thanks Michael!
>> >
>> > You recommend OTRS rather than change at You Tube? OK, I'll take your lead
>> > on this and email you asap.
>> >
>> > Many thanks
>> >
>> > Robin
>> >
>> > On 24 October 2017 at 10:29 Michael Maggs  wrote:
>> >
>> > Yes I can help.
>> >
>> > To ensure the videos aren't challenged on Commons we'll need formal
>> > confirmation from an authorised person at S4C to be sent to OTRS. If you
>> > could privately let me know details of the person who could provide the
>> > necessary confirmation I can draft a suitable email for them to send to
>> > OTRS.  The uploaded files can then be tagged appropriately so that users
>> > don't start deleting them based on what they can see on YouTube.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10, 560 - a complete mid 19th century map of Britain

[Fæ]

On 23 September 2017 at 13:01, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> On 23 September 2017 at 12:03, Fæ  wrote:
>
>> In addition to the first series of 1:10,560 maps, the Ordnance Survey
>> 1:2500 first series is being uploaded
>
> Thanks, Fæ, for this superb contribution.
>
> The maps are full of rich data, and so a time-sink for anyone, like
> me, interested in local history - you have been warned!
>
>> Andy has suggested using
>> navigation templates at the map level, so you can click in each
>> compass direction to jump around the map, see on example image page
>> for Birmingham
>
> I'd also suggest adding categories to individual tiles, for major
> settlements and significant features.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk

Good news everyone! The 1:2500 OS maps series have finished uploading.
We can confirm that cities these cover are:
Birmingham, Cardiff, Chester, Chichester, Colchester, Coventry,
Durham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lichfield, Liverpool, City of London,
Manchester, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Oxford, Portsmouth, Salisbury,
Southampton, Winchester, Worcester and York.

You can find all the categories at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500.
This week I used the 19th C. Newcastle map to track down a Jewish
cemetery ( "Jews Old Burial Ground") that now is virtually impossible
to find due to being built over in the 1910s, as well as a surprise
find of a "Fever" hospital and a glass factory up against the medieval
city walls, where there is now no indication that there was ever
anything there but virgin grassland.

If you want to try creating a gallery of the maps for your favorite
city, then it's best to have a look at the way the London gallery
works: 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500,_Map_of_City_of_London_and_its_Environs

P.S. The complete 1:10,560 series has got as far as "Cheshire" in the
alphabet, so expect a couple more weeks before it's ready for serious
use. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10, 560 - a complete mid 19th century map of Britain

[Fæ]

In addition to the first series of 1:10,560 maps, the Ordnance Survey
1:2500 first series is being uploaded and has already reached "L" in
the alphabet, so Cardiff, Coventry, Edinburgh and London are all
available. See 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500

Unlike the 1:10,560 maps, the 1:2500 are not a complete map of the UK,
but are highly detailed maps of city areas. The maps date from around
the 1870s, and you will find every house, horse trough, monument and
even public toilet marked on them. As well as being interesting to
refer to during Wiki Loves Monuments sessions, for anyone interested
in solving some wiki-jigsaw puzzles, it would be useful to create
overview gallery pages on Commons making it easy for readers to
navigate the detailed maps. As an example, the 45 maps covering the
City of London have a one-page overview at [1] and Berkshire has a
gallery at [2].

Some of the 1:2500 maps have their sub-maps set out in 4x4 grids (1 to
16), and to make the puzzle a bit harder, the sub-maps may not be
complete! Birmingham has been started at [3], but the sub-maps could
be joined together more intelligently. Andy has suggested using
navigation templates at the map level, so you can click in each
compass direction to jump around the map, see on example image page
for Birmingham [4].

Links
1. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500,_Map_of_City_of_London_and_its_Environs
2. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560,_Map_of_Berkshire
3. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:2500,_Map_of_Birmingham_and_its_Environs
4. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Birmingham_and_its_Environs_OS_Map_name_014-06,_Ordnance_Survey,_1884-1891.png

Happy navigating!
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

ay that the chapter never would; given
my understanding of their recent managerial changes/issues and
organizational challenges, I suspect that harder approach may be more
effective than spending another four years trying soft soap.

P.S. Nick, while you are here, at your next meeting could you ask your
CEO to ensure that all emails from chapter domain addresses are
properly archived. If there is a PR, legal, or financial incident and,
say, a journalist is making claims about the chapter, you should be
able to definitively refer to your records, which legally includes
chapter emails.

Cheers,
Fae

Links
1. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_and_Wikimedia_Foundation_copyright_dispute
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Astinson_(WMF)
3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Project_list/PAS
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> From: Wikimediauk-l [mailto:wikimediauk-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] On
> Behalf Of Sara Thomas
> Sent: 13 September 2017 19:06
>
>
> To: UK Wikimedia mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum
>
>
>
> Great to see the movement on this!  My experience in the museums sector
> during my MGS residency in 2015-2016 taught me that these kinds of moves are
> much more significant that we sometimes realise in terms of organisational
> culture, and I would wholeheartedly support the notion that this is the most
> that could be asked of them at this point.
>
>
>
> Sara Thomas
>
> [[User:lirazelf]]
>
>
>
> 
>
> From: Wikimediauk-l  on behalf of
> Lucy Crompton-Reid 
> Sent: 13 September 2017 16:05
> To: UK Wikimedia mailing list
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum
>
>
>
> Dear all
>
>
>
> I've heard back from Tullie House Museum and they are changing the no
> photography signs on the exhibition to remove the word copyright. However my
> understanding is that they do have a restriction on photography for the
> items loaned by the British Museum. My feeling is that this is the most we
> can ask Tullie House at this point, but that it highlights the need for
> continued advocacy about copyright and licensing issues to the cultural
> sector generally, and to the BM more specifically.
>
>
>
> Best
>
> Lucy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 31 August 2017 at 10:28, Lucy Crompton-Reid
>  wrote:
>
> Hi Fae
>
>
>
> You may not have seen my message to this list a few weeks ago that I had
> been in touch with the Director at Tullie House Museum, who thinks the
> copyright notice may be a mistake on their part - however he needed to check
> with the curator responsible who was on holiday at the time. I suspect the
> curator will be back now so this is a timely reminder to chase this up,
> which I will do!
>
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Lucy
>
>
>
> On 30 August 2017 at 19:50, Fæ  wrote:
>
> Ping :-)
>
> It's been over a month, does anyone know if the Tullie House Museum
> has removed the misleading copyright notices?
>
> If there has been no contact yet, I'd be happy to send off a letter as
> a long term Wikimedia Commons volunteer to the BM and the THM for an
> official response that I can add to the record on Commons.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
>
> On 28 July 2017 at 13:34, Lucy Crompton-Reid
>  wrote:
>> Hi Fae, Andy, and all
>>
>> I agree that trying to apply copyright to a 2000 year old item is pretty
>> outrageous, although I'm going to suppose that it stems from ignorance
>> rather than anything else. We have some contacts at the BM although I'm
>> not
>> sure about Tullie House Museum, however I'm happy to contact both
>> institutions, in the first instance, to give them the opportunity to
>> correct
>> this. I'll let you know how I get on.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Lucy
>>
>> On 28 July 2017 at 13:24, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 28 July 2017 at 13:11, Richard Nevell
>>>  wrote:
>>> > Attempting to embarrass the British Museum is misguided and certainly
>>> > would
>>> > not build bridges for future collaboration.
>>>
>>> Perhaps, but as Fae indicates, it might also cause some movement.
>>>
>>> What's your - WMUK's, I mean - alternative proposed action?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Andy Mabbett
>>> @pigsonthewing
>>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>>>
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>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailm

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10, 560 - a complete mid 19th century map of Britain

[Fæ]

On 13 September 2017 at 14:40, Gordon Joly  wrote:
>
>
> Were not the original maps "Crown Copyright"? And if so, how does that
> affect the statement below?

These were indeed Crown property, so copyright periods should be
calculated from creation and are unrelated to life periods. My
understanding of British IP in the 19th century, is that 14 years
would apply (I think that's right for 1891, feel free to correct me
with a source). I doubt that copyright would have been renewed by the
publisher, in fact I'm not sure that's possible for Crown works,
though if it were, then another 14 years could be added. 28 years
could then take a small number of the maps up to 1911 and into the new
copyright act, giving them 50 years from creation date.

However you would calculate it, they are definitely copyright expired
more than 80 years ago, and mostly beyond having 100 years of public
domain status. Getting the best template on the Commons image page, is
perhaps something to investigate longer term with a bit of
housekeeping intelligently based on dates, especially if the copyright
calculation takes us beyond 1923 so that the US copyright part needs
adjusting. I'm not in a rush to improve that bit, compared to getting
the full set up on Commons first.

Thanks for highlighting it,
Fae
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[Wikimediauk-l] Ordnance Survey 1st series 1:10, 560 - a complete mid 19th century map of Britain

[Fæ]

Category link: 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ordnance_Survey_1st_series_1:10560

A full set of high resolution OS map scans is being gradually uploaded
to Wikimedia Commons and indexed by historic county. These are very
large files, 10,000 pixels wide, so are both in TIFF and jpeg format
to make reuse easier.

These are of 'specialized' interest, but I would think could be of use
to both Wiki Loves Monuments projects and readers of this email list
interested in early maps and geo-related experiments. The maps show
plenty of fine detail, including inns/pubs, churches, bridges etc.
Those that still exist will be likely to be listed and protected, and
those that are not, may still be great photography subjects. Note that
to view the maps, Commons' in-built ZoomViewer is useful but it
appears to be broken today, so you may have to settle for examining
the full size jpeg in-browser.

As I write this, the uploads are working through "B", so the projects
is going to take several weeks to complete. If there are ideas for how
better to categorize or template these maps, feel free to drop a note
on my Commons talk page. It is always possible to do some post-upload
housekeeping or adjusting the way the uploads are currently getting
formatted.

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

Ping :-)

It's been over a month, does anyone know if the Tullie House Museum
has removed the misleading copyright notices?

If there has been no contact yet, I'd be happy to send off a letter as
a long term Wikimedia Commons volunteer to the BM and the THM for an
official response that I can add to the record on Commons.

Thanks,
Fae

On 28 July 2017 at 13:34, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Hi Fae, Andy, and all
>
> I agree that trying to apply copyright to a 2000 year old item is pretty
> outrageous, although I'm going to suppose that it stems from ignorance
> rather than anything else. We have some contacts at the BM although I'm not
> sure about Tullie House Museum, however I'm happy to contact both
> institutions, in the first instance, to give them the opportunity to correct
> this. I'll let you know how I get on.
>
> Cheers
> Lucy
>
> On 28 July 2017 at 13:24, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>>
>> On 28 July 2017 at 13:11, Richard Nevell
>>  wrote:
>> > Attempting to embarrass the British Museum is misguided and certainly
>> > would
>> > not build bridges for future collaboration.
>>
>> Perhaps, but as Fae indicates, it might also cause some movement.
>>
>> What's your - WMUK's, I mean - alternative proposed action?
>>
>> --
>> Andy Mabbett
>> @pigsonthewing
>> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>>
>> ___
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>> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>
> Chief Executive
>
> Wikimedia UK
>
> +44 (0) 207 065 0991
>
>
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
> Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
>
> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia
> projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst
> other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no
> legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Imperial War Museum, meetings with Wikimedia UK

[Fæ]

Hi Chris,

I don't see the connection between my membership of the charity and
these claims being made publicly now, by a past employee, about
critical feedback from the IWM.

No I don't know what was said in those meetings, and it would be a
surprise if as a fellow trustee you knew about this feedback and never
thought to share it with me or the board.

Thanks for your retraction of your false claim that I have published
any private correspondence.

Thanks,
Fae

On 28 July 2017 at 21:49, Chris Keating  wrote:
> Oh god really Fae?
>
> The Board finally agreed to accept your membership application, no
> doubt persuaded water had passed under the bridge, and bygones were
> now bygones.
>
> Then within weeks you are forwarding private correspondence to this
> list and "demanding answers" about things that happened in 2013.
>
> You already know the answers.
>
> On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 9:18 PM, Stevie Benton
>  wrote:
>> This is hilarious. As someone who was around at the time, all I can do is
>> shake my head and laugh at the inevitability of this kind of conversation.
>>
>> WMUK would be ill-advised to allow a partnership of this importance to be
>> frittered away in this manner.
>>
>> Que sera, sera. I write with no hat on other than someone who cares deeply
>> about open knowledge and also the chapter (well, my sun hat, but that
>> denotes no role other than someone daft enough to wear it indoors, in the
>> rain).
>>
>> I think that those who were around at the time are more than aware of the
>> circumstances Richard refers to, and many others besides.
>>
>> On 28 Jul 2017 21:01, "Fæ"  wrote:
>>>
>>> Could WMUK do a little research on this please?
>>>
>>> If this feedback on my correspondence with the Imperial War Museum was
>>> received from the IWM during meetings with employees of the charity in
>>> January 2013, this happened when I was a trustee on the board. I do
>>> not recall feedback like this getting shared with the board from the
>>> CEO, nor was I personally approached or informed separate from the
>>> board. It's the sort of thing I doubt I would forget, though I do
>>> recall being critical during a board meeting about any potential WMUK
>>> project or partnership with the IWM at that time, unless their use of
>>> misleading claims of copyright on public domain media changed first.
>>>
>>> As there were discussions about me, I would appreciate the notes held
>>> by WMUK from these meetings about a potential WMUK project being
>>> shared with me, even at this late stage. It seems fair that the WMUK
>>> CEO check the facts being made public on this list, and whether this
>>> feedback was shared with the board of trustees at the time.
>>>
>>> This is not a reply to Richard Symonds, for reasons known to the WMUK
>>> board and CEO.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Fae
>>>
>>> On 28 July 2017 at 20:32, Richard Symonds  wrote:
>>> > First: I know me and you haven't got on very well in the past Fae, so I
>>> > want
>>> > to underline that this email is meant in the friendliest way possible. I
>>> > really appreciate the work you do on Commons, and am deeply struck by
>>> > the
>>> > passion with which you approach our shared goal. We're both on the same
>>> > team
>>> > - working for free knowledge.
>>> >
>>> > That said, there's a bit of criticism - constructive, I hope. I'm not
>>> > sure
>>> > if further emails like the ones at
>>> > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:F%C3%A6/email/IWM would be very
>>> > helpful - they didn't work at the time, and clearly haven't worked in
>>> > the
>>> > past four years, despite your tweeting. The issue the IWM had in that
>>> > case
>>> > was that they didn't agree with you that it was copyfraud. The solution
>>> > would be a sit-down talk between professionals, that is as you say,
>>> > "invest
>>> > some resources into changing their minds".
>>> >
>>> > I remember trying this with the IWM in 2013 - at the time, I was talking
>>> > to
>>> > the institution about the WW1 centenary, which they were the driving
>>> > force
>>> > behind. They were happy to talk, and extremely friendly, and we had
>>> > several
>>> > meetings with them. However, they had issues with the emails that you
>>&

[Wikimediauk-l] Imperial War Museum, meetings with Wikimedia UK

[Fæ]

Could WMUK do a little research on this please?

If this feedback on my correspondence with the Imperial War Museum was
received from the IWM during meetings with employees of the charity in
January 2013, this happened when I was a trustee on the board. I do
not recall feedback like this getting shared with the board from the
CEO, nor was I personally approached or informed separate from the
board. It's the sort of thing I doubt I would forget, though I do
recall being critical during a board meeting about any potential WMUK
project or partnership with the IWM at that time, unless their use of
misleading claims of copyright on public domain media changed first.

As there were discussions about me, I would appreciate the notes held
by WMUK from these meetings about a potential WMUK project being
shared with me, even at this late stage. It seems fair that the WMUK
CEO check the facts being made public on this list, and whether this
feedback was shared with the board of trustees at the time.

This is not a reply to Richard Symonds, for reasons known to the WMUK
board and CEO.

Thanks,
Fae

On 28 July 2017 at 20:32, Richard Symonds  wrote:
> First: I know me and you haven't got on very well in the past Fae, so I want
> to underline that this email is meant in the friendliest way possible. I
> really appreciate the work you do on Commons, and am deeply struck by the
> passion with which you approach our shared goal. We're both on the same team
> - working for free knowledge.
>
> That said, there's a bit of criticism - constructive, I hope. I'm not sure
> if further emails like the ones at
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:F%C3%A6/email/IWM would be very
> helpful - they didn't work at the time, and clearly haven't worked in the
> past four years, despite your tweeting. The issue the IWM had in that case
> was that they didn't agree with you that it was copyfraud. The solution
> would be a sit-down talk between professionals, that is as you say, "invest
> some resources into changing their minds".
>
> I remember trying this with the IWM in 2013 - at the time, I was talking to
> the institution about the WW1 centenary, which they were the driving force
> behind. They were happy to talk, and extremely friendly, and we had several
> meetings with them. However, they had issues with the emails that you were
> sending to them, which they saw as rude, passive-aggressive, and generally
> unhelpful. The institution didn't see them as polite correspondence, and it
> made them reticent to work with Wikipedia because they didn't feel like they
> could be a part of a community that spoke to people like that. I know that
> to you the emails were professional and to the point, and objectively
> correct. But to them it came across as unprofessional, and that it happened
> during the run-up to the WWI centenary made it very difficult for Wikipedia
> to get involved in the commemorations in any more than a passive capacity.
> You redoubled your efforts after you saw the IWM refusing to change, but
> sometimes, our passion for change - for righting the wrongs in the world -
> makes us seem like fanatics to middle-managers in cultural institutions.
> This pushed them away, and made it harder for them to understand our point
> of view.
>
> The solution here is, as you say, friendly and professional discussions -
> social media campaigns about it, as well as using words like "copyfraud"
> (which invoke thoughts of criminality in the minds of the reader), are
> counterproductive. We need to be professional and approachable, engendering
> change through example, and although social media campaigns and shaming work
> sometimes (and are legitimate ways of forcing change on an old institution),
> we have to be careful not to go to it as a first option, especially when our
> strength in WMUK is our professional connections throughout the third sector
> and "GLAM" world.
>
> On 28 July 2017 at 18:16, Fæ  wrote:
>>
>> On 28 July 2017 at 17:18, John Byrne  wrote:
>> > The BM still in effect operates a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on
>> > photography - see
>> >
>> > [http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/2011-11-14%20Visitor%20Regulations%20FINAL.pdf
>> > section 8.1] here: "8.1 Except where indicated by notices, you are
>> > permitted
>> > to use hand-held cameras (including mobile phones) with flash bulbs or
>> > flash
>> > units, and audio and film recording equipment not requiring a stand. You
>> > may
>> > use your photographs, film and audio recordings only for your own
>> > private
>> > and non-commercial purposes." The same goes for the images on their
&g

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum (John Byrne)

[Fæ]

On 28 July 2017 at 17:18, John Byrne  wrote:
> The BM still in effect operates a "don't ask, don't tell" policy on
> photography - see
> [http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/2011-11-14%20Visitor%20Regulations%20FINAL.pdf
> section 8.1] here: "8.1 Except where indicated by notices, you are permitted
> to use hand-held cameras (including mobile phones) with flash bulbs or flash
> units, and audio and film recording equipment not requiring a stand. You may
> use your photographs, film and audio recordings only for your own private
> and non-commercial purposes." The same goes for the images on their website.
>
> But as I think Fae knows, they have in the past kindly facilitated
> back-stage photography of objects by Wikipedians, knowing the images will be
> uploaded to Commons. Matthew Cock, our former main contact left some years
> ago. Most "policy" matters are hard to change at the BM because of the size
> of the organization. Everything "would have to go to the Trustees" - an
> appalling vista for middle management.
>
> No doubt the THM is trying to enforce these standard terms, reflected in the
> loan agreement, more strictly than the BM itself does. I'm not sure there's
> much point in going to or after them.
>
> One day their main policy will improve, but they are not easy to pressure -
> in practice things work ok as it is, normally.
>
> John

Thanks John, I recall us having meetings with BM folks. It was
illuminating hearing how things work from the inside. Within my
personal network I have some insight into the BM specifically, and
other large academic related institutions. In general we get a
positive response from curators and researchers who may plan an
exhibition, in fact their issues with our open projects are spot on
and match our own concerns. But this is a very separate world from the
operations and marketing middle management who make the final
decisions on loan policies and public exhibition standards.

From the perspective of open knowledge advocates, after meetings and
presentations I have had curators shake my hand and thank me for
saying things they cannot. One of the great benefits of having unpaid
volunteers like us knocking around with no "professional" affiliation
with the institutions that may manage the content we are passionate
about, is that we can say obvious things, without worrying too much
about diplomacy or PR.

Despite being criticised for making waves every now and then, it's
those personal thanks for doing what I do that will encourage me to
call unambiguous copyfraud, copyfraud, whenever I see it.

If anyone wants to see my previous efforts trying politely talking to
IP lawyers representing an institution that simply does not get it,
they can take a look at my correspondence with the Imperial War
Museum.[1] It's four years since I very politely and clearly gave them
the facts about their continued copyfraud, and they have not lifted a
finger to correct it. I guess they are too big to care about my tweets
that continue to point out this problem,[2] however it would be great
if WMUK wanted to invest some resources into changing their minds; in
line with our shared vision of open knowledge and free access to
public content.

Links
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/email/IWM IWM emails.
2. https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/890954001990201346 example tweet
on copyfraud from earlier today.

Cheers,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

Thanks for the feedback. Just to be clear, this absolutely is a
classic example of copyfraud. To say "I see no evidence of copyfraud
by the BM" is precisely correct, however this is still copyfraud. It's
an example that is very handy for Wikimedia Commons to use to
illustrate its own policies with regard to deletions and allowed
photographs where there are false claims of copyright being made.
Certainly I would be extremely concerned if the Wikimedia Foundation
were in any way funding events or projects in partnership with a GLAM
institution that continues to propagate copyfraud, rather than taking
positive action to stamp it out.

We can see by simply looking at the photographs that copyfraud is
being committed by the Tullie House Museum, as they give members of
the public tickets for the exhibition, and are fully responsible for
the exhibition itself. I agree it is not clear yet whether the British
Museum have specifically required the Tullie House Museum to use this
particular sign and text. That would be a great question to get
answered.

I find it highly unlikely that the THM have used a notice that was not
agreed with the BM, in just the same way as the text of the related
labels and posters would be agreed. Despite the same exhibition having
many other artefacts from different museums across Europe and several
objects on loan from personal collections, I could not see any other
signs of this type against anything other than objects on loan from
the BM.

Thanks,
Fae

On 28 July 2017 at 14:14, Michael Maggs  wrote:
> While the text on the labels is obviously wrong, I see no evidence of
> copyfraud by the  BM.
>
> The labels are most likely placed by the Tullie House Museum in a (confused)
> effort to comply with a contractual term of the loan, under which the
> receiving museum must not allow photography.
>
> Such terms are pretty common where works are sent out on loan, sometimes to
> protect delicate artworks from flash. Here of course there is no need for
> such protection.
>
> A quiet word with
> Tullie House Museum would seem the best way forward, first to see whether
> they are indeed required by the BM to prohibit photography, and second to
> explain that any such restriction has nothing to do with copyright and
> should not be expressed as such.  Enquiry and education, not shaming.
>
> Michael
>
> On 28 Jul 2017, at 13:11, Richard Nevell 
> wrote:
>
> Attempting to embarrass the British Museum is misguided and certainly would
> not build bridges for future collaboration.
>
> On 28 Jul 2017 13:03, "Fæ"  wrote:
>>
>> The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan
>> from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those
>> objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs
>> of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are
>> shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that
>> might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible
>> as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims
>> over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a
>> money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and
>> charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put
>> to public use and be freely accessible".
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that
>> might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm
>> wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social
>> media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The
>> reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM
>> loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct,
>> so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private
>> letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save
>> hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the
>> sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a
>> few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media.
>>
>> Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away
>> from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards
>> sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to
>> try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a
>> few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might
>> mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are
>> still alive to see it happen.
>>
>> Links
>> 1.
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_br

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

Per Andy. It would be interesting to see a timely and positive
proposal from WMUK. If nothing else to arrange a meeting with the BM
loans manager. I'd be happy to join in.

Replying to "misguided", please keep in mind that I supported and
negotiated events with the BM over several years and was the (unpaid)
Wikimedia UK national GLAM coordinator. I know how stuff works in
practice and in politics. Any change that is promised to happen in
more than a year is a waste of time based on hard evidence.
Fortunately the BM has good lawyers and PR experts, I welcome them to
contact me directly to assure our community of volunteers that the
institution is serious about the public benefit and free access their
board has committed to.

Any BM staff reading this can email me at fae...@gmail.com, I'm
friendly and will keep an open mind. :-)

Thanks,
Fae

On 28 July 2017 at 13:11, Richard Nevell
 wrote:
> Attempting to embarrass the British Museum is misguided and certainly would
> not build bridges for future collaboration.
>
> On 28 Jul 2017 13:03, "Fæ"  wrote:
>>
>> The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan
>> from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those
>> objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs
>> of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are
>> shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that
>> might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible
>> as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims
>> over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a
>> money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and
>> charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put
>> to public use and be freely accessible".
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that
>> might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm
>> wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social
>> media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The
>> reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM
>> loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct,
>> so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private
>> letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save
>> hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the
>> sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a
>> few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media.
>>
>> Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away
>> from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards
>> sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to
>> try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a
>> few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might
>> mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are
>> still alive to see it happen.
>>
>> Links
>> 1.
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_bronze_jug,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
>> 2.
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_Fortuna_statue,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
>> 3. Tullie House, Roman Frontier exhibition:
>>
>> http://web.archive.org/web/20161030151228/www.tulliehouse.co.uk/galleries-collections/galleries/roman-frontier-gallery
>> 4. British Museum "about us":
>>
>> http://web.archive.org/web/20170714042800/www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/management/about_us.aspx
>> 5. Commons village pump discussion:
>>
>> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#British_Museum_and_blatant_copyfraud
>>
>> Contacts
>> * https://twitter.com/britishmuseum
>> * https://twitter.com/TullieHouse
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
>> --
>> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>>
>> ___
>> Wikimedia UK mailing list
>> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
>
> ___
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[Wikimediauk-l] Copyfraud by the British Museum

[Fæ]

The Tullie House Museum in Carlisle has a number of objects on loan
from the British Museum,[3] and it appears that it is only those
objects that have any restrictions on photography. I took photographs
of two of these (without any flash), as the restrictions are
shockingly obvious cases of copyfraud, and not for any reason that
might protect the works from damage.[1][2] It seems incomprehensible
as to why the British Museum would ever want to make copyright claims
over ~2,000 year old works especially considering they are not a
money-making commercial enterprise, but a National institute and
charity, with a stated objective[4] that "the collection should be put
to public use and be freely accessible".

Does anyone have any ideas for action, or contacts in the Museum, that
might result in a change of how loans from the BM are controlled? I'm
wondering if the most effective way forward is to make some social
media fuss, to ensure the Trustees of the museum pay attention. The
reputational risk the apparent ignorance over copyright by the BM
loans management team seems something that would be easy to correct,
so changes to policy are overdue. My own experience of polite private
letters to a Museum's lawyer demonstrates that you may as well save
hours of volunteer time by filing these in the bin, compared to the
sometimes highly effective use of a few pointed tweets written in a
few minutes and shared publicly and widely across social media.

Those of us Wikimedians who work closely with GLAMs tend to shy away
from any controversy, wanting the organizations to move towards
sharing our open knowledge goals for positive reasons. I'm happy to
try those types of collegiate ways of partnering, however drawing a
few lines in the sand by highlighting embarrassing case studies, might
mean we make timely progress while activist dinosaurs like me are
still alive to see it happen.

Links
1. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_2nd_century_bronze_jug,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
2. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Museum_Fortuna_statue,_with_copyfraud_notice.jpg
3. Tullie House, Roman Frontier exhibition:
http://web.archive.org/web/20161030151228/www.tulliehouse.co.uk/galleries-collections/galleries/roman-frontier-gallery
4. British Museum "about us":
http://web.archive.org/web/20170714042800/www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/management/about_us.aspx
5. Commons village pump discussion:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#British_Museum_and_blatant_copyfraud

Contacts
* https://twitter.com/britishmuseum
* https://twitter.com/TullieHouse

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride 2017

[Fæ]

Selected photographs from Newcastle Pride are now on Commons at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Newcastle_Pride_2017

By informally joining the press, I managed to get some decent portrait
shots, the puppies were fun. The photo of the Lord Mayor at the front
of the march seems pretty useful, as Commons as no other photographs
of her.

I didn't manage to get to the festival, husband being impatient to
spend most of the weekend getting to some museum collections and
archaeological sites, the Mithraic mysteries being a local theme right
now... some of those photos will gravitate to Commons later.

Fae

On 17 July 2017 at 18:22, Fæ  wrote:
> Nudge. If anyone has photos on their camera from last weekend's Pride
> in London, don't forget to upload them to Commons and add the 2017
> category. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pride_in_London_2017
>
> I'm going to be able to join Newcastle Pride next weekend, the march
> is on Saturday with the festival running from Friday through to
> Sunday. It's one of the UK's largest events with over 12,500 joining
> the parade last year. I'll be taking some photographs of the start. If
> anyone is handy for Newcastle, it would make a neat photography
> project, or maybe you just fancy the free festival events and the all
> night clubbing that the city is famous for and could share some shots
> afterwards that help capture the scene for prosperity. :-)
> http://www.northern-pride.com/event/parade
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Open-licensed images of UK MPs are coming!

[Fæ]

Yes, the whole collection of current MPs has been uploaded as of this
afternoon. I noticed that some current MPs have no photograph released
so far, such as Dame Rosie Winterton. If someone pings me, I can run
an update very easily, so long as the site does not change its layout.

A few were loaded locally to the English Wikipedia by other people.
Where local versions are being used in articles, I recommend these are
swapped to Commons, to encourage articles in other languages to use
them. At some point I guess the portrait photos will be sucked into
Wikidata, which may enable auto-illustrated infoboxes... ;-)

Thanks,
Fae
-- 
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On 27 July 2017 at 15:50, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> On 21 July 2017 at 19:36, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
>
>> the Parliamentary Digital Service announce and preview their
>> forthcoming release of a set of portrait photographs of 620 of the 650
>> UK MPs. Pictures of Peers and Parliamentary staff (and hopefully the
>> missing MPs) are also planned.
>
> Most (probably all?) of the pics are now in:
>
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Official_United_Kingdom_Parliamentary_photographs_2017
>
> (Thanks, Fae!)
>
> Please help to add these to the relevant Wikidata items, along with
> the categories that are currently being created, and to Wikipedias in
> your various languages
>
> There are four images for each MP. I suggest that the "crop 2" format
> is most suitable; and please use those with names beginning "Official
> portrait of " as other, duplicate, versions are liable to be deleted.
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride 2017

[Fæ]

Nudge. If anyone has photos on their camera from last weekend's Pride
in London, don't forget to upload them to Commons and add the 2017
category. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pride_in_London_2017

I'm going to be able to join Newcastle Pride next weekend, the march
is on Saturday with the festival running from Friday through to
Sunday. It's one of the UK's largest events with over 12,500 joining
the parade last year. I'll be taking some photographs of the start. If
anyone is handy for Newcastle, it would make a neat photography
project, or maybe you just fancy the free festival events and the all
night clubbing that the city is famous for and could share some shots
afterwards that help capture the scene for prosperity. :-)
http://www.northern-pride.com/event/parade

Thanks,
Fae

On 9 July 2017 at 00:21, Fæ  wrote:
> The 2017 Pride in London category has been set up. If anyone has
> photos from today please drop them in!
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pride_in_London_2017
>
> I managed to photo some of the groups as they were assembling by
> getting friendly with a steward, though in theory a pass was needed.
>
> Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] AGM

[Fæ]

Hi Rex,

Hope you are having a relaxed Sunday. A few in-line responses from one
of the charity's most radical past trustees over a cup of herbal tea
:-)

On 16 July 2017 at 19:01, Rex X  wrote:
> You make many sensible points, Fae, thank you.
>
> Probably the biggest issue for me is whether members are happy with 
> resolutions
> being passed with little more than 5% of the membership being present in the
> room when the voting took place.
...

I agree that it is slightly pointless to set an operational target to
have more than 5% to 10% of members "in the room". However I think
most members would agree that seeing an active voting membership at
yesterday's AGM of just 11% is not satisfactory. With 88% of currently
paid up members failing to engage in any way with the AGM, something
looks and feels wrong with how the meeting works; or perhaps with who
is being targeted for membership in the first place.

I'm fully supportive of increasing membership, I would love to see a
target membership going over 1,000; in fact when Roger was Chair many
years ago we were discussing how to realistically reach a target of
2,000, as membership was increasing so quickly. However I would want a
larger membership to be meaningful membership. If other stakeholders
want to donate a few pounds, let's call it a donation and give them a
badge to wear, but let's not encourage them to join as members. Having
membership targets without an understanding of the reasons people are
joining, gives the false impression that ramping up membership makes
the charity more accountable, transparent or better governed when it
put us in danger of doing the opposite.


> Nevertheless, to address the actual point, would you agree that giving members
> the easiest possible opportunity to make their opinions heard would be the 
> next
> best thing to having them physically present? If so, then the point about 
> postal
> votes is interesting, and perhaps preferable to appointing proxies in some 
> ways,
> although proxies a least have the opportunity to respond to a debate and to
> reconsider a decision in the light of such debate. What would be most
> democratic?

As you recall, during my short time as Chair of the board, we
experimented with live broadcasts from board meetings and included
time is the regular board meetings with live questions from members
via instant messaging, rather than expecting them to be in the room.
It worked, and for the members who joined in it was a lot of fun. It
also ticked all the boxes for demonstrating that the charity was a
leading information technology literate organization, and one with
openness at the heart of its values.

As well as changing the charity's articles to make postal votes
possible, thereby moving the charity into technology that UK
Parliament embraced in 1918, I would like to see the charity go
further and have live questions at the next AGM for the board, using
tools like Google Hangout, or IRC. If members were able to ask last
minute questions remotely, and then vote using a remote system such as
used by the WMF for its secure votes during board elections, we may
actually get a lot of interest from members who are several hundred
miles away, not just those of us who happen to live within easy
distance of London and are prepared to pay for our own train fares out
of our pocket money or pensions. Remote engagement will also mean that
proxy voting would become almost redundant, as members interested in
voting will be able to watch the live discussion about resolutions,
perhaps add their own questions, and listen in on the discussions as
trustee candidates receive questions from members. Then with all that
fresh intelligence, make a far more meaningful vote on the day of the
AGM.

Nothing about all this is all that difficult, nor is it expensive. So
long as all technology is well tested out a few months before we rely
on it for real. Perhaps testing can be started later this year by
using remote engagement for regular board meetings, something we have
done before. Along with a review to ensure the charity's Articles are
made fit for the 21st century, these improvements to the charity's
engagement with the community and a hike in meaningful governance are
achievable and realistic long before the 2018 AGM gets booked in our
diaries.

Thanks,
Fae

> --
> Rexx
>
>
>> On 16 July 2017 at 14:33 Fæ  wrote:
>>
>>
>> Thanks Lucy, I'm quite happy to wait until the members can read the
>> minutes. There's no expectation that replies to questions about
>> governance have to happen quickly, or need to be answered by the CEO
>> rather than our unpaid trustees, especially at the weekend.
>>
>> The question of proxy votes is interesting, and I think the trustees
>> would be wise to look at whether the Articles are fit for purpose wi

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] AGM

[Fæ]

Thanks Lucy, I'm quite happy to wait until the members can read the
minutes. There's no expectation that replies to questions about
governance have to happen quickly, or need to be answered by the CEO
rather than our unpaid trustees, especially at the weekend.

The question of proxy votes is interesting, and I think the trustees
would be wise to look at whether the Articles are fit for purpose with
dramatically increasing membership. The Articles emphasise that a
quorum must be "present" and literally proxy voting means that the 30
votes given at the AGM "by proxy", still requires a person physically
at the meeting to vote who has been nominated by the person not
present. The articles do not give scope for 'postal votes' without a
formal physical proxy, even if special rules are published on a web
page. I presume that the 30 votes by proxy actually did have people
casting those votes who were at the AGM, as I was not allowed to vote
despite being a member, I did not experience the current procedure.

In terms of governance for future general meetings and how resolutions
get passed, this would be a good time for the charity to review
whether the members would be happy with resolutions being passed by
"ten members" on behalf of the total membership of 498. The AGM
yesterday passed resolutions with just 5% of members physically
present, and the board might reflect on how happy they are that the
discussions and questions raised at the AGM were heard by so small a
proportion of the members of the charity.

As an illustrative fantasy scenario that I think is legally possible
within the Articles as they are currently published, trustees could be
elected, or resolutions passed, by emailing out a meeting notice, and
after the notice period one could find ten like-minded members to meet
in a pub, which can count trustees and staff, and then vote through
major changes to the charity even though just 2% of the membership
took part.

It's interesting stuff for anyone with a passion for charity
governance. Though most will find these areas an incredibly unlikely
risk, I think that there are lessons to be learned from other
charities to ensure long term stability. Similarly lessons about good
governance could and should probably be learned in the UK based on the
very recent experience of Wikimedia France, where the views of a few
unpaid volunteers on the board, in highly significant ways, appear to
fail to represent the majority of members; were those members ever
asked and positively encouraged to provide their views.

Thanks,
Fae

On 16 July 2017 at 12:50, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Nicola (as teller) read out the total number all of the valid votes, which
> were 57 (30 of them proxy votes submitted before the meeting). Cheers, Lucy
>
> On 16 July 2017 at 11:13, Fæ  wrote:
>>
>> A small request for the pending minutes of the AGM; during the meeting
>> there was a count of hands of voting members, presumably to comply
>> with the Articles of Association with regard to the legally required
>> quorum. The final count was not read out, so I will be interested to
>> read that specific number in the minutes, which I believe is needed to
>> comply with legal requirements. With membership at 498, I think that
>> means that a quorum should be a minimum 50 voting members, which could
>> be challenging at future AGMs if the increase in membership is from
>> stakeholders such as donors, who are proportionally far less likely to
>> be interested in these sorts of internal meetings and discussions.
>>
>> If my understanding is wrong, and that the charity can pass
>> resolutions with fewer than 10% of the membership, such as with say
>> 2%, I would be delighted to read the explanation of how that part of
>> the governance of the charity works, and what the options would be if
>> fewer than one tenth of members wanted to physically come to an AGM. A
>> scenario which seems highly likely if membership continues its
>> fantastic speedy growth. Fortunately the board benefits from a couple
>> of resident experts on governance that can advise, and could probably
>> summarise for the rest of us in plain English.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
>>
>> On 15 July 2017 at 16:24, Richard Farmbrough 
>> wrote:
>> > All candidates were voted in, and all resolutions passed,  nearly
>> > unanimously.
>> >
>> > On 15 Jul 2017 16:17, "Richard Farmbrough" 
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > If Harry joins it will be 499.
>>
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>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
>
>

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] AGM

[Fæ]

A small request for the pending minutes of the AGM; during the meeting
there was a count of hands of voting members, presumably to comply
with the Articles of Association with regard to the legally required
quorum. The final count was not read out, so I will be interested to
read that specific number in the minutes, which I believe is needed to
comply with legal requirements. With membership at 498, I think that
means that a quorum should be a minimum 50 voting members, which could
be challenging at future AGMs if the increase in membership is from
stakeholders such as donors, who are proportionally far less likely to
be interested in these sorts of internal meetings and discussions.

If my understanding is wrong, and that the charity can pass
resolutions with fewer than 10% of the membership, such as with say
2%, I would be delighted to read the explanation of how that part of
the governance of the charity works, and what the options would be if
fewer than one tenth of members wanted to physically come to an AGM. A
scenario which seems highly likely if membership continues its
fantastic speedy growth. Fortunately the board benefits from a couple
of resident experts on governance that can advise, and could probably
summarise for the rest of us in plain English.

Thanks,
Fae

On 15 July 2017 at 16:24, Richard Farmbrough  wrote:
> All candidates were voted in, and all resolutions passed,  nearly
> unanimously.
>
> On 15 Jul 2017 16:17, "Richard Farmbrough"  wrote:
>
> If Harry joins it will be 499.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK Annual Report and Accounts

[Fæ]

As I was at the AGM, I put the question of the 250% jump in membership
to the two trustees in the room standing for election. Both were
caught out, as neither had been informed about membership numbers and
none of the reports to the AGM mentioned membership increases.

It seems odd that there is no understanding or explanation for the
significant growth in membership and that the board has not taken the
opportunity to discuss the charity governance and obvious stability
risks that come with this sort of growth. Part of this is the absence
of meaningful verification of members, a matter I recall formally
raising back in 2013 when I was on the board. I was not expecting to
catch anyone out, as the board used to regularly track membership
numbers as a means of assessing the effectiveness of activities to
attract and retain members, something I had presumed was still normal.

Fae

On 15 July 2017 at 14:53, Michael Peel  wrote:
> That's an excellent turn-around to see. :-)
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMUK_membership_over_time.jpg
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>
> On 15 Jul 2017, at 09:44, Lucy Crompton-Reid
>  wrote:
>
> Yes, and today :)
>
> On 15 July 2017 at 12:39, Gordon Joly  wrote:
>>
>> On 15/07/17 10:21, Richard Nevell wrote:
>> > Membership is 498.
>>
>>
>> Wow! That is the number of individuals (to which date)?
>>
>> Gordo
>>
>>
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>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>
> Chief Executive
>
> Wikimedia UK
>
> +44 (0) 207 065 0991
>
>
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
> Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
>
> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia
> projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst
> other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no
> legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
>
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>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK Annual Report and Accounts

[Fæ]

Having read through the report, I can see no direct statement of
membership numbers apart from an income from membership fees, which
does not break down individuals from organizations.

Could someone point me to where the membership statistics are on the
WMUK site? I recall this page of stats showed trends in membership
over the years, which was handy to assess if the charity was growing
in membership.

P.S. It is a pity that the entire report is all rights reserved, and
the PDF has been released in a non-searchable format.

Thanks,
Fae

On 12 July 2017 at 13:57, Nicola Furness
 wrote:
> Dear all
>
> Ahead of our Annual General Meeting this Saturday 15th July, our Annual
> Report and Accounts for the year ending 31st January 2017 have been
> published online here. Our Annual Review - with the narrative highlights of
> the Annual Report - will be published online later this week, with hard
> copies included in delegate packs at the meeting.
>
> For those of you who have already registered to attend the AGM, we are
> looking forward to seeing you. We have now reopened registration with some
> limited tickets still available. Unfortunately we do have a limited
> capacity, so we ask that anyone who has registered but is no longer able to
> make it to please cancel your registration to allow space for others. Please
> do not attend the AGM without having registered - we don't want to have to
> turn people away on the day.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Nicola Furness
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Give a lightning talk at this Saturday's AGM and meet up!

[Fæ]

Hi Harry,

If you are still thinking about it, it would be neat to cover any
experiences you have had in use of the projects for mapping,
successful or not. I play around with OSM, and have remained impressed
at how nicely the editing tools work there. At the 'meta' level we
have a big gap between the idea of navigating or discovering by place
and what Commons/Wikidata/Wikipedia can provide using integrated
methods.

Three to four years ago the UK chapter was encouraging projects around
geomapping, but the only place I have noticed innovation recently was
last year by Commons enthusiasts on better tools for individual maps;
though there's been a lot of discussion (and investment) within
Wikidata I have not followed.

Thanks,
Fae

On 13 July 2017 at 09:31, Harry Mitchell  wrote:
> There isn't even an *un*written version yet. It's been a long time since I
> stood up and spoke to a room full of Wikimedians. Also, I didn't think
> anyone else would be interested! Something to occupy me on the journey
> tomorrow! ;)
>
> Harry Mitchell
> http://enwp.org/User:HJ
> +44 (0) 7507 536 971
> Skype: harry_j_mitchell
>
> On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 9:25 AM, Katherine Bavage
>  wrote:
>>
>> Harry - that sounds really good! If you've got a written version anywhere
>> and it isn't on the WMUK blog can you make that a thing for those of us
>> (like me) who sadly won't make it.
>>
>> I have voted by proxy though :)
>>
>> On Thu, 13 Jul 2017 at 09:23 Harry Mitchell  wrote:
>>>
>>> I assumed all the slots would be taken, but I'd be happy to give a talk
>>> if there's space. Let's go with "War Memorials, Wikipedia, and Why You
>>> Should Care", just because I appreciate alliteration. (Hi Nicola! If you
>>> need more detail, please do email me offlist.)
>>>
>>> Is there somewhere public we can put these things and/or sign up for the
>>> event in general? I know it's a crazy Wikipedian thing, but it might inspire
>>> someone else.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Harry Mitchell
>>> http://enwp.org/User:HJ
>>> +44 (0) 7507 536 971
>>> Skype: harry_j_mitchell
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 4:39 PM, Lucy Crompton-Reid
>>>  wrote:

 Dear all

 There are quite a few places left at Saturday's AGM so please sign up
 here if you'd like to come. As well as the AGM, this is a key opportunity 
 to
 feed into the final cycle of the global Wikimedia movement strategy 
 process,
 as there will be a workshop/facilitated discussion on the emerging strategy
 in the morning. We will be joined, virtually, at this session by 
 Ravishankar
 Ayyakkannu from the Wikimedia Foundation's Global Reach and Partnerships
 team, who will give a short summary of the New Voices strategy track and
 will be available to answer questions during the discussions.

 One of the highlights of last year's event for me was the 'lightning
 talks' session, but so far this year we only have one person signed up.
 Please consider giving a lightning talk and sharing some of your wiki
 wisdom! Talks should generally be about five minutes long, although of
 course if we don't have many people signed up the timings will be a bit 
 more
 relaxed. You can sign up by emailing nicola.furn...@wikimedia.org.uk with
 your name and a title for your talk.

 I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at Senate House Library on
 Saturday.

 Best wishes
 Lucy



 --

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 Chief Executive

 Wikimedia UK

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride 2017

[Fæ]

The 2017 Pride in London category has been set up. If anyone has
photos from today please drop them in!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pride_in_London_2017

I managed to photo some of the groups as they were assembling by
getting friendly with a steward, though in theory a pass was needed.

Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Pride 2017

[Fæ]

I'll be going, this will be my 28th successive year at London Pride.
It's been strange going from a time when there seemed to be as many
police as us marchers to when you can hardly see any police. I have a
Samsung NX500 (3/4 size DSLR) but only a 50mm lens, never feeling rich
enough to fork out for the 200mm one. My understanding is that WMUK
will only lend a camera to members, so I have not asked.

Meeting up with a friend at the start of the march and then we'll
probably walk to a couple of other locations as it progresses. A press
pass might be useful, but without a more impressive camera I'd not be
comfortable approaching the PR team.

If anyone wants to try to touch base on the day, feel free to email me
for my mobile contact, though I'm staying flexible depending on the
weather.

Thanks,
Fae

On 7 June 2017 at 16:40, John Lubbock  wrote:
> Hello mailing list. Last year we had a lot of fun taking photos at the Pride
> march in London. This year it's on Saturday 8th July and we can get press
> accreditation for photographers if anyone is interested in attending. You
> should have a professional quality camera. If there are any other events you
> would like to get press accreditation to go to, get in contact and let me
> know and I can ask for you.
>
> John Lubbock
> Communications Coordinator
> Wikimedia UK
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia UK 2017 AGM - Agenda, Registration and Lightning Talks

[Fæ]

On 22 June 2017 at 13:31, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Dear all
>
>
> The formal notice of Wikimedia UK's 2017 Annual General Meeting was sent to
> members by email earlier today, on behalf of the board of trustees. If you
> are a member and don't receive the email by tonight, please get in touch
> (after checking your spam box!) so that we can check that your membership is
> current and that we have the correct email address for you.
>
>
> If you are not currently a member of the charity, I would urge you to join
> here or email members...@wikimedia.org.uk. For just £5 a year you can help
> shape the direction of the charity and stand for election to our board of
> trustees, as well as submit motions and vote in General Meetings. As a
> membership organisation it's vital for Wikimedia UK to have a vibrant,
> diverse and active membership body so please consider showing your support
> for open knowledge and for the chapter in this way.
>
>
>
> As previously confirmed on this mailing list, the next AGM for Wikimedia UK
> will be held on Saturday 15th July at Senate House Library in London and all
> volunteers, editors and partners are welcome, although only members of the
> charity can vote (in person or by proxy). The day starts at 11am and we aim
> to finish by 4.30pm, and we will be keeping you fed and watered throughout.
> The agenda for the day is on wiki here. Following the AGM there is an
> evening networking and refresher event for previous participants of the
> Train the Trainer course, starting at 5pm, and the rest of us will be
> heading to a nearby pub I imagine :)
>
>
>
> We would like to invite people attending the AGM and meet up to give a short
> lightning talk - for example on your own work with Wikimedia, or
> developments within open knowledge - so please email
> members...@wikimedia.org.uk if you would like to participate. There are
> limited slots available and talks should be no longer than five minutes.
>
>
>
> We would love to see as many of our members, volunteers and other
> stakeholders as possible on 15th July, so please sign up through eventbrite
> here.
>
>
> With very best wishes
>
> Lucy

I'll plan to reapply for membership on the 5th July, unless someone
wants to propose a different date based on my last application.

I think it's been 4 years since I was last allowed to become a member
of the charity. In wiki terms, that may as well have been a lifetime
ban.

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] CC licenses for PhD theses

[Fæ]

Hi Leutha,

It's a mystery to me why when there is no need for secrecy, anyone would
want to hide a public statement of copyright in a private database, which
is run under arcane confidentiality agreements with the WMF (which is why
many volunteers left) and cannot be verified independently.

If uploading a document like a thesis to Commons, it's better to include
the release letter with the document scan, or to ensure that the original
document is published with a proper statement of copyright in the first few
pages.

By ensuring the statement is public, there is no need to rely on OTRS
records which could easily vanish in a few years, or become virtually
inaccessible.

Cheers,
Fae

On 2 May 2017 14:38,  wrote:

> Hi all
>
> Thanks to John for his prompt prompt response.
>
> Actually my answer is no.
>
> I am afraid John's solution does not deal with the wealth of academic
> material, theses etc which have been produced before such universities
> start to understand the benefits you mention. As students already have the
> option of publishing their material on CC licenses (Students are not
> employees), they do not need to universities to provide such an option.
>
> My point is that Wikimedia UK is in a unique position to actually do
> something to benefit how the community works as regards OTRS, of which the
> benefit I have mentioned is just an example.
>
> If Wikimedia UK does not want to do this, then perhaps we could have a
> policy decision from the organisation to put us in the picture.
>
> Then we could explore doing this directly through the Foundation. I doubt
> there is much appetite for setting up some sort of Wikimedia UK 3.0 – at
> this moment in time.
>
> I know from one or two discussions I have had that various people feel
> that Wikimedia Uk has been experiencing some mission drift towards more
> general open knowledge advocacy and away from specific Wikimedia Community
> support. I feel this is an opportunity for the organisation to clarify
> where it's going.
>
> Another issue I feel the charity could address is a generic clause for
> people to add to their wills releasing their copyrightable output under
> Creative Commons licenses. These could be generic, i.e. everything, or
> partitioned (for example: "all my photographs").
>
> It would also be useful to have some phraseology so that people who own
> the copyright of someone who has died can release their material under
> a Creative Commons license. I feel this would make a significant impact in
> covering the gap between photos in particular taken by people whose
> copyright has lapsed and the contemporary period when people have started
> releasing their own photos on a CC license.
>
>
>
> all the best
>
> Fabian
>
> aka Leutha
>
> On 02 May 2017 at 14:05 John Lubbock 
> wrote:
>
> Hi Fabian. Do you not think that this time consuming process of asking
> authors individually could be substantially reduced by getting universities
> to understand the benefits of Open Licenses and having them give their
> students the option of publishing on CC licenses. Then the only work we
> would have to do is to upload them.
>
> John
>
> On 2 May 2017 at 14:02,  wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> As copyright for a PhD thesis rests with the person who wrote it, it would
> seem to be a secondary concern to worry over much about various
> institutional arrangements. The Wikimedia movement has already developed
> Wikisource , which is a
> suitable repository for PhD theses, and I would say Masters thesis as well.
> In fact all we need do is ask the people who own the copyright to upload a
> pdf (or better a Dejavu file) to commons. Once they have done this - which
> involves releasing reproduction rights as Creative Commons - then whether
> they or others take the document through to becoming a completely validated
> document.
>
> The advantage of this is that we can then generate an annotated version
> which includes hyperlinks to wikipedia pages which means we can create an
> approach to reading which allows the reader to move fluidly between
> wikipedia pages and upload PhD theses.
>
> One of the problems I have encountered during my period as a Wikimedian in
> Residence at MayDay Rooms, is in uploading an old MA thesis from Chris
> Knight,  currently a
> professor of Anthropology. Getting his agreement, getting a pdf of his
> thesis was quite easy. The problem was that having uploaded the file to
> commons and having sent emails to the Commons OTRS
> , nothing happened for
> several weeks. Indeed it was only thanks to the help of a Wikimedia at the
> London Meet up who had access to the OTRS system, that the Commons
> documentation could be updated.
>
> The hold up is largely down to a shortage of people with OTRS access. When
> I volunteered for this I was told I did not have enough experience. I was
> not informed 

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Monnow Bridge (symbol of Monmouthpedia) is at FAC

[Fæ]

Thanks Charles.

Though I am aware of all the projects you list, I don't see any as
being especially related to the UK, and it was those UK events we used
to drive for ourselves that I was thinking of.

In fact it's great that all the initiatives mentioned are
international, pretty much the sort of global view that I have when
thinking about current and future Wikimedia LGBT+ projects. Maybe
that's an improvement, though it does effectively bypass our old ideas
about the value of local wiki meets and so forth.

Fae

On 22 April 2017 at 14:07, Charles Matthews
 wrote:
>
> On 22 April 2017 at 13:54 Fæ  wrote:
>
>> It would be nice to see the same level of innovation and excitement again
> within our social group of active Wikimedians.
>
> That a bit "où sont les neiges d'antan?" Roger Bamkin and the Women in Red
> project are going great guns. John Cummings is quietly busy at UNESCO
> getting things released into the wild. Wikidata has prompted innovations
> such as Histropedia, to give just one UK example, and on the educational
> front Magnus Manske last week made a breakthrough with his WikiBase site
> Comprende! (see http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=446), which has got the
> WMF interested.
>
> Charles
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Monnow Bridge (symbol of Monmouthpedia) is at FAC

[Fæ]

Thanks Harry. Interesting to check through the images. One of my
uploads is still on the page :-)

The Geograph shot of the Warkworth gate is surprising to see, I would
have thought someone would have uploaded a better quality version from
the same angle by now.

It's a bit sad to remember that the Monmouth event was years ago. It
would be nice to see the same level of innovation and excitement again
within our social group of active Wikimedians.

Fae

On 22 April 2017 at 13:19, Harry Mitchell  wrote:
> Those who were involved in Monmouthpedia, or indeed anyone else, might be
> interested to know that the enwiki article on the Monnow Bridge is being
> reviewed for featured article status. If you're interested, the review is at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Monnow_Bridge/archive1.
>
>
> Harry Mitchell
> http://enwp.org/User:HJ
> +44 (0) 7507 536 971
> Skype: harry_j_mitchell
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia developers discussion

[Fæ]

Thanks.

On 17 Jan 2017 15:50, "John Lubbock"  wrote:

> I never said they 'had to be' on a closed forum. I presented the idea a
> while ago, didn't get much feedback from anyone, and had already started
> using Slack in the office, so I just created another channel. If you would
> like to create a different channel for developers and have a separate lot
> of discussions elsewhere, there's nothing stopping you. I have only offered
> to try to coordinate the work of developers, and the door's open for those
> who want to participate.
>
> John
>
> On 17 January 2017 at 15:34, Fæ  wrote:
>
>> I'm still trying to understand why UK-based Wikimedia developer
>> discussions have to be on a closed forum.
>>
>> As an example, with global discussions around issues or changes on
>> Phabricator, a key benefit is that it is easy to link to these
>> discussions and information on-wiki so that anyone can review them,
>> not just those that have set up accounts on Phabricator. Encouraging
>> wiki-project developers to join an invite-only channel to discuss
>> changes to their open projects behind closed doors, appears to force a
>> contradiction in values and remain an ethical barrier for potential
>> contributors.
>>
>> At the point where any development might change Wikimedia projects,
>> whatever was done on a closed forum would have to be presented
>> publicly. Even abandoned ideas benefit the community by adding to our
>> store of common knowledge, if the discussions are available for future
>> reference rather than held in closed archives.
>>
>> Fae
>>
>> On 17 January 2017 at 14:51, John Lubbock 
>> wrote:
>> > The other thing is that we have already started using Slack in the
>> office
>> > for chat, and I have another slack channel for the Kurdish Wikipedia
>> > Project, so I've already gone down this path a bit of a way and to back
>> out
>> > and start again because something else is open source would be quite
>> > disruptive for other work I'm doing. I'm trying to organise developers
>> to
>> > come to one place to discuss this, and I've chosen Slack because it's
>> easy
>> > and lots of people use it. I appreciate that it might not be ideal for
>> some
>> > people, but I really can't spare the time and effort to start this all
>> again
>> > from scratch.
>> >
>> > John
>> >
>> > On 17 January 2017 at 13:19, Katherine Bavage <
>> katherine.bav...@gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I'm not planning to join because I don't code (though I'm happy to
>> join a
>> >> channel if you get to a stage where end user or design process
>> feedback is
>> >> useful) but I would note that asking people to adopt new platforms
>> 'just
>> >> because they are open source', rather than ones that are used by a lot
>> of
>> >> people/ a lot of people are already familiar with, is pretty daft when
>> your
>> >> ultimate goal is to benefit the open source community through the work
>> the
>> >> channel fosters.
>> >>
>> >> As far as I know, for this type of work, Slack is the go to for most
>> devs.
>> >> The Foundation use it without issue.
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, 17 Jan 2017 at 12:24 Gordon Joly 
>> wrote:
>> >>>
>> >>> On 17/01/17 00:38, John Lubbock wrote:
>> >>> > It costs a lot of money, as far as I can see (it says Try for Free
>> and
>> >>> > then takes you to a page where it asks you to pay $100 a month).
>> >>>
>> >>> 
>> >>> We wrote Discourse, and we can host it for you, too.
>> >>> 
>> >>>
>> >>> Yes, that is a hosting option. You can download and install for free.
>> I
>> >>> am suggesting WMUK host the code on their own server...
>> >>>
>> >>> Gordo
>>
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>>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimedia developers discussion

[Fæ]

I'm still trying to understand why UK-based Wikimedia developer
discussions have to be on a closed forum.

As an example, with global discussions around issues or changes on
Phabricator, a key benefit is that it is easy to link to these
discussions and information on-wiki so that anyone can review them,
not just those that have set up accounts on Phabricator. Encouraging
wiki-project developers to join an invite-only channel to discuss
changes to their open projects behind closed doors, appears to force a
contradiction in values and remain an ethical barrier for potential
contributors.

At the point where any development might change Wikimedia projects,
whatever was done on a closed forum would have to be presented
publicly. Even abandoned ideas benefit the community by adding to our
store of common knowledge, if the discussions are available for future
reference rather than held in closed archives.

Fae

On 17 January 2017 at 14:51, John Lubbock  wrote:
> The other thing is that we have already started using Slack in the office
> for chat, and I have another slack channel for the Kurdish Wikipedia
> Project, so I've already gone down this path a bit of a way and to back out
> and start again because something else is open source would be quite
> disruptive for other work I'm doing. I'm trying to organise developers to
> come to one place to discuss this, and I've chosen Slack because it's easy
> and lots of people use it. I appreciate that it might not be ideal for some
> people, but I really can't spare the time and effort to start this all again
> from scratch.
>
> John
>
> On 17 January 2017 at 13:19, Katherine Bavage 
> wrote:
>>
>> I'm not planning to join because I don't code (though I'm happy to join a
>> channel if you get to a stage where end user or design process feedback is
>> useful) but I would note that asking people to adopt new platforms 'just
>> because they are open source', rather than ones that are used by a lot of
>> people/ a lot of people are already familiar with, is pretty daft when your
>> ultimate goal is to benefit the open source community through the work the
>> channel fosters.
>>
>> As far as I know, for this type of work, Slack is the go to for most devs.
>> The Foundation use it without issue.
>>
>> On Tue, 17 Jan 2017 at 12:24 Gordon Joly  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 17/01/17 00:38, John Lubbock wrote:
>>> > It costs a lot of money, as far as I can see (it says Try for Free and
>>> > then takes you to a page where it asks you to pay $100 a month).
>>>
>>> 
>>> We wrote Discourse, and we can host it for you, too.
>>> 
>>>
>>> Yes, that is a hosting option. You can download and install for free. I
>>> am suggesting WMUK host the code on their own server...
>>>
>>> Gordo

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] BBC 100 Women and Wikimedia

[Fæ]

Fortunately nobody is suggesting deletion :-) However there is a good
learning point for future projects, in that on any start of a project
the question of copyright needs to be taken on, to ensure all possible
tees are crossed and ies dotted so that volunteers can avoid getting
bogged down in post-event copyright debate.

As a counterexample to this case of probable 'accidental' copyright, a
real problem for Wikimedians has been the Wikiloves Monuments
projects. In the UK we had many long and difficult discussions about
how to access regional lists of protected monuments and deal with the
fact that many are copyrighted by institutions that actively protect
their copyright. Again, they are just lists of things, so you can do
great stuff like scrape databases and create free apps with
interactive maps of monuments, however you can't just reuse the lists
without considering whether your actions are against the potentially
enforceable copyright terms.

Fae

On 9 December 2016 at 11:10, Andrew West  wrote:
> On 9 December 2016 at 10:49, Richard Nevell
>  wrote:
>> That's interesting. How was the issue handled with A History of the World in
>> 100 Objects a few years back?
>
> I don't think that the issue was ever mentioned by anyone. In cases
> like [[A History of the World in 100 Objects]], [[Our Top Ten
> Treasures]],  and [[Britain's Secret Treasures]] the lists are notable
> and of public interest because they have been featured in TV
> programmes, and it is impossible to write an article on the subject
> without giving the listed objects. To not list the items would be an
> extreme disservice to our readers, and would not be any benefit to the
> original compilers of the lists.
>
> Personally, I think that in such cases and for 100 women where no-one
> is claiming the list as their intellectual property we should not be
> overzealous in protecting imaginary copyright concerns. I hope that
> for 100 women common sense will prevail over legalistic arguments.
>
> Andrew
> [[User:BabelStone]]
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] BBC 100 Women and Wikimedia

[Fæ]

See [1], in short if a list can be created by repeatable analysis of
data, then it's not copyrightable, otherwise, by definition, it must
have subjective creativity and so is copyrightable. The 100 women list
is not independently repeatable, so to be published on Wikipedia
without future risk of deletion, there needs to be a release from the
copyright holder.

For the English Wikipedia, the copyright of lists was thrashed out by
the community several years ago. I became part of that discussion in
its early days as I was using lists of film box-office income as part
of a large number of articles I was creating for Bollywood film
history. I suggest the charity takes advantage of that existing
investment in volunteer time, rather than spending its resources
elsewhere, especially as the Wikipedia community would still need to
accept any differing opinion.

By the way, I worked closely with Maggie Dennis to get this right, she
is an excellent thinker on these aspects of copyright. In those days
she was an independent volunteer, but now is the WMF Director of
Support, Safety and Programs. You could always drop her a note.

Link
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_in_lists

Thanks,
Fae

On 9 December 2016 at 09:31, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Hi all
>
> There does seem to be some disagreement as to whether copyright is actually
> an issue in the case of the list of 100 women. I will be doing quite a lot
> of follow up with the BBC over the next few weeks so am happy to add this to
> my list of things to discuss, however I will try to seek legal clarity on
> this question first.
>
> Thanks
> Lucy
>
> On 8 December 2016 at 23:18, Gordon Joly  wrote:
>>
>> On 08/12/16 17:32, Michael Peel wrote:
>> > An interesting question that could do with a speedy response (and maybe
>> > a copyright release email from the BBC to OTRS) has been posted at:
>> >
>> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:100_Women_(BBC)#Is_it_not_a_copyright_violation_to_publish_this_list.3F
>> >
>> > 
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > Mike
>>
>> I have often observed how the BBC did not adopt a standard Creative
>> Commons licence but developed their own (as a result of the massive
>> pressure of rights).
>>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/creativearchive/
>>
>> So, don't hold your breath!
>>
>> Gordo
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] BBC 100 Women and Wikimedia

[Fæ]

Agree with Gordo. It would be sensible for event coordinators to get
the BBC news piece changed this morning. It would be a lot better to
give a link to the on-wiki help.

I have plenty of experience creating biographies, but I still had two
new biography stubs for women academics put up for deletion this week.
The notability guidelines can be tough and difficult to interpret,
even very experienced contributors find ourselves debating the meaning
of "impact" and "major" for individual cases.

BTW If anyone is talking to the BBC In Our Time producer or Melvin
Bragg himself, they have an archive of photographs for everyone that
appears on the radio programme which seem unpublished apart from use
on twitter. It would be great to get the archive released to Commons
as only half of the people taking part on Melvin's panels have
biographies, and even fewer have illustrated biographies. Oh, and IOT
seems to make a point of having academically distinguished women on
the panels...

Thanks,
Fae

On 8 December 2016 at 09:30, Gordon Joly  wrote:
> On 05/12/16 14:41, Lucy Crompton-Reid wrote:
>>
>> As I know some of you will already be aware, Wikimedia UK, Women in Red
>> and Wikimedia editors and communities around the world are partnering
>> with BBC 100 Women to raise awareness of the gender gap on Wikipedia,
>> improve coverage of women and encourage women to edit.
>
> Great stuff, but on the BBC News article:
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-38219838
>
> we find
>
> "How to create a new profile on Wikipedia"
>
> This is really about article creation for new biographic entries. If
> this is a living person, then one of the most difficult starting points
> for a new editor.
>
> I would think of "new profile" as being a User page.
>
> So, going live with a new article and then facing a rapid deletion
> request is hardly constructive. No mention of a sandbox for example.
> There should be explicit links to extant help, tutorials and other
> instruction.
>
> Gordo
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Mass image uploads expert

[Fæ]

A really useful and under recognized part of Wikimedia Commons are the
more detailed deletion request discussions, and the supporting
policies, guidelines and essays for interpreting copyright.

It's worth reading through [1:Licencing], though I find [2:Copyright
rules by territory] a constantly useful reference, which is updated
frequently as the law changes in different countries.

Unfortunately "orphan works" is a difficult area for copyright, made a
lot worse by having to worry about publication rights, which can add
decades of copyright protection to otherwise extremely old or works
with unknown authors which should otherwise be public domain. In a
recent discussion there were examples of UK works as old as 1860s that
had legitimate copyright claims.

If there's an area of copyright that interests you, it can really help
Commons to follow the copyright noticeboard [3] and participate in
some deletion request discussions. Asking questions and testing your
own understanding of the policies and UK copyright legislation would
quickly make you a valued participant. Getting the balance right of
what constitutes "significant doubt" and cases where the research done
is sufficient to keep an image on Commons within the law, even if much
remains unknown, is a constant challenge and one where there is a real
shortage of UK specific understanding and viewpoints.

Once the UK leaves Europe, there's likely to be a lot of
misunderstanding and misinterpretation of how we comply with EU
legislation. I have no doubt that volunteers interested and following
the nuts and bolts of changes in UK copyright law will be much in
demand. I never thought that I would be referenced as being
knowledgeable in UK and US military related copyright. :-)

Links:
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing
2. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory
3. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Copyright

Fae

On 15 October 2016 at 13:25,   wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> There was some discussion of orphan works in Wikimedia UK when the new
> legislation was introduced in May 2015. Please check government guidance in
> this. Unfortunately the new regulations are not very favourable to us.
> Arguing that creating exact copies created a new copyright would be
> counterproductive as regards the use of non-orphan work that has become
> public domain and copied by whoever.
>
> all the best
>
> Fabian
>
> aka Leutha
>
> On 15 October 2016 at 13:06 John Lubbock 
> wrote:
>
> Could they not be declared orphan works if there was some due diligence
> done to establish that the original authors could not be found? Couldn't
> you argue that the authorisation for making a copy of the originals
> produced a new copyright which was held by the museum? Presumably if
> someone's grandfather left them the collection, it's their copyright to
> release, but if a copy of the image was made in 1970 then surely the
> copyright on that copy is the museum's? I've been trying to understand
> copyright for years now and it's still a bit of a mystery to me. Especially
> with photos it seems flexible to an extent.
>
> On 14 October 2016 at 09:15, Jonathan Cardy 
> wrote:
>
> Fæ would be my first suggestion for a mass upload if he is available and
> the collection is suitable. But reading through that link I'm not sure we
> can use that collection. Apparently it was started forty years ago by a
> curator who invited people to bring in historic photos and lend them to the
> museum to make a copy.
>
> I'm sure that's fine for the Museum to use. But I wouldn't care to argue
> on Commons that this constitutes a CC-BY-SA 3 licence for all those images.
> Hopefully there will be a subset which can be dated early enough to argue
> PD. Maybe there are some where the rights owner can be traced, but I'd
> suspect there will be a lot of photographers from an era where some will
> have died long enough ago to make it difficult to trace the heirs, and
> others may even still be with us. At some point in the future no doubt we
> can import the lot, provided a digital copy is still extant.
>
> Another reason why the movement needs a sealed repository from which stuff
> can be migrated when it is out of copyright.
>
> Depending on the age range of the images and the quality of the metadata
> there could be a useful proportion that would be safe to upload. It all
> depends on the ratio of "my grandfather died in 1880 and left us this
> collection" to "my grandfather died in 1980 and left us this collection".
>
> WSC
>
> On 14 Oct 2016, at 08:18,   wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have just spotted an announcement of a historic photograph digitisation
>

Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Mass image uploads expert

[Fæ]

Rod, I'd be happy to help with a call/video meeting, or to run the
modest-sized batch upload when they are ready. The numbers mentioned
may take just a day or two to upload. At this moment I'm the most
active Commons uploader of GLAM media, the can see examples at
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae/Project_list

As Jonathan implies, the upload itself may be a bit technically
challenging, but is not especially intellectually challenging for the
institution. The hard part is the early spadework; examining the
collection and ensuring that the metadata is reliably consistent,
working out how to do some auto-categorization without potentially
'spamming' Commons categories, that the best use is made of Commons
templates by intelligently mapping metadata to fields, and that the
various copyright scenarios are hammered out in advance.

The last issue of copyright may be as simple as applying the
no-copyright-known template, or it may need a bit of programmer magic
to automatically map copyright licenses based on metadata, and weed
out images that may be challenged under our strict Commons policies of
there being "no significant doubt". It's better to have those
discussions early, rather than have multiple deletion requests to
manage downstream.

Fae
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On 14 October 2016 at 09:15, Jonathan Cardy  wrote:
> Fæ would be my first suggestion for a mass upload if he is available and the
> collection is suitable. But reading through that link I'm not sure we can
> use that collection. Apparently it was started forty years ago by a curator
> who invited people to bring in historic photos and lend them to the museum
> to make a copy.
>
> I'm sure that's fine for the Museum to use. But I wouldn't care to argue on
> Commons that this constitutes a CC-BY-SA 3 licence for all those images.
> Hopefully there will be a subset which can be dated early enough to argue
> PD. Maybe there are some where the rights owner can be traced, but I'd
> suspect there will be a lot of photographers from an era where some will
> have died long enough ago to make it difficult to trace the heirs, and
> others may even still be with us. At some point in the future no doubt we
> can import the lot, provided a digital copy is still extant.
>
> Another reason why the movement needs a sealed repository from which stuff
> can be migrated when it is out of copyright.
>
> Depending on the age range of the images and the quality of the metadata
> there could be a useful proportion that would be safe to upload. It all
> depends on the ratio of "my grandfather died in 1880 and left us this
> collection" to "my grandfather died in 1980 and left us this collection".
>
>
> WSC
>
>
> On 14 Oct 2016, at 08:18,   wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> I have just spotted an announcement of a historic photograph digitisation
> project by the friends of the Somerset Life Museum Research Group (see
> https://somersetrurallifemuseum.org.uk/2016/10/13/digitisation-project/ )
> aiming to digitise 15,000 images.
>
>
>
> I have made an initial contact asking about licencing and sharing and
> mentioned “mass uploads” but I know very little about this. I believe there
> have been some people who have done this for/with other GLAMS and/or
> developed tools to handle this. Who would be the best person to put them in
> touch with if they come back to me and they are willing to release under a
> suitable licence?
>
>
>
> Rod
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] How would you like to communicate with WMUK and other Wikimedians?

[Fæ]

We set up a page in 2011 for coordinating IRC meetings and used to
have  #wikimedia-uk-board for the community to be able to raise
discussion directly with Trustees, so questions could be raised live
during our meetings and there could be discussion about chapter
affairs away from the main channel. See
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Community_IRC_meetings, there was some
discussion about choosing the best communication channels for the
chapter that you can probably find in the board minutes for that time;
the issues are no different today. The transient nature of IRC, and
it's public openness, is a benefit for some users, while the
persistence of posts to Facebook groups along with privacy and closed
groups is preferred by others.

The most successful past use of the wikimedia-uk channel was when it
was used as live support for edit-a-thons. It was an excellent way to
offer advice for remote contributors, including on-project sysop
support without having to permanently publish questions on-wiki, and
was something we could point to as evidence of not expecting
volunteers to travel across the country for events.

You may want to update the wiki page for online meetings. I or another
IRC op can add it back to the channel notice if it starts to get
maintained or another page does.

Keep in mind that similar to this email list, the IRC channel is for
the UK community of Wikimedians, rather than only for Chapter matters
and events. It's worth also noting that it may take a day for someone
to notice a question or comment on IRC, so be prepared for
significantly asynchronous chat and it's worth staying logged in for
days at a time if you expect to have a discussion.

Thanks,
Fae


On 22 August 2016 at 18:04, John Lubbock  wrote:
> So I plan to start using the IRC channel freenode/wikimedia-uk to post some
> announcements and see what kind of engagement there is there. Everybody's
> welcome to join. I'll have it open during office hours.
>
> John
>
> On 20 August 2016 at 23:03, Rex X  wrote:
>>
>> Gosh, I'd didn't realise how difficult preference voting was on twitter. I
>> had
>> to log on as 6 different IPs to vote for my third preference once, my
>> second
>> preference twice, and my first preference three times.
>>
>> --
>> Rexx
>>
>>
>> > On 20 August 2016 at 20:08 Gordon Joly  wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > On 19/08/16 19:53, John Lubbock wrote:
>> > > . So I've put a poll on Twitter
>> > >  with some
>> > > options for communications channels. I couldn't put more than four
>> > > options, so I chose Facebook, the Water Cooler, Slack and the Mailing
>> > > List.
>> >
>> >
>> > It is clear that one choice is already out in front!
>> >
>> > :-)
>> >
>> > Facebook is a very poor medium. Never heard of Slack.
>> >
>> > https://slack.com/
>> >
>> > How about Discourse?
>> >
>> > http://www.discourse.org/
>> >
>> > "Civilized Discussion"
>> >
>> > Gordo
>> >
>> >
>> > ___
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>> > wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> > WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>>
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>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Proxy votes for the AGM

[Fæ]

I would like to vote by proxy but my membership is still pending.

What's the resolution for those circumstances, can someone vote on my
behalf in person on the day?

Thanks,
Fae

On 7 July 2016 at 10:47, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Dear all, this is just a reminder that the deadline for proxy votes for
> Wikimedia UK's AGM this Saturday is 3pm today.
>
> Cheers
> Lucy
>
> --
>
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>
> Chief Executive
>
> Wikimedia UK
>
> +44 (0) 207 065 0991
>
>
>
> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
> Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
> Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
>
> Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia
> projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst
> other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no
> legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] #ListEngland: Heritage England, crowd-sourcing, a missed opportunity

[Fæ]

It would make sense to build on the work already done in standardizing
NRHP related photographs. The 300,000 archive images of historic
American buildings I uploaded were mapped to Commons categories and
NRHP numbers. It's a while back, but you can see an example of
semi-automated mapping at

(I'd generate this using different methods now, at the time this was
independent of Wikidata).

NRHP exists on Wikidata, for example
. So this is all at the stage
where it can be pulled together with a bit of bot work and a bit of
consensus building on how to adapt existing templates, perhaps just a
couple of months with the right volunteer team.

Media on Commons for the UK's listed buildings could then easily
follow the identical workflow, but considering this has taken at least
four years of discussion to date, it's not strategically wise to try
to attempt to set a potentially conflicting precedent with the UK data
when the US data is at the final stage.

Fae


On 8 June 2016 at 11:03, Charles Matthews
 wrote:
> Perhaps some thought should be given to how to structure metadata on
> buildings (and suchlike) on Commons.
>
> Some of us are aware that the advent of Wikidata has led to a
> reconsideration of Commons from the "structured data" point of view; which
> is somewhat stalled right now, though the Creator pages have moved ahead. In
> other words architects yes, buildings no at present.
>
> In any case, while there is a great deal on Commons, there is also much to
> be done there.
>
> Charles

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Current partnerships updates. Interested?

[Fæ]

On 10 May 2016 at 15:22, Stuart Prior  wrote:
...
> Palestine Exploration Fund - Fantastic collection, interested in doing some
> training for their members, yet to be scheduled.
>
> Tate Britain - Looking for a trainer for an event on 22nd of May covering
> Queer British Art.
>
> Amnesty International - Approached about potential editathon in June, to
> expand articles on Human Rights.
>
> Cancer Research UK - We successfully ran some training for some PhD students
> in Cardiff recently, but they would like to continue training for their
> researchers at venues around the country. Such as Manchester and Edinburgh.
>
> British Heart Foundation - Are interested in getting some training for their
> staff.
>
> If any of the above is of interest, let me know.
...

Are there any updates on these, have any happened?

I would appreciate an answer to my email of 13 May offering to
volunteer, it seems to have been lost.

Thanks,
Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Current partnerships updates. Interested?

[Fæ]

On 10 May 2016 at 15:22, Stuart Prior  wrote:
...
> Tate Britain - Looking for a trainer for an event on 22nd of May covering
> Queer British Art.
...
> Stuart

Hi Stuart,

Did my off list email on 13 May, offering to help with the Tate event
get through to you? I'm wondering if it got sent to spam.

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Consultation on new draft strategic framework for Wikimedia UK

[Fæ]

Hi Lucy,

Is there an analysis somewhere for the new outcomes in the strategy
and the Objects (M3) in the Articles of Association showing how well
it meets that core?

Increasing access to "UK cultural heritage" seems to be something in
addition to the Objects, as well as the one about "learners". These
are good areas with past projects banked, but by prioritizing these as
measurable outcomes, proposals for projects that might be focused on
say, engaging the elderly rather than educating them, or projects
where the domain of knowledge lies mainly in non-UK cultural heritage
material, such as international politics or international artworks,
would be of a lesser priority.

If the charity is spending its budget on projects in a way that looks
increasingly different to the current Articles of Association, it may
be sensible to consider amending them for a members resolution at the
forthcoming AGM rather than deferring for another year.

Thanks,
Fae

On 11 May 2016 at 14:05, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Dear all
>
> Over the past few months I have been leading the process of reviewing and
> refreshing Wikimedia UK's strategic framework, and developing a new business
> plan for 2016 - 19. The draft strategic framework sets out a new vision for
> the charity and I would love to hear from volunteers, members and other
> stakeholders about whether you support the proposed direction of travel. The
> process so far has involved a board away day in December, a planning session
> with the staff team, and a review of the draft documents at the board
> meeting in March. Community consultation on the strategic framework forms an
> important part of this process and will run until the end of this month.
>
> https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/2016_Strategy_Consultation
>
> The planned outputs from the strategic planning process will be a clear,
> concise strategic framework for the period 2016 to 2019, which outlines our
> vision, mission, values, planned outcomes, strategic goals and objectives
> and major programme strands, plus a three year business plan which puts the
> strategy in context, articulating the external context and drivers, planned
> priorities and programmes for the three year period and internal resources
> including staffing and funding.
>
> When considering the draft strategic framework, I would be particularly keen
> for you to bear these questions in mind - although please don't feel that
> you have to answer all (or indeed any) of them:
>
> 1. Do you agree with the overall strategic framework proposed? If not,
> why/what changes would you like to suggest?
> 2. Is there anything missing?
> 3. How should WMUK prioritise activities?
> 4. How can we work with you on delivering the strategy?
>
> You can respond to this consultation by Monday 30th May 2016 by adding your
> thoughts to the talk page or by sending an email to me on
> lucy.crompton-r...@wikimedia.org.uk.
>
> With best wishes and many thanks
> Lucy
>
>
> --
>
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>
> Chief Executive
>
> Wikimedia UK
>
> +44 (0) 207 065 0991
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Collating/editing information about the benefits of open knowledge

[Fæ]

On 26 February 2016 at 09:41, Charles Matthews
 wrote:
> On 25 February 2016 at 21:47 Michael Maggs  wrote:
> 
>  And as a national charity that aspires to lead in this area we really ought
> to have something that concisely answers the question "why should I release
> my content?"
>
> A flyer, then. Starting from the existing "How to work successfully with
> Wikipedia", strip out the case studies, remove the WiR material, reduce to
> one side of A4. The key points should all be there.
>
> Charles

I would make the flyer generic, it can then be used by other English
speaking organizations and shared on the Outreach wiki rather than
hidden away on the chapter wiki and appearing like proprietary
marketing. WMUK has co-funded many Wikimedian in Residence positions
over the last five years, several have contributed materials and case
studies to the Outreach wiki, contacting them and the current
Wikimedians in Residence directly would get the flier produced on a
good-will basis with no staff support needed. It could even be
declared as an outcome of one of the funded projects, if that is
important.

Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Should all open knowledge advocacy be paid positions?

[Fæ]

Hi Lucy,

Do you have an update on whether UK chapter working groups will be
restricted to volunteers that can pay for membership?

Thanks,
Fae

On 2 December 2015 at 13:53, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Hi Fae
>
> Just to clarify even further(!), the code of conduct you're referring to is
> specifically for non-trustee members of Board Committees, which are
> currently ARC (Audit and Risk Committee) and GovCom (Governance Committee).
> Working groups (and the advocacy group will fall into this category) will be
> much less formal than that and whilst I would obviously hope they would
> primarily be made up of members of WMUK, I'm not actually sure whether this
> would be a specific requirement. I will have to look into this and get back
> to you.
>
> Cheers
> Lucy
>
>
>
> On 2 December 2015 at 13:44, Fæ  wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for the clarification.
>>
>> I look forward to seeing an advocacy group working at the beginning of
>> 2016. Unfortunately as there is a new requirement that to take part in
>> committees you must be a member of WMUK[2], this ensures that I will
>> be unable to contribute.
>>
>> Links:
>> 2. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Committee_Member_Code_of_Conduct/Proposed
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] 15th Birthday Party on Saturday 16th January from 7.30pm

[Fæ]

On 5 January 2016 at 16:44, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
...
> drinks party from 7.30pm on Saturday 16th January at Newspeak House, Bethnal
> Green, to mark the 15th birthday of Wikipedia. This will be a small,
...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
I remember using Newspeak words in school. Interesting to see Orwell's
work still having deliberate resonance with modern political thoughts
of the nature of freedom.

Fae

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Should all open knowledge advocacy be paid positions?

[Fæ]

Thanks for the clarification.

I look forward to seeing an advocacy group working at the beginning of
2016. Unfortunately as there is a new requirement that to take part in
committees you must be a member of WMUK[2], this ensures that I will
be unable to contribute.

Links:
2. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Committee_Member_Code_of_Conduct/Proposed

Thanks,
Fae

On 2 December 2015 at 13:18, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
> Dear Fae
>
> Many thanks for your email and you raise some very valid points. What I
> meant in my message was that strategic responsibility for advocacy would no
> longer form part of the communications role, as we are appointing this at a
> lower level and will no longer have a Head of External Relations. I
> certainly don't mean that I will be taking on or indeed controlling all
> advocacy work, as volunteers are (as you've said) crucial in this. As I
> mentioned, a working group for advocacy is being set up early next year and
> this will be made up of volunteers, although I will be involved in these
> meetings at least initially. Whilst this group is likely to focus on public
> policy, advocacy happens at many different levels and in its widest sense is
> about changing public perceptions and awareness of free and open knowledge -
> in which the role of volunteers as advocates and ambassadors is, of course,
> absolutely vital.
>
> I totally agree that the staff team needs to focus on meaningful programmes
> that have impact!
>
> Best wishes
> Lucy
>
>
>
> On 2 December 2015 at 12:23, Fæ  wrote:
>>
>> Hi Lucy,
>>
>> Just a couple of years ago, when the number of employees in the UK was
>> measured between zero or two, unpaid volunteers like me used to go
>> along and sit in on and give views in parliamentary discussions, meet
>> and share ideas with other unpaid volunteer representatives from
>> advocacy groups such as the Open Knowledge Foundation, Creative
>> Commons etc. This no longer seems to happen, nor does it seem
>> expected. It is still the norm for open knowledge groups apart from
>> WMUK to have unpaid volunteers as their leading advocates and main
>> points of contact.
>>
>> Considering that the FDC has already stated that:[1]
>> A. "The FDC is concerned about very low targets for WMUK’s program work."
>> B. "The FDC believes that WMUK's advocacy work and work on influencing
>> policy towards Open Knowledge in the UK and EU has potential."
>>
>> Would you consider keeping the staff focus firmly on delivering more
>> ambitious outcomes in programme work, and stepping back from
>> controlling advocacy work yourself? You could try approaching or
>> encouraging volunteers, such as the couple of trustees that are seen
>> at wikimeets, to take responsibility to push our advocacy for open
>> knowledge forward and enthuse some of their fellow UK Wikimedians.
>> With volunteers taking an active role, this brings relevance and
>> urgency to our volunteer groups and restores the organization to one
>> where the volunteers are central and leading change, rather than
>> joining projects where employees are the default top of the hierarchy.
>>
>> In terms of meaningful metrics, if hardly any volunteers are
>> interested in finding out more or getting directly involved with
>> suggested political or legislative advocacy even with supporting WMUK
>> employee time, then it seems a poor strategic choice to just proceed
>> with that work regardless.
>>
>> Links:
>> 1.
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1#Wikimedia_UK
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Fae (past trustee and chair for WMUK, no longer a member of WMUK)
>>
>> On 30 November 2015 at 13:00, Lucy Crompton-Reid
>>  wrote:
>> ...
>> > on hold while we were awaiting the FDC's recommendations for our annual
>> > grant from the Wikimedia Foundation; however I'm now hoping to advertise
>> > for
>> > a new Communications Co-ordinator in the new year. This post will be at
>> > a
>> > lower level than Stevie - mainly for financial reasons - and will have a
>> > slightly different emphasis. The advocacy work that Stevie was managing
>> > brilliantly will now be led by me, but will also involve staff from our
>> > programmes team as well as an advocacy working group that is being set
>> > up.
>> ...
>> > Lucy
>> --
>> fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
>>
>> ___
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>> wikimediau...@wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Lucy Crompton-Reid
>
> Chief Executive
>
> Wikimedia UK

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[Wikimediauk-l] Should all open knowledge advocacy be paid positions?

[Fæ]

Hi Lucy,

Just a couple of years ago, when the number of employees in the UK was
measured between zero or two, unpaid volunteers like me used to go
along and sit in on and give views in parliamentary discussions, meet
and share ideas with other unpaid volunteer representatives from
advocacy groups such as the Open Knowledge Foundation, Creative
Commons etc. This no longer seems to happen, nor does it seem
expected. It is still the norm for open knowledge groups apart from
WMUK to have unpaid volunteers as their leading advocates and main
points of contact.

Considering that the FDC has already stated that:[1]
A. "The FDC is concerned about very low targets for WMUK’s program work."
B. "The FDC believes that WMUK's advocacy work and work on influencing
policy towards Open Knowledge in the UK and EU has potential."

Would you consider keeping the staff focus firmly on delivering more
ambitious outcomes in programme work, and stepping back from
controlling advocacy work yourself? You could try approaching or
encouraging volunteers, such as the couple of trustees that are seen
at wikimeets, to take responsibility to push our advocacy for open
knowledge forward and enthuse some of their fellow UK Wikimedians.
With volunteers taking an active role, this brings relevance and
urgency to our volunteer groups and restores the organization to one
where the volunteers are central and leading change, rather than
joining projects where employees are the default top of the hierarchy.

In terms of meaningful metrics, if hardly any volunteers are
interested in finding out more or getting directly involved with
suggested political or legislative advocacy even with supporting WMUK
employee time, then it seems a poor strategic choice to just proceed
with that work regardless.

Links:
1. 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2015-2016_round1#Wikimedia_UK

Thanks,
Fae (past trustee and chair for WMUK, no longer a member of WMUK)

On 30 November 2015 at 13:00, Lucy Crompton-Reid
 wrote:
...
> on hold while we were awaiting the FDC's recommendations for our annual
> grant from the Wikimedia Foundation; however I'm now hoping to advertise for
> a new Communications Co-ordinator in the new year. This post will be at a
> lower level than Stevie - mainly for financial reasons - and will have a
> slightly different emphasis. The advocacy work that Stevie was managing
> brilliantly will now be led by me, but will also involve staff from our
> programmes team as well as an advocacy working group that is being set up.
...
> Lucy
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] 'Romantic London' - reusing Horwood's 1790's map

[Fæ]

Andy, you can find the map on Commons at [1].

It's been a few years since I had a personal, and positive, chat with
the British Library copyright/legal management. I would be happy to
drop in again for a meeting to chat about how better to handle this
project, or others, if they spot me lunch.

If there are any other /obviously/ PD images of immediate interest to
Wikimedians, consider dropping me a private email.

Links:
1. 
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_of_the_Cities_of_London_and_Westminster,_1790s,_R._Horwood.png
2. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/crace/p/zoomify88482.html

Cheers,
Fae

On 27 October 2015 at 13:31, Andy Mabbett  wrote:
> I witnessed a fascinating presentation, this morning, on a project
> which has digitised the first map of London at building level, and
> overlays it with data from other sources:
>
>http://www.romanticlondon.org/
>
> The data sets are freely available, but the British Library claims
> copyright over the map images - I'm sure some of you will have your
> own views about this.
>
> I shall notify the project's creator, Dr Matthew Sangster, about this
> post. He would be a good speaker for a future GLAM conference.
>
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Get Online Week

[Fæ]

On 13 October 2015 at 15:12, leu...@fabiant.eu  wrote:
...
> I think there is what we do and what we imagine we do. Although the 
> propaganda is that editathons are there to develop new editors, in fact they 
> are very poor at this with somewhere around a 5% success level. This is 
> something Wikimedia UK has known for several years, yet we have continued to 
> run these even though they fail at their stated aim.
...
> It is quite clear that if we want to train up editors then what is needed is 
> regular (probably weekly) training events at which people can build their 
> skills, carry out "homework" between sessions and perhaps be given an 
> assessment if they are up for it.

Leutha has some good insights, however I disagree with some the ideas
for action.

When we set up the Wikimedia UK charity (in Andrew Turvey's time), as
trustees we were very clear that the best use of our donated funds was
to keep our focus on the mission. Charities often get side tracked
into setting up activities and internal functions that eat into
funding that could just as easily be done by other charities. If the
current board feel that more should be done for education of new
internet users, then there are other charities that have immense
expertise at using money to deliver these outcomes and to comply with
Charity Commission guidelines for best practice, the money would be
better going to directly fund those charities. If the "Wikimedia"
brand has value, then that brand and some staff time could be lent to
cooperative events with other charities.

I know that Doug and some others have experience in supporting "third
age education" and could advise the board on concrete options and
contacts.

With regard to editathons, I agree that general public editathons are
invariably a poor use of charity funding, but I think narrow and
targeted /events/ have more intended outcomes than 'increasing
editors'. For example the editathons that I used to be part of for
academics, influence University and institution policy and create long
term relationships that have great value. My professional contacts
have proved useful for resolving copyright issues arising from my
million-ish GLAM related uploads to Commons, even though those
individuals may not regularly contribute to Wikimedia projects
themselves; in effect a key measurable outcome was keeping me
interested and contributing at this 'expert' level in ways that they
never would.

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] FAO members of Wikimedia UK...

[Fæ]

Presumably this means paying members of the Wikimedia UK charity were
sent an email, not members of the Wikimedia UK email list.

On 22 September 2015 at 14:01, Richard Symonds
 wrote:
> Good afternoon!
>
> This is a quick note to members of Wikimedia UK - if you use Gmail, check
> your spam folder, as I've just sent an email update about the board out and
> it may have ended up in there.
>
> All the best,
>
>
> Richard Symonds
> Wikimedia UK
> 0207 065 0992

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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Getting back in ...

[Fæ]

On 12 Sep 2015 10:09 pm, "Rod Ward"
...
> I have asked whether it is possible to extract all of the locations in a
county from this list, but, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever
worked out a way to do this.
...

This can be done. On Conmons I have used the Ordnance Survey data set to
return a UK county (or administrative level equivalent) given a
geocoordinate.

Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Lists of public art in UK counties and cities

[Fæ]

On 26 August 2015 at 11:09, Michael Maggs  wrote:
...
> Commons will accept photos of public art provided they do not infringe any
> copyright.  That means in practice that the artwork being photographed must
> either be old enough to be out of copyright, or (if still in copyright) must
> be permanently displayed in a public place.  Pieces which are part of a
> gallery's permanent displays are OK, but those which are part of temporary
> exhibitions are not.
...
> that's very unusual.  Almost all public art images that are deleted from
> Commons fail because it's really obvious that the artwork is part of a
> short-term and temporary display.

Telling volunteers that "on permanent display" is the rule of thumb,
raises expectations that need to be managed. A new contributor who
makes a lot of effort to take high quality photographs of a
permanently located public artwork, would probably be upset at finding
it up for deletion. If someone does run a large volunteer project in
the UK, it would be a useful outcome to add marginal FoP examples that
test the definition to the Commons guidelines as a UK specific
case-book. In practice I would say "on permanent display, probably" is
a better rule of thumb.

I think I have more experience of having uploaded photographs taken to
Commons deletion discussions under Freedom of Panorama than other
readers of this list, and the cases can be difficult for anyone to
interpret. Off the top of my head, examples of past tricky discussions
include:

1. Statues where the artist died fewer than 70 years ago and the
statue has been on permanent display in the Tate for decades, but used
to be in a different location. Hypothetically having been moved could
mean it fails the UK FoP, however it was eventually kept under an
understanding of "intention".

2. Close-up of a public park bandstand, at least 70 years old, but put
up for deletion as it was painted with varied colours. Deleted.

3. Graffiti with graphical elements, many cases, deleted. Even though
graffiti cannot be moved, and the artist means to make a public
statement, it is still considered a non-permanent work.

4. Artwork installation of decaying salt statue. In contradiction to
the way graffiti is handled, this was kept as the intention of the
artist was considered to make a permanent public work, even though its
nature is impermanent.

5. Political graffiti that is text only, many cases, kept. Rather than
under FoP, these can be kept due to low creativity. Fancy
semi-graphical text might still be deleted.

6. Decorative fixed signs, painted gates, decorative posts, again
mixed results. In theory objects like decorative pub signs are not
permanent, however their intent is seen as to be effectively permanent
and are mostly kept. I had a photograph of a painted gate recently
deleted, though probably intended by the artist as permanent this was
considered more mural work and so was deleted (I think speedy
deleted).

7. Fixed advertising, such as painted on walls or decorative
shop-fronts. Billboard advertising fails FoP though confusingly many
examples are kept on Commons as the billboard is not the "focus" of
the image... only older advertising such as one might see on the side
of buildings from the 1950s are invariably kept even though the
ownership/copyright history may not be understood. There are plenty of
more recent examples being both kept and deleted, often the issue of
where to judge that the creative component is not the focus of the
image is critical.

8. Painted statues, this rarely comes up, as most people seem to think
that painted statues are 3D works, however close-ups of painted 3D
objects are often questioned and some are deleted as a graphic work.
Good recent examples are the fibreglass CowParade statues, some
probably becoming fixed public works, many being highly decorated and
hard to justify as being suitable for Commons.

9. Public statues which are on loan or tour. Some quite well known
public artworks are on long term loan, even if weighing several tonnes
and bolted into the ground in public parks. Some end up being moved
around the park in redesigns, and others go on tour to other countries
even though considered as on permanent display. The display history of
a statue is critical if the copyright is questioned, especially for
more recent artists with copyright being of interest to their estates,
such as Barbara Hepworth.

The conclusion is that many Commons administrators have difficulty
judging marginal cases or knowing how to assess the background of a UK
work, such as whether it was a Crown commission, whether the artists'
estate has an interest in protecting copyright, or what to do about
corporate commissions where the company has long since gone out of
trade. An understanding of the UK context which might be overlooked by
some regular non-UK based deletion discussion participants can often
prove critical (e.g. what Crown Copyright, WAAC or the London County
Council are about).

In practice w

[Wikimediauk-l] Sharing a million photographs

[Fæ]

A Wikimedia blog post highlighting and celebrating some of my batch
upload projects over the last 3 years has been posted at
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/08/10/sharing-a-million-photographs.
For Commons to work it's always a collegiate effort. and I know many
long term UK based volunteers have helped with categorizing and
reusing these projects. Thanks everyone!

Please retweet! It's nice to have a good news story about Wikimedia
Commons doing the rounds.
https://twitter.com/Faewik/status/630676649042964480

P.S. there's a minor amendment requested with the blog team. The
original wording is at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Drafts/Sharing_a_million_photographs.

Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] ODNB missing women in focus

[Fæ]

Hi Magnus,

> It appears that at least some of the women on your list are not women.
> Example from your list:
>
> # {{User:Rich Farmbrough/ODNB entry|image=1|known for=army medical officer
> and transvestite|born=c.1799|died=1865|forenames=James |surname=Barry}}
>
> "transvestite" does, AFAIK, not qualify as "woman"; even if so, it would be
> more a transgender case?

If there are cases that are 'disputable', it may be an idea to take a
list to the LGBT noticeboard for confirmation. In the case of James
Barry, she lived as a man but was born a woman. As this is a
historical case, today's terminology (such as 'transgender') does not
fit well, but certainly Barry can be accurately identified as a woman
and is regularly quoted as having notability for being the first
British woman doctor, albeit by deception during her life time.

Fae
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[Wikimediauk-l] UK positions on the proposed harmonization of Freedom of Panorama in Europe

[Fæ]

For those interested in this proposed EU copyright change, and with
access to the BBC IPlayer (it may only work in the UK), I suggest
reviewing today's Daily Politics show.[1] The position of the Labour
party MEP (Mary Honeyball) is to support new restrictions on Freedom
of Panorama (she gives a good 2 minute explanation of why the proposed
amendment is a great thing), while the UKIP Culture Spokesman (Peter
Whittle) is set against.

The arguments on both sides are reasoned but slightly confused, with
some errors creeping in. However these sound-bite cases for both sides
are worth thinking through if attempting to provide MEPs with lobbying
comments or better case studies and briefing material.[2] I'm
surprised to see a Labour politician arguing to damage the UK's
current Freedom of Panorama, it feels like a future vote loser to me,
especially in the light of the ever looming UK referendum on whether
to stay in the EU.[3]

Links
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060kp1r  - go to 52 minutes into
the programme, available on-line for a month from broadcast.
2. http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps.html - contact details for
UK MEPs, Honeyball can be found under London.
3. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32810887

Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Deadline for Members' Resolutions

[Fæ]

Catching up on this discussion, but reading through the emails on this
community list, nobody has referred to the 12 June members "advance
warning" email (marked as "done" on the chapter wiki[1]). This is
different to the "notice of AGM" which is due to be emailed to all
members on 1 July.

Did the advance warning email happen? Presumably it contains the AGM
details and was the advice of the 26 June deadline for member
resolutions which Doug flagged in this thread (but not all members of
course).

Links:
1. https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/2015_Annual_General_Meeting/planning

Thanks
Fae

On 19 June 2015 at 16:12, rexx  wrote:
> The deadline for members' resolutions for this year's AGM is just a week
> away on 26 June.
>
> See https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/2015_Annual_General_Meeting/planning
>
> It's generally a healthy sign when our AGM contains debate on issues of
> interest and concern to members - and who better to raise those issues than
> members themselves?
>
> Proposing or seconding an ordinary resolution is not a difficult process and
> I'd expect that the office will be helpful if anyone needs help with the
> formalities.
>
> AGMs can sometimes find themselves devoting sessions to merely fulfilling
> formalities, and the session reserved for debating members' resolutions has
> the potential to make the AGM more interesting for many.
>
> Looking forward to seeing lots of you on 25 July.
>
> --
> Rexx
>
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Wikimeet survey

[Fæ]

After having been discussed with many non-pub suggestions raised in
the past few years, I'd really like to see this change. I hope the
survey supports that viewpoint.

People have many reasons for not wanting to meet in pubs, not just
religious. I've been teetotal for the last 15 years, and after sadly
supporting two relatives who eventually died from medical conditions
made much worse by never giving up drinking alcohol, I really don't
want to be part of encouraging others to have the same lifestyle. I
have never liked being near people affected by booze, they spook me a
little due to being unpredictable. I guess many who are not big butch
men like me, find the environment intimidating even on a quiet day or
in a quiet pub.

Call closing time on this tradition, we know better.

Fae

On 15 May 2015 at 12:31, Gordon Joly  wrote:
>
>> Of course, it’s not mandatory to drink while in a pub. ;)
>>
>> Joe
>>
>> --
>> *Joe Sutherland*
>> http://jossu.co.uk
>
> Yes, but I had a birthday party in a pub and a Muslim friend refused to
> join us.
>
> Gordo
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Moderation of Fae

[Fæ]

Ping.

My email mentioned below has now been sitting on moderation for 18
days and 9 days has passed since Mike forwarded my requested that the
moderation of my email to this list is removed or an explanation as to
why it is necessary for my account to have an effective ban. My
orginal request email was not posted.

After a year I have no examples of anything I wrote to this list as a
rationale that I can respond to or improve against. It is self evident
that list moderation is not working as one would expect.

Fae

On 24 May 2015 at 14:38, Fæ  wrote:
> It has now been over a year that my email address was put on
> moderation (perhaps someone would like to provide a date, I have not
> trawled the archives). In the absence of any appeal process, I ask
> that this is lifted.
>
> My most recent email to this list has yet to be posted, it has been
> waiting for 9 days. Waiting for several days or over a week is now the
> norm for my rare posts to list. Though not one of my emails has ever
> been rejected from publication, this effectively makes communication
> impossible and amounts to an effective ban after being black-balled.
>
> Based on timing, I was put on moderation apparently due to Russavia's
> incivil posts to Wikimedia-l, not because of any email I have ever
> posted to this list that anyone can provide a link to, nor for any
> reason of incivility on my part. If I am to remain forever on
> moderation I ask that a clear rationale be given so that I can change
> the wording I use in emails to met whatever the list moderators
> believe is needed. At the current time I am completely in the dark as
> nobody will discuss this with me or provide examples.
>
> Thanks,
> Fae
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[Wikimediauk-l] Moderation of Fae

[Fæ]

It has now been over a year that my email address was put on
moderation (perhaps someone would like to provide a date, I have not
trawled the archives). In the absence of any appeal process, I ask
that this is lifted.

My most recent email to this list has yet to be posted, it has been
waiting for 9 days. Waiting for several days or over a week is now the
norm for my rare posts to list. Though not one of my emails has ever
been rejected from publication, this effectively makes communication
impossible and amounts to an effective ban after being black-balled.

Based on timing, I was put on moderation apparently due to Russavia's
incivil posts to Wikimedia-l, not because of any email I have ever
posted to this list that anyone can provide a link to, nor for any
reason of incivility on my part. If I am to remain forever on
moderation I ask that a clear rationale be given so that I can change
the wording I use in emails to met whatever the list moderators
believe is needed. At the current time I am completely in the dark as
nobody will discuss this with me or provide examples.

Thanks,
Fae
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Redundancies at WMUK

[Fæ]

RF, this only applies to large scale redundancies in larger organizations
than WMUK.

PS due to moderation, this email may be posted to the list a long time
after it posted date.

Fae
On 7 May 2015 16:22, "Richard Farmbrough"  wrote:

> The need for a consultation period (with staff) mean that nothing can be
> pre-announced.  If it were, then the consultation would be meaningless, on
> its face.
>
> On 6 May 2015 at 20:50, Gordon Joly  wrote:
>
>> On 2015-05-06 12:54, Andy Mabbett wrote:
>>
>>> Two individuals who work for WikimediaUK have mentioned in recent
>>> days, in emails, that they have been made redundant. There may, I
>>> suppose, be others.
>>>
>>> I have seen no announcements from WMUK, to keep its members abreast of
>>> these developments, or to explain their implications; have I missed
>>> one?
>>>
>>
>>
>> Andy,
>>
>> Please keep us updated? You seem to be in the know,
>>
>> Gordo
>>
>>
>>
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>> WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Landline (UK) 01780 757 250
> Mobile (UK) 0798 1995 792
>
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>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Advice re wp workshop - COI, BLP & ? Paid editing

[Fæ]

I have supported many editathons and advised many academics on COI.
Most academics are keen to edit openly, using their real identity,
some have expressed the view that this is how to behave ethically on
the internet. If they are likely to be a long term contributor, I
strongly advise them to be pragmatic and use an anonymous account. If
they make early blunders, or have a long break from editing, they can
even throw away the account and have a clean start. This leaves them
free to be frankly judged for NPOV as any other editor, without
colouring their contributions by a preemptive COI statement.

Academics are always going to want to edit in their field of research
and contribute to articles about their projects, past projects and
colleagues. Though we want expert editors[1] there is always a risk
that they will be pestered by a wiki-gnome for adding a reference to a
work they were part of editing, or contributed a paper to. I have seen
articles languish as drafts for months because an expert in this
situation was worried about being publicly challenged by COI claims,
and so asked for others independently to review and make the go-live
decision.

A well run workshop will emphasize what COI is, and how difficult it
is to write neutrally. Given that, I have almost always been impressed
by how academics wanting to "tart up" their topic on Wikipedia are
able to perfectly well stick to sources and write in a neutral style
(I cannot say the same for undergrads!).

* Key tip: Wikipedia is not academia.net or similar, so
university/college profiles are almost never suitable to be "cut &
paste" as stub biography articles. It is worth walking through
creating a stub BLP as an early example in any academic editathon.

Links
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors

P.S. the date this email is posted to wikimediauk-l may be several
days after being sent.

On 16 April 2015 at 09:58, Charles Matthews
 wrote:
> As has been implied, the COI guideline is nuanced, and so the best advice is
> to keep on the safe side. The terms of use of the site in respect of paid
> editing are, on the other hand, clear cut. The former relates to intention,
> the latter to factual matters that are easier to discuss.
>
> I would approach the topic from the direction of paid editing, making the
> point however that COI need not arise from a financial interest.
>
> Charles
>
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Re: [Wikimediauk-l] WMUK update, 24 March 2015

[Fæ]

In the draft accounts, it is not possible to discover how much has
been spent on staff or admin (such as rent costs for the London
offices). It looks like they may have been spread out under
"programme" and "project" line items.

In comparison in the draft budget for the coming year, "Admin and
fundraising" is a nicely intuitive line item and at over 300,000
pounds for "contracted+necessary", the largest item in the budget
(significantly larger than the "project" budget). Presumably this
indicates that the largest true expense in the last year was staff
costs, so it would be disappointing to avoid showing this more clearly
in the final accounts using natural language, rather than using oddly
different definitions for normal English words between the budget and
the annual report.

I look forward to the final version where hopefully the breakdown of
where the money was spent (and the cause of the declared overspend)
will be more obvious to the casual reader and potential donor/funding
body.

Fae

On 24 March 2015 at 13:14, Michael Maggs  wrote:
> Draft annual accounts for the 2014-15 financial year
>
> Today we are releasing our draft annual accounts for the 2014-15 financial
> year, ending 31st January 2015 [1]. The contents of these accounts have been
> a matter of significant concern for the Board, and we are making this
> statement to provide some context and to set out the steps we have taken.
>
> In December 2013 the board approved a budget for 2014-15 based on expected
> income of £623,000. Net income over the period was in line with expectations
> but expenditure on Wikimania and other projects was not well controlled
> during the latter part of last year, and we are facing a projected deficit
> of £192,000 as against our original budgeted deficit of £32,000.
>
> While Wikimania 2014 was an international success, for which volunteers, the
> Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK can all take some credit, the
> experience was challenging for us as the local chapter. Although we were not
> running the conference, we were providing significant staff and logistical
> support, and we did so too enthusiastically given that not all of our
> expenses were recoverable. Overall, and after allowing for a one-off
> Foundation grant of £65,000 to cover our international support, we overspent
> by around £45,000.
>
> Our Wikimedians in Residence programme gained real traction over the year
> with demand significantly outstripping available funds, resulting in an
> overspend of £49,000. Much of this arose from agreements made with several
> high-profile organisations late last year which could not have been deferred
> without significant reputational damage to the charity. The board had hoped
> that these costs could have been delayed until February, when they would
> have fallen into the 2015-16 financial year, but have been advised that that
> is not possible.
>
> There were smaller overspends on a variety of other project areas as well.
>
> Finally, we had an off-budget net expense of £57,000 during the year,
> representing the Chief Executive transition.
>
> These disappointing overspends in 2014-15 have left us with reserves of only
> £165,000, which is below the £200,000 level that the board considers to be
> the acceptable minimum for a charity of our size.
>
>
> Action to restore stability
>
> Immediately that the charity's overspends became clear, shortly before the
> December 2014 board meeting, the interim CEO, supported by the board,
> introduced a moratorium on further non-essential expenditure until a 2015-16
> budget could be prepared. In order to allow time for the interim CEO to
> review activity the second volunteer strategy day as well as a number of
> other projected programme activities were postponed.
>
>
> Draft budget and plans for 2015-16
>
> We are also today releasing our draft budget for 2015-16 [2]. This is
> subject to amendment, particularly on staff costs.
>
> The funds we have available to spend on charitable programmes will be
> significantly lower than in 2014-15. There are three main factors:
>
> To ensure charity stability it is crucial that we increase our reserves to
> the minimum level of around £200,000. The board has set a core budget for
> this year which is break-even or better.
>
> Our grant from the Wikimedia Foundation has been reduced from £353,000 to
> £314,000.
>
> For the moment at least the board does not consider it prudent to set a
> budget that assumes in advance that the charity will be able to obtain
> significant project-based or corporate funding, nor that direct debit income
> can be rapidly increased.
>
> The combined effect of these factors is that the board has to take decisive
> and fairly radical action to ensure that we can work effectively within our
> smaller core budget of £570,000 (a full £242,000 below the amount indicated
> as WMUK's projected budget in the FDC bid of October 2014).
>
> To ensure greater clarity and transparency for the future, 

[Wikimediauk-l] List participation

[Fæ]

I thought it would be interesting to share a summary I just pulled
from the database of how many posts per month the WikimediaUK list had
over the last 3 years. In this period the average numbers have
declined and now they are at 30% or possibly 20% of what they were in
2012.

289 - Jan 2012
112 - Feb 2012
220 - Mar 2012
293 - Apr 2012
323 - May 2012
319 - Jun 2012
372 - Jul 2012
293 - Aug 2012
312 - Sep 2012
302 - Oct 2012
273 - Nov 2012
 47 - Dec 2012
169 - Jan 2013
255 - Feb 2013
167 - Mar 2013
144 - Apr 2013
101 - May 2013
108 - Jun 2013
 53 - Jul 2013
 91 - Aug 2013
117 - Sep 2013
118 - Oct 2013
138 - Nov 2013
 82 - Dec 2013
134 - Jan 2014
123 - Feb 2014
166 - Mar 2014
183 - Apr 2014
 88 - May 2014
 81 - Jun 2014
119 - Jul 2014
 92 - Aug 2014
 69 - Sep 2014
 43 - Oct 2014
 98 - Nov 2014
 38 - Dec 2014
 64 - Jan 2015

It's the sort of community measurement that might be a good input to a
strategy discussion at some point.

Fae
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