Talk:Groups

Communications channels: can we do better?

The MediaWiki community has traditionally resolved this with a combination mailing lists, IRC channels and blog posts, lately with some social media spice. This falls in the old good tradition of open source projects.

However, can we do better in 2013?

Is there anything experimental in the MediaWiki / Wikimedia communities or established elsewhere that we could benefit from?--Qgil (talk) 00:02, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Too generic term?

• "MediaWiki group" is perhaps too generic a term? I first thought of permissions users groups. "MediaWiki developers [group] in Germany" is quite clear, others like LUG use "user group".--Nemo 06:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Simplicity is fine. "MediaWiki Groups" defines a scope and gives all the flexibility. Isn't "MediaWiki developers" too narrowed? What about all the other technical profiles, not developers? "MediaWiki users" is even more confusing since the first meaning it brings is admins or even pure users of MediaWiki based websites.--Qgil (talk) 07:07, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Certainly not narrower that the group for lua; I thought you wanted many different sets. I said "MediaWiki user group", not just "users"; it seems to be used by all others. However, this is the smallest point. --Nemo 07:12, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
      • "MediaWiki Groups" is the generic name proposed for this whole exercise. "MediaWiki Lua Group" is an example of a potential group using the name schema proposed.--Qgil (talk) 18:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

How does all this interact with the AffCom?

• How does all this interact with the AffCom? --Nemo 06:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • No idea - yet. I want to reach a certain consensus within the MediaWiki community before bothering them. Hopefully we can get a light process Wikimedia compliant. Note that, as opposed to chapters or the proposed thematic organizations, MediaWiki groups don't need to be legal entities. Just a bunch of people in a mailing list could be enough. As starters, I have asked for review and advice to some colleagues at the WMF Legal and Community Advocacy team.--Qgil (talk) 19:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • After a short dialog with the AffCom we have decided to integrate as much as possible with Wikimedia User Groups and the processes they have there. We could say that a MediaWiki Group = WUG + MW extension.  :) Such extension is described at User:Qgil/MediaWiki_groups#Creating_a_group.--Qgil (talk) 23:04, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

"WikiMedia Germany" a fictional example??!

• "WikiMedia Germany" a fictional example??! --Nemo 06:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
  • I meant MediaWiki Germany Group. Fixed. Thanks!--Qgil (talk) 07:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Ah! Still, m:Talk:Wikimedia_Thematic_Organizations#Thoughts_regarding_the_naming_of_thematic_organizations.
      • The main advice in that page is to "consider adopting uniquely descriptive names and avoid incorporating the “Wikimedia” name as a universal appellation to describe their organization". "MediaWiki Lua Group" would fit perfectly within this requirement. Do you have other specific concerns mentioned in that (long) page?--Qgil (talk) 19:01, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
        • I don't have concerns, only doubts. That's a talk page, so nothing definite there; I just don't understand if MediaWiki will follow the same guidelines/process/whatever as all Wikimedia projects or not. Names like "Editors on Wikisource for Natural Sciences" are suggested there, rather than "Wikisource Italy"; and "MediaWiki Germany" would be a very "exclusive" name for instance. --Nemo 19:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
          • Why would MediaWiki Germany Group as a name be exclusive? If there is something exclusive is this requirement proposed for creating new groups: "No overlapping with existing groups. Small overlapping agreed with the affected group(s) is ok too."--Qgil (talk) 21:18, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

How different is this from the other existing models?

How different is this from the other existing models? For instance, "Ubuntu user groups" and similar work well in Germany with some peculiarities but don't exist at all in Italy. --Nemo 06:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I guess an essay could be written about this, but why? What is your specific concern? :) The proposal is explicitly open and flexible. As you suggest, no formula works equally well worldwide. At the end we just want to establish a network connected to the Wikimedia Foundation and the MediaWiki maintainers, leaving to each node freedom to expand in the ways they prefer. fwiw Ubuntu has LoCo teams, and there is one in Italy. No idea about how well are they doing. Then again Ubuntu LoCo teams can be formed by pure users, while in our case software development is the basis. Not exactly the same.--Qgil (talk) 19:20, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Why groups and not only individual "reps"?

Why groups and not only individual "reps"? How many cases of a big concentration of suitable people willing to associate do we have? --Nemo 06:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Aren't groups a natural consequence wherever you have more than one individual? It is expected to have more than one MediaWiki contributor interested in a certain topic or a certain region, yes. If you want to grow the interest around an area or a topic, having a group identity will help you reaching to others and introducing yourselves to other communities.--Qgil (talk) 19:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Relationship with Chapters?

How do the country groups relate to the foundation chapters? Don't chapters currently do things like organize events in their country? Would there be folks in the MediaWiki Germany Group that wouldn't be in Wikimedia Deutschland or vice versa? --Cneubauer (talk) 15:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Hopefully they can relate in many productive ways  :) I don't see the need in predefining a rule written in wikiStone? We should rather pay attention whenever requests for new MediaWiki groups arise whenever Wikimedia chapters already exist. Encourage existing chapters to create their MediaWiki groups. Encourage new MW group proposals to sync with their closest chapters. Some chapters are technical savvy, some not so much. In any case it will be useful for the people with a technical interest to have a place to discuss, with, under, aside or without a chapter. Note also that the motivations of MediaWiki groups members might and might not be related to Wikimedia per se. If a MW group somewhere happens to be filled basically with MW admins running their own, non-Wikimedia related sites this is also fine.--Qgil (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

After discussing with the Affiliations Committee we have agreed that MediaWiki Groups will be essentially Wikimedia User Groups with a MW flavor. See the changes in the page. This way the relationship with the chapters will be exactly the same as with the rest of WUGs. We are just starting with these groups (the WUGs are also new, so we will see how they relate to chapters in practical cases. The cookbook is still to be written.--Qgil (talk) 23:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I like the last "really local" change a lot. Except very special and active cases which I don't see in the real world yet, state-level MediaWiki activities fit very well/better with chapters. Any subset of chapter members can join for common activities on any topic, MediaWiki included, without big hassles, and then the chapter typically formalises them as committees or whatever and/or authorises public-facing activities in the name of the chapter if/as needed. --Nemo 12:00, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki reps

Moved to User:Qgil/MediaWiki Reps.

Deprecating MediaWiki WikiProjects

I just discovered Category:MediaWiki.org WikiProjects. WikiProjects are a Wikipedia specific activity focusing on improving content areas. In the context of MediaWiki is a bit fishy, since the point is more to get people together around a topic than simply edit pages. I understand why this formula was used at the time but now MediaWiki Groups offer a better framework. Are these WikiProjects active? If so, a transition to Groups could e considered. If not, then we could consider them resting for good and whenever someone decides to restart one area we could help them doing it as a MediaWiki Group.--Qgil (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

MediaWik (sic, as shown below the flower, is truncated: wider column needed)

The left column must be wider to avoid truncation

MediaWik

Using

Mozilla Firefox 16.0.2 for Ubuntu canonical - 1.0

70.25.0.60 15:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Are you referring to the mediawiki.org template? What resolution are you using? I also have Firefox for Ubuntu, no problem here. In any case this is a bit off-topic here. If you think there is a bug the best place to report it is http://bugzilla.mediawiki.org . Thank you!--Qgil (talk) 18:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

User Groups across WM and MW

It would be nice to connect this idea to the general Wikimedia User Group concept. See m:User Groups. Sj (talk) 00:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

It is already connected: MediaWiki Groups are just a specific type of Wikimedia User Groups. They have common requirements and creation process. It is explained in Groups: "They are Wikimedia User Groups that agree on a level of coordination in the MediaWiki context" and more references at Groups/Proposals.--Qgil (talk) 16:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, super. The process of forming different sorts of user groups could be more clearly connected! I found this page through a discussion by AffCom which wasn't aware of that connection. Maybe we could use a unified page that lists all groups of any flavors on meta? If cross-wiki transcludes were working we could directly include a few different lists ;) Happy holidays, Sj (talk) 19:24, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

AffCom has been involved in the definition of MediaWiki Groups and in fact I am now subscribed to their list in order to help processing MediaWiki group proposals. We are in contact on a daily basis. meta:Wikimedia User Groups has all the groups approved and under discussion, including he MediaWiki ones. Here we have some more proposals that are being fine tuned by the MediaWiki community before being submitted to the AffCom. There is surely room for improvement, and in fact I'm still editing these pages regularly as we go trough the process for the first time. Your edits are welcome.  :) --Qgil (talk) 19:41, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Glad that's cleared up! Or that at least my understanding of it is :) Glad to see this development and all of your posts on the matter recently. Now we just need to organize a MW group in Boston.... Sj (talk) 08:29, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes! MediaWiki Group San Francisco is on its way to become an accepted group. Now Boston (and NY) should start in the East Coast and from there... :) Let me know if I can be of any help.--Qgil (talk) 16:46, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Categories?

Why this page without categories? Maybe Category:MediaWiki Communication?--Kaganer (talk) 19:00, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm still learning about the categories in mediawiki.org. You have more experience. But clearly all groups pages should have a Groups category, now that ylou mention it.--Qgil (talk) 19:15, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I still added this. In my opinion, future Category:Groups should be created as subcategory for

1. Category:MediaWiki Communication
2. Category:MediaWiki.org users

All pages for group proposals may be uncategorising (as they are listed in the table) or should be categorizing into Category:Groups proposals over single template (some unified "proposal header"). --Kaganer (talk) 21:36, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The logo

• 
  (0) Hackathon Logo Shiny (Dec. 2011)
• 
  (1) Shiny logo for Groups
• 
  (2) Current MW logo
• 
  (3) Mediawiki logo reworked
• 
  (4) Proposed MW Groups logo shiny (combined #1 and #3)
• 
  (5) Also used in the past.
• 
  (6) Also used in the past.
• 
  (7) Proposed MW Groups logo gear (combined #6 and #3)
• 
  (8) Combining the MediaWiki sunflower with the Wikimedia community circle.
• 
  (9) #8 with group label.

The more I look at the logo we have at the Groups page the less I feel we need to throw yet another logo to the Wikimedia logo soup. Maybe media:MediaWiki logo reworked 2.svg with "MediaWiki Groups" would suffice? And then each group could have the same logo just changing the text for "MediaWiki Group Something". Opinions?--Qgil (talk) 20:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Maybe this? --Kaganer (talk) 16:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Discussing logos is better done... with logos.  :) In terms of pure design I think the problem is that the flat sunflower and the glossy hexagons are difficult to mix. In terms of concepts, I like more your version than the current one and I was tempted to change it as a stepping stone toward somewhere... but I keep thinking that the hexagons are yet another element in the messy soup of Wikimedia identity elements. Given the choice I prefer not to contribute to more diversity. May we should simply go for [[media::Sunflower from Mediawiki logo reworked 2.png|the flower alone]] plus the name of the group?--Qgil (talk) 21:08, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It was just an idea. If "MW Groups" is part of "WM Groups", I think it is right to include a reference to their identity. Conceptually - sunflower as a reference to MW, and three of the hexagon as a reference to "WM Groups" ideology (with the inclusion of Wikimedia color identity, or without this). Using reworked MW logo "as is" - bad way, in my opinion: this logo should not compete with the main logo and the inscription in this case is insufficient to ensure the visual difference. --Kaganer (talk) 07:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

But Wikimedia User Groups have no logo. These hexagons come from the Berlin Hackathon 2011 and have been recycled in SF and Bangalore hackathons in 2012. Maybe the solution is simply not having a logo (until one is really needed)? :)--Qgil (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I still think that media:MediaWiki logo reworked 2.svg with the name of the group underneath could work e.g. "MediaWiki San Francisco", "MediaWiki Promotion". We would save the "Group" word to avoid having more surface/attention for text than for the flower. They are official MediaWiki groups so I don't see why they can't use the MediWiki logo. (Although if we agree with the idea I will check with the WMF for an explicit authorization)--Qgil (talk) 21:38, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

See another combined version (#7). --Kaganer (talk) 15:06, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

<3 #9. As an advantage would also work well in monochrome prints! Yuvipanda (talk) 07:37, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Intro session in Berlin

Quim will give an intro to MediaWiki groups in Berlin next Monday (February 4th). It starts at 18:30 at Wikimedia Deutschland's office (Obentrautstr. 72) and we'll then move on to a restaurant after the talk and discussion for some nice food and drinks. It'd be lovely to see many of you there. If you are going to attend please let me know so we can plan accordingly here. It'll be a fun evening. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 12:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to simplify Groups altogether

Hi, we have learned a lot about Wikimedia User Groups in the past months - and certainly I have also learned about MediaWiki Groups and how they can better fit in the Wikimedia movement. I have started drafting a proposal to attract technical contributors and get them involved. The proposal touches different areas and one of them is groups: User:Qgil/Contributors#Groups.

If we can implement all the pieces, a group would be even simpler to create than a WikiProject: just by having users declaring in their profiles an interest in a topic, a location, a language... Then they will have the basic tools to communicate and get organized. This probably would cover most or all of the needs of Ahmedabad, Surakarta, Ciudad de México... Bug Squad, Features testing and etc.

Then the door would still be open for any "informal" group interested in becoming additionally an official WUG. In fact all the "informal" activity will probably help them (and help you) going through the approval process. But it's not worth to keep this official recognition as a first step. It seems to scare some people away while raising suspicions from others. Then those who try need to go through a process that looks (and probably is) simple but in practice we are seeing that has potential for collateral complications.

Your feedback is welcome.--Qgil (talk) 20:17, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Special Interest Groups

Now that we have Special Interest Groups, and now that Wikimedia User Groups are more than consolidated, perhaps we can get rid of this hybrid model? Ping @Quiddity (WMF): .--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:36, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: IIUC, you're suggesting that we:

• Convert this outdated project page into a simple disambiguation page that points to: m:Wikimedia user groups (plus MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group and Project:MediaWiki Farmers user group), and Special Interest Groups
• Tag pages like Groups/San Francisco and Groups/Proposals and Groups/Wikimedia support as {historical}

If not that, then what? (I'm mainly hoping we can cut down on duplication/content-forking, whatever actions that may involve.) Thanks :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, cut down on duplication/content-forking in my main motivation as well.--Qgil-WMF (talk) 08:18, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@Qgil-WMF: , @Quiddity (WMF): I took the liberty to dismantle Groups by throwing the "historical" template on its pages, after a few too many edits and realizing the bigger picture rather late (the last Group proposal on wikitech-l was in 2015). As part of this I also deleted unhelpful Mailing lists/Regional listing a single item while there is maintained information on meta. (My original idea a few hours ago was cleaning up Communication before I fell into this deep rabbit hole.) --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 20 November 2021 (UTC)