Meeting:IRC (2008 December 7)

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Minutes (DRAFT)

Meeting Opened: 2008-12-07, 3.00pm AEDST

Meeting Location: irc.freenode.net - #wikimedia-au

Meeting Closed: 2008-12-07, 5.33pm AEDST

  • Chair: Brianna Laugher
  • Minutes: Craig Franklin (drafted)

MEMBERSHIPS:

We have had 39 people apply for membership so far, roughly ten of whom are yet to pay their dues. Most members have paid the full amount, only a small number have taken advantage of the concession membership.

CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP:

It was established that there was no provision currently for corporate membership, and not for corporate sponsorship. It was agreed that developing a policy concerning sponsorship (as opposed to membership) was probably something we should get to quickly, but that discussion on that should take place on the mailing list or at a later date.

UPDATE ON WEBSITE:

It was confirmed that all members of the chapter should have editing rights on the chapter wiki. Accounts seem to be manually moderated (?). You can apply at the following URL: http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Accounts

MEMBERS LIST POLICY:

There were some concerns about the contents of the members list being available. It was established that it is required by law for this list to be available, however in order to see the list, you would have to actually apply in person to the secretary. It is not possible to get a digital copy of the members list. It was agreed that the chance of the information being leaked was minimal, and it was commented on that anyone concerned about the potential for the information to be misused is not being forced to join the chapter. It was agreed that as most WM-au events are/will be open to all anyway, this should not stop people concerned about their privacy from working with the chapter and helping out.

AGM:

Fourteen days notice is required for the AGM. It was agreed that getting it done before Christmas was unrealistic, January 11 was thrown about as a date that everyone seemed to agree to. It was agreed that this date would need to be approved by the committee before being "official", and that the discussion we had was not in any way binding.

There was discussion about what voting system to use for the ctte positions, whether it should be anonymous voting or open voting, and how it should be conducted. It was suggested that it should be done through the memberdb system, with the results of that election to be confirmed by a vote at the AGM itself, but nothing solid was agreed upon. Various discussions ensued on what the best locations in various cities would be, and the best way to run the meeting (I think it was more or less agreed that the way we did last time, with a party line/conference call and small meetings at each city, was the way to go).

CC BOOKLET:

There was discussion on the CC booklet (see Brianna's recent email thread to this list entitled "Announcement - publication with CCau"). Various titles were discussed, although we couldn't come up with something great. Editors who want to work on this project are encouraged to visit http://wikimedia.org.au/wiki/Participatory_Culture_Primer and indicate which sections they'd be interested in writing, or if they do not yet have an account there, contact Brianna to express an interest in whatever page/s they want to do.

ABS STATISTICS:

There was a brief discussion about the recent decision by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to release "a majority" of their material under a CC licence. We had a discussion about how this could be used to improve our own coverage of subjects, and how we could use this decision to help persuade other government entities to similarly release material under an open licence. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Australian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#Australian_stats.2C_soon_to_be_CC , for those who do not know what I am talking about.

EDUCATION VISITS:

After a long discussion, a general approach of having one person appointed in each state/region to approach the relevant education department to explain what WM-au is, what we do, and that we are happy to offer talks or whatever to teachers, was agreed upon. A lengthy discussion about the legal requirements in each state for working with children, as well as the difference between each state education department, ensued. It was more or less agreed by consensus that we should concentrate our attention upon educating teachers, rather than teaching students directly.

MINI-WIKI-CONF:

We talked about holding a small mini-Wiki conference. Those present seemed to agree that rotating it around multiple cities (rather than holding it in Sydney/Melbourne) every year was a good idea, Canberra was suggested as a good place to have the first such event, due to its central location, availability of venues, and dedicated editor community.

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