Meetings/July 24, 2004

On Saturday 24 July 2004, there was a meeting on the wikimedia IRC channel regarding the Wikimedia Foundation website. See also on meta.

Meeting outcomes
Below is a summary of the outcomes of the meeting. The full transcript is available on Meta along with an unofficial summarised log and the meeting agenda.


 * For now, http://wikimedia.org has no content and we do not own the .com, so it will redirect to http://wikimediafoundation.org until both these things change, at which point the discussion can be re-opened. Discussions at that time will be whether we have two sites, and whether it is at wikimedia.org, wikimediafoundation.org or foundation.wikimedia.org.
 * The domain wikimedia-foundation.org will be registered.
 * We should try to get the wikimedia.com domain.
 * The Foundation wiki will be separate from Meta.
 * Allowing HTML would require development work, which Brion did during the meeting and checked in to CVS head the next morning.
 * The foundation site should look different from meta.
 * The current page-export system is quite crude but could be reworked if wanted
 * The skin could be changed to not look like a wiki. Brion volunteered to make this.
 * HTML will be used only where necessary
 * There will be one site (no subdomains)
 * Internationalization (different interfaces for different languages) is a high priority (bounties suggested – see later). Templates will be used until then.
 * We can have interlanguage links on the same domain (possibly namespace conflicts)
 * The board will pick trusted translators (more than one for each language), possibly using some sort of RfA style selection process.
 * No pages will be marked official or unofficial as only people approved by the board can edit.
 * Sj promised to write something up about managing translations.
 * Access will be restricted since the site will allow for full HTML.
 * Could HTML be restricted to certain pages?
 * The site will not be translated into Klingon! We will aim for around 12 languages
 * Could we have draft pages not viewable by the public?
 * Could we allow some people to edit but not create pages?
 * High importance pages will be protected, with much more restricted access
 * If talk pages are hidden from view, and we could allow anons to edit there without editing the rest of the site, we could use normal talk pages for comments. If that isn't possible, we could direct them to a single comments page on Meta, or use a bulletin board (problematic as harder to clean up). Talk pages also need to have HTML disabled if this is going to be allowed.
 * Email confirmation will not be necessary.
 * People will be able to create accounts so they can change their skin, but not able to edit before the board approves them. (Is this technically possible?)
 * Talk pages should be hidden from search engines.
 * Are per namespace permissions possible?
 * There will be links explaining how to contact us privately.
 * The design of the site was not discussed in detail. It was decided there would be a design contest. This would be held within a short period (not 3 months).
 * We could use the award money for bounties or users could donate money specifically for bounties
 * Alternatives to bounties discussed were working for an hourly rate, thank you bonuses afterwards, paying external people
 * There may be tax and contract issues involved with bounties. Need to check with an accountant
 * Problems with bounties include decreased willingness to work for free, discourages cooperation, takes developers away from improving site performance or working on what they want to work on.
 * If bounties were used, the development committee could decide the amount, perhaps up to a maximum amount set by the board
 * Anthere will poll developers (privately) and editors (publicly) on their views of bounties
 * A clearer list of prioritized feature requests will be put together

Action points for the board: register wikimedia-foundation.org, contact owner of wikimedia.com, set up a design contest, create multi-language templates until Internationalization occurs, get some translators, protect the most important pages, give accounts to approved editors, create a talk page on meta until anon editing talk page features are implemented, bounty opinion survey

Action points for the developers: redirect wikimedia.org to http://wikimediafoundation.org, allow HTML to work on the Foundation wiki, new skin for the Foundation wiki, internationalization of the UI, allow interlanguage links, prevent HTML on talk pages, allow talk pages to be hidden from the public and from search engines.