Wikipedia talk:Meetup/London 12

Excuses for non-attendees[edit]

Sorry not to be able to come to this one either. I hear a rumour that in August sunshine can be found further south than the British Isles. Will report back. almost-instinct 15:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's true, it's there. Compatibility issues with Anglo-Saxon/Celtic skin version 1.0, tho' almost-instinct 22:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inviting London Wikipedians[edit]

Apologies if I'm missing a point, but why doesn't anyone drop a little message to everyone in the Wikipedians in London category? Surely being told about this kind of thing is why one puts oneself in such a category? almost-instinct 15:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It can be seen as canvassing, which is why that is discouraged. Best, PeterSymonds (talk) 15:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have expressed myself better. Let's start with this quote from WP:CANVASS:

The following guidelines for cross-posting "friendly notices" have wide acceptance among Wikipedians:
Be open. Do not make cross-posts that initially appear to be individual messages.
Be polite. Wikiquette issues are extra-important when a message is likely to be read by many people.
Avoid redundancy. Rather than copying the same five-page essay to twenty talk pages, write it once, in the place where it is most relevant, and then link to it.
Do not use a bot. If you're not willing to spend the time personally sending the messages, don't force us to spend the time reading it (or throwing it away). Also note that running bots without authorization is almost guaranteed to get both your account and the bot account blocked.

Do we think it would be impossible to write a short informative note about the existence of Meet-ups in London while following these guidelines? almost-instinct 16:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that that is possible, but if you see the table of what differentiates posts/requests from canvassing "Mass posting" comes under "Disruptive canvassing". To be honest I can't see a problem with it in theory; the WP:CANVASS policy is designed to restrict, say, mass-posting to 500 people with a "deletionist" userbox about an AfD you have, or informing your close wiki-friends/anyone who's ever given you a barnstar about your RfA and nobody else; since this is an out-of-wiki activity, and it isn't exactly something we can post a POV message on, it should be allowable, but that's just my interpretation of the policy, I don't know if any intervening admin would see it the same way. Ironho lds 16:48, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outdent: I've left messages on the pages of people who attended 9 and 10 and who I didn't see at 11/giving excuses for not attending 11, so hopefully some of them will attend. Ironho lds 16:54, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Telling people who would be interested in the meetup is not canvassing. Please read the guideline. It's supposed to prevent vote stacking, not prevent people to tell each other about a meetup. Al Tally ^talk 17:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Err.. that's exactly what I said. Ironho lds 17:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a general comment rather than a comment directed at yours. I only said it can be misinterpreted; I've seen it frowned upon before for this reason, hence my comment. I didn't comment on its validity, but then I've rarely commented on these sorts of pages. PeterSymonds (talk) 17:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added the August meet-up to upcoming.org. This can be a good way to let people know about London tech meet-up events, although we haven't tended to attract many generally interested newbies along to these things. This seems a shame. It might be worth thinking about how we can make the description more attractive to outsiders.

Obviously firing talk page messages seems like a well targeted thing to be doing. But then again, it does seem have the potential to annoy people. I got a complaint from someone about pointless messages, who then actually turned up at a more recent meet-up, so that seems quite irrational! Actually that was the only complaint I've had, after firing 30/40 messages on a three separate occasions. The other thought I had was, to try to find the most recently active London wikipedians, to make it even more targeted. I can re-scan to update that ranking list if you're interested.

On the whole though, I was hoping to get the ball rolling, such that we wouldn't need to engage in too much pushy promotion, once the routine of a monthly meet-up is established. I'm sorry I wont be much help in maintaining the momentum, as I have other things in my calendar on the 2nd Sunday of August, September and October! :-(

-- Harry Wood (talk) 14:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've taken the plunge (using my bot). Maybe we'll mob the pub. :-)

P.S. - That was to 359 users' talk pages; obviously it won't catch everyone, such as those who don't use userboxes (including, err, me), but it should be a good start.

James F. (talk) 09:33, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who[edit]

How do you identify the group?- J Logan ^t: 16:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a wikimedia sign on a piece of paper up normally.Ironho lds 17:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That, and we'll be the majority of people in the pub, at least after a few of us arrive. :-)

James F. (talk) 22:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just look for a group with no common demographic except we all look like we need to get out more :P. Ironho lds 01:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

haha, okay - same as the last sci-fi convention I went to then!- J Logan ^t: 10:31, 10 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]