Thehelpfulonewiki wrote:

There seems to be a reasonable level of interest in setting up this chapter.

I'll just note that we do have a list for San Francisco Bay Area Wikimedians, https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-sf - but there do not appear to be ones for any of the other parts of Cascadia.

In line with the naming standardisation at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Standardization#Wikimedia, please can you propose a shorter suffix so the list would be Wikimedia-US-XX, where XX could be short for Cascadia, if such a code exists? Thanks!

anotherbelieverwp wrote:

Hmm, bummer. I was hoping the two-letter abbreviation was not required, as there is not really an obvious way to abbreviate "Cascadia". If necessary, I propose the abbreviation "WC", which could stand for both "Wikimedia Cascadia" and "West Coast". Thank you.

Note: I am making this suggestion without consensus. I have posted a note on the Wikimedia Cascadia talk page and hope others will offer feedback. It might be worth waiting there for a little while and checking to see if others agree or disagree with this proposal. Thanks.

bugs wrote:

I'm not sure there's enough of a following or enough momentum for a chapter mailing list at this point. (There really aren't that many interested people signed up.) This intended chapter also overlaps with other planned chapters that have more interest, for example Wikimedia California, and also an existing chapter, Wikimedia Canada. Unless they changed things recently, I'm pretty sure chapters can't have their areas of operation overlap, so this request seems a little early.

If we do think a mailing list is still required, I don't think it should use an abbreviation. There is no existing abbreviation, really, as the region doesn't really "exist", it's just an unofficial term some people use. If we think a mailing list is needed, then it should probably just be Wikimedia-US-Cascadia.

anotherbelieverwp wrote:

The question of "borders" has come up before (see Wikimedia Cascadia talk page, and feel free to contribute to the discussion). I am not sure I have an answer re: California and Canada, but I am also not sure we should be concerned about those regions when considering the benefit of a mailing list for Wikimedia Cascadia. To me, it seems the only reason to have that discussion would be if Wikimedia Cascadia needed to be called Wikimedia Pacific Northwest (or something else), which would influence the title of the chapter and this mailing list.

There would still be a great benefit to sharing information within the region, even if it was only defined as Washington and Oregon. There are regular meetups in Seattle and Portland, and there is more traction with Wikimedia Cascadia than there has even been with separate chapters for Washington and Oregon.

I am indifferent as to whether or not the mailing list uses the full name "Cascadia" or an abbreviation. On second thought, I kind of like the name spelled out. Again, please feel free to contribute to the discussions for this proposed chapter. The more, the merrier!

I thought it might be good to move this conversation to the meta Wikimedia Cascadia page so I posted my reply to Casey here - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Cascadia#Two-letter_code_.28abbreviation.29

Thanks for your thoughts. I would appreciate any further advice on proceeding. It would be helpful to get the mailing list and helpful also if you said that now is not time.

Thehelpfulonewiki wrote:

Okay so I'm happy to use the full name Wikimedia-US-Cascadia@, but Casey's point is a valid one: are there any more people that are involved in this proposal than those list at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Cascadia#Supporters.21 (although I do see those that are involved appear to be particularly active!)?

Another Believer / Lane: Any reply to comment 6?

(Thehelpfulone: This ticket has been assigned to you and in ASSIGNED state for more than 12 months.)

My answer is that a group of people self-identify as being a part of Wikimedia Cascadia, use that name, and match existing precedent in completing actions which other groups have taken to get their own mailing lists.

The name that would be wanted is Wikimedia-Cascadia. I could say that Wikimedia New England recently got "usergroup" status for having two regular supporters, and there are more than two regular community organizers here. Without an apparent standard or bar to reach it is hard to rally commitment beyond getting 20 people to sign on and participate a little.

There is more documentation on that project's page than for the average Wikimedia chapter, it has more participants than the average Wikimedia chapter has, and it is at least 2000 miles or 3000 kilometers from the nearest official Wikimedia meetups in Toronto or the East Coast. Canadians in Vancouver can join or not as they like, and they do have their own chapter, but Canada is also a huge country and forming these kinds of groups is not intended to be a land grab or power struggle. This is supposed to be about helping geographically proximate people connect, and for that reason, I see no conflict with the prior existence of a Wikimedia Canada. This group could be considered a "thematic organization" for people who identify with the region.

People from this chapter are participating in the upcoming Wikiconference USA and establishing this mailing list before the conference would create an opportunity to build more community and help formally establish WM Cascadia as a usergroup.
I say that the request stands to have a Wikimedia-Cascadia mailing list.

I've been wondering a bit about this bug for the past few days, and I'm unsure what's the best path forward.

I read extensively on the background of Wikimedia Cascadia, but this had mainly made the picture fuzzier still; I'm unsure what would be the effects of us creating a mailing list for an organization that covers the area of an active Wikimedia chapter.

I'm CC-ing Bence Damokos and Greg Varnent from the Affiliations Committee to hear their view on the matter, hoping they can help us move this forward (or else close the request as RESOLVED WONTFIX) — from your perspective, is there anything that would prevent us from creating this mailing list for people involved with Wikimedia Cascadia?

Any help with this bug is appreciated.

Perhaps Wikimedia Cascadia is an thematic organization. Our own next steps for going forward are to apply for usergroup status at WikiConference USA to be held 30 May - 1 June 2014. This is a United States national conference and we will sort out membership there, but still, we already have years of active local meetings in the region and are more active in some ways than some chapters.

It is unfortunate that one of our own recently died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-04-23/News_and_notes

Cindy's help as a local resident in the area and participant in the Affiliations Committee would have been a voice which could have contributed to sorting our concerns.

Our next big event in the Cascadia area is participation in Wiki Loves Pride. If we had a mailing list then I discussion about this and other things could be documented online.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride

As it stands, we are keeping our communication in Google services rather than Wikimedia archives.

admin wrote:

Thank you for reaching out to AffCom for input. We have not discussed this as a group, so this is my own reaction. However, I am confident that it is not a minority opinion. :)

Our goal is to help make the creation and organization of user groups as easy as possible, and to make sure they are provided with as much support from WM and WMF as reasonably possible.

I agree that the geography question will need to be resolved before they are recognized as a user group or eventually chapter. However, I do not think that needs to impede the group getting a mailing list.

They have enough folks to justify a user group, and it seems premature to discuss their chapter viability considering the November resolution on recognition from the WMF Board. Which in case you are not following, says that with as yet undefined exceptions, chapters and thematic organizations must exist for two years as a user group before they can be recognized by the board. There are indications that may change, but at this time, that is the process.

My recommendation would be to go ahead with a mailing list utilizing the Cascadia naming scheme (they will likely be Cascadia Wikimedians or something like that while they are a user group). I say that considering that they are likely to become a user group (obviously they will have to request that status and get AffCom approval first - but my hunch is that will eventually happen), that the title is unlikely to be an issue with the geography question, and knowing that the geography question will need to be resolved before their recognition as a user group (while technically user groups are permitted to overlap with chapters, this group's stated desire to become a chapter may require more thought and discussion on that topic). Typically, any already recognized affiliates involved - in this case Wikimedia Canada - are given a chance to weigh-in. I also am mindful that they essentially already have a mailing list, and are basically requesting that WMF support that list rather than Google. For a variety of reasons, I can appreciate that desire. I also believe that the mailing lists are incredibly useful tool for organizing WM efforts, and also appreciate why they would like one to help get their group officially going.

I do not personally have a strong feeling about what acronym to use (US-CA, CAS, WM-WC, WM-CA, etc. all seem like possibilities off the top of my head), so will leave that all to the experts already looped into this thread.

Thank you Lane and Greg for your input.

Before I create the list under "Wikimedia-Cascadia" (since the US prefix does not apply here), I'd need some further information from you:

• Are the e-mail addresses for list admins still valid?
• Are the list archives supposed to be public or private?
• Should the subscription to the list require admin approval or subscriber confirmation only?

These are just the basic settings; you will of course be allowed to set the details by yourselves once I create the list & forward admin password to you.

Thank you.

Here are email addresses of the two initial list admins
*Lane Rasberry "lane@bluerasberry.com"
*Jason Moore "anotherbelieverwp@gmail.com"

These should be the email addresses already presented, if any were.

The list archives are public.

Subscription needs subscriber confirmation only.

I appreciate your setting this up.

The list has now been created, and I configured it to have public archives, with new members added after confirmation.

You can configure the rest of the settings, including list description and a terse identifying phrase at the following web page:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/admin/wikimedia-cascadia

The web page for users of your mailing list is:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-cascadia

I just sent the admin password to the two given e-mail addresses, and made them list administrators.

This request is now closed; enjoy your new mailing list!