Julian, Welcome. Here are my ideas:
1. "Tag along" - hold an event before or after a larger event, such as
OSCON. This event might even be a charity event. Semi-example:
2. Create videos of ways to contribute.
3. Create a link/list of "small changes/bugs" - spelling errors, change
copyright everywhere, etc.
4. Use Google Hangouts to hold regular events. Use Skype/etc if video is too much
bandwidth.
5. Hold a contest. Here is one that just finished a month-long contest:
6. Dual/joint hack event with other projects: Bugzilla, Mozilla, Mysql, php, perl, ...
By the way, here is my collection of hack days/etc that I have been collecting for the 13
months:
From: juliendorra(a)juliendorra.com
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2012 20:16:47 +0200
To: wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
CC: adrienne.alix(a)wikimedia.fr
Subject: [Wikitech-l] About outreach and tech events (as suggested by Sumana!)
Hi all,
I'm Julien Dorra, I build creative communities using events. ex:
http://museomix.com,
http://artgameweekend.com,
http://dorkbotparis.org,
http://codinggouter.org.
After a short discussion with Adrienne Alix from Wikimedia France, I took
my chances and applied for the new role of Engineering Outreach Coordinator
a few days ago!! Wish me luck!! (It's basically what I'm doing here in
France with maybe the difference that we mix devs and non-devs, like
designers and others professionals. We found that mixing is good for the
cohesiveness of the communities built out of the events, because they are
issue-oriented communities, mostly. Doing it for Wikimedia would be a dream
job :)
I also got a very nice answer from Sumana, encouraging me to "email this
list with proposals/ideas of what the Wikimedia community ought to be
doing" in term of engineering outreach.
This application is a great occasion (excuse??) for me to divert some time
and better understand the tech-side of the wikimedia community. I have
collaborated with the non-tech side of the french community on issues like
museum innovation and photography, but never directly with the tech-side of
the community.
I read with great interest the draft "Wikimedia Engineering/2012-13 Goals" (
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Engineering/2012-13_Goals). It's
super-rich and very exciting in term of focus.
- - So, I wanted to start with a couple of questions I was curious about:
1. In term of outreach to engineers, devs or other technical talents, in
your experience is there a specific community that is harder to reach to
than others for Wikimedia?
2. Also, would like to see even more effort toward the students? (as in
"the future professionals"!). What about the web startuppers? (AFAISee in
Paris, they don't really consider Wikimedia as a software project.)
3. Do you sometimes think there is not enough ux designers on this list?
And during hackatons? What about other skills?
- - Then, to engage the conversation further, I wanted to test on you some
specific ideas around hackatons and technical events ;-)
The wider issue of testing, of setting up a more robust test culture is one
of the key goals for 2012-2013, if I understand well.
I personally know at least 3 developers that are passionate about testing,
love to evangelize Test Driven Dev, and that might attend a test-oriented,
or TDD-oriented event – but they would probably *not* attend a Wikimedia or
MediaWiki generalist event. They have so many event to attend! They even
organize events themselves…
These 3 devs I know personnaly are the kind of test-oriented mentors we
want to be part of the wikimedia community, if for a weekend or a week,
because they are good at mentoring and showing the path to others.
So, how can we bring them in?
That made me (re)think about the limits of generic events, and the
importance of issue-oriented event.
The idea I would like to put up to discussion would be to organize more
fine grained events around specific issues:
«Testing Wikipedia» could be a nice catchy name for a series for events in
various cities around TDD, with experienced dev mentoring less experienced
community members, etc. Even if the experts come and go, everybody learn,
some test and process get done, and the community grow and learn.
Another issue is engaging other orgs, so why not engage startups:
«Wikimedia for fun and profit!» Ok, this title is a joke -- but we should
do a series of events focused on encouraging startups to build products on
top of MediaWiki, APIs and Wikipedia sites. The rationale here is that the
more startups invest on the wikimedia tech, the more they contribute in
return.
The documentation of MediaWiki is also an issue. Let's not wait to have a
big team to launch more sprints, let's the sprints build the team:
«DocDocDooooc Sprints» Realspace events are a powerful way to focus people
on a goal. So to build a stronger documentation team, we could start
designing an engaging and inclusive event format, setting up dates and
places for a series of events. That could boost interest, and gather people
that wouldn't have think of helping on MediaWiki. Of course the challenge
is to keep the momentum going in between realspace sprints. So that means
building an strong doc community online too.
Obviously, setting up events, even small ones, takes a lot of effort!
Scaling them can seems too much to do, too, when resources are limited.
The good news is that we have successful examples of worldwide scaled event
formats, like Startup weekend, Dorkbot. It's doable. And the rewards can be
huge.
So the strategy here would be to kickstart local chapters with recipes for
events and by connecting them with I call 'serial-collaborators', (people
that love to attend hackatons and creative weekends - they know a lot about
these events, and are precious resource for advice and support).
Identifying and contacting partners and places usually helps a lot, too,
for helping first-time event organizers.
Having a regular schedule for the local, issue-driven events help the
community stay focused on the goals in between events.
- - -
Of course if I post here it's because I need feedback, and I might be
overly naive, overlooking many things. Does it makes sense to you? What's
your own ideas about events as community catalyzers?
Let's discuss here –– you can also reach me on twitter :
http://twitter.com/juliendorra
Julien
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