On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Laura Hale <laura@fanhistory.com> wrote:
Rambling a bit and hello.

RecentChangesCamp 2011 Boston is coming up in March.  Details can be found at http://recentchangescamp.org/wiki/Boston .  RecentChangesCamp is a wiki related conference that utilizes open space.  That means the attendees basically set the agenda when they arrive. In the past, women have been heavily involved with organizing the event.  At the most recent RecentChangesCamp in Canberra, we had probably 25% of our participants as women.  That's a bit above the norm for Wikimedia related projects, so we were very happy.  Wikimedia Foundation has been tremendously supportive of this conference in the past, by either providing funding or sending staff.

This is a great chance for people to get together and talk in small groups about issues related to women's participation on wikis, how to increase participation, talk about research being done on wikis as it pertains to women's needs, to start planning for future events related to women and wikis, and to network. 

As some one involved with RecentChangesCamp in the past, I've noticed a fair amount of leadership amongst women in organizing the conference.  This type of involvement in the background, as an organizer, probably isn't acknowledged or given as much as importance as editing but it can play a big role in shaping things.  Discussing that at RecentChangesCamp, seeing how that plays out, would also be very interesting.


I just wanted to say that, speaking personally not as a staff member, that I have always enjoyed RCC and would encourage anyone interested to attend. I actually met some staff there for the first time before ever getting to go to Wikimania, and it's a good environment for having discussions about culture in wiki projects of all kinds. (It's also usually free, that helps.)

--
Steven Walling
Fellow at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org