On 12/18/2011 12:00 PM, Sarah Stierch wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm going to be a little selfish here, so pardon me. But, yesterday I
> coordinated a "fine art" themed edit-a-thon at our local downtown
> library, here in Washington, DC, followed by a meet-up at a local pub.
> I'm proud to say we had 13 people at the edit-a-thon, and six were
> women. The meetup? We had 16 people and 9 were women!! These numbers
> might seem small compared to larger events, but, to have an event like
> this, and have such a healthy mix, made me so happy.
>
> User:Aude, the President of Wikimedia DC joked "I remember when it'd be
> just me and Mindspillage, as the only women," and we gushed about having
> such a healthy group of "all genders" at the event. I noticed, when
> saying goodbye to people, that I got a bit emotional - not only did we
> have a gender-mixed Wiki-event, but, we also actually wrote new articles
> and expanded articles - and anyone who attends an edit-a-thon knows -
> it's often chaos and just socializing, not actual editing.
>
> You can see our outcomes here:
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/DC_26/To-do_list#OUTCOMES
>
> Which includes new articles or expanded articles about seven women
> artists!!!
>
> Obviously, I'm on a bit of a high from this, as I love outreach and
> coordinating things like this; I do believe the power of invitation
> helped with the success of this event. I don't use bots for invitations,
> and I do my best to individually reach out to people "I hope you'll be
> there." I genuinely do believe that invitation is one of the strongest
> keys in making sure that events, participation, and programs succeed in
> regards to closing the gender gap.
>
> Thanks for letting me gush =) One event, for me, leads to one more woman
> feeling inspired to continue participating. It also shows that offline
> events make for such a rewarding experience - we get to come together,
> put our differences aside, and work together for the common cause of
> providing free knowledge to the world. One woman who came had never
> written a new article - and this was her first time - and she really was
> proud. That just made me so happy.
>
> I also got to meet Carol Moore, which was rather epic, I must say. :)
>
> -Sarah
>
>