Hi,
A short mail to report a bug in the organization of the wikidata workshop held today during the wikiconvention in Paris[1]. Weeks in advance I convinced a few people to attend so that we can work on our topic of interest: Software and Free Software in particular[2]. There is no better context than being surrounded by seasoned wikidata contributors to improve and contribute at the same time. The description was appealing:
"After a one hour training, we will create groups according to the desire of the participants: contribute, discover and install useful gadgets..."
When the audience was asked for their preferences, I raised my hand and happily declared "Contributing to the Software and FLOSS projects !". Much to my surprise this was quickly dismissed: "we're only going to learn about tools, we create groups to use and learn about tools, not to work on a specific project". My interest for the Software project is known to both Harmonia Amanda and Ash_Crow, to the extent that I discussed with them my intent to recruit people to participate in the workshop for that particular topic[3], well in advance. The focus of our interest was also made clear in the participant list[4].
Of course the rebuttal was not enough to discourage us from contributing to wikidata :-) We found another room and did useful work together, just without the pleasure of being part of the group.
When facing such a minor disappointment, I suppose there is not much cause for concern. But I thought it would be useful to report what appears to be a glitch in the organization so that it can be fixed. This is not a pleasant thing to write or read, but what would be life without a few mistakes ?
In conclusion I would like to thank everyone for a wonderful first experience, specially Harmonia Amanda and Ash_Crow who do a tremendous work with wikidata.
Cheers
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConvention_francophone/2016/Programme/At... [2] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Informatics/Software https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Informatics/FLOSS [3] 15 july 2016 <dachary> Ash_Crow: pour https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConvention_francophone/2016/Programme/At... nous serons au moins trois avec pour centre d'intérêt https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Informatics/FLOSS et https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Informatics/Software . J'espère convaincre deux autres personnes mais c'est pas gagné ... l'attrait des vacances... [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConvention_francophone/2016/Programme/At...