Hello,
I am one of the conference organizers, and I would help.
WikiConference USA is partially an un-conference.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference>
This means that there will be some improvisation during the conference, so
while some talks will be scheduled, the schedule will be updated to include
less-rehearsed talks which anyone spontaneously proposes. Someone might,
for example, propose a talk in response to something discussed earlier in
the day.
Here are some ideas for making a good contribution to the conference -
1. Submit a proposal to present.
<http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/2015/Submissions> Expect a diverse
audience. The only thing Wikipedians have in common with each other is that
they all participate in Wikipedia, but there are so many ways to do this,
not much can be taken for granted about your audience's understanding. If
you do planning for a presentation, a good model if you have an hour slot
is to present for 10-15 minutes with a conceptual overview. Take some
questions so that you can gauge your audience's understanding, then if
there is a demand for deeper discussion, then go into other details.
2. Wikipedians are interested in Wikidata, but are having trouble
understanding what it can do. Still, there is a culture in the community of
people comments in the way that they can, even if they do not understand
the details of how it works. So if you give a Wikidata talk, try to find a
way to emphasize the outcomes you want to provide, because even readers can
comment on the extent to which outcomes are desirable even if they cannot
follow the steps of how you might achieve those outcomes.
3. Try to support other talks at the conference. It might not be
intuitive that a Gene Wiki talk should go to, for example, a meetup about
women's involvement in Wikipedia or art in museums, but at this conference
everyone in attendance will be very chatty with an entire social circle.
Visit groups which seem active regardless of whether you think they are
relevant, and try to exchange ideas of what you are doing with what they
are doing. Many people will want to hear about Wikidata even if they have
no interest in medical info, and creating a buzz about new projects goes a
long way to getting good will.
4. Good will is important for invasive projects because practically all
new ideas on Wikipedia will break some process that is critical to some
community's routine. Wikipedia is highly interconnected, so using a bot to
edit medical boxes may create a controversy in the politics of India, and
there is no way to predict these things. The way to respond to problems is
to try to give disclosure of what you are doing in advance, explain deeply
to people who ask questions, and be ready to quickly respond to criticism
if something goes wrong.
I know about the Gene Wiki Wikidata project. It is very exciting. I am so
glad that some of you will be able to attend this event.
Email me directly if any of you wish to talk by video or phone.
yours,
On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 11:46 AM, Benjamin Good <ben.mcgee.good(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Some portion of the Gene Wiki team is going to
WikiConference USA in
Washington DC this October.
http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/2015/Main_Page
Is anyone from wikidata going?
We are trying to decide what we should present.
I see that EMW has submitted a workshop proposal about wikidata
http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Submissions:2015/An_ambitious_Wikidata_tu…
and that there is a health-information workshop in the works as well
http://wikiconferenceusa.org/wiki/Submissions:2015/Wikipedia_for_Health_Res…
None of us has ever been to one of these. Thoughts on how we can make a
meaningful contribution?
thanks
-Ben
_______________________________________________
Wikidata mailing list
Wikidata(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com