Hi everyone,
Happy 2015! Hope you are excited for a fruitful new year of Wikipedia :)
Here are some updates and requests for volunteers on upcoming projects from
the New England Wikimedians:
.We had a productive organizational meeting at Northeastern University in
early December. We recapped projects from this past year, looked ahead to
2015, and welcomed a few new members. *Read the full meeting notes:*
https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/NEWikiDec14
.With the departure of Kevin Rutherford from our group leadership, *Amanda
Rust, Molly White, and I *will be acting as co-leaders for the time being.
Benjamin Lees has been continuing in his role of treasurer. Note that this
leadership is fluid, meaning we would welcome others helping out. If you
would like to do more for our group, please let one of us know!
.It was decided that we *will not host WikiConference USA* in 2015, but
that we are interested in a) learning more about the possibility of doing
so in future years; and b) learning more about how the Wiki Education
Foundation might work with us to plan smaller projects this year. More on
this TBA...
.Our* landing pages are going to be revamped* in the coming months. I
believe the plan is to revert to using one (and only one) of our Wiki pages
as the central repository for info about the group and updates on events.
We will continue to use Meetup.com as well, but we likely will not be using
the site that Kevin created earlier this year. Our Facebook and Twitter
accounts will be updated as well, but they will simply mirror/amplify what
is on the main group landing page.
.CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: Following up on the successful worldwide Art+Feminism
edit-a-thons last year, a group at the College of the Holy Cross is hosting
an *Art+Feminism edit-a-thon on Friday, March 13*, a.k.a. Carberry Day ;)
Location is the beautiful Holy Cross campus in Worcester, Mass. Lead
organizer Rachelle Beaudoin has asked for at least one or two experienced
Wikipedians to commit to attending. Please let me know ASAP if you would be
willing to help! [Note: Holy Cross is about an hour's drive; there is also
a free shuttle to campus from the Worcester commuter rail station.]
.Want to *organize an edit-a-thon/event in New England this year*? Reply to
this message and I will add you to a smaller email chain of folks who are
interested in spearheading Wikipedia-related events this year. Ideally, we
would like the user group to host at least a few edit-a-thons/photo
blitzes/other events in the region in 2015 — subject matter up to you.
Who's interested?
.We are planning on *bringing back monthly meetings*, with some changes:
They will likely have some focused topic of discussion before free
discussion/schmoozing, and we will probably change up the location from
month to month. If you have ideas about this, feel free to send them to
Molly, Amanda, or I.
Thanks for reading this far, and hope to see you soon!
cheers,
Maia
maiaw.com | @20tauri | user:Girona7
P.S. If anyone here is an MIT community member, I'm running an IAP workshop
Jan 12-15, Writing Women Into Wikipedia
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Writing_women_into_Wikipedia…>,
with Kim Surkan, a lecturer in the Women's and Gender Studies program. We
will spend a bunch of time on Wiki-editing basics, but if you'd like to
participate, please sign up via this info page
<http://diversity.mit.edu/event/writing-women-into-wikipedia/> — note that
in-person participation is being capped at 16 ppl. Also, there will be a
shorter workshop
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston/From_the_Archives_to_…>
on the same general topic run by the MIT Libraries on Friday, Jan 23.
Hi, all--
As far as I know, the site of the next WikiConference USA is still
undecided, but since Boston/Northeastern was floated as a possible site,
I've had a few conversations with people about it.
And thank you for bringing it up, Molly -- so far there's only been
preliminary conversations, so this is a great time to take the temperature
of the larger NE Wikimedian group.
To that end -- getting a sense of what the local community thinks about the
idea -- it's an agenda item for our meeting this weekend:
http://www.meetup.com/wikipedia-5/events/219071178/https://en.wikipedia.org…
If you can't make that meeting but still have comments about the potential
conference, I think we could discuss on this list, or you could also email
Maia (or me). If folks think there's a different-but-better method to
discuss, that's fine too!
Amanda / AmandaRR123
On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 2:07 PM, GorillaWarfare <
gorillawarfarewikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hey all,
I just learned that apparently Northeastern (aka Amanda) is hosting
WikiConference USA in August. Has there been any discussion about this
somewhere that I've missed?
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-boston mailing list
Wikimedia-boston(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-boston
Hey all,
I just learned that apparently Northeastern (aka Amanda) is hosting
WikiConference USA in August. Has there been any discussion about this
somewhere that I've missed?
– Molly (GorillaWarfare)
Hello, all--
Happy almost-Thanksgiving! I'm writing for two reasons: first, there is an
upcoming edit-a-thon in Lowell, and the organizers would welcome additional
support from local Wikipedians. So if you're in that area and would like to
participate, please contact the organizers -- the first event is December
7th, but it's actually part of a larger series focused on Lowell history.
Wikipedia event page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston/downtownlowell_editat…Meetup.com event page: http://www.meetup.com/wikipedia-5/events/218797475/
And second, it's about time for an end-of-year New England Wikimedian
meeting. These are often held on a weekend afternoon, to allow as many
people as possible to attend. We have two possible dates, so I'd like to
ask the group to vote:
http://doodle.com/sgubbyrd74kpx2t7
(I've used a Doodle poll so that anyone can reply, with or without a Meetup
or Wikipedia account.)
Please join us to discuss our Fall happenings, plan for the Spring, and
share the holiday spirit. You do not need any prior experience with
Wikipedia — all are welcome!
Amanda / User:AmandaRR123
Dear friends,
If you're a (c) geek and want to polish your knowledge of current copyright
law (primarily US and Internet-related), or develop ways to improve it:
there is a great online course from the copyright team at Harvard offered
each year via EdX.
They limit total class size to maintain a pretty intense collaboration
between students and CAs: so they have applications for participating in
the sections. Details below.
SJ
*==========*
*The application for the CopyrightX online sections will run from Oct. 15 -
Dec. 15. See **CopyrightX:Sections <http://copyx.org/sections/>** for
details.*
CopyrightX <http://copyx.org/> is a networked course that explores the
current law of copyright; the impact of that law on art, entertainment, and
industry; and the ongoing debates concerning how the law should be
reformed. Through a combination of recorded lectures
<http://copyx.org/lectures/>, assigned readings
<http://copyx.org/reading-materials/>, weekly seminars, live interactive
webcasts <http://copyx.org/events/>, and online discussions, participants
in the course examine and assess the ways in which the copyright system
seeks to stimulate and regulate creative expression.
In 2013, HarvardX, Harvard Law School, and the Berkman Center for Internet
& Society launched an experiment in distance education- CopyrightX, the
first free and open distance learning course on law. After two successful
offerings, CopyrightX is an experiment no longer. Under the leadership of
Professor William Fisher <http://tfisher.org/>, who created and directs the
course, CopyrightX will be offered for a third time from January to May
2015.
Three types of courses make up the CopyrightX Community:
- a residential course <http://copyx.org/courses/harvard-law-school/> on
Copyright Law, taught by Prof. Fisher to approximately 100 Harvard Law
School students;
- an online course divided into sections <http://copyx.org/sections/> of
25 students, each section taught by a Harvard Teaching Fellow;
- a set of affiliated courses <http://copyx.org/affiliates/> based in
countries other than the United States, each taught by an expert in
copyright law.
Participation in the online sections is free and is open to anyone at least
13 years of age, but enrollment is limited. *Admission to the online
sections will be administered through an open application process that
opens on October 15 and closes on December 15. We welcome applicants from
all countries, lawyers and non-lawyers alike.* For details, see
CopyrightX:Sections <http://copyx.org/sections/>. (The criteria for
admission to each of the affiliated courses are set by the course's
instructor. Students who will enroll in the affiliated courses may not
apply to the online sections.)
Hi Boston Wikimedians!
I'll be visiting from California, meeting with some colleagues to talk
about the future of Wikipedia and things like leadership development, and
organizational engagement. We're having an open invite/informal
get-together Tuesday evening in Washington Square in Brookline. I hope some
of you can join us and share your thoughts, talk about your
Wikipedia-related projects, etc. Here's the info page on meetup.com:
http://www.meetup.com/wikipedia-5/events/212445292/
-Pete
p.s. I'm also hoping to attend one of the Wikipedia Loves Libraries events
put together by Amanda Rust, a former student of mine in the Writing
Wikipedia Articles course. She already announced them here -- but here's a
reminder! See here for details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston#Upcoming
--
Pete Forsyth
Principal, Wiki Strategies
Wikipedia user Peteforsyth
Hi everyone,
In light of recent changes in which Kevin Rutherford will be stepping away
from our organization, I wanted to echo Kevin's challenge for you all to
volunteer to lead or propose new Wikimedia-related events. SJ and I are
unfortunately not going to have the bandwidth to lead as many gatherings as
we have in the past, but I would love to help others take on new leadership
roles.
For any of you who had signed up previously for the Cape Cod photo blitz
this weekend, we are unfortunately going to have to cancel that event. I
would very much like to see it happen sometime next year, and I would love
to work with someone else on helping make that a reality.
We have a couple of other tentative events on the schedule — an Ada
Lovelace Day edit-a-thon in conjunction with UMass Amherst and a Boston
City Archives urban renewal edit-a-thon, both in October. If anyone would
like to help organizing these, please let me know. Amanda Rust is also
still in talks with some extra-NE folks about potentially hosting the
WikiConference USA next spring. We will keep you posted on whether that's
going to take place in Boston, and if so, how you can help.
Finally, we are trying to streamline our communications channels, making
sure they are all talking to one another, so I'd ask that you please bear
with us in the coming months. Ideally we would have an email list (this
one); a central Wikipedia location for all of our upcoming events (this may
be our new Wiki site); and a non-Wiki events portal for those who prefer
that type of alert and sign-up mechanism. We've flirted with using
Facebook, but we will probably mainly use our Meetup.com page
<http://www.meetup.com/wikipedia-5/photos/407265/319669412/>. I know this
is Wikipedia, but when possible, I actually think signing up via Meetup is
more helpful because it lets us stay as up to date as possible on whether
folks will or won't attend an event.
Anyway, thanks for reading. If you have any suggestions for the group, or
any questions for me, I'd love to hear them.
Maia
maiaw.com | @20tauri | w:user:Girona7