First let me say that it is refreshing to hear at least one other person talk about incorporation in a serious way. My last communication to this list on that matter was met largely with silence, something that, as is obvious by the tone of this message, annoyed me greatly.
The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of Wikipedians/Wikimedians based in Boston/Cambridge/New England, but getting more than a half dozen of them to attend an event or meeting is near-impossible.
We've got a trustee, an advisory board member, a soon-to-be Arb, at least a half dozen people in the top 1% of users by activity level, another dozen or two dozen occasional editors, at least a dozen people that like Wikipedia as a concept and would love to come hang out with us but aren't really editors, several NGOs and two large library systems that would love to work with us, and two chapters that are a short distance away and will throw money and support our way if we ask nicely. A check of the other regions' Wikipedia meetup pages shows that we've done a lot more events than anyone else lately. In short, New England is the single most viable prospect for a new chapter in the US, at least on paper.
However unless more people decide to show up to events and meetups, we're never going to get the momentum we need to get a chapter formed. I'm not sure we can blame the meeting time or the meeting location. I certainly don't think that we can blame a lack of knowledge, as I personally make sure that when we have events, I email blast this list about those events. We just need people to care enough to show up to things. At the end of the day I don't think we have that, and I don't think that I know how to build that. After spending 20-30 planning a major event and then only having two other Wikipedians show up (attendance from non-Wikipedians was spectacular though), I really can't say that I have the enthusiasm to keep trying to plan things unless I know that people from our camp are going to show. The Cambridge WLL event had three Wikipedians, the Boston one had two. We got a few more than that at Ada Lovelace, but still I don't think we got past a half dozen Wikipedians there. Same with the Wiknic. I can't remember the last time we had a half dozen people show up to a monthly meetup. You see where I'm going with this.
I would very much like to form a chapter. I would put a great deal of time and effort into helping to make that happen. If I am still in Boston comes the time of incorporation, which I expect to be, I would even be willing to break my anonymity and hold a leadership/board membership position on said chapter. However in order for that to happen, we really need people to say that they're interested, to say that they can set aside an hour or two a month for a meeting and/or an event. We need people to say that they care.
Until then, I just don't see anything happening. And that's an opportunity wasted, and something that makes me rather sad.
Happy holidays,
Sven
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Kevin Rutherford Ktr101@hotmail.comwrote:
Hey everyone,
So, I was talking to Lane Rasberry from the Cascadia/New York City/Medicine Chapter(s), and he was inquiring about where we are in the process of chapter formation. I know we have a meeting planned for this spring, but if we want to get this off the ground and start moving forward, we should probably start having monthly or bi-monthly meetings after that in order to form a chapter within the year. We have the support and we are very organized as a proto chapter, and I would like to see if we could set a goal of having a chapter by the end of 2013, and possibly set goals before our next meeting to get this done. Heck, we could even hold the meeting earlier in the year. Since it has been almost a year and a half since we first started talking about this, it would be nice to make some progress in terms of setting goals and setting timelines for us. I’m wondering what you all think, but I would also like to have a goal established for a formation of this chapter, as it would be very good to have one in the region.
While I’m here, are there any objections to moving our meeting date to the weekend, or combining it with proto-chapter meetings? It would be a lot easier for some of us outside of the Boston metropolitan area to attend these meetings if they are on days when school is not the next day, and we could also save money on parking, as Cambridge is quite the opposite of cheap and affordable. Another benefit for doing this is that we could harness our support from the meetup participants, and it would be another step towards productive meetings. Finally, if we could do this on the weekend, we could also bring in more students and professors, as they will not have school to worry about.
Well, that’s all I have to say for now, and I hope that all of you are surviving finals/the holiday season/the impending end of the world.
Kevin Rutherford
Wikimedia-boston mailing list Wikimedia-boston@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-boston