On 4/24/12 12:49 PM, Gabriel Fishman wrote:
Hi all,
It was terrific to meet all of you at the general meeting on Sunday.
I'm very excited about taking our local efforts to the next level.
I wanted to follow up on the idea of hosting a meeting where we invite
a local professor who has conducted research on Wikipedia and free
culture to be our guest speaker. SJ suggested Yochai Benkler at the
Berkman Center (
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/ybenkler). Our
preliminary plan was for SJ to make the initial contact and for me to
handle the follow-up and the logistics.
I'd like to get started as soon as possible since we're so close to
the end of the semester. I have a couple of questions for the group:
1. Do we want to potentially combine this with the regular meetup
we've scheduled for May 14th?
2. Do we want to allocate some money for pizza (there may be a way to
get a student group at Harvard to cover this)?
3. Should we consider postponing the event until the Fall, given that
many schools are in the midst of finals?
I think we should aim for giving a little more notice for special
events, especially since it may take several days before we all the
logistics are worked out and we can start publicizing. At the same time,
our fall is also starting to look a little crowded, with Wikipedia Loves
Libraries (2-3 seem possible already) and Wiki Loves Monuments. We could
go for late May or over the summer, or maybe we could try for late
August, hopefully after most schools are in session but before all the
other fall events. In any case, the guest speaker's schedule is the most
important consideration, and that might make our choice for us.
As for pizza, if not Harvard, between the generosity of Wikimedia DC and
Wikimedia NYC, and the WMF grant process, we can certainly find funding
for food if we plan for it. (And I suggest we avoid any more $30
dinners. ;-) )
Dominic