Dear Wikimedia Project Contributors,
Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind Wikipedia, will be visiting Toronto from February 6-8 to speak at the Schulich School of Business. We have discussed on this list in the past about arranging a meet-up for the local project contributors to meet with Sue during her visit. In preparation I have secured a coffee house which will be open to Wikipedians for this private event. Please find the details for the meet-up listed below, space is limited so sign up early and if you can not attend for any reason please remove your name from the list.
Wiki Meet-Up Toronto with Sue Gardner
Date: Sunday, February 6
Time: 18:00-20:00
Location: Linux Caffee
Address: 326 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON
RSVP at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Toronto/January_30_2011
I would appreciate if someone on this list could be responsible to announce this to other lists or on the IRC Canada channel to ensure a strong attendance.
Regards,
James T. Owen
James Owen
Executive Assistant & Board Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
Office +1.415.839.6885 x 6604
Mobile +1.415.509.5444
Fax +1.415.882.0495
Email- jowen(a)wikimedia.org
Website- www.wikimediafoundation.org
Dear Wikimedia Canada,
The annual Wikimedia Conference (a.k.a. Chapters' Meeting) will take place
this year between 25-27 March in Berlin, Germany. The conference is a good
opportunity for chapters to establish links with each other, share their
stories and to learn from each other. This is also an opportunity to discuss
some specific issues and challenges facing different chapters and in some
cases the Wikimedia movement in general. Each year, existing chapters,
promising chapters in formation, and select members of the Wikimedia
Foundation Board and Staff are invited to attend the discussions, working
groups and workshops at the conference dealing with issues like outreach,
cultural partnerships, volunteer cultivation, organizational development,
and any other topic the chapters feel relevant to tackle in a given year.
I'd like to personally extend an invitation to attend the 2011 conference
and to offer my contact details for any queries you may have in connection
to the conference.
Wikimedia Canada is invited to nominate up to two members (likely future
board members) to participate in the work of the meeting. Please register
your representatives on the http://de.amiando.com/wmcon11chap.html site
(please use the code chap2011berlin to enter the site) by the end of next
week (the earlier the better, especially if you need a visa or invitation
letter).
If there is a question you can't answer yet, please just leave that field
blank and send the answer later by email, or clarify the situation in an
"other" field. Any information is better than no information. The organizers
of the meeting are happy to help organize your travel and provide help in
acquiring a visa, just tick the corresponding checkboxes on the registration
form and let us know the necessary details.
Finally, I would also very much welcome your input on the programme of this
years' Chapters meeting and I invite you to share your ideas on the
brainstorming page we have set up for this purpose at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_meeting_2011/Brainstorming.
If you have any questions, queries or concerns, please do contact me at my
bence.damokos(a)wikimedia.de address or on GTalk at bdamokos(a)gmail.com.
Best regards,
Bence Damokos
Programme Coordinator,
Wikimedia Conference 2011
Dear All,
I sent the below text to this list last week and have only receive two replies of individuals who are interested to attend a meet-up with the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director, Sue Gardner. Sue will be in Toronto from February 6-8, and she would like to attend a meet-up of local Canadian Wikipedians to get to know many of you and your work toward creating a chapter. It is my experience that meet-ups are best organized and developed by the local wikimedia community. The Wikimedia Foundation is happy to support and sponsor the event, however I have requested assistance on several occasions (to this list) to help me coordinate the logistics and spread the word among Canadian Wikipedians.
What I need is someone to suggest a location for a meet up, this can be as simple as a coffee shop or pub and does not need to have a private meeting room. I would also like to get a general idea of how many Wikipedians might attend and what the best day for the meeting would be. That said last week I created the below tab on the Toronto meet-up page and announced it to this list. If you wish to attend a meet-up and meet Sue please sign up on the link and provide me some suggested location. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/Toronto
Regards,
James T. Owen
> On Jan 12, 2011, at 12:00 PM, James Owen wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I added to the Wikipedia talk Page for Toronto meet ups a section for the planning for a February 2011 meet up. Please use the below link to indicate if you are interested to attend, and suggested dates/time, and locations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Meetup/Toronto
>>
>> I would like to find a location early next week so please indicate suggestion by Sunday if possible.
>>
>> Thanks
>> James
James Owen
Executive Assistant & Board Liaison
Wikimedia Foundation
Office +1.415.839.6885 x 6604
Mobile +1.415.509.5444
Fax +1.415.882.0495
Email- jowen(a)wikimedia.org
Website- www.wikimediafoundation.org
I can't recall if I expressed a desire to attend before, so I'm doing so now. Weekday evening ("after work" type of time) works best for me.
Anyone got any thoughts on location?
Tom W
> From: wikimedia-ca-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Wikimedia-ca Digest, Vol 168, Issue 2
> To: wikimedia-ca(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:35:23 +0000
> From: Sue Gardner <sgardner(a)wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-Canada] A few things
> To: Wikimedia Canada planning list <wikimedia-ca(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Recapping: I think James (Owen) wrote this list to see if anyone here
> wanted to take charge of organizing a meetup while I'm in Toronto. I
> don't think he got much/any response, which is fine and to be
> expected, since Canadian Wikimedians are scattered across the country
> rather than necessarily being clustered in or near Toronto.
>
> So I think we should do this:
>
> * Toronto-area Wikimedians who might be able to attend, should state
> any preferences to this list, CCing James. It would be helpful, I
> think, for James to know whether people prefer day or evening, weekend
> or weekday, and if they have preferences for neighbourhood. We won't
> have tons of wiggle room, but we'll likely have some, and we'd try to
> accommodate people's preferences as much as we can.
>
> * James will figure out a location and date/time, and publish it to this list.
>
> * I'll turn up at the appointed time and place, and spend some time
> with whoever's able to be there.
>
> It won't be a formal event, just a casual meet-up since I happen to be
> in town. It'd be great to see anyone who can manage to come :-)
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
1) I am coming to Vancouver end of April and am hoping we can arrange a get
together. Wondering what time and which day would be best ( I am thinking
the 27th in the evening ). Also where should we meet? Depending on how many
people who are interested we could either meet in a class room at UBC or at
a restaurant.
2) Membership drive: As we are now officially incorporated and hopefully
will soon be an official chapter we need to prepare for our launch and a
membership drive. 1600 Wiki editors list themselves as Canadians here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Canadian_Wikipedians A 150 have added
themselves on meta
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Canada/Participants
WRT the process Alan Walker is working on a website which will take online
registration. We have been thinking a nominal fee of $ 5 or 10 dollars to
cover mailing and stationary costs plus some web hosting. We are in the
process of setting up a bank account for Wiki Canada. This will take another
couple weeks yet as the bank needs to mail the paper work out to the
directors. Thus official registration will not begin until after this is
accomplished.
3) First major project: I have been thinking that our first major project
should be attempting to get Wiki student / staff groups going at
Universities. Do others have interest in this? Other suggestions for initial
projects?
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
We already have a Cree Wiki here
http://cr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%93%83%E1%94%A5%E1%91%95%E1%92%BB%E1%90%B9%…
Might have to search for it with google as the characters are unusual. Yes I
agree we will support all language development and if people which to
develop working groups to translate I am more than willing to support that.
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> From: Mike Cleven <mikecleven(a)gmail.com>
> ...
> I"m also interested in seeing more advancement of the OTHER wiki-arenas, not
> just Wikipedia; I've mentioned WikiTravel already, WikiNews also could use a
> good Canadian contingent but is seriously staff-limited; making it easier
> and quicker and more accessible to non-wikipedians could result in a new,
> independent, news service in Canada, which is much-needed; but right now
> they only have, as i recall, eight article reviewers, meaning taht the time
> between someone submits something and when it passes review to get published
> it's rarely any longer "news".....I'd also be curious about what
> marketing/packaging efforts there are for the saleable aspects of WikiMedia
> technologies, e.g. private wikis, corporate wikis, assocation wikis, and
> what those licensing/costs issues are....
>
I agree that we shouldn't just focus on Wikipedia, but on a related note, we also shouldn't focus solely on the English language. That doesn't just mean extending out efforts to French, but also native languages such as Inuktitut, Cree and Ojibwe. Then there are what (if anything) we should do about immigrant languages. (Did you know more German and Ukranian are spoken by more people as a mother tongue in Saskatchewan than French?).
The good news is that a lot what Wiki Canada can do in terms of freeing the world's knowledge is completely independent of any language or Wikimedia Project.
Tom W
1) Regarding fees: Yes there are benefits to both high and low amount. I am
of the opinion that from members we wish personal time more than money.
People who are willing to organize events, runs things ect. How much money
people are willing to put forth does not necessarily reflect commitment
(even though it does to some degree) Some people will than be willing to
give larger sums of money either with or without strings attached. Once
things are up and running my business will make a $1000 dollar donation to
Wiki Canada so that we are not completely destitute.
2) Do people wish that I post the documents of incorporation online? I would
off course remove the personal contact information of directors who wish to
keep a lower profile. A copy of the bylaws as accepted by the government are
on the meta site.
3) WRT our own website Alan Walker and Ray Saintonge have been working on
it. We have a web address. There was some discussion of logos. Do we have a
role out of scheduled for the site?
--
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian