Hello Wiki Cascadia,
I wanted to share some news. I have served as Wikipedian in Residence at
Consumer Reports since April 2012. Thanks to Cascadia's own user:llywrch
for writing in 2006 "Wikipedian-in-residence, a proposal
<http://original-research.blogspot.ca/2006/12/wikipedian-in-residence-proposal.html>",
which I credit as the origin of the creation of this first full-time wiki
job position.
Elsewhere on this list there is discussion about Wiki Cascadia's
organization and development. Normally I like to be a little reserved and
have something to show before making announcements, but since people are
asking about what is next for Wiki Cascadia, I have some news. At the
beginning of March accepted a new job as Wikimedian in Residence at the
Data Science Institute at the University of Virginia. I have some projects
with Consumer Reports which I will continue through 2018 at least, but now
my focus is on Wikidata for the university.
- job announcement
<https://dsi.virginia.edu/people/lane-rasberry/profile>
- profile page <https://dsi.virginia.edu/people/lane-rasberry>
I recognize that I am on the opposite side of the country as Cascadia, and
while my projects at Consumer Reports put me close to Wiki NYC, I grew into
these job roles because of the culture of Cascadia and the collaboration
that I have had with Wiki Cascadia members. Wiki Cascadia and the spirit
which preceded it contributed significantly to the creation of these wiki
jobs and will continue to generate future institutional partnerships
including jobs, media donations, in-kind support, recruitment of individual
organization members and wiki participants, and when the time comes, direct
sponsorship.
In my new role I will be engaging with Wikidata on behalf of the university
and its own partners. In Seattle Mako and Jonathan have organized these
kinds of activities for years, so this kind of activity already has 5+
years of history in Wiki Cascadia.
https://wiki.communitydata.cc/Community_Data_Science_Workshops_(Spring_2015)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Seattle/archive
Other people in Seattle have done other data based projects, like Sage
whose excellent Programs and Events Dashboard provides the communication
metrics which organizations require to justify their wiki engagement, and
Monika, whose cooperation with OCLC has encouraged librarians and
information scientists to explore opportunities to federate Wikimedia
content to all the information available through the connection of
individual concepts to library catalog identifiers. Other people in
Cascadia have other data heavy projects which eventually we will better
document.
Although I think Wikidata partnerships are trendy now and likely to become
more popular, the entire Cascadia region is well positioned to benefit from
a range of interest in Wikimedia projects for all the reasons that this
list's members continue to recognize. If and when there is any organization
in Cascadia that could imagine a Wikidata partnership, then as always, any
program in partnership with Wiki Cascadia and its members has my particular
attention, favor, and gratitude.
Thanks,
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814 <(206)%20801-0814>
lane(a)bluerasberry.com