Greetings, Pine, et al.
Glad to finally have a mailing list up and running!
Portland has had the most success by riding the coattails of major
campaigns such as Art+Feminism and Wiki Loves Libraries (WLL). The 2012 WLL
event was held at the Central Library:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Wiki_Loves_Librarie…
In 2013, I helped organize WLL events in both Portland and Vancouver,
Washington:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Wiki_Loves_Librarie…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Vancouver,_WA/Wiki_Loves_Lib…
In these cases, organization involves reaching out to libraries (or, in
case often they reach out to me directly), setting a time and date, then
spreading the word via talk page invitations and WikiProject notices. These
three events have each attracted roughly 10 participants.
A "non-Wikipedian" (meaning someone who does not contribute to Wikimedia
projects often) proposed a local Art+Feminism event at PSU (she teaches
art) as part of the national campaign. She created an event page on
Facebook and I helped by distributing invites on-wiki. The event attracted
around 40 people and was covered by local press. Using social media can be
a great way to get Wikipedia events on peoples' radar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/ArtAndFeminism_2014
The A+F event was so successful, that one attendee volunteered to organize
a follow-up event at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, which attracted
at least a dozen participants:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Feminist_Art
Apologies for the many links, but they can be helpful as examples of event
pages. I think it is very important to create separate pages for each
event, to archive the activities and results of each meetup.
WikiProject Oregon remains an active project, Though weekly collaborations
have slowed, project members are still creating great content, but
generally on their own. We do still have some collaborations, and we also
host two themed photo campaigns each month. We assign two themes such as
"Coffee Culture" or a specific neighborhood and try to leverage
picture-taking. So far, most of the work has been done by me and one other
photographer, but I find they are easy and enjoyable, and if they happen to
leverage work by others, great!
You can think of the photo campaigns as "Wiki Loves Monuments", but for two
different themes each month. If you have Seattle Wikipedians who enjoy
taking pictures, I would highly recommend starting these as
low-maintainence, opt-in projects that don't require much organizing.
Participants can take pictures on their own, or propose group walking
tours. Examples of photography projects at this template:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Meetups_in_Portland,_Oregon
As for Wikimedia Cascadia, I think it would be very helpful if we had a
Facebook group/page, so that people can follow activities and have dates
added to their online calendars. Other chapters/thorgs have pages.
If you need an idea for a project to support locally, consider an LGBT
edit-a-thon or LGBT photography project as part of Wiki Loves Pride.
Following are links to the Portland pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Wiki_Loves_Pride_20…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland/Pride_PDX
It would be great to have Seattle residents upload photos of the city's
LGBT culture and history.
I hope this helps! Sorry so long. Thanks for contributing to the mailing
list.
Jason (Another Believer)
On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 12:27 AM, ENWP Pine <deyntestiss(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Hello Cascadia,
It's great to have a way to communicate with the Oregon and Washington
groups together!
The Washington group has interests in global health, motorcycling,
technical work, and editor growth. I hope that we can grow our group of
Seattle participants.
What has Oregon learned about how to attract participants? It looks like
Oregon attracts participants to cultural documentation and edit-a-thon
events.
Thanks,
Pine
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