[Foundation-l] A "New York City Free Culture Alliance"? - Wikimedia-l

17 Feb 2008

Local Wikimedians in the New York City area have been organizing more
recently, and we've tried to reach out to other local pro-free culture
groups.

We've already approached the Students For Free Culture chapter at
Columbia University, who have expressed some interest in co-hosting a
"content jam" or maybe a "Wikipedia Academy" with us, a mass event
for
writing and improving Wikipedia articles.

One possibility for our group is founding/being a member of some sort
of "New York City Free Culture Alliance" of pro-free culture groups in
the city.

Our 'Wikimedia New York City' group is currently applying to the
Chapters Committee and WMF for some sort of official status, which
will probably be less than that accorded to the national chapters; as
we are not a legally-organized entity, and we're run rather more
informally than the various national chapters.

Columbia Free Culture is a student organization at Columbia
University, and a chapter of a national student society.  They have
already expressed interest in this type of cooperation.  I plan to
approach their chapter at New York University soon too.

I raised this with Chapcom through Andrew, and so far they seem supportive.

The Columbia Free Culture people also suggested that, in addition to
groups, we approach prominent academics etc. in the city who are
supportive of free culture.

Also, I would like to join a group like
http://www.meetupalliance.com/newtechnology mostly to corral member
organizations for our putative "New York City Free Culture Alliance".
I think local technology groups with a social/educational focus might
be interested in working with us, even if they're not explicitly part
of the free culture movement.

I really want to make this pretty broad-brush, and open to a diversity
of groups.  I was thinking maybe we could define ourselves by making a
joint signing of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration.

And the name will probably be something broader too- something like
"Open New York Alliance", probably.

I just think this could be a way for us to really speak with a united
voice on local issues, and to coordinate activities in a real-life
sense, because there's a limited amount that can be done online.

Any reactions? ideas? suggestions?

Thanks