Dang, wish I could have went and volunteered there. Maybe at the next SF event...
On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 8:51 PM, Jon wiki@konsoletek.com wrote:
Just as an FYI - the Maker Faire homepage ( http://makerfaire.com ) said that there were 65,000 people in attendance.
-Jon "ShakataGaNai"
On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 10:30 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com wrote:
Hi folks!
It would be great to write up a quick article about the Maker Faire experience for the en-Wikipedia Signpost. I started a quick subpage for writing up an article -- if any of you want to contribute some of your observations etc. below that would be super. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe/Faire
Jay, do you have stats on how many people visited the Faire / how many people we had volunteering / etc. ?
cheers, Phoebe
On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 1:02 PM, Jay Walsh jwalsh@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thanks for the comments guys - please keep 'em coming. I've got a
lot of
post-event stuff to do today, but I want to combine your wisdom and
observations
into a report.
It was absolutely critical to have volunteers, and that we had so
many (for such
long shifts!) was what made this successful.
I'll look forward to digesting all the comments and reflecting. I'm
not sure all
the volunteers are on the SF list... so I'll send out an email soon
to all folks
who came.
Thanks - here's to more public presence for Wikimedia, the
volunteers, and the
projects!
Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609
Jon wrote:
On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 12:08 PM, William Pietri <
william@scissor.com> wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote: Turnout was much greater than we expected, and everybody seemed
to
have a great time!
Personally, I had a great time, and will definitely do booth
duty again
next year.
A few thoughts:
It was great to hear the stories people had to tell about
Wikipedia. I think
it would be wonderful to record some of them for various
purposes. The
people gushing about Wikipedia were a great reminder to me that
what we do
really matters in the daily lives of millions. The people with
particular
issues put a human face on problems that are often reduced to
abstract
acronyms in our world (ones that came up on my shift: WP:BAND,
WP:NOT,
WP:BLP, WP:NPOV, WP:COI). And the responses I got to asking,
"What did you
use Wikipedia for?" would be fabulous to show to potential
donors, so they
know how big an effect it has. The number one answer I got when I asked what people used
Wikipedia for was
a brief pause followed by an exclamation: "Everything!" The best
one was a
couple who looked at one another, laughed sheepishly, and said:
"To settle
arguments!" Most people don't believe they can edit. Over and over, I told
people that
all it took was two mouse clicks and a little typing. No making
an account,
no logging in, just seconds to fix a spelling error or a
confusing sentence.
They were always surprised. It would be great to have a one-page
handout
that says "You Too Can Edit Wikipedia!" and gives a simple
introduction. If
that's been done already, let me know; otherwise I'll put it on
my to-do
list. There are a ton of subject matter experts out there who would
like to
contribute, but will never become Wikipedia editors. Some are
bemused by
Wikipedia, some frustrated. We should find a way to capture their contributions as primary sources, raw material for our army of
editors to
work from. The common misconceptions and puzzlements about Wikipedia are
indeed common.
I'd love to put together a common list of frequently asked
questions from
events like this. At the very least, volunteers could prepare
themselves
with ready answers. But a series of handouts might eventually
evolve from
that. I gave my card to several people. Some were people who would be
valuable
contributors. Others were people who had article issues (BLP,
deleted
articles, concern about corporate COI and POV-pushing). I wanted
all of them
to have somebody to get them over the hump next they got stuck in
our
sometimes-overwhelming operation. I'm not so scalable, but
perhaps we could
have cards for some OTRS-like queue to get good people more help
than can be
provided by a booth volunteer. Overall, I had a lot of fun. Thanks to Jay, Cary, and the others
who made
this happen.
William
Wikimedia-SF mailing list Wikimedia-SF@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-sf
I agree. Lots of fun! I'll definitely help next time around. I
also
have a few comments from my experience:
- Most people know what Wikipedia is and how to use it. I think
there
may have been a total of 1 person an hour that stopped in (and I talked to) that didn't know what it was.
- Agreeing with William on the fact that alot of people don't
understand editing. Either they were scared, thought they weren't knowledgeable enough or simply thought they shouldn't.
- It was great to have the book - I made sure everyone who thought
they couldn't edit for one reason or another took a copy since it
had
a little section on how to get started. Since there probably wont been little books to give away - 1 page flyer's or pamphlets would
be
good. Along with "how to" they should include useful starting
info
like "Be Bold" and where to go for help.
- Also maybe flyer's/pamphlets for some of the other big projects,
like Commons. I think a decent number of people were really interested in what Commons was.
- It would have also be nice to have some small table top posters
w/ a
list of all the projects and what they are about. Additionally a
run
down of facts & figures would be nice (# of registered users, # of articles, etc)
- Tip jar was good ^_^
- Again - with what William said - the biggest complaint I heard
from
people who had edited at least once: was being scared off. Mainly from having their changes immediately reverted - and generally it
was
from over zealous editors who were "protecting" their article (rightfully or not). This isn't anything new - but none these
people
knew where to go to get help or be heard. Honestly I didn't know
so
my suggestion was the Talk page.
- I think this exists somewhere: but a quick flash video of how to
edit w/ very basic formatting. Something that could be played on demand for people to give them an idea of how truly easy it is to edit. Run on little laptops on the front tables.
Side note on stickers:
- Whom ever dropped off the [citation needed] stickers is AWESOME
and
were, by far, the most popular sticker.
- I still think we should have little commons stickers (like the
wikipedia ones) to affix to Camera's. Ok - that might just be
me...
- The project stickers were very popular. I snuck off with a few
at a
time (so as to not waste them) and they disappeared very quickly.
-Jon "ShakataGaNai"
Wikimedia-SF mailing list Wikimedia-SF@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-sf
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