Hi,
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 12:35 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle(a)kcoyle.net> wrote:
As I said,
what I've found about WP meetups is that people each work on a different
page, but make use of nearby folks for advice, ideas, and company.
+1
I do agree that any kind of meeting has more chance of
success if it has a
theme or project. For Berkeley, the Berkeley-specific pages are in need of
work, so we can easily start there. It would be fun, if we could do it, to
meet with the public library librarian in charge of the history archives.
Sounds fun!
I feel strongly about encouraging non-nerd humanists
to participate in WP,
as well as people of all ages and levels of computer experience. I believe
that this was also the motivation for the development of the WYSIWYG editor:
for some people, wiki markup alone is a deterrent. I would say the same
about IRC, which is a nerd-heavy communications channel.
I think IRC's not too scary if there's an appointed meeting time with
people that are guaranteed to be friendly and helpful and there's only
one channel to have to pay attention to. It's easy to make a webchat
link with the fields all pre-filled (e.g. with the channel name. or
even IRC nick)
Unfortunately, Google, being now a key player in the
military-industrial-surveillance community is something I would not
recommend for anyone to join, although current members may wish to meet on a
hangout. It works well for small numbers, but I have never tried to push it
beyond 3-4 participants.
I guess you mean recent NSA shenanigans? I'm still expecting/eager to
hear more details (e.g. the details Google and others have requested
that they be allowed to release) but I think that news doesn't change
much. You should have (IMHO) already been nearly as concerned about
Google 3 months ago as you are today.
I've seen hangouts with dozens of people first hand (and I think at
least 8 active speakers?). I personally think being open to a
substantial number of passive viewers is more important than not using
Google for anything. (but I'm not even sure what the subject is... if
it's really just an editathon/workshop that's different than a meeting
to plan or organize something)
I'm not sure what kind of discussion relating to
Wikipedia would be
appropriate for an online meetup, but maybe others have an idea.
I'm not sure either and I like in-person meetings. I was just
responding to the earlier suggestion for online meetings. But not my
region so I'll try to stick mostly to the sidelines.
-Jeremy
P.S. I don't ever hangout (and already wasn't 3 months ago) from the
same Google account I use for anything else. and sometimes I even make
a brand new Google account from scratch for a particular hangout and
then never uses that account again. I think I've only been an active
participant in ~3-4 hangouts ever but I've passively viewed the
livestream of a hangout on air for other hangouts.