Hi all,
tl;dr summary: I'm planning to run a survey about wikimeets in the near future. Do you have any comments/suggestions on the draft? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
At a recent meetup, a Wikipedian who was new to wikimeets pointed out that the event had the air of a gentleman's club about it. Looking around at the high-back comfy chairs, the Victorian-era interior decorations, the pints of real ale, and the mostly-male (and regular) attendees, I couldn't really disagree with their assessment. This started me thinking: are there better venues and times to hold meetups, or better ways of advertising/inviting people to planned meetups? What would make them more open and inviting to new editors, or the many long-term editors that have never attended a meetup?
As an experiment to try to improve the attendance and advertising of wikimeets in the North of England, a few months ago I posted messages on the talk pages of previous wikimeet attendees about the last Leeds and Manchester wikimeets, and the Liverpool wikimeet coming up this weekend. There was, unexpectedly, a pretty good response, with a number of people signing up to attend the wikimeets. I'm not sure whether it was a direct consequence or not, but we had a long-term editor attend the last Manchester wikimeet who hadn't previously attended a wikimeet. I couldn't attend the last Leeds wikimeet: was anyone there and able to say whether it made a difference or not? I'm hoping that the irregular wikimeet attendees who have signed up for the Liverpool meetup will be there!
It also started a longer conversation with Iridescent [1], which led to the idea of having some sort of a UK-wide notifications list. During that conversation, I started drafting a survey of past and potential wikimeet attendees with the aim of getting some quantified and actionable answers about how to improve wikimeets, and also improve communication about wikimeets. The latest draft of the survey is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
Amongst other things, the survey draft asks about how people get to wikimeets; when and where wikimeets should be held; what activities should take place at wikimeets; and how notifications about an upcoming meetup would ideally be circulated.
I'm hoping to run this survey soon, so if you are interested in improving the survey questions then please send me an email or post on the talk page before the end of the month! In particular, if you currently organise (or regularly attend) wikimeets, then I'd greatly appreciate your input/feedback about the survey questions before it goes live. Ideally the survey would be run in association with WMUK, but given the recent turmoil I'm not sure if this will be possible, so I'll run it myself unless WMUK expresses an interest in helping out with it!
Thanks, Mike
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_17#Next_meetups_i...
Hi Mike
This sounds a very worthwhile exercise and subject to comments by D'Arcy and the staff team I think it's very likely that this could be done association with WMUK. No doubt the bulk of the work in preparing the survey and analysing the results would be done by a group of volunteers, with you leading (volunteers in front, as it should be!). Do you have an idea of what resources you'd like from the charity? Perhaps WMUK could use its volunteer and member database to broaden the reach of the survey by distributing it by email?
Best regards
Michael
____________ Michael Maggs Chair, Wikimedia UK
Michael Peel mailto:email@mikepeel.net 13 May 2015 22:13 Hi all,
tl;dr summary: I'm planning to run a survey about wikimeets in the near future. Do you have any comments/suggestions on the draft? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
At a recent meetup, a Wikipedian who was new to wikimeets pointed out that the event had the air of a gentleman's club about it. Looking around at the high-back comfy chairs, the Victorian-era interior decorations, the pints of real ale, and the mostly-male (and regular) attendees, I couldn't really disagree with their assessment. This started me thinking: are there better venues and times to hold meetups, or better ways of advertising/inviting people to planned meetups? What would make them more open and inviting to new editors, or the many long-term editors that have never attended a meetup?
As an experiment to try to improve the attendance and advertising of wikimeets in the North of England, a few months ago I posted messages on the talk pages of previous wikimeet attendees about the last Leeds and Manchester wikimeets, and the Liverpool wikimeet coming up this weekend. There was, unexpectedly, a pretty good response, with a number of people signing up to attend the wikimeets. I'm not sure whether it was a direct consequence or not, but we had a long-term editor attend the last Manchester wikimeet who hadn't previously attended a wikimeet. I couldn't attend the last Leeds wikimeet: was anyone there and able to say whether it made a difference or not? I'm hoping that the irregular wikimeet attendees who have signed up for the Liverpool meetup will be there!
It also started a longer conversation with Iridescent [1], which led to the idea of having some sort of a UK-wide notifications list. During that conversation, I started drafting a survey of past and potential wikimeet attendees with the aim of getting some quantified and actionable answers about how to improve wikimeets, and also improve communication about wikimeets. The latest draft of the survey is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
Amongst other things, the survey draft asks about how people get to wikimeets; when and where wikimeets should be held; what activities should take place at wikimeets; and how notifications about an upcoming meetup would ideally be circulated.
I'm hoping to run this survey soon, so if you are interested in improving the survey questions then please send me an email or post on the talk page before the end of the month! In particular, if you currently organise (or regularly attend) wikimeets, then I'd greatly appreciate your input/feedback about the survey questions before it goes live. Ideally the survey would be run in association with WMUK, but given the recent turmoil I'm not sure if this will be possible, so I'll run it myself unless WMUK expresses an interest in helping out with it!
Thanks, Mike
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_17#Next_meetups_i... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
I am sure that many of the regulars have talked about change. For example, Fabian Tompsett has suggested to me (and I have talked to others) about alternatives. Fabian's idea was to have an "East London" meeting, based perhaps in the "Idea Stores" (modern libraries in Tower Hamlets).
London Wikimeets date back to June 2004.
Gordo
Hi,
Great idea Mike! The Leeds wikimeet was pretty white and male apart from Katherine Bavage.
That was partly what prompted my suggestion that the forthcoming York meet https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/York/2 be moved to a cafe rather than a pub. I'm also hoping to get some uptake from the students at the York Art History WikiClub which is just gettting off the ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/YNP/ArtHistoryWikiClub. This will definitely change the dynamic!
It might be interesting to specifically target WikiMeet marketing at recent edit-a-thon attendees (by email/social media?). Perhaps this would be a small step toward helping editor retention?
Just a few thoughts,
P
On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
I am sure that many of the regulars have talked about change. For example, Fabian Tompsett has suggested to me (and I have talked to others) about alternatives. Fabian's idea was to have an "East London" meeting, based perhaps in the "Idea Stores" (modern libraries in Tower Hamlets).
London Wikimeets date back to June 2004.
Gordo
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 15/05/15 12:10, Pat Hadley wrote:
Great idea Mike! The Leeds wikimeet was pretty white and male apart from Katherine Bavage.
LOL.
Now, if you all watched W1A last night you know that the BBC has to match the demographic (BAME, LGBTI) outside the BBC.....
So, should wikimeeters not worry to much, since with a group men and one women it might reflect the gender balance of editors?
Pub meets might not be attractive to those who do not drink, for religious or other reasons.
Gordo
On Thu, 14 May 2015, Gordon Joly wrote:
London Wikimeets date back to June 2004.
And if anyone wants to see some youger looking regulars, there are photos from early meets
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/London_1 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Thryduulf/Wikimeets/London3
---- Chris McKenna
cmckenna@sucs.org www.sucs.org/~cmckenna
The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart
Antoine de Saint Exupery
----- On 15 May, 2015, at 15:51, Chris McKenna cmckenna@sucs.org wrote:
On Thu, 14 May 2015, Gordon Joly wrote:
London Wikimeets date back to June 2004.
And if anyone wants to see some youger looking regulars, there are photos from early meets
Even _I_ looked younger eleven years ago ... :O
AlisonW
Dear Mike I have compiled quite a number of surveys in my time and would be happy to go through the questions with you. Kind regards D'Arcy
On 13 May 2015 at 22:13, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi all,
tl;dr summary: I'm planning to run a survey about wikimeets in the near future. Do you have any comments/suggestions on the draft? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
At a recent meetup, a Wikipedian who was new to wikimeets pointed out that the event had the air of a gentleman's club about it. Looking around at the high-back comfy chairs, the Victorian-era interior decorations, the pints of real ale, and the mostly-male (and regular) attendees, I couldn't really disagree with their assessment. This started me thinking: are there better venues and times to hold meetups, or better ways of advertising/inviting people to planned meetups? What would make them more open and inviting to new editors, or the many long-term editors that have never attended a meetup?
As an experiment to try to improve the attendance and advertising of wikimeets in the North of England, a few months ago I posted messages on the talk pages of previous wikimeet attendees about the last Leeds and Manchester wikimeets, and the Liverpool wikimeet coming up this weekend. There was, unexpectedly, a pretty good response, with a number of people signing up to attend the wikimeets. I'm not sure whether it was a direct consequence or not, but we had a long-term editor attend the last Manchester wikimeet who hadn't previously attended a wikimeet. I couldn't attend the last Leeds wikimeet: was anyone there and able to say whether it made a difference or not? I'm hoping that the irregular wikimeet attendees who have signed up for the Liverpool meetup will be there!
It also started a longer conversation with Iridescent [1], which led to the idea of having some sort of a UK-wide notifications list. During that conversation, I started drafting a survey of past and potential wikimeet attendees with the aim of getting some quantified and actionable answers about how to improve wikimeets, and also improve communication about wikimeets. The latest draft of the survey is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey
Amongst other things, the survey draft asks about how people get to wikimeets; when and where wikimeets should be held; what activities should take place at wikimeets; and how notifications about an upcoming meetup would ideally be circulated.
I'm hoping to run this survey soon, so if you are interested in improving the survey questions then please send me an email or post on the talk page before the end of the month! In particular, if you currently organise (or regularly attend) wikimeets, then I'd greatly appreciate your input/feedback about the survey questions before it goes live. Ideally the survey would be run in association with WMUK, but given the recent turmoil I'm not sure if this will be possible, so I'll run it myself unless WMUK expresses an interest in helping out with it!
Thanks, Mike
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_17#Next_meetups_i... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
On 18 May 2015 at 09:46, D'Arcy Myers darcy.myers@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear Mike I have compiled quite a number of surveys in my time and would be happy to go through the questions with you.
I had one comment, about audience(s). There are people who attend meetups, and people who might. There are those who organise them, and again those who might. Some division up of questions accordingly could be helpful.
Charles
Hi all,
Thanks for your comments! And sorry for the delay in moving this forward. I think it's now pretty much finalised, so if anyone has any last comments please let me know. The latest version is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey#Survey
In response to a couple of the points raised:
On 14 May 2015, at 07:55, Michael Maggs Michael@maggs.name wrote:
This sounds a very worthwhile exercise and subject to comments by D'Arcy and the staff team I think it's very likely that this could be done association with WMUK. No doubt the bulk of the work in preparing the survey and analysing the results would be done by a group of volunteers, with you leading (volunteers in front, as it should be!). Do you have an idea of what resources you'd like from the charity? Perhaps WMUK could use its volunteer and member database to broaden the reach of the survey by distributing it by email?
Thanks! The resources I'm hoping WMUK can provide are: - Access to survey software to run the survey (e.g., surveymonkey); - Oversight to make sure that the survey data is kept confidential and deleted after the results have been compiled; - Distribution through its volunteer/membership database. I'll email D'Arcy and Richard to see if this is possible, and to start preparing the survey to be run.
On 18 May 2015, at 12:12, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I had one comment, about audience(s). There are people who attend meetups, and people who might. There are those who organise them, and again those who might. Some division up of questions accordingly could be helpful.
There are questions about how many wikimeets people have attended, and I've also added one about whether they've organised one. I'm not sure that we want to ask each group different questions; I think this is where cross-correlations between the different answers might provide useful insights.
Thanks, Mike
Hi all,
The survey is now live at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD Please fill it in!
Thanks, Mike
Dear Mike Good survey. Is it too late to add a contacts section at the end for people who would like to leave their details so that they can receive a summary of the survey findings? Kind regards D'Arcy
On 20 September 2015 at 17:32, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi all,
The survey is now live at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD Please fill it in!
Thanks, Mike
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Hi D'Arcy,
Thanks! I've now added that option at the end. People can also sign up on-wiki at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey/notification_li... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey/notification_list to receive a summary of the findings.
Thanks, Mike
On 21 Sep 2015, at 08:18, D'Arcy Myers darcy.myers@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear Mike Good survey. Is it too late to add a contacts section at the end for people who would like to leave their details so that they can receive a summary of the survey findings? Kind regards D'Arcy
On 20 September 2015 at 17:32, Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net mailto:email@mikepeel.net> wrote: Hi all,
The survey is now live at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD Please fill it in!
Thanks, Mike
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org mailto:wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk https://wikimedia.org.uk/
-- D'Arcy C..F. Myers - Interim Chief Executive Wikimedia UK.
Direct Dial: (0044) 207 065 0937
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Great. D'Arcy
On 21 September 2015 at 09:04, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi D'Arcy,
Thanks! I've now added that option at the end. People can also sign up on-wiki at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey/notification_li... to receive a summary of the findings.
Thanks, Mike
On 21 Sep 2015, at 08:18, D'Arcy Myers darcy.myers@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Dear Mike Good survey. Is it too late to add a contacts section at the end for people who would like to leave their details so that they can receive a summary of the survey findings? Kind regards D'Arcy
On 20 September 2015 at 17:32, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi all,
The survey is now live at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD Please fill it in!
Thanks, Mike
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
-- *D'Arcy C..F. Myers - Interim Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*.
Direct Dial: (0044) 207 065 0937
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: https://wikimedia.org.uk
Hi all,
I'll be closing the survey shortly, so if you want to fill it in but haven't yet, then please do so today!
Thanks, Mike
On 20 Sep 2015, at 18:32, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi all,
The survey is now live at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JJMNVVD Please fill it in!
Thanks, Mike
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
