Hey,
it is indeed a fantastic idea, which I was also thinking about in the last
two years during my time at SOAS in London. Even though every student uses
Wikipedia, actually contributing to it regularly and taking part in events
or administrator work has a geeky sound to it according to most and this is
one of the reasons, from my personal experience, that Wikimedia Societies
don't work well at most universities. Sad.
Still, it would be worthwhile looking into making active involvement with
Wikipedia more popular at universities, among students as well as academics.
We certainly don't have a lack of contributors, but we do to some extent
lack content in some areas where specific knowledge or research work
(non-original obviously) is required.
One of the ideas I had in this area was to hold a WikiAcademy in London (at
the time at SOAS) at the time, but due to personal reasons I have left SOAS
and the UK for at least a couple of years and therefor will most likely not
be following up on this personally. I had contacted a few people, including
Jimmy and the organizer of the last one in Germany - who were both very
interested.
Ian
[[User:Poeloq]]
On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 1:34 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A great idea from the WMAU list. University students
could have a
spectacular time taking photos and writing stuff. Particularly as they
tend to have *rather nice* libraries to hand.
The main thing they would need is a few individuals at the university
in question willing to form the club, etc. Not sure what a Wikimedia
chapter could do in the first instance, but I'm sure someone will
think of something.
- d.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2008/8/1
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaau-l] Chapter activity ideas
To: Wikimedia-au <wikimediaau-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 4:53 PM, Brianna Laugher
<brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
...
*? I thought of this last night, maybe encourage "Wikimedia Editors
Clubs" in schools/universities? like enable local groups that are
extremely light-weight on the admin side.
This is a brilliant idea, even more so because I separately thought of
in another post to this list just an hour ago!
University students are a group that are pour hours into Wikipedia and
other projects, both in reading, creating and maintaining. There are
also many existing clubs which we could work with. e.g. the
photography club at UoM would likely be interested in working closely
with Wikimedia Commons, and also to provide good quality photos for
Wikipedia articles about Melbourne and Australian flora and fauna.
http://union.unimelb.edu.au/clubs/special-interest#foto
There will also be Uni clubs existing or forming around "free content"
themes.
--
John
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