Wikimeets - best place to organise them online? - Wikimediauk-l

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Wikimedia UK report, Jan-May 2011

Imperial wikisoc: where we're at

Michael Peel

2 Jul 2011 2 Jul '11

9:24 a.m.

Hi all, I'm trying to figure out where the best place to do the online organisation of wikimeets is. I can think of four different places, each with pros and cons, which I'd appreciate others' views on. 1) English Wikipedia Pros: visibility, 'standard place', likely to be a wiki that most wikimeet attendees will use to some degree, can add to list of upcoming meetups and be encouraged by meetup plans in other countries. Cons: English Wikipedia-specific, whereas wikimeets are much more general. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Manchester_8 2) Meta Pros: Neutral ground for all different Wikimedia projects. Not associated with a specific real-life organisation. Cons: Few other meetups are organised here. No connections to other activities. May be a new wiki for some people when signing up Example: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/London/47 3) Wikimedia UK wiki Pros: Encourages involvement in different types of activities happening in the UK. Wikimeets would be listed amongst other UK-events more easily. Cons: Makes it more difficult to find out about other wikimeets. May make it harder for UK people to find wikimeets in other countries when abroad. May make it seem like WMUK 'owns' the wikimeets, which may discourage people to organise them. Example (not yet used): http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Wikimeets 4) External website, e.g. Facebook, meetup.com Pros: May bring in a different crowd of people. Easy to use for newcomers. Cons: Will not be as visible as a wiki to most Wikimedians Example: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148137338550494 I'm leaning towards using the WMUK wiki for organising the Manchester wikimeets (and in a bit of a different format from the standard - keeping a single wiki page rather than creating a new one each time), but I'm less sure about how this would be received. Input/comments would be very welcome. Thanks, Mike

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James Forrester

2 Jul 2 Jul

9:31 a.m.

On 2 July 2011 10:24, Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:

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[Snip]

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3) Wikimedia UK wiki Pros: Encourages involvement in different types of activities happening in the UK. Wikimeets would be listed amongst other UK-events more easily. Cons: Makes it more difficult to find out about other wikimeets. May make it harder for UK people to find wikimeets in other countries when abroad. May make it seem like WMUK 'owns' the wikimeets, which may discourage people to organise them.

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I'm leaning towards using the WMUK wiki for organising the Manchester wikimeets (and in a bit of a different format from the standard - keeping a single wiki page rather than creating a new one each time), but I'm less sure about how this would be received. Input/comments would be very welcome.

I think meta is a good place (but then, I did move the London ones there after a complaint from a non-enwiki-er, so I'm biased ;-)). I also think the real value now we have SUL is not in the home but in the advertising for them. Yours, -- James D. Forrester jdforrester(a)wikimedia.org | jdforrester(a)gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]

Tom Morris

9:39 a.m.

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 10:31, James Forrester <james(a)jdforrester.org> wrote:

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For most WMUK events I try and list them on Lanyrd which is used by the tech crowd. It'd be good if we could list them on Facebook as well. A multi-pronged strategy works best. It'd be good if we could try hard to work with local geek event communities as well: for the last Manchester meetup, I told my friend Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden on Twitter) and he promoted it to the geek community in Manchester and got it on the Twitter account of some kind of social media thing in Manchester. Let's do more of this. We should be getting more non-Wikipedia people involved and attending events: because in-breeding isn't healthy. -- Tom Morris <http://tommorris.org/> Please don't print this e-mail out unless you want a hard copy of it. If you do, go ahead. I won't stop you. Nor will I waste your ink/toner with 300+ lines of completely pointless and legally unenforceable cargo cult blather about corporate confidentiality.

David Gerard

11:47 a.m.

On 2 July 2011 10:39, Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> wrote:

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We should be getting more non-Wikipedia people involved and attending events: because in-breeding isn't healthy.

And more non-techies, for the same reason. - d.

WereSpielChequers

3 Jul 3 Jul

8 a.m.

I'd say that meta is the right place for meetup pages, but with pubilicity from other projects that might be relevant. Holding it on Wikipedia might be seen as limiting it to Wikipedians. The drawback of inviting non-wikimedians is that they may not be interested in wikimedia. So I'd suggest one should proceed with caution there (that said I'm hoping that one of our GLAM contacts will be at next Sunday's London meetup.. WSC On 2 July 2011 12:47, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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On 2 July 2011 10:39, Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> wrote:

We should be getting more non-Wikipedia people involved and attending events: because in-breeding isn't healthy.

And more non-techies, for the same reason. - d. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

Deryck Chan

3:10 p.m.

Wherever we host it, the most important thing seems to be geo-targeted notices. Where we host it doesn't actually matter, as long as we publicise the link well. On Jul 3, 2011 4:01 PM, "WereSpielChequers" <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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On 2 July 2011 10:39, Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> wrote:

We should be getting more non-Wikipedia people involved and attending events: because in-breeding isn't healthy.

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

Charles Matthews

4 Jul 4 Jul

10:38 a.m.

On 03/07/2011 16:10, Deryck Chan wrote:

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Wherever we host it, the most important thing seems to be geo-targeted notices. Where we host it doesn't actually matter, as long as we publicise the link well.

WereSpielChequers

11:29 a.m.

I think that multichannel marketing is the answer here. Watchlisting and Geonotices may be our most effective way of communictaing these events, but its important to use other channels as well such as the UK mailing list. Also I sometimes drop a note on the talkpage of UK or London based editors who I come across on wiki. WSC On 4 July 2011 11:38, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

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On 03/07/2011 16:10, Deryck Chan wrote:

Wherever we host it, the most important thing seems to be geo-targeted notices. Where we host it doesn't actually matter, as long as we publicise the link well.

That is obviously not the whole answer, if we want to appeal more broadly than people who check their watchlist often on one of the projects. How would other WMUK members normally find out about meetups? Charles _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

Charles Matthews

2:38 p.m.

On 04/07/2011 12:29, WereSpielChequers wrote:

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Just out of interest, what proportion of the WMUK membership is subscribed to this list? Charlws

Michael Peel

9:28 p.m.

On 3 Jul 2011, at 09:00, WereSpielChequers wrote:

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I'd say that meta is the right place for meetup pages, but with pubilicity from other projects that might be relevant. Holding it on Wikipedia might be seen as limiting it to Wikipedians.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. I've moved the Manchester wikimeet page to meta; it's now at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Manchester Please sign up if you're interested in coming along to these meetups. :-)

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The drawback of inviting non-wikimedians is that they may not be interested in wikimedia. So I'd suggest one should proceed with caution there (that said I'm hoping that one of our GLAM contacts will be at next Sunday's London meetup..

I have two answers to this. First, that I doubt those that are not interested in some way in Wikimedia would come along to a Wikimeet. Second, that I would hope that those already at the wikimeet could convince the uninitiated that Wikimedia is interesting. ;-) On 4 Jul 2011, at 12:29, WereSpielChequers wrote:

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Definitely - the more diverse and widespread the advertising of a wikimeet, the better. The problem tends to be identifying the wikimedians in the particular geographical area, given how widespread and anonymous Wikimedians tend to be... On 4 Jul 2011, at 15:38, Charles Matthews wrote:

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Just out of interest, what proportion of the WMUK membership is subscribed to this list?

There are currently 186 people subscribed to this list, compared with ~180 WMUK members. I doubt that there will be a one-to-one correspondence, though - although I would hope that everyone subscribed to this list would be interested in joining WMUK (and if you're not already a member, I'd love to hear why not...). Thanks, Mike

Chris McKenna

8 Jul 8 Jul

4:52 p.m.

On Mon, 4 Jul 2011, Michael Peel wrote:

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although I would hope that everyone subscribed to this list would be interested in joining WMUK (and if you're not already a member, I'd love to hear why not...).

Gordon Joly

9 Jul 9 Jul

4:41 p.m.

I second that. I eventually joined WMUK... but I have left several other registered charities (who charge around £25 a year). These days, a membership fee of £5 for a charity seems about right. At the Lansbury Gardeners AGM today we increased the subscription from £1 to £5 per annum. My CAMRA subscription is due next month. But I actually SAVE MONEY my being a CAMRA member! That is the with the £20's worth of Wetherspoons (50p) vouchers and (most) real ale pints at The Golden Grove in Stratford in East London for £1.40 a pint (rather than £2.10). But my WMUK membership does make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, of course... Gordo P.S. Attendance at London Wikimeets also costs (travel, refreshments)! On 08/07/2011 17:52, Chris McKenna wrote:

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On Mon, 4 Jul 2011, Michael Peel wrote:

although I would hope that everyone subscribed to this list would be interested in joining WMUK (and if you're not already a member, I'd love to hear why not...).

Money. Having been unemployed for several years and now a student, money is not something I have in abundance. Chris ---- Chris McKenna cmckenna(a)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 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l(a)wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org

-- Gordon Joly gordon.joly(a)pobox.com http://www.joly.org.uk/ Don't Leave Space To The Professionals!

Michael Peel

2 Jul 2 Jul

9:54 a.m.

On 2 Jul 2011, at 10:31, James Forrester wrote:

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You missed out that it will only be seen by people that already know that the wikimeets exist, or that Wikimedia UK does. We very frequently get new people at the London meetups who had no idea that the meetups existed, and certainly no idea that WMUK (or any chapters) do. I think it would be a mistake to ghettoise the meetups into a non-community wiki. however much we happen to love WMUK. I think meta is a good place (but then, I did move the London ones there after a complaint from a non-enwiki-er, so I'm biased ;-)). I also think the real value now we have SUL is not in the home but in the advertising for them.

I think you're right that the real value is the advertising - which can be done in the same way regardless of where the meetup pages are (e.g. point the geonotices to a different URL, add links into en:Wikipedia:Meetup/Calendar, :meta:Meetup/UK/Footer_list etc.). As Tom points out, doing more social networking to encourage people from different backgrounds to come along would be good. Part of what I'm trying to figure out is the incidental benefits/drawbacks of having the pages on specific wikis - does it potentially help the community to have them on meta, or would it help more if they were on the WMUK wiki due to the links with other events? Thanks, Mike

Gordon Joly

11:44 a.m.

Experience from being involved with "London Wiki Wednesday" and other meetups is the consistency of information (date, time, place) at different places, and where to "sign up" (if at all). "London Wiki Wednesday" was harmed (in part) by the use SocialText.... and now seems moribund. London Wikimeets are a very mature group...... with an excellent pedigree! Meeting 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/London_1 Meeting 47 http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/London/47 Gordo -- Gordon Joly gordon.joly(a)pobox.com http://www.joly.org.uk/ Don't Leave Space To The Professionals!

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participants (10)

Charles Matthews
Chris McKenna
David Gerard
Deryck Chan
Gordon Joly
James Forrester
Michael Peel
Michael Peel
Tom Morris
WereSpielChequers