Hi Jean-Philippe,

Glad to hear WCMA is looking at starting student clubs! I'll provide some background info and thoughts.

Wikipedia Connection was started by me and some of my close friends back in 2015. None of my friends were into Wikipedia editing at the time, but were kind enough to help me get the club going. We started with hosting weekly workshops (small get-togethers with food, discussions, and editing), and hosted our first edit-a-thon that focused on improving articles related to Ohio (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Columbus/Buckeye_Edit-A-Thon_2015>). Over time, through these events and advertising on campus, our core group of regularly attending members grew to around 10-15 members.

I think one of the big advantages of being a club at Ohio State University is its size. With around 60,000 students, we're able to find a sizable number of students who become active members of the club. We're also able to do all sorts of outreach and collaborative events across many different areas (dozens of departments, librarians, etc). One thing to note is that I've seen a disproportionate number of STEM majors (particular computer science majors) join and remain active in our club, presumingly for a mix of reasons (strong tech backgrounds / enjoy being behind computers for extended periods of time / etc.).

For a new club to be successful, I think it needs an experienced Wikipedian at the helm, in order to be (a) motivated and (b) able to teach and pass knowledge to new club members. Note that our club, which brought in 130+ attendees in the last year, only has seen 3-4 people who have prior editing knowledge. Most of our work in on-boarding and training new editors.

One of the biggest concerns is sustainability. With students graduating every year, there is a high turnover rate of leadership. With Addis and myself graduating in the last year, the current leadership learned all of their Wikipedia editing skills and knowledge from Addis and I. While I'm confident they'll do great in hosting events and whatnot, having the club continue to be successful and grow can be a challenge in the next few years.

Let me know if you want to discuss further, now or in the future :)

Cheers,
Kevin Payravi
P: (330) 554 - 3397

On Thu, Aug 31, 2017 at 9:27 AM, Jean-Philippe Béland <jpbeland@wikimedia.ca> wrote:
Good day Kevin,

I would be very interested to learn how the project Wikipédia Connection started. We are looking to do something similar in Canada called WikiClubs. While some WikiClubs are just organized by volunteers in the same city, I would like to expand this concept to campus across the country.

Who should I talk to?

Thank you,

Jean-Philippe Béland
Vice President, Wikimedia Canada


On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 4:13 PM, Kevin Payravi <kevinpayravi@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,

I'm pleased to share Wikipedia Connection's annual report for the 2016-2017 school year.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Connection/Annual_Reports/2016-17>

Wikipedia Connection (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Connection>) is a student organization at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, USA. The group, run entirely by students with faculty support, hosts edit-a-thons, workshops, presentations, photo hunts, and more on campus. The 2016-2017 report summarizes all the year's events, which brought in > 130 campus participants through the year.

In addition to Wikipedia Connection, there have been Wikipedia student organizations at Michigan University, Cambridge, National Taiwan University, Pune, and a few more places. Wikipedia student organizations are relatively lowkey on the global scale. Hopefully this report showcases some of the things that can be done with universities - I think there's a lot of potential for Wikipedia student groups around the world, and documenting the process of setting up and running Wikipedia student organizations is a project I'm planning for the near future.

Thanks,
Kevin Payravi
SuperHamster on en.wiki

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--

Jean-Philippe Béland

Wikimedia CanadaVice-président — Wikimédia Canada, chapitre national soutenant Wikipédia
Vice president — Wikimedia Canada, national chapter supporting Wikipedia
535 avenue Viger Est, Montréal (Québec)  H2L 2P3,jpbeland@wikimedia.ca

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