Hello, everyone:
Following up on the email we sent out last week, we have Phase I of the Community Communications Toolkit up: http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Communications_Kit
Phase I stresses two things for volunteers: telling your own story NOW and helping to pull together background information on the history of Wikipedia and the global magnitude of our work.
As discussed in the last email, we understand that most people don’t fully realize we’re a mission-driven, non-profit movement run by real, everyday people who care about providing a free public service to the world. Often, Wikipedia is thought to be a static product or service, not a living, breathing community of people who care. While some of us in the Wikimedia community are dedicated to communications work, all of us can use this 10-year anniversary as an opportunity to educate the world about who we are, the work that we do and the mission that drives us. The first—and most important—thing we can do RIGHT NOW is tell our own stories in our own words and encourage others who care about our work to do the same. Over the past 10 years, what has Wikipedia come to mean to the world? What was it like before there was a Wikipedia in your language? How will it impact the next ten years? We're encouraging all volunteers and anyone who cares about our projects to publicly tell their personal Wikipedia stories via letters to the editor, op-eds and personal or chapter blog posts. If volunteers don't have a blog or aren't comfortable sharing thoughts publicly, we've created a page to post on wiki as well: http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Stories
Additionally, we need help curating all of the interesting information about Wikipedia including: *Wikipedia's Historical Timeline: http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_timeline *Stats and information to help demonstrate the magnitude of Wikipedia: http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_by_the_numbershttp://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share *Wikipedia's top 10s: http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%27s_Top_Ten
There's a wealth of interesting information out there, but hasn't been captured and organized so that we can all access it easily. If you remember any fun facts and Wikipedia trivia from the last ten years, please share!
We plan to send a variation of this email to Internal and Foundation. We'll likely post Phase II of the Toolkit on Friday which should also include a draft media advisory we plan to send to press next Tuesday. Until then, please provide any feedback you have.
Cheers,
Moka