[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

[Rory Stolzenberg]

I think the idea of having courses and workshops on these topics is great,
but we shouldn't be targeting it towards youth specifically; it needlessly
singles them out and makes them different, and people of all ages can learn
from things like this.  Yes, it's good to train and nurture a new generation
of Wikipedians, but there's no reason for it to be a younger generation of
Wikipedians.  It should be targeted to the community as a whole, not just
youths.

On 9/6/06, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/6/06, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Of course, but we should make sure it's actually something that people
> would
> > want to be part of before devoting a lot of effort to it. Frankly, I
> don't
> > think that many kids on Wikipedia would be interested in a course called
> > "Everything you know about Pokemon, and where to put it," and probably
> even
> > less would be able to get there.
>
> That's why I think as a start, it would be good to run this as a youth
> session for a few days before Wikimania rather than depending a
> dedicated gettogether. Just like Hacking Days is a magnet for technie
> types to join together to learn, there could be a preconference track
> for younger folks who can decide for themselves if it's something
> they're into.
>
> Even if it's simply skills development, done in the context of
> Wikimania, it could get younger folks excited and involved. Some ideas
> might include - working with Wikimedia Commons, using Wikipedia in
> studies, media literacy, workshops on particular tasks. From a public
> relations angle, it's something that can show the Wikipedia community
> giving back to help train younger folks with the skills that have
> become second nature to Wikipedians.
>
> In fact, very few of these things are specific to being "youth" but
> rather providing a nurturing environment to recruit and train a
> younger generation of Wikipedians. (Actually, for Wikimania 2007, this
> might be good thing to do for the conference in general - tutorial
> tracks for folks who would like to learn the nuts and bolts of certain
> tasks.)
>
> Given recent questions about scalability of consensus, the poisonous
> RfA proceedings and trivia creeping into every corner of Wikipedia, we
> should be looking into more ways to keep the community healthy.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
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