[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Youth Camp?

[James Hare]

What a great idea -- "kids" meeting "kids" they found on the Internet.

Sarcasm aside, this sounds like a good idea. Though my personal preference
would be to go to Wikimania itself. But I'm not normal in too many ways.

On 9/5/06, Erik Moeller <eloquence at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Just an idea, and probably not a new one:
>
> I'm consistently amazed by the amount of participation by young people
> in our projects. Ranging from featured article writing to
> organizational tasks, their participation covers the whole gamut of
> activities Wikimedia has to offer -- and many of them do it with
> passion and skills that should make any adult blush.
>
> Would it be worth considering to organize national (perhaps also
> annual) conferences specifically targeted at youths participating in
> Wikimedia, and those who might do so in the future? Such a venue would
> be very different from the more serious Wikimania. It could be a
> summer camp, with music and some non-wiki activities (films, sports,
> ..).
>
> Topics would be handled in a more participatory, workshop style manner
> than typical conference sessions. They could include:
> - How to write really good articles?
> - How to do research in libraries?
> - What is this copyright stuff all about?
> - My POV, your POV, NPOV?
> - Where's Willy? How to find and fight vandals
> - Jimbo's campfire stories
> - Write your own news with Wikinews
> - Celebrity hunt: Wikimedia Commons needs you
> - Everything you know about Pokemon, and where to put it
>
> OK, perhaps I'm not really good at defining the topic scope. But you
> get the idea. ;-)
>
> Ideally, workshop leaders themselves should be youths with experience
> in Wikimedia, with some adult help to explain the more complex issues
> of law, policy and technology.
>
> If we consider this a good idea, another question is whether we should
> do it in conjunction with other organizations like Creative Commons or
> the FSF. The closest thing to such an event I've participated in was
> the "Berlin 05" youth festival last year, where both Wikimedia and the
> Chaos Computer Club were present. (See
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_05 for brief information about
> that event in German.)
>
> A festival or camp might have more of a long term future with support
> from multiple organizations, an international make-up, and an annual
> schedule like Wikimania. A "Free Culture Youth Festival" might be a
> suitably generic framework. But a more focused Wiki-Camp might have
> its benefits, too.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> --
> Peace & Love,
> Erik
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