[Foundation-l] [EWW] Edit Wikipedia Week

[Robert Rohde]

I'd encourage people be careful about the message here.  "Edit Wikipedia
Week" (abbreviated "EWW"?), sounds much like something Stephen Colbert might
come up with.  The goal is not to triple the number of elephants in Africa
[a bit of Colbert inspired vandalism], but rather to get more people
involved and teach good editting.

Most of the suggestions for activities do seem to have a reasonable focus,
but I think some of the backlash on this list is coming from people who
perceive this event as pushing editting solely for editting's sake, and yes
pushing editing can be destructive.  Instead, I think we would be better
served by thinking of this as a "Learn Wikipedia Week" or a "Teach Wikipedia
Week".  In other words, think of it as not simply getting more people to hit
the "edit" button, but more comprehensively as a effort to try and teach
productive editting skills to new users.

In addition to presentations, and the like, a bit of valuable preparation
might be to think about how people learn Wikipedia and spend time cleaning
up some of the introductory pages that new users first see.

-Robert Rohde
On Nov 20, 2007 5:58 AM, Christophe Henner <christophe.henner at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear community,
>
> Few days ago a pretty neat idea was proposed, an idea which could
> involves all of the community members, all of you: the "Edit Wikipedia
> Week". That week will take place from December 3 to 8, 2007 and the
> concept is pretty simple: you, as a community member, will have the
> chance to spread the word about how to edit Wikipedia or learn how to
> work on one of the other sister projects. We want it to be a worldwide
> event, and why not, transforming it into an annual event.
>
> Everyone can be involved in helping to stage a bunch of "Edit
> Wikipedia Week" events during that week. The idea is to stage outreach
> events around the world designed to encourage people to participate in
> the projects.
>
> The events can be practically anything – big or small. It doesn't
> matter how simple they seem to be, everything counts. You can talk
> about the project at a local school; get yourself booked for a
> television appearance; have a chat for a local photography club about
> the advantages of contributing to Commons; organize a marathon weekend
> for translations; discuss the different uses of the WikiPolicies to a
> group of regular users you know in your place, recruit new people to
> help you launch a WikiProject, or even just teach your mom how to
> press a button, edit an article and save. Simple steps that will help
> the world to know just what are we doing here, and why are we doing
> it. Anything you think will improve the projects is valid: the idea is
> to reach out to people who don't edit, or have no idea what Wikipedia
> is, and encourage them to contribute on the project.
>
>
> Edit Wikipedia Week is intended to be an experiment. The premise is
> that anyone can organize an event for Edit Wikipedia Week, and it can
> take whatever form makes sense to them. You don't need a permission,
> it's a community event: feel free to just participate.
>
>
> There are no fixed rules, except the following:
>
>    * Spread the word as you see it fit in your language community,
> local chapter, project, family etc.
>    * Make sure to record the ideas that are developed in your
> community, local chapter, project, family etc, in order to share your
> experiences with all of us.
>    * Start your own Edit Wikipedia week metapage in your own
> language, if you consider it useful to promote and monitor the ideas.
>
>
> Spread knowledge. Spread the Wiki love. :)
>
> Please translate this mail as much as you can, and spread it all
> around you. Your local mailing lists, your local village pump, your
> blog, etc...
>
> * See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edit_Wikipedia_Week for more
> informations
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