[Wikimediaau-l] More random ideas

[Confusing Manifestation]

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
> Just because I can, and because ideas are free, I thought I'd write down
> some other things that I thought WM-au might be able to do eventually which
> we could add to the [[m:Wikimedia_Australia/Activities#Possible_activities]]
> list.
I like most of these ideas, and have had a few similar ones myself.
Individual comments follow.

> - Briefings for media organisations on how to use Wikimedia projects for
> their journalism. Not just the anatomy of a media-wiki page but also how to
> use Virgil's Wiki-Scanner, WikiRage, WikiBlame etc. This would also get us
> in their minds as the people to talk to when they're running a Wikipedia
> story and would give us a chance to dispel the common errors that appear in
> print (e.g. flagged-revs = we are no longer a wiki, or that we think that
> knowledge is completely relativistic.
If we can get them to listen, this is a good one. It will help clear
up a lot of misconceptions about Wikimedia and Wikipedia.

> - Visit high-schools who are using Wikipedia as one of the texts in their
> English Syllabus. I don't know about the other states but in NSW wikipedia
> can be studied for the HSC. You can bet your eye-teeth that the high school
> english teachers don't know how to deal with that subject as well as we'd
> like. This could be an interesting excursion for a team of us, driving
> around the countryside for a week to different schools - road-trip anyone!?
A very good idea, and in fact one I've tried to make a start on - it
might have gotten lost in threading since I wrote a reply to an
ancient email, but I finally heard back from the NSW Board of Studies
regarding the inclusion of Wikipedia in the HSC English syllabus, and
was pointed in the direction of a few education boards and teacher
groups. I've written to all of them, but haven't heard back (it's now
been a couple of months, so probably about time to look into following
that up). Details are, I think, at [[meta:User:ConMan/NSW BoS
letter]], but if that doesn't work I'll dig up the proper link.

> - mini-Wikireaders of australian content published in collaboration with
> different cultural organisations. I'm thinking especially of the wonderful
> set of Banksia articles that are Featured on Wikipedia (thankyou Casliber!)
> I imagine that the National Parks or the Botanic Gardens might be interested
> in covering the printing costs for making a leaflet out of it if we supply
> the content formatted nicely for the purpose. These leaflets could be given
> out at the relevant cultural institutions to patrons and would therefore get
> our content (and logo) in front of some different areas of the public.
Sounds promising, and a good locus for collaboration if they can help
provide sources, or feedback on other articles in related veins that
they'd like to see worked on.

> - "BedWiki" where we can keep a list of people willing to offer their spare
> bed/sofa to other visiting wikimedians. There are some privacy issues to
> work through (such as not publishing an address but only a general
> location), but I for one would like to be able to visit other wikimedians
> when I go travelling and the best way to get charity from others is to start
> at home. This would be useful not only for Australians travelling interstate
> but potentially useful as a worldwide network if it scaled well. It could be
> good not only by saving money for the traveller but also to increase the
> community spirit of wikimedians.
I wouldn't be completely averse to that, although my flatmate might :)
Would probably be particularly handy if we end up running a convention
and ringing in people from other states to help organise.

> - Cultural tours for WM-au members. That is, we organise a free backstage
> tour of some facility such as a gallery, theatre, sports stadium, company in
> exchange for sitting down afterwards with some people from that organisation
> and spending a couple of hours improving the article on that subject.
> Organisations like the National Trust have many properties around the
> country and already run tours for members. They would be very valuable
> contributors to our projects if we spent the time teaching them how. The
> benefit for us would be seeing things that normally are either hidden or
> cost a lot of money to do. We would have to work through issues about
> Conflict of Interest (i.e. we're not promising to write whatever they want)
> but I don't see that being a huge problem once we explain NPOV, NOR and V.
> The main trick here would be to get enough wikimedians to come along to
> justify their time.
Again, good for providing a locus of collaboration.

On a similar bent, and I think this was probably suggested by someone
else a long time ago, but I'd like to see some kind of set-up where
people knowledgeable in various topics, and with access to useful
sources, pair up with people knowledgeable in Wikipedia and its
various little quirks (that being us), with the aim of putting
together some really top class articles. Say, for example, ten
Wikimedians and ten history professors in a State Library somewhere
collaborating on "Australians in WWI"-related articles.

CM