[Wikimediaau-l] Getting started

[Adam Karpathakis]

Hi, I'm a fairly new Wikimedian. I hope this is the right place as there is two lists.

I would like to get a discussion started on how to approach institutions. I am a confident speaker but to senior people to whom I am Mr Joe Blow off the street, I don't have any firm ideas on gaining trust then commitment from them. It does not help that Public Perception #1 is Wikipedia = unreliable, full of useless trivia. Telling them this isn't Wikipedia is likely to confuse them.

So what ideas have others tried that have worked or that may work?

Also as a new member while I received a very nice welcome email, and I am grateful for that, I think Wikimedia should have a standard pdf email as well to inform people of relevant contacts in their city, what the org is and what it stands for and why it exists, etc. This should be simple enough to show or pass on to potential members. Interesting fact from uni student associations - New members are your best recruiters, all you have to do is make it easy for them.

As everybody seems to be very invested in who should edit the chapter wiki, which to me is an unimportant issue, I would say only that if you want people to support you, you have to look professional. Wikis are good for geekd but discourage tech newbies, so you get very 'filtered' feedback. People also get upset when their contribs get reverted or written over. The obvious solution is to start an open access blog - people love blogs, some of the ones I read attract over 100 comments a day and they are full of useful feedback and ideas while still being moderated spaces protected from spam. Visitors will not confuse a blog with the chapter's official website so you get the best of both worlds.

Adam
 		 	   		  
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