Hello,
Since this is the start of the new year, let me just shortly let you know (or
remind you) about what one thing we've done in Sweden last year and a little
about what we've learned.
We started in March in Gothenburg, the second largest city of Sweden, to hold
weekly editathons. The topic was formally "female main characters" ("kvinnliga
huvudpersoner"), but we essentially let people write about what they wanted,
and tried to gently steer them towards literature and/or women. It could be
female authors, or seminal works in womens' literature such as "The Mad Woman
in the Attic". We welcomed people of all sexes.
Altogether we ran 35 editathons each running on a Tuesday from 13.00 onwards,
editing in over 100 different articles, with about different 15 Wikipedians.
The result was 11 articles reaching "recommended status" (ranking just below
Good articles) with more on their way. (We of course want to improve on this
for next year.) A full list of articles worked on, sorted on how far they've
come can be found on our project page:
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Projekt_kvinnor/Kvinnliga_huvudpersoner_p%C3%A5_Wikipedia#Skapade_och_f.C3.B6rb.C3.A4ttrade_artiklar_.28s.C3.A5_h.C3.A4r_l.C3.A5ngt.29
This initiative is one of the most publicised Wikipedia/Wikimedia events in
Sweden during the year with two national radio interviews, two podcast
interviews and several articles. There has been no negative reactions (which I
am beginning to understand needs specifying) as far as I am aware of. We have
presented this on flyers and on the large Book Fair in Gothenburg, and have
started to get a very good reputation. We are hoping to see the same sort of
regular editathon thing getting off the ground in other cities in Sweden during
2015.
So, what have we learned?
* we could not have done this but for a small group of dedicated people who
showed up nearly every time. We were four persons (two female, two male). "All
volunteers" led to very little bureaucracy during the editathons themselves and
sometimes editathons running over by several hours. Making sure that the
editathons didn't depend on any one person was an early priority.
* we had access to a free space with wifi and a kitchen. Each time, Wikimedia
Sverige sponsored coffee/tea, sandwiches and fruit - and gingersnaps and other
seasonal treats. Don't underestimate the power of "fika"
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fika_%28coffee_break%29). All in all, the cost
of all 35 editathons was around 240-250 USD.
* we have two lines of communication: both the project page, and our Facebook
group: https://www.facebook.com/events/213852525478532/, where we could remind
people to come and get them to invite others who aren't on Wikipedia yet.
Personal invitations works much better in the long run - getting people to come
back week after week.
* the topic was very well chosen. Many are interested in literature and the
topic is underdeveloped on Wikipedia, so it's easy to explain the need to
outsiders. But it has also been good to allow some leeway and not adhering
strictly to any predetermined list of articles to edit. Sometimes interesting
topics crop up in conversation or a bad article was discovered during fact
checking and then we've encouraged people to edit that article.
* some people have wished for the editathons to be held on other days/other
times. It may have contributed to the sometimes very low attendance rates.
We've tried to taken that into account, and are thinking about how to manage
regular weekend editathons. We are also considering ways to get the people most
interested in going to those editathons to also run them (empowering them, in
effect).
* there are always going to be a few people who only come one time, just to
check what we're about. Especially after we put in weekly small ads (for free).
We took turns doing the introduction and making sure they made a few edits, so
that as many Wikipedians as possible had done it, and also to make sure that
the Wikipedians themselves could have time to edit. That's also how we tried to
do with the radio and pod cast interviews, to prevent any one person "the
representative Wikipedian".
* you also shouldn't underestimate how much this is a way for stressed
Wikipedians with normally very little time to edit Wikipedia to set aside time
to do it.
Finally, just FYI. During the winter holiday, when the editathons had a few
weeks off, demand for more meetings was so high that we organised a Hangout
remote editathon session just to relieve our feelings of abstinence :-)
Best wishes,
Lennart Guldbrandsson
070 - 207 80 05
http://www.elementx.se - arbete
Skriv som ett proffs - min senaste bok
http://www.mrchapel.wordpress.com - personlig blogg
Presentation
@aliasHannibal - på Twitter
"Tänk dig en värld där varje människa på den här planeten får fri tillgång till
världens samlade kunskap. Det är vårt mål."
Jimmy Wales _______________________________________________
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