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Hi all,
I'm forwarding a request for volunteers to help out on December 16 at
the Moscone Center to attend a workshop on Wikipedia sponsored by the
American Society for Cell Biology. He hopes to get as many as 20
Wikipedians (very optimistic!) but it would be great if we could get
at least ten to come. I say, "Wikimedians," though because I think we
can talk about quite a bit more than just Wikipedia (Wikiversity and
Wikimedia Commons both come to mind, and can probably )
I will probably make it a point myself to be there, and maybe drag
someone else from the office with me. But also be aware that December
16 is a Tuesday, so if you have a M-F daytime job, you may want to
call in sick or just not show up, so you can attend this. Not that
I'm endorsing any of these things... (Maybe you can take a long lunch
too!)
Speaking of lunch, I see that the organizers are buying the volunteers
lunch. That should be incentive too. :)
Please, let me know offlist if you can make it.
Cary
Bill Wedemeyer wrote:
14 November 2008 Hi Cary, The ASCB (American Society
for Cell
Biology) Wikipedia workshop will take place on December 16th, from
12:30-2:30pm at the Moscone Center. Because of security issues,
and also because the organizers are really nice, the volunteers
should show up at the Moscone Center at 11am, so that the
organizers can take us all out to a nice lunch and escort us
personally to the workshop. I think the organizers are sincerely
interested in Wikipedia and Wikipedians, and see great
possibilities where science and Wikipedia intersect. Anyway, it's
a 3 1/2 hour gig in all (11am-2:30pm), although I think volunteers
could leave the workshop early if they needed to. The organizers
invited User:TimVickers and me to run the workshop. Basically, the
organizers would like us all to help their scientists put their
research up on Wikipedia as referenced articles with newly uploaded
images. The scientists will bring the references, images and
knowledge; all we need to do is help them squeeze all that into a
good wiki-article. Tim and I will probably speak for 30 minutes,
introducing Wikipedia and wiki-markup, and then let the scientists
start writing from 1pm-2:30pm. We'll do everything in our power to
make it easy for the scientists, who are reportedly smart people.
;) But there's bound to be snafus and confusions and
misapprehensions, which the personal touch of a few good volunteers
could smooth over. Volunteers won't need their laptops, just good
cheer and a willingness to help out some befuddled scientists.
It's a great opportunity to build bridges with the scientific
community, and put a human face on Wikipedia. If the workshop
works as well as I hope, we'll get more invites from other
scientific bodies, which in turn means more great scientific
articles and contributors, which in turn means...you get the
picture. We're also recruiting volunteers to help out online.
Hoping for a good turnout from both communities, Bill
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