We're aiming to have the Wiknic this year on Saturday, July 11 at Blackburn Park. That's the same location as last year and it worked really well. Signups are here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Atlanta/Atlanta_9
The scheduling has been pretty inefficient this year. I just took the most popular date from the other cities and then tried to correct. Next year I will just send out an email early asking people to list weekends in July that work for them, and I will pick the most popular one.
I hope to see you there!
Michael
Announcing AfroCROWD Intro to Wikimedia and How to Edit Wikipedia
workshops at New York's Brooklyn Public Library. Please email me if
you would like to discuss bringing one of these to your city. Please
also excuse cross-posting to various lists as we try to network across
the United States.
WHEN:
Saturday, February 7th 12:30 -3PM
Sunday February 8th 1-3:30PM
EVENTBRITE (better reading format):
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/afrocrowd-intro-to-wikimedia-how-to-edit-wikip…
If you plan to view via Livestream from a different city, please let
me know of your interest at alice.backer(a)gmail.com.
PROPOSAL:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/AFROcroWd_and_Interglider.ORG/Ou…)
BACKGROUND:
Against the backdrop of Black History Month, the workshops seek to
further the International Decade for People of African Descent’s
development and education goals and Wikimedia’s goal of increasing its
reach. Technology companies Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo and Twitter have
recently reported that their workforce is 2% Black, a figure
non-proportionate to the 13% of Blacks living in the United States.
The Black Twitter phenomenon shows that Afrodescendants have
successfully taken to social media as an organizing tool. Exposing
more Afrodescendants to Wikimedia has the potential to take this foray
a step further and transfer skills that might deepen Afrodescendant
exploration of online technology. But beyond it all, editing Wikipedia
alone or as a group is a constructive and rewarding way to spend time
online.
The workshops will be the first in a series of activities by Afro Free
Culture Crowdsourcing Wikimedia (AfroCROWD), a new initiative which
seeks to increase the number of people of African Descent who actively
partake in the Wikimedia and free knowledge, culture and software
movements. The workshops are open to all Afrodescendants including but
not limited to individuals who self-identify as African,
African-American, Afro-Latino, Biracial, Black, Black-American,
Caribbean, Garifuna, Haitian or West Indian.
Although the February workshops will be held in English, they will
take into account that many Afrodescendant groups in the United States
might find that access to Wikipedia’s multilingual crowdsourcing
platform can help them transfer free knowledge to populations of
African descent outside of the United States that they are connected
to through origin or direct familial bonds. Multilingual
Afrodescendants may also want to use such platforms to develop and
maintain online bodies of relevant knowledge in native languages such
as Garifuna, Haitian Kreyòl, Igbo, Spanish, Twi or Yoruba, thereby
contributing to the survival of and increasing their proficiency in
those languages while also feeling more culturally grounded.
WHERE:
Brooklyn Public Library
Main Branch
10 Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn. NY
http://www.bklynlibrary.org/
(Subway: 2,3, 4 to Grand Army Plaza)
FOUNDERS:
AfroCROWD founders are Alice Backer, founder of www.kiskeacity.com,
www.haitianbloggers.com, and Global Voices Lingua, a Brooklyn-based
lawyer, blogger and free knowledge and culture enthusiast who has been
aggregating and disseminating Haitian online expression since 2005 and
has launched citizen media campaigns in Haiti, the Caribbean, Africa
and the United States and Milos Rancic, founder of Anarchopedia,
veteran Wikimedian with over 10 years in the movement, Wikimedia
Language Committee member and chair of Interglider.ORG. Milica
Gudovic, Interglider.ORG's CEO, participant to the process of
localization of Creative Commons Licenses for Serbia and experienced
feminist activist of 20 years, has lended considerable time and
expertise to our grant proposal and will help us with training in the
coming months.
OUTREACH PARTNERS (evolving list):
Afrolatin@ Project
Brooklyn Public Library
Haiti Cultural Exchange
Haitian Creole Language Institute of New York
STAY UPDATED VIA FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/afroCROWD
Best,
Alice
A L I C E B A C K E R
Haitian Blog Aggregator: http://haitianbloggers.com
LOF1804 Podcast: http://www.kiskeacity.com
Blog: http://www.kiskeacity.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/kiskeacity
Newsletter: Kiskeácity Daily
skype: alicebacker
Hi,
Prior to the Wiknic a few weeks ago, our group was encouraged to form an official group eligible for funding from the Wikimedia Foundation. The plan is for Piedmont Wikimedians to handle the funding requests for most of the future, funded events in the southeast. At the Wiknic, we discussed several potential outreach activities our group could do. The next step is to get some supporters to sign up on our official group page on Meta. Please do so here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Wikimedians
Have a great weekend,
Michael
I did a proof-of-concept for the article time-lapse video we discussed at the Wiknic on Sunday. Mozart was the first featured article of the day back in 2004, so I used it for the demonstration. 12.5 years of edits in 2 minutes. Let me know what you think!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwdBPEztx24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Atlanta/Atlanta_8
Despite two of our regular attendees not being able to make it during
the holiday weekend, I'm really happy with how this event went. We had 5
editors and 2 guests in attendance, which broke the attendance record
of 5 total for our first meetup two years ago. It was the first meetup
for 2 of the editors.
Attendees
CraigJW (Craig)Jinkinson (JP)Neonorange (Phil and Dana)Wakebrdkid (Michael, Laura, and Roxie the dog)? (Juan)
I was expecting the new location to be an improvement, but it was a
more significant improvement than I expected. We were able to sit at
benches in the shade. Parking was very easy and close. It was easy to
find each other. There were multiple food options within a quarter of a
mile walk. We forgot to bring recreational equipment, but during lulls
in the conversations we could watch the local SCA group practice.
After getting caught up with each other's activities, we had several
discussions. Data about WikiProject popularity was a good conversation
starter. We were all surprised at how popular the National Register of
Historic Places and Disaster Management WikiProjects are. We looked at
recent reports from several international, funded groups. Participating
in library and university events focused on free knowledge, hosting
edit-a-thons, and photography outings were all things we are interested
in arranging. I'm going to follow up with Ganeshk and LadyofShalott about the necessary paperwork.
One of our new members, Juan, suggested a video might help with
attracting new members. After some discussion, we settled on making a
time lapse video that shows how an actual article progresses from stub
to featured status. I've done a fair bit of data visualization work, so
I'm going to prototype a simple, automated animation, and then we can
polish it with proper editing and design. I'm going to send this summary
out to the email list and then post some pictures here from the event
later this week.
Hi Atlanta area Wikipedians,
You're invited to join the 'Great American Wiknic' - Atlanta edition, at
Blackburrn Park on Sunday July 6 from 11am - 3pm.
Please RSVP here to the "picnic anyone can edit!":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Atlanta/Atlanta_8
Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)