Wikipedia:Meetup/New England/22-4-12/Minutes: Difference between revisions

New England Wikimedia General Meeting

Below is the agenda prepared by User:Dominic, though the meeting did not follow the order listed. The below minutes reflect the actual order of discussion.

• Introductions
  • What are people interested in?
  • What are our goals? - encourage local meetings / networks in other cities in the region?
  • How to stay in touch - modify the Boston mailing list to include all of New England?
• Meetups and other events
  • Vary locations, times? - quiet places! alternate bos/camb each month
  • Volunteer organizers? - Erik (emw) for events
• WP:WALRUS and coordinated events
  • Wiknic - July 7 in NYC
  • Wiki Loves Monuments - Month of September only. Requires finding official lists of monuments / historical sites.
    • PROGRESS/DATA per COUNTRY: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Progress
    • TIMELINE: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Timeline
  • Wikipedia Loves Libraries - Later in the fall; November?
    • Library editathons: BPL and Harvard Libraries have both offered to host edit-a-thons with a librarian / special collection of our choice
  • Wikipedia Day - Jan 15
• Wikimania
  • What is it? / why we should all go
  • Volunteers? - needed for:
  • Can we do anything for New England?
• GLAM
  • What is it? Current projects
  • Ideas / volunteers
• Education program
  • Summary of program and recent events (Richard?)
  • Volunteers?
• Chapters!
• Anything else?

Below is the report of the New England meetup that happened on 22 April 2012.

• User:Dominic
• Atlant
• User:Found5dollar
• User:Darouet
• User:P64
• [no acct.] (Carolyn Woo)
• (?) (Alan Woo)
• User:SJ - Trustee
• User:Achowat
• User:Pharos - WM NYC person
• User:harej
• User:GorillaWarfare
• User:Sven Manguard
• User:Antony-22 - Harvard campus ambassador
• User:Emw

emw.wiki@gmail.com

• [silent on the matter] (Ann)
• User:madcoverboy
• User:GabrielF
• User:Emufarmers
• User:Jeremyb VP, WM NYC

Events and Programs - WP:GLAM

• Dominic explained the goals and ideas behind the GLAM project, and explained that WP:GLAM/US has a list of cultural institutions to volunteer at. Dominic made himself available for advice concerning contacting cultural institutions.
• Darouet suggested that we should use cultural institutions and Wikipedia to make institutions more accessible, especially for children. Copyright status of sources sand images at Cultural Institutions was discussed; Atlant suggested we try to figure out the WMF policy on the matter. Sven Manguard mentioned a collection of very old (public domain) texts at Harvard, called Early English Books Online (EEBO). Access to the EEBO can be found through universities with access to the database. hare j suggested that we try to find contacts between us and curators at various cultural institutes, Carolyn suggested the idea of trying to find Wikipedians by email address; it was mentioned, by Sven Manguard, that it is not general WMF practice to reveal Users' email addresses.

Potential Wikipedia Loves Libraries event/program

• Pharos suggested using Library resources to build content, pointing to the successes the Ambassador program has had in the past using librarians as a jumping-off point. Sven Manguard suggestion that librarians could be used to show the value of Wikimedia programs in Academia. Ann mentioned that WP:GLAM has reports that demonstrate the value of the GLAM Program to the culutral institutions. Dominic pointed out that New England has been a barren area, compared to NYC or DC, in coordinating GLAM Activities.

Chapter organization Chapter Incorporation

• Sven Manguard suggested the incorporation of a local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. Dominic and Pharos suggested we form a "community" before taking legal action. Pharos explained what Chapters do, and how they are organized through WMF. User:Sven Manguard, hare j, Dominic, and Atland suggested that there are some benefits to legal incorporation. Carolyn and Achowat pointed out the difficulty in incorporation. It was decided that we would wait until a "stable community" was in place before considering legal status. Emw initiated the discussion of what could be pointed at as indication of a "stable community". Achowat suggested, and it was generally agreed that active participation in the events planned throughout the summer and fall would go a great way towards indicating that "stable community".
• SJ let us know that there are three potentially useful organizational structures: Informal named groups, where an individual opens a bank account with the DBA of "New England Friends of Wikimedia" of something of the sort; Have another non-profit serve as our Fiscal Agent while building the community, which has the benefit of allowing contributions to be tax-deductable (harej has offered WMDC to serve as such; though will have to bring it to their board to finalize that); and opening a Limited Liability Corporation that will protect the leadership of a potential Wikimedia New England from personal liability but would not allow us to claim tax exempt status (though it was floated that this may serve as a stepping-stone towards non-profit status).
• [User:harej|harej]] mentioned that Wikimedia DC existed as an informal group until there was a relevant impetus for incorporation (in their case, WikiMania)

Meetups

• Meetups are currently happening at a restaurant in Cambridge, though there was some discussion of the usefulness in moving them potentially moving them to Boston proper, to facilitate participation. The en masse discussion led to the consensus that our meetups would be alternate between Cambridge and Boston on the Second Mondays of every month. It was suggested that those planning Meetups should focus on using the WP:Meetup pages, as current off-Wiki strategies had led to less-than-ideal results. Dominic then informed the group of the steps to planning a Meetup, outlines below. Emw was put in charge of organizing the next Meetup, which would occur on 14 May 2012 at Encuentro 5, a meeting-space in Chinatown (The Meetup.com event for that meeting). SJ suggested contacting local professors with Open Source leanings to speak at future events, to raise awareness and participation.

Great American Wiknic (June 23) It was suggested and agreed that The Great American Wiknic would serve as June's meetup. Achowat was put in charge of organizing New England's participation in that. Wikipedia Loves Libraries (WLL)

   Pharos explained the general idea behind WLL

   Dominic suggested using the BPL to organize the WLL event

   GorillaWarfare suggested uploading galleries to Commons

   A possible special collection from BPL: Norman B. Levinthal Maps Collection: http://maps.bpl.org/

Wiki Loves Monuents

   Emw explained a similiar program to photograph monuments throughout Boston (Wikipedia Takes Boston)

   List of 537 goals/places to photograph from 2011 (more than half still need to be photographed): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Boston/Goals

   List of images uploaded during 2011 Wikipedia Takes Boston event: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Takes_Boston

   Dominic explained that it is a scavenger hunt to photograph Historic Sites

Education program

   A program to work with professors to improve Wikipedia as part of curricular course work. {GorillaWarfare}

   Both online and campus ambassadors

   If you're interested in getting involved, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AMBASS

   Pharos had mentioned localization of the program in DC, NYC, and New England

   Program is undergoing some restructuring at the moment, and they are forming a working group to try to establish a new structure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group

Discussion of how to move forward with forming a chapter

   "Probationary period"

   See how successful various events are (Wiknic, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wikipedia Loves Libraries, etc.)

   Tentative meeting for the winter when students, etc. are back in town

   Determine how to handle the issue of students making up a portion of the core group

   Name decisions: "Wikimedians in New England" (not "Wikimedia New England") would be a name to use for now

   Potentially will be able to use Wikimedia DC as a fiscal agent (harej will follow up?)

   How do we determine the boundaries of "New England"?

   WMNY has Connecticut, but is willing to give them up

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ninenations.PNG potential map of "New England"

1. wikimedia-northeast is the IRC channel

Steps to organizing a meetup

   Create page

   Geonotice

   Talk page notice

Vice Presidents appointed thoughout the meeting: 6 official VPs of the Wikimedia New England chapter-in-formation committee

   Dominic, Arch-VP

   Emw (Eric), VP of Meetups (starting May)

   33 Harrison Street Encuentro 5.  Meetup space for non-profits.

   Resolved to alternate meetup locations monthly between Cambridge and Boston

   Sticking with holding meetups on 2nd Monday of every month.

   Achowat (Joe), VP of Great American Wiknic (June 23)

   Held in lieu of a meetup

   Emw (Eric), VP of Wiki Loves Monuments (September)

   GorillaWarfare (Molly), VP of Wikipedia Loves Libraries (October/November)

   Gabrielf, VP of Wiki Education Coalition

   ???, VP of GLAM

   Sven, VP for Edit-a-thons (when colleges are back in session)

   Achowat, VP for secretarial duties

18 people at this meeting now, how many left early (2?)