Wikipedia:GLAM/YMT/Luminaries-report

On 16 March 2014 we hosted the Luminaries edit-a-thon. The event was a great success, attended by 16 members of the public and 8 members of staff. Three biographic articles were created on the day and two were extensively prepared in user sandboxes. Further edits were made to a wide range of articles, many of which were very substantial.

Attendees edit

Attendees
Name	User page/talk	Role	Experience
Pat Hadley	PatHadley	Facilitator - YMT Wikipedian-in-Residence	Experienced editor
	Fl548	Participant	New editor
	Sf8272	Participant	New editor
	Diggingitall	Participant	New editor
	KMF505	Participant	New editor
	Sueewing	Participant	New editor
	RedFraggle13	Participant	New editor
	Spkwiki	Participant	New editor
	2pianolas	Participant	New editor
	Masondavies	Participant	New editor
	Gcbeale	Participant	Some previous experience
	Nicoleebeale	Participant	Some previous experience
Sam Walton	Samwalton9	Participant	Experienced editor
	Rock drum	Participant	Experienced editor
	BZ4brbr	Participant	Some previous experience
	GhostInTheMachine	Participant	Experienced editor
	AJHingston	Participant	Experienced editor
	Zakhx150	Archaeology Curator at YMT	Experienced editor
	Sarah King	Natural History Curator at YMT	Some previous experience
	LJETurner	Fine Art Curator at YMT	Some previous experience
	Stuart ogilvy	Natural History Curator at YMT	Some previous experience
Andy Woods	YMT_Coins	Numismatics Curator at YMT	Some previous experience
	Mrsmartfellow	Digital team leader at YMT	Some previous experience
	-	Social History Curator at YMT	Some previous experience

On the day edit

The day began with a basic introduction to Wikipedia from PatHadley and very quickly moved into an open edit-a-thon. Groups of editors worked together to develop their skills, research and work on their chosen articles. An old-fashioned flip chart kept track of people's work and helped prevent edit clashes.

Curator's talks edit

After lunch five YMT curator's gave talks or show-and-tell sessions on their specialist topics.

Curators talks
Andrew Woods explains the Middleham Hoard
M Faye Prior talks about John Kirk
Adam Parker shows off some of Flint Jack's work
Stuart Ogilvy talks about Tempest Anderson

Andrew Woods - Numismatics - The Middleham Hoard
Stuart Ogilvy - Natural History - Tempest Anderson
Laura Turner - Fine Art - Highlights from York's Public Domain art
M Faye Prior - Social History - John Kirk, J.B. Morrell, Rachel Rostas: A whistlestop tour
Adam Parker - Archaeology - Flint Jack

Feedback wordcloud (the biggest terms appeared 4 times in feedback)

Twitter activity edit

The event generated a decent buzz on twitter and several high-follower accounts (eg, @historyworkstv and @UofYArchaeology) were retweeting to amplify the message. Most significant tweets from the day have been archived as a Storify page. This was great to see as there were actually only a small number of people at the event live tweeting.

Feedback edit

The feedback on the day was generally excellent. 12 participants filled out a feedback form and 11 of these gave the session 5/5 overall with a single 4/5. The most used words to summarise the day were: 'fun', 'interesting' and 'engaging'. Some critical comments were made; these requested more research materials or guidance accessing them, more time to edit and a small number made technical/practical critiques. Several participants asked about follow-up events and the curators and staff were all very pleased with what they had learned about Wikipedia and the content that had been created. The day went very smoothly, with no significant technical glitches, participants making difficult requests or friction between participants.

Results of the day edit

Mary Ellen Best

Given the range of skills and backgrounds, a huge amount of content was created across a number of biographical articles and a few associated topic articles.

New articles edit

Draft new articles in sandboxes edit

Snowden Slights

Substantial improvements edit

Tempest Anderson

Improvements uploaded later with research conducted at the edit-a-thon:

York Art Gallery

Links, images and tidying edit

The Yorkshire Museum

Monk Bar by William Etty

Did you know? Nominations edit

Mary Ellen Best

Appeared on 22 March 2014

Follow-up plans edit

Nothing concrete has yet been set up but there is definitely scope for further YMT-hosted events (edit-a-thons, back-stage passes and so on). In addition, it is hoped that the small group of enthusiastic editors may meet up less formally; leading to the first York-based Meetup.