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If you are interested in organizing an Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, join the listserv
On February 1st, 2014, we organized a multi-location editathon around the theme of Art+Feminism. 150 people met at the main location, Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York City, to edit Wikipedia entries on women, art, feminism, and related subjects. They were joined by another 500 people in 30 satellite locations—libraries, museums, galleries, and non-profits—in 6 countries.
No one keeps records on these things, but it seems as if this may have been one of, if not the largest and most successful multi-location editathons. We are documenting our process to help those who might want to replicate it with this set of guidelines for organizing a multi-location themed edit-a-thon.
Understanding Motivations: Five Ws edit
We made a number of important organizational moves, which we will detail below, but the key reason this was so successful was we were meeting a need of the intra and extra Wikipedian communities.
Wikipedia’s gender trouble is well documented. This project also comes on the heels of the "American women novelists" debate. After several notable op-eds and much discussion on social media platforms, we wanted to help give people the training to shape the conversation directly on Wikipedia.
Or to put it another way, consider all five of the Five Ws. Why, What, Who, Where, When. Many technology related endeavors neglect to spend enough time asking Why. It also seems that Wikipedia meetups make some assumptions about Who. What we did so successfully here was to start with the Why and match it to Who, and work outwards from there.
Only once you understand the motivations of the participants, is it time to consider the much easier: What, Where, and When.
Steps to set up an editathon edit
- Create an email and document sharing account (e.g. Gmail or Piratepad) to keep all incoming and outgoing communications, text, and satellite organizer contact info in one place. This is especially important if there is more than one person organizing.
- Subscribe to the two discussion groups so you can get help organizing the event, and can announce the final event to those who have signed up for these announcements.
- Confirm a site and date. Reach out to partner up with University/College, local library, or non-profit cultural space. Ask if they can provide funding for food and child care.
- Reach out to an experienced Wikipedian. We have found it to be very helpful to have an experienced Wikipedian at the event, especially one who is gender gap sensitive, and has experience as an ambassador. See the section below on this process.
- Create an entry on the ArtAndFeminism meet up page. If you have secured an ambassador, they can help you here. You should feel free to be bold, and start one yourself though! To create a page, simply copy and paste one of the other existing sections, and modify the text as needed.
- Build interest and gain attendees: Send details of your event out to your networks, and encourage them to forward it on. A Facebook event page is very useful for creating excitement and answering questions in advance of the sprint. A Facebook event also reaches out to an audience outside of Wikipedia, and is great for bringing in new editors.
- Reach out to local media by email or via social media (Twitter is great for this - just tweet at the account you are trying to get the attention of). This is helpful to increase attendees, and also to spread the word more widely about what we are doing.
Account creation edit
Wikipedia has a limit on the number of accounts that can be created in a day at one IP address. Encourage attendees of your event to register on Wikipedia prior to coming. This coming year we are going to use Dashboard for account creation, which will allow you to exceed the 5 account limit per IP.
Finding an Experienced Wikipedian edit
Here’s our best advice at the present, for finding an experienced Wikipedian:
First step: See if there is a Regional ambassador in your area who can direct you to a local Wikipedian; these are mostly in North America. If there is no regional ambassador, or he/she is not responding, try reaching out to a local ambassador directly. Here is the list of campus volunteers, and the list of online volunteers.
Second step: Contact a local Wikimedia chapter or project. For US/Canada this is a local WM chapter (e.g. Wikimedia NYC) or a local Wikiproject (e.g. Wikiproject Houston). For non-US/CA, this will likely be a national Chapter. For local and national Chapters, there is usually a website (use Google to search for “[your location] Wikimedia Chapter”) and that website usually has a contact email on it. Contact them via email, with your request.
For Wikiprojects, find the page, and then look at the participants. Find a couple that are:
- Active
- Editing articles in arts+culture OR in a variety of subject areas (you don’t want to bring someone in who only edits articles on airports, for example)
- Seem from their comments (on talk pages, on their user page, etc.) to be a good communicator.
- Asses their user page. You probably want someone who has something on their user page, especially well formed and communicative user pages.
Once you have that, you can contact them on their talk page with your request.
Lastly, if you can't find one through these means, please contact the organizing discussion list.
Resources edit
- Art+Feminism Resources
- Training & Editing Resources
- ArtandFeminism Lesson Plan for Wikipedia Training for Beginners. (For facilitators).
- Click here see our full list.
- Training for Students is a good intro to editing
- Excellent hour long Video tutorial
- Etherpads
- Consider making an Etherpad, with the links you will be using for the day, and providing the link to the Etherpad to all participants. Example: An Etherpad from a previous training.
Event plan edit
Have a sign in desk where you can help people create accounts, sign into the event on Wikipedia, and give them a name tag. Name tags should note the wearer’s user name, real name, and a red, yellow, or green mark to denote if they want to be photographed or not. Hand out cheat sheets at the sign in desk. (You can find them here.) We suggest adding a few things to this sheet, like wifi details, press release/details about the event, social links, and instructions on how to add their work to the Results section of the Meet Up page. Let people know about the hashtag #artandfeminism and encourage them to use it.
Have a resource table with books and articles relating to the theme of your edit sprint. Other important supplies: snacks, power strips and cords, extra laptops/computers (if possible), signage with wifi info. We strongly advise the presence of childcare for participants.
Do periodic small scale training, perhaps once an hour, using a projector and walking through the basics of editing. Encourage participants to work in pairs (a more experienced editor with someone versed in the content).
For folks who can only stay a short time, suggest that they do some research on an article and post their findings/links on an entry's talk page, or add citations to articles that are lacking them. Encourage participants to help each other.
Documenting edit
Please be sure to have your attendees sign in at the event and add any articles they created or expanded to the Results section of the meet-up page. Take pictures during the event and add them to Wikimedia Commons. Create a tagboard or similar site to collect social posts.
