Ohio Wikimedians User Group/Reports/2018-19

  Summary

This report presents activities by the Ohio Wikimedians User Group during their third year, July 2018 - July 2019.

This annual report covers the period from July 2018 through July 2019.

Throughout the year, Ohio Wikimedians User Group membership grew from 14 to 25.

The major projects for the group this year were helping host WikiConference North America 2018 in Columbus, Ohio; initiating WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art; edit-a-thons and workshop at the Ohio State University; and Wikimedia Movement Strategy.

  Projects

WikiConference North America 2018

WikiConference North America (WCNA) is the annual conference of Wikimedia enthusiasts and volunteers throughout the continent. In 2018, WCNA came to Columbus, Ohio from October 18-21. The theme for the year's conference was possibility/posibilidad/possibilité.

The first two days, Thursday and Friday, were the pre-conference activities: A hackathon, tech demos, and the annual Culture Crawl, a day-long event where the conference collaborates with local museums, libraries, cultural, and metropolitan institutions to host free backstage tours, edit-a-thons, and more. These crawls are a fantastic opportunity for conference attendees to experience the local culture, as well as collaborate with local institutions to improve Wikipedia's coverage of local topics, and to upload new images to Commons. The conference's tours took place at the Ohio Statehouse; State Library of Ohio; Columbus Metropolitan Library; Thurber House; Orton Geological Museum; and the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.

• 
  Columbus Metropolitan Library tour
• 
  Ohio State Library tour
• 
  Ohio State Library tour
• 
  Topiary Park in Columbus, a replica of a famous Seurat painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
• 
  One of the images donated to Commons by the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

Saturday and Sunday were the main conference days, which included over 60 community presentations, round-table discussions, panels, and lightning talk sessions. On behalf of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group, Kevin Payravi (SuperHamster) presented on the Wikipedia Connection student organization. The User Group also hosted a lunch meetup.

Ohio Wikimedians who helped organize and run the conference include:

• Kevin Payravi (SuperHamster), core organizer and program lead
• Maria Rimmel, core organizer and Culture Crawl lead
• Emery (Blervis), volunteer
• Sixflashphoto, photographer

A more detailed report about the conference is available at Grants:Conference/WCNA/WikiConference North America 2018/Report.

WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art

On January 23, 2019, the Cleveland Museum of Art announced its conversion into an Open Access institution. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication was assigned for the Museum's images and data.

At the Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access means the public now has the ability to share, collaborate, remix, and reuse images of as many as 30,000 public- domain artworks from the CMA’s world-renowned collection of art for commercial and non-commercial purposes. In addition, portions of collections information (metadata) for more than 61,000 artworks, both in the public domain and those works with copyright or other restrictions, works are now available.

In June 2019, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Ohio Wikimedians User Group, and Neal Stimler (who had previously led the implementation of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Open Access program) started collaborating to start WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art on the English Wikipedia, dedicated to improving Wikipedia with photos provided by the CMA, as well as improving articles related to the Museum, its artworks, and artists featured prominently in its collections. A sister WikiProject was also created on Wikidata, to serve as a hub for improving the status of CMA works on Wikidata, and for documenting the coverage and quality of existing items.

Wikipedia Connection

At the Ohio State University, the Wikipedia Connection student organization continued to run through the end of 2018, hosting weekly workshops and helping host WikiConference North America 2018.

Unfortunately as members have graduated, the student group has gone on hiatus starting in 2019.

Movement Strategy

As a Wikimedia affiliate, the Ohio Wikimedians User Group has been engaged in the Wikimedia Movement Strategy process.

• Maria Rimmel represented the User Group at the Wikimedia Summit 2019, which took on 29–31 March 2019 in Berlin. The Summit focused on the Movement Strategy Process and movement governance for the organized part of the movement in general.
• Sam Swicegood became the User Group's Organizational Strategy Liaison. Liaisons are appointed by organized groups and act as a conduit for ideas, questions, and updates regarding the Movement Strategy Process.

  Events

The following are events hosted or supported by members of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group. See event pages for further details and statistics on each event.

denotes an event hosted by members of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group.

denotes an event hosted by Wikipedia Connection at the Ohio State University.

denotes an event supported by members of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group.

2018

OCT
18-21

WikiConference North America 2018 in Columbus
Visit the conference website for more information.

2019

FEB
22

Hear in Cincinnati Edit-a-thon in Cincinnati
Visit the event website for more information.

MAR
23

Art+Feminism 2019 Edit-a-thon in Columbus
Visit the event page here.

APR
12

Spanish & Portuguese 2019 Edit-A-Thon in Columbus
Visit the event page here.

  Acknowledgments

The members and organizers of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group and Wikipedia Connection would like to thank the following for their help in supporting the Wikimedia movement:

• The Wikimedia Foundation, for providing grant funds and guidance to make our events and activities possible.
• The Ohio State University Libraries, whose staff have provided a countless amount of support and resources, including offering their space and support for WikiConference North America 2018.
• The Ohio State University's Spanish and Portuguese departments for their continued support of the annual Spanish and Portuguese Edit-a-Thon.
• The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for hosting and supporting the NIOSH edit-a-thon.
• The organizers of Art+Feminism, who provided resources and guidance to allow for Art+Feminism events to be held in Ohio.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art for implementing their Open Access program and collaborating with Wikimedians
• Neal Stimler for consulting on The Cleveland Museum of Art's Open Access program and coordinating the organization of WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art.
  • WikiProject Metropolitan Museum of Art (and Pharos' work on the project) for serving as a basis for which to base WikiProject Cleveland Museum of Art off of.