WALRUS/December 2019

WALRUS is a monthly online meeting for Wikimedia community organizers in the United States to discuss and collaborate on events and outreach of national interest.

Join the pan-USA Wikimedia local activists' chat on Monday December 9 2019 at 6:00 PM Pacific / 9:00 PM Eastern.

Zoom videoconference information

Getting set up with Zoom

• We will use a meeting tool called Zoom instead of Google Hangouts. Please sign up for an account on www.zoom.us and then take a look at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362033-Getting-Started-on-PC-and-Mac
• Note that Zoom provides a telephone interface and that the Zoom software applications are proprietary. Use the telephone interface if you want more privacy and freedom.

How to join the meeting

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Chromebook or Android:

https://zoom.us/j/768543663

One tap mobile

+16468769923,,768543663# US (New York)

+16699006833,,768543663# US (San Jose)

Dial by your location

+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)

+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)

Meeting ID: 768 543 663

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/agcOMmoE4

Chair & secretary for this month

• Meeting host for Zoom: Pharos
• Meeting chair: Pharos (TBC)
• Meeting secretary for minutes: primarily Pine

Agenda

• Introductions

• Discuss 2019 events:

• Wikidatacon (Berlin, October 2019)
• WikiConference North America (Boston, 8-11 November 2019) - website
• Wikipedia Asian Month 2019 (November 2019)
• Fall edit-a-thons
  • Editing as Activism: Edit-A-Thon hosted by Labor Archives of Washington, UW Special Collections & Cascadia Wikimedians User Group

• Discuss 2020 events:

• January 2020 - Wikipedia Day (a) rapid grants (apply in October 1-15 or November 1-15); (b) banner
• 21-22 February 2020 - MisinfoCon at National Academy of Sciences conference to include 2 days of Wikipedia training
• April 2020 - Wikimedia Summit (Berlin)
• October 2020 - WikiConference North America 2020 (Canada, facilitated by WMCA)

• Updates

• Wikidata update(s)
• Movement strategy update (Writers/Connectors/Reviewers; Branding)
• Community Wishlist Survey 2020: Submit, discuss and revise proposals, October 21 to November 11, 2019

• Other

• Annual reporting reminder
• Wikispore partnership and genre ideas, possible current events coverage (new mailing list: mail:wikispore)
• Peter to report: (1) ongoing internal Federal government phone calls for MediaWiki admins & interested parties ; (2) CopyrightX class applications are due tomorrow, Dec 10th. I'll explain; (3) update on Wiki DC membership & annual meeting

• Add your agenda items!

Notes

• Etherpad: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Walrus_rolling_notes

• Attendees

• Pharos
• Pine
• Peter Meyer
• Rosie
• Andrew
• Peaceray
• RightCowLeftCoast
• slaporte
• CaptainEek
• Julie
• Stephen
• Abhishek
• Betty
• Rafael
• Jonathunder
• Benjamin

• Reports

• http://copyx.org/ - this is an online copyright law class which Peter and a couple other wikimedians will take; ask if you wish to be guided; applications are due tomorrow
• Peaceray - Jacob Lawrence Gallery event at the University of Washington in Cascadia. The labor editathon went well and most people stayed throughout. Most edits stuck. One new article was merged into an existing article. Mix of new and experienced editors.
• Peter - Federal government MediaWiki user monthly calls -- contact Peter (econterms) for invitation
• Rosie - WikiConference North America
• Pine - NavWiki pages on the Outreach wiki in development and going well
• RightCowLeftCoast - editathons happening
• Betty - activities related to WCNA 2019 and attempting to do local outreach
• CaptainEek - interested in started a local group -Arizona Wikipedian, looking to do some local/local events, editathons, that sort of jazz
• Rafael - working on project for Ghana
• Jonathunder - there was an editathon related to Native Americans
• Andrew - collaboration with Carribean group for an event in Puerto Rico that was hosted by Microsoft, and there may be a regional meetup for the Carribean in the future
• Pharos - recent editathon at the Met Museum with a theme of Asian art, and worked on WikiSpore

• WCNA reports

• CaptainEek - liked the conference, good variety of sessions, learned about Wikidata, nice to meet people in person
• Andrew - need more formal gathering of attendees. The plan for next year is to have the conference in Canada. Videos from the 2019 conference are available on the conference website. Work is happening on converting the videos for Wikimedia Commons

• Tentative planned conference in Bahamas for Caribbean user group in June

• Wikipedia Day is Jan 15th, the anniversary of Wikipedia's founding. An event / party any time in January is justified.

• It's hard to get Rapid Grants for this now? It's too late to apply now and some applications were rejected.
• Pharos can help get a banner on Wikipedia to encourage locals to come to your event
• If you get an outside sponsor, just do it. (It's sometimes fashionable to call them a partner organization, rather than "sponsor")

• MisInfoCon -- in DC in February, joint with Credibility Coalition, to be at National Academy of Sciences, with science speakers

• Community Wish List

• Wikimedia Summit
  • In Berlin, Germany in April
  • Focus on strategy
  • User can usually send 1 person
  • Register soon on Meta. Registration requires some thought.

• Strategy
  • Harmonization sprint in Tunis
  • Goals were not achieved
  • 9 working groups have finished their work
  • 4 new groups from the previous working group members: writers, connectors, reviewers, and a branding group.
    • Writers on harmonizing the 89 draft recommendations
    • Connectors are connecting to groups in the community
    • After the first 2 groups finish then the reviewers will do different kinds of reviews of the writing
  • WMF Board will review in early 2020
  • Whatever comes from the Board meeting will be discussed in Berlin

• Membership request: If you are interested and willing to join Wikimedia DC with auto-renewal each year: please go to WikimediaDC.org, click Donate (on the left), scroll down and click a blue number ($10 is good)

• Then click the green box saying “Sign me up as a member”. Then either use PayPal or a credit card. It will bill you each year after that.
• Peter will be happy to join other chapters and user groups in exchange. We may need to build our memberships and this gets us started.

• Wikidata

• There is a discussion about gender properties

• Wikispore

• The wiki for anything that is interesting and not privacy violating
• An incubator for wikis, and a place to write articles about wikidata items that are not necessarily notable enough for Wikipediae

• Grant fund was announced at WCNA

• People who attended the conference can apply for a subsequent grant. Details are being worked out.