Wikimania 2022/Scholarships/Ohio Wikimedians User Group/Report

Event details

Overview

The idea for a Wikimania 2022 meetup in the region came to fruition at the DC Hackathon 2022. Kevin Payravi of the Ohio Wikimedians User Group, Tricia Burmeister of Pittsburgh, and Peter Meyer of Wikimedia District of Columbia decided to host a local meetup for Wikimedians in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Pittsburgh provides a central and affordable location to convene Wikimedians from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other upper Midwest locations. With the support of Ohio Wikimedians User Group and Wikimedia DC, the hope is to build community among Wikimedians in the Mid-Atlantic and upper Midwest regions. Pittsburgh has a community of GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, museums) professionals and tech folks who work in open knowledge and open data, but many of them may not yet be connected with others in the region who could collaborate on Wikimedia projects, technical contributions, and more. Wikimania 2022 provides an opportune time to connect these people in real life around the virtual conference.

The meetup took place August 12-14, with 17 attendees and presenters throughout the 3-day event.

Photos

Schedule

Thursday, August 11

Thursday night was a social at Galley Bakery Square for attendees to meet each other and network before kicking off programming on Friday.

Friday, August 12


Time (Eastern)	Virtual program	Pittsburgh activities	Pittsburgh location
10am - 11am	Wikimania	Meet each other and plan our weekend	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
11am - 12pm	Wikimania	Watch replay of Wikimania opening session	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
12pm - 1pm	Hackathon Opening Showcase	#CiteNLM: Editing Wikipedia with the National Library of Medicine (slides) Kelsey Cowles, MLIS (Pitt Health Sciences Library System)	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
1pm - 2pm	Hackathon	#CiteNLM open editing session	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
2pm - 3pm	Hackathon		Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
3pm - 4pm	Hackathon	Wikisource talk / introduction / workshop	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
4pm - 5pm	Hackathon		Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)

Saturday, August 13


Time (Eastern)	Virtual program	Pittsburgh activities	Pittsburgh location
8:00 - 9:00 AM	Hackathon
9am - 10am	Hackathon
10am - 11am	Hackathon	Coffee and conversation	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
11am - 12pm	Hackathon	Watch virtual talk: "Let us play with PubMed to enrich Wikidata with medical information"	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
12pm - 1pm	Hackathon	Discoverability, Structured Data & the View it! tool With Dominic Byrd-McDevitt, Kevin Payravi, and Jamie Flood	Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
1pm - 2pm	Wikimania		Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
2pm - 3pm	Wikimania		Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
3pm - 4pm	Wikimania		Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
4pm - 5pm			Carnegie Library, East Liberty Meeting Room 3 (upstairs, accessible)
5pm - 6pm		Private group visit to the Center for PostNatural History	Center for PostNatural History 4913 Penn Ave map
6pm - 7pm		Group dinner

Sunday, August 14


Time (UTC)	Virtual program	Pittsburgh activities	Pittsburgh location
8:00 - 9:00 AM	Wikimania
9am - 10am	Wikimania
10am - 11am	Wikimania	Watch livestream of Wikimedian of the Year ceremony	Code & Supply (5648 Friendship Ave, 3rd Floor, accessible)
11am - 12pm	Wikimania	Watch livestream of Wikimedian of the Year ceremony	Code & Supply (5648 Friendship Ave, 3rd Floor, accessible)
12pm - 1pm	Wikimania	Watch Hackathon final showcase	Code & Supply (5648 Friendship Ave, 3rd Floor, accessible)
1pm - 2pm	Wikimania	Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center talk	Code & Supply (5648 Friendship Ave, 3rd Floor, accessible)
2pm - 3pm		Building a taxonomy for better tool browsing in Toolhub - TBurmeister (WMF) (talk)	Code & Supply (5648 Friendship Ave, 3rd Floor, accessible)
3pm - 4pm		Peter (User:Econterms) on ARTT/Vaccines	Code & Supply (5648 Friendship Ave, 3rd Floor, accessible)
4pm - 5pm		Kevin Payravi (User:SuperHamster) presents on Cite Unseen
5pm - 6pm		Break / socialize
6pm - 8pm		Group dinner at Apteka	Apteka 4606 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh, 15224

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

We are very happy with how our meetup went. We brought together passionate Wikimedians from a variety of backgrounds to meet each other, collaborate, and knowledge share.

The event also provided excellent opportunities for us to collaborate and build relationships with local institutions, including the Carnegie Library, University of Pittsburgh Library System, Code & Supply, Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center, and the Center for PostNatural History.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
25 participants across 3 days	17 participants across 3 days	While we didn't reach our original estimate, we were happy with the number of attendees, representing Wikimedians from several backgrounds, geographies, and experience.
Partnerships with technology, GLAM, or open data institutions	Success	We were able to partner with several GLAM and Open Data institutions: Our hosts for the event were the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Code & Supply. Representatives from the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System, in collaboration with the Network of the National Library of Medicine, hosted a #CiteNLM introduction and edit-a-thon. Representatives from the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center provided an overview of their organization, the work they do for the region, and examples of what access to government data can enable. We received a tour at the Center for PostNatural History.
Publicity and planning for other projects and events, in person and to some new participants	Success	We were able to generate interest for WikiConference North America 2022. Discussions were also had about the wider Midwest, and the potential for more collaboration between the various user groups (both formal and informal) in the region.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

We had attendees from the Pittsburgh area and beyond (Ohio, Indianapolis, and DC!).
We were able to get a free room reservation from the Carngie Library of Pittsburgh.
We had rich programming and collaborations with several local GLAM institutions.
We had excellent opportunities for networking, both during our programming and after hours.
A smaller group gave us great flexibility for activity and meal planning.
We were able to significantly reimburse event participants who came in from out of town.

What did not work so well?

We finalized and publicized event details fairly late, which meant we didn't advertise the event as widely as we potentially could've to attract more participants.
Technical issues (A/V, presenting from our laptops, etc.) popped up as they always do, but we managed to solve and work around them.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Thursday night networking @ Galley Bakery Square: $92.02
Friday breakfast from Bruegger's Bagels: $17.11
Friday lunch from Mad Mex: $88.27
Friday night networking/dinner @ Margaux: $112.50
Saturday breakfast from Giant Eagle: $13.73
Saturday lunch @ Square East Liberty: $164.46
Sunday lunch from Aladdins: $137.92
Sunday room reservation @ Code & Supply: $200
Culture Crawl reservation @ Center for PostNatural History: $80
Cutlery, plates, granola bars from Rite-Aid: $20.15
Nametags from Staples: $7.29
Wikimania Stickers from Jukebox: $72.69
Travel and lodging reimbursements: $2,399.36
- Reimbursements went to 6 attendees from out-of-town, max $500 each.

Total spend: $3,405.5

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Yes, we have $1,594.50 remaining. We will return remaining funds to the Wikimedia Foundation.

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of US$1,569.50 which reflects remaining funds minus bank fees.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Thank you to the Wikimedia Foundation for funding this event. We're excited to continue to build the movement in the upper Midwest and Mid-Atlantic! While we're excited to resume larger, in-person international conferences in 2023, we also look forward to continuing to host more smaller regional events.