Wikipedia:Meetup/Govlab February 2016

This is the event page for the Wikipedia editing presentation and event at The GovLab.

Event details

edit
 
The GovLab

Before the event

edit
 
  1. Create a Wikipedia account
  2. While logged into your Wikipedia account, visit the course dashboard and click "join course". This permits identification of your Wikipedia edits.
  3. It would be helpful if you came to the event being familiar with some reliable information source that you could cite when adding content to Wikipedia
  4. If you like, read a Wikipedia article before the event, and imagine what you might change in it with information from the source you have
  5. Expect that during the event, you will take information from a source and add it to the Wikipedia article.

Agenda

edit
 
"Editing Wikipedia", a classroom handout
12:00-12:30 - Gather for lunch. When everyone has their lunch then we convene.
12:30-1:00 - Welcome, and presentation on Wikipedia
Roles on Wikipedia - a talk on crowdsourcing?
Wikipedia and your organization - ?
1:00-1:30 - Discussion and demos
1:30-3 - Wikipedia editathon!
3-3:30 - wrap up, and review the work of others
3:30-4 - goodbye, and options for next steps

The event will start with a presentation which gives the Wikipedia community perspective on the following:

  1. What is Wikipedia's place in the media?
    1. To what extent does Wikipedia inform people making decisions?
    2. How can Wikipedia be compared to other media channels?
    3. What is known about how Wikipedia is used?
  2. How does one edit Wikipedia?
  3. What is Wikipedia's quality control system?

Following the presentation, anyone may ask any question about Wikipedia to get answers or demonstrations. Following this, it will be time for a Wikipedia "editathon", which is an event in which a group of people edit together. Desktop view, not mobile access, is preferred for this exercise, but come regardless. At the editathon, this is the goal:

  1. Come to the event with some published source of good information
  2. Identify a Wikipedia article where you think information from that source should go
  3. In your own words, take information from your source and add it to the Wikipedia article
  4. Cite your source. See referencing for beginners or better, learn at the event

Hopefully everyone at the event will add at least 1-3 sentences in the time we have. After making additions, since Wikipedia is public, participants will review the accuracy and quality of classmate's edits. As we leave, participants will be invited to check back on Wikipedia after some time (3-7 days) to see if there is any online community response to anyone's contributions.

Goals

edit
  • All participants will gain the ability to describe the nature of Wikipedia as a communication channel
  • Participants will get experience translating information from their favorite publications into Wikipedia's layman style
  • The information submitted to Wikipedia will be read by the public. Wikipedia readers will be better informed based on this event's contributions.

After some months, the participants will get a report on the number of pageviews to the Wikipedia articles which the class edited. At any time after the event anyone may visit the tracking dashboard to check readership, a measurement of content added, and other statistics.

About GovLab

edit

Other support

edit

The presentation is provided by Consumer Reports. Other organizations supporting Wikipedia outreach in New York include the following:

All of these organizations endorse this classroom outreach. Your facilitator, user:bluerasberry, does not represent any of them except Consumer Reports. The nature of the support is as follows -

Tools and support

edit

Contact

edit

For local Wikipedia support contact user:bluerasberry, lrasberry consumer.org.