Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/November 2007

The 4th New York City Meetup event was held on Saturday November 3, 2007 in the Brooklyn Museum area.

The meetup was the first to be held in Brooklyn, and was stated to have more of a local focus than previous meetups.

What, Where, When, and How?

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There will be one public meeting in the afternoon at Brooklyn's Pacific Library, where we can take the first steps to organize the Wikimedia New York City local chapter.

Additionally, there will be optional pre-meeting and post-meeting activities at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Museum, which are both a very short train ride (or longish walk) away from the public meeting location. The latter post-meetup activity is scheduled to coincide with the Brooklyn Museum's fantastic First Saturdays program, which is basically an extended party and series of cultural events inside the museum.

Note the recent change in the scheduled meeting at the Pacific Library (which is different from the Brooklyn Central Library). Watch this space for future possible changes.

Main public meeting (to discuss Wikipedia issues and chapter formation):

  • Pacific Library in Brooklyn, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
    • There will be an opportunity to possibly get something to eat in the area after this.

Optional pre-meeting meetup:

Optional post-meeting meetup:

  • Brooklyn Museum: 5:00 PM – 11:00 PM (meetup at 5:00 PM at Brooklyn Museum grand front entrance, by the trees)
    • There will be a second Brooklyn Museum entrance meetup point at 8:00 PM for people who cannot make it by the 5:00 PM meetup point. The 8:00 group can then join the others inside. This second meetup point is irrelevant to people who already joined us at 5:00 PM.

If you plan on arriving late for either of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden or Brooklyn Museum activities, and would like to find where the group has wound up walking to, you can drop your mobile phone number ahead of time at Special:Emailuser/Pharos (e-mail will not be able to be checked during the actual meetup time, leave requests ahead of time).

Nearby subway stations:

If you need help getting between the subway stations for the two areas (one for the Pacific Library and the other for the Brooklyn Botanic Garden/Brooklyn Museum), you can join a few of us who will be traveling as a group between them.

Agenda

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Bring your own ideas!

  • The establishment of a meta:Wikimedia New York City (see link) local chapter.
    • Which local cultural and educational institutions should we be collaborating with?
    • How should the chapter be organized?
    • How can we do outreach with the local community at large?
  • Deciding on a next meetup time and place to establish a regular schedule.
    • Making a decision face-to-face will be far more expedient than slow wiki-discussions.
  • Free-content photography at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Brooklyn Museum. (An objection to photography at the Brooklyn Museum is on the talk page)
    • Digital cameras and an eye for Botany and Egyptology.

Hello badge

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Hi, guys. I designed a WikiHelloBadge for the Meetup for anyone who wants to use it, and if people at other Meetups want to use it, feel free. The design is supposed to represent Wikipedians of every possible persuasion, at least symbolically. I made it a double image so that when you print it out, you can fold it in the middle and laminate it so that's it's double-sided (if you plan on hanging it instead of clipping it). I included spaces so that you can identify yourself by your real name, or your Wiki Username, or both, whichever you feel comfortable with. A high-res version of it is on its upload page. And if the WikiMeetup described on this page will be in a location where a language other than English is spoken, feel free to modify the greeting into a different language! After all, it's in the public domain now, so all I ask is attribution! Cheers! Nightscream 17:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC 16:38, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work! Do you suppose you could do a monochrome version for the color-printer-impaired? (Please pardon my editing your image tag, I've just moved it over and thumbed it in order to preserve the page layout.) Rob T Firefly 16:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan? :) AndroidCat 15:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was not familiar with that concept until just now, but I guess you could consider the little people in the badge to be "Wikipe-tans", since they were intended to be personifications of WP and its various contributors. If you look closely at the image on the badge's upload page, you can make out all sorts of characteristics of each one that are meant to indicate that they represent people of all groups (gender, age, political, sexual orientation, ethnic, language, etc.) Nightscream 17:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This badge is pretty odd. All faces have one letter written on them, "W", yet the Arabic face has "LBTN" written on it. Why not just use the single letter Waaw? - Islamic Wiki Project 00:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I clicked onto the Arabic Wikipedia, cut and pasted the word for "Wikipedia" in the Search window, and then the first letter of that word. It was just a guess on my part, and I had no idea that it would be so scrutinized. Can you refer me to a visual representation of that letter? Thanks! Nightscream 15:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I Googled the Arabic letter waaw, and modified the image. Thanks, IWP. :-) Nightscream 07:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Likely attendees

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Possible attendees

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*Mitch32contribs 11:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regrets

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The latter part of the event does considerably extend past sundown. Perhaps you could catch the last couple of hours?--Pharos 01:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate it, but Jersey is far :) I'll think about it closer to the date. -- Y not? 04:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I have no way of getting there. I am only 15 and there is no way my parents will take me to a place with complete strangers. Smartyshoe 18:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Post-meetup summary

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A small group of Wikipedians spent the morning exploring the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. A larger group joined us at the library, where we focused on organizational, educational, and outreach projects. (Interestingly, the librarian there was very enthusiastic about Wikipedia but did not know it was user-edited or that an edition existed in her native language in addition to English.) About half the library group stopped for local Caribbean food before proceeding to the museum.

At the museum, we were joined by more Wikipedians and chatted more on general Wikipedia topics (at the museum cafeteria) and explored and photographed the African and Egyptian collections.

After most had gone home, a few of us fortuitously ran into a technology representative from the Brooklyn Museum in the lobby, who expressed interest in collaborating on a possible photography contest at the museum. The last of us decided to head home at about 9 PM.

Attendees of record

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From the sign-up sheet.

Things discussed

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