Short update, I have not disappeared completely

It's been a slow couple of weeks recently, and I wish there were more to write about (and more opportunities to do the writing!). Hopefully, with Wikimania out of the way things will get back up to speed.

I have not heard anything recently about USA organization efforts. I'm sure things are happening, but I haven't had my ear close to the grapevine. If anybody has USA-chapter-related news, I would love to hear about it.

I've been in touch with Johnny and Cbrown. We're all a little bit busy lately, but we want to get back on track for a PA organization. It's certainly not preferred, but if the chapters issue isn't suitably resolved by the time we're ready, I think we're willing to move forward anyway and forgo (or forestall) becoming an official chapter. It's been over a year now that this idea has been on the table, and I think everybody is getting a little tired of waiting. If anybody is in PA (preferrably in the Philly area, to support face-to-face meetups) get in touch and help us with the organization effort.

The chapters committee has been getting a little busy lately. We've gotten a few requests from chapters-to-be, some of which are very interesting and controversial. I'll post more information about this when there is more to be posted. Also, there has been a little bit of a shakeup because some keen observers noticed that some chapcom member terms have ended. What, if anything, is to come from this milestone is yet to be determined. Delphine posted a note about possibly entertaining applications to foundation-l, and I do hope some qualified people apply. I personally would like to see some fresh blood added to the committee, but I can't really talk about it any more here.

Again, if anybody knows anything about the progress of organizers in the USA, I would love to hear it.

Wikimedia DC Chapter discussed at meetup

At the recent DC #4 Wikimeetup, which was attended by around 20 people, we briefly discussed, and formally announced, the creation of a working group for the Wikimedia DC Chapter. While discussion was limited and brief, we identified some of the bigger issues that we will have to work through in the next weeks: 1) How will the chapter organize itself internally? 2) How will the chapter organize itself legally? 3) How will the chapter work with the other surrounding chapters in the northeast region?

These are difficult questions and there are no easy or ready answers for them. However the working group is committed to working our way through them and coming to the best possible result for our constituency. To that end, I invite all readers to visit our site, WP:DC on en.wp or Wikimedia DC on meta and offer your opinions.

-(posted on behalf of) Dan Rosenthal
Wikimedia DC Working Group coordinator

It Hits The Fan!

The issue of USA chapters has hit the scene in a big way. This week, the WMF Board of trustees announced a reorganization plan that described how seats on the board are to be filled. Most importantly for our purposes, two seats on the board are to be reserved for members to be selected by the chapters. The exact mechanism by which the chapters are going to select candidates for these seats is not yet known. However, this raises a very important and relevant question: What about the people in the USA? What about this community, which is arguably one of the largest and oldest groups in the entire WMF? Are these people to be completely disenfranchised because they don't have any chapters? Florence sent a very important email to foundation-l about the USA topic specifically. Here is an excerpt:

It does not mean that we yet know what these chapters would do
it simply means that on the principle, we'll be happy to approve a USA
chapter ... or USA chapters, or USA chocolate cake, or something, that
will make it possible for USA citizens to get involved at board
membership level.

Hear that everybody? The board would be happy to accept, in principle, a US chapter or "chapters". This is good, because "chapters" is what we have forming right now. We have people talking about organizing in PA, NY, OR, and CA. This discussion has even revealed that a new group has started organizing in Washington DC. I've even extended an invitation to Swatjester, one of the people organizing that group, to become an author on this blog to help get them some more exposure! I have even heard, through the grapevine, about people organizing in other states: MA, TN, AZ. I would love to hear more about other organizational efforts, leave a comment or send me an email if you have any information about these.

I've been in touch with Delphine, and I've also been hard at work trying to draft a proposal on the issue that the chapcom can present to the board for approval. Our intended proposal will be very open-ended to help encourage thinking and discussion. It should help put the final puzzle piece in place, and finally open the floodgates for US chapter creation.

On a side note, I now regret renaming this blog to "Wiki Northeast" because I would love to extend it to include the entire US organizational effort. However, renaming is a total pain, so "Wiki Northeast" is what we are stuck with. However, I am more then willing to talk about organizational efforts in other US regions as well.

I am looking to recruit more authors and guest authors for this blog. Applicants must be an active participant in some kind of organization effort for a USA-based chapter. If you or somebody you know is actively organizing and would like a little soapbox to talk about it, please send me an email. If you don't want to become an author, you can email me news updates short stories, or one-time posts, and I can put them on the blog for you. I would really love to hear from the people "on the ground" about how things are going. I look forward to posting more updates on these topics as things progress.

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan: Our First Outreach Project

Team "New York Dolls": Our 2nd-place winners

I'm glad to announce the results of Wikipedia Takes Manhattan, our first real outreach project at the nascent Wikimedia New York City, held with great help and sponsorship from Free Culture Columbia and Free Culture NYU.

In the first event of its kind anywhere, we held a photographic scavenger hunt for places around our city needing photos for their Wikipedia articles.

The idea was to reach out to Columbia and NYU students, while taking Wikimedia and free content "to the streets" (literally, in this case) in creating a gallery of local sights. This was a project we pursued in lieu of a Wikipedia Academy for now, while hopefully building the way for bigger and better things to come.

We have tentative plans for a "Wikipedia Takes Manhattan 2" in the Fall, and hopefully a local Wikipedia Academy as well. Already, there are ideas for a Wikipedia Takes The City-type contest brewing on the Dutch Wikipedia, under the name "Photohunt 2008".

Judson Memorial Church designed by Stanford White, one of our 92 successfully photographed targets.

This really was a great adventure for the participants, as you can plainly see from the incredibly cool gallery on Commons, which shows all the sights the different teams visited over the course of the day.

And I was really impressed by the enthusiastic energy on display, with several of our teams going all the way out to the far Bronx or Queens for those distance-based bonus points we offered.

A member of Team "New York Dolls" told us how this unique itinerary really let her appreciate the Upper West Side, where she'd lived for years as a student, but had never had an opportunity to really get to know the area. I've always been a fan of learning with your feet as well as your fingers, and if her pictures encourage more people in exploring their own neighborhoods (and sharing their discoveries), I think we'll have put the world of free knowledge up a notch in more ways than one.

Hard at work uploading. Barnstars and prizes up front.

But the extraordinary thing about this event I want to communicate to fellow Wikimedians is this: it was not primarily organized by Wikipedians/Wikimedians. Sure, we compiled the list and set up the mechanisms online. But the outreach to the students, the printing of instruction packets, the iPod shuffle prizes, the uploading party and its 15 pizzas, all this was done by our amazing friends at the Free Culture student clubs (mostly Columbia, but both were great).

There is really so much more we can do when we work with like-minded people, and for an organizer to just (for example) make a decision to start attending meetings of groups in your area can be incredibly productive. As a start, I'd recommend you check out Free Culture clubs around the US (and more on cooperating with local groups in later posts).

And a good time was had by all.

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan! Event this Friday.

Important note: You MUST MUST MUST register here by Thursday 8 PM EST, if there is any possibility you plan on participating or coming to the party that night.

Wikipedia Takes Manhattan (see link for full schedule) is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles covering the wondrous sights on the island of Manhattan.

This event is being held Rain or Shine.

The goal is to take as many photos as possible for Wikipedia articles that currently don't have any pictures.

We're doing this event with the sponsorship of Free Culture Columbia, with cooperation from Free Culture NYU.

Wikinortheast Blog

Many people undoubtedly saw the excellent previous post by Pharos, about the benefit of big discussion tables at Wikimeetups. This is one of what I hope to be many posts about on-the-ground wiki activism.

The USA currently does not have a chapter like so many other countries do. There have been some other attempts in the past to create such a chapter, but none of those attempts have reached the necessary critical momentum. There have been some efforts to create state-based chapters as well. This is easier in many respects, I think, because when you're local you can get together offline and build up enthusiasm in a real way. There was one such effort in PA to create a chapter, although that is currently dormant. There is also a very impressive effort happening in New York, and we've all heard a lot about their efforts.

I've also heard some very encouraging things from other people as well, especially from some of my newly-created contacts in Oregon. In Portland, several wikimedians have been participating in a "WikiWednesday", a monthly informal meetup.

Pharos, one of the prime movers in the NY group, came to me with the suggestion of expanding my PA blog to cover the NY volunteers and others from the region. So, I turned this little blog into a group blog that people can use to talk about wiki activism from the Northeast region in the USA. If other people are interested in joining this blog and trying to build up some enthusiasm, leave us a comment about who you are and what you are doing. I'm not going to strictly define "northeast", so consider the boundaries to be extremely fuzzy.

Big Table Required: How to turn a Meetup into a Meeting

Many cities in the US have had occasional meetups, but these are often held erratically, and usually without agenda. We've had some notable successes with organizing in New York City recently, and our group even seems set on becoming the first Wikimedia "affiliate chapter" in the United States.

How did we do it? A big table. With: people sitting around it, engaged in discussion. Without: A banquet and drinks setting (unfortunately).

The important thing is to have a clear space where you can hold real group discussion, pursue content projects and educational outreach with other local groups, and open a mini-conference where members can make presentations on their Wikimedia areas of expertise (more on this in later posts).

All you need is someone WP:BOLD enough to organize. You just need to set a date (and stick to it), advertise like hell, write a preliminary agenda, and find the right space. It's not very hard to get ahold of a space with a big table, and it shouldn't have to cost anything to reserve a room. Our first big table meeting was in November at a public library. Our meetings in January and March were in a room at Columbia University, arranged by one of our members who is affiliated there. We've been holding a meeting once every two months, and I would recommend that for other groups as well.

While Wikimedia has been incredibly open to the contributions of volunteers online, there has been relatively little scope for real-life volunteer activities, because of the small footprint of the Foundation on-the-ground. There has been constant talk of a nationwide "US chapter" online for years, but very little progress.

I believe that the solution is not a theoretical bureaucracy of American Wikimedians on Meta or IRC, but rather a diversity of local chapters capable of engaging in real-life meetings and activities on a regular basis. And that extends not just to New Yorkers, but to Wikimedians in all major metropolitan areas, who can all have something to contribute through on-the-ground activities. Indeed, the whole point of this blog is to show that it can be done in other cities too.

And the good news is: You can still have that banquet and drinks setting. We still do, every time, because social settings are a large part of what people come to meetups for. But we do it after the afternoon meeting, when we can take our evening stroll together, and set out for a neighborhood restaurant and some well-deserved laid back wiki-chat.