Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wiknic 2019

WiknicNYC Picnic
	Great American Wiknic
Date	Sunday, July 14, 2019
Time	afternoon/evening; (drop-in any time 2:00–7:00 pm!)
Address	Roosevelt Island; (picnic site: Southpoint Park)
City, State	New York City, New York
Coordinates	40°45′08″N 73°57′33″W / 40.752202°N 73.959190°W

This meetup page is an archive of a past event. Please do not edit the contents of this page.

Wikimedia NYC invites you to attend the Wiknic, the "picnic anyone can edit" in Roosevelt Island (picnic site: Southpoint Park) for Sunday July 14, 2019, from about 2:00 - 7:00 pm, as part of the Great American Wiknic celebrations being held across the United States.

You can also reach this page at nyc.wiknic.org

All attendees are subject to Wikimedia NYC's Code of Conduct, and don't forget your sunscreen!

To sign up for this event: Log in or create an account.

Details & Agenda

Date: Sunday, July 14, 2019
Time: 2:00 pm - 7:00 pm (come by any time!)
WMF Strategic Planning Discussion: 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm (session A) 5:00 pm - 5:30 pm (session B)
Location: Roosevelt Island (Southpoint Park, look for our Wikipedia/Wikimedia NYC banner). The F train stops there, and a tramway connects to 2nd Avenue Manhattan.

If you get lost and can't find the main group, text or call (214) 945-4692, that is (214) WIKI-NYC.

Discussion

Planning

4:00 pm - 4:30 pm (session A)
6:00 pm - 6:30 pm (session B)

We'll have two breakout groups for each 30-minute session.

(draft)

Notetaker/Recorder needed

This year the Wiknic will double as a Strategy Salon, using open space technology to address these two questions facing our social movement:

How might we build Wikimedia into an effective convenor of impactful partnerships, coalitions, and collective action based on a shared vision of open knowledge and the “Big Open” Movement?
How do we, as a global Wikimedia movement, avoid the pitfall of recentism, tapping in to elder networks, LGBT networks, women’s networks, indigenous communities, etc. to develop volunteers for the project as writers, developers, and document gatherers to find and preserve our hidden collective history?

I'll take notes for Session A. - kosboot (talk) 22:22, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I can be a discussion facilitator for Session A or Session B.--Pharos (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How does this work? Is the idea that session A discusses the first question and session B the second question? Or is it that each session discusses both? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on the scale of attendance, we might have two discussion groups (one for each question) during each session.--Pharos (talk) 16:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Session A

Facilitator: Pharos
Notetaker: Kosboot

(This is not a transcript of the discussion, rather it has been edited to group similar ideas together. Feel free to edit if you don't see what was spoken.)

Outreach

We must do more reaching out; we need to be pro-active, go out and talk to people, inform and interest them.
We should do more outreach to high schools.
We need to move into more regional languages.
We need to reach out to groups. We can start by going online to reach already organized groups.

Getting started

The onboarding process for new users should be improved and needs to be easier.

Authoritative sources and notability

We need to rethink the qualifications for an “authoritative source.” We will not be able to reach under-represented communities unless we rethink what is an “authoritative source” without a pro-white, pro-Western bias.
An obstacle is the definition of “notability” and the definition of “authoritative.” It might be authoritative to a white-Eurocentric vision, but it could have other meanings to non-white, non-Eurocentric communities. If we stick to the white Eurocentric view we could be missing important information and documentation of non-Western cultures.
The Euro/traditional education system excludes non-traditional forms of history and culture. One example are the genre of oral histories. But there too, often it becomes authoritative and a reliable source only once it has been codified and edited in written form.
One example is Yiddish Wikipedia. It’s written in academic language. But the majority of current Yiddish speakers don’t speak that way and use a vernacular Yiddish, which results in a split between what is written and what is spoken and understood by ordinary people.
As a result of these biases and a too-narrow view of notability, there are too many deleted articles. Wikipedians should be more inclusionist. There should be numerous red-links (indicating articles to-be created). Rather than immediately deleting an article, its author should be notified than the article they created has issues.
Instead of deleting, the offending article should be merged with the appropriate article. Perhaps there could exist “supplementary Wikis” that could contain deleted articles as well as other writing that does not meet WP’s notability or criteria. For example: Might it be possible for individual institutions, organizations and groups to have their own wiki (with information that does not pass notability) as a means to supplement Wikipedia.
There followed an extended discussion on different language Wikipedias and the difficulty of learning that an article in a particular language may have better coverage than the one in English. But currently there is no tool to indicate which language Wikipedia has the largest article on a specific topic.
Maybe one way would be to write an article using zines as the primary source material, rather than newspapers and other media which might no have covered the topic.

Session B

Facilitator: Legoktm
Notetaker: Rhododendrites

Question: How might we build Wikimedia into an effective convenor of impactful partnerships, coalitions, and collective action based on a shared vision of open knowledge and the “Big Open” Movement?

Background: As Wikipedians, Wikipedia is the project we think of when we think of free culture/open culture, but there are many others we should think about, too. Some of them we already partner with, some we could work with more, and some we're yet to connect with.

How can we work with partners in the open/free culture space? How can we leverage our resources to help others?

Suggestion: Should we revive the Free Culture Alliance?

Question: What's going on with Ed X, Coursera, etc.?

discussion of some ongoing issues

Comment: Media Viewer is very old and can't edit video, which limits certain kinds of partnerships. Fixing would allow a whole new medium on which to collaborate.

Discussion of alternatives.
There was a video editor from Mozilla, which Wikimedians tried to work with, but it hasn't gotten very far.
There's a big question of how to tie video editing into Wikimedia priorities.
Open source desktop possibilities we could teach people?

Question: Examples of other groups we could work with?

NYC Mesh?
Maybe look for other Mozilla grant recipients as candidates.
Mentorship programs between organizations?

Suggestion: Find someone who can get more images on Commons.

Discussion of integrating Facebook and/or Instagram with Commons, as well as the problems associated with such integration.

Comment: There's a high barrier to entry on Toolforge/WMFLabs, which may limit certain kinds of participation/partnerships. What if you could edit there like you do Lua on-wiki?

Question: How many here contribute to other open projects. [A few people raise hand]. Example: OpenStreetMap, although there are already relationships formed between Wikipedia and OSM.

Comment: Could look for emerging open communities to talk to.

Example of Wikitravel, and the way that led to Wikivoyage.
What about genealogy sites, or something like Findagrave?
- Mormon church may be useful in genealogy?

Comment: We need to know what we're good at -- not try to do everything. (a response to conversations that keep veering to the many things that can be folded into Wikipedia).

Comment: We need to ensure there are opportunities to create new Wikimedia projects.

Suggestion that we close 2 and open 2 new projects every year (and discussion of the problems with forced closing).

Comment: Biggest obstacle in the Wikimedia NYC OpenStreetMap relationship isn't strategic or technical but a matter of training. Maybe we could hold joint events where each group could train the other.

Suggestion: Consider partnering with commercial projects that may have useful resources (like pictures of celebrities).

Suggestion: Get students to take pictures for Commons

Potluck List

Some food will be provided. However, volunteer to bring potluck food, supplies and recreations as you feel inspired! No fires; no grill. List what you will bring below.

Food

Tacos - veggie, chicken, and beef (trays to serve ~25, which Rhododendrites will pick up/bring)
I'll bring my world-famous^{[citation needed]} lemon bars. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:18, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Fruit salad ilovepiday (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Chips. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:40, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Orange Juice PHENYLALANINE
3 Cantaloupe - Jeremyb
smoked blue fish --Jeremyb (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
a jar of pickles --Jeremyb (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
some kind of small brownie thing from Trader Joe's. If they don't have that, I'll see what other kind of sweet snack I can get. -- TheBankery (talk) 16:49, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oreos. Legoktm (talk) 17:17, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Pitas & Hummus --Habst (talk) 18:52, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions/requests

please move up if you plan to bring any of these

Watermelon
Salads

Drinks

Seltzer - Perimeander (talk) 15:42, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
have a big cooler, going to try to get some ice/water to put in it. --Jeremyb (talk) 17:27, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions/requests

please move up if you plan to bring any of these

Water

Equipment

Staking out space and bringing signage - Pharos (talk) 21:32, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Utensils, plates - Rhododendrites will bring enough for 25 people
Cups - PHENYLALANINE
2 large tables --Jeremyb (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
cantelope knife --Jeremyb (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
a cooler for drinks/perishables --Jeremyb (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
2 water coolers (a 5 gal and a 10 gal) --Jeremyb (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions/requests

please move up if you plan to bring any of these

We need a ~~knife~~ (and preferably a cutting board, too) for cantaloupe and possible watermelon
Does anyone have a small folding table we can put the food on? There are tables available, but they're on the pavement by Cornell Tech.
- got it see above --Jeremyb (talk) 17:25, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
mobile hotspot?