Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Meetup/Penang/5/Cmglee

WikiGap edit-a-thon at Gudang Cafe, George Town, Penang

Overall experience

This WikiGap event was an edit-a-thon emphasising articles on women, jointly organised with the Swedish embassy and the Penang Women's Development Corporation.

I was originally scheduled to help train the 30+ attendees in editing Wikipedia but became responsible for setting up audiovisual equipment and coordinating with the other groups until the organiser arrived after a delayed flight.

It was a pleasant experience overall coaching the novice editors and sharing Wikipedia principles. Being a multilingual country, the organiser's recommendation to translate articles between English, Malay etc was a good call.

Please see the next section of suggestions for improvement.

Feedback & improvements for future events

1. Stick to scheduled times, and announce when editing time is ending e.g. 5 minutes to go.
2. When doing live streams, check the equipment especially microphones by doing a test call beforehand.
3. To preserve bandwidth when streaming, don't have everyone log into the same Wi-Fi (especially in a typical café), and ask individuals to mute and turn off video.
4. Organisers can bring

• Power strips
• Large sheets of paper with markers e.g. to write down Wi-Fi and Zoom login info

and if the venue does not provide them,

• A projector with HDMI etc cable
• A sound system to play live stream and make announcements

Would you like to attend more events?

Yes, in particular GLAM events and photowalks: I suggest using http://wikishootme.toolforge.org/#lat=5.4&lng=100.3&layers=wikidata_no_image,wikipedia to find clusters of red dots (missing data) to plan outings

Any other comments?

Well done to the Malaysian Wikimedia group. Hope to see a Malaysian chapter soon!