Special guest LiAnna Davis of Wiki Education Foundation
Introduction to Wiki Education Foundation
main program - classroom program supporting university faculty in organizing their students to edit Wikipedia articles. Currently 400 classes every term participate. This program has been running since 2010.
experimental program - visiting scholar program - works with university libraries to provide access to special collections to the Wikimedia community. This program worked in some cases but overall has not scaled well and has always required significant focused personal human attention.
experimental program - Wikimedia fellows - bring in academic experts, often from universities, and teaching them to edit Wikipedia in a 3-month structured course which Wiki Education Foundation leads. The goal is to present this as a professional development course.
Rachel says -
I love your trainings! I recommend them to everyone :-)
I'm excited for the Wikipedia Fellows program
Possible collaborations -
Onboarding of Wikimedians in Residence at universities
LiAnna said that their training programs are targeted to people who are participating in Wiki Education programs. Many of those programs match the needs of institutions in general, but the materials say things like "contact your Wiki Education Foundation organizer for support.
LiAnna said that Wiki Ed's training program with experts seeks to have them improve the top-level articles which get the most pageviews. In contrast most Wikimedia outreach programs seek to get new users to create new or develop less popular, less complicated articles.
John Cummings asked LiAnna about community health - the challenge of people being jerks online
LiAnna said that Wiki Ed focuses on support for editors, not policing of offenders
Wiki Ed has staff that jumps into conflict to get new users out of controversy. The experienced Wikimedian de-escalates and resolves the issue and encourages the new editor to do something else
LiAnna said that their strategy does not resolve the general problem, but as a practical matter, using experienced Wikimedians in this way is fast and easy when resources are available to arrange this
Should this group establish a mailing list?
Rachel said that email lists can be hard to follow, but are well established and common
Rachel said that Google Groups are popular but it requires connecting a gmail account
Richard said that he liked the idea of using a slack because it works for people who like that platform
Richard said that we have a Facebook page which is less active
John Cummings said that he appreciates the monthly call and wants that to continue. He said that he liked slack. He said that email threads get long and confusing.
John Sadowski said that he preferred slack because it keeps messaging short.
Rachel said that she likes slack and telegram
John committed to ping Wiki UK to make a slack
Rachel said that email lists can be hard to follow, but are well established and common
Rachel said that Google Groups are popular but it requires connecting a gmail account
Richard said that he liked the idea of using a slack because it works for people who like that platform
Richard said that we have a Facebook page which is less active
John Cummings said that he appreciates the monthly call and wants that to continue. He said that he liked slack. He said that email threads get long and confusing.
John Sadowski said that he preferred slack because it keeps messaging short.
Rachel said that she likes slack and telegram
John committed to ping Wiki UK to make a slack
Inviting more people to join regularly
possible people to join
Cochrane - Cochrane-Wikipedia Initiative/Welcome - have a one-month weekly class
Wiki South Africa @Discott: invited?
New hire! Wikimedian in Residence at Emory University
New hire! Wikimedian in Residence at Columbia University - DaroldCuba
Shhh secret hire happening in United States government at another unnamed institution
John says the original idea was current and former Wikimedians in Residence and people who manage them
people who need wiki orientation
people who want to hire
people who want to be a Wikimedian in Residence
people who already have wiki skills
do not need general tutorials and training
Rachel says that she is fine with anyone joining this call
for libraries that are part of the OCLC research consortium there is a group for people who are interested (includes both experienced Wikipedians and curious library people)
John Cummings suggested tapping into Wikimedia UK which already has some training programs
user group status
The application for Wikimedia affiliation and user group status are still pending with AffCom
Richard, Sadowski, and Michelle in netherlands are applicants
Documentation for Wikimedians in Residence
We need more - demand is increasing
Documentation for Wikimedians in Residence
We need more - demand is increasing
Wikipedia is 20 years old in 2021, time to plan for history
