Program/How to kick-start communities or How to boldly go where no editor has gone before

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How to kick-start communities or How to boldly go where no editor has gone before

How to kick-start communities or How to boldly go where no editor has gone before
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Notes
Format
  • Presentation
Keywords
  • Community building
  • Reviving projects
  • Gaps
When and where
  • Sunday 22 July, 14:30
  • Duration: 25 minutes
  • Hong Kong

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Participation & representation

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Abstract

We seek to create a summary of all human knowledge and everybody can contribute. But does everybody contribute? There are entire countries without a single editor. And there are Wikimedia projects that are almost dead. Now how do communities emerge, how do projects start, how can we spread our movement to places where it does not exist yet? There have been several types of approaches. Some approaches were successful, some of them were not. I would like to present past tries from neglected regions of this planet and discuss how to boost editor gaps.

  • When it was found out that there was no Wikimedia movement in the country of Togo editors from the Volta region of Ghana, which is neighbouring Togo, ran workshops there. This was helped by the fact that people from the Volta region share cultural aspects with neighbouring Togo.
  • There have been presentations and workshops like edit-a-thons in countries without a single editor – like for example Rwanda. I will explain why most attempts did not result in a single community member and what has to be done to change that.
  • The German Wikipedia has now one of the largest of all Wikipedia communities. But when it started it had a very slow start. A press article changed everything. How a press offensive can help boost awareness of Wikipedia.
  • There was not much going on at the French language Wikipedia when it started. French Wikipedia only got going when food recipes were allowed. How a change of policy changed everything.
  • When Wiki Loves Monuments Austria started, one state of Austria hardly had any contributions while all others had many. How the Austrian organizers managed to cover the lost state.

Presentation in detail

Outcomes

I hope that attendants will feel motivated to help regions without communities and will have the knowledge to do this successfully.


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