Editing Weekend

On wikipedia-l, Jimbo proposed editing weekends be held as a part of the drive towards 1.0. This involves groups of Wikipedians meeting in libraries to finalise articles.

We could get permission from a library or libraries in some densely populated centers around the world to gain admission during a holiday or weekend that they would normally be closed. We'd set up a wireless broadband network and bring together as many people as possible to work together day and night in a fun atmosphere to fact check articles and process them for final publication in a CD-ROM, with an eye towards print as well of course.

Since we'd be talking about en for this first round, logical cities for this would be New York and London, with L.A. and Chicago and Sydney also possible, if there are enough people interested to make that happen.

We'd strive to have as many people as possible in one location, and to attract maximum media attention to what we're doing. So the selection of a location would involve deliberations about keeping the cost low, both travel costs and hotel costs for participants travelling some distance.

For example, although this is too soon, the New York Public Library will be closed September 4 through September 6, for "Labor Day Weekend". There are many other holidays like that one which would provide a similar opportunity.

Imagine (go with me on this fantasy here) 1000 people working around the clock with timeouts just to sleep and eat, for 3 full days, to fact check, copyedit, and approve as many articles as possible.

--Jimbo

Whilst Jimbo's plan was to hold this event in the summer of 2005, just before publication of the print edition, there could be a number of earlier sessions held before this. Also, this does not have to involve only the English Wikipedia. Other projects may benefit from similar sessions, and holding them on the same date as the English language ones could increase media awareness of the event.

See en:Wikipedia:Editing Weekend for details of the sessions being arranged for people to work on the articles in the English Wikipedia. Please add links to this page if you arrange similar sessions for your own Wikipedia or its sister projects.

See also Wikipedia Wissenswochenende (german editing weekends)