Grants:Project/Rapid/Wikipedia Day Chicago 2019

statusWithdrawn

Rapid Grants

Wikipedia Day Chicago 2019

This grant is for three community events in Chicago that seek to bring together existing local Wikimedians as well as recruit new ones. The project will begin with a celebration of Wikipedia Day and Public Domain Day in January 2019 and continue through two follow-up edit-a-thons, one in the spring and one in the summer.

targetEnglish Wikipedia (also possibly Commons and Wikidata)

start dateJanuary 15

end dateAugust 15

budget (local currency)$550

budget (USD)$550

grant typeGroup

grantee• Airplaneman

contact(s)• brianychoogmail.com

organization (if applicable)• Wikimedians of Chicago User Group

friendly space expectations

ucc

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Project Goal

Choose one or more of the following goals. You can add or delete goals as needed.

1. Socialize with community members
2. Recruit new editors
3. Grow the Wikimedians of Chicago User Group
4. Add or improve content

Project Plan

Activities

1. What is the purpose of the meeting and why is it important to your community?

   The main purpose of this project is to celebrate Wikipedia Day 2019. This will begin with a mainly social event in mid-January, hosted at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in downtown Chicago. This first event's main purpose is to foster community and engage editors, new and old. The spring and summer events will feature more editing work, including content new to the public domain, with plans to host at least one of the events at the University of Chicago Regenstein Library. These events will include training for new editors.

2. If applicable, what benefits have you seen from doing this kind of meeting in the past?

   The Wikimedia event scene in Chicago has been intermittently active for many years, with editors organizing as time allowed. What we have found from the first year of the region's user group is that a mix of events, both social and content-oriented, help bring together the community in different ways. The main takeaway we have had with events is that just having them no matter the type, is important for fostering connections and educating new editors.

3. How will you let participants know about the meeting?

   We will reach out through our Facebook group, through a geonotice that will be requested, a central notice, via emails supplied from past meetups, and via the networks of users involved in the Wikimedians of Chicago User Group.

4. How will you keep participants engaged after the meeting is over?

   The two subsequent events will be our main focus of sustained engagement. We will engage event participants online through Wikipiedia as well as social media, namely our Facebook group. We also plan on creating an official mailing list for the user group.

5. Is there anything else you want to tell us about this project?

   Going into its second year, Wikimedians of Chicago User Group hopes to grow its presence in Chicago by organizing events more regularly. This grant will help us with our growth and outreach. The primary event organizer for this grant is Brian (Airplaneman). We anticipate that, for each event, at least three other experienced users will also be in attendance.

Impact

Note: In addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some Global Metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

1. Number of total participants: 20-40
2. Number of people who will help organize the event: 2
3. Number of active editors involved: 5
4. Number of newly registered users: 10
5. Number of articles created or improved: 20
6. Number of repeat participants: 5-15

Budget

As these events will be held at educational institutions (e.g. UIC, UChicago) affiliated with established editors, we expect for there to be no venue fees. The primary cost will be for food, either sandwiches or pizza. We will also acquire a cake for Event 1.

• Food: $500
  • Event 1 (Wikipedia Day): $250
  • Event 2 (spring edit-a-thon): $125
  • Event 3 (summer edit-a-thon): $125
• Editing and recruitment materials: $50
  • This includes costs for printing flyers, signs, handouts, and related communication materials.

Endorsements

• Strong local community building off of diverse experiences and reaching out to the larger public in their region, likely to get a solid participation for a small investment. Pharos (talk) 23:39, 10 December 2018 (UTC)