Learning patterns/Creating a network of organizers
What problem does this solve?
[edit]With the Art+Feminism edit-a-thons, we found that we exhausted ourselves organizing all the edit-a-thons, helping them set up training, and connecting them to Wikipedians.
What is the solution?
[edit]First, you need an established group of individuals interested in holding edit-a-thons. Then, you'll need to create or re-use some training materials so that users can be empowered on the ground to handle trainings themselves. You'll need a system of outreach (e.g. Google lists) for the Wikipedia newbies. You'll need to create a space where usernames and/or contact email addresses can live on and off-Wiki so that new users can contact them directly. You'll need to set expectations for your ambassadors and create guidelines for the ways in which they should communicate with each other.
Things to consider
[edit]- You will need to do some work off-wiki.
- Ambassadors for edit-a-thons can have several different roles: Wikipedians, scholars, librarians, educators, activists. All of these different roles can intersect but they're important in building a usable network.
- Create a formal, public space in which your organizers' contact information is listed, e.g. Wikipedia:Meetup/ArtAndFeminism/Ambassadors
- Create a mode of communication that works for all your organizers, as well as utilize project management software. We used Streak to organize all of our contacts with node organizers in a single Gmail inbox. But, this might differ for different projects. Spend some time researching customer relationship management systems to find the one that best fits your project. Give all key organizers access to this space so you're all in the know about the pipeline of organization.
- Use project management software to organize your workflows. See Grants:Learning patterns/Project management for edit-a-thons for more information.
When to use
[edit]-When managing a large-scale edit-a-thon with multiple stakeholders and venues. -When planning outreach around various thematic campaigns.