Talk:Bay Area WikiSalon

Yay, salons!

Yay, salons! --MZMcBride (talk) 03:17, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Are these still occurring? I am interested in attending if there is one planned in May 2018, but I can't tell. Thanks Fifthcoastbobcat (talk) 22:53, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Summary of first WikiSalon / WikiWednesday event (planning session)

I posted this to the wikimedia-sf@lists.wikimedia.org:

Hi,

8 people showed up to for this first event and we discussed our ideas and plans for the future series of events. We agreed that while we want these to have an informal interactive feel much of the time, we should start off and mix in formal program with a speaker or a panel to gather interest. We also want these programs to be inclusive and interesting to newcomers.

Topic ideas for the first event include ocean conservation, San Francisco and its history, local edit-a-thon experiences and open-source intelligence. Right now we're trying to look for speakers, so if you know someone or have an exciting idea, please share at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Monthly_WikiSalon_in_San_Francisco.

We set a deadline of next week to make a decision on the details so stay tuned for another announcement. We plan to have the event the last Wednesday of every month.

Ben Creasy (talk) 04:54, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Ok, it's Monday the 4th; how are we going to decide which of the credibly contacted possible guests we want to go with? Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:19, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking notes, Ben Creasy -- and for nudging us toward a decision, Georgewilliamherbert. Ben, Checkingfax and I had a good Saturday working with the students and staff at the Nueva School; they are eager to schedule a second edit-a-thon of their own (probably early May), and were interested in joining our WikiSalon to report on their first encounter with Wikipedia editing. I told them that others are reaching out to speakers, so there wasn't a guarantee; but IMO it's a good solid option, especially since it's fresh and timely. Has anybody come up with other options? I believe I proposed this Wednesday as the day to make a decision. If we don't have other options by then, let's go with the Nueva School folks; and if we do have other options, we should talk it through. (Phone? IRC chat?) -Pete F (talk) 21:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

The woman author of The Women of San Quentin ... is a solid prospect. She has a stock presentation too. Let me see if I can close it by Wednesday, since we reached out to her before the Nueva folks, but IMHO, it is FIFO, meaning the early bird gets the worm, and so on. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 21:35, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, you had mentioned that to me Checkingfax, apologies for neglecting to mention it here. This sounds like a really great prospect. Would you mind checking if she's OK with presenting in May or June? I very much look forward to hearing about her work, which sounds fascinating -- but I think getting the Nueva students while their first Wikipedia experience is still fresh (and before they are absorbed in final exams or summer plans) would be ideal. -Pete F (talk) 22:02, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

(Also, somewhat selfishly -- I'm unlikely to be able to attend in person in May, and would like to be there when the Nueva folks attend. -Pete F (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC))

Hi, Peteforsyth. I will try to nudge the author to May even if she accepts our invitation by Wednesday. The author was asked earlier, but the educator did confirm earlier. If the author is set on April, what do we do? Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 00:02, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

My understanding was that we'd make a decision this Wednesday based on who is interested. If she can't do a later date, I would be open to considering two speakers/panels for our first event (since we were talking about keeping them pretty short anyway), or -- if necessary -- delaying the Nueva folks. Maybe others in our group will have opinions or ideas, so I'll leave it at that for now. Cheers, -Pete F (talk) 01:43, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Peteforsyth. My gut is to run them both, and keep them both shorter (35 minutes total, each). I think they will both be short anyway. Just in case, I have asked Kris if she wants to defer to May. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi all (with cc to Peteforsyth, Ben Creasy, and Georgewilliamherbert). Kris, the author, is in Norway in May so my vote would be to double up in April with 2 short presentations. Kris is very excited and has confirmed for April, if y'all approve it. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 17:08, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

┌───────────────────┘
Well, our Wednesday deadline for a decision is now past, so I'll boldly make a call based on what's been said. (Pinging Checkingfax, Ben Creasy, Georgewilliamherbert as recent participants.) Let's go with both the author and the school group. Since this is our first month, it seems nice to have a little more "program" than we might have going forward, to give people a solid intro to what we're about, and model the kind of discussion we might like to see happening spontaneously in future events. So two short interviews seems appropriate. I'll plan on finalizing plans with the Nueva School people (probably aiming for the librarian and one student as "interviewees," but flexible in case they prefer to have a teacher or something). I'll plan on being the interviewer/moderator for that session. Checkingfax, how do you want to set it up with the author?

I can draft an announcement too -- I'll post it on this page for feedback before sending to the list, posting on Wikipedia, etc. -Pete F (talk) 16:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Peteforsyth, Ben Creasy, MZMcBride, and Georgewilliamherbert. Awesome!

Once we have an announcement my sister can put it on her large Facebook list. Is that OK? I have a small one. I also have linkedin. Appropriate? Any WikiProject member lists to include?

Kris, the female author, has a stock presentation with slides, etc. and is ready to roll. Should she bring some books for sale? Appropriate? My sister (Melanie) is going to drive over with Kris. Should my sister bring her camera? Should we record the presentations? Does WMF have equipment for this? Appropriate? Pete, could you moderate this session too?

Is WikiWednesday a component of WikiSalon SF, or are we just WikiSalon SF? I noticed NYC has WikiWednesday. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 18:05, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax, yes, I think we should advertise far and wide -- maybe we should make a section to indicate who's broadcasting it where. (I'm not worried about overlap -- I think if anything, a little accidental overlap would be a good thing.) I believe we can get it streamed and recorded via Google Hangouts, though we should confirm that all that is set up and available to us. Camera is great! I'd be happy to moderate both, but also happy to share that role if others are interested.

Have you checked with her about the length of her stock presentation? To keep it wiki-focused, and inside the ~35 minute total timeframe (including Q&A), she might need to trim it a bit.

Ben and I discussed the name, and settled on WikiSalon. I am partial to "WikiWednesday," but happy to concede the point...but I might let the term slip out once in a while, especially early on, just to make sure local WikiWednesday fans notice the connection. -Pete F (talk) 21:50, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Jumping back a bit, I did not get the minutes from Ben although he says he sent it to the mailing list. How do I get subscribed to that? I am on this list, and we should reach out to this list, IMHO. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 01:39, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, we should definitely include that list, Checkingfax. The email list Ben announced it to is this one. I have told Jan at Nueva we're aiming to announce Monday morning, and hopefully we will have a clear signal from her before that. -Pete F (talk) 20:13, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Creating a Meetup page on Wikipedia

Howdy, y'all. How about if we move this project page to Wikipedia? Maybe to Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco/WikiSalon ? That way we are a subpage of Meetup, and of the San Francisco Meetup subpage which is already established. Thoughts? Maybe I am missing something here. If we're a subset of Meetup then we could be listed on the Meetup page. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 03:35, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Ben and I discussed putting this page on Meta Wiki, for planning; and the actual announcements on Wikipedia. -Pete F (talk) 06:57, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Hey Checkingfax and Ben Creasy, I've drafted up a page on Wikipedia: w:en:Wikipedia:Bay Area WikiSalon, April 2016 How do you like it? I made a few tweaks, such as putting the details in infobox format. If you think it's ready to go, we should list it at w:en:WP:Meetup/San Francisco, and start with the invitations! -Pete F (talk) 21:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Peteforsyth and Ben Creasy. Wow! Awesome! I was thinking putting WikiSalon ahead of Bay Area puts the focus on WikiSalon, which I feel is a good thing. If you prefer it to be Bay Area WikiSalon, then we should change the hashtag to #baws. Hey, BAWS is an acronym (vs an initialism). WSBA cannot be uttered like BAWS can. Hmmmm. Never spelled it out before. If we're BAWS, then let's adjust the hashtag, and the Google Form. Both easy to do. The page looks awesome, plus the link to the directions, the infobox, etc. How will the invites look? The ones that land on people's talk pages, etc.? Wow, I am liking BAWS! Did Jan confirm?

Should we mention video stream on the page? Thank you for the amazing effort, Pete. You are the man. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 22:11, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Checkingfax!

I didn't mean to create confusion about the name...I suppose I've been a bit sloppy about that. In my mind, the name is simply "WikiSalon," so I guess I've been using phrases like "the Bay Area WikiSalon" and "the WikiSalon in the Bay Area" interchangeably. I have no problem standardizing on one or the other, and no preference -- do you want to just make a call?

I haven't put together a user page invite yet. Would you like to take that on? I need to focus on some other stuff for the next hour or so, so if you have the time, go for it. -Pete F (talk) 22:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Peteforsyth. I love BAWS, so lets go with Bay Area WikiSalon / BAWS as our brand. I will craft an invite that might port to other uses. How do linkedin invites (for events) work? Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 22:38, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good. I see you're moving the Wikipedia page all over the place :) If you look in the edit history, you'll see I removed "Meetup/" from the title for a reason. More on that reason here: Should we use sub-pages? In short, I'd rather keep it simple, and ensure that people can find the stuff on "Meetup" through more finely-tuned paths within the page or templates. More on LinkedIn shortly -- wasn't planning to do invitations per se, but just a sort of "blog post" there. -Pete F (talk) 22:55, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Pete. I think I cleaned up my mess. Sorry. About that. I think went dyslexic for a moment. Here is the talk page invite. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 23:49, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Another section

The idea behind salons was to have a place for non-directed and casual editing. Basically the opposite of specific edit-a-thons. I got sick of going to wiki events where someone droned on for 45 minutes about something I didn't care about. Presentations and other boring, non-interactive content should be anathema at a salon, in my opinion. Instead, encourage discussion and wiki editing! No agendas, no RSVPing! --MZMcBride (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Potentially useful or interesting links: w:en:User talk:Kirill Lokshin/Archive 14#You're invited to Masterpiece Museum Edit-a-Thon! and w:en:Wikipedia:Salon. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:46, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't make it to the one tonight. I had planned on it, but I had a "half-hour" meeting drag on and on and on, and I would not have arrived at WMF until around 8:30. 2601:643:8300:C96D:E563:73B4:ED6:F11 04:23, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, MZMcBride (with cc to Ben Creasy and Peteforsyth). The building policy is strict about having a visitor list. We make getting on the list easy. All you have to provide is a name, which we are willing to delete after the event. As a bonus it helps us to gauge how much food and beverages to bring in.

Did you attend the planning meeting in March or the kickoff Salon tonight? Or, was the signup a barrier to your attendance? I know I was jumpy the first time about giving up my real name to attend a function. My first function at WMF was called "Open Access in a Closed World". It seemed weird to have to provide my real name when WMF works so hard to ensure our anonymity. But, I trusted the process.

At our March WikiSalon planning meeting, the 8 that attended reached a consensus that every other month we should have a "draw" for the WikiSalon. We also decided to alternate the draw between tech and non-tech. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the first two draws we invited had scheduling conflicts that meant they both had to come tonight. This took up a lot of our "WikiSalon" time, but we still got in a solid 80 minutes of WikiSalon time (35 before and 45 after). After the Salon, some attendees retired to other venues such as a bar, Chipotle Mexican Grill, etc. I got some good WikiSalon time in during the drive over with two of our presenters, and on the drive back with one more attendee (my sister) plus the two presenters that drove me over. They all had questions about Wikipedia and I had questions and comments about their fascinating presentations.

The two panels that Pete created were not one speaker droning on. They were small panels, but with Pete's moderating and with Q&A there was no time for droning. It was more like lightning rounds packed into two blocks.

Many of the attendees were not Wikimedians (probably half), and this was part of our target audience goal. The Wikimedians were free to edit during the presentations, and many of them did. The WMF offices are a chill place to WikiSalon at with couches, counters, coffee tables, booths, more counters and bar stools. I supposed you've been there?

At our March planning meeting it was pointed out that WikiSalons with no planning wither and we do not want this effort to wither.

There are a lot of gaps in my reply here, and I will leave it to other Wikimedians to fill in my gaps. I will look at your wikilinks later. Hope to see you around the Wikis. Cheers! PS: This is an edit: I see you're in D.C. Checkingfax (talk) 06:01, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

To Funcrunch and any of our other speakers perusing this page, please note: MZMcBride did not attend (or, to my knowledge, watch the live stream); while it's probably obvious, given that no speaker went on for more than 2-3 minutes, his reference to droning 45 minute talks is not a reflection of your efforts. Every piece of feedback I've heard from a participant has been positive (with the exception of some very helpful feedback for me from Phil).

To MZMcBride, I take it you're looking to have a discussion of the fit between the name "WikiSalon" and the event series we are planning. This seems like a very odd, and not terribly productive, way to initiate that discussion, but it's one I'm very willing to have, so I'll take a nibble with a few bits of info.

First, while it may not be a 100% fit with how you and Kirill Lokshin initially defined it, I believe it's much closer than you think. In our planning meeting (and as expressed in our public communications), we agreed there should be a strong emphasis on unstructured time/space for on-wiki collaboration. As Checkingfax explains above, we wanted our first event to draw in a variety of people, and model a bit of the kind of interaction we'd like to see, so we had much more "program" than we anticipate having. We have tentatively agreed that every other month will have no program whatsoever; and for those that do feature speakers or other pre-planned stuff, we don't plan on having two presentations or topics in the same evening in the future.

Second, if you want to have a robust shared understanding of the name, I can very much relate. But I think you have some work to do in establishing the conditions for that. Ben Creasy is the one who brought the term to us; I believe he represented it pretty faithfully, but I also made an effort to find further info on my own. But, what I consider the obvious place, WikiSalon here on Meta Wiki, is empty. There is no category for such events on Wikipedia or Meta. w:en:Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/WikiSalon comes up in a Google search, but only talks about that instance of the event, and does not link to general info or background on the term. The page you (tried to) link to above, w:en:WP:Salon, expresses itself as a "brainstorming" page, and does little to define the term, and (since it does not include the exact text "WikiSalon"), came up in none of my searches.

Third, while I appreciate you taking an interest in the subject, and would like to learn how to best honor your efforts, you do not have to repeat yourself to be heard; and placing your comment on the page more oriented at participants and speakers, than at organizers, is unexpected and disheartening. I hope you will feel free to reach out more directly in the future; I would not like to unnecessarily associate our event with politics and infighting in the eyes of our general participants. -Pete F (talk) 22:13, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

*yawn*

You finished? --MZMcBride (talk) 14:20, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Heh. When in the wiki world are we ever finished? I'm gonna put a little work into WikiSalon, and I hope to see you at a WikiSalon in SF or DC before long! -Pete F (talk) 16:44, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Images on Commons

I posted this on the talk page for tonight's (April) salon, but seems appropriate to add here too. I created a category on commons, Bay Area WikiSalon, for images. Please rename/move/fix if I didn't do it right. And thanks to the organizers and attendees! Funcrunch (talk) 07:00, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Funcrunch. I added some categories to the images. Please verify my adds and changes. Nice photos. Ziggy did well too. Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 08:55, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Checkingfax. I created a category with my full name and moved the pix of myself to it, instead of just "Pax." Otherwise looks good. I hope others who were there contribute more pix! Funcrunch (talk) 15:48, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Funcrunch. I was going to suggest creating a category of your own so you can easily keep track of all your photos. You can create sub-categories too if you want to organize your category. You just create the sub-category, then put your main category as the only category listed on your sub-category page. Then, when you go to your main category the sub-category will be listed on the top of the category page. And, going forward, you only have to put the image in its germane sub-category (you don't need to put it in both). Your images are amazing. You may notice I put one of your images in the category "people with hats" Cheers! Checkingfax (talk) 16:35, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

User Group

Has this group thought of going through the affiliates committee and becoming a recognized user group?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 01:36, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

It's in the back of the mind. I'll float the idea to the group and see if someone is interested in taking up the work. I know these are supposed to be lightweight, but we're still a pretty small group and administrative maintenance can be tedious. @Nikikana and Slaporte: fyi Ben Creasy (talk) 18:15, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the idea, but I'm most interested in what would help the group be successful and sustainable. I'd ultimately defer to the other co-organizers if they think becoming a user group is the right move. (I would be recused from that decision since I work for the Wikimedia Foundation in addition to contributing as a volunteer.) stephen (talk) 22:09, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Thematic ideas

A while back I posted about various ideas for topics over at Grants_talk:Project/Rapid/Bay_Area_WikiSalon/Bay_Area_WikiSalon#9_months_later_-_adapting_strategies:

1. Administration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators) and Requests for Admin process
2. Articles for Deletion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion) + Notability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability) and Inclusion policies
3. Conflict of Interest (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest) policies
4. Did you know (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Did_you_know)
5. Dispute resolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution) , 3O (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Third_opinion) (third opinion)
6. How to organize a successful edit-a-thon
7. Introduction to principles and practices of editing
8. Local Bay Area topics, history / Local Wiki (https://localwiki.org/)
9. Requests for Comments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment) + Request for Feedback forum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Feedback_request_service)
10. What is a Reliable Source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources) now, and in the future?
11. WikiProjects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject) : What are they, and how to participate
12. Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) + role of visual media in the encyclopedia
13. Wikimedia Sister Projects (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikimedia_sister_projects) (Wikitionary, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, Commons, etc.)

Ben Creasy (talk) 17:55, 6 August 2019 (UTC)