Talk:WikiCities

Quick translation of an article I put on the German Kurier

Anybody who wants to use this to make the idea better known in other Wikipediaprojects ist welcome! --Kritzolina (talk) 08:32, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

WikiCities - an idea born at Wikimania 2016

Already before the start of the official conference an idea was born that has much potential to help the Wikimedia movemenent forward. It came up during the Workshops "Engaging local Wikipedians". DerHexer had invited representatives of local communtiy spaces in Germany as well as users from other European projects, from Bangladesh and two representatives oft the Kumusha Bus project.

During the discussion it was easy to see how projects in Africa and Bangladesh have a whole set of different problems than those in Europe. The spontaneous idea, to use existing city partnerships, to give mutual support and exchange ideas, was accepted and the project WikiCities was initiated. Until now it is not really a project, it is merely an idea - everybody can contribute and help to turn it into a working project.

All local communities are cordially invited to work on ideas on how existing partnerships between cities can be used and shaped to help improve Wikipedia. Perhaps even new partnerships can be initiated. Initiatives could start with Edit-a-thons focused on the partner cities (usually there is good literature to be found in local librariers). Also easy to organize will be meetings with members of existing exchange programs. With special exchange programs Wikipedians could visit their partner cities and invite the persons they want to work with in return. People of your own hometown that are active concerning the city partnership can be encouraged to carry their knowledge and their photos into all the Wikimedia projects. Last but not least Wikipedians from your hometown can contact communties that have totally different sets of experiences which might not be well represented in any of the Wikimedia projects.

The name "WikiCities"

I just wanted to remind ourselves that the name "Wikicities" was already used in 2004-2006 by Jimmy Wales for his commercial wiki hosting service now known as en:Wikia. --Neitram (talk) 16:39, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

But without CamelCase. As long as he did not trademark the term it should be cool within the Wikimedia world, I think. --Gereon K. (talk) 07:26, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

WIKICITIES was a trademark, but has been cancelled in 2013 if I understand this page correctly. --Neitram (talk) 13:38, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Was registered for 6 years and then not renewed, it seems. Yes. --Gereon K. (talk) 20:26, 19 July 2016 (UTC)