Training modules/dashboard/slides/12309-keeping-the-space-active

Keeping the space active

A snack break at an editathon at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2017. Reminding participants, to take breaks to get snacks and enjoy the company of others helps reinforce the social parts of Wikipedia contributing and helps keep energy up, especially during long events.

During the event, event runners frequently find that they don’t have enough time to edit themselves: this is okay.

Part of helping people feel engaged and successful, is maintaining morale and ensuring that folks feel supported throughout the event. It might be useful to designate which event runners will:

• Keep an eye out for people getting “stuck” -- sometimes folks will try to triage challenges in Wikipedia or get stuck finding sources for their topic.
• Remind folks to save often, and focus on contributing at least some information. If participants add just a few citations to a page, it provides a foundation for future editors and readers.
• To remind folks to take breaks, eat the food, and get fresh air away from computer screens.
• Capture the user names of participants. Even if you ask participants to record their user names, that step is frequently missed.