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Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network/minutes 2019 06

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This meeting

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2nd Wednesday of the month at 12 noon New York time.
Wed June 12 12pm – 1pm Eastern Time - New York
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Attendees

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  1. Emjackson42 (talk) 16:06, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Mary Mark Ockerbloom
  3. Hilary Thorsen
  4. Lane Rasberry
  5. Andrew Lih
  6. Rachel Helps

Agenda and notes

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Items for every meeting
  • etherpad
    • Take notes here during meeting
    • Transfer notes from etherpad to this page after meeting
    • Anyone can take notes and format them here!
  • Note - anyone can add to this agenda or the agenda of any future meeting!
    • At start of meeting, we will move items around
    • Quick items first!
    • Confirm agenda at the start of the meeting!
  • New attendee introductions
    • What do you do as a Wikimedian in Residence?
    • What organizational support do you want?
  • Media featuring Wikimedians in Residence
    • Former head of WMF research questions why we do not do Wikidata https://twitter.com/ReaderMeter/status/1129252286612381696
      Context - most or all publicly visible Wikimedians in Residence do lots of Wikidata. Why would a senior WMF person say that Wikimedians in Residence do not do Wikidata projects?
      Hilary said that she interacted with Dario and that he is aware of her Linked Data for Production project
      Esther said that NYBG has done various Wikidata trainings
      Mary reports that Science History Institute does a small amount but mostly as part of what is being done day-to-day (e.g. see if there's a Wikidata item for a person if I'm **:releasing a photo of them.)
      ARL PAPER https://www.arl.org/resources/arl-whitepaper-on-wikidata/
      Rachel reports that her library is a member of the Association of Research Librarians and after their white paper, more librarians have been interested. Rachel said that she connected one of their databases with Wikidata through Mix and Match, and now this could be some lost labor if their institution changes the databases's URLs. Also it might not be time if academic libraries are not ready to negotiate data donations. Rachel said that Wikidata does tend to appreciate data donations
  • mailing list in Wikimedia's mailman service
    • created - https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wren
    • decision: public or private?
      options: public with restricted posting, or public with anyone who can post, or completely private
      Andrew says that in the wiki community, the default is "not closed" in terms of being able to read. Andrew said that it could be nice to have a bit of a throttle on who can post to it. Ideally we would allow anyone who is a Wikimedian in Residence or who works with one to post to the mailing list.
      Rachel said that there is a Facebook group which is not very active. This could be supporting evidence that not too many people would join. Rachel said that she liked the idea of making it open to read, and then granting default permission to post to people who are known to us. If people are lost then we can redirect them?
      Lane said that member posts are going to be automatically approved and non-member posts will go through a moderator
    • who can join?
  • Wikimania plans
  • membership in this organization
    • original concept - organization for people who are professionally engaged with Wikimedia projects, by a non-Wikimedia organization, and not primarily doing COI / brand / promotional editing
    • any reason to include others?
      • Andrew said that he did not currently have an opinion on who should or should not be included in this group. Right now, he felt that the "Wikimedian in Residence" definition

we don't include all COI editors--we exclude marketing-type editors. WREN is centered on sharing knowledge through institutional affiliation Andrew said that it is an open question about whether we want to promote "Wikimedian in Residence" as the title which describes the ideal Wikimedia partnership. "in residence" communicates a person's foreignness within an organization, when other titles like "Wikimedia strategist" might be more fitting for someone who does projects, is part of the team, and is more readily understandable.

      • Rachel said that historically in her (this?) group she has pushed back on the idea that Wikimedians in Residence should not edit Wikimedia themselves. Editing Wikimedia projects advances the mission of her university / library in sharing knowledge. Rachel said that the Wikimedia Foundation has a tendency to describe Wikimedians in Residence as people who train rather than who edit Wikimedia projects.
      • Mary said that she preferred a broad definition of Wikimedian in Residence as she does spend much of her time in writing on the wiki. She shared that she got an email from someone at a university who is doing activities of the sort that a Wikimedian would do, but this person works in the larger context of being a general outreach and communications person.
      • Esther said that she she tries to participate generally in Wikimedia projects in addition to doing her routine projects with her institution, which makes her feel connected to the Wikimedia community.
      • Hilary said that she is coming more from the library world and contributing to Wikidata, but has less familiarity with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. She is not a wiki-generalist, and her focus on Wikidata is meeting her institution's needs.

Other demographics interested in joining some activities/discussion

  • Other demographics interested in joining some activities/discussion
    • list
      • Wikimedia chapter staff who encourage organizations to create Wikimedian in Residence positions
        • Rachel said that this seems helpful
      • Organization managers seeking to appoint a Wikimedian
      • Wikimedia Foundation staff wanting to interact
      • Curious individuals who are seeking a Wikimedian in Residence position
        • Rachel says, "Hmm!" Maybe we could have an occasional meeting which is open to all these could be useful, but perhaps they should not join general meetings, especially not with beginner questions.
        • Esther said that she was supportive of a public information sessions if there is demand.
        • Rachel said that maybe it would be better to answer one on one emails if anyone had particular questions.

Mary has interacted with several people online who had questions or wanted feedback or coaching; this type of outreach work is part of her job specification.

    • What do we do with these?
      • Practice to date - they should not join our discussions and meetings
      • Any reason to change?
  • Wikidata curriculum
    • Rachel asked, where do we get one?
    • Rachel said that there are two interest groups - library catalogers, perhaps without IT skills; and IT people, perhaps without library catalog skills. She wants to present the OCLC / Wikibase model of an institution setting up its own database.

Rachel mentioned Kerry Raymond in Austrailia who has an interesting wikidata project with powerful visualizations--getting people to make wikidata items for their public libraries

    • Andrew said that Wikidata enables people who have never previously made visualizations to start generating them with ease. Andrew said that the visualizations are a powerful outreach tool.
    • Recommended : presentation intro to Wikidata (7 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DOvuZWaD0&list=PLIDwXQ5TVF-eWkGnWzqH7aBRrPqLOsFRc&index=2&t=0s
    • Esther reports that when she has presented Wikidata to librarians, sometimes they object to the terminology in the Wikidata community or that Wikidata has a vocabulary system which is less controlled than what makes them comfortable
    • Hilary mentioned that Wiki Ed is developing a published curriculum for Wikidata and Library Carpentry has a Wikidata course. She said that people get excited about Wikidata because there is so little onboarding and people can begin editing immediately. Also many catalogers like that Wikidata has a modern design, when typical library systems are older.
    • she mentioned Asaf's SPARQL training (probably this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJph4q0Im98)
  • Andrew asks if anyone is going to Wikidatacon in October in Berlin
      1. WikidataCon2019, the conference for open data enthusiasts, will take place on October 25-26, 2019 in Berlin
    • Daniel Mietchen (Lane's colleague), Hilary Thorston and Andrew Lih are going to Wikidatacon
    • November in Boston will be Wikiconference North America
    • there will be scholarships for Wikiconference North America, including for international attendees (but mainly for North Americans)
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