Talk:Wikimedia Girl Geek Dinner/Manchester October 2013

Availability

• Hi. I'd love to be involved with this but I'm doing a different science-festival event in the evening of 27th. I'll need to prepare for that in the afternoon but can help with this in the morning if necessary. Yaris678 (talk) 09:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The above was a calendar mix up. I should be free on the 27th! Yaris678 (talk) 15:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
• I may be available for this, but I can't say for sure until we're closer to the time. Shoot me an email if you're looking for people a bit nearer the time. --Deskana (talk) (email) 11:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Yep, I should be able to do this. --Deskana (talk) 15:30, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Sorry, will be busy. --Deskana (talk) 10:46, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
• Happy to help. Bazonka (talk) 20:43, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
• I'm happy to travel up and help with this if I'm needed. Harry Mitchell (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
• Let me know if you need any more help with this event - I'm available that day if need be. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 12:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikilounge

An idea that came up at the recent Manchester wikimeet was to have a wikilounge during the Manchester Science Festival. i.e. a place where people can drop in if they have any questions about Wikimedia or want to be shown something. I think this would compliment the training well. We could do it on the weekend after so that if people who have been on the training have any questions when they come round to editing they can drop in. But it wouldn't be limited to people who went to the training.

It's too late to get a mention in the MSF brochure but we could probably get the event mentioned on their website. If it's a success and we want to repeat it, we should be able to get it in the brochure next year.

A suggested location for the Wikilounge was Nexus Art Cafe. The idea would be that the cafe is open as usual but there would be a few Wikimedians in the corner with appropriate atire or something to identify them / attract attention.

Yaris678 (talk) 09:18, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Vague plan

11:00	People turn up, get a cup of tea, get the laptop booted up and connected to the WiFi.
11:15	Notes on today Two streams with some plenary sessions Describe the different activities that the two groups will do It’s interactive! Ask if you need help – a trainer or a fellow participant Help each other
11:25	What do we want from today? Everyone says their name, what their experience is of Wikipedia and what they want to get out of the day. Hopefully this will draw out of some of the participants why they think Wikipedia is so good so we won’t need to do any "selling" – the other participants do it for us. This may lead to a change of plan. e.g. an extra/alternative activity for the established editors.
11:35	About Wikipedia and Wikimedia 60 seconds to have a think about what you know about Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Get people to volunteer things they've written down. Good opportunity to confirm things for people and spread that knowledge to others present Good opportunity to dispel myths
11:45	Newbies In area set up with a "demonstration computer" attached to a projector with an experience Wikipedian (but not the one doing the talking) in the driving seat. 1. Get everyone who doesn't have one a user name – Go to the English Wikipedia and click on create account. There is good guidance there on user names. 2. Try some wikicode in the sandbox. Link to the sandbox is in the top right. Ask people to write a sentence about their first pet. Hand out some cheatsheets or get people to go Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Cheatsheet. Ask people to put the name of the pet in bold. When demonstrator demonstrates this, they also demonstrate edit summary and preview edit. 3. Write about yourself on your user page. If you want to remain anonymous, be careful how much you give away. You can mention where you live. Make a wikilink to the article about where you live. 4. Random article! Click on the random article button Gives people an idea of the breadth of Wikipedia and that it is a work in progress Ask people to highlight any issues they come across. Ask what they think should be done about it. We'll need some judgement here. Somethings may end up being too complicated to get into but hopefully it will be a good opportunity to get people editing the encyclopedia. e.g. Fixing typos. Correcting errors Finding references (Google!) Clean-up tagging Typo fixing etc. can be explained to people on a one-to-one basis, though others may be interested to watch. If something big comes up, like adding references, gather people round. Consider demonstrating how to do it on the demonstration machine.	Established editors 1. Discuss women biogs listed for event. Back up ideas at Wikipedia:Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists/Worklist. 2. Who wants to do what? 3. Possibly split into pairs as per Wikipedia:Pair programming 4. Once everyone is introduced to the activity, trainers on hand to answer questions.
12:30	Lunch
13:20	Newbies 1. The History tab and diffs. Would anyone like to show off their edit? Gather round that person’s laptop. Click on history tab. Now we can all see why the edit summary was important. But what if we want to know the details of the edit? I wonder what the previous edit looked like... 2. Talk pages. Ask people how they think disagreements are resolved. Highlight the talk page Signature If an issue appropriate for discussion has already come up, suggest that someone leaves a message about it. 3. Watchlist Very useful if you are waiting for a response to a talk page comment! Also useful if you want to see what changes happen to an article.	Experienced editors Carry on with biogs
14:10	Verification and citation Plenary session. But if some of the established editors want to carry on with women scientists that is fine. 1. If verification has already come naturally in the previous exercise, great. Follow on from that. Otherwise, ask participants: What do you of the reliability of Wikipedia? How can you know if a "fact" in Wikipedia is reliable? – Reliable sources 2. Introduce verification policy. Policy in a nutshell: Other people have to be able to check that you didn't just make things up. This means that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation. Quotations Challenged or likely to be challenged Extraordinary claims Explain that you can always check the policy by going to WP:V. There is also Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard 3. Citation tool
14:50	Add information to Wikipedia! Plenary session. But if some of the established editors want to carry on with women scientists that is fine. Consider dropping this activity if overrunning significantly. People will have already edited to a certain extent and the next bits will help to round of the day. Invite people to use hard-copy sources provided and sources on the internet. Find something you want to write about. See if its already there. Start a new article or expand the existing one. This can develop into a general editing session with people asking the trainers for help as they require it. If they someone needs new inspiration, suggest: More from the women biogs list (especially if a newbie who hasn’t seen it before) Pick another hard-copy source Click random article until you see something needing attention Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Pages needing attention
15:40	Getting help Plenary session. But if some of the established editors want to carry on with women scientists that is fine. Describe the different sources of help Get people to look at Wikipedia:Help:Contents – good summary of options Describe some in more detail: Helpdesk Teahouse Reference desk Community portal
16:20	Summary discussion 1. What did we learn today? Get one thing from each participant and write it on the flip chart. 2. Will people use what they have learnt? 3. Will they continue editing Wikipedia? 4. Is there anything else people want to know?