Open Coalition
Welcome to the homepage of the Open Coalition project. This page will act as a portal for the project, offer useful updates and highlight ways that volunteers from “open” communities can participate in the project. More content will be added here, and to sub-pages, as the project progresses.
History
The idea for the project emerged towards the end of 2013. It became apparent that many of the organisations working in the field of open shared areas of overlap. Work was sometimes duplicated, lines of communication between organisations and communities were sometimes weak and there was lots of potential for closer ties between open groups. Following some tentative discussions, a session about this was delivered at MozFest in October 2013 based around the idea of developing an open coalition.
The objectives of the coalition are varied and include supporting various open organisations and communities in the development of collaboration, a shared web presence where useful information can be aggregated and the creation of other resources that support these aims.
The project has been initially funded by Wikimedia UK and Bekka Kahn has been appointed as the project co-ordinator for six months. During this time Bekka will be working to develop the concept as well as co-ordinating efforts to achieve the coalition's aims. While the post has been funded by Wikimedia UK, Bekka's role is to support all interested parties and support the coalition more broadly.
Resources
Bekka's role description can be seen here. This provides an overview of her role and what she will be working to achieve.
This page gives a little more context to the project's inception
Ways to get involved
Open Coalition Meet & Greet - 19 May 2014
When: Mon, May 19, 4pm
Where: Wikimedia UK Office and online
Why? To help us start building the Open Coalition (and see old friends, make new ones and have a drink)
Join us in London to meet Bekka Kahn, the new co-ordinator at the Open Coalition, and get involved in building the coalition. We'll talk about improving communication, sharing experiences and start mapping out plans for the 6 months. We'll also have a dial-in set up for those who are outside the UK, so everyone can take part.
Can't make it to the Meet & Greet? There are some simple things you can do to get involved and help us build the coalition:
- Follow @opencoalition on Twitter for all the latest news
- Tweet this: Help spread open collaboration across the web. Join the #opencoalition
- Send us an email: stevie.benton
wikimedia.org.uk (new address coming soon!) - Join our mailing list, either by dropping a note on the talk page or by emailing above
- Join the coalition - get involved on this wiki (later to be followed by a shared presence) and help to shape the project as it grows
As the project progresses more opportunities to participate will be listed here.
Next steps
Bekka and other people involved in the development of the coalition will maintain this page with latest news. The talk page can be used for questions, comments and general discussion.