Volunteering Portal/Featured volunteer/2

John Cummings is an experienced Wikipedia editor and event organiser who started the Monmouthpedia project in 2011 and was more recently the Wikipedian in Residence at the Natural History Museum and Science Museum, in London.

I first got involved with Wikimedia UK when I attended TedX Bristol in 2011. Roger Bamkin and Steve Virgin were there talking about the project that had been done at Derby Museum - where QRpedia codes linking to articles had been placed on exhibits. I wanted to reuse and expand upon their idea for my hometown of Monmouth in Wales. The project grew to become MonmouthpediA.

I realised very quickly that Wikipedia wasn't something you could break easily. One of my first edits was accidentally deleting all the content of the worldwide list of projects that Wikimedians are working with Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums! After a short panic I went to the history page and undid my error; one of the first things I tell people when I'm teaching them how to edit Wikipedia is you can't break it.

I became a volunteer because Wikimeda were doing something amazing - and I didn't need permission to join in. Wikimedia UK were very welcoming. I had previously done some volunteer work with WYSE International (a youth leadership charity) but they organise two week residential courses, and it only takes an hour or so to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia.

It's easy to organise a Wikimedia event with a host organisation. In my experience, they'll get in touch in one of two ways: people from the organisation come to a Wikipedia editing event, it's a great way to meet Wikipedia volunteers and understand more about the movement. Or, the host organisation has contact the Wikimedia UK office and they'll include you in discussions with the organisations, this happens with many volunteers who are keen to share their experience and make open knowledge more widespread. Having said that Wikimedians are very welcome to initiate projects themselves - it's what I did in Monmouth. Once a host organisation understands the ubiquitous nature of Wikipedia (Wikimedia projects get 21 billion page views per month) and that they are able to make it a richer resource it becomes a very easy conversation to have.

I have received lots of support from Wikimedia UK, like advice on how to run events and projects, loans of equipment, funding for projects and desk space in their office when I need it!

A recent event I organised was the "Wonder Women of Natural History" edit-a-thon at the Zoological Society of London, where participants improved coverage of some of the most remarkable women who have helped shape our understanding of natural history.

If I could offer advice to people who want to run an event, it would be to try to attend an event before you run one yourself, and to teach someone you know before trying to teach strangers, maybe friends or family, try to pick people with different levels of computer literacy. And most importantly, be specific about what you want to achieve running an event.

John can be contacted on his user talk page.