Discussion:
Wikibooks community-building meeting
Mike.lifeguard
2009-02-14 00:57:17 UTC
Permalink
I've been thinking some about community-building in Wikibooks - I
think it's among one of the more important tasks we need to face.
To get the ball rolling somewhat, Whiteknight and I were tossing
around some ideas earlier - one that we agreed on was that having
a meeting to get wider input and brainstorming on issues of
community-building would be beneficial for Wikibooks.
I had suggested either setting up a Skype conference, or we could
just organize a time to get people together in #wikibooks on
irc.freenode.net. We'd set up a roster of topics to cover and
just fire around ideas for a while.
I'd like to invite anyone interested in particpating to do so -
including people from outside Wikibooks: if you're involved with
a like-minded organization, or if you're involved with
community-building within Wikimedia or related projects, or if
you're just interested in listening, it'd be great to have you
join us.
If you're interested, please reply with any comments, but in
particular include:
* Whether you'd prefer to have the meeting via Skype or in IRC
* What timezone & availability you have (I'm thinking next
Friday or Saturday, probably)
* Any further ideas you have for community-building in
Wikibooks

To get us started, Whiteknight and I were discussing reaching out
to universities and other charities for book donations on
specific topics (such as a book on cancer from an organization
which deals with breast cancer) as well as recruiting editors
from their volunteer pools. Suggestions for similar topics to
discuss would of course be welcome.
I hope to hear back from some Wikibooks regulars, but also people
from the wider Wikimedia community. I've sent this to both
textbook-l and foundation-l and (I hope) I've set reply-to to
textbook-l.
Thanks,
-Mike.lifeguard
----
Mike.lifeguard
mikelifeguard-97jfqw80gc6171pxa8y+***@public.gmane.org
Andrew Whitworth
2009-02-14 01:26:53 UTC
Permalink
Thanks for the email Mike, I was planning to send out something
similar but you beat me to it. I definitely would like to have a
meeting of Wikibookians and other well-wishers, and I would like to
make it a regular thing. Even if we only met monthly or bimonthly for
30 minutes, that would be enough to get some dedicated communication
going. Of course, I would like longer meetings more frequently then
that, but I'd be happy with anything we could get.

Getting more participants is paramount, I think. Of course, there is a
symbiotic relationship between books and contributors. More of one
will lead to more of the other, which leads to more of the first, etc.
My strategy has been to try and solicit book donations, which will
generate press and enthusiasm among participants. There has been only
mild success in this area, I think we're limited by a lack of
advertising: Not enough people know about our accomplishments, and we
need to get more proactive about things if we want to start turning a
"profit" of contributors.

Working up partnerships with other charitable organizations would be
great. We could get groups to donate books to us, or get their
volunteers to write books on our website, etc. If we could tie it in
to a relevant event, that would just generate more press. One of my
ideas would be getting a book about breast cancer going during
"National Breast Cancer Month" or something like that. You could
repeat this with any other group that has a "...awareness day" or
"...awareness month" and information worth sharing.

Anyway, I would like to schedule some kind of online meeting. IRC is
preferred by me, but Skype works also. If we can't find a single time
when many people can attend, we could just schedule multiple meetings
and expect partial turnout for each. We just need a way to discuss
ideas for growth, concerns about current on-wiki events, etc.

I'd love to hear what other people think about this.

--Andrew Whitworth

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 7:57 PM, Mike.lifeguard
Post by Mike.lifeguard
I've been thinking some about community-building in Wikibooks - I
think it's among one of the more important tasks we need to face.
To get the ball rolling somewhat, Whiteknight and I were tossing
around some ideas earlier - one that we agreed on was that having
a meeting to get wider input and brainstorming on issues of
community-building would be beneficial for Wikibooks.
I had suggested either setting up a Skype conference, or we could
just organize a time to get people together in #wikibooks on
irc.freenode.net. We'd set up a roster of topics to cover and
just fire around ideas for a while.
I'd like to invite anyone interested in particpating to do so -
including people from outside Wikibooks: if you're involved with
a like-minded organization, or if you're involved with
community-building within Wikimedia or related projects, or if
you're just interested in listening, it'd be great to have you
join us.
If you're interested, please reply with any comments, but in
* Whether you'd prefer to have the meeting via Skype or in IRC
* What timezone & availability you have (I'm thinking next
Friday or Saturday, probably)
* Any further ideas you have for community-building in
Wikibooks
To get us started, Whiteknight and I were discussing reaching out
to universities and other charities for book donations on
specific topics (such as a book on cancer from an organization
which deals with breast cancer) as well as recruiting editors
from their volunteer pools. Suggestions for similar topics to
discuss would of course be welcome.
I hope to hear back from some Wikibooks regulars, but also people
from the wider Wikimedia community. I've sent this to both
textbook-l and foundation-l and (I hope) I've set reply-to to
textbook-l.
Thanks,
-Mike.lifeguard
----
Mike.lifeguard
_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
j.w. thomas
2009-02-14 01:36:02 UTC
Permalink
Andrew Whitworth wrote:
[snip]
Post by Andrew Whitworth
Anyway, I would like to schedule some kind of online meeting. IRC is
preferred by me, but Skype works also. If we can't find a single time
when many people can attend, we could just schedule multiple meetings
and expect partial turnout for each. We just need a way to discuss
ideas for growth, concerns about current on-wiki events, etc.
I'd love to hear what other people think about this.
I'd prefer IRC to Skype for a couple of stupid reasons.

First, Skype is a pain to set up on Linux. It is incredibly difficult
to get it to take input from a microphone.

Second, I don't like to run Skype at home because we use it extensively
at work (chat mode), and whenever I "go online" I get a barrage of
work-related messages.
--
Jim Thomas Principal Applications Engineer Bittware, Inc
jthomas-KaBSns5Rr5FWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org http://www.bittware.com (603) 226-0404 x536
The sooner you get behind, the more time you'll have to catch up
John McC
2009-02-14 13:15:20 UTC
Permalink
IRC is much better for me as well... I've yet to actually use skype.

-johnny.




________________________________
From: j.w. thomas <jthomas-KaBSns5Rr5FWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org>
To: Wikimedia textbook discussion <textbook-l-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+***@public.gmane.org>
Sent: Friday, February 13, 2009 8:36:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Textbook-l] Wikibooks community-building meeting

Andrew Whitworth wrote:
[snip]
Post by Andrew Whitworth
Anyway, I would like to schedule some kind of online meeting. IRC is
preferred by me, but Skype works also. If we can't find a single time
when many people can attend, we could just schedule multiple meetings
and expect partial turnout for each. We just need a way to discuss
ideas for growth, concerns about current on-wiki events, etc.
I'd love to hear what other people think about this.
I'd prefer IRC to Skype for a couple of stupid reasons.

First, Skype is a pain to set up on Linux. It is incredibly difficult
to get it to take input from a microphone.

Second, I don't like to run Skype at home because we use it extensively
at work (chat mode), and whenever I "go online" I get a barrage of
work-related messages.
--
Jim Thomas Principal Applications Engineer Bittware, Inc
jthomas-KaBSns5Rr5FWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org http://www.bittware.com (603) 226-0404 x536
The sooner you get behind, the more time you'll have to catch up
h***@public.gmane.org
2009-02-14 13:23:31 UTC
Permalink
Hi! :)

I'd like to attend, too, via IRC please.

German Wikibooks has the same problems I think. Just yesterday a new user asked me about activity and wondered how German Wikibooks could be on rank 2 of the Wikibooks projects with that little activity. ^^

-- heuler06

PS: I have central European time (CET = UTC + 1). But if the meeting is not around 2 or 3 am CET I will be there. ;)
--
Psssst! Schon vom neuen GMX MultiMessenger gehört? Der kann`s mit allen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/multimessenger01
Mike.lifeguard
2009-02-15 23:40:30 UTC
Permalink
OK, it looks like we're using IRC for this meeting. Being selfish, I'm
going to set a time that I'm not away on vacation (epic skiing begins
Saturday!)... how does Friday, February 20, 2009 at 20:00:00 UTC sound?
A couple of timezones for those who don't live in Greenwich:
*3PM for PA, US
*9PM for Berlin, Germany
*8PM for London, UK
*7AM for Sydney, AUS

I've set up [[Wikibooks/Community-building]] (on Meta) for some
organizational stuff, like what we plan to discuss. For the first one,
we should try to keep things open-ended & do more detailed planning for
later sessions if we need to. If you want to claim some time to talk
about a particular idea, that'd be the place to do it.

I hope that works for everyone, or at least most people.

Go team!
-Mike
----
Mike.lifeguard
mikelifeguard-97jfqw80gc6171pxa8y+***@public.gmane.org
Andrew Whitworth
2009-02-16 12:55:11 UTC
Permalink
20 UTC is fine for me, or earlier otherwise. Any later and other
events from my afternoon (commute, dinner, etc) start to interfere.
7AM seems pretty lousy for the Australians, but there's no way for us
to make everybody happy with an event like this. The next meeting can
be rotated so other people can have the better hours (if anybody from
that side of the world is interested in attending at all).

--Andrew Whitworth

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 6:40 PM, Mike.lifeguard
Post by Mike.lifeguard
OK, it looks like we're using IRC for this meeting. Being selfish, I'm
going to set a time that I'm not away on vacation (epic skiing begins
Saturday!)... how does Friday, February 20, 2009 at 20:00:00 UTC sound?
*3PM for PA, US
*9PM for Berlin, Germany
*8PM for London, UK
*7AM for Sydney, AUS
I've set up [[Wikibooks/Community-building]] (on Meta) for some
organizational stuff, like what we plan to discuss. For the first one,
we should try to keep things open-ended & do more detailed planning for
later sessions if we need to. If you want to claim some time to talk
about a particular idea, that'd be the place to do it.
I hope that works for everyone, or at least most people.
Go team!
-Mike
----
Mike.lifeguard
_______________________________________________
Textbook-l mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/textbook-l
j.w. thomas
2009-02-16 14:42:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike.lifeguard
OK, it looks like we're using IRC for this meeting. Being selfish, I'm
going to set a time that I'm not away on vacation (epic skiing begins
Saturday!)... how does Friday, February 20, 2009 at 20:00:00 UTC sound?
*3PM for PA, US
*9PM for Berlin, Germany
*8PM for London, UK
*7AM for Sydney, AUS
Fridays and Saturdays are bad for me. I wasn't going to say anything,
but then reasoned that if I were the only one silently bowing out, it
would not be a good thing. So... I will politely bow out, but not in
silence.
--
Jim Thomas Principal Applications Engineer Bittware, Inc
jthomas-KaBSns5Rr5FWk0Htik3J/***@public.gmane.org http://www.bittware.com (603) 226-0404 x536
The sooner you get behind, the more time you'll have to catch up
Andrew Whitworth
2009-02-16 15:13:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by j.w. thomas
Post by Mike.lifeguard
OK, it looks like we're using IRC for this meeting. Being selfish, I'm
going to set a time that I'm not away on vacation (epic skiing begins
Saturday!)... how does Friday, February 20, 2009 at 20:00:00 UTC sound?
*3PM for PA, US
*9PM for Berlin, Germany
*8PM for London, UK
*7AM for Sydney, AUS
Fridays and Saturdays are bad for me. I wasn't going to say anything,
but then reasoned that if I were the only one silently bowing out, it
would not be a good thing. So... I will politely bow out, but not in
silence.
It's definitely good that you speak up, we do want to schedule things
so that the most people can possibly attend. Plus, if we have lots of
people who can't attend on one day/time, we want to either reschedule
the meeting or make sure the next meeting is at a different time when
a different group of people can attend.

If anybody else can't make it on Friday, please say something so we
can gauge what attendance will be like and maybe move the meeting to a
more accessible time.

I don't want to move the timeframe up too far, because then we're
going to be losing people because of too little notice. However,
Thursday at 20UTC should probably be enough time if more people would
prefer that date. I have a suspicion that weekends are going to be
universally bad, but I may be wrong about that.

--Andrew Whitworth

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