Wikipedia:Meetup/Chicago 19

Chicago Meetup 19

When and Where
Date	Thursday, August 8, 2019
Time	6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Address	Plymouth Rooftop Bar & Grill 327 S. Plymouth Ct.
City, State	Chicago, IL 60604

Event information

• Date: Thursday, August 8, 2019
• Time: 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm
• WMF Strategic Planning discussion: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
• Location: Plymouth Rooftop Bar & Grill
  327 S. Plymouth Ct.
  Chicago, IL 60604
• Cost: Food will be covered, tentatively up to $10 per attendee (up to $150 total); drinks will not be covered.

What to expect

This event is a hybrid Wiknic and strategy salon, with funding provided by a microgrant from Wikimedia NYC. With Wikimania 2019 coming up later this month, now is as good of a time as ever to discuss the 2030 strategy, which will be finalized at the conference. Since this event is also a Wiknic, it is intended to be rather casual and provide opportunities for Wikimedians to get to know one another. Everyone is welcome, regardless of Wikipedia editing experience.

Strategy discussion

The two thematic areas proposed for discussion are community health and diversity. Discussion can also touch upon any of the other thematic areas. Scoping questions to prompt discussion are:

• How can we ensure that our communities are places that people want to be part of and participate in, and how can we make people stay?
• How can we become allies to underrepresented groups to counter the structures of power and privilege and move towards knowledge equity?

Participants—Sign Up Here!

Sign up below to let us know you are coming! This will help greatly with event arrangements. Prior to the event:

1. Do you have a Wikipedia User Name?

   No? Create a Wikipedia account

   Yes? Go to Step #2

2. Sign up! Add your Wikipedia User Name to this section by clicking the blue button below (follow instructions). Your name will be added to the bottom of this page
   

To sign up for this event: Log in or create an account.

• Airplaneman (talk) ✈ 19:07, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Nick Number (talk) 02:32, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• Drummerdg (talk) 03:05, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 06:47, 6 August 2019 (UTC) (visiting from Australia)

• Dennis McClendon (talk) 02:48, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• Newlyprofligate (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• Cannon3861 (talk) 17:10, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• JKPrivett (talk) 07:10, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

• Nlachicago (talk) 13:01, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Meetup notes

Photograph of most of the attendees at the 8 August 2019 Chicago Wiknic.

Participants met for light fare and drinks at Plymouth Restaurant before moving to an outdoor location near Grant Park. The meetup went from 6:00pm to 9:30pm. Conversation topics flowed between Wikimedia in general and the 2030 strategy. Many attendees learned about the 2030 strategy for the first time; strategy conversation therefore tended to be more general in nature. Two main themes involved equitable access to the knowledge creation process:

1. How to involve academics on Wikipedia
2. How to involve non-"hardcore" users in site decisions (e.g., RFCs)

Following are some general notes from strategy-related conversation:

• Global banner notifying everyone (maybe even beyond logged-in users) about “important” decisions (for example, live RFCs, RFAs). Twitter feed? RSS feed? This may increase representation. Otherwise, only those who know where to look will be able to participate.
• Board reps for non-hardcore editors (how do we represent the interests of those who consume but do not edit, or those who neither consume nor edit? re: global encyclopedia)
• Bring in academics to contribute, especially for subjects that could use their help (re: Thomas Shafee's presentation to the American Psychological Association)
• Incentives to increase editing accessibility, content diversity
• Wiki journals minting doi legitimacy —> incentive
• Gamification of editing as a successful incentive
• 20th century idea of sources being print as being notable
• Usability testing grants for Wikimedia features