Wikipedia:Meetup/New England/22-4-12/Minutes

New England Wikimedia General Meeting Below is the report of the

New England meetup

that happened on 22 April 2012.

Agenda

Below is the agenda prepared by User:Dominic, exactly as it appeared on the Etherpad at the conclusion of the meeting. The meeting did not follow the order listed, however, and the below minutes accurately reflect the order of discussion.

Introductions
- What are people interested in?
- What are our goals? - encourage local meetings / networks in other cities in the region?
- How to stay in touch - modify the Boston mailing list to include all of New England?
Meetups and other events
- Vary locations, times? - quiet places! alternate bos/camb each month
- Volunteer organizers? - Erik (emw) for events
WP:WALRUS and coordinated events
- Wiknic - July 7 in NYC
- Wiki Loves Monuments - Month of September only. Requires finding official lists of monuments / historical sites.
  - PROGRESS/DATA per COUNTRY: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Progress
  - TIMELINE: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Timeline
- Wikipedia Loves Libraries - Later in the fall; November?
  - Library editathons: BPL and Harvard Libraries have both offered to host edit-a-thons with a librarian / special collection of our choice
- Wikipedia Day - Jan 15
Wikimania
- What is it? / why we should all go
- Volunteers? - needed for:
- Can we do anything for New England?
GLAM
- What is it? Current projects
- Ideas / volunteers
Education program
- Summary of program and recent events (Richard?)
- Volunteers?
Chapters!
Anything else?

Attendence

User:Dominic
Atlant
User:Found5dollar
User:Darouet
User:P64
[no acct.] (Caroline Wu)
User:Reify-tech
User:SJ
- Trustee
User:Achowat
User:Pharos - President, WM NYC
User:harej - Treasurer, WM DC
User:GorillaWarfare
User:Sven Manguard
User:Antony-22 - Harvard campus ambassador
User:Emw
[did not give acct.] (Ann)
User:madcoverboy
User:GabrielF
User:Emufarmers
User:Jeremyb
VP, WM NYC

Minutes

Events and Programs - WP:GLAM

Dominic explained the goals and ideas behind the GLAM project, and explained that WP:GLAM/US has a list of cultural institutions to volunteer at. Dominic made himself available for advice concerning contacting cultural institutions.
Sven Manguard
, that it is not general WMF practice to reveal Users' email addresses.

Potential Wikipedia Loves Libraries event/program

Sven Manguard suggestion that librarians could be used to show the value of Wikimedia programs in Academia. Ann mentioned that WP:GLAM has reports that demonstrate the value of the GLAM Program to the culutral institutions. Dominic
pointed out that New England has been a barren area, compared to NYC or DC, in coordinating GLAM Activities.

Chapter organization

Sven Manguard, harej, Dominic, and Atland suggested that there are some benefits to legal incorporation. Caroline and Achowat pointed out the difficulty in incorporation. It was decided that we would wait until a "stable community" was in place before considering legal status. Emw initiated the discussion of what could be pointed at as indication of a "stable community". Achowat
suggested, and it was generally agreed that active participation in the events planned throughout the summer and fall would go a great way towards indicating that "stable community".

DBA of "New England Friends of Wikimedia" or something of the sort; Have another non-profit serve as our Fiscal Agent while building the community, which has the benefit of allowing contributions to be tax-deductable (harej
has offered WMDC to serve as such; though will have to bring it to their board to finalize that); and opening a Limited Liability Corporation that will protect the leadership of a potential Wikimedia New England from personal liability but would not allow us to claim tax exempt status (though it was floated that this may serve as a stepping-stone towards non-profit status).

harej mentioned that Wikimedia DC existed as an informal group until there was a relevant impetus for incorporation (in their case, WikiMania)

Meetups

Meetups are currently happening at a restaurant in Cambridge, though there was some discussion of the usefulness in moving them potentially moving them to Boston proper, to facilitate participation. The en masse discussion led to the consensus that our meetups would be alternate between Cambridge and Boston on the Second Mondays of every month. It was suggested that those planning Meetups should focus on using the
SJ
suggested contacting local professors with Open Source leanings to speak at future events, to raise awareness and participation.

Great American Wiknic (June 23)

It was suggested and agreed that The Great American Wiknic would serve as June's meetup. Achowat was put in charge of organizing New England's participation in that.

Wikipedia Loves Libraries (
WP:WLL
)

Pharos explained the general idea behind WLL. Dominic suggested using the BPL to organize the WLL event. GorrilaWarfare suggested uploading galleries to Commons. A possible special collection from BPL,Norman B. Levinthal Maps Collection, was placed on the Etherpad, but not discussed. It was determined that GorillaWarfare would coordinate that program for sometime in September.

Wiki Loves Monuments

Wikipedia Takes Boston). Dominic explained that it is a scavenger hunt to photograph Historic Sites. It was determined that Emw

would coordinate that program in September, to coincide with the international program.

Education Program

WP:Ambassadors. Pharos had mentioned potential localization of the program in DC, NYC, and New England. The Program is undergoing some restructuring at the moment, and they are forming a working group to try to establish a new structure: Wikipedia:Education Working Group

.

Discussion of how to move forward with forming a chapter

A "Probationary period" was discussed to see how successful the core group could be to the events planned in the Summer and Early Fall. A tentative meeting to discuss the future of the potential Chapter for the winter when students, etc. are back in town. It was decided that serious thought should be put into handling the issue of students making up a portion of the core group. It was then determined that "Wikimedians in New England" would serve as the groups name, though discussion of the acronym [[WP:WINE]] did not occur. There was then some discussion about the boundaries of "New England", since all planned events were to be Boston-centered. A discussion was had with the representatives from

Tri-State

border ground. Before the situation could be resolved, the discussion was deemed silly and ended.

Steps to organizing a meetup

Create an on-wiki page as a subpage of WP:Meetup
Create an appropriate Geonotice
Create an appropriate Talk page notice and send it to coordinated editors.

Vice Presidents appointed thoughout the meeting

Six members were selected, by consensus, to serve in eight Vice Presidential Offices.

User:Dominic: Arch-Vice President
User:Emw: Vice President for Meetups
- User:Emw: was also selected as the Vice President for Wiki Loves Monuments
User:Achowat: Vice President for The Great American Wiknic
- Vice President for Secretarial Duties
  .
User:GorillaWarfare: Vice President for Wikipedia Loves Libraries
User:GabrielF: Vice President for the Wiki Education Coalition
User:Sven Manguard
: Vice President for Edit-a-thons
The office of a Vice President for WP:GLAM was discussed, but no action was taken on that front.