User:Jim.henderson/Wikipedia Day 2024

This was more than a week ago; had other things to do since then. It was great fun as usual, but with an effort I can remember what went wrong.

Overslept. Drat. So, I wasn't really late for being a customer of the party, but had I shown up earlier I would have participated in setup or something. Complaint #1: The street address on Broadway and the geotag showed where the building is, but not the entrance. A friend had more trouble with it than I did; I went outside to fetch him.

Breakfast! Coffee, juice, bagels and spreads. Complaint #2: Congestion. The space set aside in the auditorium was narrow, and there were two tables, one on either side of the door. People had to go to one table to get and schmear their bagel, and then cross over the entrance traffic to get their coffee or juice. Traffic jam. Should put the tables against another wall, maybe away from the wall so we can mill around on both sides, and with the chairs not so close, and set up each table with all the items. Less traffic. Also we ran out of coffee (more consumers than expected) and juice (ditto) and water. Someone should have been ready to get more water. But, I enjoyed chatting while milling around.

Morning programming was pretty good upstairs; I feared that someone would go on for an hour about the great importance of Wikipedia's fight against Internet lies, but instead there was interesting stuff. Not much was going on downstairs. I hadn't heard much in the past about User:Mollystarkdean; she was definitely a good choice. The panel discussion was perhaps not quite as much fun for me as the individual presentations.

Lunchtime! The box lunches were more simple and flimsy than I expected, and small. Not a problem; they were numerous enough that I grabbed a second without guilt after traffic died down. Would have substituted a slice for the second one if I had known the other room had pizza. Again we ran out of drink. Also it was some kind of healthy stuff; not the junk cola I always want. We ran out of cups, so I went across Broadway for a bag of them. Should have bought a big cola bottle also.

Afternoon programming! I feared Annie would do her usual act with Popemobile and the difference between a penguin and a piper but no, it was an entertainingly novel archaeological deep dig into Wikipedia's origin. When she brought our friend User:Epicgenius on stage, it didn't go so well; he's a terrific fellow but as for stage presence he is almost as dull as me. A one on one interview act might work well with someone sparkly like our friends User:Fuzheado and User:Doctorxgc but for run of the mill Wikians it's better when she can handle two or three of us. That way we don't need much individual sparkle and she can play us off on each other.

During a break between speakers a young couple asked me how to get started in Wikipedia. Their English was fluent; their accent sounded like Russian. Anyway I took them downstairs to give them an overview from an developmental viewpoint, namely how an article is born and grows, and also how a Wikipedian does that. I was about to get down to more practical considerations, when I noticed our friend User:ComplexRational had arrived and was doing that with an audience of half a dozen. I sloughed off my two to him, snapped a picture, and went upstairs to see what was happening there. Lightning talks were sometimes quite good.

Picture time! Complaint #3: Chaos! We only got something like half the group in any one picture. The pictures we got were not bad but next time we need someone in charge.

Cake time! Complaint #4: What, no cake knife?? Dave made heroic use of a jackknife. Congestion was again substantial, but unavoidable and not really to complain about. I snapped only bad pictures; not to worry as others got better ones. All together, a pleasant and informative day with only a few things going somewhat wrong.