User:Peteforsyth/OpEd

The main presentation I am drawing from:

http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/Peteforsyth/good-internet-presentation/1

Discussion
What did you think of what you read?

Main documents

 * Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Ten_Simple_Rules_for_Editing_Wikipedia.pdf
 * "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Welcome2WP_English_082310.pdf

Secondary options

 * Article on Wikipedia as a public engagement tool: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_as_a_public_engagement_tool_for_the_arts_and_humanities
 * Evaluating Wikipedia Article Quality brochure: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Evaluating_Wikipedia_article_quality_2010-11-26_%28web%29.pdf
 * Introduction to Free Licenses brochure: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Introduction_to_free_licenses_2010-11-27_%28web%29.pdf
 * Engaging with Wikipedia (slide deck for university communications staff): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Engaging_with_Wikipedia_presentation_for_Swiss_universities.pdf
 * Two minute video discussing Wikipedia's policies around neutrality and verifiability: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0Nmv9qsd8

(draw the circles on whiteboard)

Tasks for today

 * Create a basic user page
 * Explore the article history tab
 * Make one, or a few, live edits to a page -- improve sentence structure, fix a typo. Use an edit summary!
 * Review an article in your area of interest; leave a note on the talk page about how it might be improved. (Point people to a valuable source that's not currently cited?)
 * Join, and/or leave a comment on the talk page of, a WikiProject
 * Establish a goal for yourself: what would you like to accomplish in the next month?

Considerations & questions

 * Do you want to use your real name?
 * Do you want to focus on building content, or on building your credibility within Wikipedia? (Hint: you can't be successful at one without the other!)
 * How could my community/organization/project benefit from having somebody with knowledge about Wikipedia?
 * What can we learn from what is getting written on Wikipedia, and/or what is being read most widely?
 * When & where can I add the most value? Have a lasting/sticky impact? Get the most value from editing Wikipedia?

Take-aways, possible outcomes

 * Track what is getting changed on articles that matter to you: build a WP:Watchlist
 * Track how many people are looking at a given Wikipedia article: http://stats.grok.se (or, http://toolserver.org/~emw/wikistats/ )
 * Commit to releasing (some of) your work under a free license, so that others may easily build on it
 * Commit to "tinkering in public" -- working in a transparent way
 * Help those around you understand what is happening with Wikipedia -- as a publication, but also as a social movement