Wikipedia:Meetup/Perth/35

Wikimeetup 35 - Perth - Meetup for April 2017


 * Location: Total BS & Co Cafe Bar & Restaurant, 185 St Georges Tce Perth
 * Date: Friday 7th April 2017
 * Time: 6.00 - 8.00pm

Included meeting with attendees at the WWW conference in Perth at the same time.

Wiki Workshop 2017 was part of the WWW conference.

Location
-31.9539°N, 115.85365°W

Special Note

 * Please note that this meetup is the first in a very longtime that is happening in the evening (possibly the first ever on a Friday night what's more).


 * Also - most meetings in the last 10 years of the 'Perth Meetup' have been social, anecdotal and generally as we go - this meeting has the possibility of being a bit more formal with exchange of information due to the very opportune situation where we have WMF employees who will be in the process of having the large WWW conference proceedings in their thoughts - which have a dedicated wiki set of talks and presentations.


 * The above means, if you are a 'lurker' in the Western Australian and specifically Perth sense - this is possibly a meetup with a difference that might have more specific 'educational' value than the usual social variety.

''If you have fellow Wikipedian or internet interested, friends please let them know, and invite them to come along. Also those who have moved on and are not regular Wikipedian editors any more - this might be an event that offers insights into aspects of Wikipedia from people working directly for WMF - something a place like Perth is very fortunate to have the opportunity to meet with...''

Report (a)
We welcomed all to Perth and the Meetup on behalf of WA Branch of Wikimedia Australia, and a round table of introductions followed. Leila reported on research activities within WMF - a small team, that works on building collaborations with academics and industry to scale what can be achieved. They are looking for interesting problems to research, and currently have 27 collaborations in place.

Presentation and discussion focused on three areas:

1. Harassment
Report on 2015 survey on harassment - given by Nithum Thain, the Jigsaw Fellow at Google Ideas https://Meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Harassment_survey_2015

A number of papers and findings have come from this survey and associated research.

2. Content gaps
Identifying content gaps via machine language algorithms, and prioritising gaps, and matching to potentially interested editors. eg. look at missing sections in a stub article in different languages.

Use this also to recommend possible missing infobox data and images.

Gap Finder beta tool: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Increasing_article_coverage/Tool

Article about the project: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/27/article-recommendation-system - Note how 'dark' Australia looks in most of the maps in this post.

3. Why people read Wikipedia
We ran out of time. See Leila and Bob West's presentation on this at the WWW2017 conference https://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/wikipedia-www17.pdf

There were many other conversations and ideas generated during the evening.

Leila also encouraged Australia to get involved in Wiki Loves Monuments and we discussed what support we needed to make this happen.

Report (b)


The West Australian/Perth Branch was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to use a new venue on St Georges Terrace, near the WWW conference venue, and adjacent to attendees hotel. We were able to utilise the room well as well as the AV equipment for the presentations, and with 10 attendees the staff were very helpful, and we were well catered for in our event. It is recommended for similar events, that we consider using BS & Co again.

We had two kinds of WMF employees at the meeting - one San Francisco based, and one remote employee, who is Fremantle based. This is, apart from the 2007 attendance by the founder J Wales, the first time a WMF person has been present in Perth Western Australia, with fellow researchers, and with a presentation on current activity.

The balance between on hand experience from the local attendees, and the research base of the visitors work - was a valuable experience where both groups of people were able to share and exchange research results and with direct experience.

One aspect of discussion was the role of translation, and wikipedia projects in languages other than english. There are issues where some wikipedias of other languages have significantly little material on Australian subjects and places. We were very fortunate to have one local user explain usage of translation methods between a number of projects of different languages, and the issues arising.

The general feeling from those involved that it was a very useful event, with a positive gain in knowledge in an area which is vital to the development of the larger Wikipedia project.

In view of some developments in Western Australian and Australian wikipedia projects, it is likely some similar style meetings will occur in the future.

The Western Australian Branch of Wikimedia Australia would like to thank those who attended, and the WMAU Chapter, and the WMF for support for this meeting.

Attending

 * JarrahTree
 * Mitch Ames (talk) 12:19, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Orderinchaos
 * Sam Wilson 12:53, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Pru.mitchell (talk) 11:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * LZia (WMF) (talk) 01:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Bahnfrend (talk) 00:38, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Nithum (talk) 06:46, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Apologies

 * User:Gnangarra - elsewhere


 * A number of invitees with the flu and otherwise...

Stats
Last updated (Australia/Perth) &bull; About these figures