Wikipedia:Meetup/Portland

Wikipedia&thinsp; | &thinsp;Wikimedia meetups are opportunities to meet other Wikipedians face-to-face. There are lots of different kinds -- social events, talks, edit-a-thons, backstage passess, conferences, unconferences. With hundreds of thousands of contributors and millions of readers around the world, Wikipedia offers plenty to discuss and do.

Portland, Oregon has a special relationship with wiki. The inventor of wiki software, Ward Cunningham, is a Portlander, and the city's well known DIY culture is a natural fit for web sites designed to be collaboratively edited by small or large communities. Wikipedians and wiki enthusiasts of many other stripes have worked together to build a local community in Portland and the rest of the state since at least the mid-2000s.

This page is for local wiki event listings, and documents past events. If you are interested in Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, or open content culture or issues more generally, you are invited and welcome regardless of your level of experience or involvement!

Upcoming events

 * April 17–19: MediaWiki Users and Developers Conference (paid registration required)

History
In February 2006, the first ever RecentChangesCamp, a wiki unconference that has since gone international, was held in Portland. Later that year, a meetup was held at the home of Ray King, co-founder of the Portland-based company AboutUs.org. Subsequent RecentChangesCamps were held in Portland in 2007 and 2009. Monthly WikiWednesday meetups were held from 2007–2009; later, they were hosted by the Portland Wiki community, and happened as often as twice a week. (Currently, WikiWednesday meetups are not held regularly.) Two prominent events were the Oregon Health Consensus event (2008), convening Oregonians to make plans for improving health care in the state, and Wikipedia for Journalists (2009), a panel discussion introducing Wikipedia to journalists and other media enthusiasts.

In January 2011, AboutUs hosted one of many global celebrations of Wikipedia's tenth anniversay. Several meetups were organized in 2012, including an edit-a-thon in April, Wikipedia Takes Portland in September, and Wiki Loves Libraries (hosted by Multnomah County Library at the Central Library) in October.

Some non-meetup things that have served to introduce the broader public to Wikipedia are the WikiProject Oregon blog and WP:ORE Twitter account, active since 2008, but mostly dormant these days; and a radio interview on OPB by WikiProject Oregon co-founder Pete Forsyth, alongside the editor in chief of the Oregon Encyclopedia.

Events
Multiple campaigns are organized by Wikipedians in the United States each year, providing many opportunities for local meetups. Additional edit-athons and other meetups have been organized apart from the annual events outlines below.

Wikipedia Day
January 15th is known to Wikipedians as Wikipedia Day. On this date in the year 2001, Wikipedia went public after spending five days on Nupedia. Wikipedia Day has been celebrated, both online and offline, for several years. In 2011 a worldwide celebration known as Wikipedia 10 was held to commemorate the project's tenth birthday. This tradition continued with diverse local meetups and wiki-events for Wikipedia Day on (or near) January 15th. Click here for more information about Wikipedia Day in the United States.

Wiknic
The Great American Wiknic is an annual wiki-picnic campaign held in cities across the United States on or around a common day every summer, generally a week or two before the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The first national Wiknic was held in June 2011, with 16 cities participating. The concept was modeled after the "Wikipedia 10" celebrations and on the 2007 Wiknic in New York City. Wiknics are low-impact, with people bringing their own picnic food and perhaps items to share, and can be a great entry point to Wikipedia culture.

Click on the following links for general information about Wiknics in Portland, or for details by year:
 * Meetup/Portland/Wiknic
 * Meetup/Portland/Wiknic/2011
 * Meetup/Portland/Wiknic/2012
 * Meetup/Portland/Wiknic/2013

Wikipedia Takes Portland (Wikipedia Takes America)
Wikipedia Takes America is a campaign held each September to organize Wikipedia Takes Your City photo scavenger hunts across the United States in conjunction with the international architectural photography contest known as Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM). To improve the number and quality of photos of historic monuments and places, the Wikipedia community started a photo contest in the Netherlands in 2010, which resulted in 12,500 freely licensed images of monuments that can now be used in Wikipedia, or by anybody for any purpose. In 2011, 18 countries participated in the contest, which resulted in 5,000 participants submitting more than 165,000 images. In 2012 the competition expanded worldwide. In the United States, WLM focuses on sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Click here for more information about Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States.

Click on the following links for general information about Wikipedia Takes Portland, or for details by year:
 * Wikipedia Takes America/Portland
 * Wikipedia Takes America/Portland/2012
 * Wikipedia Takes America/Portland/2013

Wikipedia Loves Libraries
Wikipedia Loves Libraries is a general initiative for improved Wikimedia engagement with libraries and archives, and more concretely an annual campaign of wiki-workshops and edit-athons at libraries around Open Access Week in October/November. The first Wikipedia Loves Libraries campaign was held in 2011 throughout North America; in 2012 the campaign expanded worldwide. Often Wikipedians gather at a local library and are given access to facility resources in order to expand Wikipedia articles about miscellaneous topics. Click here for more information about Wikipedia Loves Libraries.

Click on the following links for information about Wikipedia Loves Libraries in Portland by year:
 * Meetup/Portland/Wiki Loves Libraries/2012
 * Meetup/Portland/Wiki Loves Libraries/2013

Participation
Sign up HERE if you are interested in attending meetups and other wiki-related events in the Portland area! Spread the word by contacting people who may have an interest in contributing to WikiProject Oregon (or the WikiProject Oregon/Portland subgroup), or PortlandWiki. The following template page can be edited to display upcoming events and can be used for mass invitations:

WikiWednesday
Historically, Portland had a vibrant wiki-focused meetup scene from roughly 2005–2010 in the form of monthly, bimonthly, and weekly WikiWednesday events. A dedicated wiki (pdx.wiki.org) was set up to coordinate and document these meetups. PortlandWiki continued meetups specifically about PortlandWiki for a couple years beyond that era. In May 2014, WikiWednesday meetups were resurrected, and are coordinated on Meetup/Portland/WikiWednesday.

Links

 * WikiProject Oregon
 * WikiProject Oregon/Portland
 * PortlandWiki
 * Portland WikiWednesday