Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco/FreeBassel Day 2015

Event information
Bassel Khartabil (known online as Bassel Safadi) is computer engineer and dedicated Internet volunteer who has been imprisoned in Syria since March 15, 2012. He was Creative Commons lead in Syria and started a hackerspace, Aiki Lab, in Damascus in 2010 in addition to working on numerous other open source and free culture projects.

Sunday 15 March marks the third anniversary of his arrest, as well as the fourth anniversary of the Syrian uprising. In support of Bassel, Syria, and in efforts to raise awareness of both, #FreeBassel day events are being held around the world to mark this date.

Here in SF, #FreeBassel supporters, artists, and members of the open community are gathering at the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a community-building event organized around a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in Bassel's honor. We'll be working to improve and add articles and media content related to Bassel and articles of interest to him that he may be editing now if he weren't in prison. We’ll also be discussing his case and brainstorming about new projects and ideas to help bring awareness to his case.

No prior Wikipedia editing experience is necessary, we’ll have experienced editors present to help you get set up and make your first edit. Artists and activists interested in freedom of expression are encouraged to come contribute to the discussion. Experienced Wikipedians also welcome to come learn more about Bassel, contribute to Wikipedia, and help others to become involved.

After the event, interested parties are invited to have dinner together at TBD location and keep the conversation going.

Event Details

 * Date: March 15th, 2015
 * Time: 2-6PM - you can stop by anytime during these hours and leave whenever you like. We'll also be having dinner and drinks nearby afterwards if you would like to join then. If you're not in the area, please join remotely!
 * Location: Electronic Frontier Foundation, 815 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA 94109 Google maps view
 * Event: An edit-a-thon, brainstorming session, and meet-up. Learn how to contribute to Wikipedia and collaborate with others to support and raise awareness for Bassel.
 * Hashtag: #freebassel''' (please use this hashtag in your edit summaries. We will have the hashtag customized Listen to Wikipedia playing in the room and by tagging your edits accordingly, we'll be able to see/hear your edits live, even if you're participating remotely. This will also help us track the edits that are made during the event.)

What to bring

 * A laptop
 * Ideas for topics or articles you might want to work on (though suggestions will be provided for those just looking to be put to work)
 * Any relevant reference materials you might have
 * Friends, family (children welcome)

To Do List
We can collect potential topics and suggested articles for improvement here. Some topic areas could include Syria, computers, technology in the MENA region, open source web development, peace, Syrian artists, to name a few... or feel free to work on an on-going project!

Related WikiProjects

 * WikiProject Syria
 * WikiProject Arab world

Categories

 * Category:Intellectual property activism
 * Category:People from Damascus
 * Category:Open content
 * Category:Syria

Ideas for things to do/articles to create or improve

 * expand Women in Syria (see other women in country articles for possible sections)
 * expand Syrian diaspora
 * expand Political prisoners in Syria
 * expand Copyright Law of Syria
 * expand Bassel's article
 * add some sources to Open specifications
 * find notable quotes from Bassel's tweets and add to Wikiquote
 * add sources to and copyedit Open Licence
 * add sources to and improve Openness
 * add content related to Bassel from openclipart to Wikimedia commons and add to Bassel's article
 * create new images related to Bassel and add to openclipart
 * add sources to List of free-software events
 * add citations, copyedit and improve Commons-based peer production; also harmonize with Peer production.
 * improve Knowledge commons
 * clean up citations in and formatting of Open data
 * list of open content articles lacking sources

Register
Please sign up below
 * Nikikana (talk) 04:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Tvol (talk) 17:39, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Elliotharmon (talk) 23:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Online participants
If you cannot make it to San Francisco in person, but would still like to participate, please join us remotely. Sign up below, and please add any outcomes below. We will have an IRC channel set up during the event so you can connect with us, check back here for link to that channel the day of the event.

We will have the hashtag customized Listen to Wikipedia running in the room in SF as well, so tag your edits with the #freebassel hashtag in the edit summary and we will see/hear your edits live!


 * --Blue chi (talk) 18:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * -- Figure8states (talk) 21:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC) This user has been blocked as a sockpuppet of an indefinitely banned user. Joseph2302 (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Outcomes
Articles edited or created
 * Commons-based peer production
 * Creative Commons
 * Political prisoners in Syria
 * Samira Khalil - new article
 * Tunisian Pirate Party
 * Bassel Khartabil
 * IP Justice
 * Arwad al-Boushi
 * Mazen Darwish
 * La Quadrature du Net
 * Copyright Law of Syria