Wikipedia:Meetup/San Francisco 19

Bassel Khartabil (known online as Bassel Safadi) is an open web developer and dedicated Internet volunteer who has been imprisoned (without charge) in Syria since March 2012. He was Creative Commons lead in Syria and started the first hackerspace (Aiki Lab, Damascus) in the Arabic-speaking world, in addition to numerous other open source and free culture projects.

This Saturday 15 March marks the second anniversary of his arrest, as well as the third anniversary of the Syrian uprising. In support of Bassel and in efforts to raise the profile of his case, #FreeBassel day events are being held around the world to mark this date.

Here in SF, #FreeBassell supporters and members of the open community are gathering at the WMF offices for community-building event organized around a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in Bassels honor. We'll be working to improve and add articles related to Bassel and articles of interest to him that he may be editing now if he weren't in prison.

Experienced Wikipedians are encouraged to come, learn about Bassel from his friends and via media produced through the #FreeBassel campaign, and help others to make their first edits.


 * Read more about the event here: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/42267

Event details

 * Date: Saturday, March 15
 * Time: 12–4 pm
 * Location: Wikimedia Foundation offices (149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105) – Google Maps view
 * Event: An edit-a-thon, pot luck, and more! Learn how to contribute to Wikipedia and collaborate with others to show your support for Bassel.
 * Hashtag: #freebassel

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
 * A friend – we love to meet new would-be-editors! (you can also bring your spouse, kids, family, etc.)
 * A dish to share, if you can (but don't worry if you can't)
 * Or, if you don't have any of the above, just bring yourself

Todo 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, and peace, 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:Free culture
 * Ideas for things to do
 * expand Women in Syria (see other women in country articles for possible sections)
 * add sources to Syrian cuisine
 * expand Syrian diaspora
 * add some sources to Open specifications
 * add sources to and copyedit Open Licence
 * add sources (conference links are ok) to List of free-software events
 * add citations, copyedit and remove jargon from Commons-based peer production; also harmonize with Peer production.
 * make Knowledge commons more accessible ("Normatively loaded"?)
 * clean up citations in and formatting of Open data
 * list of open content articles lacking sources

Sign up
Feel free to mention if you'll be bringing a friend, or family member. Children are welcome.

Attendees
(Simply click the edit button, add “ ” on a new line and hit save page.
 * Stephen (talk) 21:53, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll likely make at least part of this. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've got some conflicting engagements but hope to make the end! phoebe / (talk to me) 17:25, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Tvol (talk) 03:59, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Elliotharmon Elliotharmon (talk) 20:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Partially, but yes. HaeB (talk) 20:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I am here now :-) Sue Gardner (talk) 21:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)