Wikipedia talk:Contribution Team/Imperial

Sorry, but I'm across the ocean! Good luck though! Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:08, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Way cool. I've put a note on WMUK-l. Cavalry, you should draft yourself to WMUK asap ;-) - David Gerard (talk) 12:21, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

If there are any of these in the future, I'd love to help out, but a watchlist notice the day before isn't much notice (unless someone wants to pay my train fare ;) ). HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?   04:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are hopefully going to be lots of these! But we'll have to see how this goes. Sorry about the short notice but I will keep you updated (and I'd love to pay for your train fare but alas!) All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 08:39, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Just as a comment - given our existing links with the British Museum it's been mooted to try and get UCL students involved somehow with the BM stuff - but at the moment it's still at the to-do-list stage. Conversely, if there was an IC Wikipedia society, that would be a very obvious focus for collaboration with the South Ken museums. You might want to ask over on the BM page to see what links have been made already, I know User:Wittylama has made overtures to all sorts of organisations and Albertopolis is a very obvious target. If nothing else, if people have nothing better to do they could go and take some photos in and around the museums. You've got to be a wee bit careful though - many museums restrict photography either in the collections generally, or in special exhibitions due to restrictions placed on loan material (and eg the Egyptians can get so antsy about taking photos of anything from Ancient Egypt that it gets treated as being "on loan" for these purposes). While those kind of restrictions probably wouldn't stand up in court, after the NPG disputes the policy seems to be to not stir things up until it can be thrashed out with the museum at a Wikimedia level. And obviously there are specific issues with flash photography on anything fragile - so most of the V&A for instance, whereas it should be easier in the Geological Museum. But even so, there should be plenty of stuff to do - skimming around, Royal College of Science Union, Imperial College Radio, Imperial College Business School and the Skempton Building could all do with photos, slightly further afield see Museum Lane, Queen's Gate, Queen's Gate School and the London School of Dramatic Art in Bute St, by South Ken tube. There's a definite art to taking Wikipedia photos - the weather can make a big difference, everything looks much better under blue skies (I was out today....) and in London it's much easier to get that elusive shot with no traffic/pedestrians in it at the weekend. Having done photos of most of central London (but not yet got round to uploading them yet) I'm now a lot better at spotting intrusive lamposts before I take the pic rather than at home afterwards, and at framing things to include the little crosses and spires that you can't easily see in the viewfinder.... Le Deluge (talk) 20:40, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Question
Would it not be better to have more non students editing Wikipedia? I should imagine the current demographics are tilted strongly towards students anyway. Might I recommend printing out a metric shitload of leaflets on how to edit Wikipedia and handing them out at Liverpool St. between 6:30am and 10:30am? Egg Centric (talk) 19:01, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a very, very good idea. We'd need a launching site we could send them to though and a group of people willing to assist with any new editors we received. That's certainly something we can think about once this is over. Any help would be very much appreciated! All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 19:10, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The idea of standing at Liverpool St between those times strikes fear into my heart, but like Panyd says, it's an excellent idea - and she's in charge! The hope is to get a student society set up at Imperial, which will hopefully be the first of many. In order to do that, we need student editors - which is what this is all about! The Cavalry (Message me) 19:19, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I work in the city and am quite happy to make myself useful in (as yet unknown - probably won't be handing anything out, but we'll see!) ways - keep in touch. Wasn't a student that long ago either... Egg Centric (talk) 19:21, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Debrief
So, how did it go? Thoughts on what could be done differently/better? Le Deluge (talk) 02:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And sorry I didn't make it. I gather there was a good turnout. Johnbod (talk) 03:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Myself, User:Vinnypatel, User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, User:RHaworth were there (as well as another guy from IC who then promptly disappeared!) and User:Mhahnel turned up briefly for a chat. We handed out a fair few leaflets and talked to lots of people. I probably gave out about 15-20 leaflets, and then we had a discussion with the library staff about whether they would support the formation of the society, and told them that both WP:CONTRIB and Wikimedia UK are there to help.

There's a few bits of admin we need to do as follow-up:

Firstly, we discussed whether or not it would be possible to do a very narrow Geonotice just pointed at people from Imperial (or, to be on the safe side, all universities in London). I've put up a section for discussing this on Wikipedia talk:Geonotice.

Secondly, User:RHaworth said that the User:Wikisocimperial account breaks the username policy. I've suggested on User talk:Wikisocimperial that Vinny moves the page over on to the Outreach Wiki (specifically Wikipedia student clubs), then redirects the user page to that (and the user talk to the outreach talk page). Then have an admin block the account. It would probably be worth avoiding breaking Wikipedia's rules while running a student society.

Also, we spotted some issues with the WP:CONTRIB leaflet. I think User:Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry has taken note of them. —Tom Morris (talk) 16:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * User:Wikisocimperial would be a shared account, which is ganz verboten. It's also impossibe to do interwiki redirects by the way, ie. you can't redirect from the userpage to outreachwiki. Regards, Rock drum Ba-dumCrash (Driving well?) 17:10, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We are definitely going to get the issues with the leaflets sorted out and we will be making an official page with a write-up on it soon, there's just lots of follow-up to be done in the meantime! Hopefully there'll be other events very soon. All Hail The Muffin Nor does it taste nice... 17:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
 * So you guys know, we're waiting for feedback from WMUK, as we had to write an official follow-up for them following our application for a micro-grant. As soon as that has been approved it will be available for everyone to view. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 23:14, 12 February 2011 (UTC)