Boulder, Colorado

Date: Saturday, 2011-01-15
Time: 11:00 - 13:00
Description: Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Celebration
Organizers: Neal McBurnett - NealMcB
Location: Boulder Public Library, Main Branch - Boulder Creek Meeting Room (the room next to the top of the ramp on the first floor behind Media)
Parking: You can park for free for 3 hours in the parking lot on the south side (Arapahoe). The parking lot on the north side (Canyon) has a fee.

Report

We had a great time. About 40 people showed up though not everyone was there at the same time. Attendees ranged from those who knew very little about wikipedia, to long-time admins and one person with over 80,000 edits!

Thanks to our many volunteers who pitched in - we appreciate it! Thanks for the goodies, Wikimedia Foundation! And thanks for coming, folks!!

If you couldn't make it, you can commemorate the occasion by editing something on wikipedia!

Please share any pictures or video you took, on commons, at w:commons:Category:Wikipedia_10_Boulder. See the "goodies" picture above for an example.

Agenda

Show a short video from Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia
Introductions around the room: how we got involved with wikipedia, questions, ideas for the future
Describe where Wikipedia started, where it is headed, and how you can get involved

Rick Block, a Wikipedia admin, will talk about bots.
Introduce a popular game among local high school students where you try to find the shortest set of links connecting two wildly different Wikipedia pages.
Describe the wider world of community-based contribution
- OpenStreetMap
- Free software like Ubuntu Linux
- Online help for disaster response like Ushahidi
- Share-and-share-alike question-and-answer content like Reference Desk and w:Stack Exchange Network.
Folks that are interested can do a Wikipedia editathon. Bring a laptop! There is wifi at the library, and the room has an LCD projector.

The Wikimedia Foundation provided us with bunch of nice t-shirts, buttons and other stuff for us to hand out.

Media

On Friday Jan 14th, radio station KGNU (88.5 FM Boulder, 1390 AM Denver, 93.7 FM Nederland) interviewed local organizers Neal McBurnett and Rick Block about Wikipedia. It was a 10-minute segment on the "Morning Magazine", which aired at 8:15 (15:15 UTC). Notably, it is liberally licensed (like wikipedia) under the w:Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, and is available for download or streaming at Wikipedia 10th Anniversary Interview.

Volunteers

Neal McBurnett - NealMcB - hold the space, organize the organizers
Jordyn Henderson- in charge of technical support and snacks
Andy Wickert - shoot me an email via my en-WP page if you need a hand with anything
Buaidh – I'll bring my cromach.
Seraphimblade I'll bring my DSLR for photos.

Blow-by-blow status

11:40am we are finishing the introductions. Everyone is having a great time.
11:45am - Neal gave a great introduction to Wikipedia.
11:52am - Rick Block is giving a big presentation on developing Wikipedia bots.
12:25pm - Ianthegecko is wondering if anyone will notice this edit on the meetup page. :)
1:00pm - We wrap the formal part, and hang around chatting for a while.
1:00pm - Nirvana or a close approximation.
2:47pm - Brad Hutchison in Breckenridge noticed the above edit on the meetup page :)
7:03pm - Eric was sorry to have missed the fun, but decided to spare you all the flu :(