PortlandWiki:Barnraising

Barnraising
what	An event to celebrate PortlandWiki and Portland, learn about online community-building, gather participation in PortlandWiki, and have fun!
date	Saturday, March 5, 2011
time	2-5 pm
where	Central Library
cost	free
calendar	Calagator

PortlandWiki's "Barnraising" event coming right up: Saturday, March 5th, 2011 from 2-5 p.m.

Activities happen at Multnomah County Library's Central Library (801 SW 10th Avenue, downtown Portland) in Central's U.S. Bank Room located near the library's front entrance on the ground floor.

Barnraising Goals

1. Have fun while celebrating Portland's collaborative community-building culture, Portland, and PortlandWiki.org.
2. Present speakers, wiki "how to" skills, and open, participatory discussions.
3. Identify areas in which PortlandWiki can improve, show how you can help, and kick off a series of follow-up events to keep our PortlandWiki-building momentum going.

Schedule

• Date: Saturday, March 5, 2011
• Time: 2pm - 5pm

• 12:00 - 2:00: setup
• 2:00 - 2:30: Icebreaker or get to know you activity
• 2:30 - 2:40: speaker: MarkDilley
• 2:40 - 2:50: speaker: Michael Andersen
• 2:50 - 3:00: Keynote: Pete Forsyth
• 3:00 - 3:15: introduction to PortlandWiki
• 3:15 - 3:30: collaborative editing warmup with cupcakes - WikiCupcakes!!
• 3:30 - 3:45: now collaborative editing on the wiki!
• 3:45 - 4:30: break into groups and collaborate! Experiment! Show each other what you're doing!
• 4:30 - 5:00: what do you want to see on PortlandWiki? Let's do it! Promote future meetups where we can do more.
• 5:00 - 6:00: cleanup - stay and help with the fun!

Confirmed Speakers

• "Farmer" & "Wiki Zeus" Pete "Petey" Forsyth

Fresh from Wikimedia Foundation, Pete is a foremost authority on all things wiki, and will deliver the keynote address. He will not, however, extol the virtues of WikiLeaks.

• "Car-hating Fake Terrorist" & local media guru Michael "Mickey" Andersen

Taking some time away from his duties as editor of Portland Afoot, Michael will offer his insights. A long-time friend of PortlandWiki, we are very glad to have him speak.

• "Pro-World, Stuffed Animal Throwing, Wisconsin Public Employee Lover" & Wiki Evangelist Mark "Marco" Dilley

Fresh from the Australian RecentChangesCamp, Mark will join us for a few words. Co-founder of WikiIndex, media guru of the UniversalEditButton, and other wiki related projects, few individuals are more knowledgeable about the concept of wiki. You won't find a more reasonable and sane wiki zealot. He will however extol the virtues of WikiLeaks.

Venue

The venue will be the historic center of the Multnomah County Library system, Central Library. Dave has booked the room from 12pm-6pm, allowing us ample time for pre-event setup and post-event cleanup. Thanks Dave, Mark, and Pete, who have all pitched in to help locate a venue!

Activities

• free drinks/food
• wiki cupcake decorating: design, frost and build your own cupcake with various toppings!
• awesome speakers
• brief overview of PortlandWiki and its history, plus how it's different now since launch in September 2009
• identify what needs to be done
• secure activity commitments from attendees
• if time, have collaborative editing session
• free door prizes/raffle!

Ways to promote activity after initial commitment

• frequent follow-up meetings that are fun or otherwise personally worthwhile
• rewards (mentioned below)

(Good) reasons to edit

For Portland enthusiasts

• Share your love and knowledge about Portland and all its quirks
• Learn pieces of Portland's story from fun and enthusiastic peers
• Get to know your neighbors; participate in discussion about local issues
• Get practice and feedback on writing, photography, design
• Find a local audience for your writing, your photos
• Learn to use a wiki in a fun and welcoming environment
• Build unique resources (e.g., where are there pay phones in Portland? Bike racks? Free WiFi?)

For wiki people

Are you already working on one or more wikis? Maybe one for your organization, or for Wikipedia? Here's why it might be fun to work on Portlandwiki, too!

• Exchange ideas about wikis; show off your work, learn from others.
• Help build a network of wiki and free culture enthusiasts in Portland. Portland has a rich history in the wiki and free culture worlds; this is a way to extend and express it.
• Be part of something innovative!! We can be more nimble than a big wiki like Wikipedia. Is there a way to mash up our content with OpenStreetMap? Let's find out! Want to try out a cool new wiki extension? Let's give it a whirl! It's fun to fool with wikis with other wiki folk.

For businesses

• Bring a little local traffic to your web site
• Network in your neighborhood; get to know your neighbors and neighboring businesses

For non-profit organizations

• Establish your role in Portland's story

Ways to edit (or, what we need)

These include long-term as well as short-term goals.

• creating new articles and improving existing ones
  • goal: 10 impressive articles, worth showing anyone!
  • goal: 500 very basic articles (descriptive sentence or two, a url or two, perhaps a few standardized section headers [history, etc] a few categories)
• adding categories to articles
• creating [[wikilinks]] from one article to another
• great freely licensed images, video, audio, drawings, other art and creative media
• content that is useful or interesting that unique to the Portland community and to PortlandWiki
  • example: How to contest a parking ticket
  • example: Google map of Portland neighborhoods (with borders defined)
    • Like this? But, maybe OpenStreetMap instead of Google? -Pete (talk)
      • Yeah Pete, that's the idea! -WikiMaster (talk) 06:18, 21 December 2010 (PST)
  • example: Google map of all articles' physical locations automatically created by street data in their articles
  • example: Portland history articles
  • example: superb and thorough listing of Portland music venues and/or musicians and bands
  • example: ? (you add here)
• giving awards, compliments to other editors that are doing good work
• organizing exciting/fun events/meetups
• improving technical infrastructure, graphics (interface, awards, illustrations, etc)

Timeline

Feel free to adjust or alter this timeline as you see fit, this is a community-planned event and anyone can help!

• Done Early January - Dave schedules meeting with Marie Deatherage at Meyer Memorial Trust (MMT)
• Done - recruit speaker(s)
• Done - January 15 - WP10 event, publicize Barnraising event by distributing postcards/flyers or just mentioning it
• Done - Mid-late January - draw up rough schedule, create backup plan if preferred venue (MMT) falls through
• Done - February 2 10-11am - Dave, Kotra, Mark, and anyone else interested meets with Marie at MMT to discuss if they can spare some office space or a conference room on Wednesday evenings for us to host WikiWednesdays

• I'm available at this time if needed. Pete (talk)

• N/A February - check out MMT space and ensure is suitable (if available)
• Partially done - finalize food, drinks, speakers/schedule
• Outreach - advertise event on:

• Twitter

• I can do this. -kotra (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2011 (PST)

• Done - Facebook

• I'm on this.- Travis (talk)

• http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183483405021407

Thanks Travis!! looks great! -kotra (talk) 20:28, 23 February 2011 (PST)

• PDXWW Google Group

• I can do this. -kotra (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2011 (PST)

• Done - Calagator
• press release to: Silicon Florist, local blogs

• Also contact:

• Mike Rogoway
• Lisa Living - Skanner
• Neighborhood Notes - to include in events calendar
• Mayor of Central Library - MarkDilley

• WikiProject Oregon talk page (on Wikipedia)
• distribute flyers

• prepare door prizes/raffle items
• few days prior to event - follow up with confirmed speakers
• Plan post-event follow-up meetings/activities
• March 5 - Barnraising
• Renee Bartley - MarkDilley
• DIY Girl Julie Sabatier -

Post-event

1. post a writeup/media page summarizing the barnraising, thank participants
2. conduct follow-up meetings/events/activities

Big Picture

Collaborative tools like wikis, social media and networks, and digital media augment our back fence, water cooler and school yard relationships. What surprised us all is how such added value levels the playing field on scales local and global, creating a new equanimity.

The wiki is the strongest example of how new media proves that community voice is the province of a conscious, alert and informed citizenry. It is heard when individuals and groups collectively speak their understanding of their community and its relationships to the world. While political and social power may seem the province of the wealthy, famous or politically connected, such is only at the leisure of communities in aggregate.

Thus, a video recorded to FaceBook sparks a peaceful protest of six Arabic countries and a student's science question is answered by an astronaut in space. But beyond the super short length and life span of a tweet, or the artificial limits and controls on the social groups of FaceBook, wikis are a place where *eveyone's* voice is heard, commented on and retained for posterity, using links, articles, collaborative writing and editing, video, and audio. Wikis are the digital media method to document and share knowledge on all things large and small, from deceptive government and corporate practices to a compendium of globally contributed knowledge and right down to local little league school softball rankings. Limits are set only by the the users intention of the wiki's purpose.

Civic wikis, like PortlandWiki, offer a unique focal point, where people can organize, plan, and deliberate control of their communities for the benefit of the people who live there. Frequently conversations at our Monday Meets or WikiWednesday meetups center on meaningful subjects. Rather than "a moment on the lips, an eternity on the hips" sense, it's more like a "wow, that's totally deep" sense. For our community Barnraising event, we hope to draw out a collective theme around the "What's our motivation?" question. What's your motivation? Why PortlandWiki? What are some of the possibilities that can emerge? What are your thoughts and ideas? How can PortlandWiki contribute to the entire Portland community?

External Links

• Multnomah County Library: Central Library