Report on January 14, 2012 workshop

See actual agenda used on the project page.

Note: This workshop was held at the request of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, a coalition of 18 plus groups concerned with American civil freedoms and liberties. It was held at the "Library Lab" which the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library allowed Wikimedia DC] to maintain for several months.

We had 11 new editors show, only two with accounts or some editing experience. While they appreciated the overview of Wikipedia policies and procedures, they also were hot to try to edit. Most wanted to and did create accounts and were very interested in creating a sandbox and/or personal cheat sheet page.

So I can see the need to integrate simple exercises earlier in the program. Going through one tutorial page at a time probably a good idea. Getting them to try do it at home before the workshop even a better idea! So I'll study those more and how to integrate them. I made a few changes to outline for now to make it more generic and will do more soon.

They are a group of people involved in a network of groups that work on civil liberties articles, especially about high profile individuals they feel were entrapped into crime. Katie and I stressed how important it is to put the interest of the encyclopedia first and to work on different types of articles, and that's one way to ensure you are a better editor on the articles of interest to you and to keep from getting frustrated with those. I gave them tips on how to work together on Wikiprojects like Wikipedia:WikiProject Human rights. I will continue helping them to do that. Hope to do another one in later February for a more general interest type of potential editor, hopefully computer-savvy retired individuals (especially professionals) looking for something to do in their spare time. Will start looking for recruits in various ways soon. Carolmooredc 18:41, 14 January 2012 (EST)

Hi Carol. Congratulations on a successful event. I've enjoyed reading your training documents, as well. I do have a few questions:

Did you have a sign up sheet or a place where participants noted that they participated? It'd be wonderful to great and follow up with them. I'd also love to be able to have them visit Wikipedia Teahouse for assistance!
Second, do you have any knowledge of the articles that they worked on? I'd love to see their successes.
Third, do you have any documentation related to explaining or working with these representatives to explain NPOV and COI? I know a lot of folks are interested in learning more about how to work with advocacy groups. Especially in lieu of SOPA/PIPA and all that jazz. Thanks Carol :) SarahStierch 13:12, 31 January 2012 (EST)

Thanks for reply. I didn't know about TeaHouse. Fantastic. Will definitely add to list of resources where ever I list or find such resources listed!!

Did I mention that 2/3 of group was women? I only briefly described special hassles of women and encouraged them not to use real names or names obviously identifying themselves as women. Most did register and said they took that advice.

I'm bit reluctant to get too involved with any group organizing efforts, besides training. One woman, a professional editor, who has a little wiki experience and is eager to learn from that larger group is going to send out regular emails encouraging self-teaching and use of resources (like Tea House) to their list of interested parties, encouraging them to join and collaborate through Wikiproject Human Rights and an American Prisoners and Human Rights wikiproject I'm proposing, encouiraging to connect with local WikiMeetups, etc. I'm going to keep giving her advice she can share. But I'm encouraging transparency and working through wikiprojects, and only emails for providing general info and encouragement. At some point I'm going to open a "mentoring" subpage on my talk page like User:Steven_Zhang has.

It would be great to have a general Wikipedia email list for that purpose, too. I don't think I saw one when I was looking at the en.Wiki and metawiki email options, but might have missed it. Maybe TeaHouse could do it!

The only thing we worked on that day was creating user page and a "cheat sheet" or sandbox sub page. Only a couple had edited before some human rights articles, but I wasn't paying attention to what. I know they are making a list to put up on a Human Rights Wikiproject. I think the rest will need hand holding before they jump into editing any articles.
At this point just encouraging people to look at the NPOV and COI policies and the Wikipedia:Advocacy and Wikipedia:Advocacy_articles which fell off this one day training from earlier version cause I was trying to make it overly general. Should be put back. Both essays also do need some work. Plus warnings about the "trouble" you can get in if you don't follow policy. Not that many people actually do if they remain civil.

Of course, it's part of a constant reminding process, which probably should be part of any wikiproject that deals with issues where advocates tend to congregate. (Though, as I always say, anyone can be an advocate on just about any subject.) In fact, a lot of them!!

The good news is a lot of the human rights articles are just low quality, and not areas of massive contention where newbies will run into a lot of harassment. Unless there's a war and a lot of pro-warrior lock up the peaceniks types jump on board ;-( Carolmooredc 16:09, 31 January 2012 (EST)

Followup note, a couple of individuals remained interested, one is working on a new article on an important legal concept with excellent references not yet covered by Wikipedia, and others are interested in attending the next workshop. CarolMooreDC 04:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]