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Wikipedia:Meetup/Minnesota/November 2024 Minnesota User Group Meeting

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Wikimedia Minnesota User Group
Wikiyphus

Details

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  • Date:Sunday,November 3,2024
  • Time:1 to 3:30 pm (reminder - Daylight Saving Time ends)
  • Place:Wild Mind Ales,6031 Pillsbury Ave, Minneapolis, MN

Agenda

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  • Keeping expectations low.
  • Is Wikipedia still a thing?
  • Is the Minnesota User Group still a thing?

Sign up

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Definitely going

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Possible attendees

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Regrets

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Meeting notes

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  • Past MN User Groups
    • Why be official?
      • Is working within the Wikipedia system more trouble than it is worth?
    • Possibly use "online asynchronous editing events" to focus effort on a specific article or subject without the perceived issues with in-person events or edit-a-thons.
    • In the future, hope that the MN User Group meets at least quarterly, but probably doesn't require monthly.
  • Minorites
    • Being blocked by some Wikipedia Admins and long-time editors using Robert's Rules style manipulation
    • Baiting newbies
    • Funding is a major issue with minority editors, high barriers including money to being involved in Wikipedia
      • Myotus mentions grants from MN state, MNHS which minority editors can use to compile bibliographies, improve MN history including Wikipedia, and attend national events held locally in MN
    • Ping interested in doing a study on the barriers Wikipedia has to different minority groups editing, eg Native Americans
  • Edit-a-thons on Native American reservations
    • Concerns about recruiting new editors if they only get chased way.
    • Native American articles using "Notable" and "Authoritative," but outdated sources (pre-1970s) that are defended by Admins and powerful Wikipedia editors.
    • Using old books as sources for articles on Native Americans is problematic due to the outdated perspectives and inaccuracies they often contain. Texts reflect the biases and stereotypes of their time, lead to skewed representation of Native cultures, histories, and peoples.
    • Older sources are inevitably not authored by Native people, modern scholarship includes far more Native voices. BUT modern scholarship is also much harder to access - not available on archive.org for example.
    • Possibly create a resource that reliably indicates which dated sources are absolutely not to be used
    • Ping is slowly working an an assessment of Dakota biographies that may help illustrate this issue.
    • Ping was slowly working on adding RS Dakota sources to Wikipedia and Wikidata (egMni Sota Makoce: The Land of the DakotaandA Council of Dolls), would love help working on this especially since he doesn't quite get Wikidata
  • Wiki Uff da! Workshops
    • Not going well. Low to no attendance. First event canceled
    • Why? Need to look into
    • Unlike last time there was no in-person promotion of events
    • Located at unfamiliar venues.
    • Marketing voice
    • Need to have a MN User Group for support
    • Focus on long game for rural and Greater Minnesota Recruitment
  • Women in Red - How organized?
  • Edit-a-thons in the Hmong community
    • Hmong Archives
    • Hmong Cultural Center
    • Hmong Museum
    • Online event working with Hmong community in California
    • Ping will visit Hmong Library sometime to sort through English sources that may be useful for Wikipedia and leave a flyer for Hmong language readers who might be able to contribute source translation - librarian has Wikipedia user page in email signature
  • MN Museums and Libraries
    • Need to reconnect MN Museums and Libraries
    • Drifted away since COVID
    • MNOpedia- Minnesota Historical Society changed the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license to a more restrictive Creative Commons Attribution_NonCommercial_ShareAlike 4.0 International license on newly created articles.
  • Small museums
    • Create Guide for small museums helping them partner with Wikipedia and how they can help and what the benefits are to them.
    • Building Connections to organizations
    • Best ways to get museum on board
    • Mission statements of organizations and Wikipedia aligned
      • Most understand what Wikipedia is but do not know about its mission
    • Small can be authoritative sources of their community's history but need to follow academic rigor and standards.
      • Some small history museums function more like nostalgia clubs not inline with educational mission.

Not mentioned at the meeting

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Future meeting ideas

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Please add to this or copy it to the appropriate page.

Frequency:At least quarterly

Projected:January or February 2025