Checklist for Edit-a-thons

This checklist was first piloted for Dalit History Month 2017​ edit-a-thons.

Please suggest edits and comment to give feedback so we can keep improving it for everyone!


People

Our organizing model pairs multiple forms of expertise to create content.
Members of the marginalized knowledge community should be the central organizers – you know the needs and knowledge of your community best.
Wikipedians can serve as great allies and can be invited to bring their expertise to support community knowledge experts at the event.

Participants/Community

  • Is the event public or private?
  • Have we reached out to all the folks from our communities that we can?
  • How many do we know are definitely coming?
  • Have events pages been set up on Facebook for the public events?
  • Have we communicated via FB, Twitter, maillists, and one-on-one personally?

Facilitators and Allies

  • Do we know who’s doing what?
  • Who are the organizers?
  • Who are the Wikipedian allies? Other allies?
  • Do we have a sense of the roles we want people to fill? Consider staffing each group with at least 1 community knowledge expert and at least 1 Wikipedia expert.
    • Greeting & people tracking
      • Name tags (Name, pronouns, photo permissions)
      • Participant sign-in (Name + email to be kept private, user account if they have already may be made public)
      • List of accounts (roam to each group, get account name from people leaving, etc)
    • Group 1. New Editors
      • Account creation
      • Basic rules/tour of the wiki
      • Small specific tasks (categories, references, etc) (and/or then channel them towards group 2)
    • Group 2. Article Improvement
      • Categories
      • Copy editing
      • References
      • Images
      • Watchlists and flagging organisers around any trolling/conflict
    • Group 3. Article Creation
      • Sandbox first 🙂
      • Rewrite raw DHM content to ensure no copyright violations
      • Check and move to article space
      • Watchlists and flagging organisers around any trolling/conflict
    • Do we want someone to open and close the space? (with remarks, instruction, song, etc?)
    • Floaters and fill in gaps
    • Managing online trolling/conflict

Online Allies

  • Who is prepared to watch content online? Do they know their roles (watching the new articles feed, watching for trolling on the articles…)?

Travel

  • Any travel arrangements needed for folks coming?

Materials

Instructional

Worklists

  • Do we need printed materials, or online, or both?
    • Articles to be improved
    • Articles to be created
    • Images to be uploaded
    • Categories to be added

References

  • Do we have source material for citations?
    • Printouts of journal articles and what they might be useful for
    • Physical copies of books and other ref materials
    • Online access to references
    • Lists of all of the above

Swag

  • Do we have stickers or other gifts that represent the focus knowledge community and organisers?
  • Do we want to contact the Wikimedia Foundation to request any Wikipedia stickers, buttons, etc?
  • Any other partner’s swag?

Venue

  • Is the venue booked? (make sure there’s time on either side for prep and clean up)
  • Have we checked for audio-visual and any other requirements? (white-boards, projectors, tables, food-ok, etc)
  • Do we have everything ready to bring or be delivered to the space?
    • Extra laptops and power-cords
    • Food and drinks, paper plates, napkins, cutlery, etc
    • Name badges with different colors or stickers for photo preferences
    • Banners or posters to make it our community’s space
    • Pens, tape, scissors, etc for signage

Media and publicity

  • Is someone tweeting or handling other social media?
  • Is someone adding photos to Commons?
  • Are we inviting journalists to the event, or writing about it ourselves afterwards?

Metrics, tracking and follow up

  • Have we setup a​ Wikimedia online events dashboard​ from Wikimedia, to track contributors and edits?
    • If using, remember to get all participants to click the button to join the dashboard as soon they enter the edit-a-thon.
  • Is there a signup sheet for tracking user accounts and emails if people want to be on our mail list?
  • After the event, have we reviewed and celebrated all the good things that got done?
  • Did we send out a follow-up email to participants a month or so later to encourage/demonstrate progress?
  • Did we continue to keep articles on watch lists to watch for trolling?
  • Have we recapped with co-organizers what we learned from the event to make it even better next time?
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