Wikidata talk:Eighth Birthday

Feel free to ask any questions regarding the eighth birthday and event organization here!

Size of Wikidatabirthday Celebration Events

Hello,

is it better to organize local events or to try to organize a bigger event for example for the active Wikidata editors from Germany. What are your plans for Germany. Are there defined ideas what to do around the birthday of Wikidata. -- Hogü-456 (talk) 21:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello,

First of all, I think that the local groups should define the size of their events depending on their own resources: how many volunteers are ready to help in the group. I'd strongly advise to start with something small (for example : a Wikidata workshop followed by an informal celebration with birthday cake), especially if the group is new or not used to organize events.

Just like everywhere, the birthday celebrations in Germany will be started and run by volunteers, and the initial motivation should come from them. In that sense, I don't have any specific plan for Germany, I hope that many local groups will seize this opportunity to talk about Wikidata to their pairs and organize meetups :)

I can also mention that we're working on another edition of a Wikidata event in Ulm, but it's not going to take place during the birthday. More information will come in due time. Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 09:04, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Hour for the meeting on 25 March

@Lea Lacroix (WMDE): is there not a mistake in the hour for the next meeting on 25 March: 14:00 UTC versus 17:00 in Berlin does not correspond if I’m not mistaken? It seems to be 15:00 in Berlin if the summer time starts on 29 March like in France, else it is 16:00. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 11:42, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

@Seb35:Thanks for spotting this mistake, it's indeed 16:00 UTC (17:00 in Berlin). Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 12:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Important update regarding the COVID19 situation & new plan

Hello all,

A lot of things changed over the past weeks due to the global COVID-19 crisis: lockdown in some countries, social distancing rules, plenty of events have been cancelled, all grants for onsite events in the Wikimedia movement have been cancelled as well. Overall, we're now evolving in a lot of uncertainty: what will be the status of the crisis in the upcoming months? What projects can we maintain, which ones should be cancelled? Are we going to be able to organize events, even small meetups? Should we switch everything remote?

Despite all of this uncertainty, we still want to celebrate Wikidata's 8th birthday and the amazing work of its community. The plans we had for October 2020 will be adapted, and we will seize this opportunity to experiment on new formats. We are really committed on creating a great remote event with you all! Of course, this is a collaborative creation process, and all suggestions are welcome on this talk page.

Here's a summary of what these changes mean for the local organizers and for the support they can get from the Wikimedia movement:

Your event

If you were planning to organize an event for the birthday, we encourage you to revisit the format and to adapt it to be flexible. In some parts of the world, physical events may be allowed in October 2020, but in most places, it is likely that only online events will be possible. Please follow your local safety rules and don't put anyone at risk: your own health and the health of your community members and close ones is the most important thing.

Support and funding

A lot of grant and funding programs have been cancelled or postponed this year. All programs of the Wikimedia Foundation related to physical events have been delayed 1. However, the Rapid Grants program is still running and supporting online events. You can have a look at their updated guidelines and feel free to contact them if you have questions.

Swag, goodies, merch

At this stage, it is still unclear if Wikimedia Deutschland will be able to provide Wikidata and birthday-related swag for events. We are pondering the value of providing physical objects if most of the events don't include physical gatherings. We are also, more than ever, careful about our impact of the global climate crisis and we don't want to produce and send a lot of objects around the world that are not absolutely necessary. In any case, we will design a visual identity for the 8th birthday (logo, banner), that you will be able to use on all supports, and if you want swag for your participants, we will encourage you to produce it locally.

Coordination

As mentioned above, we are rethinking and adapting the project, but one thing doesn't change: we want to create a nice online gathering to celebrate the work of the Wikidata community. The fact that most of the events may be turned remote is actually exciting: this means that more people will be able to join your remote events, people from different countries will be able to participate in events and discover more about what the other groups are doing! The exact format of the event is still a work in progress, but there will definitely be some kind of calendar where you will be able to see all the events and learn how to participate. The coordination is still ensured by me within the Community Communications team at Wikimedia Germany.

Next steps

We will keep you informed on this page about the next steps of the event. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to ask them on the talk page or contact me by email. You can also join the Telegram group to discuss with other organizers.

If you have any questions, feel free to write here or reach me directly. Cheers, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 07:52, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Update: calendar, communication kit & 24-hours call

Hello all,

Wikidata's 8th birthday is taking place in a bit more than 2 months. It's time for an update :)

The Wikidata distributed birthday

As a reminder, the Wikidata distributed birthday aims to connect people from the community, local groups, WikiProjects... to celebrate Wikidata and the work of its contributors. Despite the current global situation, we can still organize plenty of exciting things online: meetups, workshops, podcasts, live-editing... all community events taking place from October 20 to November 10 can be included in the calendar.

24-hours online meetup

As most events will take place online this year, we would like to experiment with a new format: a 24-hours online call, where people can jump in at any time, discuss with community members they may or may not know, and chat about everything that makes them enthusiastic about Wikidata! So many things can happen during this call: discussions, games, watching one of the online birthday events together, live-editing... participants will shape the event and make it unique. We are also looking for facilitators to help with the meetup, see more details here.

A calendar for your events

On the Wikidata:Eighth Birthday page, you will find a table where you can enter your event once it's ready to be announced. As most events will take place online, people will be able to take part in various events happening everywhere! Don't forget to schedule a date and time for your event and to add it in the calendar.

Connect with other event organizers

If you're interested in organizing something for the birthday, you can connect with the other organizers by joining the Telegram group Wikidata events. We will also host calls regularly to chat with each others, help with questions or find inspiration: they will take place on Jitsi and the dates will be announced on this page.

Communication kit

Because most events will take place online, we decided to provide a digital communication kit containing useful items to prepare your communication. Besides the official logo, there's also an awesome logo generator that you can use to create a custom logo. If you want to print swag/merch, you can use these files to print your own things locally. We also provide other elements to help you building slides, livestream, etc.

Funding

If you need financial support to run your event, please reach out to your local affiliate or apply for a Rapid Grant, ideally before September 15th. More information about funding will be added in the near future (possibility to fund onsite events, specific WikiCite grant).

If you have any questions, feel free to write them down on this page, on the Telegram group, or to contact me. Cheers, Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 14:48, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Pinging people who started planning an event: @VIGNERON, Akbarali, Ranjithsiji, Jwale2, HakanIST: @Regueiro, OdettMelody, GiFontenelle, Allenwang6212a:

I moved the list of events to Wikidata:Eighth Birthday/Organise. If you're still planning to organize something, please add it to the main calendar once you have the details ready! Thanks :) Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 15:56, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Add your event to the main calendar

Hello @Akbarali, Ranjithsiji, Jwale2, HakanIST, Regueiro: @OdettMelody, Allenwang6212a, Ainali, Mahir256, Kaizenify: @Premeditated, Jeb, Ilario, ANKAN: Thanks a lot for organizing events for the Wikidata birthday!

If your event is finalized and has a date and time, feel free to remove it from Wikidata:Eighth_Birthday/Organise#List_of_current_projects and to add it to the main calendar, where it will be more visible by the visitors. Thanks! Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 07:03, 19 October 2020 (UTC)