ויקיפדיה:מפגשים/מפגש חנוכה תשס"ז 2006/סיכום המפגש/אנגלית

The Get-Together took place at 10:00, on the 15th of December 2006, in the campus of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

How did it go?

Participants

The Get-Together boasted about 100 Wikipedians

Itinerary

• The first speaker was David Shay, HeWikipedia's bureaucrat.

  Shay opened by expressing condolences to the family of Aryeh Chayun and his wife, Rachel, over Aryeh's untimely death.

  After the condolences, Shay continued to speak, and expressed his wonderment over the rapid growth of HeWikipedia, which over the past two years grew from what could be described as "a nucleus of an encyclopedia" with approximately 1,500 articles, to a full-fledged encyclopedia with nearly 50,000 articles.

• Shay was followed by Drork, who gave a presentation concerning the goings-on in Wikimedia Foundation and in sister Wikipedias, as well as other Wikipedia projects, such as WikitionaryZ, complete with impressions from his attendance at the recent Wikimania convention.
• Drawing elderly writers to Wikipedia, a presentation given by Shnili, followed by a short discussion. The brain-storming rages on, in a special page opened for that purpose.
• Tzachi Chayyat presented the findings of a study gauging and comparing the satisfaction levels of users in both the Hebrew and English language Wikipedia. Chayyat's survey also focused on the question where this satisfaction comes from - is it related more to the writing and sharing of knowledge, or does it stem from the communal cooperation.
• ST took a few pictures of the assembled, which were later combined into a composite photograph.
• During a 20 minute break, the assembled Wikipedians socialized and ate lots of Sufganiyot, the traditional jelly-filled, high cholesterol Hanukkah food.
• The meeting continued with Harel, who discussed the success of the "Quality Attacks" (a concerted effort on writing new articles and improving the existing ones in particular fields, adopted from The German Wikipedia), and discussed ideas for future collaborative effort projects. The topic of time spent on discussing articles and protocols instead of writing articles was brought up, and a few ideas on how to "bring people out of the rut" were proposed, including the founding of a "Wikipedia Calendar" which will include the "Quality Attacks", Writing contests, and other projects.
• Shay Yakir, apart from playing MC to the whole event, gave a presentation whose title, loosely translated, reads: "How (and why) we'll open an Israeli branch of the Wikimedia Foundation, and raise half a million with no problem at all". A committee was appointed to look into the idea and share its findings with the community.
• Edna Tal, of the Open University of Israel, gave a short lecture describing the university's use of MediaWiki tools, and the success of such practices.
• Prizes were distributed for the best photograph category in the recent From Stub to Superb writing contest.
• At this point, the floor was opened to whomever wished to speak, among the topics broached were:
  • Project WIKITORT, in which law students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will write articles about topics in tort law. The community agreed that a template should be created, announcing the articles as part of the project, and rendering the articles "off-limits" for two to three weeks after their uploading, for grading purposes.
  • The topic of unused pictures was addressed, and a a special page for "pictures awaiting articles" was created.
  • It was suggested that the Get-Togethers take on a less haphazard schedule.
  • A schedule for the "Quality Attacks" was discussed, with ideas emphasizing diversity in topics, time off, and a more-or-less rigid schedule.
  • Deror Avi, a lawyer well-versed in the topics, highlighted the importance of copyright and libel and slander laws when writing in Wikipedia, and reminded everyone that by Israeli law, a successful copyright violation suit is awarded 50,000 NIS, absent proof of damages.