Editathon, North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers/Report

This is a formal report written by Harry Mitchell; a slightly edited version of a report that was provided to the WMUK board and staff by email on 21 November 2013. You may wish to read Robert Forsythe's informal blog post as well as or instead of this report.

Executive summary: A report for the board and staff of Wikimedia UK, and interested others, on an editathon held in Newcastle upon Tyne on 6 November, as well as past and potential future events in the North East. The editathon was attended by approximately a dozen people, most of whom had made a small number of edits to Wikipedia prior to (in some cases in anticipation of) the event. I expect the retention level to be higher than we have seen at other events due to the level of enthusiasm among the attendees and at the host institution. The event built on progress made by the residency at the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums service and the first Wikipedia meetup in Newcastle (both supported by Wikimedia UK). The total cost was approximately £560, which is higher than the usual cost of such events, mainly due to the necessity of bringing in trainers from outside the area, but I argue that the higher cost should be seen as an investment in building a community in an area where WMUK currently has little presence. I make some recommendations at the end of the report.

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On 6 November, an editing session was held at the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers in Newcastle upon Tyne. Robert Forsythe and I liaised with the Mining Institute to set the event up, and I led the event on the day, assisted by Robert, Dan Garry, Peter Gans, and Chris McKenna. The idea for the event originated with Robert Forsythe (formerly Wikimedian in Residence at Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums [TWAM]) and Jennifer Hillyard (the Mining Institute's librarian). Robert began working with the Mining Institute during his residency at TWAM, and discussed the potential for a Wikimedia partnership with Jennifer. The idea was developed further when I met Robert for the first time at the Newcastle meetup on 15 September. At Robert's suggestion, I visited the mining institute the day after the meetup and met with Jennifer; after further discussions by telephone and online, we set a date. Robert advertised the event through his own channels, including email lists and Facebook groups and Jennifer advertised it to Mining Institute members. I travelled up to Newcastle on 5 November, and Robert, Chris, and I (as well as another local Wikipedian) attended a lecture at the Mining Institute the evening before the event, which enabled us to talk to other Mining Institute members and staff, several of whom expressed great enthusiasm for the Wikimedia partnership.

The event began with a welcome from Jennifer, who then led the group on a guided tour of the Neville Hall and Wood Memorial Hall—the Mining Institute's headquarters, a grade II* listed building in the centre of Newcastle. After the tour and informal discussions over lunch (of which WMUK covered the cost), the event began in earnest with introductions. The average level of experience in the group was slightly higher than I had anticipated—most attendees were already familiar with the basics of Wikipedia and had made a small number of edits prior to the event – so I covered some slightly more advanced themes (such as sourcing and original research) in my brief plenary session. I asked each member of the group to say a little about themselves their experience on Wikipedia, and what they hoped to gain from the session so as to inform the agenda for the rest of the day. The interests were diverse, but most attendees were keen to use the Mining Institute's resources to add content to Wikipedia, so the rest of the afternoon session was left amorphous, and attendees were left to find a subject to write about (with assistance from Jennifer for those not already familiar with the Mining Institute). The trainers floated around the room offering assistance where necessary, while I made a point of spending time with each of the attendees and discussed matters of special interest to individuals (some had questions about the inner workings of Wikipedia, one or two about copyright, and one wanted to discuss the Visual Editor).

While this was not a data-harvesting exercise, 15 people signed up, of whom 12 (mostly Mining Institute staff and members/volunteers) turned up on the day; eight men and four women, which I am told reflects the demographics of the Mining Institute's membership. I expect the level of retention of editors from this event will be higher than many events, as many of the attendees were enthusiastic enough to register and begin editing in anticipation of the event. Several attendees indicated that they would be interested in attending a follow-up session, and two expressed an interest in holding an event at their own institution. Those usernames that were recorded on the day (others were present, but some came and went during the day as there were other events taking place at the Mining Institute simultaneously) were:

• [[::User:FidoPam|FidoPam]] ([[::User talk:FidoPam|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/FidoPam|contribs]])
• [[::User:Mia.mccabe|Mia.mccabe]] ([[::User talk:Mia.mccabe|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Mia.mccabe|contribs]])
• [[::User:EricatMI|EricatMI]] ([[::User talk:EricatMI|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/EricatMI|contribs]])
• [[::User:Pmc252|Pmc252]] ([[::User talk:Pmc252|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Pmc252|contribs]])
• [[::User:Marjon Archiveassistant|Marjon Archiveassistant]] ([[::User talk:Marjon Archiveassistant|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Marjon Archiveassistant|contribs]])
• [[::User:AWhiteC|AWhiteC]] ([[::User talk:AWhiteC|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/AWhiteC|contribs]])
• [[::User:Mining47|Mining47]] ([[::User talk:Mining47|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Mining47|contribs]])
• [[::User:Retreeval|Retreeval]] ([[::User talk:Retreeval|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Retreeval|contribs]])
• [[::User:Alan_Metcalfe|Alan_Metcalfe]] ([[::User talk:Alan_Metcalfe|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Alan_Metcalfe|contribs]])
• [[::User:Mininglibrarian|Mininglibrarian]] ([[::User talk:Mininglibrarian|talk]]⧼dot-separator⧽[[::Special:Contributions/Mininglibrarian|contribs]])

I believe we achieved the superficial aim of getting a group of novice Wikipedians together and assisting them in writing articles using the Mining Institute's collection. This builds on Robert's work as the Wikimedian in Residence at TWAM, and develops contacts he made while he was in-post. As mentioned above, I am hopeful that we will see a high level of retention of editors from this event. I also aimed to use the event to build and strengthen the very young offline Wikimedia community in the North East and Newcastle in particular. I believe we achieved this objective to an extent, in that Robert assisted with the event and recruited another local Wikipedian, who came to use the Mining Institute's resources to improve his articles. A third local Wikipedian attended the lecture the evening before the event; all three had previously attended the first Newcastle meetup. I believe that with more meetups and events in the area, with intensive support from outside, we will begin to build a community in the North East as tight-knit and reliable as the one in the North West, which can be sustained by supporting the community with initiatives like Training the Trainers and providing opportunities for volunteers to take on projects in their local area.

The total cost of the event was relatively high for an event of this type: I estimate the total cost to be in the region of £560. The planning for the event used relatively little staff time (Jonathan Cardy, Richard Nevell, and Katie Chan all provided support with budgeting and logistics), though I requisitioned four laptops and a mobile WiFi device from the office. The bulk of the cost was made up of volunteers' travel costs, including covering the cost of a volunteer transporting equipment and merchandise from the office. Just under £300 was spent on volunteers' train fares, and another £75 on accommodating me and another volunteer in the local Travelodge; Wikimedia UK also funded lunch for all attendees, at a cost of approximately £100. The remainder of the cost was made up of subsistence and incidental expenses. It was necessary to bring in trainers from outside the area as we currently have very few volunteers in the area – something I hope to change through events like this (see previous paragraph). The cost may have been less had the event been held at a weekend, as closer volunteers may have been available and train fares would have been lower, but a weekday event works best for the Mining Institute. Until the community in the North East is sufficiently developed that they can run events without outside support, it will inevitably be more expensive to run events in the North East than in other parts of the UK, and in particular in London, Manchester, and the Midlands. However, I believe it is extremely worthwhile – essential even – and well within Wikimedia UK's charitable objects to invest funds and resources in projects in the North East and supporting the growth and development of the community there.

There is great potential in the North East, both for a continuation of the partnership with the Mining Institute – with the aim of using their extensive collections on industrial history to improve relevant Wikipedia articles – and for partnerships with other organisations and groups in the area. Although we have precious few volunteers in the area at present, there are plenty of Wikimedians in Newcastle and the wider North East (to say nothing of Lowland Scotland and North Yorkshire), so I feel the ambition for a thriving, self-sustaining community, capable of delivering a programme (with some logistical support from the office) is a realistic one. This, however, will not happen overnight. I estimate it will be at least a year to eighteen months before Wikimedia UK will be able to run a programme of events in the North East without volunteers travelling from outside the area. In the meantime, the chapter should be prepared to support further events in the North East, in the knowledge that they will be more expensive than similar events elsewhere in the short to medium term, but that costs will reduce and impact increase in the longer term.

The event was a great success in my opinion, and I hope to hold further events at the Mining Institute, including a follow-up to this event, subject to the agreement of all parties. What follows is a handful of recommendations for future events in the North East and for the development of the community there:

• The Chromebook was not required in the event, though it was useful to have it available on “stand-by”; the three Thinkpads borrowed for the event were all in use during the editing session. The spare laptops were indispensable, and they are an invaluable resource and (in my humble volunteer opinion) are an excellent investment by the chapter. Without wishing to diminish the value of the resource, having to transport laptops from London significantly adds to the cost and logistical and administrative complexity of running such events. It would be useful to have a backup arrangement for transporting the laptops to where they are needed in the event that no volunteer is able to make the journey. In the medium-to-long term, I would suggest that it would be more cost-effective to keep some laptops somewhere more geographically central.
• I believe it would be beneficial for the chapter to (continue to) provide me with financial support to organise and attend Newcastle meetups so that I can continue my efforts to build and develop the community there; if possible, it would be nice to see a trustee or a member of staff at a future Newcastle meetup, though I fully understand that cost and distance make this less practical than other areas.
• I believe it would be useful to establish a "regional coordination group" for the area, to allow local Wikipdians a sense of ownership over projects in the area, which in turn will help to develop those volunteers and build the local community. The group would also serve as a recruitment pool for local volunteers for specific events, and could eventually become the first point of contact for somebody with an idea for a project in the North East. The hope is that this would have the effect of enabling local volunteers to join together to deliver projects and events themselves, rather than relying entirely on the office, which is impractical for reasons of staff capacity and the distances involved. I would like his group to be structured along the lines of the existing subcommittees
• I would like to see the chapter pro-actively seeking opportunities for projects in the North East, for example with local universities, museums (perhaps rekindling the relationship with TWAM?), or community groups. It would be great to see a range of opportunities from small events to ongoing partnerships and possibly Wikimedians in residence, with a significant effort to recruit local volunteers for the projects, only bringing in help from outside the area when necessary. Similarly, I would like to see the chapter provide opportunities for what North-East-based volunteers there currently are to get involved in the chapter's activities elsewhere in the country where practical.