Secrets of effective editing workshops

workshop about workshops

antanana

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Myleen Hollero, CC BY-SA 3.0

antanana / Nataliia Tymkiv

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Ukrainian Wikipedia editor and admin,

member of Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine organising team, member of Wikimedia Ukraine

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Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

Who has conducted editing workshops before?

if yes: show of hands. a few words about how the experience was: was it a successful event? what went wrong (if it was not successful)

1. Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact ^[1]

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWMF%27s_New_Global_South_Strategy.pdf&page=14

* and do not be tempted to give souvenirs upon participants coming, only after completing (if at all!)

…so plan for 2 sessions at least or a series or pick a specialised audience*

2. Care to prepare

…find out as much as you can before the event about the venue, your audience

3. Make a plan B for everything

* electricity, internet etc

…but also accept that sometimes things are out of your control*

There is no electricity at the moment of the event…

…ask your participants to write down their emails, so you can send them the materials, and invitation for the next events

Let’s talk about “secret” tips

a lot of people organising workshops reinvent the wheel, make avoidable mistakes, get frustrated themselves, and create a bad impression on partners

Workshop plan

• Goals / topics [lists]
• Logistics (venue, internet access, computers, access to the venue, online or offline)
• Registration form
• Refreshments
• Account creation (IP range blocking)
• Help at the event
• Feedback form
• Support after the event

I am not going to go into more logistical details of workshopping a workshop now, but we can return to this list later

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[1] Wikipedia:How to run an edit-a-thon

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What do we do about the account creation limit from one IP?

currently the limit is 6 accounts per 24 hours from one IP

Account creation [1/6]

• before the event: encourage people to register beforehand (at home / work etc)

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• before the event: ask people to fill in a registration form, and give them instructions (a video if available) to register beforehand (at home / work etc), and ask them to submit their username in the registration form /privacy/*

* most will not do that, but even if only some do, it might help

Currently, on Wikimedia projects the number of accounts that can be created in a 24-hour period from a single IP is limited to six ^[1]

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[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_account_creation

Account creation [2/6]

• before the event: you can request temporarily removing the limit of account creation per IP address – you would need to contact the venue to know the needed information, as the request needs to include a date, place/wiki(s), event title, the number of participants and the public IPv4 address (and if applicable IPv6) used.

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/22/

Account creation [3/6]

• before the event: ask people to fill in a registration form their desired username and active email, and create these accounts yourself (if you have the rights) or ask somebody with the rights to do it

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• before the event: request rights of account creator on the wiki you plan to work at*

* for English Wikipedia go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Event_coordinator

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mass_account_creation

Account creation [4/6]

• before the event: create a few generic accounts (like Editor1 etc), so you can “lend” them to people for the time of the event (or even give them to people, but you would need to make sure they added an email address to the account, and know how to requests renaming)

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Mass_account_creation

Account creation [5/6]

• during the event: check if there are people with mobiles who can enable hotspots for others to be able to create accounts (as the limit is per IP address, so if you have another IP address, you can have 6 more new accounts)

Special:CreateAccount

Account creation [6/6]

• during the event: create extra accounts by yourself (if you have the rights – usually the users with rights are administrators, bots, stewards, bureaucrats etc)

or

through Programs & Events Dashboard https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/ and Sign up with Wikipedia

Special:CreateAccount

Any other ideas about account creation you know or tried?

preferably ones that are not complicated or require too much technical knowledge!

IP range blocks…

…are blocks that affect a range of IP addresses, rather than just one. This is typically done to partially or completely block networks that can operate using more than one public IP address

Has anyone here experienced it?

do share

IP range blocking

The architecture of the Internet set up at the experimental stages disproportionately affects some countries more than others. Blocking an IP range because of repeated vandalism, say, in a Boston school will not create a huge problem, whereas blocking a school in Ghana, for example, often means blocking whole cities, regions or providers, as there are just too few IPs for the country

IP range blocking

IP range blocking

This staggering disproportion is, of course, not the result of any ill will by MIT or anyone else. This setup is remnants of ancient engineering decisions made in the early 80s, when the entire internet was an experiment. And there was no expectation that this will not be replaced. IPv6 is the technical solution for that, existing for more than a decade already, but it is a very costly one time investment. Sadly, this is beyond our power at Wikimedia to fix, that’s why we need to deal with the issue of IP range blocking…

IP range blocking [1/2]

• before the event:
• 1) locally request account creation rights (if you do not have them);
• 2) locally request IP block exempt for yourself (so you are able to request help in the projects if need be). Users with this flag would not be not affected by autoblocks, blocks of IP addresses and rangeblocks (both global and local), proxy blocks and Tor blocks. Usually named editors can edit, just not register

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IP_block_exempt

There is not enough IP addresses in some regions of the world, if you are in such a region it would be good to find out about IP addresses of the venue you are going to have a workshop in, and test it before the event itself

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IP range blocking [2/2]

• before the event: check if you are clocked, as due to the nature of the block applied, there might be a need for additional information before it is possible to decide whether to unblock you. It is very likely that you are not personally blocked. If you are prevented from editing, it may be because you are autoblocked or blocked because of your IP address

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Autoblock

There is not enough IP addresses in some regions of the world, if you are in such a region it would be good to find out about IP addresses of the venue you are going to have a workshop in, and test it before the event itself

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* if you have the right

Any other ideas about IP range block you know or tried?

preferably ones that are not complicated or require too much technical knowledge!

Useful pages listed

• Wikipedia:How to run an edit-a-thon
• Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Event_coordinator
• Mass account creation
• Help:Mass_account_creation
• https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/
• https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/task/edit/form/22/

Account creation

IP range blocking

• https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IP_block_exempt
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Autoblock

How to

• Wikipedia:How to run an edit-a-thon

Thank you! Дякую!

antanana

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