Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/event documentation

This page documents how to categorize a "meetup page" in Wikipedia for a Wikipedia:Meetup.

Instructions

Create a meetup page as described at Wikipedia:Meetup.
Have a reason for wanting to categorize it. A common reason is that reporting the event fulfills an organization's request for documentation, reporting, or transparency.
Apply Wikipedia:Categorization as described below.

Authority of this process

This is an experimental method proposed in February 2016 to meet needs of the time. This process might change. It is difficult to imagine categorize structures and what names are best to use.

This system is used by Wikimedia New York City, a chapter of the Wikimedia Community.

Benefits of using this process

When there is a Wikipedia meetup, sometimes stakeholders in the event want to see outcomes. With this system, it becomes easier for stakeholders to browse event records and get information about when events have been presented and what kind of events have been hosted.

As an example, suppose that a Wikimedia chapter organizes an event on art at a library. Over time, that Wikimedia chapter, the library, and Wikipedians who organize art events might want to be able to find a record of this meetup and reference it for the precedent it set. With meetup categorization this becomes easier to do.

Apply categories

On the meetup page, apply any or all of these categories.

Type - technical nature of event. Examples include editathon, training, lecture, chapter meeting, or social meetup.
Theme - subject matter coverage. Examples include art, feminism, cultural affiliations, medicine, or other designations related to a field of study
Venue - the place of the event. Examples include names of universities, museums, or community space like Babycastles.
Project - coordinating projects which support and oversee named projects. Examples include AfroCrowd and Art+Feminism
Year - There is a history of tagging events by year. An example would be Category:Wikipedia meetups in 2016

not functional as of February 2016 If anyone at the event took pictures or video and wished to share media files, then they may do so at Wikimedia Commons. On Wikimedia commons, create a Commons category with the same title as that of the English Wikipedia meetup page. Now apply the same categories used in English Wikipedia to this page on Commons.

Commons:Category:Wikipedia meetups by type

See Commons:Category:Wikipedia events in New York City by type‎

See Commons:Category:Wikipedia events in New York City by venue‎

One reason why every event needs its own category in Commons is so that if anyone shares photos, there is an obvious way to name a Commons category after the event, and an obvious way to categorize pictures uploaded to that category so that they can be found.

Categorization can be done anytime but is ideally done at the time of the creation of the event page. There is no need to create a Commons category if no one uploads photos from the event.

Background on this process

As of early 2016 there was not a clear process for categorizing events. Consequences of this were that it was difficult to track events and to sort pictures taken at events. An inability to track events was a problem for supporting organizations. Suppose, for example, that WP:AfroCrowd hosted an event at Museum of Modern Art to develop content about black artists. Organizations which would benefit from having a record of this, and which were keeping score of when such things happen, include AfroCrowd itself as a project, Wikimedia NYC, the Wikimedia Foundation, MoMA, WP:Art+Feminism (for the art connection), any projects promoting black culture, and perhaps the event organizers as individuals as they tracked their own history.

If there were a better way to organize things, there would be these restraints on developing a new process -

Must be very easy to use and take almost no time
Must intuitively seem like it belongs
Must be easy to set up process for standardizing the use

Organizations requiring this categorization

Wikimedia New York City provides the following guidelines for use of this process:

All Wikipedia events supported by Wikimedia NYC ought to be documented with their own "WP:xyz" page.
1. There is no template or text requirement, but follow the precedent of what meetup pages look like
2. The event page should be categorized
All events supported by WM NYC must have an event page. If someone wants an WM NYC event and the benefits of affiliation (including trademark use rights, sponsorship, and the possibility of insurance coverage) this is a new requirement. There should be an on-wiki record of the event happening. Events can be anything - editathon, private tutorial, private lecture, meeting with an organization, whatever. If anyone wants public credit and public support from WM NYC, events have to be documented on-wiki.
Even though the event page itself has no text requirements, it should be required that event pages are categorized.
Categorization can happen in any or all of these ways - type, theme, venue, project, and year. The most critical are venue and project, because these are the ones that sponsors watch, and that can harm a reputation if there is a problem, and which WM NYC is asked to report.

Alternatives to this process

All of these are subcategories of Category:Wikipedia meetups. Another option was Category:Wikipedia events, which currently is being used in a different way to categorize broader events like the "year of science" or "institutional partnerships". Consequences of this arbitrary choice mean that "meetup" becomes solidified as the term for describing one-day Wiki events and also that any sort of wiki-event, like a Wikidata event, can still be called a "Wikipedia meetup".

This sets the precedent that all Wikipedia