Learning patterns/Recording data on offline meetings
What problem does this solve?[edit]
Offline face-to-face meetings and editathons are an important part of the Wikimedia community. However, there are only few systematic assessments of the role of such events as the data is difficult to collect. While meetups are most often organised publicly (at least concerning the project of Wikipedia), these pages can be difficult to find and scrape. In this learning pattern, I want to highlight how organisers of meetings can best record the meetup data to allow researchers easier access to it.
What is the solution?[edit]
Suggested template for meetup recording In one of my research projects, I spent significant effort on collecting the data of offline meetups organised within the German-language Wikipedia. As better data makes better research, I would suggest meetup organisers use a consistent structure when organising meetings and save previously organised meetings in an archive. A template might look as follows:
- Date of meeting: 2024-03-21
- Place of meeting: Wikimedia Headquarters, 1 Montgomery St #800, San Francisco, CA 94104, United States
- Type of meeting: Social get-together
- Attendees: ASociologist; ASociologist; ASociologist
- Apologies of people who would have liked to come but did not make it: IdS
- Meeting summary: The meeting was wonderful. We discussed the weather and the traffic.
This template includes all key information about a meeting:
- when it happened (using a structured date format helps reading in the date),
- where it happened (detailed information better allows the collection of coordinates and to study the spatial distribution of meetings),
- what type of meeting it was (the more details, the better - other types of meetings might for example be editathons, office hours, work meetings organised within the context of a specific task force, etc.),
- who attended the meeting (ideally, the list of attendees is updated after the meeting so that only actual attendees are recorded) with the names separated with a consistent separator, e.g. a semicolon,
- who would have liked to come,
- and what the meeting was actually about and what it looked like in as much detail as people prefer.
There is flexibility in how to record meetups - the most important thing is to use a consistent format.
Things to consider[edit]
Detailed information on offline meetings are helpful for better research and impact evaluations, but they might also raise some privacy concerns. These meetup reports, and particularly the meeting summary, should only include as much information as attendees feel comfortable sharing. Meeting summaries might for example also include information on the gender or age distribution of attendees as this better allows us to understand the inequalities at play, but such information should only be included if the attendees consent.
When to use[edit]
Whenever you are organising an offline meeting or editathon!
Endorsements[edit]
-- ASociologist (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
See also[edit]
Related patterns[edit]
External links[edit]
- Data brief on meetups organised within the German-language Wikipedia
- Wikiworkshop contribution using German meetup data