WikiCities

Not to be confused with Fandom, a web site formerly called Wikicities

WikiCities is a concept that rose on Thursday 23rd June 2016 from a discussion at Wikimania 2016 about Engaging Local Communities.

The concept is to pair Wikimedia communities to collaborate and support Wikimedia groups and volunteers in the cities that are their cities official partners. For example, the Wikimedia group in Munich, Germany (WikiMUC) would work with a volunteer group in Harare (Zimbabwe).

There was also a similiar older approach called Wikipedian twin towns and sister cities.

Participants[edit]

If you are interested in being involved in WikiCities, please present your intention, your city and the city partners of your city.

Munich (WikiMUC) would try to get visits to the local community space in Munich included to the schedules of as many visiting groups from Harare through the official program as possible. In addition we hope we can try to find partners in Harare that are already involved in programs concerning open data, free knowledge or similar topics and try to organize specialized exchange programs. These ideas have not yet been talked about with the whole Munich community, so we might get more or different ideas later on. --Kritzolina (talk) 19:34, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@AbhiSuryawanshi: is working with the Sister Cities project to connect Boston in the United States with Pune in India, near Mumbai. Both are university towns with a reputation for supporting academia and the regions have more in common.
The Wikimedia Community is ready to connect with Wikimedia Washington DC since that is the sister city for Accra, But aside that if there is any other Community ready to pair we will be more than willing.--Rberchie (talk) 08:03, 26 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What a great idea! What do you think about adding an idea like SIGHT (Service of Information, Guidance and Hospitality to Travelers) which allows Wikimedians worldwide to stay at other wikimedians homes. Just an idea. What do you think? --Rogi 14:45, 30 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I love the idea and am interested in implementing it in my city Augsburg, Germany. Coordination is here. Augsburg has seven sister cities around the world in Scotland (Inverness), Japan (Nagahama, Amagasaki), USA (Dayton, OH), France (Bourges), Czech Republic (Liberec) and China (Jinan). I offer to search for any Wikip(m)edians in those seven cities, and if I find any, we can establish friendly relations and see how we can use the contacts. --Neitram (talk) 16:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Rogi: I also love your idea of worldwide "couchsurfing" by and for Wikimedians, but I feel it might be best launched as a separate project. It could have great potential independently from the WikiCities idea. --Neitram (talk) 06:55, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Twin City examples and their communities[edit]

City	Active Group	Twin City
Monterrey, Mexico	Tec de Monterrey User group	Barcelona, Spain
Munich, Germany	WikiMUC	Edinburgh, Scotland
Hamburg, Germany	Kontor Hamburg	Saint Petersburg, Russia
Hannover, Germany	Wikipedia-Büro Hannover	Bristol, England
Cologne, Germany	Lokal K	Liverpool, England