Wikipedia 15/Events/Berlin

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2016-03-16
2016-01-15

Berlin, January[edit]

Organizers
de:Benutzer:Schlesinger
Hi everybody
The cake..
..and the difficulties of collaborative cake cutting

There was a time when real life meetings for Wikipedians were new and adventurous and a bit scary. Did one really want to meet these strange other people from the Internet? How would they be? Could they even talk in real life or would they just sit behind a laptop screen staring on it for hours?

The first Wikipedia meeting in Hamburg in 2004 for example sitting in a pub, and just waiting and seeing what would happen. These meetings were kind of improvised, in a pub, quite private and personal in nature and no talk about projects, collaborations, “the movement” whatever. Just Wikipedia and Wikipedians having a nice evening.

So what a fitting setting to celebrate this day in Berlin just the old school way. Half improvised, organized by our dearest local troll user:Schlesinger on a talk page, we met in a pub, it was not clear who would come and what would happen except some people having a good time.

And so It was. In the “Matzbach” in the heart of Berlin-Kreuzberg seven people promised to come, in the end we were almost twenty. Long time Wikipedians, long-time-no-see-Wikipedians, a Wikipedian active mostly in Polish and Afrikaans, some newbies and two and a half people from Wikimedia Deutschland. Veronica from Wikimedia Deutschland brought a tiny but wonderful home-baked cake, and we just talked and laughed, talked about history and future. Actually, mostly we talked about future.

About the Wikipedian above 30, who has just started a new a university degree in archaeology, the question whether the Berlin community should have its own independent space, industrial beer, craft beer and the differences, the district of Berlin-Wedding, the temporary David-Bowie-memorial in Berlin-Schöneberg, the vending machine for fishing bait in Wedding, new pub meet-ups in the future, who should come to the open editing events, how to work better with libraries, colorful Wikipedians who weren’t there, looking for a new flat, whether perfectionism is helpful or rather not when planning something for Wikipedians, explaining Wikipedia to the newbie, the difficulties of cake-cutting and whatsoever.

No frustration, almost no talk about meta and politics, just Wikipedians interested in the world, Wikipedia and eager to be active in and for Wikipedia and with big plans for the future. Old school. So good.


Berlin, March[edit]

Organizers
WMDE, --Michael Jahn WMDE (talk) 08:26, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Info
With English Wikipedia turning 15 on January 15th, we kick-off an anniversary year for the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Some community spaces in Germany will celebrate on January 15th, others will follow later in the year. The Berlin event will be hosted at Wikimedia Deutschland on German Wikipedia's birthday on March 16th. For more information about the various events check out the overview site for Germany, Austria and Switzerland or take a look to this site.
There! There!! THERE it comes!!! --