Wikipedia 15/Events/Package

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Wikipedia 15 Find an event	Events Plan an event	Get involved Share your experiences
Media Get the word out	Material Branding and marks	Results Impact around the world

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How to get involved

January 15, 2016, marks Wikipedia's 15th birthday, and there are many ways to celebrate. You can:

Share a message or birthday wish on social media
Attend a Wikipedia 15 event
Create your own Wikipedia event

However you celebrate, this set of links and recommendations can help you plan a great event, and get people in your community involved in celebrating Wikipedia at 15 years old.

Share a message or birthday wish

Tell your friends and followers what Wikipedia means to you on the social network of your choice. Just add "#Wikipedia15" to your tweet, instagram, or blog post to share in the global birthday conversation.

Create your own Wikipedia 15 event

Do you want to celebrate Wikipedia at 15 years old? Great. Can't find one near you listed on Wikipedia 15 Events? Make your own gathering and invite your community to join.

Event suggestions

Wikipedia 15 celebrations do not have to be a party in the traditional sense of the word. Here are some suggestions for ways to frame a successful celebration.

Edit-a-thon

Use your Wikipedia 15 celebration as a way to introduce newcomers to editing Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects. Pick a subject related to your venue or your city; find some articles needing improvement, some books needing digitised, or some landmarks requiring photographs; and get editing with some volunteers!

More information on edit-a-thons, as well as some help on how to set one up in your local community, can be found on Outreach Wiki and various language editions of Wikipedia.

Mini-conference

If you want to use your conference as a way to teach people about the values of open knowledge and collaboration but don’t want to host an edit-a-thon, perhaps a mini-conference is the way to go.

Invite speakers knowledgeable in their field and ask them to speak about the impact Wikipedia has made on their industry or work. Ask a photographer to speak about how open licenses have allowed for their photographs to reach further than they could otherwise have. Or perhaps invite editors to speak about their work and what motivates them in a series of lightning talks, in particular for the Hello Wikipedia - My Proudest Article video-link session on Saturday January 16. It can be as formal, or as informal, as you like!

Party

Sometimes, the best way is the simplest way. Feel free to host a good old-fashioned party in a venue of your choice. This could be in your home, office, in a park, or at a local pub or restaurant! It’s easy, and just about getting people together to share in Wikipedia’s vision. Remember, the only theme is “joy”—the rest is totally down to you!

For librarians

Wikipedia’s birthday can be an excellent opportunity to explore media literacy with students. Preparing presentations on evaluating articles and sources is an excellent way to raise questions about neutral point of view and what makes a reliable source. Emphasize how great Wikipedia can be for locating good references, and encourage them to contribute content to Wikipedia. An event focused on Wikipedia can also be a great opportunity to recruit faculty to teach with Wikipedia.

Finding a venue

Match the size of your venue to event needs. If you are having an edit-a-thon, you'll need internet access power options and more. Consider requesting public spaces for your events such as libraries, school spaces, or public gathering points. Galleries and museums may also be good venues.

Promoting your event

Start by listing your event on Wikipedia 15 Events.
Then consider sharing event details on your community mailing lists.
Invite attendees to bring friends, colleagues, and family members along.
Announce the event on social media channels, using the hashtag #Wikipedia15 to help others find it.

Using or creating visual materials

There are now dozens of icons you can use in digital and physical materials like booklets, stickers, t-shirts, banners, buttons, tote bags, and event pages. These can be found on Wikimedia Commons in the category “Wikipedia15 Mark”. Think something important to your country, culture, or community is missing? Here are the instructions for how to create your own!

You can use this in any graphics editing program, including Inkscape, which is free and open source. You can add multiple images and make an animated GIF!

The words “Wikipedia 15” can be replaced with any localized example in any language. The typeface we used is OpenSans, free from Google Fonts and freely licensed under version 2.0 of the Apache License.

T-shirts, buttons, tote bags…

You, your chapter or your user group can design and print t-shirts for the occasion as well, either using the existing images (marks) or by creating your own.

How to talk about Wikipedia at 15

We have a collection of fifteen facts about Wikipedia to celebrate fifteen years of free knowledge. Feel free to add to this list here!

Data visualisations

At your event, you can choose to display data visualisations as an interactive backdrop on projectors, televisions, or computer screens. They're a great way to showcase Wikipedia's data in interesting ways.

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