Project:Calendar/How to schedule an event

Here are instructions and general best practices for organizing successful community meetings and events.

General Event Suggestions
For events of all types, here are a few suggestions to help schedule a successful event.

1. Pick a topic

This can be difficult to figure out, especially around technical topics. "Is this interesting to others?" can be difficult to discern. If you would like some help in getting feedback on an idea, please contact Community Relations. We can help provide a friendly and informal alternative perspective on your topic.

2. Promote outside the normal channels

Event hosts are always encouraged to promote their event with the traditional wiki methods, but don't just leave it at that. Many people use tools outside of talk pages and IRC to discover and learn. Look to external channels, such as local meet-ups, social media, and related events, to encourage participation.

3. Follow up after the event

Following through after an event can be just as important as proper preparation. After the event, be sure your videos are uploaded and slides are available. If you're using the MediaWiki YouTube channel Chris Koerner can help trimming any unwanted footage (like setup) from the beginning or end. If your video contains multiple topics, think about adding timestamps in the description or even consider breaking up the video into separate, section-specific videos.

Once published, videos can enhance documentation. Add links on wiki pages, such as in “See Also” where relevant. When adding video to YouTube, and especially Commons, be sure to categorize the video appropriate for easier discovery.

After the event

 * 1) Upload any free materials used in presentations to Wikimedia Commons. Categorize them properly under e.g. Category:Wikimedia_presentations.
 * 2) Follow through on any action items or off-line discussions that were brought up during your event.
 * 3) Thank those who attended your event. This can be with a note on their talk page, a barnstar, or a private message.
 * 4) Remind people who attended of the next meeting (if reoccurring) or of other related events in the near future.
 * 5) Ask participants for feedback or suggestions. This can help make future events more successful.

Promotion
Once the event is prepared and scheduled, community outreach and promotion are important for success. Event hosts are encouraged to consider all of the possible venues described below.

For one-time events, promotion is important for a well-attended event. Hosts have one chance to promote the event before it happens. For reoccurring events, it's also important to continuously promote and remind people to attend. People get busy and can easily forget a frequent event.

It is recommended that hosts consider promotion not at as a one-time event, but something that is continuous. Letting potential audiences know of your event, and reminding them as the event approaches will lead to better attendance.


 * Rachel Farrand and Chris Koerner can distribute the announcement through Tech News. Send them your short text, URLs, and optional free image.
 * If you would like your event publicized on MediaWiki social media channels, contact Rachel Farrand and Chris Koerner. Send them your short text, URLs, and optional free image.
 * Twitter
 * Facebook
 * Wikimedia Foundation staff can also create an invitation in the Wikimedia Foundation Engineering calendar (visible to employees only) and send an invitation to internal mailing lists which WMF engineers subscribe to.
 * Rachel Farrand generally sends an announcement to wikitech-l mailing list, otherwise the speaker is in charge of sending announcements on wiki pages, mailing lists, and other channels of your choice.
 * If regular editors are a target audience, you should send a notice to wikitech-ambassadors, in addition to other lists.
 * After the event or meeting, consider writing a post for the Wikimedia blog.

Specific events
There are many larger events scheduled throughout the year. Be sure to add new events to the existing list.

RFC discussions

 * Follow Requests for comment
 * The Architecture committee determines the agenda for an IRC office hour for RFC discussion.
 * An Architecture committee member sends announcement to wikitech-l/development mailing lists.
 * Reserve the IRC channel during meeting time, see IRC office hours.
 * People use Meetbot during the discussion on IRC to organize the RFC discussion.
 * After the IRC discussion add a link to Meetbot's summary (example) in the RFC's Phabricator task, and optionally the RFC's page on mediawiki.org (in the RFC  parameter).

Technical Talks
See Wikimedia Technical Talks

Meet-Ups

 * Past meet ups and future proposals
 * Add meet-ups to WMF internal calendar

WMF has a small physical event space at its current offices. We are often willing to hold meetups of up to 50 people, as long as the content in relevant to our work.

Official San Francisco meetup Group: http://www.meetup.com/wikimedia-tech/

Hackathons
Find a comprehensive documentation for organizers on the page Hackathons and its sub-pages, including an improved timeline and handbook for organizers.

Further Resources
Meetings of Wikimedians: See e.g. en:Wikipedia:Meetup and de:Wikipedia:Treffen_der_Wikipedianer.