User:Econterms/Levant-English meeting

At Wikimania we to meet to plan an event coordinated between the Washington DC chapter and the Wikimedians of the Levant.

Possible topics

• chemistry (كيمياء)
• nanotech (تقنية_النانو)
• women (نساء)
• images (صور) (Commons)

Participating groups

• Washington DC chapter
• m:Wikimedians of the Levant
• It is helpful for Wikimedia DC if we can name an outside organizational partner. A possible one in DC is the w:en:National Democratic Institute
• WikiWomen
• Possible partner org: National Democratic Institute (الديمقراطي الوطني للشؤون الدولية) - Peter and Rosie have been in contact with them; they have a giant DC office and also an Amman office near the "fourth circle". Related links: [1]; [2]; [3]; [4]. Peter likes the idea of having events at their locations; we may be able then to have easy video, wifi etc. Topics for such editathons or other events would need to relate to democracy, and civil society. We'll want to get to-do lists together.
• Are some of the Wikimedians of Jordan user group active?

Background

• https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/12/01/mervat-salman/
• Success at NDI a few weeks ago: Mind the Gap: Highlighting Women's Representation on Wikipedia. DemocracyWorks. June 8, 2017

Comments

I have added women and images to the list. This would provide some tasks of varying complexity to encourage participation by non-specialists.

• There are quite a number of notable women from the Arabic-speaking world who are currently red links. I did a quick check on the WikiWomen project and there are more possibilities for sources there, but it looks to me like these articles aren't getting created because it is difficult to find sources in English to meet the English Wikipedia's notability requirements, and many people do not have the language skills to find non-English sources.
• Would like to specifically include Commons in this. Maybe start uploading some useful images or adding Arabic or other language translations to the descriptions. This could probably be done with google translate and double-checked by a native speaker.

I have also added WikiWomen, as they seem very open to collaboration, but AFAIK, we don't need to partner with anyone. The main reason for partnering seems to be to channel disbursements, but there may be other, or faster alternatives.

I would also like to give some thought to mission. While our initial objective will be to have some fun and edit some articles, and at the same time meet some interesting Wikimedians, eventually we should think about impact and priorities, beyond the usual metrics. Many people don't realize that Jordan is currently very involved in the current refugee crisis, so this may be an opportunity to learn more about that, or perhaps to have some other impact on education or maternal health. See "US$50 million to Support Health Services to Poor Jordanians and Syrian Refugees" or in Arabic: "خمسون مليون دولار لدعم الخدمات الصحية للأردنيين الفقراء واللاجئين السوريين". There is also an article here about the use of tablets for educating refugee children[5], although this applies more to Africa. Avery D Jensen (talk) 00:09, 21 June 2017 (UTC)