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Wikipedia's 15th Birthday Celebration

Registration is now closed, but please join us via streaming video.
DateJanuary 16, 2016 (2016-01-16)
TimeNoon to 5:30pm
VenueWikimedia Foundation collaboration space
Location 149 New Montgomery St., San Francisco, and online via live stream
Twitter @Wikipedia_15
Hashtag #Wikipedia15

The Wikipedia 15th Birthday Bash / San Francisco is a celebration of Wikipedia's 15th birthday on Saturday, January 16, 2016. (For events in other locations, see here: meta:Wikipedia 15)

The event is free to all, and free of charge. We'll have time for informal conversation and celebration at the beginning and end, with several presentations in between. Please consider signing up to do a Lightning Talk between 1:00 and 2:00pm.

Registration is now closed, but please join us via streaming video. For those who have already registered, please bring a photo ID due to building security policies.

Schedule (tentative)

See also: meta:Wikipedia 15/Events/West Coast.

Lunch & introductions

Doors open at noon. Bring your own lunch (or perhaps we will find a sponsor -- watch for an announcement).

12:45pm: Introductions (facilitator: Rosiestep)

Lightning talks starting at 1 PM sharp (Pacific time)

Video link

Please propose a 3-5 minute lightning talk related to Wikipedia (or free culture) that you wish to personally present. You are welcome to share your story about a favorite Wikipedia contribution or anything else that is relevant to our work. We will decide the final schedule of lightning talks shortly before the event.



  • Lightning talk: "The Wikimedia Movement: An Overview" -- GVarnum-WMF ( talk) 18:08, 13 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  • Lighting talk: "using Wikipedia to look up legal issues and court cases." Jrogers (WMF) ( talk) 01:56, 13 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  • Lightning talk: "Why my favorite contributions to Wikipedia are bots" -- Staeiou (talk) 23:23, 13 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  • Lightning talk, subject yet to be determined, by Lila. Informed via Lisa Martinez that this is happening. -- Pine 01:02, 14 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  • Lightning talk: "Long-term contingency planning for the community" -- Pine in Seattle
  • Lightning talk, topic to be determined, by Jmabel. -- Pine 07:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC) reply
    • Mine will probably be more related to Commons than Wikipedia, assuming that is acceptable. - Jmabel | Talk 00:42, 15 January 2016 (UTC) reply
Rosiestep presenting at Wikimania 2015

Wikipedia's content gender gap: -- 2:05 PM to 2:45 PM

Video link

Rosiestep, with @ Keilana and FloNight via Google Hangouts - "Content Gender Gap" - overview of WikiWomen's User Group, Women in Red, WikiProject Women scientists, WikiProject Women's health, Wikipedian in Residence @ West Virginia University, and how to apply for grants which address content gender gap.

Stories from the weird old days: -- 3:00 PM to 3:35 PM

Video link

Dreamyshade: Stories from the weird old days (2001-2003ish), when the chaotic experiment of an amateur encyclopedia had a lot less structure - in collaboration with anyone else who would like to tell stories from the beginning.

Summary: as Wikipedians, we need to learn more about the early experiences of editors - to see Wikipedia as part of history, with its own cultural context and its own stories, instead of somehow outside of history as the sum of human knowledge. 15 years is enough time to start forgetting the beginning; we need to get much better at collecting and telling our history as editors. Slides with speaking notes. Links discussed, for easy clicking: History of Wikipedia, The Wikipedia Revolution, nostalgia.wikipedia.org (browsable copy of Wikipedia from December 2001), Everything2, h2g2, mailing list discussion of the gender gap in January 2002, Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians in order of arrival/2001.

A recent panel discussion with journalists, moderated by Pete Forsyth

Panel: The impact of 15 years of Wikipedia -- 3:40 PM to 4:30 PM

Live Stream link

Pete Forsyth (moderator): Panel discussion on the significance of 15 years of Wikipedia, and the coming 15 years.
Panelists include: social justice activist Uncle Bobby, journalist Catherine Cheney, open education expert Cathy Casserly, and collaboration expert Eugene Eric Kim.

Videos: j.MP/15FOR15

Party time, birthday cake

4:30PM to 5:30PM

Sign up

Registration is now closed

... but please join us via: streaming video

In addition and optionally, you may wish to add your name below; if you'd like to participate in planning or volunteer to help out at the event, let us know on this event's talk page.

Interested Wikipedians (formal registration is required too!)

  1. Rosiestep ( talk)
  2. Rosatrieu ( talk)
  3. ZTebaykina ( talk)
  4. Ozhu ( talk)
  5. Checkingfax ( talk)
  6. jm3 ( talk)
  7. Pete Forsyth
  8. ParkerHiggins ( talk)
  9. -- Jasper Deng ( talk) 19:48, 19 December 2015 (UTC) reply
  10. Stephen ( talk) 23:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC) reply
  11. Dreamyshade ( talk)
  12. Legoktm ( talk) 00:48, 23 December 2015 (UTC) reply
  13. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:27, 26 December 2015 (UTC) reply
  14. Wataimi ( talk) 07:37, 27 December 2015 (UTC) reply
  15. マイキ ( talk) 23:29, 31 December 2015 (UTC) reply
  16. Tvol ( talk) 17:22, 3 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  17. Eekim ( talk) 07:30, 4 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  18. Rybkovich ( talk) 17:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  19. Julia\ talk
  20. ɱ (talk · vbm · coi) 22:48, 4 January 2016 (UTC) looking forward to this! If anyone's coming from Napa County, transport would be most welcome! reply
  21. Thewellman ( talk) 20:13, 5 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  22. pdeverak ( talk)
  23. LaMona ( talk)
  24. DarTar ( talk)
  25. MikeKuang( talk) 20:17, 9 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  26. econterms ( talk) 20:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC) visiting from Wikimedia DC reply
  27. ChesPal ( talk) 22:38, 10 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  28. guillom 21:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  29.  —  SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  18:17, 12 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  30. Merrilee ( talk) 18:16, 13 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  31. Staeiou (talk)
  32. Funcrunch ( talk) 18:55, 14 January 2016 (UTC) reply
  33. Mitar ( talk)
  34. EugeneZelenko ( talk) 21:41, 15 January 2016 (UTC) reply