Wikipedia:GLAM/British Library/IDP/Report: Difference between revisions
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During the week-long event, around fifty articles were improved, of which 35 were newly created or significantly expanded. Around a hundred images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, which are now used in sixty-four different articles across ten languages.
== Preparation ==
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The details were settled in July, and a number of Wikipedia projects were notified about this (eg/ those dealing with Central Asia, China, archaeology, etc., as well as the UK mailing list.) Around this time, the IDP group reached out to a number of academic contacts to find those interested in bringing in students, as well as to investigate the possibility of overseas involvement.
By mid-September, we had some academic partners identified, and were working on arranging the logistics for the event, specifically ensuring sufficient wireless internet capacity in the room. A second round of advertising to Wikipedia contributors, including geographically targeted notices, went out during this period, and a workshop was held to ensure IDP staff were familiar with the practical aspects of editing Wikipedia.
The main work during late September and early October was to prepare the list of topics for editing. These were heavily focused on [[Wikipedia:GLAM/BL/IDP/People|individual archaeologists\researchers]] and [[Wikipedia:GLAM/BL/IDP/Places|specific sites]; where possible we extracted supporting data such as coordinates or contextual information. As the plan had originally been for significant international participation, some lists (such as that of people) were crossreferenced to non-English Wikipedias, specificially those in the core IDP languages (French, German, Chinese, etc.) This threw up a number of individuals covered in non-English languages only. The IDP imaging team also began to select suitable material for publication, and to check the metadata.
During October, the subject lists were finalised and a last call went out for volunteers from Wikipedia. The three student groups were contacted and a plan was organised; the two London groups would come to the BL for a practical workshop, while the group in Birmingham would have a session on-site arranged by [[User:Pigsonthewing|Andy Mabbett]].
== Outline of the event ==
The week began with a workshop on Monday 22nd at the University of Birmingham, where a group of students contributed material about [[Buddhism in Khotan|Buddhist sites in Khotan]], including [[Endere]], [[Balawaste]] and [[Farhad-beg-yailaki]].
On Tuesday 23rd, two Wikipedia contributors attended, and we began work on identifying and organising the various sites, pulling together the [[List of archaeological sites of the Taklamakan and Lop Desert]] in order to help identify existing coverage. One repeated problem was found to be the ambiguity over the scope of articles in this area - often a site would be bundled in with a nearby city or county of the same name.
On Wednesday 24th, three Wikipedia contributors attended, and in the afternoon a student group of around 15-20 MA students from the Silk Road course at [[SOAS]]. After an introductory talk, the students split into groups to work on topics they had selected from our overall worklists; some focused on factchecking, while others expanded specific articles with help from Wikipedians. Articles from this day included [[Rudolf Hoernlé]] (produced by a Wikipedia volunteer) and [[Mazar Tagh]] (from an IDP staffer)
Plans are now underway for a second workshop at Birmingham early in 2013, and a session at the Dunhuang Project workshop in Nottingham in March.▼
On Thursday 25th, a student group from [[UCL]] visited in the morning, and stayed for around four hours. After a short seminar, the students produced several new articles, such as [[Domoko]], and reworked others, such as [[Cities along the Silk Road]]. The group also wrote articles in [[:tw:Merw|Turkmen]] and [[:zh:黄文弼|Chinese]] as well as English.
Friday 26th, the final day of the workshop, was quieter. A large number of site images (both from recent expeditions and from the Stein publications) were uploaded, sorted, and added to articles, and staff and Wikipedia volunteers worked on completing some of the articles begun earlier in the week.
== Lessons learned ==
== Outcomes ==
In order to handle a large number of IDP images efficiently, and build infrastructure for future projects, we developed an upload script which would extract metadata from a spreadsheet, pair it with an image file, and send the result to Wikimedia Commons. The first development work began on Wednesday, resulting in the upload of some test images that afternoon, and the first "live" IDP material on the 25th. Around half the desired material was uploaded on 26th, with the remainder following early in November; the software remains functional, and is expected to be used for a later bulk upload of BL-sourced material.
▲Plans are now underway for a second workshop at Birmingham early in 2013, and a session at the Dunhuang Project workshop in Nottingham in March.
Below is a representative list of articles edited, including most of the major contributions:
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