WikiConference North America, formerly WikiConference USA, is an annual conference organized by the

Wikipedia community The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an '' Oxford Diction ...

in North America. The first two events were held at

New York Law School New York Law School (NYLS) is a private law school in Tribeca, New York City. NYLS has a full-time day program and a part-time evening program. NYLS's faculty includes 54 full-time and 59 adjunct professors. Notable faculty members include E ...

and Washington, D.C.'s

National Archives Building The National Archives Building, known informally as Archives I, is the headquarters of the United States National Archives and Records Administration. It is located north of the National Mall at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Washington, ...

in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The third annual conference, rebranded WikiConference North America, was held at

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

's Central Public Library in 2016, with a pre-conference day at Balboa Park. WikiConference North America 2017 was held in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

in 2017, as a pre-conference to

Wikimania Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, f ...

. The 2018 and 2019 events were held in Columbus, Ohio and

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

, respectively.

Description

The annual conference is organized by and for

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

editors, enthusiasts, and volunteers. Staff from the Wiki Education Foundation, which co-sponsored the 2015 event,Wiki Education Foundation, 2015: * * and the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...

also attend each year. The conference has been held in New York City; Washington, D.C.; San Diego; Montreal; Columbus, Ohio; and Cambridge, Massachusetts. The 2020 and 2021 events were held virtually because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

History

WikiConference USA (2014–2015)

The inaugural WikiConference USA was held during May 30 – June 1, 2014 at

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stree ...

campus in Lower Manhattan. Established as a national event for the American

, the conference was "devoted to topics concerning the

Wikimedia movement According to the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects. This community directly builds and administers the projects. It is committed to using open standards and software. ...

in the United States, as well as related topics of

free culture The free-culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify the creative works of others in the form of free content or Free content, open content without compensation to, or the consent of, the work's origin ...

and

digital rights Digital rights are those human rights and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, and telecommunications networks. The concept is particula ...

". It was hosted by Wikimedia Foundation affiliates for the District of Columbia and New York City, with grant funding provided by the foundation and additional support from '' Consumer Reports'', the Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School, and the City University of New York. The program featured two days of keynotes, panels, presentations, and workshops about the state of Wikipedia, addressing issues such as diversity,

gender bias Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...

, and the socialization of new editors, as well as a one-day

unconference An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term "unconference" has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid hierarchical aspects of a conventional conference, such as sponsored presentations and t ...

. Approximately 250 people attended. According to ''O'Dwyer's'' magazine, sessions about

conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia Conflict-of-interest (COI) editing on Wikipedia occurs when editors use Wikipedia to advance the interests of their external roles or relationships. The type of COI editing of most concern on Wikipedia is paid editing for public relations (PR) p ...

were "front and center". WikiConference USA 2015 Group Photo 51

The second WikiConference USA was held at the

in Washington, D.C., during October 9–11, 2015. The conference was co-sponsored by the

National Archives and Records Administration The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It ...

(NARA), which was a sponsor of

when the event was held in Washington, D.C. in 2012, and the Wiki Education Foundation; Wikimedia Foundation affiliates for the District of Columbia and New York City were also WikiConference partners. Activities included panels, presentations, speeches, and workshops related to Wikipedia's community, collaborations with cultural institutions, role in education, and technology development. Attendees also had access to the National Archives Museum and the Innovation Hub, where records are digitized. The conference featured presentations by Pamela Wright, NARA's chief innovation officer;

Andrew Lih Andrew Lih (; born 1968)Andrew Lih
"

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the C ...

;

David Ferriero David Sean Ferriero (; born December 31, 1945) is an American librarian and library administrator, who served as the 10th Archivist of the United States. He previously served as the Director of the New York Public Library,Oder, Norman. "NYPL Reor ...

, Archivist of the United States; Alice Backer of the organization AfroCrowd, which seeks to improve coverage of Africans and African Americans in Wikipedia and other projects; and

Danielle Citron Danielle Keats Citron is a Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, where she teaches information privacy, free expression, and civil rights law. Citron is the author of "Th ...

, a law professor at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

who spoke about hate crimes in cyberspace. Diversity was a central theme throughout the conference, which inspired NARA to host a Wikimedia Diversity Conference in June 2016.

WikiConference North America (2016–present)

Kevin Gorman memorial edit-a-thon at Wikiconference North America 2016

WikiCon North America 2017 - preparing for Culture Crawl

WikiConference North America 2018 - Friday Group Photo

The third annual event, called WikiConference North America, was held in

's Central Library during October 7–10, 2016. The conference's scope was increased to include Wikimedians in Canada and Mexico, and the event featured a series of edit-a-thons. Alex Madva, an assistant professor at

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona, CPP, or Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo. See the ''California State Polytechnic University, Pomo ...

and contributor to the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

's blog, coordinated one on October 8 to improve articles about philosophy and philosophers. The

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

sponsored another to improve coverage of chemistry and notable chemists. Mike Connolly Miskwish of the

Campo Indian Reservation The Campo Indian Reservation is home to the Campo Band of Diegueño Mission Indians, also known as the Campo Kumeyaay Nation, a federally recognized tribe of Kumeyaay people in the southern Laguna Mountains, in eastern San Diego County, Califor ...

, who also serves as an adjunct faculty member of Native American studies at

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) system ...

, facilitated an edit-a-thon in conjunction with

Indigenous Peoples' Day Indigenous Peoples' Day is a holiday in the United States that celebrates and honors indigenous American peoples and commemorates their histories and cultures. It is celebrated across the United States on the second Monday in October, and is an ...

to improve Wikipedia articles about

indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

Katherine Maher Katherine Roberts Maher (; born April 18, 1983) is a former chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Maher worked for UNICEF, the National Democratic Institu ...

, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, facilitated a Wikimedia movement strategy session, and Kelly Doyle, who was hired by

West Virginia University Libraries The West Virginia University Libraries at West Virginia University consist of seven individual libraries located on various WVU campuses. The Downtown Campus library is on the WVU Downtown Campus. The Evansdale Library is located on the WVU's Evansd ...

as the first

Wikipedian in residence A Wikipedian in residence or Wikimedian in residence (WiR) is a Wikipedia editor, a Wikipedian (or Wikimedian), who accepts a placement with an institution, typically an art gallery, library, archive, museum, cultural institution, learned so ...

for focusing on

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

, also presented at the conference. On the day preceding the conference, a "Wiki Culture Crawl" was organized at Balboa Park, allowing editors to visit affiliated museums free of charge for the purpose of improving Wikipedia articles related to local GLAMs and other cultural institutions. ''Convene'', a monthly journal published by the Professional Convention Management Association, said the 2016 event was "organized just the way you might expect that contributors to the world’s largest online encyclopedia would approach the task: using the '

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

' collaborative approach." The journal's Barbara Palmer also noted that Sydney Poore, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, and other organizers all lived outside California. On the conference's final day, attendees created the "WikiConference North America User Group" to document

best practice A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing ...

s for organizing Wikimedia events. The 2017 event was held at

Le Centre Sheraton Hotel Le Centre Sheraton Hotel is a skyscraper hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1201 René Lévesque Boulevard West in downtown Montreal, between Stanley Street and Drummond Street. Le Centre Sheraton has 825 rooms and stands tal ...

during August 9–10, as a pre-conference to

, the official annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation. The 2018 conference was held in Columbus, Ohio, October 18–21, at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

's Thompson Memorial Library and other campus locations. The 2019 event was held at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, mainly in the

Ray and Maria Stata Center The Ray and Maria Stata Center or Building 32 is a 430,000-square-foot (40,000 m2) academic complex designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The building opened for initia ...

, during November 8–11. The 2020 conference took place virtually during December 11–13 because of the

. The 2021 event was also held virtually during October 8–10 and included a Wiknic in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

References

External links