We’ve been graciously invited to participate in the 2008 Maker Faire here in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 3/4 of this year. In case you don’t know, Maker Faire (now in its third year) is a two-day, do-it-yourself, craft/technology extravaganza here on the US west coast. Last year the event attracted audiences of 40,000 – a great chance to spread the word and recruit more WMF project contributors.

For the Wikimedia Foundation this will be our first-ever, official appearance at a major public event (we recognize most chapters and active volunteers have been at it for a while :) ).

Some gracious bay-area volunteers have offered to help, but we’re always looking for more! Let us know (via email below) if you’re interested. We have comp tickets too!

But here’s the real push: we want to profile the very best works of the Wikimedia projects from around the world on some big screens – and we need your help. Add your suggestions to this page, make a comment, or drop us a line and let us know what you think are the very best or as-yet-unseen projects, pages, or articles – whether it’s a project you work on, or one you think deserves exposure. We’ll incorporate them into a rotating presentation and get the word out to thousands of people on the ground. We’ll rotate this call and keep the list active for future presentations as well.

This is one of many public events to come! As chapters grow and the word gets out we hope to have an even bigger on the ground presence.

Thanks!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications
jwalsh@wikimedia.org

Public domain, from the USGS and NASA en:Landsat 7 program. Image shows San Francisco, California. Original found here courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Wikimedia Foundation has a blog! This is the first of many posts and many years, so there’s no better time to talk about what this initiative is all about.

The staff of the Foundation have a lot to say to a lot of people. So who are you? We expect you are: active users and editors of the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, curious members of the media, other bloggers, our moms (hey Mom!), our neighbors, and our friends. In short, a lot of people who understand and support our mission: free knowledge!

The blog is a chance for us to engage in a less formal discussion, and to bring up the sorts of topics that may not fit in a press release, or are too interesting or timely to wait to tell you in person. We get lots of great news from other friends in the free knowledge world, and we want to share their good news as well as ours.

We also want to use this as a space to ask questions of the Wikimedia community, that includes those of you who may just be readers of the projects and those who contribute or edit actively. Comments are enabled (we’re still working out the kinks) so expect your voice to be heard. We know you’ll be nice and treat others well :)

We will also bring in guest contributors, and share news and views from our board members and prominent members of the community. Hopefully you will get a chance to understand how things work inside our offices in San Francisco and among our little staff family planted on both sides of the planet

So sign up, leave a comment, subscribe to our feeds and keep checking in.

Thanks!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications