Backstage pass

What is it?

The Backstage Pass tour will be an ongoing series of events aimed at sharing the expertise of real-world institutions with our wiki-expertise. Principally this involves an organisation or interest group hosting a private tour for the benefit of local WikimediaAustralia members and in reciprocation we help improve the content on Wikipedia/Commons that is relevant to that organisation.

When/where is it?

March 13th, 2009, commencing 10am. Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo. map

Advantages for the institution and for Wikimedia Australia
Advantages for the Institution Outreach to a local interest group Access to expertise on a significant feeder-website to their institution Improved wider-community awareness of themselves through improved WP content Potential recruiting of new people to their volunteer projects Increased clickthroughs to their website & integration of their content	Advantages for Wikimedia Australia Improved Australian content on Wikipedia/Commons Justify the cost of Chapter membership Personal learning/interest Access to normally restricted places Showing 'human face' of Wikipedia

The Pilot: Powerhouse Museum

Work in progress from the day is here

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney has been kind enough to get involved for the pilot edition of this project. They are keen to integrate their collection with communities, online and in real life and therefore we are a good way to do that. Their largest number of non-search engine hits to their website come from Wikimedia Projects.

Date: Second Friday of March - the 13th. Starting @ 10am. BYO Laptop

What (Powerhouse): A private tour of the public and storage areas of the museum and other areas as requested (such as the gantries across the roof). They will then give us access to a wifi enabled meeting room where we can work on-wiki after the tour.

They will be providing -

• Up to 5 Curators (effectively giving us an expert for every area of the museum)
• Their photographer (to take photos at our request)
• A registrar (to open the cabinets and handle items)

What (us): Between 10 and 20 Wikimedians. Paid-members of Wikimedia Australia will be given preference, otherwise it is first come, first served.

We would help improve 4 types of content:

• Articles about specific artifacts in the museum collection - this is their first priority
• The museum's article - this is their second priority
• Using photographs/information about powerhouse objects to improve other more generic topics
• Suggesting text that Powerhouse owns that could be incorporated into Wikipedia if it had appropriate copyright licensing.

One More Thing: Sometime later on they will provide a mini-bus to take us to their public storage facility in Castle Hill. Normally 2 of 6 halls are accessible one day a month. We would be able to access all of them. This is where the "large objects" are stored. More on this later...

Sign Up :-)

If you are a member of Wikimedia Australia, and therefore have editing rights here, you can add your own name.

If you are not please contact me and I will add it for you. If you're not a WM-AU member then email me at liam.wyattwikimedia.org.au.

Remember - places are limited. Witty lama

1. Witty lama
2. ta.bu.shi.da.yu
3. PeterJeremy
4. Andrewa
5. Anonymous Dissident
6. John Dalton
7. Alastair Haines
8. Werdna
9. Nick Jenkins

Interested:

1. Ariconte

Outcomes

Powerhouse Museum blog posts:

• Working with Wikipedia - Backstage Pass at the Powerhouse Museum
• Powerhouse collection documentation goes Creative Commons