User:Lankiveil/May Wrap-Up

May 2012 was a busy month for Wikimedia Australia!

Regional Workshops: Hervey Bay and Gympie

In May, User:Lankiveil and User:Shiftchange took off on the latest chapter of Wikimedia Australia’s regional workshops programme, this time visiting Hervey Bay and Gympie. The regional workshops programme is an effort to bring Wikimedia projects “to the bush”, giving people living in regional areas access to training and support getting started with Wikimedia projects, and at the same time expanding the coverage of regional Australia on those projects. They were accompanied by Ruth Gardiner and Michelle Swales from the State Library of Queensland, who are the chapter’s much valued Queensland partner in the regional workshops programme.

First up on 23 May was Hervey Bay, a seaside city of 76,000 people about four hours drive north of Brisbane. Joining us for the session were Hervey Bay locals, as well as interested members of the public from the nearby smaller city of Maryborough (pop 22,000). The session itself was held at the University of Southern Queensland campus, and was organised by representatives of the Fraser Coast Regional Council.

The following day, after a frantic drive southwards in order for User:Lankiveil to catch the first game of the 2012 State of Origin series, was the Gympie workshop. Gympie is a town of around 11,000 people situated on the Mary river, that boasts some of the richest history of any town in Queensland. Also attending our session in the council-owned Old Bank Building in the historic heart of Gympie were locals from the nearby towns of Curra and Kilkivan.

Attendees learned the basics of Wikipedia article creation, drafting their first articles in user space, learning the intricacies of markup and referencing, and interacting with the Wikimedia community. They also participated in a session on Wikimedia Commons, uploading free images of local landmarks and features. A number of the articles created have since found their way into the mainspace, including:

A special thanks must go to all the members of the community who edited and polished these articles, including (in no particular order), User:Mattinbgn, User:99of9, User:John Vandenberg, User:Saberwyn, User:Markhurd and User:Melburnian.

HOPAU

Workshop in Brisbane

Briefly

Melbourne Meetup
Brisbane Meetup