Tag Archives: Wikimania

My final three days in Washington DC

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[This post is rather overdue. Apologies to those of you who’ve been waiting for it.]

Saturday

Saturday at Wikimania started with an interesting plenary by Wikimedia Foundation Chief executive Sue Gardner, whom I’d had the pleasure of meeting, when I produced and engineered the live-streaming of a Wikimedia-UK board meeting, from the British Library in November 2011.

I spent the rest of the morning in more of Wikimania’s GLAM sessions, hearing about ‘s pioneering work at the Archives of American Art and ‘s commendable engagement with the scientific community.

After lunch, it was my turn to face the spotlights I gave a presentation on the development of, and my work with, , as part of a workshop I led with Lori Byrd Phillips and John Cummings, who have deployed QRpedia respectively at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and as part of . After they had both spoken, we led the participants in hands-on exercise to create QRpedia QR codes, which they will hopefully in their home towns around the world. One participant tweeted:

We then had a mad dash to the theatre next door, to hear the closing plenary, by the Official Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero (I’d met him at the launch event and found him both approachable and witty. He wouldn’t let us have back their copy of , though). His speech was both complementary to Wikipedians and very inspiring; I do recommend you watch this video of it:

Then, we all piled outside for a group photo. See if you can find me!

A crowd of over 100 people

Image by Adam Novak, CC-By-SA

A spare couple of hours gave time to return to the hostel, which I did by taking a meandering walk, freshen up, a then take another long walk, trough a part of town new to me, past many embassies, to Dupont Circle, for the closing party, with more plentiful free food and beer. The former was delicious, the latter as mediocre as I was sadly coming to expect. Yet another long walk got me to my bed.

Sunday

Though that formally ended the conference, the next day was given over to an unconference. I attended a useful session on browser tools to assist power-editing, then led a session on “Templates (Infoboxes): rationalisation and metadata emission” (trust me, that will mean something to technically-minded Wikipedia editors). This was one of the Wikimania’s highlights for me; not because I led it, but because the attendees gave me answers to some issues that had been vexing me for some time, and have continued since to work collaboratively with me, on-line, to resolve them. I also got to meet “” , who some years earlier had helped me immensely, by doing the coding of an idea I’d had, which became the template (“{{Coord}}“) now used over a quarter of a million times on the English Wikipedia (and many more in other languages) to display coordinates and emit them as metadata (a ‘geo’ microformat). These are used by partner organisations, like Google (for the Wikipedia layer on their maps) and by Yahoo. And I hadn’t even realised Quarl was at Wikimania!

The flip side, though was that the unconference was poorly attended, and petered out, so after lunch, I sloped off and decided to visit some of the museums I’d thought I would have to miss out on. I first called at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History, specifically to see their three steam locomotives, the earliest of which, the John Bull, was made in England in 1831. They also had a Washington streetcar and a vehicle from the Chicago “L” overhead railway, plus several road vehicles. I then went over to the National Archives, where I saw not only the aforesaid copy of Magna Carta, but also the three “stars” of their exhibition, the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

My next call was the Old Post Office, whose tower is available to visit, giving splendid views over all of Washington, and Ronald Reagan Airport in neighbouring Virginia. It also allowed me to see a horrible storm brewing over Arlington Cemetery, so when I left I headed straight for my hostel, and made it just before a downpour started.

Once the rain had passed, I had a last couple of beers in another local bar, part of the Capitol City Brewing Company group, whose beer is brewed locally. I tried the “Amber Waves” and “Pale Rider” ales, which were good by local standards.

Monday

I was not sure what to do with my last day in Washington, but luckily was persuaded to visit the ‘other’ Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport. With John Cummings, I took a long bus ride to the airport, then he and I and some other Wikipedians shared a short taxi ride to the Museum. Wow. I got to stand next to the Space Shuttle ‘Discovery’ (admittedly, I’d seen it before, but only as a point of light, transiting in orbit from over Ireland to over Germany, viewed from my front garden!), a French Concorde, a Blackbird spy plane and, some unique German oddities from the last weeks of WWII, and, chillingly , the single vehicle that has killed more people than any other in our planet’s history.

We then had to take a shuttle bus to the airport, a bus back to Washington, pick up our bags from the hostel (the museum’s own publicity material said we couldn’t take luggage to the museum with us; annoyingly that turned out to be untrue, but caused us to waste over two hours), then take another bus back to the airport.

The flight home took off at dusk, and from my window seat I saw New York, Long Island and Cape Cod, all lit up. I then slept like a log until we were over Ireland. My trip home was really smooth. The Heathrow Express train to London, my tube train, my train home from Marylebone, and my bus from central Birmingham to my house were each waiting for me as I arrived and departed a soon as I boarded. It was like clockwork. The next day I slept late, but had no jetlag.

Conclusion

I confess I made my first trip to the USA expecting not to like it; for it to be too brash and aggressive. I was wrong. I loved it, and I’d go back tomorrow. The people were fantastic, and I barely scratched the surface of the cultural and historic interest Washington has to offer, let alone the rest of that vast country.

Wikimania was fascinating. I met so many people I’d corresponded or worked with online or who were new to me, and I continue to chat electronically with many of them. I’m buzzing with ideas for things we can do on, and with, Wikipedia.

But most of all, I remember a Wikipedia editor who asked for a volunteer to push his wheelchair round the Capitol tour. He was from Israel, and the guy pushing his chair, with whom he was sharing a lot of laughter, was from Iran. Enough said.

Day 10 (Friday) in Washington DC

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The weather cooled somewhat. I arrived at George Washington University by Circulator bus, then spent the morning in two GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) sessions, listening to presentations on a collaboration with the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and a panel with various national GLAM project coordinators. I also met the editor who put up the first QRpedia code in Australia.

For a change from GLAM, the post-lunch session I chose to attend was about anther area of interest if mine, mobile access to Wikipedia, where I learned that Wikipedia’a Android app is already fully translated in Welsh, and the mobile website just a handful of phrases away from being so. My Welsh-speaking colleagues back home have already agreed to my suggestion that they close that gap. That will be important for our Geovation bid and other projects using the Welsh language.

My final conference session of the day was about mapping, including OpenStreetMap. Earlier, I’d added some features of the Congressional Cemetery (including the “restroom”!) to that project, and a mapping party on Sunday should finish the job.

A walk to historic Georgetown followed, for a fringe event, the Wiki in Education meetup, generously hosted by the Saylar Foundation, who fed and watered the unexpectedly large crowd at their riverside premises. It was great to meet so many people, including a lot of professors and other educators, who are passionate about using Wikipedia and sister projects in their teaching. I picked up a lot of tips for my plans to liaise with language educators in the UK, to get Wikipedia article translations set as homework for their students.

On leaving Georgetown, a screaming flock of (Chaetura pelagica) flew over us. Though I’d already seen individuals, this was the first time I’d heard them. They’re very different to the Swifts we get in the UK, being smaller and paler.

A group if us took the Circulator back across town to 6th Street for a couple of beers at the “Baldacchino Gypsy Tent Bar“, a pop-up venue created as part of a fringe festival. I enjoyed a Doggie Style (!) Classic Pale Ale by Flying Dog and a Pitch Black IPA by Widmer Brothers. For the first time here, I saw moths flitting about, but wasn’t able to get close enough to any to recognise, or photograph them. We also saw a couple of historic buildings, jacked up in mid-air, on Jenga-like piles of wood, as the area around them is redeveloped.

Day 9 (Thursday) in Washington DC

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Thursday was the first day of Wikimania proper, and I arrived at George Washington University by bike. The day began with keynote speeches. Sad to say, while Jimmy Wales is clearly a confident and proficient speaker, the content of his talk was quite uninspiring. The talk on increasing Wikipedia’s diversity, and in particular attracting more female contributors was far more interesting and thought-provoking. We all have a duty to do more in this regard.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into either of the first two sessions I wanted to, at first, as both rooms were packed to overflowing. Clearly, larger rooms should have been available. However, as the crowds thinned, I did manage to hear the end of the first GLAM session.

I was then interviewed on camera, for a Wikimedia promotional video. Though only seconds are likely to be used, I was questioned under bright lights for over half an hour, after first being subject to a makeup session, “to cover up blemishes”. Cheek — I don’t have any!

I then found two of my female friends, both upset that only male-fit T-shirts were left available to them, due to under-ordering. So much for doing more to increase diversity!

After lunch, I took my seat for a set of GLAM presentations, only to be asked to facilitate the session, with just a couple of minutes notice. The non-arrival of one speaker and technical issues with another’s laptop left me having to fill time, so I took the opportunity to again proselytise about QRpedia (thankfully, the audience were mostly different to that I’d spoken to on the previous day).

A brief rest at a fellow delegates’ neighbouring hotel was followed by a Metro ride to the Newseum, an interactive museum of news and journalism, for another reception, where I had an interesting chat about our comparative health care systems, with American doctor, Roy Poses, President of the Foundation for Integrity and Responsibility in Medicine, one of the session panelists, and chatted to a high-school student from Pennsylvania, who was attending Wikimania, chaperoned by her non-Wikipedian mother. Truly, a fascinating spectrum of people were attending, and made welcome.

Day 8 (Wednesday) in Washington DC

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I started yesterday by joining a guided walk around . The hostel I’m staying at offers regular tours to various venues and areas, led by local volunteers. A short Metro hop took us under the Potomac River and into Virginia, the state from which the cemetery overlooks Washington. In fact, from the top of the hill there, you can see three states, the third being Maryland.

Arlington is as sombre and as impressive as you would imagine, and impeccably maintained. As well as its famous military burials, dating back to the civil war, it has the graves of John F Kennedy and wife Jackie, and his brother Edward. There’s also a monument to those lost in the Lockerbie bombing and a tomb for unknown soldiers from various conflicts. Before leaving, I was lucky enough to see a very smart, male (Spizella passerina).

My next call was George Washington University, venue for the Wikimania conference. After a great lunch and yet more catching up with friends, I attended a “Wiki Loves Libraries” event, to which librarians from other institutions had been invited. I gave a lightning talk on QRpedia, and had some useful discussions about Authority Control and Wikidata.

Then it was time to turn to the hostel, which I did by bike, to freshen and smarten up, before travelling to the Library of Congress for the formal reception event kindly sponsored by Google. Fine food and free beer certainly helped the mood, and I caught up with more people I’d met in Amsterdam, and met the official Archivist of the United States.

I particularly enjoyed viewing a display of significant American books including The Legend of Sleepy Hollow which was written in my home town, Birmingham, England!

The view of the sunset behind the Capitol building was breathtaking. A courtesy bus took us to Dupont Circle, where a group of Brits and one German-Namibian found a bar for more refreshments (I enjoyed the best beer I’ve had here so far, an oatmeal porter), and put the World, or at least Wikipedia, to rights. There are some very interesting issues for Wikipedians in Namibia, where internet connectivity is patchy, and where source material is often not readily available. Work is underway to provide a self-contained, offline version of Wikipedia for schools there. We also enjoyed some pretty loud rock music, including the sublime ‘Freebird‘. The 18-year-old me who bought that on a 12″ single, would never have dreamed he’d one day listen to it in an American dive bar.