North Carolina Wikipedians

North Carolina Wikipedians (formally North Carolina Triangle Wikipedians) is a statewide Wikimedia user group approved by the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee in May 2015.

Our mission is to:

Connect with and educate fellow North Carolinians about the value of Wikimedia projects
Increase and improve Wikipedia coverage of currently underrepresented groups (with a scope not limited to North Carolina-related topics)
Support the integration of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons into K-12 and university instruction
Serve as a regional base of organizing, strategizing, and decision-making for the global Wikimedia movement

We're always open to new ideas, new collaborations, and new members. If you’re interested and want to know more, please sign up for our e-mail mailing list.

We hope you'll connect with us soon!

What is a user group?

If you think of Wikipedia as solely an online encyclopedia, the idea of a Wikipedia user group can be confusing. (Do they just sit around editing Wikipedia?)

In reality, the power of Wikimedia (the broader term encompassing a variety of Wiki-based projects) is in its people.

Wikimedia is a global movement with a shared set of values, including freedom of speech; free, universal access to knowledge; and community sharing.

The Wikimedia movement is just as much about the people who drive it as it is about the projects it creates.

One of the ways people drive the Wikimedia movement is by organizing into regional user groups and other affiliate groups (e.g. chapters). Organizing in affiliate groups makes it more efficient to do things like make decisions, set strategy, and agree on governance.

It’s also a way we connect regionally in order to collaborate with other Wikimedians all over the globe.

So, our user group, the North Carolina Wikipedians, is a local network of Wikimedians committed to – and helping work toward – the larger, global Wikimedia mission.

What do we do?

A Wiknic hosted by NC Wikipedians in September 2024

Our work is both local and global.

On the local side, our work includes outreach and education, sharing our knowledge about the value of Wikimedia projects, and the benefits of participating.

Some examples include:

Edit-a-thons – virtual, in-person, or hybrid events where we teach how to edit Wikipedia and work together on an editing theme for a dedicated amount of time. (You can see a list of past and future local edit-a-thons here.)

Classroom instruction sessions – invited lectures or instruction and editing sessions in K-12 or university classrooms
Photo projects – crowdsourced campaigns inviting contributions to the Wikimedia Commons, such as NC WikiPix 2022

On the global side, our work includes coordinating with other Wikimedia movement participants on shared governance, decision-making, and strategy setting.

Some examples include:

Participating in discussions on governance documents (such as the Universal Code of Conduct)
Voting in movement-wide elections
Participating in the global Wikimedia Summit, an annual gathering of representatives from all over the world

Who are we?

Our group’s active members are a diverse group of people who really, really care about providing free access to accurate information.

Some, but not all of us, have connections to universities across the state, as librarians, faculty, students, and recent alumni.

Some, but not all of us, are editors of Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects.

In August of 2022, The Raleigh News & Observer, ran a story about the North Carolina Wikipedians: "How NC Wikipedia Editors Keep the Site Humming," by Brian Gordon. You can read more about us there.

How can you get involved?

We always welcome new members, with any level of experience on the Wikimedia projects. The best way to connect with us is by signing up for our e-mail mailing list, where you’ll learn about our monthly meetings.

You don’t need to be a seasoned Wikipedian/Wikimedian to join the user group. People who join tend to be interested in free and open culture, providing widespread access to knowledge, and the value of putting accurate information where people are most likely to seek it.

And you don’t need to join to participate in our activities. You can:

Attend one of our local events – an edit-a-thon or picnic (if we’re planning anything soon, it’ll be on the page you're reading now!)
Invite us to speak to your class (K-12 or university) or other group (e.g. retirement community, interest group). (Sign up for our e-mail mailing list to contact us.)
Propose a collaborative activity. (Sign up for our e-mail mailing list to contact us.)

Activities

Previous versions of this page included an exhaustive list of our activities. Now that we've been around for a while, that approach is no longer useful or sustainable.

But you can see most of our previous activities by reviewing our annual reports.

And you can find out about upcoming activities by keeping an eye here on this page!

List of local edit-a-thons – we've organized some, but not all of these
WikiProject North Carolina – a project NOT created/maintained by our group consisting of Wikipedia topics related to North Carolina
Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Planning Toolkit: Published by the Society of North Carolina Archivists and created by some of this group's members and supporters in 2016, this toolkit provides resources for cultural heritage professionals interested in planning and hosting Wikipedia edit-a-thons. (Note that some of the information may be outdated. Get in touch if you're interested in hosting an edit-a-thon!)

Local Events

Check out our North Carolina meeting page for information about upcoming edit-a-thons and other events and activities.

And see the general Scheduled Future Meetups page to find area events that should be shared with our group.

2024

See the North Carolina meeting page for recent events.

2023

Wiknic 2023 in Greenville, NC

2021

Participation by UNC-CH Libraries in the annual WikiMedia #1Lib1Ref campaign Meetup/UNC/1lib1ref_2021

2020

2019

Western NC's 3rd Annual Holocaust Preservation Edit-A-Thon hosted by ABTech https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/western_ncs_3rd_annual_holocaust_preservation_editathon/edit?utf8=%E2%9C%93&campaign_slug=western_ncs_3rd_annual_holocaust_preservation_editathon
April Meeting 2019, April 15 7-8pm
March Meeting 2019, March 25 7-8pm
Wikipedia Birthday Party 2019, January 31 3-7pm
February Meeting 2019, February 27 6-7pm
Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @UNC Slone Art Library, March 4, 2019
Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @UNC Kenan Science Library, April 17, 2019
Salem College's wiki storm event of Advocating for women on Wikipedia and edit-a-thon, March 26th. Salem Edit Storm Event Grant Page to support it
AB-Tech's Western NC's 2nd Holocaust preservation Edit-A-Thon, April 19th. https://www.facebook.com/events/421516841956894/ [1]
North Carolina Newspaper Wikipedia Edit-a-thon @ UNC-CH Park Library, Oct 24, 2019
Meetup/UNC/Chapel_Hill_Then_and_Now_2019

2018

2017

Women in Craft Wikipedia Edit-a-thon - Asheville, NC Saturday, March 4
All Rise @ UNC Chapel Hill, Mar 25
Black Lunch Table @ UNC Chapel Hill, April 1
Comics + Diversity Edit-a-thon @ UNC Chapel Hill, 30 March 2017
Psychology Edit-a-thon @ UNC Chapel Hill, 7 April 2017 (More details and meetup page coming soon!)
Women in Science Edit-a-thon @ UNC Chapel Hill, 12 April 2017 (More details and meetup page coming soon!)
Art + Feminism Edit-a-thon @ UNC Chapel Hill, 20 April 2017 (Please note the date change! This was originally scheduled for April 6 but has been moved to April 20. Hope to see you there!)

2016

Reports

All Reports

Leadership Guidelines

At the end of our 2023-2024 reporting year, in April 2023, we agreed to move to a collaborative leadership model for the 2024-2025 year (April 2024 - May 2025). Guidelines for that structure can be found on our Leadership page.

Participants and Supporters

Djembayz, your WikiDC visitor, says Congrats, Triangles, that was a really fun event you put on!
Ongmianli, clinical psychology doctoral candidate
Rkang101, undergraduate psychology major
Kennyle78, undergraduate psychology major
Frankcjones (talk) 19:23, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Heathart, visual artist
Sodapopinski7 (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Cortnie330 (talk) 01:06, 19 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
kgreeves, computational chemistry graduate student
SSetti, materials science graduate student
Egoldman3, clinical psychology
melodykramer, WMF staff member, lives in Carrboro
malinachavez, artist, educator
awhiteside, art librarian
Indy beetle
Jayron32, high school science teacher, lives in Raleigh.
Eyoungstrom(talk), Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, UNC Chapel Hill; father of two teens; student of mountain biking and Wiki things
Thtriumph, science librarian
Kayz911 (talk) - Professor of Political Science UNC-Asheville and Asheville Buncombe Community College
No misunderstanding, research and instruction librarian
Scorpiofromstoke (talk) 16:26, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ke4roh (talk) - A software programmer and space buff
Kostajh, software engineer @ WMF, Durham
Rdinws (talk) 15:47, 27 March 2019 (UTC), Biology professor, Winston Salem[reply]
Gaurav (talk) 02:39, 20 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Reboot01 (talk) 06:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC), Contributor on Wikisource, book aficionado. Asheboro[reply]
RadioKAOS, regular contributor to en.wiki and Commons, lives in Kings Grant
Hameltion (talk)

Subpages

Pages with the prefix 'North Carolina Wikipedians' in the 'default' and 'Talk' namespaces:

Talk: