User:Dreamyshade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm Britta Gustafson. I've been editing Wikipedia since October 2001. In January 2016, I gave a short talk explaining why people should learn more about Wikipedia's history. There's a community profile about me on the Wikimedia blog (2017), and I contributed to a history of Wikipedia at 20 years old. I got a shoutout at a Depths of Wikipedia show. I established a LocalWiki for Isla Vista, CA, part of the separate LocalWiki project that encourages documenting non-notable local topics.
My favorite policy is verifiability. Check out Meta:Cite Unseen, Wikipedia:Citation Watchlist, and Spamcheck, great tools for helping evaluate and improve references. Related notes:
- User:Dreamyshade/Reliability resources
- User:Dreamyshade/Dubious sources
- User:Dreamyshade/Archive links
Resources for facilitating workshops
I received workshop facilitator training in 2014 and have led and supported many edit-a-thons. Materials and notes that I'm happy to share for reuse and adaptation:
- "Secret rules of Wikipedia editing" intro presentation (PDF), aka "how to influence the world from your pajamas"
- Videocall editathon checklist
- Tips for promotion:
- Set up a detailed Wikipedia meetup page. Examples: Wiki Loves Monuments photowalk in San Francisco, Black Campus Movement @ Oakland Public Library, Art+Feminism SF MOMA
- Email any relevant mailing lists - for example, in my area, this is the Wikimedia-SF mailing list
- Create a geonotice
- Set up an Outreach dashboard page to help track attendees and outcomes
- To create accounts for new editors at events and bypass the limit on number of accounts created per IP per day, you can request event coordinator permission.
Content project notes
Articles
.jpg)
Some topics where I wrote an initial version:
- 2001-2002: I started editing Wikipedia because there wasn't an article for harp. I made one! There weren't many articles back then, so I also made assorted new entries such as Neopets, Pablo Neruda, Alien and Sedition Acts, and driftwood. This was back when creating an encyclopedia from scratch felt like a lark, so why not create articles based on your high school homework. I even wrote Hammurabi and Code of Hammurabi based on my sister's middle school homework.
- 2004: Shrine Auditorium, a landmark in my hometown
- 2006: Joel Sternfeld, a photographer whose work I appreciated
- 2007: Derek McCulloch (comics), the author of an interesting graphic novel about Stagger Lee and American music history
- 2012: Pinboard (website), the independent successor to a website I used to work for
- 2014: Outreachy, a program that supports underrepresented people interested in working on open source software
- 2017: Another editor started Hodgkins and Skubic House (a Modernist house designed for a lesbian couple in 1967) based on my LocalWiki article
- 2022: Afro-American Association (a gap in coverage of the Black Power movement) and Amund Dietzel (a gap in coverage of tattoo history)
- 2023: Weston Havens House, a Modernist house designed for a gay man in 1940
- 2024: Rustls, an open source software project that aims to improve internet security
Photos
I like documenting local historic buildings and landmarks, so I've contributed photos to Historic-Cultural Monuments in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, San Francisco Designated Landmarks, and List of Oakland Designated Landmarks. I served as a judge for Wiki Loves Monuments in the United States for a few years.
Puente Hills Landfill, the largest landfill in the United States
A free box in the majority-student community of Isla Vista, California
A gas station built in 1929 next to the Ellwood Oil Field in Goleta, California
Workers cleaning up the Refugio oil spill in 2015 in Santa Barbara County, California
Listerine bottle found in my grandparent's house
The Lexington Club, a lesbian bar in the Mission District of San Francisco from 1997-2015
I. Magnin Building, a former department store in Oakland, California
Hallway in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building
