Bloomingpedia:Introductory Presentation 2007

Now that Bloomingpedia is entering its 3rd year and has established itself as an information resource for Bloomington, the Bloomingpedia Council would like to invite you to a special presentation on Bloomingpedia itself. This presentation is aimed at those just learning how to use the wiki, but will also be informative for those that are well versed in its use.

The presentation starts at 2pm on Saturday July 21st in the Auditorium at the Monroe County Public Library.

Part One

The first hour will be an overview of Bloomingpedia, what it is, how you can use it, how you can contribute and where it is going. Mark Krenz will explain and show what is available through wikipedia and how it is useful for everyone. He will also give you insight into how you can work with other Bloomingpedia editors to improve the site. The topics include:

• What inspired Bloomingpedia
• Purpose of a city wiki
• How it helps Bloomington
• Features of the wiki
• Contributing content
• Doing original research
• Including personal experiences and knowledge
• The many ways you can help
• Future plans

Part Two

The second hour will be a tutorial on the technical aspects of using Bloomingpedia. Chris Eller will help you start from no knowledge of how a wiki works, to understanding the basics and enabling you to feel confident about editing articles. Using these examples to start, we'll go over the following skills:

• how to edit an article
  • how to link to other articles
  • categorizing articles
• basic formatting of an article
• how to create a new article
• how to upload pictures
• how to add images to an article
• and more...

Each part will have a question and answer section at the end.

Turnout

Despite a fair amount of advertising and two radio features on WFIU and WFHB prior to the presentation, only 2 people showed up to the presentation besides those involved with it. It was a pretty nice day outside, which may have something to do with the low turnout. The presenters were hoping at least 30 people to show up since there are over 500 people on the Bloomingpedia mailing list and about 10% of that would be reasonable. They also had 18 people show up at the 1st anniversary party, but that was more of a meet-n-greet with no presentation.

Airtimes on CATS

The presentation was aired on CATS channel 3 at the following times:

• Friday, August 3rd - 2:40pm
• Saturday, August 4th - 2:50pm
• Monday, August 6th - 8:10pm
• Tuesday, August 7th - 9:05am
• Wednesday, August 8th - 7:30pm
• Saturday, August 11th - 8:40pm
• Saturday, August 25th - 8:40pm
• Thursday, August 30th - 9:05am
• Saturday, September 1 - 8:40pm
• Thursday, September 6th - 10:20pm
• Wednesday, September 19th - 2:00pm

Several people have told Mark that they saw him on CATS while flipping channels.