Mini-keynote on local Wikipedia editing at Wikipedia Day NYC 2025: transcript

Key points

• Wikipedia Day is about gathering people who share enthusiasm for free knowledge and optimism.
• Many people feel overwhelmed by national and global news, so the speaker suggests shifting scale to the local.
• Attendees are well placed to write about local issues, laws, agencies, programs, lawmakers and nonprofits.
• The speaker says to focus on what the internet gets wrong about your own neighborhood and services, such as claims about proposition one and subway safety.
• Local nonprofits, libraries, universities, activist groups and government bodies are needed to support this work.
• The talk ends by handing over to Richard and Pasita to present a local initiative.

Chapters

1. 0:00Why Wikipedia Day matters
2. 1:02Staying with the trouble amid disengagement
3. 1:45Shifting scale to local editing
4. 3:14Local misinformation in New York
5. 4:37Role of local institutions and handover

Full transcript

0:00Hey, everyone. So this was originally a lightning talk, sort of speaking about editing Wikipedia within the context of the present moment. And it turned into an introduction, it was suggested to be an introduction to a really interesting initiative that we have, which Richard and Pesita will be presenting about in just a moment. So Wikipedia Day is one of my favorite events of the year. It's Wikipedia's birthday, and that's well and good, but it's really about getting this group in a room together, people with a shared enthusiasm for free knowledge. It's really nice to be reminded that there are people who are hopeful about knowledge in this world. Like it's nice to take a break from the doom scrolling and just indulge on a little optimism on a Saturday afternoon. It's a really special place. And this whole enterprise is really based on the simple idea that if enough people pitch in and make just a little bit of a change, then something truly

1:02spectacular is possible. And it's easy to lose sight of that. It's nice to be reminded that that's possible, especially now when I know that many of us are struggling with a crisis of engagement. You're trying to find the will to remain engaged with the issues of the day. I know that I've been spending a lot of time reassessing where my efforts are most going to make a difference. And like, I want to stay with the trouble. I don't want to tune it all out, but it's just really easy to be overwhelmed and have a feeling of powerlessness. So I saw some nods when I said that, and I really want to be directing this to you folks in particular.

1:45Folks, coming to this event is staying with the trouble. It's a version of staying with the trouble. We're not here to find any grand solutions. We're not here to fix the world's complex problems. We're here to make small, incremental, iterative changes that together make something really special. And we're here to embrace the incompleteness of the job that we're doing. So here's a strategy that resonates with me in this moment. Maybe it'll resonate with you too. When you're thinking about national and global problems and feeling a little down, shift your scale. So not national, not global. New York, New York City, Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Public Library, Eastern Parkway, the block that you live on, like as heartbreaking as the news can be.

2:35There is an opportunity right now for the cities and states that we live in to step up and do more to take care of its people, people that may be feeling abandoned or neglected or even targeted. And I know that that's an insular strategy. I know that there's privilege in living here. I know that there's a lot of privilege in being able to tune out the national news. My point is, who is better equipped than this crowd to make a difference, to write about local issues, local laws, civics, agencies, programs, lawmakers, conflicts, and nonprofits than people here?

3:14Eight years ago at this event, one of the things that got a lot of people talking was the misinformation crisis. The misinformation crisis is a sprawling behemoth. we need to stop talking about an information crisis, excuse me, misinformation crisis, and think more about what's right in front of us. So what does Wikipedia, what does the internet get wrong about the neighborhood that you live in? What misinformation is spread on the services that you depend on? This past election, millions of dollars flooded into New York, spreading bogus claims about proposition one. Good summaries about our agencies and the programs and civics and utilities in the city are really difficult to find and often out of date.

4:03How many of you get messages all the time from people out of state, terrified for your safety on the New York City subway, not because it's unsafe, but because its safety is politically inconvenient? I imagine probably a lot. These are the things that are right in front of us that we can actually make a partial iterative difference to. This idea that it's more important than ever to share and safeguard information about New York and that Wikipedia is a part of it is not just a call to contribute to articles and upload photos.

4:37You already know that. You're at a Wikipedia event. Everybody's already tired to tell you to edit. This is also something that we need local institutions for. We need local nonprofits. We need libraries. We need universities. We need activist associations and even government entities. to get involved with supporting that work. Anywhere else this call to action might be too abstract to actually do something about, but this is a room full of people who can give you the tools and point you in a direction and get you started. One of those people is Richard Neipal, the founder of Wikimedia New York City.

5:12If you go to Richard and say something like, I'm sort of interested in Wikipedia and I don't know where to start. Clear your schedule. You will be there for the rest of the day as he has a thousand ideas for you to get started. And there are dozens of other people in here like Richard who can do that. So with that, I want to turn over to Richard and turn it back to Pasita to talk about an initiative that is as local as it gets. And I feel like really embodies a way that we can all make a measurable difference. Thank you.

Source and licence

Recording: File:Wikipedia Day NYC 2025 02 @Rhododendrites Mini-keynote - Local editing to stay with the trouble.webm by Wikimedia NYC (2025-01-25), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. The transcript, summary and chapters on this page are shared under the same licence (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.