Here are some highlights of Oakland Wiki’s public events!
Oakland Wiki volunteers have been holding regular events open for anyone to join. Check out short summaries of our recent events below. Interested in upcoming events? Check out the upcoming events schedule and sign up for our event announcement mailing list.
The Jane Jacobs Oakland Wiki Walk!
Jane Jacobs was an urbanist and author. She remains best known for writing The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and Dark Age Ahead. As an activist, she helped stop two planned urban expressways: one in Manhattan and the other in Toronto. She always encouraged people to get out and walk and learn about their cities firsthand. In 2007, a year after her passing, friends in her adopted hometown of Toronto organized “Jane’s Walks” on the first weekend in May to coincide with what would have been her birthday weekend. Oakland has held several Jane’s Walks since 2010. This walk was the first time it was sponsored by Oakland Wiki. Find out how you can join in on the fun by signing up for our events list. Read more about what else we’ve been up to! |
Vegan Pizza Party!On Sunday, March 17th, 2013, after an afternoon of nerding out at the Oakland History Room, Oakland Wiki volunteers got together for oozy homemade vegan pizza and edited our Vegetarians and Vegans portal. The party was graced by a lot of fascinating leaders promoting vegetable-based diets and animal rights. Katie Cantrell from the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition was there. She has dedicated years of her life to spreading factual knowledge about factory farming practices. Also represented were Oakland Veg Week (who organizes a yearly week-long series of talks and food events, encouraging Oaklanders to go veg for a week), and the Berkeley Organization for Animal Advocacy (a UC Berkeley student group advocating for animal rights). Find out how you can join in on the fun by signing up for our events list. Read more about what else we’ve been up to! |
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Open Data Day Hackathon!
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Intentional Communities and Worker Cooperatives-themed editathon
On Saturday Feb. 16th, 2013, the residents of the Swan’s Market cohousing community hosted Oakland Wiki volunteers for an afternoon dedicated to learning about local worker cooperatives (worker-owned businesses) and Intentional Communities. According to Intentional Communities dot org (an IC directory), ”[An] Intentional Community is an inclusive term for ecovillages, cohousing communities, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives, intentional living, alternative communities, cooperative living, and other projects where people strive together with a common vision.” Learn about Intentional Communities and worker cooperatives right here in Oakland: check out the pages we made! |
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 Ishmael Reed, a local Oaklander and major African-American literary figure who is well-known for his contributions toward neglected African-American perspectives in his historical works. |
Oakland Wiki celebrates Black History Month!
We’ve been busy! A whole month dedicated toward Black History has meant tons of events around town. Here are a couple of highlights:
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Hackerspaces edition Local History Editathon!
On Sunday, February 3rd, 2013, Oakland Wiki invited the public to our headquarters in Sudo Room, a downtown Oakland hackerspace, for a hackerspaces-themed editathon. Hackerspaces are a relatively new phenomenon to the Bay Area. They are a meeting ground for people interested in using technologies of all kinds to pursue their creative projects. People pool together their monetary resources to buy high-price items such as 3D printers, and their intellectual resources to help each other out in their creative projects. Read more on our event page! |
 This cat was printed using Sudo Room’s 3D printer! purrr.. >^-^< |
 Local residents digitizing some of the rare collections held at the Oakland History Room. |
Local History Editathons kickoff!
On Sunday, January 13th, 2013, we were joined by local historians (veteran and budding), a neighborhood geography blogger, curious residents and a reporter from Oakland North for a very successful local history editathon at the Oakland History Room in the main branch of the Oakland Public Library. The day started out with an in-depth tour of the library’s local history collections by Sunday librarian Martha Bergmann. She was great! She showed us how to access files of clippings on neighborhood history, people and events, primary materials from local writers such as Jack London, giant property maps dating from 1859–1925, a repository of old posters, and so much more! Editors created pages on Swan’s Market, Elmhurst, Old Oakland, West Oakland’s “Harlem of the West” post-war jazz and blues scene, and more! We will be holding future editathons every Sunday at the library and other neat repositories of local information. Stay up-to-date on future events by checking out our editathon page! |
City Camp Oakland
On Saturday, December 1st, 2012, we held a presentation and demo of the Oakland Wiki at City Camp Oakland at City Hall! Along with fellow attendees, we created and updated a number of different articles. Check out Digital Divide, a page where anyone can discuss issues of uneven access to hardware, Internet, digital literacy, skills and networks, and connect with local organizations that are working to address these issues. See the full list of articles at City Camp Oakland. |
 Attendees at a meeting on Oakland’s digital divide. |
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Oakland Wiki Bikeabout
On November 10, 2012 we held our first Oakland Wiki bikeabout! Ten OaklandWiki-ers broke into groups and took off into various neighborhoods in Oakland to photograph the city’s murals and other street art. Check out the results here: Murals
Here’s something we discovered... |
