Optional: The Wikicurious team shares their approach to Wiki-event organizing.

How can the Wikimedia movement not only grow the number of Wikipedia editors and sustain free knowledge on the Internet, but also increase the diversity of voices on the platform? The Wikicurious team would like to share our approach.

Over the past 18 months, Wikicurious has touched down in Dallas health accelerators, Charlotte art museums, Miami libraries, and a Sundance Film Festival pop-up — and each of these events started the same way: someone reached out ti us.

With support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikicurious travels all over the United States to introduce local communities to editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia platforms.

Here’s just a few recent Wikicurious highlights:

• In Miami, participants edited bilingual articles about Caribbean and Latin music while Tito Puente Jr. spoke about preserving Latin music legacy — then closed out the afternoon with a salsa lesson.
• Over twenty editors gathered in Asheville, North Carolina for Women’s History Month and added 7,000 words about underrepresented Appalachian women to Wikipedia.
• This past March, 108 editors met up in Austin to improve articles about local history — and those edits have been viewed more than 875,000 times by people around the world.

So, what actually goes into convening a successful Wikicurious event?

Wikicurious convenes in-person events tied to culturally relevant themes — art, music, local history — so that editing Wikipedia feels fun and accessible. Each meetup is anchored around a theme that a local community or group of people cares about. This theme is then woven into the Wikipedia training delivered at Wikicurious.

For example, for our recent March event in Austin, the Austin Public Library was celebrating its centennial — 100 years after it started in a small room on South Congress Avenue in 1926 — and the Austin History Center wanted to introduce its vast collection of primary sources to a wider audience.

“It just made sense for us to take our primary resources and the things that people like to use the library for and connect with and promote it more widely through Wikipedia, the people’s encyclopedia,” says Maddy Newquist, Adult Services Librarian at the Austin Public Library.

Wikicurious events are also aimed at attracting people who arrive with their own expertise and collections — and leave having added them to the public record. Austin Typewriter, Ink (ATI), a local typewriter shop and repair studio, co-presented the Austin Wikicurious meetup in March, alongside the Austin History Center.

Everett Henderson, co-founder of ATI, has spent years tracking down typewriters with documented ownership histories — machines linked to known authors, with records of the specific works written on them. Wikicurious helps unlock that “private” knowledge to become a public Wikipedia contribution.

“I’m trying to document the typewriter not just to add value to it but to actually document the stories, the words,” Everett explains. “The more documentation that’s verified and real is also true — a lot of things are hearsay, and that’s not good.”

By partnering with the Austin Public Library, Wikicurious was able to attract Austin residents who regularly visited Wikipedia but who had never even considered becoming an editor.

“I’ve been using Wikipedia basically my whole life,” says APL’s Maddy Newquist. “I was really lucky to have teachers who understood the usefulness of Wikipedia and taught us how to use it really thoughtfully.” For many attendees, the event is the first time the door swings the other way — from reader to contributor.

Local partners bring the venue, the audience, and the cultural context. Wikicurious handles event promotion and other logistics, and, most importantly, Wikipedia training — walking newcomers through the basics of editing, sourcing, and how the Wikipedia community works.

The goal isn’t just to produce edits; it’s to help each person find the overlap between what they know and what Wikipedia is missing.

“Everyone brings their own interests and niche,” says Kevin Payravi, co-founder of WikiPortraits, a popular new initiative that aims to get higher-quality photos onto the Wikimedia platform. “Editing Wikipedia is just a great opportunity for people to really dive into their interests and kind of help improve our collective knowledge.”

Since May 2025, Wikicurious has run events across Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Utah, and New York. Puerto Rico, Chicago, and Los Angeles will join the map later this year.

Wikicurious is always looking for new cities to host an event, and organizations we can collaborate with. If you work with a library, museum, cultural organization, or university — or if you simply know your city has stories Wikipedia is missing — get in touch.

A venue: A library, museum, university space, or community organization with room for a group A local theme: A gap in Wikipedia that connects to something your community already cares about: a history, a music scene, a collection, an anniversary

A partner organization or two: Co-presenters who bring their own audience and cultural context An interest in reaching new people: Wikicurious is designed for beginners, so no prior Wikipedia experience needed from attendees or hosts

A point of contact: Wikimedia NYC handles training, editorial scaffolding, and program support Upcoming Wikicurious events across the United States are posted on the Wikimedia NYC Events page and the Wikicurious website: https://wikicurious.org.

Reach out to Crystal Boceta at crystalboceta@wikimedianyc.org or contact Pacita Rudder at pacita@wikimedianyc.org to start the conversation.

Wikicurious is a beginner-friendly workshop and training series designed to teach people how to edit Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons. Started by Wikimedia NYC and supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the program aims to democratize access to knowledge and combat misinformation by helping community members become active contributors to the encyclopedia.