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    Building a LocalWiki Is About Community and Having Fun

    by Philip Neustrom
    June 6, 2012

    LocalWiki is all about community, and we believe that starts with people coming together and having fun. Here are a couple of recent examples of ordinary people hanging out, having fun, and building out LocalWiki projects!

    San Francisco parklet ride

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    A couple of weeks ago, we were slated to have an absolutely beautiful weekend here in San Francisco, and I thought, “You know, it’s gonna be a beautiful weekend — it’d be great if we could just bike around, take pictures, enjoy the beautiful day, and toward the end of the day get on our laptops and work on the soon-to-be-launched SF LocalWiki project!”

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    Parklets in San Francisco allow sidewalks to be widened to create mini-urban parks for people to sit, relax and enjoy the city around them.

    So I just threw up a Facebook event, invited some friends, and came up with a little plan: document all the parklets we encountered on our bike ride through the city.

    And we did just that! We biked around, had lots of coffee, ate some delicious baked goods, and took pictures of a few parklets we encountered. We randomly encountered one of the parklet’s primary designers, and even found a parklet that features totally awesome beanbag seats and Pac-Man!

    At the end of the day, we’d made a few pages on our LocalWiki, but more importantly, we shared a fun experience together.

    Kitchener LocalWiki Workshop

    This is Steve Lambert:

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    Steve’s an artist who does really amazing projects like SelfControl, AddArt, and Capitalism Works For Me! True/False.

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    Building a LocalWiki for Kitchener, Ontario.

    Last week, Steve got together with CAFKA, a public space art organization, and held a two-evening workshop for artists and residents in Kitchener, Ontario on building a LocalWiki for Kitchener.

    After starting out with the basics of how local wikis work, the workshop immediately got people out into the streets — participants toured the city, collecting information about their favorite places, insider tips, and popular spots.

    After running about, everybody reconvened and had a big local wiki-writing party at the art center.

    With more than 221 pages, 167 photos, and 130 maps in just a few days, the KitchenerWiki project is off to a great start!

    Kitchener photo courtesy of CAFKA.

    Tagged: arizmendi cafka kitchener localwiki ontario parklets san francisco wiki

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