Archive:Monthly Write-a-Thon

What's a Write-a-Thon?

It's a bunch of people getting together on a wiki at a particular time to do a bunch of writing. It's like an online party! Heck no, it is an online party! It's also an excuse for infrequent wikiers to show up and party hardy; to exchange ideas with people we might not "meet" otherwise.

But hey, why not show up in between the write-ins, too!

When?

Write-a-Thons happen the first Wednesday of every month. The next Write-a-Thon is Wednesday, December 3, 2008. Starts on December 2nd, 1200 UTC, when it starts being Wednesday in New Zealand, and ends on December 4th, 1200 UTC, when it finishes being Wednesday in Hawaii. Save The Date! Put it on your calendar! Set yourself a reminder!

Any new article you create, and any edit you make to somebody else's Write-a-Thon article during that time period will count, though to be a bona fide partier, you have to write your new articles when it's that day in your part of the world.

Our first Write-a-Thon took place Wednesday, August 1, 2007 and was considered a roaring good time--we had about 30 partiers creating something like 50 articles, and editing lots.

What are the rules?

Rules? This is a party! There are no rules!

Well, OK, maybe there are a couple rules:

• We'll have a Write-a-Thon the first Wednesday of every month.
• To participate, you only have to do two things: (1) start a new article (even just a stub will qualify, if not too short - and please remember to include the subpages template!), and (2) make a substantive edit (not just a copyedit) to somebody else's new article. Then you can list your name here as a partier. Until then, sign in as a porch-sitter, party-crasher, or total party poop.

This month's Party Theme

Wednesday, December 3 2008 --

Retro--The 1980s!

The Partiers

• Aleta stumbled in early; no one in the room, stumbled out again. Arrives a couple of hours later with a pot of coffee and sad memories of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Aleta Curry 23:09, 2 December 2008 (UTC) Muses quietly that she's probably the only one here who remembers The wedding of Charles and Di Aleta Curry 00:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC) Turned up the volume on my Barry Manilow recordings.
• Supten thought of courting controversies a month ahead of the scheduled w-a-t theme and started a page on Holistic living. Then he added a couple of external links to Challenger disaster. Finally he tried to add a brief section (that started from the 1980s!) to Minority government.

Keen-as-mustard and jumped the gun

• It isn't yet Wednesday in Canada, but that didn't stop Derek from getting political. I think that'll count towards January as well!

Bonus points! Aleta Curry 04:21, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, Derek's been thinking about the Patriation of the Canadian constitution, which took place in 1982. Right now, we're up to our necks in constitutional issues as the aforementioned minority government fights it out with the opposition. (I wish they'd get back to dealing with the frikken economy.)

Party crashers--article contributors who didn't create a new article

Bobby Driscoll and Connie Stevens in The Party Crashers - 1958

It's a wrap!

empty form

• March 14, 2021 Power
• January 31, 2021 Stems and branches
• January 24, 2021 Round things
• January 17, 2021 Messaging and Missives
• January 10, 2021 Heavenly bodies!
• July 6, 2011 Standards!
• July 7, 2010 Celebrations!
• June 2, 2010 (no Write-a-Thon)
• May 5, 2010 Humour!
• April 7, 2010 Context or Spring Clean!
• March 3, 2010 Something you absolutely *love*!
• February 3, 2010 The Play's the Thing
• January 6, 2010 Stubs
• December 2, 2009 School
• November 4, 2009 Myths and Mythology
• October 7, 2009 Continents
• September 2, 2009 Design and Designers
• August 5, 2009 Heads of Government/Heads of State
• July 1, 2009 Sudden death
• June 3, 2009 unthemed?
• May 6, 2009 It's a Wide World or: It's a Small World After All!
• April 1, 2009 Events
• March 4, 2009 Spring Cleaning
• February 8, 2009 Thoughts and Books
• January 7, 2009 Controverises
• December 3, 2008 Retro, the 80's
• November 5, 2008 National parks
• October 1, 2008 Spring Cleaning
• September 3, 2008 My favourite bands
• August 6, 2008 Attractions
• July 2, 2008 Olympics
• June 4, 2008 Biographies
• May 7, 2008 Holidays, festivals and fetes
• April 2, 2008 Core articles
• March 5, 2008 Something you absolutely love.
• February 6, 2008
• January 9,2008
• December 5, 2007
• November 7, 2007
• October 3, 2007
• September 5, 2007
• August 1, 2007

Official libations

2007

• Inaugural - beer!
• September - champagne
• October - we were refurbishing the bar and only had coffee!
• November - made up for last month with more vodka than was good for us and plenty of rum.
• December - eggnog and wine

2008

• January - Whisky and the Cocktail of the Month, a pharisee
• February - schnapps and the Cocktail of the Month, the caipirinha (considered the national drink of Brazil)
• March - port wine (which should probably live at port (wine), no? (Someone put that on their list, please....Oh, *someone* did--thanks, Ro) and the Cocktail of the Month, a Dead Aunt
• April - Akpeteshie hot and fresh from Ghana. And cool shandies and spritzers if that took your fancy. Lotsa staggering around the bar after this party!
• May - Was it champagne? No, we were dry, I think.
• June - Were we abstaining yet again?
• July - Sherry
• August - pineapple juice Well, that's all right, I guess!
• September - Given the music theme, i assume it was pop?
• October - Cranberry juice. Some nut who shall remain nameless but whose initials are HP suggested Drano, (i.e. what cleans better than Drano?) but....
• November - Spring water (Now Bruce just has to write it! Aleta Curry 04:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC))

Write-a-Thon Theme Suggestions

New Suggestions and Discussion

• How about another Spring cleaning in March 2009? Daniel Mietchen 08:20, 6 October 2008 (CDT)

Not a bad idea at all, unless I get swamped with new, untried requests in the mean time. Aleta Curry 18:47, 6 October 2008 (CDT)

Possibly the theme could be subpages. Some of them need a lot of housekeeping. Or getting some decent images for the articles we do have. Chris Day 19:17, 6 October 2008 (CDT)

• I've picked "Controversies". Not just because it's an opportunity to show how we handle current ones, though that's an idea, too. No, I was musing over how things can be controversial in one era, and not even raise an eyebrow in another. Or how one can think a controversy is over, and then the social cycle changes, and all of a sudden it's controversial again. In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, but now God knows, anything goes!. Aleta Curry 19:06, 6 October 2008 (CDT)

Future Theme Schedule

• December - Retro! - I have to pick a decade The 1980s!
• January - Controversies

See also

• Larry Sanger, Why the Write-a-Thon worked, Citizendium Blog, August 9, 2007
• Weekly Wiki
• Article of the Week
• New Article of the Week

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