CZ:Biology Workgroup/Biology Week

Workgroups are no longer used for group communications, but they still are used to group articles into fields of interest. Each article is assigned to 1-3 Workgroups via the article's Metadata.

Biology article	All articles (1,623)	To Approve (0)	Editors: active (1) / inactive (46) and Authors: active (441) / inactive (0)	Workgroup Discussion
	Recent changes	Citable Articles (25)
		Subgroups (12.5)

Checklist-generated categories: Underlinked (753) Cat Check (506) Cleanup (0) Subpage categories: Definitions (1,562) Related Articles (1,441 to check 710) Bibliography (400) External Links (446) Gallery (30) Video (33)

Missing subpage categories: Definitions (34) Related Articles (15) Bibliography (32) External Links (33) Article statuses: 104 Developed (status=1) 673 Developing (status=2) 699 Stub (status=3) 105 External (status=4) 128 Advanced (status 0-1) 801 Nonstub (status 0-2) 1,500 Internal (status 0-3)

Welcome to Biology Week!

The first Biology Week took place here from Sep 22-28, 2008.

Biology Week is a big "online convention" of Biologists here on the Citizendium. Would you like to see more work done on articles about  Biology on Citizendium? Then such events are your chance to make a difference.

An archive of the first Biology Week's (held here from Sep 22-28, 2008) page can be found here. For planning and administration of Biology Week, go here.

Brief summary of events during the first Biology Week

During the period of these roughly seven days, a total of about 20 biology authors (most of them active on the site before Biology Week) have started 11 biology clusters and edited another 40, with little change in status towards approval. For comparison, the monthly Write-a-thons (each of which lasts for just about 36 hours) usually see about 15 authors (rarely including newcomers) starting around 10 clusters on that day's predefined theme and edit another 15 or so, with even less progress towards approval.

Lessons learned

1. Recruitment was ineffective for both registered users and newcomers, because very little recruitment was done.
2. Although new registrations were done under Biology category, the new entrants did not actively participate on the intended articles.
3. The amount of collaborative editing was higher than on usual days but did not go much beyond the level of the Write-a-thons.
4. The logo is cool and should find some reuses, perhaps in the Core Articles.
5. Import of Wikipedia articles (including illustrations) should be made easier.
6. September may just be a hard month.
7. Volunteers don't like being restricted.
8. Sometimes stuff just happens: unexpected absence, illness and injury.
9. Did subject editors make their own specific plans for the week?
10. A "critical mass" of "active" biology authors and editors may be needed before major recruitment begins (more people join in than lead)
11. recruit may want to begin ~2 months before the actual week to get new users used to the system
12. typing in "citizendium" in to google news yielded very few hits during the biology week.
13. (add yours here )