Hi Everyone,
Something a few of us noticed, and loved seeing, is that the teams in both the Thon challenge events had so much fun working together. I really think the fun was inspiration to push a little harder and went a long way towards making both events a success.
WikiTree, in the last few years, has started a lot of different challenges. Some are weekly, like the Data Doctors and the Sourcing Sprints, some are monthly like the Connectors and Sourcerers Challenges, and some are a little more sporadic, like the Military Challenge. We have a new challenge, the Surname Spotlight, coming up as a monthly, too. There are a lot of ways to have fun participating.
It would be awesome to see the team spirit we saw in the Thons continue throughout the year. All the teams got their own space page with the Clean-a-Thon. That space page definitely does not need to sit idle all year waiting for the next Thon!
What do you think about keeping your team active throughout the year?
One idea is to pick one (or more!) challenge each month for your team to join in on and work together. With the Data Doctor Error Reports available in all shapes and sizes, you can still focus on your favored areas, whether they're regional, error based, you had a generic team that developed its own focus, or new teams start centered on certain surnames.
I think the easiest way would be to answer a Challenge question and just let your team comment under that answer post, continuing with the camaraderie and fun chatter that we saw in the Thons. You can post a link to that month's challenge on your team page and invite members individually, as well.
That spirit can also be continued by just encouraging work on your focus areas on the team page. Use the free-space page to talk with members (by asking them all to join the trusted list) and encourage contributions on Tennessee Unsourced, or New England Errors, or Smith Biographies, etc.
You could have little micro teams, A-String, B-String, or some such, that always focus on your team's topic in each challenge. Each month the Massachusetts Source String from Team Massachusetts jumps in the Sourcerers and focuses on sourcing all those Massachusetts Unsourced profiles, egging each other on, trading ideas for finding sources, stirring up rivalry with those Connecticut Team kids. You get the idea :-)
Another thought is to keep the same teams from Thon to Thon if folks work well together. Because we know not everyone wants to source or clean up errors, we can expand teams to have closer to 30-40 members, and should everyone want to participate, we would just have an Australia Awesome Team A, Australia Awesome Team B, and on as necessary. All Team Australia, but broken down because so many people decided to join up for that particular challenge.
Do you have ideas or thoughts on keeping teams alive and active throughout the year? I'd love to hear them!
Also, if you had a source-a-thon team without a free-space page, but want to continue your team, start a page! Let Eowyn or Abby know if you do, so they can note it for future Thons.
Thanks everyone for what you've done so far. Watching teams work together is one of my favorite parts of the Thons :-)
Go team!
Abby