The HVTN conference was from November 7-9. I was there every day. It was cool and I learned stuff but of course the point of a conference is meeting people and making plans together.
There was a meetup in the conference which was only for people who are involved in community education, so no scientists. All of us often circulate email around and names appear on lists, and now that about 60-70 of us were all in a room together the host passed a microphone around so that everyone could say their name, their title, and which site they represent. I heard a few names and started thinking… what can I possibly do with this information? I already knew who I wanted to meet and was not really ready to hunt anyone down by location. I was among the first to get the microphone and when it came to me I hijacked it for a few extra seconds: “My name is Lane Rasberry and I am a community representative for the Seattle site. I edit Wikipedia; if you are interested in Wikipedia and HIV then please come talk to me.” No one else copied my lead in doing this. I wonder who else in that room made a connection with other people just based on that introduction?
People came up to me. One was a community educator in another state. I saw him around the conference and thought he was beautiful, but I did not have a chance to introduce myself immediately. He asked me about Wikipedia and I could not have been more thrilled to have a common interest. We hung out for the rest of the conference and I like everything about him – he is clever, has good ideas, awesome social skills, and interesting stories. He told me that I was adorable, which is not really what I want to hear from someone I think is hot, but a lot of people use that word to describe me so I take the compliment. If I had my wish it would be that I could do my life’s work and only come into contact with the most beautiful people, and I am always thrilled to find that intersection where someone is already doing things which relate to my work and the person is good looking. We made plans to stay in touch – I hope that we can.
A person from Los Angeles named Michelle Simek wanted to tackle the Wikipedia microbicide articles for me. There is research in vaginal and rectal microbicides which could prevent HIV, and there are no Wikipedia articles for them. I started the articles and she is going to give me more sources, review them, then together we are going to connect to a broader audience.
In one of the science sessions I was sitting behind this guy with a laptop. He Google searched for HIV vaccine and got on Wikipedia. I watched him go from there to Wikipedia articles for the HVTN, RV 144, and HVTN 502. I talked to him for a few minutes about this and got his contact info. I want to pitch him more deeply later, because I know that what I saw him do is something that a significant percentage of all the people in the network have done. He instinctively rationalized to me for no reason at all – “I was just seeing what it said.” I am sure that he was not even aware that he was making an excuse, as if I cared why he was using Wikipedia or did not know exactly how he came to be there. There is a lot of Wikipedia shame for a certain demographic with which I work; they see it as an illegitimate or disreputable source of information. As time goes on I feel like I am better able to read the very thoughts of such people when I talk to them about Wikipedia.
This guy named Kevin Fisher had a presentation which gave a lot of interesting history on HIV research which I want to incorporate into Wikipedia articles. He sent me his presentation. Lisa Donahue is the HVTN graphic and web designer and she said she could connect me to infographics. Genevieve and I are still talking about Wikipedia.
The actual conference presentations were talking about PreP and RV 144 this year. Also there were presentations about problems connecting to more communities, and still this year I have not found anyone who talks about using internet and social media to connect to more people. The lack of internet juice in everything the HVTN does astounds me.