#RSCWiki2014

Skipping work* and heading in to London led to a wonderful day in Burlington House. A Wikipedia editing workshop was organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry and Wikimedia UK (a charity that supports and promotes Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects).

*Looks back at original email application to attend* (paraphrased)

I want to learning more about editing and creating pages on Wikipedia would allow me to contribute more often than I do now. I have made a few small additions to pages, but feel I have been held back sometimes because of ignorance of the coding/formatting language (Just looked it up - "Wiki markup").

Editing wikipedia could give me the chance to have more interactions with the community of knowledgeable chemists around the world.

I would also like to learn more about linking, searching and applying chemical information on the internet. This would obvs be helpful to me in my career. Totes amazeballs,

Marvin

 Stuff I need for the day: (from my notebook)

• Laptop
• Camera (photos below!)
• Fob for work account (access to ChemDraw)
• Notebook (Moleskine, unlined, pocket sized)
• Chargers
• Water

So after a fairly enjoyable trip in to foggy London (along with some commuters), I stopped for a coffee (I was a bit early). A couple were talking loudly about theology (existentialism was definitely a word they used) behind me. At that point I knew it was time to bathe in the scientific waters of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The walk up:

#UnionJack #Fortnum&Mason #BlackCab #RedPhoneBox

 I came to the door and pushed (or pressed, I can't remember).

Picked up my name badge and headed in to start up my computer and get Wikipedia editing. One of the first things I learn is WP is a better abbreviation for Wikipedia than "Wiki" according to Charles Matthews, one of the Wikipedians teaching us. Interesting. We will build the house of the future.

If those vertices were carbon atoms, the structure would be unstable.

 After setting up Userpages, everyone listened to talks from Wikipedians and from representatives from the RSC. Charles Matthews went through one article in particular in order to explain topics around conflicts of interest. The article doesn't matter, just that it contained some advertising copy. He walked us through how to edit so that the final article was more neutral and clear. The afternoon was set aside for free editing of any page (or pages) you liked. I chose the page on actaplanin, because it was tagged previously as a chemistry page which needed an image. I also looked up the 1984 research on this antibiotic carried out by Eli Lilly, and a patent. Using my newly acquired Wikipedia skillz, I updated the page. I think I did an OK job for a beginner! Still lots to add and clarify, when I have time. The part I found most difficult was knowing when to stop. I've started a list of articles to edit, but it's growing rapidly. Maybe the way to go about this is to recruit more people.

"Arty" shot of Nelson's column

 *I'm a good fish and actually booked the day off 4-6weeks previously.

Real chemistry. Time.

"Quantity not quality. (We'll see how long this lasts, but everyone knows the most annoying type of blog is one not regularly updated)"

Post 1 MarvinTheFish blog

Yeah so that didn't happen! Let's move on and not learn from it and be embarrassed about it again in a few months' time.

Here we are in November and yesterday was #RealTimeChem day. I had a lot of fun following this hashtag on twitter, as well as showing people some of what I do during the week (don't do labwork on weekends these days). You can see what I was up to on my twitter. I made quite a few new "twitter friends" like @AzaPrins @Doctor_Galactic, @JessTheChemist and of course @RealTimeChem, among others. @ChemistryWorld quoted one of my tweets on their blog. It was the first time I felt the full power of this twitter-malarky, getting retweets, and people favouring my pictures. Also, some of my original followers and real-life friends got involved, responding enthusiastically to the #realtimechem event! I'll allow @Doctor_Galactic to explain the origins of the event. I recommend you go read his blog if you're interested :http://doctorgalacticandthelabcoatcowboy.wordpress.com/

Who invented #RealTimeChem?
Certainly not me. However, I have been participating for a while on an off in doing some #RealTimeChem tweets. I believe that the inventor was @azmanam who was trying to determine what was in Lemishine and happened to tweet his results using, and @JessTheChemist produced a storify page to follow all the RealTimeChem that happened. Since then it has caught on a many others have joined in to tweet their chemical reactions in real time using the same hash tag.

I was slightly concerned with IP issues, tweeting my actions live during the day and the (remote) possibility of being retweeted around the world. Even tweeting at work is frowned upon, with work WiFi not allowing it, and twitter.com blocked on PCs. When my phone told me that I had been quoted in a CW blog post, I imagined my colleagues reading it and pointing out obvious IP issues that I hadn't seen! It worked out fine though and I think the images and words I posted were fairly generic, and not something I wouldn't tell strangers anyway. Again, @Doctor_Galactic :

What do I have to do to join in? What should I tweet?
To join in you simply have to tweet about your day in your particular field of chemistry using the hashtag #RealTimeChem to show that it is part of the event.
Incidentally, pictures of your day (such as great looking experiments) are most welcome. Obviously, only take pictures of things you are allowed to show, we understand some chemistry must be shrouded in secrecy.

Overall #realtimechem was fun, and valuable for connecting chemists around the world. It gave me the sense of belonging to a community. People doing similar things (and more interesting things!) to me, using the same equipment as me. Looking forward to next year.