Arctic Knot Conference 2021/About

Arctic Knot
Wikimedia Language Conference
Online · 24–25 June 2021

About

With 20 billion page views every month, Wikipedia is one of the first stops when people search for information. It is a cornerstone of the digital age, but the information within it is not evenly represented across languages.

The Wikimedia movement is about to start implementing the 2030 movement strategy, and the UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages will start in 2022. The International Decade of Indigenous Languages points to the potential of digital technologies in supporting the use and preservation of indigenous languages. These two milestones give us the opportunity to look into our future efforts for language diversity on the Wikimedia projects, and during the conference discuss how we can work together to make indigenous and underrepresented language communities grow.

The Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference 2021 is for every Wikipedian and Wikimedian interested in indigenous and underrepresented languages and organisations, cultural and educational institutions working in the field of indigenous and underrepresented languages.

The Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference 2021 follows the Universal Code of Conduct for the Wikimedia movement on every platform used during the conference. The Universal Code of Conduct defines a minimum set of guidelines of expected and unacceptable behaviour and we encourage all conference participants to read it before the conference starts.

Conference team

Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference is led by Wikimedia Norge in collaboration with The Arctic University of Norway, Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Deutschland, and will focus on Arctic and Sámi languages. We are also happy to have Wikitongues and Art+Feminism as part of the organization team for the conference.

Conference history

The Arctic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference 2021 is part of the Celtic Knot series of conferences, and the first one to be held outside of the British Isles. The conferences have been hosted by various institutions, in collaboration with and with support from Wikimedia UK.

The conferences have been hosted by various institutions, in collaboration and support from Wikimedia UK. The first Celtic Knot Conference was organized by Edinburgh University and Wikimedia UK in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2017 (focused on Scottish Gaelic), followed by Aberystwyth, Wales in 2018 (focused on Welsh, hosted by the National Library of Wales), and Falmouth, Cornwall in 2019 (focused on Cornish, hosted by Cornwall Council). In 2020, the conference was planned to be organized in Limerick, Ireland with a focus on Irish, but was changed to a fully remote conference and was delivered by Wikimedia Community Ireland and Wikimedia UK.