CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/WinterEdit 2025: Driving Progress in North-West Infrastructure
- By: Екатерина Борисова, Lvova
At the beginning of 2023, the participants of the North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group came up with the idea to organize an intra-group edit-a-thon on writing and improving Wikipedia articles on the north-western regions of the country. February was chosen for the event, a month when, firstly, other edit-a-thons are usually not held in the Russian Wikipedia, and secondly, due to the harsh climate of the region, it is difficult to organize joint trips and photo walks.
On the image: Historic railway bridge over Yarynya river, Novgorod region.
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― created article (50) ― improved article (128) ― article created or improved in full collaboration (15) | |
Since then, the Winter Edit-a-thon has become a tradition for the members of the user group. In February 2025, it was held for the third time and proved to be the most successful: 193 articles were created and improved, more than in the two previous edit-a-thons combined.
The main feature of the Winter Edit-a-thon is that the members of the user group jointly choose its theme each time. There may be several topics, but it is important that they not only correspond to the interests of the user group and are relevant to the North-West of Russia, but are also important to Wikipedia. This year, the theme of the edit-a-thon was transport infrastructure in all its diversity. Many things can be attributed to the objects of transport infrastructure: motorways (streets, avenues, alleys, highways, etc.), bridges and overpasses, railways and stations, shipping channels, lighthouses, quays, ports, airfields and airports, as well as enterprises and various transport facilities (station buildings, depots, repair shops, factories, etc.); the topic is extensive, and this is one of the reasons why the Winter Edit-a-thon turned out to be so successful — because every participant could find an object to their liking. In addition, despite the huge number of articles on transport infrastructure that already exist in Russian Wikipedia, not all of them are really good. That is why the main efforts of the edit-a-thon participants were aimed not at creating new content (58 articles), but at improving existing content (135 articles), even saving some articles from deletion. By the way, the user group is engaged in this noble cause of saving articles all year round, and not only as part of the edit-a-thon.
One of the key objectives of the Winter Edit-a-thon was initially to strengthen creative ties between the user group members. This is not so much a competition (although there is certainly an element of healthy excitement), as a collaborative effort where everyone can join forces with others, ask for advice or help, discuss emerging issues in a user group chat or in personal correspondence. It is safe to say that at least two participants had a hand in each created or improved article in one way or another. In addition, and this is a feature that arose by itself — for some participants the edit-a-thon became an occasion to go beyond their usual subjects. This year, for example, user Wagon wrote a series of articles about historical post stations in the Pskov Region, and user Екатерина Борисова wrote about the historical quays of Saint Petersburg. They hadn't shown any interest in such topics before, but the edit-a-thon inspired them. Obviously, such activities bring invaluable benefits to Wikipedia, because these sites play an important role in the history and culture of Northwestern Russia.
Finally, some statistics. The largest number of articles were written and improved by users Lvova (59) and Красный (56). In terms of geographical coverage, Saint Petersburg and its surroundings are in the lead (96 articles), as well as the Leningrad Region (44). However, other regions — Respublic of Karelia, Vologda, Novgorod and Pskov Regions — were not ignored. The most popular topic of the edit-a-thon was railway infrastructure: train stations (61 articles), railways (2 articles) and station buildings (10 articles). Nevertheless, attention was paid to many other aspects of the transport infrastructure.
In general, the user group is satisfied with the edit-a-thon itself and its results, and, of course, intends to continue in the same mood. Moreover, active participants of the Winter Edit-a-thon receive books on local history as a prize, which they can use in the future as authoritative sources for new articles.