The WikiLusofonia Users Group is a proposed User Group made up by users of the Wikimedia movement and people from Portuguese-speaking countries who joined together to raise the quality standard of free knowledge about Lusophony.

History

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Over the years, many Wikimedia volunteers have collaborated informally to raise the quality of free knowledge. Some have even established partnerships in several Portuguese-speaking countries, for the promotion of free knowledge; these partnerships have always been on a personal level.

What is proposed now is a joint effort to raise even more the quality of the content in Portuguese and, with that, take Lusophone culture to other languages, with the highest possible quality.

Why?

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The members of the group, in addition to being active and having around 600,000 edits in various Wikimedia projects, have worked in recent years to obtain collections, GLAM partnerships, and raise the quality standard of Portuguese Wikipedia. Together, they are responsible for 300+ featured and good articles (about 10% of the total in pt.wiki), original and translated, and thousands of images obtained for Commons.

This quality is applied in important areas but also of general interest, such as Health, Science, Culture, Religion, History, among others. By way of example, the group's versatility ranges from collecting collections from public institutions to posting articles such as Languages of the Roman Empire, Brazilian Navy, Women's health, Marrakech, Portuguese Air Force, Joaquim Marques Lisboa, Cavalry of Brazil, Deodoro ship, among hundreds more.

Lusophony encompasses Portuguese-speaking cultures in the world, from the initial, Portugal, passing through the biggest in South America, Brazil, and in Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, among others, including more cultures in Asia, Oceania, and communities around the world. The Portuguese language has a presence on all continents.

The Portuguese language itself has approximately 250 million native speakers and 24 million as a second language. It is the sixth most spoken language in the world, being the most spoken language in South America and throughout the Southern Hemisphere; it's also one of the 10 most spoken in Africa.

The Group's members have identified for years that it is extremely important not only to disseminate free knowledge but also to ensure its quality, which is why we have been working on this issue and now decided to take the next step, involving the community inside and outside the Wikimedia movement.

By its essence, this is a Group open to everyone's participation, capable and ready to work and collaborate with other volunteers and groups, internal and external.

Objectives

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If there's one word that can define the group's objective, it is the promotion of Quality.

The primary objective of this Group is to create, improve and promote free knowledge about Lusophony, from its communities to themselves and to the world, through the cultivation of relationships and work between its members and other people inside and outside the Wikimedia projects.

General Objectives

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  • Supporting and encouraging the creation, improvement, and promotion of articles in Wikimedia projects, focusing on Wikipedia in Portuguese;
  • Obtaining photographic collections for Commons through partnerships;
  • Capture the attention of communities for the projects of the Wikimedia movement;
  • Creation/participation in Workshops, Meetings, Conferences;
  • Collaboration with public and private entities for the dissemination of free knowledge about Lusophony.

Activities

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  • Partnerships;
  • Edit-a-thons;
  • Conferences;
  • Meetings;
  • Content creation and development.

Current activities

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Activities to develop

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  • Connect the current "personal" partnership with the Brazilian Navy to the Group;
  • Participation in a conference on Education and Free Knowledge in Coimbra this year;
  • Prepare an action plan for the second half of 2023.

Planning and decision-making model

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Periodic meetings with all members, online and in person when possible.

The meetings will be guided by the promotion of a safe and democratic space, compliance with the WMF codes of conduct and rules, and consensus will be sought on the objectives to be outlined and executed, both by the group and by the whole.

In the final months of each year, a Task Plan and objectives for the following year will be discussed and approved, where the planned activities and the moments in which each one of them will be carried out will be structured.

Contacts

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Contact people with WMF

Members

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Users who support this group

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Support the creation of this group, signing in the end of the list. Thank you so much!