Wikimedia Armenia/Reports/2023-01

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2023

January

Wikipedia's 22nd Birthday

On 15 January 2023, many of the members of Wikimedia Armenia, active editors of the Armenian wiki domain, celebrated the 22nd anniversary of Wikipedia at the Wikimedia Armenia office. In order to raise the festive mood of the participants of the event even more and to refer to the history of Wikipedia once again, after listening to the opening speech of the president of Wikimedia Armenia, a quiz was organized on the topic "What do you know about Wikipedia". After the quiz, the three “best experts” of Wiki history were selected and received prizes and souvenirs. As in previous years, this year as well the results of the past 2022 events organized by Wikimedia Armenia and Armenian wiki projects were summarized. The winners of the gift-article edit-a-thon dedicated to the 22nd anniversary of Wikipedia were announced. Finally, the plans and projects of 2023 were discussed. After the ceremony, three participants who were also 22 years old were selected from the participants, and they cut the traditional birthday cake. After taking a group photo, the participants of the event had the opportunity to socialize, talk and have a good time in a friendly environment.

Еdit-a-thon dedicated to Wikipedia's 22nd birthday

Wikimedia Armenia celebrated the 22nd anniversary of Wikipedia on January 15, 2023. The edit-a-thon dedicated to Wikipedia's 22nd birthday was one of the events summarized that day. Before the event on December 22, Wikimedia Armenia started the edit-a-thon. The participants created and improved a lot of articles as gifts for Wikipedia. 55 participants were involved in the event. 222 articles were created on Armenian Wikipedia. 2,441,765 bytes contribution was made. The names of the 3 winners and the name of the participant, who created the most articles during the edit-a-thon, were announced during the Wikipedia birthday event.

Wiki Practice for specialists in medical and pharmaceutical areas

On 27 of December 2022, “Wikiemdia Armenia” announced the registration for upcoming Wiki Medical gathering. The registration for the participation in this event was open for applicants till 7th of January. There were 99 applicants registered, out of which 75 were newcomers. As the purpose of this event was to enrich Armenian Wikipedia with reliable and high quality articles, Wikimedia Armenia organized a wiki-practice for newcomers from 10th to 17th of January. Thirty one students from university undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as specialists in medical and pharmaceutical areas, participated in person. Two-three hours long two classes were conducted for them, familiarizing them with the history of Wikipedia, five pillars, policies and guidelines, article creating and editing tools. During these courses newcomers created 22 articles, overall 353,781 bytes. The most active and enthusiastic newcomers (23) were.

Medical Wiki Gathering

The Medical Wiki Gathering took place in Tsaghkadzor from 24 to 29 of January. Even after a long break, 99 people were interested in participating in the gathering, moreover, 75 of them were newcomers.

A special workshop was organized for newcomers before the gathering at Wikimedia Armenia office and 31 people participated in 2-3 hours long 3 classes. The next step was to choose the best newcomers based on their work and results to be a part of the wiki gathering. 23 newcomers were selected to join the 12 experienced editors in Medical Wiki Gathering in Tsaghkadzor.

The 35 participants of the Medical Wiki Gathering created 170 articles with a volume of 5,463,166 bytes within 5 days, which is a much better result compared with similar thematic gatherings of previous years.

Besides editing high medical and pharmacological articles in Armenian Wikipedia, participants were involved in various activities as well. On the first day they participated in an ice-breaking game with balloons and cups. On the second day a city tour was organized during which the participants visited the historical monuments of the city, as well as the “Orbeli Brothers House Museum”. The third day was also full of various activities and games, like magnetic darts, table tennis and puzzle games with groups. On the 4th day groups participated in a bowling competition and in the afternoon they brainstormed and discussed the future Wikimedia projects and activities (highly valuable feedback was received from the community) and the evening was devoted to an intellectual game - “Brain Ring”. Fifth day was the day of Fort-Wiki. In this game participants play with their teams trying to solve various riddles, win in various sport activities and bring scores to their team. The six main components of this game were:

Creating a high quality article in Wikipedia within 1 hour,
Dive and solve the metallic puzzle under the water in the pool,
Find the intellectual question from 5 baskets and try to answer with team members within 1 minute,
Fly by Zipline from Point A to B, and try to remember the colors of puzzle in the end and fill corresponding papers with colors with the same order,
Throw the ball into the static basket from moving attraction vehicle,
Find the hidden tool in the museum with closed eyes by following the voice of their team members.

In the evening of the last day the official closing of the event was done, winners in various categories and the results of overall gathering were announced. Later the participants watched movies like “The Greatest Showman” (highly advised) and played table games.

WikiClubs' statistics

In the existing 6 Wikiclubs there are 85 members registered as of January 31, 2023. From 1-12 of January members of Wikiclubs actively contributed to the edit-a-thon dedicated to the “22nd Anniversary of Wikipedia, during which they created 93 articles with a sum of 1,403,492 bytes. From 15 of January Wikiclubs were involved in wikification of articles from “Armenian musical encyclopedia” which is protected by Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license. Wikiclub members also enriched WikiData with corresponding missing information from new articles, as well as linked new articles with already existing ones. In this project, 222 articles with a sum of 926,429 bytes were created during January, and the project will be continued in Februar,y as well. Overall WikiClubs’ contributions in January are 346 articles, 1858 edits and 2,510,309 bytes. Six members also contributed to Wikisource with 15 edits, 2 new pages and 2 updated pages with a total of 14,245 bytes.