Wikimedia Armenia/Western Armenian program/Reports 2019/January-June

Western Armenian Program Report
January-June

Separation of Western Armenian Wikipedia

On April 1, 2019, Western Armenian Wikipedia attained its own platform with the following url: hyw.wikipedia.org. Following to this, all articles and content in Western Armenian were transported from the Eastern Armenian Wikipedia to the new platform.

On this occasion, a Press Release was prepared and disseminated to the media in Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora. Several media outlets published the press release and developed news pieces dedicated to the event.

Moreover, the Armenian Public Radiօ broadcast an interview with project coordinator Azniv Stepanian. The interview focused on the new platform, as well as the steps that will be taken to further support the strengthening of Western Armenian Wikipedia.

Following creation of the separate platform, already experienced Western Armenian Wikipedia editors are working on creating and improving templates and other technical content (such as guidelines and policies) that are needed to increase the functionality of the platform. With the goal to further improve the quality of engagement of the experienced editors, we are planning to host several of the most experienced and active editors in Armenia in summer 2019 to discuss operational details relevant to the further development of the Western Armenian Wikipedia and its wiki community.

Preparation of a language guide

Common mistakes

To support Western Armenian Wikipedia editors and help them improve the quality of their edited articles, a language guide was prepared to highlight the common mistakes made by the editors and offer the correct way and explanations. The first guide focused on the most common mistakes made by Western Armenian editors under the influence of Eastern-Armenian (mostly during translating articles from Eastern-Armenian Wikipedia).

It is planned to organize online meetings/training sessions as of March 2019 to go through each common mistake and help editors avoid them.

Tutorial for Western Armenian Wikipedia Editors

In May 2019, a tutorial on improving Western Armenian Wikipedia articles was prepared, published, and shared on Wikimedia Armenia's social media channels. The tutorial focused on correcting some of the most common language mistakes that have been noticed in articles in Western Armenian. This is the second tutorial prepared in 2019, aiming at improving the quality of the articles.

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  Tutorial for Western Armenian Wikipedia Editors

Discussion with Western Armenian wikicommunities

Aleppo

Within the regular support provided to the wikicommunites, a Skype meeting was initiated by the Western Armenian program team with the wikicommunity in Aleppo to further expand the scope of their activities.

During the meeting, a group of active editors and the program team talked about improving the quantity and quality of Western Armenian Wikipedia articles, as well as discussed on ways of improving editing skills and received relevant tips and tricks. It was also decided to launch editing workshops to take place twice every month. The program team will continue providing full support to empower the wikicommunity of Aleppo to organize the workshops.

Moreover, during the meeting a work plan was drafted to engage the wikicommunity in collecting and digitizing books from Armenian libraries in Aleppo. Over the past month, a few books are already digitized and stored in Wikisource and in the future will be used as sources for edit-a-thons, as well.

Athens

Engagement with the Armenian community in Athens

Over the past few months, the engagement with the diaspora communities and their collaboration in Western Armenian Wikipedia activities gained momentum.

In March a regular communication and support to the Western Armenian wikicommunity in Athens was maintained. In result, a new WikiClub was formed at the Armenian Zavarian School in Kokkino, Athens. The WikiClub members - 6 grade students and their teacher - are already working hard to enrich the Western Armenian Wikisource. They have already digitized “Honorable Beggars” by 19^th century Armenian writer and satirist Hagop Baronian.

Paris

Collaboration with INALCO

In March, a collaboration was initiated between the Western Armenian Wikipedia program coordinator and INALCO (National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilization, Paris, France). INALCO team members expressed their interest to take part in Western Armenian wiki projects and to form a WikiClub with the students of the Armenian Studies section at INALCO. Moreover, they suggested to organize a Wikipedia training in fall 2019, in Paris, to train new editors.

Diasporan Teachers’ Training in Armenian

Based on an agreement with the “Spyurk” Scientific-Educational Center, Western Armenian Wikipedia project coordinator joined from July 2 to July 26, 2019, the annual Diasporan Teachers’ Training in Armenia and during three weeks of the event carried out workshops on editing in the Western and Eastern Armenian Wikipedia and Wikisource for the diasporan 35 western and eastern armenian teachers attending the training. It is a continuation of last year collaboration

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Wikipedia edit-a-thons

The first Edit-a-thon of 2019, February 22-24, 2019

In continuation to the series of Western-Armenian Wikipedia edit-a-thons organized in the last four months of 2018, several similar events will be organized throughout this year, as well. The first edit-a-thon took place during the weekend of 22-24 February 2019.

Overall, 21 articles were edited (created and improved) by ten participating Western Armenian Wikipedia editors. It is worth noting that the Beirut WikiClub was especially active in contributing to the success of the edit-a-thon.

The edit-a-thon focused on improving the quality and language of several already existing articles, as well as offered the opportunity to create new articles on the monasteries in Western Armenia.

The next edit-a-thon is planned to organize in the second half of April. It is anticipated to generate topic suggestions from the Western Armenian Wikipedia community.

Edit-a-thon, April 25-26

On April 25-26, the second Western Armenian Wikipedia edit-a-thon of 2019 took place. It included four topic ranges dedicated to the 150th anniversary of four significant actors of the Armenian culture (Komitas, Hovhannes Tumanyan, Levon Shant, and Yervand Otyan).

Moreover, within our attempts to further improve the quality of existing content, a list of Eastern Armenian Wikipedia articles were provided for enrichment. During the edit-a-thon over thirty articles were either created or improved.

Edit-a-thon June 21-23

The third edit-a-thon for 2019 was organized on June 22-23. Taking into consideration that improving the quality օf writing and content of the Western Armenian Wikipedia is of high importance, this edit-a-thon only focused on improving a series of articles. It is worth noting that three more edit-a-thons are planned to be organized throughout 2019.

Edit-a-thon July 25-27

On July 25-27, the fourth edit-a-thon of 2019 was organized with the following topics: touristic sights in Armenia and the world of tennis. It was worth mentioning that is was the first edit-a-thon where some of the participating editors took the initiative and added to the topics, found sources, and edited their own proposed articles. It is worth mentioning that several already edited articles were also improved. 27 new articles were created and 7 articles were improved.