Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018/Affiliates

Facebook event
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018
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Lviv, Ukraine, October 13-15


About us and our projects

Wikimedia Community User Group Albania is a group of users of Albanian Wikimedia projects who are interested in organizing and participating in outreach activities on national level including GLAM and Education initiatives. Members of the group have been active for quite some time already, participating and co-organizing, among others, many educational partnerships, workshops, presentations in free software events, or editathons organized in Tirana as part of the Code Week activities. Our user group aims at the organization and representation of the Albanian community as well as the promotion and participation on projects that the Wikimedia Foundation keeps. There are 17 people who have recently been actively involved in organizing or participating in groups efforts.

In previous 12 month we had accomplished such projects:

  • Wiki Weekend 2017, the yearly gathering of Albanian wikimedians, where editathons, local user group strategy discussion and yearly planning took place;
  • Wikimedia anniversary editathon;
  • editathon in a school in Burrel and editathon in "Ernest Koliqi" high school, for "Wiki in Education" initiative which is in our focus;
  • editathon Code4Culture in Korçë, an activity in collaboration with Archaeological Museum of Korça to add new articles to Wikipedia about historical monuments of the city.
Our current and future projects

The projects which we are planning to accomplish in future:

  • QR-pedia activity with the Archeological Museum of Korça, to add a QR codes for the objects of the museum that link to the pages in Wikipedia. This is an activity which is the next step after Code4Culture editathon we had in May;
  • editathon in collaboration with National Film Center of Albania, to add articles about movies produced by this center;
  • Wikiweekend on 1–2 December 2018, the yearly gathering for editathons, workshops and group strategy discussion and next year planning;
  • Wiki in Education program, collaboration with professional schools in Albania for the development of editathons;
  • Continuation of QR-pedia activities with two more GLAM institutions.
Our challenges
  • Consolidation of partnerships with local media;
  • Lowering the barrier for the newcomers in our user group;
  • More technical skills for members of our group.
We wish we had ...

... a healthier and more inclusive community that does not give merit only to edits, but also to any other contributions from community members.

About us and our projects

Our user group is a group created by members of Albanian community of Wikimedia projects, who are interested in increasing the quality and quantity of content and multimedia material in Albanian Wikipedia. Our group started its activities in 2014. We aim to do this through educational programs, workshops and editathons, running competitions online/offline, GLAM partnerships on regional level in territories of Balkans where Albanian language is spoken. Our important fields of work are education program, GLAM and diversity. At the moment, we have 21 people who have expressed their support for the group and their interest in participating in the group activities on a Meta page, however, we also have some people who have not signed, but come to events and support our work anyway.

In previous 12 month we have organized:

  • The photo competition for national and international students resulting in somewhere around 80 new photos;
  • Wiki Photowalk 2018 - Albania and Wiki Photowalk 2018 - Kosovo wikiexpeditions. The Kosovo one resulted in 679 new photos being uploaded to Wikimedia Commons;
  • Wiki Loves Monuments - Kosovo & Albania, a local part of the international contest, during which we were able to collect 542 photos for Albania and 193 for Kosovo;
  • Editathons with Peace Corps students in Berat, Albania and in Podujeve, Kosovo. The Kosovo one resulted in 5 new articles.
  • Presentation at Rochester Institute of Technology Kosovo, as part of the Digital Communication class, to inform students more about Wikipedia and its importance.
Our current and future projects
  • We will be working with an instructor at UBT University to integrate Wikipedia editing into two classes, involving design and humanities students, the same we will do for the University of Prishtina;
  • Wiki Academy, which is a three-day editathon organized in cooperation with Ipko Foundation and UNICEF Innovation Lab;
  • editathon with ""American Corner Pristina"" - an editathon organised in cooperation with ""American Corner Prishtina"" to add more articles related to Kosovo;
  • Wikidata birthday in Prishtina and Tirana, which will take place simultaneously and will be a mini conference which will include presentations and editathons;
  • Partnership with Museum of Kosovo will be initiated, which will include an editathon with 30 students, one Wikimedian in residence (will be supported by the Museum as well as develop a Wikipedia corner at the Museum);
  • Partnership with Historical Museum of Albania to digitize their collection and to make it available on Wikimedia Commons;
  • editathon about the monuments of Albania;
  • Workshop on biographies of former political prisoners in Albania;
  • Document collections of museums in Albania, especially ethnographic ones which have very old and not well-maintained collections;
  • Several workshops with Albanian speakers in Macedonia;
  • Photo coverage of Kosovo Pride and the activities during the Pride Week, with further uploading of photos to Wikimedia Commons.
Our challenges

We find it hard to find active members, who are willing to organize events. We have very active members who like to edit, but when it comes to organizing events for others and to getting new users to edit, it is a bit hard to get them involved. Also, since we are going through a growth phase and creating new relationships, it is more challenging for us.

We wish we had ...

... one more staff member in Tirana in addition to the part-time one we already have in Prishtina. We would like to have more people involved, so that more projects can be pushed forward.

About us and our projects

Azerbaijani Wikimedians User Group is a group, active since 2014, formed by active members of Azerbaijani Wikimedia projects who are interested in organizing and participating in outreach activities on a the national level. There are 25 active participants right now. Our activities include regular meetings for discussions, workshops, lectures, hackathons, editathons, wikicamps etc. This spring we organised Wikicamp with 30 participants in a rural area with wikitraining, article creation and taking photos, which then were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons. We were also organizing article contests each month, with more than 3 000 articles created in total, as well as a WikiGap event, together with Embassy of Sweden in Azerbaijan.

Our current and future projects

Article contests are still ongoing and we are going to proceed with them in future. We also plan to organize another WikiCamp in spring and/or summer of 2019.

Our challenges

Poor understanding of Wikipedia and its principles in our society is a challenge for us.

We wish we had ...

... a superuser who will write/translate all rules for our wiki.

About us and our projects

Our user group, which is heavily supported by the youth organization "Falanster", unites active Wikimedians from all Belarusian Wikimedia projects and helps to involve other Wikimedians into our activities aimed on achieving our common goals. Our group started its activities in 2015 and now has something like 20 active participants. User group is the first step in our way to creation of a Wikimedia chapter in Belarus. This and previous year we conducted three wikiexpeditions. First trip was to Gomel and Vetka, where we have visited the museum of Belarusian traditions in Vetka, in which we made photos and afterwards created 20 new categories. Second trip was to Molodechno, where we have visited railway stations, made photos of railway and of town infrastructure. The third trip was to Pinsk and several villages around it, where we made photos of nature and town objects for Wikimedia Commons.

Our current and future projects

We are planning to organize the contest "Wiki loves Earth" in Belarus. At the moment we are gathering a team in order to start the first steps in the process of organization.

Our challenges

It is quite hard to motivate members to be engaged in offline projects.

We wish we had ...

... a big offline wikicoworking with Belarusian wikimedians every Friday.

About us and our projects

Our user group is dedicated to promoting the concept of Free Knowledge in Bulgaria, gathering freely licensed content and disseminating it online and offline. Currently, 26 people have signed that they share the interest in development of the user group, however, only several of them are active. In spite of that we are a user group, we have a board which is responsible for running the everyday business of the user group. This year we launched a pilot project Wiki Botevgrad to create wikitowns in Bulgaria, which includes editathons and information in local news.

Our current and future projects

We currently conduct trainings for librarians in different towns of the country and establish cooperations with local libraries. Also, we are now conversating the cooperation and editathons with Goethe Institute in Bulgaria.

Our challenges

The lack of manpower is a serious challenge for us, so we will be trying to attract new editors, keep the old ones, involve people into offline activities.

We wish we had ...

... positive atmosphere, mutual support, appreciation, friendship, understanding, loyalty, dedication.

About us and our projects

Wikimedia Deutschland is an independent membership-based association serving as a Wikimedia chapter whose purpose is to support the creation, collection and distribution of open content in an altruistic way in order to support equal opportunity to access to knowledge and education. Our organization was founded in June 2004 in Berlin and it was the first Wikimedia chapter to be created. Wikimedia Deutschland currently has about 56 000 members, 120 staff members and approximately 500 volunteers. Among our finished successful projects in previous 12 month are:

  • Three Wikipedia central notice banner campaigns to gain new editors;
  • First thematic conference on Wikidata only dedicated to its 5th birthday;
  • Digital voting matching tool for the national elections to find the party you want to vote for ("Digitalomat").
  • (and many more, we just wanted to highlight some)
Our current and future projects
  • TrainingsKit: Developing a set of teaching materials for trainers who give introductory Wikipedia workshops;
  • Nationwide Wikipedia day: local communities open their doors for everybody who is interested in learning more about Wikipedia, accompanied by a central notice banner;
  • Learning and sharing within the organization: develop meeting and learning formats for over 100 staff members to share and discuss challenges and learn from each other;
  • WMCON to Wikimedia Summit: establishing a new conference format focused on Strategy only within the movement.
Our challenges
  • What should we do with 56 000 members? How do we engage these members? Do they want to be engaged?
  • Being the door opener for the movement for external partners, who want to connect to other Wikimedia orgs/groups/communities.
  • Learning & Sharing with the movement: wished by many, realized by few.
We wish we had ...

.. all Wikimedia organizations, groups and communities communicating with each other constantly.

About us and our projects

Don Wikimedians User Group is a group of people interested in the Don region and Don Cossack culture (not necessarily those who live in the Don region). Any user, regardless of his language, can join the user group if he shares the goals of promotion and dissemination of free knowledge and has an interest in the Don region theme. Don region is a historical and geographical region in the South of Russia, covered mostly by Rostov Oblast. Our mission is to participate fully in the global Wikimedia movement and contribute to its main objectives, which are the free dissemination of knowledge in all languages of the world. We have something about 10 people with varying degrees of activity and about 50 more people who are happy to take part in our events as non-permanent volunteers.

What we have Don in the period of previous 12 month:

  • We have been working with the libraries, in particular, lectures were given in the main libraries of the region, and this work resulted in more than 1000 publications, which were created before 1917, being uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons.
  • Within the framework of the contest "Learn Russia. Graduates and Mentors" held in the Russian Wikipedia, a special nomination was created for representatives of the Don region. More than 400 articles were about prominent scientists of the Don land were created.
  • Editors of Wikimedia projects met with members of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation for the first time in history on 30 January 2018. Participants of the meeting discussed their activities, described to each other their projects and outlined the further ways of cooperation. Don Wikimedians User Group was represented by Dmitry Zhukov, who told to the members of the Civic Chamber about Wikipedias in various languages of Russia. He highlighted the significance of the Russian Wikipedia for the post-Soviet countries: residents of these countries not only read Russian Wikipedia, but also actively contribute to it.
  • Our user group participated in the CEE Spring competition for the first time this year. Wikipedians from Don region wrote more than 70 articles. More than 200 articles were written about the Don.
  • In May 2018 on the Faculty of Philology and Journalism of the Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don was held the competition for school students which was completely devoted to editing of the Wikipedia. The event was organized by Don Wikimedians User Group in cooperation with the regional administration. In total, more than 150 new participants contributed to the Wikipedia, who wrote around 100 articles about the sights of the Rostov region.
Our current and future projects

Right now we are preparing for a new contest "Get to know the world. Start with the twin". There will be three nominations: for articles in Russian, articles in other languages and the nomination for free images. Our user group established a special nomination for the sights of the twin cities of the cities of Rostov region. According to estimations, more than 2000 articles will be written, of which about 400 will be devoted to the territories fraternal to the Rostov region. Apart from that, preparations to conduct a large Wikipedia editing masterclass for high school students are underway and the event is planned to be held in early November 2018 at the Rostov State University with the assistance of volunteer students, as well as preparations for the event at the Don Public Library for employees of libraries and museums in the city of Rostov-on-Don. The purpose of the event is to create in this city one of the first wikiclubs in Russia.

Our challenges

Our only problem so far is the lack of financing.

About us and our projects

Wikimedia Eesti is a chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation in Estonia, founded in 2010, which currently has 39 members. In previous 12 month we have piloted a very high calibre article campaign during the 100th anniversary of Estonian Independence with 100 scientists, opinion leaders etc. writing articles into Wikipedia as a gift for Estonian 100th birthday. The campaign was a part of Million Plus, a joint effort with Tartu University to reach million articles in Estonian Wikipedia before 2020. Millon Plus also curates writing Wikipedia articles as part of university courses in Tartu University, which helps to make Wikipedia accepted in academic circles. We have also started GLAM cooperation with Tartmus, the art museum of Tartu, and imported all high resolution images of paintings with metadata into Common. This has also led to virtual art exhibitions in Wikipedia as joint project with Tartmus. We have entered the debates about EU copyright directive and this has taken lots of our time. When we participated in blackout of Estonian Wikipedia before July 5 vote, this gained unprecedented media coverage. We have been organizing almost regular meetings with volunteers and other target groups in form of editathons and/or workshops on topics like Wikidata. These have been only a partial success, because we have not yet figured out how to make those meetings functional and occasional. Low turnout demotivates people to organize meetings.

Our current and future projects

We plan to repeat our campaign with 100 notorious people writing articles into Estonian Wikipedia. We are also planning to cooperate with Open Data communities and import as much public data repositories into Wikipedia, Wikidata and other Wikiprojects, as we can. This is a part of the effort to expand Estonian Wikipedia into million articles before 2020. We are top serious about embracing new generation of encyclopedia and knowledge society based on data and machine learning. Ways of management of knowledge and role of an encyclopedia is going to change a lot during next years and there is a lot to do to make open models of knowledge management more prominent. For this reason, Wikimedia Estonia is actively seeking cooperation with other similarly focused organizations and enterprises.

Our challenges

The challenge for Wikimedia Eesti is leadership in the organization consisting of very independent volunteers, up to the point of having conflicting interests. There is so much more to do compared to the manpower and other resources we manage to gather.

We wish we had ...

... people inspiring each other in free and creative atmosphere and willing to work hard for the things they care for.

About us and our projects

Wikimedians of Erzya language User Group is a group of people interested in Wikimedia projects in Erzya language and topics related to the Erzya people, culture and community. We were recognized as a user group by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2017 and we have now 5 active participants. This year we have organized a wikimarathon "Эрзянь Википедия — 10 иеть" ("Erzya Wikipedia — 10 years") which resulted in 28 new articles and participated in the CEE Spring 2018 article contest.

Our current and future projects

We are preparing for the next year CEE Spring 2019.

Our challenges

Our biggest problem is that we have few editors.

We wish we had ...

... a seminar for erzyа/moksha speaking teachers and librarians

About us and our projects

Our user group is a group of users of Greek Wikimedia projects, who are interested in organizing and participating in outreach activities on national level. We have been active for already more than five years. We have only 12 active participants, and this number at the moment is not sufficient for the creation of a chapter. However, we are still a tight group of Wikimedia projects users who are enjoying outreach activities and would like to get on with this work. We regularly hold meetings in major cities of Greece for discussions, workshops, editathons etc. In particular, this year we organized Wikipedia Lab 2018 which is a series of workshops on Wikipedia editing in cooperation with Goethe-Institut, as well as two edit contests on computers and technology in cooperation with Voxxed Days. Our other activities are the national parts of international coontests Wiki Loves Earth 2018 and Wiki Loves Monuments 2017, workshop for adding data about politicians in Wikipedia and Wikidata, participation in Fosscomml (conference organised by open source communities), WikiFemHack (first female oriented programmaning and edit contest about Wikipedia in Greece).

Our current and future projects

We are planning to repeat online training for teachers that we did a year ago, online lessons and mentoring for new editors in Wikipedia, organise Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments, continue cooperation with Goethe-Institut, organise Erbstucke in Greece, Wikidata editing contest, continue editing contests with cooperation with Voxxed Days.

Our challenges

Our biggest challenge today is the further expansion of our user group. We also would like to have a wider cooperation with other Wikimedia communities and to attract more media attention to the Wikimedia events we organise.

We wish we had ...

... our user group being registered as a legal entity in Greece.

About us and our projects

Wikimedians of Latvia User Group is a user group, active since 2015, representing all Wikimedians in Latvia. There are 20 people who have been actively involved in organizing or participating in groups offline efforts during the last year.

This year we organized several successful article writing contests where we gathered more participants than usual in several thematic contests (like Winter Olympics, Science fiction, CEE Spring), the number of articles was also pretty high. We made some cooperation events with Estonian Wikimedians, e.g. first photo-expedition with Estonians in Estonia and Latvia. WikiGap - first serious attempt at tackling gender gap.

Our current and future projects

We are currently working on a joint Latvian-Estonian article contest dedicated to the 100th Independence anniversary of both Latvia and Estonia.

Our challenges

We have no GLAM projects so far, but we would like to have at least one and to know how to do projects in this field.

We wish we had ...

... some person, that could do those things that other Wikimedians does not have time for. For example, working with media, finding sponsors for contests, working with educational institutions etc.

About us and our projects

GLAM Macedonia is registered non-profit organization, and a user group of contributors, teachers and researchers interested to generate and organize projects and events including participation of Wikimedia volunteers, and employees from GLAM and educational institutions. We currently have 88 members. Our projects are:

  • Wikipedian in Residence, as a part of our GLAM program, within which we have sent wikipedians to three GLAM institutions in the Republic of Macedonia so far. The results are: more than 2600 files released, more than 1000 new articles created, more than 650 references added into articles, and more than 20 GLAM employees educated for editing Wikipedia;
  • Wiki Clubs, as part of our education program. The results are: four Wiki Clubs in the Republic of Macedonia, with more than 200 educated students;
  • Wiki Camps for school students, during the last 12 months we organized two Wiki Camps, very successful. During the three days of Wiki Camp, the students created altogether around 500 new articles.
Our current and future projects

GLAM program is ongoing, as we are in process of negotiation with several GLAM institutions in the Republic of Macedonia to sign memorandum or agreement for collaboration. Through cooperation with GLAM institutions, we are trying to make the knowledge and articles on Wikipedia reliable source of information. Wiki Club is an ongoing project as well. We plan to establish new Wiki Clubs and to involve more school students. Wiki conference for teachers is planed to be held in the middle of November.

Our challenges

Тhe challenges we face are related to everyday and periodic changes in society and institutions. And also with the changes in the life of our coordinators and people we collaborate with. Also, lack of money in the budget is a challenge, as we have been working with limited budget so far.

We wish we had ...

... a bigger budget to be able to finish everything we want to.

About us and our projects

Shared Knowledge is an organisation of Wikimedians established in March 2014 with the main goal to run mission-aligned initiatives and projects on the territory of Macedonia. It consists of community members and former members of Wikimedia Macedonia, and its establishing was officially supported by the community when it voted no confidence to the current Wikimedia Macedonia. However, the organisation is currently negotiating to get official approval by the Wikimedia Foundation as an official local chapter that will replace the current one. We currently have over 20 participants. We have many projects like Wikiwine, Wikibeer, Wikiexpeditions, collaborations with many institutions, photo competitions and editing contests. For example, we held lectures about editing Wikipedia for students, where those students wrote articles about specific topics and created new content that Macedonian Wikipedia lacks. Our goal is to create new content, including text and pictures, and along that to promote of the beauty of our forgotten villages, as well as to promote the domestic old culinary practices etc.

Our current and future projects

We have some ideas to make a photography exchange event with another Wikimedia affiliate in a way that they will host a gallery event in their country with pictures from Macedonian Wikipedia and its users, while we will host the same event in our country with photos from their Wikipedia and users.

Our challenges

Because we are an organisation in a small country with the small population, the main challenge we have is to get new contributors that are willing to voluntarily write and enrich our Wikipedia.

We wish we had ...

... more funds so that we can do more work and not worry that there will not be enough financeshttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikicamp_Dihovo_2018_Day_2 to accomplish our activities.

About us and our projects

Wikimedia Österreich is the Austrian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation. It was approved as a chapter in 2008 and registered as an association pursuant to Austrian law. From our recent acticities, we can highlight that we have started community building activities centering around Wikidata, which were very successful in engaging newcomers to the Wikimedia projects, tours of sites in Vienna and working with minority groups through Amnesty International and other NGOs. WikiDaheim was also successful in attracting over 60% more participants and pictures this year.

Our current and future projects

We are preparing a Pre-Hackathon for the Wikimedia Hackathon 2019 in Prague. We plan to make WikiDaheim viable for other communities in the CEE region.

Our challenges

Making our organisation more welcoming to newcomers, avoiding burning out of volunteers and staff by burdening them with too much work, figuring out which projects are still worth doing and which to leave behind.

About us and our projects

Our organization was created during the 2005 Wikimedia Meetup on 14 August 2005 in Kraków, which makes it the fourth Wikimedia chapter to be recognised by WMF. Currently, we have 129 members and that makes us one of the biggest affiliates in the CEE region. Last year we were organizing Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017 which proved to be good Wikimedia experience for all involved, including visitors and the local team. Wikimedia Polska runs a number of projects, including Wikigrants (a popular microgrants programme), Wikiexpeditions (a series of photographic expeditions to remote regions of Poland) and Wiki Lubi Zabytki (a highly successful Polish edition of Wiki Loves Monuments).

Our current and future projects

We are now in the middle of organizational audit, which we hope will plot a path to be followed by our organization and will prove to be an inspiration to others.

Our challenges

We have some challenges related to changes brought by the organizational audit underway. Also, we need to accommodate many initiatives, mostly GLAM-related, with finite resources.

We wish we had ...

... a clear picture of where we want to be as an organization as well as the community, spreading the good Wikimedia experience, and what tools we can use to get there.

About us and our projects

Wikimedians of Republika Srpska is a formally recognized group of users and editors of Wikimedia projects inside Republika Srpska (one of two equal entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina), which is active since 2015. Currently we have 67 members, although they are not all equally active. Or main directions of work are photo projects, GLAM projects, workshops and editathons. In the sphere of GLAM, we recently implemented a large project called Wiki Librarian in Republic of Srpska, which included the training of librarians to edit Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. The project covered 50 libraries from the territory of the Republic of Srpska, and project activities were implemented in 5 regional centers of Republika Srpska. Five editing workshops were implemented in the premises of the central libraries within a time limit of one month.

Our current and future projects

Trace of Soul 2018 is a public photography competition being held for the fourth year with the single goal of collecting as many photographs as possible of natural and immovable cultural heritage situated on the territory of Republic of Srpska. Competition is organized by Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska and the main idea is to promote and popularize natural, historical and cultural heritage of this area via Internet and, at the same time, to increase fund of free photographs in Wikimedia repository and to create Wikipedia content directly related to cultural and natural heritage of Republic of Srpska. Competition was held on local level between 1 August and 30 September 2018. It is based on similar competitions Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments.

Our challenges

We are actively working on building a quality organization. Every step forward is for us a real challenge, but we enjoy learning and finding ways to overcome obstacles.

We wish we had ...

... a status of the chapter and an some employees.

About us and our projects

Wikimédia Magyarország (Wikimedia Hungary) is the Hungarian chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, founded in 2008. It shares the mission of the Foundation in aiming to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally, with a special emphasis on Hungary. Its activities involve lectures, outreach events, projects aiming at improving the quality of Wikimedia sites and advocacy for better copyright legislation in Hungary and the European Union. Our members count currently is 46. Among our projects done in the previous 12 month are Shakespeare editathon (annual editathon in collaboration with Pázmány University), LGBT editathon, Wikicamp in summer, CEE Spring article contest.

Our current and future projects

We are planning the next Shakespeare editathon in November.

Our challenges

Attracting and keeping new editors is a challenge.

We wish we had ...

... an ability to see when a Wikidata item connected to a page has been changed. Right now, if incorrect info gets into Wikidata, it slips into articles unnoticed.

About us and our projects

Wikimedians of Romania and Moldova User Group is a group of users active on the Romanian Wikimedia projects who are interested in organizing and participating in outreach activities on national and international level. We have been active for more than ten years already (but recognized as a user group by the Wikimedia Foundation only in February 2018, eight month ago), coordinating and organizing, among others, some educational partnerships, workshops, presentations in different events like Europeana. There five of us at the moment. We are focused on increasing the relevance and perception of Wikimedia projects, both among the regular readers and users, as well as within the cultural and scientific communities. This year being our very first year as a user group, we do not have many projects finished:

Our current and future projects

We are currently working on the national part of the international photo contest Wiki Love Monuments 2018. We are preparing three dedicated niche projects for creating quality content and attracting specialized editors:

Our challenges
  • participation gaps (gender, age, expertise, geographical)
  • lack of leadership
  • not a very attractive and friendly environment for the newbies
We wish we had ...

... a grant for conducting a series of targeted projects for attracting "Editors 2.0" type and creating quality content.

About us and our projects

Wikimedia RU, the full name "Non-Commercial Partnership of promotion of distribution of encyclopedic knowledge Wikimedia RU", is an approved chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation for Wikimedians living in Russia, which was founded in 2008. Our mission is support and promotion of Wikimedia projects in all languages, however, most efforts are put into projects in Russian and in other languages of Russia. Our organization has 23 members at the moment. Among our projects, accomplished in the period of previous 12 month, are:

  • Open Library - a project for educating employees of libraries about free content and for retrieving free content from libraries;
  • Wikiconference 2018 - a conference about Wikimedia projects;
  • 11 article writing contests - different topics, circa 11 000 new articles;
  • 6 photo contests - monumentes, Earth, and science, circa 47 000 new images;
  • 1 books uploading contest - 2381 works.
Our current and future projects

Open Heritage - a project directed towards GLAM institutions, including creation of wiki-clubs in regions.

Our challenges

International and domestic instability leading to censorship and other restrictions, as well as financing difficulties.

We wish we had ...

... no interferences from government and officials into our work.

About us and our projects

Wikimedia Serbia is a local Serbian chapter that was founded in 2005 and now has 205 members which makes us one of the biggest affiliates in the CEE region. In the last 12 months we organized 12 seminars ("Application of online wiki tools in teaching and learning") for teachers. This type of seminars represents the part of compulsory professional development of teachers that is prescribed in the Serbia by the Law on the basis of the education system. Also, in April we organized WikiLive 2018 in Belgrad, which is a conference for local wikipedians. It was organized for the 4th time, with the aim to gather Wikipedians and WMRS volunteers. This was a two-day event with various presentations, workshops, discuss panels and other informal events. The main advantage of the conference was that people got involved and motivated to actively participate in Wikimedia Serbia activities.

Our current and future projects

Our current biggest project is cooperation with Ministry of culture and information of Serbia within GLAM Program. This cooperation has brought huge break through on the GLAM field. It resulted in gaining support from the Ministry in terms of establishing cooperation with various GLAM institutions in Serbia. Wikimedia Serbia also has several "Wikipedian in residence" programs approved and financially supported by Ministry.

Our challenges

Our main challenge is the technical aspects in educational and cultural institutions in Serbia. For example, we often have problems even with the Internet. Second biggest challenge is capacity building. Even if we have new and experienced volunteers, we need more for our fast growing projects.

We wish we had ...

... a rain of volunteers and Wikiumbrella to catch them!

Coming soon.

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Contact information

edit
Name E-mail Notes
Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group SQwikimediansUG(_AT_)gmail.com sent
Wikimedia Community User Group Albania wikimedia-wcuga(_AT_)lists.wikimedia.org sent
Wikimedia Armenia info(_AT_)wikimedia.am sent
Azerbaijani Wikimedians User Group info(_AT_)wikimedia.az sent
Wikimedians of Bashkortostan User Group - sent
Wikimedia Community User Group Belarus - sent
Wikimedians of Bulgaria User Group info(_AT_)wikimedia.bg sent
Wikimedia Czech Republic info(_AT_)wikimedia.cz
Wikimedia Eesti info(_AT_)wikimedia.ee sent
Wikimedians of Erzya language User Group
Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia kawikimedia(_AT_)gmail.com Mailing list. sent
Wikipedia Community Schools Association Greece info(_AT_)wikipedia-school.gr
Wikimedia Community User Group Greece wikiel(_AT_)lists.wikimedia.org.
Wikimedia Hungary board(_AT_)wikimedia.hu sent
Wikimedians of Latvia User Group wikimedia-lv(_AT_)lists.wikimedia.org
Shared Knowledge mksharedknowledge(_AT_)gmail.com sent
GLAM Macedonia User Group glammacedonia(_AT_)gmail.com sent
Wikimedians of Romania and Moldova User Group contact.wmromd(_AT_)gmail.com sent
Wikimedia Polska zarzad(_AT_)wikimedia.pl sent
Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska info(_AT_)wikimedia.rs.ba sent
Wikimedia Serbia info(_AT_)vikimedija.org sent
Wikimedians of Slovakia User Group info(_AT_)wikimedia.sk sent
Wikimedia Suomi info(_AT_)wikimedia.fi sent
Wikimedia Sverige info(_AT_)wikimedia.se sent
Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey wmtr(_AT_)wikimedia.community sent
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