Wikimedia CH/Newsletter/01/2019

Please find below Wikimedia CH's 1st newsletter for 2019.
If you would like to publish an event or activity through this newsletter, feel free to send us a message at info@wikimedia.ch. We wish you a good reading!

Association

Extraordinary General Assembly

On December 10th, Wikimedia Switzerland held its first ever online Extraordinary General Assembly and it was a successful event. After thorough technical testing prior to the assembly, Wikimedia members from all around Switzerland, the WMCH board and WMCH staff met at 18.00h in the virtual meeting room. The event was moderated by the president of the board Bagawathram Maheswaran, Executive Director Jenny Ebermann and external moderator Cornelius Piezner. On top of the agenda where three main points that needed to be voted on: changes to the WMCH bylaws, Protection of the WMCH funds and the WMCH budget 2019. All these three motions passed the mayority. Here you can find the details of the voting results:

The minutes of the event can be found in our Members Wiki (the access is restricted to members only, so please use your login).

What happened in the past months?

Edit-a-thon zu Art&Feminism Netzwerk Schweiz

Les sans pagEs @ MAMCO in Geneva

Les sans pagEs held a workshop on December 12th, and another one on January 16th at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary art in Geneva. As usual, all the participants (11 in December and 15 in January) had lunch together at the start of the workshop. Natacha and Galahmm taught new contributors how to edit in Wikipedia, and additional experienced Wikipedians, in collaboration with Flor from Wikimedia CH, helped the less experienced participants to contribute and write. Several women artists who where presented in current exhibitions at the MAMCO were added to the French language Wikipedia, as well as to Wikidata.

Who writes his_tory?

Beginning of February Daniela Brugger and Katja Brunner invited to a new writing session Who writes his_tory ?, an Edit-a-thon about Art & Feminism Network Switzerland in the Material in Zurich (Klingenstrasse 23, 8005 Zurich): On the 1st and 2nd of February held a writing-atelier the focus on editing different women's biographies. More information on their Facebook group, [:de:Wikipedia:Wikimedia CH/Edit-a-thon - Who writes his tory? Art & Feminism Project Page (in German)].

Cake at the New Year's Brunch (Chiasso)

Wikipedia celebrated its 18th birthday

On January 15th, Wikipedia celebrated its 18th birthday and Wikimedia CH marked the occasion with the annual New Year's Brunch. Today, Wikipedia is in the top ten of worldwide Internet domains, supported by thousands of volunteers, editors and donors, and is still growing every day.

Wiki-meetups of the group of Insubria

Edit-a-thon in Oleggio and picture with tabarristi

After the yearly CH New Year's brunch in Chiasso, where we had 15 Wikipedians of the Insubria group , the group met again on 19 January in Oleggio at the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum Carlo Giacomo Fanchini for an edit-a-thon about the museum and local culture. The event included 14 editors who wrote articles and uploaded pictures (in total 781 articles and files). The gathering ended with a dinner and a group photo with the "tabarristi", another group that met the same day at the museum, wearing the traditional tabarro, a typical costume of the southern Alps. The page of the event is available here where you can read about the details of the event.

CGN: visit and Wikipedia workshop 25.01 and 26.01

The Simplon undergoing repairs on a floating dock (Jan 2019)

Our latest workshop topic at the Bibliothèque de la Cité was about boats and navigation on lake Geneva. WMCH took the initiative to organize a visit of the Compagnie générale de navigation's shipyard prior to the workshop to get a first-hand experience. Raymond Croset, a former nautical mechanic, showed the group the shipyard in detail and presented two boats currently in repair, the Simplon and the Vevey. He also pointed out some mistakes he had noticed in the French Wikipedia in regards to some CGN boats. The errors were all corrected in the writing worshop the next day, at the Bibliothèque de la Cité in Geneva. Regatta winner Dona Bertarelli was also integrated into Wikipedia, thanks to the devotion of Les sans pagEs.

WikiFranca logo

WikiFranca

The French chapters and usergroups are planning to come together to organize a central coordination structure. A first plan has been set up, as well as a [1] for a future microfinance committee. Wikimedia France and Wikimedia Canada will apply for funds on behalf of WikiFranca to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and to the Canadian government.

Education

#theLab

#theLab Locarno

In 2019 Wikimedia CH began a partnership with the faculty of Pedagogy of Locarno for a series of events related to workshops to be organized with teachers and their students. The workshops are held in the beautiful setting of the Locarno Palacinema and go by the name of #theLab.

The goal are the Digital humanities and, in addition to being a supporter of the laboratories, Wikimedia CH also participates in the information literacy project.

The first information literacy workshop was held on January 21st with a middle school class. The students where divided into four teams and participated in a series of research activities to win a final prize. Between virtual treasure hunts, search for fake news and other activities, the students and teachers had a lot of fun and the initiative was a big success. This concept was then repeated on February 4th with a primary school.

Announcements

General assembly

Our next General Assembly (GA) will be held April, 13th 2019, so please save the date. The location will be announced shortly and official invitations will also be sent out to the members.

German language Writing-Ateliers in Bern and elsewhere

Winterthur Stadtbibliothek

The German speaking community will continue their Writing-Ateliers in 2019. The main goals will be the exchange with other Wikipedians, to focus on the texts that should be written and to discuss the recent questions about style and formatting. As on previous occasions, the gathering will continue to be held at the Theatermuseum, next to the main train station in Bern. Another upcoming event will be in Winterthur at the Sammlung Winterthur on February 23rd. For more information and to register please visit the project page.

WikiDienstag

WikiDienstag is a new format that was inspired and organized by User:Sms2sms. It is related to other Free Content initiatives that he plans to set up this year, together with other like-minded organizations. It is noteworthy that the sessions which take place in Zurich-Hottingen are streamed live, so you can participate from any location. All about this #Wikidienstag on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wikinews_ch.

WikiDienstag is always held on the first Tuesday of the month. Between 08.00 to 12.00 AM, beginners and Newbees can learn about the production of texts and articles in Wikipedia, step by step. The focus is on individual topics, such as syntax, discussion culture, research and source work, table layout, categorization, etc. The initiative will be running until summer and the first meeting was held on the 5th of February.

Castles-Dossier

In 2019, Wikimedia CH will put their focus on Swiss castles, initially in the cantons of Zurich and Aargau. In addition to missing or incorrect geo-coordinates and / or categories, the article stock must be checked for demarcation from field monuments, as well as for completeness. The same corrections will also be made in OpenStreetMap, where similar issues can be found. The aging collaboration between both volunteer organizations needs to be revitalized. There will be a joint work meeting in May at a selected castle in order to coordinate and harmonize the initiatives. We will send you more about it in the next newsletter.

Leman navigation workshop follow-up, Geneva, Saturday, February, 23rd

Albatros hydrofoil, illustration created during the previous atelier

Based on the success of the CGN and navigation workshop on January 26th (participants almost had to be kicked out of the library), we will be organizing a follow-up event on February 23rd, also in Geneva. The final location and workshop hours are yet to be defined, but if you missed the first occasion, this is your chance to join us. The same bibliography will be available. All the details will be announced on the Carnotzet and the CH website as soon as they are available.

Wikidata workshop in Lausanne, Friday, March 29th

Wikidata logo

After a day organized for GLAM professionals on the 28th, Shonagon will be coming to Lausanne on March 29th to give a Wikidata workshop. Shonagon works for the Louvre museum. He is also a Wikidata enthusiast and one of the main contributors of [2], an image search engine that relies on Commons and on Wikidata. His Wikidata workshop will be geared towards all Wikimedians interested in learning how to use Wikidata. This Wikidata session should also be very interesting for art enthusiasts, so sign up and join us.

To register, please contact Flor_WMCH. The page for the workshop should be up in the first half of February. Please note that Shonagon only speaks French, so the workshop will be held in that language.

List of Coming Events

See the WMCH calendar.