Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia/Reports/2019

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Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free encyclopedia based on a model of openly editable and viewable content, a wiki. Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.

2019
Report

Report of activities: 2019

Wikipedia 18

Wikipedia has grown enormously since its inception: It now boasts 5.7 million articles in English and pulled in 92 billion page views last year. The site has also undergone a major reputation change. If you ask Siri, Alexa or Google Home a general-knowledge question, it will likely pull the response from Wikipedia.

Georgian press became interested in Wikipedia and birthday of Wikipedia. For this reason, Georgian television invited representatives of our organization (UG-GE) and editors of the Georgian Wikipedia to television programs. Chairman of the Board of UG-GE Mikheil Chabukashvili spoke live on the Georgian Public Broadcasting, in the morning program. Other members of the board, David Asriashvili and Mikheil Chkhikvadze, spoke live on the "Mesame" channel of Georgia.

UG-GE trainings in Kakheti

On February 2, 2019, Board Members of the Wikimedia Community User Group Mikheil Chabukashvili and Jaba Labadze visited Akhmeta Youth Center and Akhalsofeli Youth Center of Kvareli Municipality by invitation from the head of the local Youth Center. They conducted lectures and lessons about Georgian Wikipedia and made interesting activities that will take place throughout the year.

GAHE & UG-GE collaboration

On February 9, the editor of the Georgian Wikipedia and UG-GE Member of Board in collaboration with the Association of Georgian History Teachers conducted a joint edit-a-thon, during which 133 articles on the cultural heritage of Kazbegi Municipality were created in Georgian Wikipedia.

Bakuriani WikiCamp (March, 2019)

Project page on Meta-Wiki

Bakuriani WikiCamp 2019 — from March 8 to 12, Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia conducts a spring camp for young people aged 14 to 25 years, to acquire skills in Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. During the camp, young people will study the wiki-technology (1-2 days), and then under the supervision of experienced wikipedians (members of the user group) will independently create and translate articles in Georgian Wikipedia and Georgian Wikiquote. The main goal of the camp, to attract more young people to work in Georgian Wikipedia, Georgian Wikiquote and other projects of Wikimedia. After the camp, experienced Wikipedians will actively collaborate with young Wikipedians to work with Wikipedia and Wikiquote, as well as various activities to maintain interest in the wikimedia projects.

Idea

The idea of holding a camp for young people to acquire skills in working with Wikimedia projects has existed for a long time among members of the user group. After our neighbors in the region conducted several successful WikiCamps, members of our user group at an informal meeting decided to hold a similar camp in Georgia.

Goal

The main goal of the camp, to attract more young people to work in Georgian Wikipedia, Georgian Wikiquote and other projects of Wikimedia. With such projects, UG Georgia promotes the popularization of wikimedia projects among young people of Georgia. During the camp, articles in the Georgian Wikipedia and the Georgian Wikiquote will be created and improved, and also photos from the Wikimedia Commons will be added to the articles. Images, that were taken during WLE 2018 will be added to the corresponding articles in Georgian and other language Wikipedia.

Result

Participant selection process

A team of project organizers worked on the selection process for camp participants. During the selection of participants, such details as the age of the candidate, motivation (which the candidate presented as a text), gender (for the gender balance of camp participants), and whether she/he had previously worked in Wikimedia projects were taken into account.

The selection process began with the registration, where in the first stage potential participants were selected, and with the registration closed, the camp participants were selected from among potential candidates. The whole process took about two weeks.

Introduction

Bakuriani WikiCamp started on friday, at one o'clock. Before this, Wikimedia UG Georgia transported all participants from the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi to the point, where the camp was held. The camp opened with greetings from all camp participants, after which lunch began, and after lunch we switched to the main program of the camp.

Report by day

Friday

The official program of the day began after lunch, at 15:00.

The Bakuriani WikiCamp began with a greeting from the participants, which was carried out by a Member of the Board of the Wikimedia UG Georgia and one of the organizers of the WikiCamp , Mehman Ibragimov. He also presented a report on the activities of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and also provided the audience information about WMF, in which the structure and operation of the WMF was provided. Stakeholders asked questions about the WMF, to which specific answers were submitted.

After the report, Wikimedia UG Georgia Chair of Board Mikheil Chabukashvili, together with another Board Member of the Wikimedia UG Georgia, with David Asriashvili, presented a report on the activities of the Wikimedia UG Georgia, as well as the work of the organization for three years. Representatives of the Wikimedia UG Georgia presented in detail the guests at the conference about all the Wikimedia projects that exist in the Georgian language, as well as about all the projects that Wikimedia UG Georgia conducts in Georgia. All the contests presented by Wikimedia UG Georgia in the Georgian Wikipedia and in other projects of the WMF were presented. Projects that conducted by the UG Georgia, aroused great interest among people attending the conference, stakeholders have asked questions and the representatives of the UG Georgia responded in detail to them.

After the report of Board Members of Wikimedia UG Georgia, a Member of the Board of Wikimedia UG Georgia and one of the very first Georgia's Wikipedians, who has been involved in the Wiki-movement for more than 10 years, appeared his report to the guests. This is Jaba Labadze. The main topic of Jaba Labadze's report was "Wikipedia in Education", he spoke about the importance of informal education and educational projects implemented in this regard. Namely how to set up a WikiClub in their own school and also in two library of its municipality. Also highlighted how the students learned history using Wikipedia. She talked about the success of her schoolchildren in international and local competitions. Finally, he noted that his success of the "Teacher's National Award" was largely based on the use of WikiTechnology in school. Following this success, he is conducting WikiLessons in various schools of Georgia and teaches students to Wikipedia.

At the end of the program day, we had a discussion, where we asked the camp participants, why they chose our camp and what they know about the Wikimedia projects, and what they expect from this camp. During the discussion, representatives of Wikimedia UG Georgia told about their experience in working on Wikimedia projects.

Saturday

The program day began at 10 o'clock. Jaba Labadze, an experienced editor of the Georgian Wikipedia, began explaining the basics of working for new users on Wikipedia. At first, new users listened attentively Jaba, who explained in detail all the principles of Wikipedia and began to explain how to work in Wikipedia. All the technical details of Wikipedia and their use in the work were presented. During the presentation, new participants actively recorded all the necessary details.

After a one-hour intensive study course on Wikipedia, new users took the first step into Wikipedia and started creating new articles. In the process of creating articles, the participants of the WikiCamp were assisted by representatives of the Wikimedia UG Georgia, who are also editors of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

For all the day of intensive work, new users created dozens of articles in the Georgian Wikipedia, mostly about the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918-1921).

Mehman Ibragimov presented a report on how to work Wikidata and what it represents for Wikimedia projects. Wikidata is a collaboratively edited knowledge base hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia can use, and anyone else, under a public domain license. This is similar to the way Wikimedia Commons provides storage for media files and access to those files for all Wikimedia projects, and which are also freely available for reuse.

At the end of the program day, the bureaucrat and administrator of the Georgian Wikipedia, David Asriashvili, explained in detail why templates and Infobox are needed in the Wikipedia and how they work.

The program day ended with a dinner together.

Sunday

The third program day began with a discussion of the mistakes made during the creation of new articles the day before. After examining all the mistakes made and discussing them, the camp participants, under the guidance of the representatives of Wikimedia UG Georgia, began to create new articles in the Georgian Wikipedia.

After a short break, the program day continued with the familiarization of other Wikimedia projects for the camp participants, specifically the administrator of Georgian Wikipedia David Asriashvili introduced Wikimedia Commons to the participants. Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is an online repository of free-use images, sounds, and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all Wikimedia projects in all languages.

David showed by example how freely licensing photos can be uploaded to a Commons and then used in Wikimedia projects.

After that, Mehman Ibragimov made a presentation about the coordination page of the Wikimedia projects — Meta-Wiki, which is global community site for the Wikimedia Foundation's projects and related projects, from coordination and documentation to planning and analysis.

After a three-day intensive course, at the end of the third day, representatives of the Wikimedia UG Georgia organized a small excursion for the camp participants to the ski resort. Camp participants visited the local ski resort center — Didveli.

The program day ended with a dinner together.

Monday

The fourth program day began with a review of the mistakes made, as well as a discussion of the obstacles faced by the camp participants while working on Wikipedia. All problems were discussed and resolved. After that, the camp participants, led by representatives of the Wikimedia UG Georgia, continued to create new articles in the Georgian Wikipedia, and some participants who were able to develop higher skills began to create new templates.

After the break, the editor of the Georgian Wikipedia, as well as the history teacher at the Surami Secondary School Jaba Labadze, who was in the top-5 Georgian teachers for 2018, presented in the form of a presentation a report on how important the STEM in education. WikiCamp participants were informed in detail about the importance of STEM.

The program day continued with the work in Wikimedia projects, mainly in the Georgian Wikipedia.

The program day ended with a dinner together.

Tuesday

The fifth program day, March 12 for the whole of Georgia, was a memorable day. Exactly 100 years ago, on March 12, 1919, the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia was held, which was a national legislature of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, elected in February 1919 to ratify the Act of Independence of Georgia and enact the Constitution of 1921. The assembly remained active until the Soviet Russian military intervention brought Georgia’s three-year independence to an end in March 1921.

On this day, the WikiCamp participants, under the supervision of representatives of the Wikimedia UG Georgia, created over 40 articles about the Democratic Republic of Georgia.

In the second half of the program day, we summed up the results of the entire WikiCamp, discussed our further steps and all the results of the project. After that, WikiCamp participants were handed over certificates of participation in the WikiCamp and memorable pictures were taken.

After that, participants were given free time and all together they organized a tour of the city.

The program day and WikiCamp ended with a dinner together.

Conclusion

The project was intense and productive, as well as one of the most successful in the history of Wikimedia UG Georgia. This kind of WikiCamp will be held in the future.

During the five days of the WikiCamp, by 20 participants of the camp created 154 new articles in the Georgian Wikipedia, as well as several templates.

The whole process of the project was completed without any serious incidents.

Gallery

Media related to Bakuriani WikiCamp (March, 2019) at Wikimedia Commons

Jaba Labadze teaches to edit Wikipedia for WikiCamp participants
Mikheil Chabukashvili during the workshop
Mehman Ibragimov during the workshop
David Asriashvili during the workshop
Mikheil Chikhvadze during the workshop
WikiCamp work process
Certificate transfer ceremony
Certificate transfer ceremony
Group Photo of WikiCamp participants
Group Photo of WikiCamp participants
Wikimedia UG Georgia Team
From Didveli Trip

Competition of Natural Sciences 2019

Project Leader: Mehman97
- Project page on Georgian Wikipedia.

Competition of Natural Sciences is a competition held by Wikimedia UG Georgia to promote the natural sciences in the Georgian Wikipedia, through which the articles of the Georgian Wikipedia in chemistry, physics and biology will be improved or new articles created. Also, this contest will help increase the number of new editors in Wikipedia.

The subject of natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology) is very weak in the Georgian Wikipedia, which is why the readers of the Georgian Wikipedia face problems. Unfortunately, there are very few editors in the Georgian Wikipedia or almost none of them who would work on this topic. With this contest, we increased the number of new articles and the number of new users, who work on this topic. The competition was held within two months (April-May).

In total, 16 Wikipedia editors participated in the contest, from where 8 participants were new and specifically six of them registered on Wikipedia after the start of our contest. During the contest, 16 participants wrote 297 new articles (see full list on Fountain). We are also proud that 9 (more than half) of the contestants were female, which makes our contest and the community more gender equal.

In total, we were satisfied with the result of the contest and plan to conduct such thematic contest in the future.

Wiki Loves Earth 2019 in Georgia

Project Leader: David1010
- Coordinator: Mehman97
  - Project page on Commons.

Wiki Loves Earth is an annual international photo contest of the natural monuments. Wikimedia UG Georgia this year for the third time in a row holds this contest, after two successful contests. Our goals are to increase the number of freely licensed images in Commons, which we can later use in other Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Wikiquote etc.).

Georgia is a country that is famous for its magnificent nature, that year the third time participated in the contest Wiki Loves Earth. This contest focuses on increasing free licensed nature images on the Wikimedia Commons. For us, this competition is very important for several reasons. First of all, it is important because, with the help of this contest, we will increase the number of freely licensed images of Georgian national parks, protected areas and nature on the Commons. Secondly, with this contest we can to contribute to nature protection by raising public awareness. Also, we can also increase the quality of the content of Wikimedia projects, as we will use the photos uploaded during the contest in Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikinews, Wikiquote etc.).

During the contest more than 320 photos were uploaded by 22 participants, which is below last year’s result and below our expectations. Unfortunately, we didn't achieve this goal for various reasons. Among these reasons is that the contest time is not convenient, since it's June and many people at this time finish annual work on their affairs and are busy with it. Also, many people are not adapted to the Wiki-space, and this is a barrier for them, despite the fact that we are trying to help them as much as possible and, most importantly, there are very few volunteers who are willing to donate their photos under a free license in Georgia. We are already working on new tactics to improve the outcome in the future.

New tactics for attracting more participants to the contest, there will be active advertising of the contest on social networks, since there is a large audience of potential participants, as well as wiki-expeditions for those wishing to take part in the contest and training for them how to upload photos to Commons. Also, we decided to conduct such contests as "Wiki Loves Earth" to conduct once every two years. We think this will help increase the number of new competitors and during this time we will be able to actively promote this project.

We think that in the future we will have a better contest and will be able to achieve all the goals.

GAHE & UG-GE collaboration

On June 17, the editor of the Georgian Wikipedia and UG-GE Member of Board in collaboration with the Association of Georgian History Teachers conducted a joint edit-a-thon, during which 317 articles on the cultural heritage of Telavi Municipality were created in Georgian Wikipedia.

WikiCamp in Tskhneti

Project Leader: Jaba1977
- Check out the article WikiCamp

July 16th to 20th was organised WikiCamp by Wikimedia UG Georgia and Georgian Association of History Educators in Tskneti, Tbilisi. Wikipedia editing lessons and Edit-a-thon was held for 21 school students from around Georgia. 210 new articles about History of Tbilisi and cultural heritage of Dedoplistskaro Municipality was created by students in Georgian Wikipedia.

National Cultural Monuments of Georgia

Project Leader: Jaba1977 and Surprizi
- Coordinator: Mehman97
  - Contest page on Meta

July 1 to August 31, 2019, Wikimedia UG Georgia held Wikipedia editing contest. The competition was held both in the Georgian Wikipedia and in other sections of Wikipedia (in other languages). During a contest, contestants had to create articles on their language wikipedia and add them (link to articles) to a special page. The winners was named by the jury.

Immovable monuments of culture of national importance is Georgian churches, monasteries, fortresses, palaces, residential houses, bridges, towers and other monuments granted status of immovable monuments of culture of national importance.

Contest goals were:

Popularization of Georgian culture.
Recruit new editors.
Improve Wikipedia content.
Create new articles about National Cultural Monuments of Georgia.

During the contest, a total of 1437 articles were created (check the scoreboard of articles in Georgian and other languages). For language sections, the result look like this:

Georgian Wikipedia: 192 new article
Bashkir Wikipedia: 385 new article
Turkish Wikipedia: 227 new article
English Wikipedia: 103 new article
Catalan Wikipedia: 149 new article
Spanish Wikipedia: 187 new article
Greek Wikipedia: 81 new article
Azerbaijani Wikipedia: 27 new article
Armenian Wikipedia: 3 new article
Russian Wikipedia: 3 new article
Bangla Wikipedia: 3 new article
Portuguese Wikipedia: 67 new article
Malayalam Wikipedia: 1 new article
French Wikipedia: 1 new article
Macedonian Wikipedia: 2 new article
Czech Wikipedia: 6 new article

In total 33 participants participated in the contest, from different language sections of Wikipedia.

This is an excellent result for our contest and for us, and we are completely satisfied with this result.

WikiTrainings in Marneuli

From trainings

Project Leader: Mehman97
- Project page on Meta.

From September to December, 2019, Wikimedia UG Georgia, in cooperation with the Development and Education Center of Marneuli, was conduct trainings for new volunteers on work in Wikimedia projects. New volunteers was trained on the specifics of working on Wiki-technologies and on creating free content based on Wikimedia projects. Trainings was take place within three months.

15 new users participated in the Wikimedia UG Georgia WikiTrainings, who within 3 months in total created more than 40 new articles in Georgian Wikipedia.

Strategy Salon

Project Leader: Mehman97
- Project pages on Meta: First and Second.

The Strategy Salon of the Wikimedia Foundation was held in the capital of Georgia, in Tbilisi, September 8, 2019. Experienced Wikimedia project participants from Georgia, active Georgian Wikipedia editors and experienced Community participants was participated in the Strategy Salon. During the Salon, we discussed the future of the Wikimedia movement and the Wikimedia Foundation. The discussion focused on developing recommendations for the Wikimedia movement, in particular regarding partnerships and capacity building.

The recommendations developed during the Strategy Salon will be taken into account by Wikimedia UG Georgia for the organizationally developed, as well as for the development and promotion of the Wikimedia Movement in Georgia.

The salon began with a small presentation, in which the first part briefly talked about the user group (UG-GE) itself and his current situation, and in the second part, Mehman Ibragimov spoke about his trip to Wikimania 2019. Later we switched to the main program of the salon, as it was said before, the salon consisted of two parts, in the first part we discussed Partnership and made recommendations for the Wikimedia Foundation, and in the second part we talked and made recommendations on Capacity Building. Between program transitions, we had a coffee break, where participants were able to relax and discuss other aspects of our program. Cafe break took place in the same building where the Strategy Salon itself took place, which saved us time.

Wiki Loves Caucasus 2019

Project page on Meta.

Wiki Loves Caucasus 2019 is the first regional competition, which is organized by Caucasian Wikimedians. The main goal of the competition is to create as many articles about the Caucasus in the languages of the Caucasus as possible. The language sections of Wikipedia in the languages of the Caucasus will be participating in the competition, during which new articles about the countries of the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia) will be created. Each participating country should create thematic articles about other participating countries. Other countries and relevant Wikipedia's, that don't represent this region, can participate in the competition.

Contest was take place from October 7 to November 7.

In total, 46 editors in 15 languages took part in the contest, who in general created or supplemented 1,269 articles:

Wikipedia language section results:

Georgian Wikipedia: 525
Azerbaijani Wikipedia: 250
Russian Wikipedia: 144
Ukrainian Wikipedia: 128
Spanish Wikipedia: 69
Chechen Wikipedia: 30
Lezgi Wikipedia: 30
Erzyan Wikipedia: 23
Arabic Wikipedia: 22
Malayalam Wikipedia: 20
Ossetian Wikipedia: 13
Armenian Wikipedia: 5
Latvian Wikipedia: 4
Hindi Wikipedia: 4
Bashkir Wikipedia: 2

This is a great result for our contest, given the fact that some of the small sections of Wikipedia (in North Caucasus languages) are very inactive and they don't have regular active editors. We also need to take into account the fact that this was the first contest of its kind and we were new to this. So, we are completely satisfied with this result.

Wikipedia Asian Month 2019 in Georgia

Project Leaders: Mehman97 & David1010
- Project page on Georgian Wikipedia

Wikipedia Asian Month is an online article contest on Wikipedia focused on promotion of Asian content in different language Wikipedia. Each participating community runs a month-long online edit-a-thon every November at their local language Wikipedia to create new content about Asia except their home country. Participation is not limited to Asian communities.

Wikimedia UG Georgia held this contest for the first time in 2016 and this year has already taken place 4 times. 12 editors of the Georgian Wikipedia took part in the contest, who in total created 288 new articles.

Wikimedia UG Georgia for the winners of the first, second and third place appointed prizes in the form of vouchers for the purchase of books. The winner of first place also received from our partner of the "Isurve/ისურვე" online store as a gift smart TV.

Georgian WikiConference 2019

Conference Page on WMGE site.

On December 22, 2019, the second Georgian Conference was held in the capital of Georgia, in Tbilisi, which was dedicated to the popularization of Wikimedia projects and the Wikimedia movement in Georgia. In addition, the conference is a sustainable platform for presenting to the public reports on the development of Wikimedia UG Georgia, as well as for presenting annual reports and plans for the future.

At the conference, both Wikimedia UG Georgia representatives, as well as Wikipedia editors and representatives of other organizations that are involved in the Wikimedia movement and who help the development of Wikimedia projects in Georgia, made their speeches.

The conference was opened by the Chairman of Wikimedia UG Georgia, Mehman Ibragimov, who greeted those present and introduced the conference program. After the greeting, Mehman presented to the public a detailed report on the work of Wikimedia UG Georgia and on the projects that the organization carried out over the past year. After that, Mehman presented the plans for the next year to the public, all the projects that will be carried out in the coming year were presented in detail.

Then, active participants of Wikimedia projects in Georgian language and talked about the problems that exist in Wikimedia projects in Georgian. After that, a 20-minute break was announced and all guests were treated to coffee and sweets.

After the break, the second part of the conference began, where the words were made by Jaba Labadze, Board Member of Wikimedia UG Georgia and active editor of the Georgian Wikipedia and Manana Shekiladze, the head of the Georgian Association of History Educators. Jaba presented a report on the development of WikiClubs in the regions and a vision on the development of such clubs further. Manana Shekiladze presented a report on the joint project Wikimedia UG Georgia and GAHE, which is the "Wiki-School Georgia", where young people learn to edit Georgian Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

At the end of the conference, important decisions were made on the development of the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia projects in Georgia, as well as the development of Wikimedia UG Georgia.

Images from the conference

Photos taken during the Conference
Photos taken during the Conference
Photos taken during the Conference
Photos taken during the Conference
Photos taken during the Conference

Participation in regional and global Wikimedia events

Wikimedia Summit 2019

Personal Report from Mehman Ibragimov.

Wikimedia Summit 2019 – the same and formerly known as "Wikimedia Conference", which took place in Berlin during 29–31 March 2019.

In short, we can say that: The Wikimedia Summit focused on the Movement Strategy Process and movement governance for the organized part of the movement in general. The program was designed according to the status and needs of the ongoing Movement Strategy Process and its Working Groups. A diverse group of participants gathered, and was working, discussing, and thinking together. To reflect this change we decided to rename the event to "Wikimedia Summit".

This year (2019) Wikimedia UG Georgia was represented at the summit by Mehman Ibragimov.

Wikimania 2019

Personal Report from Mehman Ibragimov.

The 15th annual meeting of all people who are involved in Wikimedia projects – Wikimania 2019 was held in the capital of Sweden, in Stockholm. On behalf of Wikimedia UG Georgia, the conference was attended by the Chairman of Wikipedia UG Georgia Mehman Ibragimov. Mehman, together with a representative of Wikimedia Russia, made a presentation about Caucasian Collaboration and together with representatives of Wikimedia Ukraine, made a speech Wiki Loves Earth session.

Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019

Group photo from CEE

Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019 was the eighth annual meeting of Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe centered on the Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia and similar projects) in countries and communities of Central and Eastern Europe. The meeting will be held in Belgrade, Serbia from 11–13 October 2019.

Wikimedia UG Georgia was represented at the conference this year by Board Members, Jaba Labadze and Mikheil Chabukashvili. During the conference, Jaba Labadze presented to the public a presentation on Wikipedia in education.