Wikimedia EU
- Not to be confused with: Wikimedia Europe, the association of Wikimedia affiliates.
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Wikimedia EU is a preliminary name for a proposal to set up a cooperation for structured coverage of European Union and related issues in different Wikipedias and other wikiprojects. (No, it's nothing certain and we can change it whenever we want.)
European Union and its institutions have a large influence on millions of people. Still, the coverage is currently shabby at best. Many articles are outdated, lacking sources, information about media coverage, results of initiatives, etc. Most of them are present only on English, French, and German - while the content may be vitally important for the speakers of all the official languages in EU.
On the other hand, the EU itself is not always very good in communicating directly with the people. Most of the time, it goes through the lenses and filters of local politicians and media who all too often have their own agenda. Wikipedians are much better at bringing objective information to readers who look for it. So, there is a lot of room for cooperation, so that everybody would win from it.
If we're interested in organizing a cooperation, there are a few simple steps to start the process.
First of all, there are several Wikiprojects and portals on European Union in different Wikipedias that until now don't always do much cooperation. We should definitely contact people there and see, how many of them are really active and how many would be interested in cooperation and coordination. We should also try to recruit new people from the communities.
Second, we should map the current extent of EU coverage in different languages. It would make sense to focus on the official languages of EU, because that's already a huge workload and specific information on EU has a bit more importance, say, for Italians and Estonians than for the Japanese.
Third, we could approach with the communication people at EU institutions, both in the central offices and local branches, to get their opinion and recommendations both on necessary themes and useful sources. Also, that could be a way to gain new contributors.
One of the closest opportunities we could use will be the next election for European Parliament that will come in less than a year. It will be a large event that has many related relevant themes, extensive media coverage and public interest in all European languages. We could start from covering that and working our way to the other themes.
Now, is anybody interested in making it happen?
EU portals and projects on Wikipedias
edit| No. | Official languages | Portals | Wikiprojects |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bulgarian | en:Portal:European Union | - |
| 2 | Croatian | - | - |
| 3 | Czech | cs:Portál:Evropská unie | - |
| 4 | Danish | da:Portal:Den Europæiske Union | da:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt EU |
| 5 | Dutch | nl:Portaal:Europese Unie | - |
| 6 | English | en:Portal:European Union | en:Wikipedia:WikiProject European Union |
| 7 | Estonian | - | - |
| 8 | Finnish | fi:Teemasivu:Euroopan unioni | - |
| 9 | French | fr:Portail:Union européenne | fr:Projet:Union européenne |
| 10 | German | de:Portal:Europäische Union | de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Politik/EU |
| 11 | Greek | el:Πύλη:Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση | - |
| 12 | Hungarian | hu:Portál:Európai Unió | - |
| 13 | Irish | - | - |
| 14 | Italian | it:Portale:Unione europea | - |
| 15 | Latvian | - | - |
| 16 | Lithuanian | - | - |
| 17 | Maltese | - | - |
| 18 | Polish | pl:Portal:Unia Europejska | pl:Wikiprojekt:Unia Europejska |
| 19 | Portuguese | pt:Portal:União Europeia | - |
| 20 | Romanian | ro:Portal:Uniunea Europeană | - |
| 21 | Slovak | - | - |
| 22 | Slovene | - | - |
| 23 | Spanish | es:Portal:Unión Europea | es:Wikiproyecto:Unión Europea |
| 24 | Swedish | sv:Portal:EU | sv:Wikipedia:Projekt EU |
There are also portals in Arabian, Arpetan, Catalan, Frisian, Latin, Letzebuergish, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian and Turkish, and Wikiprojects in Catalan, Chinese, and Russian.
Of course, people from any other languages can join, but we should take any excessive commitments. It's a large project as it is.