Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Shared Knowledge/June 2016

SHARED KNOWLEDGE
Activity report

June 2016

Holy Roman Empire Editing competition

This month we held the Holy Roman Empire Editing competition (Уредувачки натпревар „Свето Римско Царство“) that took place from 1 to 30 June 2016. We decided on this topic, as it covers a large time-span of European history, and involves the past of many modern countries in Europe.

For the purpose of consistency in terminology, we provided a list of all the polity types within the empire and their names in English, German and Macedonian. The main source material used were the English and German language Wikipedia, with articles about states, rulers and emperors presented in lists and templates.

There were 6 participants on the competition, who created 105 articles and 1 template, with a more or less equal coverage of states and rulers.

Telescopes Editing day

On 29 June we held a Telescopes Editing day (Уредувачки ден „Телескопи“) inspired by our lack of coverage of the most important astronomical instruments in the world. As with any other editing day, it took place in the 24-hour period on that day. Because of the holiday season, we had a modest participation of 3 people, creating a total of 5 articles.

Wikiexpedition to Železnik (Demir Hisar Municipality)

Wikiexpeditions logo

Map of settlements covered by the expedition (yellow) within Demir Hisar Municipality

Our Second Wikiexpedition for 2016 was held on the 4 and 5 June and achieved comprehensive coverage of the traditional region of Železnik, in today's Demir Hisar Municipality. The group consisted of our usual team of Македонец, Ehrlich91, Kiril Simeonovski и Petrovskyz. This was a very fruitful expediting, covering 29 villages, constituting the vast majority of settlements in the region.

Starting from Skopje and making a break in the Straža Pass, the expedition arrived in the region of Železnik and entered the village Vemlevci, which was first on the list of places to be visited. On the same day, the expedition also visited most villages of the former Municipality of Sopotnica. When in the Železnik region, the expeditionaries had the opportunity to get acquainted with the two crafts that characterise the region, but are lost in most of modern Macedonia: charcoal-making (ḱumurdžistvo) in Bazernik and the production and dyeing of traditional woolen rugs using swirling water mills for fulling (valavničarstvo) in Virovo. Воедно било посетено и селото Sloeštica, the birthplace of the notable Macedonian writer Petre M. Andreevski, where he is also buried.

Within the borders of Sloeštica, our expedition managed to find the medieval Toplica Monastery, whose remains are almost unrecognisible today, due to the large amount of dust from the local mine. The only preserved building is the monastery church, that our visitors could only access from the outside. Subsequently, the expedition moved on to the village of Babino, the location of largest private library in Macedonia. In the vicinity\, the expedition intended to visit Cerovo, Boište and the abandoned village of Leskovo, but was unable to do so due to the road conditions.

On the evening of the frist day, the expedition passed the village of Žurče, and went on to the town of Kruševo, where they spent the night.

On the second day, the expedition descended from Kruševo on the road via Dolno Divjacici, and entered Demir Hisar Municipality from the village of Kočište, and then descended further to the lowland settlements around the town of Demir Hisar.

The expedition subsequently had an excellent opportunity to visit the 12th-century Žurče Monastery, an active nunnery to this day, possessing frescoes of exceptional importance. The monastery was opened for our expedition and participants were taken on a thorough tour by a nun. Later, the expedition entered the famous revolutionary village of Smilevo, where the famous Congress of Smilevo took place, crucial for the Ilinden Uprising. They made excellent panoramic photos of the village, visited the three village churches, the two monuments on the village suqare, the Dame Gruev Memorial Park above the village, and made a comprehensive visit of the Smilevo Memorial Museum, with excellent tour by the museum guide.

In total, the expedition photographed 29 villages in the Demir Hisar Municipality, an unprecedented number, giving us the most fruitful expedition we have held so far.

Geoexpedition to Šar Mountains

Logo of Geoexpeditions

Due to the great complexity of the challenge of reaching the many remote parts of the Šar Mountains, the Geoexpedition to Šar Mountains (our second) is in fact a combined effort of several visits that took place during 2014, 2015 and 2016. The first visit took place on 31 August 2024 with the visit of the Rudoka Peak и Crno (Black) Lake. The next challenge was undertaken on 28 September of the same year, and included ascending Plat Peak. The third trip was also the first systematic visit, taking place on 7 June 2015 when Mario Šarevski (Македонец), together with several locals and hikers from the mountaineering societies "Transferzalec", "Ljuboten" and "Makedon" climbed Dobroški and Ezerski Peak and took pictures of the Lower and Upper Dobrošte Lake and the Gabrovnica River.

The largest initiative for photographing various natural areas along the entire stretch of Šar Mountains took place on 3 to 12 July 2015, when Mario Šarevski and 15 other hikers on the "West Macedonian Transversal" challenge organised by Transferzalec Mountaineering Society covered the entire ridge of the Šar masssif, sleeping in tents. The route began at Ljuboten and ended in the village of Crvena Voda in the area of Ohrid. The expeditionaries took many pictures of mountain peaks, lakes, branching maintains, slopes, plateaus and localities.

On 4 October 2015 Mario Šarevski was one of the organisers of the event called Da pošarame do Požarane, when participants visited the inaccessible peaks Golema and Mala Vraca with the Upper and Lower Vraca Lakes, to which there is no marked path at all. In 2016, with the official introduction of the Geoexpeditions project, participants took another challenge, this time on the cycling event Šarski vodi that took place on 26 June. Over 90 km were covered on the stretch from Popova Šapka to the villages of Duf and Vrutok along the entire eastern slope.

Outcomes and results

This geoexpedition resulted in 44 uploaded images of 16 different features/landforms and the creation of 2 and improvement of 14 articles. All of the images are used in articles.

Gallery

Piribeg Peak
Krivošisko Lake
Karanikoličko Lake
Ljuboten Peak and Kozja Stena (Goat Rock)
Crno (Black) Lake

National and University Library "St. Kliment of Ohrid"

Shared Knowledge is pleased to announce that, after some longer negotiations, we reached a comprehensive agreement for collaboration with the National and University Library "St. Kliment of Ohrid", the main national and deposit library of Macedonia.

The collaboration involves providing access and personnel to our Wikimedian-in-Residence that will be appointed to the library, who will both research material for our projects, and scan public domain works held in the library's vast collection and release them under the suitable licence. For this purpose, we were assigned four librarians, specifically tasked with helping the WiR to that end.

Moreover, the library has agreed to host public Wikipedia lectures on editing and projects, as well as various group editing activities resulting from them. They were happy to provide the logistics and PR necessary to attract the attention of the library users and involve them in our work, and they agreed to do the same with their own staff, whereby they may learn about editing and participate themselves.

Important old and rare works scanned at the MANU Library

The book Slavic and Macedonian General History written by Gjorgjija Pulevski in 1892. (click on the image to open and read the entire book on 1005 pages)

The Wikipedian-in-Residence at the Library of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts has a rare opportunity to have permanent and unlimited access to many old and rare writings of importance, such as works and books about Macedonia and the Macedonian people, national history, the struggle for freedom and liberation, as well as other documents written by Macedonian revolutionaries in late 19th and early 20th century, that serve as a clear proof and testimonies of Macedonian national consciousness and individuality. After the digitisation, and creating a new article about the entire book „Slavic and Macedonian General History“ written by Gjorgjija Pulevski in 1892, which was scanned on 1005 pages with the facsimile of the original manuscript of its foreword on 8 pages at the end of February and the beginning of March, this month (June) the WiR completed the process of scanning and creation of the article about the book "Macedonian question - in the past and now" written by Vasil Ivanovski in 1943 on 152 pages, which has been started in May.

In addition, this month Shared Knowledge conducted a Wikiexpedition in the Železnik region (Demir Hisar Municipality), and the MANU library once again provided all the resources needed for researching and creating articles on settlements and regional heritage. Thus, the WiR scanned and shared 4 scientific articles with 66 pages in total, of which one is on a very interesting topic, little known for the broader public, such as the Secret language of the Masons from Smilevo. This article provided together with a table of words would be used further as a material for research and creation of a new article for the secret mason language of Macedonia.

Finally, the work of the Wikipedian-in-Residence at MANU, this June ended by creating 1 new and improving 17 other articles on Macedonian as well as Wikipedias on 8 other languages such as French, German, Norwegian, Russian, Belorussian, Danish, Bulgarian, Serbian, providing image content from different fields of sciences and arts such as portrait of personalities, old historical photos, geographical maps, tables for indicators in economy etc.

Educational programme at the Faculty of Philosophy at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University

WikiProject Philosophy logo

At the beginning of the semester, Bojan Jankuloski of Shared Knowledge held a Wikipedia editing lecture to the Ancient Philosophy students at the Institute of Philosophy within Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje. This month we saw the fruits of their labour, concentrated around the revived WikiProject Philosophy (ВикиПроект Философија) on the Macedonian Wikipedia. The has been going on for some months, under the guidance of Jasmina Naumoska, Professor of Ancient Philosophy, and a Wikipedia enthusiast and editor herself.

As part of the larger initiative to introduce Wikipedia Education in the humanities departments, this semester 8 participants of the programme crated a total of 12 articles on ancient philosophers and concepts in classical philosophy.

Upcoming projects

Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia - GLAM & Wikidata

Some exhibits in the Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia

Inspired by the Wikidata and GLAM workshop held at Wikimania 2016 and the work of our Dutch and Finnish colleagues, Shared Knowledge decided to initiate a a metadata collaboration with the Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia, a venerable institution exhibiting a vast collection of works, representing 272 artists from Macedonia and around the world, working in the 20th and 21st century.

The museum prides itself in its exhibits and has meticulously documented their possessions. Now, they have expressed interest in providing all the information about their works to Wikidata in the manner already done at the Flemish art collections, Europeana Art History Challenge and other places.

This collaboration also opens the possibility of organising trainings and editing sessions in the institution, related the artist represented in the National and International collection of the museum, possibly involving students of the arts.

Other upcoming GLAM and community projects

Logo of the Macedonian Theatre Actors subproject

Edit-a-thons logo

July: Wiki Loves Performing Arts - the Second part of this project will involve photo shoot of members of the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as, possibly, recording a performance to be released under a free licence. The shooting of the members of the Macedonian National Theatre has been postponed due to unforseen circumstances in their activities such as late premieres, the death of a director and other unplanned matters. It will take place in the second half of June or during July.
July: Edit-a-thon at the Union of Mathematicians of Macedonia. We will organise a writing day, engaging young (and old) mathematicians to fill-in the large gaps on this subject in the Macedonian Wikipedia.
July: Wiki Loves Performing Arts will take place at the Comedy Theatre in Skopje.
September: Edit-a-thon of the same nature as above, with the Macedonian chapter of the European Medical Students' Association (EMSA), covering various medical topics that address large gaps in that area in the Macedonian Wikipedia.