Wikimedia user groups/Applications/Wikimedians of the Levant User Groupe

Approved

This Wikimedia user group application has been approved by the Affiliations Committee.

Proposed name of Wikimedia user group: (There are some templates at Step-by-step user group creation guide#Naming of user groups.)

"Wikimedians of the Levant" User Group

Proposed scope of Wikimedia user group: (What is the planned purpose, scope, vision, or mission of this Wikimedia user group?)

Representing the Wikimedia in the Levant and gathering the Arab contributors of the Levant countries in one group.
Establishing a base and a reference for all Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese in Wikipedia and all other wikimedia’s projects.:
Promoting and developing the content related to Levant countries specifically and the Arab World generally in different languages.:
Organizing activities, gatherings, workshops and different projects for contributors of the mentioned countries would be better as it saves efforts and cost.
Unifying the efforts of the contributors under one umbrella, especially those with technical skills.
Gathering the contributors who live abroad and have them put some focus and efforts in enhancing the Arabic content, especially what's related to the Levant.
Unifying the contribution in the international activities, such as Wiki Love… contests and others.
Developing a performance plan for ambassadors to represent Wikipedia in the Levant universities, taking into consideration that Jordan Education Program can be used as a platform to start.

Wiki page:

Wikimedians of the Levant'

1. Who are the people behind this application?

Template:Wikimedians of the Levant/Participants

1a. How many?

46

1b. Active in which Wikimedia projects, if any?

Wikipedia (Arabic, English, and French), Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and Wikisource.

1c. How are they geographically distributed?

Within the Levant Region (Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon).

1d. Do you have any highly active or prominent (on local or international level) Wikimedians / Wikipedians? If so, please name a few. (provide user names and wiki of origin)

Below users have more than 10,000 edits in Arabic Wikipedia or have participated in local/international workshops and meetings related to Wikimedia:

Tarawneh (admin@arsource admin@commons)
باسم (Admin@arwiki)
Mervat Salman (Admin@arwiki)
عباد ديرانية (Admin@arwiki)
بلال الدويك (Admin@arwiki)
Freedom's Falcon (Admin@arwiki>
بدارين (Admin@arwiki)
Zaher kadour
Ahmad.aea.99
Aboluay
Jobas
Fjmustak
Mohammad hajeer
wikissa
رامز قنيبي

1e. How many people do you expect will eventually want to join?

50-70 / year

2. For the application and final agreement we will require two contact persons that can sign the Wikimedia User Group Agreement on behalf of the group. Who will those be? (please provide user names and wiki of origin) Please also include email addresses for these users either on this page or in your initial email to the Affiliations Committee (AffComlists.wikimedia.org).

3. Please give a short summary of your time path from the founding up to now.

(2006 - 2015) Meetings.
(2011 - 2015) International Academic Conference papers
(2011 - 2015) University student recruitment, Examples:
1. Jordan University Wikipedia Program 2015, 101 students
2. Jordan University Wikipedia Program 2014, 318 students
3. Sumaia University Wikipedia Program 2015, 87 students
4. Amman University Wikipedia Program 2014, 95 students
(2011 - 2015) Agreements, 12 signed with local companies to support activities. - 2014 Kurdi Group example - facebook news
(2014 - 2015) Photo competitions, 5 sponsored by Safeway Jordan, Jabri Group, Regency Hotel, Jordan National Museum. Example 1 - Example 2
(2014) Wikipedia Editing integrated into a 101 Computer course in the University of Jordan.
(2014) 28k US$ QCRI grant.
(2015) King Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussein Award for creativity news on face book, 25K US$ reward, work in progress.
(2015) Temp headquarters

4. Which geographical area and context do you cover (or plan to cover) with your entity?

Levant Region (Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon).

5. Have there been any activities/meetings etc. of this group of people? If yes, please briefly describe some examples. This is not a requirement, just helpful information.

We have many meeting where done in the past, as an example:

Weekly Meetings done in Amman, Jordan:

Meeting in Amman, Feb 2nd, 2011.
Meeting in Amman, Feb 24, 2011.
Meeting in Amman, April 10, 2011.
Meeting in Amman, June 21, 2011.
Meeting in Amman, Sept. 1st, 2011.
Meeting in Amman, March 27, 2012.
Meeting in Amman, March 12, 2013.
Meeting in Amman, March 19, 2013.
Meeting in Amman, March 30, 2013.
Meeting in Amman, April 6, 2013.
Meeting in Amman, March 22, 2014.
Meeting in Amman, March 29, 2014.
Meeting at Amman, April 11, 2015.
Meeting at Amman, April 18, 2015.

Other meetings:

Meeting in Qatar, July. 2011.
Qatar 2011
Meeting in Amman, October 24, 2011 Jordan team and Wikimedia
Meeting in Qatar with Qatar Foundation, Feb. 4th 2012. Jordan Team
Meeting in Amman, Mar. 13th 2013. Jordanian Photography Club
Meeting with Jordanian Astronomical Society, Sep. 26th 2013.event page on facebook
Meeting during Oxford Workshop in Amman, August 2013 (See Photo Here).
Meeting during Hackathon in Amman, May 16-17, 2014 (See Photos Here).
Meeting with Jordan Tourism Board, Oct. 27 2014 - news at facebook page
Meeting with Zara investment, operators of Mövenpick Jordan , Amman Intercontinental, and Hayat hotels in Jordan, Nov. 13 2014 - news at facebook page
Meeting with Sumaia University group Dec. 11 2014 - news at facebook page
Meeting with The Library of Jordan University Dec. 22 2014 - news at facebook page started the 1900 newspaper scanning program. A 100k US$ project, 80k already goatherd from sponsors.
Meeting with the Jordanian National Commission for Women Dec. 30 2014, - news at facebook page
Meeting with Higher Population Council Feb. 4 2015 news at facebook page started the Open Information Initiative
Meeting with The Library of Jordan University Feb. 17 2015 news at facebook page GLAM Program started in Jordan. 250,000 manuscript.
Meeting at WikiArabia in Tunisia, April 3-4, 2015 (See Photos Here).
University of Jordan Wikipedia program graduation April, 14 2015 commons link - Organized with Instituto Cervantes, Amman and the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Jordan. 96% of participant were females.
Meeting at Center for strategic studies, University of Jordan Jan. 29 2015 Meeting news
Meeting with Russian language student team, University of Jordan May. 2nd 2015 Meeting news started Russian - Arabic Wikipedia Translation initiative.

6. Do you keep any monthly/half-yearly/yearly reports of you activities? If yes, please provide links. This is not a requirement, just helpful information.

Tons of pages, in addition to the links provided within the proposal sample links can be found at this page, this, this, this,this,this, and and this.

7. What kind of activities are planned for the future in the user group?

WikiArabia.
GLAM.
Edit-a-thons.
Competitions (e.g. Wiki Love Monuments, Wiki Love Earth, etc.)
Workshops and Training.
Meetings.

8. Is you entity already legally registered? Do you intend on becoming a legally registered entity in the next thirteen months? Please note that we do not require or encourage user groups to legally incorporate or register.

No.

9. Do you have a bylaws for you entity? If yes, have the bylaws been reviewed by a lawyer/specialist? Please note that we do not require or encourage user groups to write bylaws.

No.

10. How can the Affiliations Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation help your group?

Support Arab Community in Levant Region, and funding our upcoming projects.

Submitted: بلال الدويك (talk) 15:31, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Acknowledged: Kirill Lokshin ^[talk] 09:43, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]