Wikimedia user groups/Reports/Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska/Annual 2022
Annual 2022 |
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This is the annual report of the work of the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska for 2022. The report identifies activities implemented in the Republic of Srpska organized by the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska from January 1st to December 31st, 2022.
Program activities are divided into three categories: Educational activities, GLAM and Community activities.
Edu Wiki
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The Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska is, in cooperation with the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of East Sarajevo in Pale, organizing a one-day seminar for professors, on May 14. In May The main goal of this event was to expand the network of teachers involved in the Edu Wiki program in the Republic of Srpska and increase the number of teachers trained to work on Wikipedia. The event was realized in the computer center of the Faculty of Philosophy in Pale, which was also a partner in this project.
23 professors from the Sarajevo-Romania region took part in the project: 10 professors who work at the university and 13 professors who work in secondary schools. The seminar program included two parts - theoretical and practical. Within the theoretical part, the professors were presented with the Wikimedia movement and its goals, Wikimedia projects, the Edu Wiki program with a special emphasis on the resources available to them within it, which can improve their work and the teaching process they lead. After that, special attention was paid to Wikipedia - rules and guidelines for editing, free licenses, communication with other editors, a portal where they can communicate with administrators and seek help, as well as the personal data protection system. Also, within the theoretical part and familiarization with Wikipedia, the lecturers singled out points of emphasis that directly relate to frequent prejudices about Wikipedia that prevail in academic circles and concern the quality of articles and the verifiability of information. In that segment, a special review was made on references and sources of knowledge, which are a mandatory segment of every article, and on the work of administrators and other experienced editors who check the changes made and ensure that the articles are in accordance with Wikipedia's rules.
After the theoretical part, an editing workshop was organized in which the participants were introduced to the process of creating an article on Wikipedia through direct work. On that occasion, the basics of editing, the working environment in the editorial framework, text formatting and working with basic templates, as well as illustrating the article, were presented. In this connection, Wikimedia Commons was presented in basic terms, the procedure of uploading multimedia material as well as its subsequent use on wiki and non-wiki sites. On that occasion, the participants created 18 new articles through individual work and pair work.
The aforementioned lecture concept ensured the dynamism of the seminar and had a positive effect on the motivation of the participants, who eventually expressed their desire to join the Edu wiki program in the Republic of Srpska and organize workshops with their students during the next school year.
At the end of the lecture, certificates were distributed to the participants.
As part of the Wiki Ambassador project in the Republic of Srpska, which was implemented within the GLAM program during the indicated period, a correlation was made with the contents of the Edu Wiki program, and the students of the Technical High School from Doboj were involved in the implementation.
The students and their mentor made 6 working visits to the Museum where they took photos of the exhibits, after which they uploaded the given photos to the Wikimedia repository through 10 hours of extracurricular activities. During the lessons, the students were trained to work on Wikipedia, where they supplemented the existing ones and created new articles related to the museum collections. After creating the articles, together with the mentor, they created QR pedia codes that were placed on the exhibits in the Museum.
A total of 25 students participated, and were presented with certificates of appreciation at the closing ceremony.
On June 13th The Community signed an agreement on five-year cooperation with the University of East Sarajevo, in East Sarajevo. The agreement refers to the organization of various forms of workshops, seminars, professional conferences, Edu Wiki camps and similar activities with students and professors of all faculties under the umbrella of this University (17 of them).
The University of East Sarajevo is one of two state universities in the country. This agreement is of great importance to the Community and the advancement of the Edu wiki program.
It is the result of many years of positive cooperation with the faculties of this University and an indication that the Community has built trust and reputation in academic circles of this level.
GLAM
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In the period from February 10 to May 15, the Community implemented the Wiki Ambassador project in the Republic of Srpska, within which active members - Wiki Ambassadors worked on the release of thematically differently oriented content in cooperation with partner institutions and their staff. This year, the partners were:
- Serbian Educational and Cultural Society `Prosvjeta` Municipal board Višegrad
- National Library "Dr Ljubo Mihić" Ljubinje
- Meridian Sport, Banja Luka
- Regional museum in Doboj
Wiki ambassador at the "Dr. Ljubo Mihić" National Library of Ljubinje
In the period from February 10 to April 15, the representative of the Community - Wiki ambassador made 5 one-day working visits to the "Dr. Ljubo Mihić" National Library of Ljubinje. On that occasion, in cooperation with the employees, he worked on the creation of various thematically unrepresented content on Wikipedia based on the available literature that was also provided by the library. On that occasion, 55 new articles were created and 25 existing articles were supplemented.
Wiki Ambassador Meridian Sport Banja Luka
In order to reduce the thematic gap on Wikipedia in the Serbian language and increase the number of articles and photos in the Sport category in the Republic of Srpska, cooperation was established with the sports news agency Meridian from Banja Luka. In the period from April 2 to May 15, one editing workshop was held in Banja Luka and 5 working visits were made. On that occasion, 16 new articles were created, and 175 photos of athletes and important sports events in the Republic of Srpska were uploaded on the Wikimedia Commons. In addition to the original goal, this cooperation is of great importance for the Association, because Meridian Sport is one of the most important sports news agencies in the region. In this way, the community expanded the network of partners and collaborators in the field of sports, in which it had no cooperation or partnership until now.
Wiki ambassador at the Doboj Museum
In the period from March 1 to May 15, the planned activities within the Wiki Ambassador project were realized in the Doboj Regional Museum. The Wiki Ambassador made 15 working visits - individual and group (correlation with the Edu Wiki program, specified in the Edu Wiki segment). The Museum has given permission to photograph and publish photographs of all the exhibits in the Museum. The community representative collected the necessary photos with the students, which were uploaded on the Wikimedia Commons, and then inserted into the corresponding articles on Wikipedia. After the articles were created, QR codes were created on QRpedia and placed on the museum's exhibits. 108 individual exhibits and 22 permanent installations in the Museum are marked with codes. The number of photos uploaded to the Wikimedia repository is 1049. At the end, a closing ceremony was held where certificates of appreciation were awarded to all participants and partners and where the results of the project were presented to the media. The event was also attended by representatives of the Tourism Organization of the city of Doboj, who supported the project by promoting the activity on their means of information. Also, an agreement was reached on the continuation of cooperation with the Museum and an agreement on the marking of important tourist locations in the city in cooperation with the Tourism Organization of the city of Doboj. In addition to the above, 25 students participated in the project, whose activities are listed in the Edu program segment.
Serbian Educational and Cultural Society Prosvjeta, Municipal board Višegrad
In addition to the aforementioned institutions, cooperation was also achieved with the educational and cultural organization SPKD Prosvjeta (Serbian Educational and Cultural Society Prosvjeta, Municipal board Višegrad). On February 21. as part of the aforementioned cooperation in the local community, during the celebration of the International Native Language Day, Wikimedia's GLAM program was presented, as well as Wikipedia in the Serbian language and its statistics regarding the number of quality articles and the coverage and representation of certain topics.
The Wiki Ambassador project in Republic of Srpska was launched in 2016 and since then it has been organized every year, recording cooperation with the most important institutions and organizations in the country. As before, this year the cooperation takes place within the framework of the GLAM sphere. At the time of writing this report, the project is in the process of realization. Cooperation has been established with the following institutions: Dis Theater Banja Luka, Meridian Sport Banja Luka, Regional Museum Doboj, Museum Herzegovina Trebinje, National Library "Dr Ljubo Mihić" Ljubinje.
At the time of writing the report, the project is in the phase of collecting and processing materials that will be uploaded to the Wikimedia repository, as well as to Wikipedia. Bureaucratic tasks have been completed and cooperation agreements signed. The part of the project related to cooperation with theaters was implemented in October, and more information about it follows below.
Cooperation with the DIS theater, participation in the Bina mira international festival
In the period from 19 to 24 September, the international project Bina mira was implemented in Visegrad, in which the Wikimedia community of the Republic of Srpska was one of the participants and partners. It is an international theater festival in which 100 participants from 8 countries took part. In addition to theater performances and art workshops, the official part of the program was the Wikipedia editing workshops, which the festival participants went through. In addition to Wikipedia, the participants of the workshop were also introduced to the Wikimedia Commons, to which they uploaded 270 photos, in accordance with daily work tasks. Participating in this project was very important for us due to cooperation with Aachen Network for Humanitarian Aid and Intercultural Peace Work e.V., but also very challenging due to the thematic framework of the festival and the cultural and religious milieu of the participants, which we strictly took into account when choosing the tasks and topics that were covered. Also, it was challenging to work with these artists because of the language differences. In addition to English and Serbian, they are enabled to edit entries in their native languages. 6 editing workshops were held. 360 photos have been uploaded to the Wikimedia repository. Wikimedia's GLAM program was introduced to 100 participants and 8 theaters who expressed their desire to continue cooperation. The impressions of the workshop participants can be viewed on the community's official YouTube channel: Bina mira.
Wikimedia's community of the Republic of Srpska is in cooperation with Wikimedia Serbia participated in the campaign additions references on the Wikipedia #1Lib1Ref (one librarian, one reference). The campaign lasted from 15 January until February 5, 2022, and except librarians, other interested individuals joined the campaign:
- University library "Svetozar Markovic"
- The library of the city of Belgrade
- National library, Dr Ljubo Mihić "Ljubinje".
- Library of Elementary School, ”Vuk Karadžić” Visegrad
- National Library "Vojislav Lubarda" Rogatica.
A total of 25 editors of Wikipedia on the Serbian language entered even 10,080 references in articles where they were missing, which made the Wikipedia in the Serbian language take first place in the competition.
Community activities
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The Wiki Women in Republika Srpska 2022 is a project that aims to overcome the gender gap in Wikimedia projects. It includes a number of activities related to work on Wikimedia projects primarily with women. As part of the project, two editorial workshops, an editorial marathon and a photo tour were held. In addition, the project activities were directed towards the processing of less represented topics, primarily women's, and then others. The project lasted from March 8 to May 8, 2022. 51 participants took part in the project, 124 new articles were written and 4 articles on Wikipedia in the Serbian language were supplemented.
- Wiki Gap
For the first time this year, the community joined the global Wiki Gap project, connecting activities related to the Community's Gender Gap program and the Wiki Women project in the Republic of Srpska. In cooperation with the Sarajevo Open Center, the Embassy of Sweden in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Wikimedia Sweden and Wikimedia Serbia, an editing marathon was organized to mark International Women's Day, which took place from March 5 to 15, 2022, on Wikipedia in Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian language. In addition, a one-day editing workshop was held in Sarajevo, during which 25 participants learned the basics of editing Wikipedia, and creating articles about important women from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The work took place on Wikipedia in the Bosnian language. For the community, this is a very significant step towards improving relations with Wikipedia editors from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have been very bad until now. With this project, for the first time, cooperation between editors from the Republic of Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established. Our Community was in charge of preparations related to the creation of working pages for three language editions of Wikipedia, the promotion of events and communication with the media, and the most important part of the lecture. A special challenge in the lecture part was to identify potential topics and select adequate personalities for biographical articles that cannot in any sense cause discomfort to the participants of the workshop - religious, historical, non-national, ethnic and similar, due to the last civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. To mutual satisfaction, the workshop was successfully implemented in a positive atmosphere. 25 women took part, and 36 new articles were created. The event was attended by the ambassador of Sweden to BiH and numerous media representatives.
This year, the community also took part in the CEE Spring project - an international competition in writing and supplementing articles about the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as about all topics from these countries - history, geography, acting, music, literature, sports, cuisine and Fig. On Wikipedia in Serbian, it was organized by the Wikimedia Community of Republika Srpska and Wikimedia Serbia. CEE Spring 2022 was held on Wikipedia in Serbian from March 21 to May 31. During this period, ten editors participated in the competition, while three supported the project by writing articles that were not evaluated. Participants wrote 448 new and supplemented 61 articles. A total of 13,066,083 bytes were entered, which is a million bytes more than last year.
Striving to contribute to increasing the number of quality articles on Wikipedia in the Serbian language and reducing the thematic gap, the Community organized five article writing competitions and two editing marathons. Topics were chosen based on representation by category, that is, lack of representation and poor coverage. In addition, one competition and both marathons were symbolically connected with the calendar marking of international holidays - International Rare Disease Day - the last day of February, World Refugee Day - June 20 and World Roma Day - April 8. In addition to the goals planned by the project, the Community wanted to participate in this way in raising awareness of the importance of the selected topics among the general public.
Below is a list of the mentioned activities:
- Competition in writing articles: Rare diseases - 7 participants, 53 new and 3 updated articles;
- Competition in writing articles: Insects - 4 participants, 38 new and 5 updated articles;
- Competition in writing articles: Orthodox temples - 8 participants, 82 new and 4 updated articles;
- Competition in writing articles: Conspiracy theories - 8 participants, 52 new articles;
- Competition in writing articles: Russian literature - 7 participants, 41 new articles;
- Edit-a-thon on the occasion of World Roma Day 2022 - 13 participants, 57 new articles;
- Edit-a-thon marathon on the occasion of World Refugee Day 2022 - 14 participants, 67 new articles;
Editing marathons are organized in cooperation with Wikimedia Serbia.
In the period from June 3 to 5, 2022, the fifth conference of Wikimedians of the Republic of Srpska - Wikimedia Start Republika Srpska 2022 was held in Trebinje. It is a traditional gathering of editors and users of Wikimedia projects from the Republic of Srpska, and this year it was the fifth. The participants were members of the Wikimedia Community of the Republic of Srpska Organizational Team, and representatives of GLAM institutions with which our community has many years of successful cooperation.
The work of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Community of the Republika Srpska in the previous year was presented, the realized projects were presented and the achieved results were presented.
In addition to the regularly planned activities, meetings of the Organizing Team were held on the sidelines of the event in connection with the next activities, as well as mentoring meetings with new members. Also, meetings were held with participants - representatives of GLAM institutions on future cooperation.
Wiki Live
Working to achieve strategic goals focused on collaboration with other Wikimedia organizations, the Wikimedia community of Republic of Srpska took part in the annual conference of Wikimedia Serbia - Wiki Live 2022 this year. On that occasion, in addition to participating in the conference, the Community took part in the lecture part, during which it presented the Edu Wiki program in Republika Srpska in one session. In addition to the exchange of experiences, further cooperation was agreed on Edu Wiki projects as well as on projects from the GLAM domain. Also, an agreement was reached on the training of the organizational team of the Wikimedia community of the Republic of Srpska to work on the Wiki Data project, which will be organized during the next year, and the lecturers will be experienced editors of the given project from Wikimedia Serbia.
The Night of Museums
In order to participate in as many public events as possible and to promote Wikimedia projects at them, the Community took part in the celebration of International Museum Day, the Museum Night event. On that occasion, in Banja Luka, at the DIS theater, as part of their event, the Association presented its GLAM program, emphasizing numerous opportunities for cooperation and presenting examples of good practice. The presentation was attended by actors and members of all troupes of this theater, as well as citizens who were interested in the lecture.
Meetings
During the indicated period, 83 working online and 9 live meetings were held. In addition to working on current projects and working meetings related to them, the Community worked on individual training of new and next-level training of existing members. Also, the Association worked on preparations for the next annual work plan as well as on the development of the Work Strategy. Also, the official website has been redesigned and refreshed, thanks to a team made up of active community members.