User:Kruusamägi

Ivo Kruusamägi

Admin in Estonian Wikipedia
Chairman of Wikimedia Eesti

About me

I have been on Wikipedia since 2006. I'm mainly active in Estonian Wikipedia (where I'm an administrator) and in Commons (where I'm also a member of VRT team). Some of the attention goes towards the English wiki, Wikidata, and Võro wiki (where I'm also an admin). In total, I've made nearly 130k edits. That involves around 1000 created articles and 8500+ added images, some of them featured.

On the early days of my contributions I often wrote articles related to art (like in ceramics and in graphics), but later there has rarely been any specific focus (some examples on random topics: Nordic economy, Rein Kilk, Pakri protected area, Malusi islands, electrical detonator, World Cube Association, Tartu Ülikool 350, etc). Articles related to the field of study have unfortunately been somewhat rare (but there still are some of them). But then again, many years ago (5+) I've sort of abandoned active article creation as the need to copyedit and expand existing ones is far greater in Estonian Wikipedia. But I haven't abandoned that entirely and do create and update articles when something new is needed (example).

I created a new front page design for Estonian Wikipedia (used 2008–2016) and was involved with adding the weekly information in the first years. I've also composed most of the thematic portals in Estonian Wikipedia that came into existence together with the new front page back in 2008. I also helped to set up a new front page design for Võro Wikipedia in 2020.

From the Estonian wikiphotographers I have added the most images to Wikimedia Commons, that are actually used in articles. I should be the 3rd or 4th user from Estonia by the number of featured images added to Commons (most recently 21 FPs). Something like 22% of images of the week in Estonian Wikipedia has been uploaded by me. I belong to Commons Photographers User Group. I'm organizing activities for the Estonian wikiphotographers (wikiexpeditions) and try showcase them and their best work (one example and another example).

I have been involved in the selection process of quality articles. In 2017 I reworked the article quality categorization system in Estonian Wikipedia and set up an article quality criterion page. I've written one featured article and contributed heavily to many good articles. I have assembled the list of 1000 vital articles about Estonia, trying to push them into better shape and convince other countries to assemble similar lists.

Over the years I've given over ten conference presentations, 50...100 lectures about Wikipedia, and held many workshops related to the topic. I have also talked about this topic in the media on many occasions (newspapers, radio, television) and published several articles in media and books. I've been holding up the social media accounts for Wikipedia and have set up several email newsletters. From here and here you could find some blog posts by me. I've tried to document the history of Estonian Wikipedia and the people behind it (example). I also collect statistical information about et.wiki and Estonian wikiphotographers.

I have also organized different meetups for wikipedians. That includes Wikipedia Summer Days and various events for wikimedians. I was involved with starting the Wikimedia Northern Europe regional group and I was organizing the 2nd meeting of Nordic wikimedians that took place in 2019. I've been involved with organizing Finno-Ugric wikiseminars.

Outside Wikipedia "work" I have studied genetic engineering at the University of Tartu and done various other things in many fields. These include organizing international competitions, art expositions, dancing Estonian folk dances or just being entrepreneurial. I've picked up investing in stock markets and recently set up a solar farm. I'm a member of the Estonian Students' Society.

My work

Most of the photo-related activities in Estonian Wikipedia (from different competitions, photo-collecting campaigns, photoexpeditions, exhibitions and getting image donations) are organized by me. I also did expand the Estonian Science Photo Competition into European Science Photo Competition in 2015 and worldwide Wiki Science Competition in 2017. I'm mainly proud of the HELP campaign, that was first held already in the summer of 2010. In 2019 it was already HELP10 and the number of images is well past 3000. In total ca 50% of images are being used in articles and it has an extremely high percentage of FP-s, which has also pushed Estonia among the countries with the most featured nature images in Commons. I've also contributed to 100wikiDays craze by starting the idea of #100wikiCommonsDays.

I've carried out some article competitions (example 1, example 2, etc). The photography competitions I've organized have brought well over 35k images into Commons and expeditions over 3k images. Article competitions have involved around 800 articles. I've also been a jury member for several article and photo competitions both in Estonia and abroad.

I'm now also heavily involved with starting cooperation projects with museums (example). From virtual exhibitions (like "The decisive years prior to Independence: Moments from the Estonian art of 1914–18") to helping to collect data about paintings. I'd like to set up a separate WikiMuseum site. I started the Wikipedia Art Month.

I look at Wikipedia as an educational project and I think that it should deal much more with the education system. Therefore I am leading our Education Program in Estonia since its start in 2010. Not only have I dealt with students writing wiki articles, but also get some image donations from university and even run a 3 ECTS course "About Free Culture on the Example of Wikipedia". One talk about it. There have also been many university students who have been in a trainee position under me.

The University of Tartu is now also our main partner to expand and promote to use of Wikipedia in Estonia. As I'm working to expand the university program, then if you have some ideas, research topics, etc on what students could do, then please let me know. I've done some not-university-related education projects as well (example, example) and this area is about the expand significantly in the coming years.

Together with the university, we were working on a major project called miljon+, that has an ambitious end goal of getting Estonian Wikipedia among the Wikipedias with over a million articles. It was a nationwide Wikipedia promotion project that ran from 2017–2020 and had several subprojects. It was started with a cooperation with Mart Noorma and was run together with Sirli Zupping et. al.

Software development. Together with A. Frantskjavitsius et. al. we've developed a mass translation tool and wikieditor Minority Translate, that is designed specifically for smaller sized Wikipedias (feedback: "It's like content translation on steroids!"). With the help of K. Tappel we have put together a rapid feedback tool for Wikipedia – wikiComment (no longer maintained). I've also looked into involving university students in MediaWiki software development. So far it has resulted in a bachelor thesis "3D Model Viewer for the Mediawiki Software" by H. Alasi in UT Institute of Computer Science.

I was the founder of Wikimedia Eesti, that is the Wikimedia chapter in Estonia, and a board member there from 2010 to 2012, and once again from 2021. Starting from summer 2018 until summer 2021 I was a program manager at Wikimedia Eesti.