Thanks to a collaboration with the Getty Research Institute, we at the O Foundation recently contributed nearly 700 Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) records about visual artists from the Indian state of Odisha. These records now make nearly one-third of the total number of name records from India — of both individuals and organizations.

In many parts of the majority world, including my home country, India, there is either dispersed or little effort to document biographical data about notable personalities, particularly visual artists. So, projects like Wikipedia that rely on authoritative data sources for such data have no or extremely poor coverage of artists outside of Western countries.

ULAN is an online directory for noted visual artists and architects. Each artist record contains details such as the artist’s name in different languages, sub-field of visual art/architecture, notable works, and their birth/death date. Availability of these records on ULAN not only has helped update the authority control on Wikidata, where ULAN is an accepted field, but also has opened the opportunity to create Wikipedia articles in the future.

Half of the artists’ names in this batch of ULAN updates come from an artist directory hosted by the Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi, a state institution from Odisha that studies and researches visual arts from the state. Rakesh Ratan Nath, a dear friend of mine, compiled and contributed these names.

I started working on this volunteer project almost a year back purely out of curiosity. I was teaching myself to query Wikidata using SPARQL, and I searched for a list of visual artists from Odisha. Unsurprisingly, the list was short. I reached out to Paribartana Mohanty, another visual artist and a friend from Odisha, who told me that Rakesh had created a database some years ago — he pointed me to the Akademi site. My first reaction after seeing the list was to include all the data in Wikidata. But there was one problem — the Akademi list merely contained artists’ names.

So, I did two things: I made a list of all the entries on visual artists and architects from Odisha from Wikidata and matched those records against the Akademi list. That helped create a consolidated list, with some containing Wikidata QIDs (entries), which is useful while building a database like this of the linked data and comprehensive architecture of Wikidata.

I was already in touch with the Getty Research Institute through the O Foundation, a non-profit I co-founded in 2017, along with a few fellow Wikimedians. When I presented the idea of adding ULAN records to colleagues from the Institute, they were forthcoming to work on ingesting, analyzing and creating new entries.

The Akademi list contained only artist’s names and did not itself provide anything beyond that. The Wikidata records, on the other hand, albeit only a few then, had additional details — names in Odia, the native writing system, and birth/death dates, among other essential details. The first thing I did was collate records from the Akademi list, including names matched with Wikidata, the ones that existed only on Wikidata, and some that did not exist in either place. Secondly, I added additional data such as names in Odia, gender, ethnicity, dates (birth/death), and nationality by searching for reliable sources online. When I formatted the records into a template the Institute shared with us after signing an agreement, I could see each record coming a long way from where I started. This data is publicly accessible and can be used by Wikidata and as authority control in Wikipedia in multiple languages and all other platforms connected with ULAN through linked data. On the one hand, I abhor a system of citing “notable sources” where notability criteria fail to consider informal and community-based memory institutions. On the other, it is a sheer loss and a gross erasure of notable people from widely viewed platforms.

Unfortunately, the number of citations and authority data is extremely poor for many visual artists from India and other countries from the majority world. As a result, despite being notable, it is often hard to contribute information about personalities on Wikidata and Wikipedia. GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum) institutions and many other civil society intermediaries often have the ability to bridge this gap by creating pathways for citable public data.

Updating these records has also opened up new avenues for collaboration — beginning with friends from the Santali Wikipedia community. R. Ashwani Banjan Murmu, an administrator there, has shown personal interest in inviting others from the community and slowly building records about Santal visual artists and architects. It is worth mentioning that there are only two records about two Santal artists on ULAN. A larger cross-section of the lack of missing cultural information is alarming, evidently the sheer knowledge gap and lack of ways for representation and participation of many communities.

What’s next?

Sangram Keshari Senapati, a fellow editor at the Odia Wikipedia, has created a dashboard querying Wikidata using the LiteriaBot that helps us track the data and the data gap. We see more data and citations every time we add more data to the Wikidata records and update the dashboard. Our plan is to organize an edit-a-thon and create articles on some of the artists now that we have two guaranteed citations — the Akademi list and the ULAN record.

This post originally appeared on the Creative Commons blog.

We are thrilled to share the exciting news that the 2024 Wikimedia Hackathon is scheduled to unfold in the captivating city of Tallinn, Estonia, from May 3rd – 5th 2024!

A Celebration of Innovation and Collaboration

The Wikimedia Hackathon is not just an annual hacking event, it’s a celebration of innovation and collaboration, uniting the global Wikimedia technical community in a dynamic gathering focused on connection, innovation, and exploration. At this event, technical contributors hailing from all corners of the globe converge with a shared mission: to enhance the technological infrastructure and software that underpins and empowers Wikimedia projects.

The theme for this edition aligns with last year’s, emphasizing the gathering of individuals who have a track record of contributing to the technical aspects of Wikimedia projects. We’re looking for those who are well-versed in navigating the technical ecosystem and are adept at working autonomously or collaborating effectively on projects.

How to Get Involved

Participating in the Hackathon is easy! Simply mark your calendar for May 3rd – 5th, 2024, and register to attend. Stay tuned for registration and scholarship details, which will be announced on Monday November 27th 2023 on our MediaWiki page and social media channels.

Spread the Word!

Help us make the Hackathon a massive success by spreading the word. Share this announcement with community members,, and anyone who shares your passion for Wikimedia Technical Projects. Let’s make this gathering of brilliant minds an unforgettable experience!

In this article, I present the Wikimania 2023 reports which Malaysian Wikimedians wrote.

Opening the eyes of newcomers

Wikimania 2023 in Singapore was a fantastic event. It opened the eyes of newcomers.

Wikimania 2023 was an eye-opening experience for me. As a new user of Wikipedia, I was not aware of the scale that the Wikimedia movement poses. To the extent of my knowledge, Wikipedia was just a platform that people use to gather information about important people’s biography or important topics such as facts, science, etc. Little that I know that this was just a small portion of what Wikimedia provides to society around the world. My expectation of the outcome to earn from Wikimania 2023 was delightfully exceeded. Not only have I attained knowledge, but I have also connected with individuals from around the world who share similar values as I do in freeing knowledge for everyone #bebaskanpengetahuan.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/AssFeder]] 13:01, 6 September 2023‎ (UTC)

As a newcomer to Wikimedia, I learned a lot of new things through this conference. The most important thing is that I now know about how this movement works. Before attending Wikimania, I have only known one of the many projects that wikimedia provides but since then, I get to know more projects and more importantly I know how to edit and add new articles in Wikimedia projects. My goal throughout attending this conference is to attend basic editing and article writing workshops to help me enhance my contribution to the wikimedia project. My target was successfully achieved since wikimania 2023 has provided many basic workshop slots such as Wikipedia Simple Basic Workshop, Common Basic Workshop and so on.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Fify Joseph]] 12:48, 9 September 2023‎ (UTC)

As a beginner or novice in Wikimedia projects, I have learned many things from the conference. My focus has been on attending several basic workshops such as Wikipedia Simple English, Wikimedia Commons, Lingualibre, and Incubator. These workshops provide guidance and knowledge for making contributions or edits in Wikipedia projects. The knowledge gained from these workshops can be applied in Wikikamus, Incubator, and Wiki Commons in the Kadazandusun language.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Jilorisa]] 14:31, 4 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I participated in the Wikipedia Basic Workshop, in which I learned the basics of Wikipedia editing and how to contribute. The workshop can be an enriching experience for newcomers like me with little or no prior experience with Wikipedia editing. It is suitable for anyone interested in learning more about Wikipedia and editing. Overall, participating in Wikipedia basic workshops is a valuable step toward becoming a knowledgeable and responsible Wikipedia editor. It equips me with the essential skills and principles needed to make meaningful contributions to this collaborative encyclopedia.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Michelina Michael]] 15:54, 17 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I got to know more about projects on Wikimedia. Before this, I only knew about Wiktionary and Wikicommons. After attending many sessions, I got to know many other projects, such as Wikipedia Simple English, Wikidata, and Wikitounges.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/23jvvn]] 02:23, 2 October 2023‎ (UTC)

Kent Wiki Club

At Wikimania 2023, a student Wikimedian club called Kent Wiki Club was formed! The club aims to focus on preserving Kadazandusun language, their indigenous language.

As a trainee teacher from IPG Kent with a major in the Kadazandusun language, I attended the inauguration of the Wiki Kent Club. Through the establishment and launch of this club, I hope to make greater contributions and encourage other friends to contribute to the Kadazandusun Wikipedia project. Wikipedia can also serve as a source for teaching and learning as it is easily accessible and provides a wide range of free information and knowledge.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Jilorisa]] 14:31, 4 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I actively participated in the organization of the inaugural event for the Wiki Kent Club, a Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia initiative. This event was a fantastic opportunity to show support for the Wikimedia movement in Malaysia and the Wikimedia Foundation. Diverse community members, including those from the Paiwan Wikimedia Community, attended this meetup, making it a memorable occasion.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Jjurieee]] 04:24, 4 September 2023‎ (UTC)

As a student at the Kent Campus Teacher Education Institution majoring in the Kadazandusun language, we have been given the opportunity to inaugurate the Wikikent club. We are very grateful for this opportunity. Although our presence was only attended by eight students accompanied by four directors, many Wikimedia members also joined in to make this inauguration ceremony lively. The inauguration of this club serves as motivation for IPG Kent Campus students to continue actively participating in the Wikimedia movement and serves as a symbol of progress for the Kadazandusun people on a global scale. Wikimedia is also very useful for us as a source of information during our learning journey.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Meqqal]] 00:07, 20 September 2023‎

International Collaboration

Wikimania 2023 was a good place for Wikimedians all around the world to interact. Malaysian Wikimedians report their collaborations.

Interactions with other Wikimedians: Meetings and discussions with other Wikimedians opened my eyes to the importance of the Wiki projects in preserving and promoting our native languages. Sharing opinions and experiences allowed me to learn about various Wiki projects that I was previously unaware of, such as WikiVoyage and translatewiki. These exchanges of ideas also led me to acquire new knowledge about Wikis and other subjects that can enhance my understanding. For example, a new friend I met at the Wikimania conference shared about their project on Wiki, which is adding names of birds that were missing in the Wikimedia Incubator. They informed me that these bird names were only available in English and hadn’t been translated into Malay.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/CorrelMoris38]] 05:03, 3 September 2023‎ (UTC)

The day (17 August) concluded on a global note with the much-anticipated ‘Wikimania 2023 Global Group Photo.’ In the hallowed halls of the Plenary Hall, Wikimedians from every corner of the globe converged for this memorable moment. It was an opportunity to bridge geographical boundaries, as participants exchanged greetings, shared stories, and immortalized the event with photographs. The diversity and unity within the global Wikimedia community were palpable, leaving a lasting impression of the power of collaboration and shared knowledge.

As we reflect on the second day of our event, it becomes evident that this gathering is not just about editing articles or sharing information—it’s a celebration of humanity’s diversity, our shared heritage, and the power of language to connect us all.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Iamirene2]] 15:17, 7 October 2023‎ (UTC)

Wikimania is a great place to exchange ideas with other users. I also find Wikimania as a suitable place to develop socially, mentally and academically. Wikimania must be a lifelong project.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Fify Joseph]] 12:48, 9 September 2023‎ (UTC)

Being a Malaysian Chinese Wikimedian, I aim to collaborate with other Chinese-speaking communities within Wikimedia, especially in Chinese Wikipedia. My goal is to enhance the quality of Malaysia-related articles on the Chinese Wikipedia platform.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/*angys*]] 06:51, 29 September 2023‎ (UTC)

(Plans after the conference) Further communicate with the ones I met, for Wikimedia purposes or perhaps socially.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/PeaceSeekers]] 14:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

In addition to attending workshops, I gained insights into Singapore through the Wiki Loves Living Heritage Bazaar session. This session provided an overview of Singaporean culture to Wikimedians. In addition to exploring Singaporean culture, I had the privilege of attending a workshop on the topic of editing ‘Amiwiki’.During the session, the presenters discussed the Paiwan language, an endangered Taiwanese ethnic language whose use is discouraged by government regulations. Each language must be preserved and practiced to prevent its extinction. If no endeavors are made to promote and preserve our Bajau Samah language for example, it may become extinct. And i am pleased to be a part of a Wiki endeavor that serves as an efficient platform for preventing the loss of my home language, and I consider it a privilege to be able to participate in this effort.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Syafiq.y]] 08:09, 27 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I attended workshops by the Paiwan and Puyuma communities from Taiwan. They emphasized the importance of locating sources and documentation of their indigenous languages as well as using cultural history and knowledge to determine the proper words to be used for certain concepts when editing Wikipedia articles so that the articles are not just informative but can be culturally understood and connect with the readers. Collaboration with organizations that involve cultural and historical artifacts such as museums is important in systematically building up the database of terms for the languages for current and future uses. I also got to experience their cultural dances and singing with other participants after the workshops ended.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Ultron90]] 09:44, 20 September 2023‎ (UTC)

The opportunity to participate in the program at Suntec Convention Center also gave me the opportunity to meet Wikimedia people from all over the world and learn more about education without limitations.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Rosmahwati Binti Ebbie]] 08:31, 2 October 2023‎ (UTC)

I shall make an effort to investigate possible avenues of collaboration with the Wikimedia community as a whole.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Dyzahmail]] 00:48, 6 October 2023‎ (UTC)

Every session demonstrated the strength of individuals coming together with a shared passion for open knowledge. I learned that building and nurturing these communities is essential. It’s about fostering a sense of unity, trust, and collective purpose. Together, we can achieve more than we can alone.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/WAqil (WMYS)]] 06:04, 1 October 2023‎ (UTC)

The “Volunteer Retention Strategies” clinic emphasized the importance of personalization in volunteer engagement. I discovered that understanding the unique motivations and strengths of volunteers is key to retaining their commitment. It’s not just about recruiting; it’s about creating a sense of belonging and purpose. The clinic taught me that every volunteer has a story to tell, and it’s our role to listen and support them on their Wikimedia journey.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/WAqil (WMYS)]] 06:04, 1 October 2023‎ (UTC)

I also had the opportunity to interact and discuss with experienced Wikimedians not only from Malaysia but also from other countries. Therefore, through interactions with them, I gained new ideas and knowledge for contributing to or editing any Wikipedia project. Through several sessions, I also realized that many languages in the world would disappear if there is no effort to promote them. Therefore, through wiki projects, all knowledge can be easily accessed while also helping to promote endangered languages. 

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Jilorisa]] 14:31, 4 September 2023‎ (UTC)

The Wikimania conference in Singapore was incredibly exciting. I’m deeply thankful to the Malaysian Wikimedia User Community Group (WUCG) for granting me a scholarship to gain a broader understanding of the Wikimedia movement on a global scale. The conference also served as a strong motivation for me to continue contributing to Wikimedia projects.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Blusjai]] 04:35, 19 September 2023‎ (UTC)

The first and most striking lesson was the incredible diversity of individuals who make up the Wikimedia community. People from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds came together with a shared passion for knowledge sharing. It reinforced the idea that open knowledge knows no boundaries.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Michelina Michael]] 15:54, 17 September 2023‎

Wikimedian of the Year from Malaysia!

At Wikimania 2023, Taufik Rosman from Malaysia was named Wikimedian of the Year 2023! Taufik’s achievement should encourage other Wikimedians!

I shall also express my gratitude and respect to the heart of Wikimedia Malaysia, Taufik Rosman (Username: Tofeiku) for his constant belief and effort in preserving the indigenous languages and cultures in Malaysia. It is truly inspiring to see someone working so hard to ensure that originality should not be left behind regardless of civilization and evolution. Undeniably, his award as the Wikimedian of The Year is well-deserved.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/AssFeder]] 13:01, 6 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I was proud to learn that the Wikimedian of the Year 2023 hails from Malaysia, reinforcing my pride in being a part of the Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Jjurieee]] 04:24, 4 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I attended the opening ceremony event held in the plenary hall from 5 to 6:25 in the evening. During this session, the announcement of the Wikimedian of The Year opened my eyes to the fact that every Wikimedian will be awarded according to their own effort. This encouraged me to continue actively participating in Wiki projects, not because I want the award but I also want to share the knowledge to the others.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/CorrelMoris38]] 05:03, 3 September 2023‎ (UTC)

I am proud to share that the Wikimedian of the Year 2023 is from Malaysia, reinforcing my pride in being part of the Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Michelina Michael]] 15:54, 17 September 2023‎

At this moment, I am greatly enjoying and celebrating the Opening Reception, such as the captivating dance performance. I am also savoring every moment of this event, especially when each Wikimedian of the Year award winner is announced, providing me with immense motivation to stay active in the Wikimedia movement.

MetaWiki [[Wikimedia Community User Group Malaysia/Reports/Wikimania 2023/Meqqal]] 00:07, 20 September 2023‎

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all the Malaysian Wikimedians who have written great reports! These reports are fun to read and serve as valuable references for Wikimedia history! As a member of Wikimedia Japan-Malaysia Friendship Project, I’m looking forward to working with them more.

If everything else on the earth is celebrated, the best to be celebrated must be knowledge and the people who make the global knowledge easily and freely accessible. Festivities have their own perks, benefits, and sometimes a few repercussions as well. I was enough fortunate to receive a full scholarship from the Wikimedia Foundation to attend Wikimania 2023, which happened at Suntec, in Singapore, in August 2023.

Wikimania innovates in the “festivities”, and celebrates not just the “knowledge” but the “global free knowledge”. Every year, volunteers who make the most commonly freely-accessible encyclopedia of Wikipedia, and its sister projects, go in the right direction, join one another to celebrate their achievements, and discuss on the future of free knowledge, at Wikimania, a community-led conference, supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Wikimania like other festivities has perks, benefits, and repercussions. It helps organizers in the Wikimedia movement make better circles, take inspirations back home, and innovate in the free knowledge. It gives green signals to several new initiatives. It helps people to resonate their problems and issues with the challenges that people on the other side might be facing. Repercussions? Does this even make a sense? I believe, yes. Some people do get disconnected afterwards, and this is a loss; a repercussion that requires a good solution. Wikimania Singapore made some sense in responding to this. The scholars were given a notebook highlighting, “DON’T JUST PARTICIPATE, BE AN ACTION SEEKER”, and this has inspired me to make myself uncomfortable with “un-seeking”.

In this blog, I delve very briefly in “perks and benefits of Wikimania”, which it helped me with, particularly related to “Organizing and Networking”. There are very few places where presidents meet. Wikimania is also one; it often brings presidents and chairpersons of Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups at one place. When I gave the lightning talk in the “Resourcing Movement Strategy” session on the Deoband Community Wikimedia (DCW)’s Leadership Development and Skills Infrastructure Program, I met with some interesting questions from Peter Meyer, the president of the Wikimedia DC, among several others.

Wikimania 2023 helped me meet Isaac and Sodik, the key people from the Yoruba Wikimedians User Group, with whom I had initiated the Deoband Yoruba Collaborative Project in 2022. I was fortunate to meet Rafi from the Notre Dame English Club (NDEC) Wikipedia Editorial and Research Team, whose ideas subsequently helped in establishing the Wiki Club Jamia, at Jamia Millia Islamia, in India. It did help in discussing possible problems and their solutions with others, and offer personal insights as well. I met Sam Walton, who was the speaker in our DCW Conversation Hour July 2023, who helped me get in touch with Selena Deckelmann, the Chief Product and Technology Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation. I had a conversation with her for more than thirty minutes on what Urdu language Wikipedia lacks in the aspects her teams work on. This is a benefit of Wikimania. Sam also introduced me to Ilana Fried, who works on the Campaigns Team, and she was very much ready to speak in our November DCW Conversation Hour.

I would reiterate some of my ideas that I shared in this blog which highlights some key points from WikiConference India 2023. From organizing to networking, I have briefly delved into how Wikimania 2023 helped me and the DCW go further in the way of innovating in knowledge. Other perks include that it helped me meet and discuss with people that work in my domain but in a different perspective. I met professors, students, likewise, passionate and enthusiastic, who are exploring the best ways to innovate and contribute in making the transformational leadership in global education: Walaa, Derrick, Dumisani, and many more. Wikimania helps. It contributes to fostering this leadership.

In this era of constant transformation, the Wikimedia Movement recognizes the necessity to adapt to the evolving landscape, shaping strategies that cater to its diverse community. An integral aspect of this progress has been the collaborative effort to develop a Movement Strategy. One of the pivotal outcomes of the 2030 Movement Strategy recommendations, particularly Recommendation number 4, underscored the imperative need to “Ensure Equity in Decision Making.” This led to the idea of drafting the Movement-Wide Charter to define roles and responsibilities for all the members and entities of the Wikimedia movement, including laying out a new Global Council for movement governance, undertaken by Movement Charter Drafting Committee. The drafts were open for feedback from all stakeholders including individual volunteers and affliates.

The Kashmiri Wikimedians User Group, is an affiliate of Wikimedia Foundation, actively involved in promoting Wikimedia projects in the Kashmiri language. In a recent initiative the User Group organized Movement Charter Conversations to gather feedback from the Kashmiri Community regarding the drafts (Global Council, Hubs, Roles & Responsibilities and Glossary) published by the Movement Charter Drafting Committee (MCDC). This project received funding from the Wikimedia Foundation through the Movement Charter Ambassadors Program and was led by User:511KeV, Movement Charter Ambassador for the Kashmiri Language.

Community Response

Kashmiri Wikimedians actively participated in the online consultations, with eight members providing the feedback on the drafts. The initiative received appreciation from the members of the User Group, with one participant expressing gratitude for the sense of ownership and importance instilled through this engagement. They remarked,

“اگرچہ کیٚنٛہہ پاسن منٛز ہیٚکہِ سٲنؠ مہارت محدوٗد ٲسِتھ، مَگر یمہٕ کَتھ باتھ سٟتؠ گوو اسہٕ منٛز تحریکس اندر ملکیت تہٕ اہمیتُک احساس پٲدٕ ، یمہٕ سٟتؠ یتہٕ صحیٖح معنن منٛز قدر ہُنٛداحساس چھُ گژھان ۔”

کٲشُر

This Kashmiri text translates to:

Although our expertise in certain aspects may be limited, this engagement has instilled in us a sense of ownership and importance within the movement, fostering a feeling of being truly valued here

Koshur

The Movement Charter Conversations in the Kashmiri Community reflects the movement’s commitment to inclusivity and equity. By actively involving the smaller community in such decision-making processes, the initiative fosters a sense of belonging and value among its members. As the movement progresses, these efforts pave the way for a more equitable and collaborative future, where every voice contributes to the collective journey of empowerment. This initiative stands as a significant milestone for both the Wikimedia Movement and Kashmiri Wikimedians, showcasing the inclusion of a smaller community in the process of making decisions that affect the entire movement

Are you curious about the working of the Wikimedia movement affiliates, the recognized groups that help shape its diverse and global presence? If so, we’re taking a closer look at the Affiliations Committee, or “AffCom” for short. AffCom is a vital part of the Wikimedia ecosystem.

What is AffCom?

AffCom is a committee connected with the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The committee’s mission is to facilitate the creation, growth, and sustainability of Wikimedia affiliates around the world. AffCom is primarily responsible for recognizing, guiding, and supporting Wikimedia affiliates. Affiliates are formally recognized groups, such as chapters, user groups, and thematic organizations, united by their shared mission to support and promote Wikimedia projects. Affiliates are crucial in advancing the Wikimedia mission on a local, regional, and thematic level.

How does AffCom support affiliates?

Recognition: Reviewing applications from emerging Wikimedia affiliates to grant them official recognition, which enables them to use the Wikimedia name and logos, and access resources provided by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Support: Offering ongoing support to affiliates in the form of mentorship, advice, and assistance to help them achieve their goals and effectively contribute to the Wikimedia projects.

Conflict Resolution: Handling affiliate-related disputes and issues when they arise, ensuring that the Wikimedia movement remains cohesive and focused on its mission.

Capacity Building: Assisting in the development of affiliate governance structures, community engagement strategies, and other aspects crucial to the success of these organizations.

Who Are AffCom Members?

AffCom consists of volunteers from around the world with extensive experience in the Wikimedia movement. They are often active in various affiliate groups themselves, and their expertise in community building, governance, and Wikimedia knowledge makes them well-suited to evaluate and support affiliate organizations.

Becoming a member of AffCom

Joining AffCom is a responsibility to the communities and the future of the movement. Here are some expectations of AffCom members:

A strong commitment to the Wikimedia mission and values.

Appreciation and respect for the diversity of Wikimedia affiliates and work towards promoting an inclusive environment.

Effective communication to engage with diverse communities, affiliates, and fellow committee members, fostering positive and respectful interactions.

Efficiency in responding to inquiries and communications, ensuring that matters are addressed in a timely manner.

A good understanding of the different types of affiliates, such as chapters, user groups, and thematic organizations, and the specific needs and challenges they face.

A neutral and impartial stance when dealing with affiliate recognition and conflicts, ensuring fairness and transparency.

Contribution of knowledge, experience, and insights to support the committee’s work. Active participation in committee discussions, deliberations, and reviews is crucial.

Conflict Resolution with fairness and professionalism. Members may be involved in resolving conflicts and disputes.

Learn more about AffCom and how you can join to support affiliates in the movement. 

Sometimes, some exciting efforts related to the Wikimedia Movement happen somewhere across the world, with brilliant and lasting results, but few people get to know about them. This report highlights the successful long-term Wikipedia Education Program at Shahid Beheshti University, one of the largest universities in Iran.

Our story begins here, in September 2016, when an independent user of Persian Wikipedia organized a Wikipedia Education Program in coordination with a university professor in the History Department at Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran. In the first semester, the Education Program was carried out in only one class. Students had to either write original, not previously existing articles related to their class or improve the content of existing articles. By integrating Wikipedia editing into university courses, the Program has enabled students to not just consume information, but actively add to humanity’s shared knowledge. Since then, the Education Program has been spread to several classes.

The Education Program has been held continuously and growing over the following years in several classes from 2016 until now, except for a short period due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Program, currently active, and resulting in an accumulated multi-year experience of organized participation at the university, has become an unprecedented initiative in the history of Wikimedia outreach activities in Iran and Persian Wikipedia. This Program has had many achievements and accomplishments, among which the following can be mentioned:

• Participation of more than 200 students in almost five years
• Writing or improving 280 articles
• Writing content equal to approximately 2000 book pages (300 words per page)
• Making 20 articles Good or Featured
• Building an active and independent community with more than 20 creative student-users from several majors
• Raising awareness of the Wikimedia Movement in the atmosphere of the university
• Expanding the Education Program to other departments of the university

Conclusion

The Wikipedia Education Program’s immense success at Shahid Beheshti University over the past five years shows the potential for Wikimedia initiatives to thrive in the Iranian academic community. This groundbreaking program has engaged hundreds of Iranian students, vastly improved Persian Wikipedia’s content on topics related to their coursework, and fostered an independent Wikipedia editing community on campus. It represents a major milestone for Wikipedia outreach efforts in Iran.

Ideally, the accomplishments and lessons learned from this pioneering program will inspire many more Iranian universities to develop their own Wikipedia Education Programs. With the proven benefits for student learning, content expansion, and editor community building, this model provides a promising template for meaningfully connecting Iran’s academic institutions to the Wikimedia movement. If replicated and expanded throughout universities in Iran, similar initiatives could dramatically increase the Persian Wikipedia’s range and quality of content, while empowering a new generation of Iranian editors.

The success of this program proves the viability of organized Wikimedia activities taking root in Iran’s educational system. In short, the program has enriched Persian Wikipedia itself, increased free knowledge for global readers, developed students’ critical skills, and inspired a shared spirit of open knowledge – all central to the Wikimedia mission. From now on, you are going to hear more good news about the Wikimedia-based activities of this independent community.

Learn more:

https://w.wiki/Kdo

https://w.wiki/6JYi

🕑 1 hour 52 minutes

Steve Schneider is a professor of information design at the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly). He currently teaches a class, Digital Media and Information in Society, whose coursework is managed via Wikiversity and Wiki Edu, and also involves the use of ChatGPT by both teacher and students.

Links for some of the topics discussed:

• "Mid-semester rookie report: Starting a wikiversity project & teaching a class with wikiedu assignments" (WikiConference North America 2023 talk)
• Digital Media and Information in Society course on Wikiversity
  • Wiki Edu assignments for Digital Media and Information in Society
• WikimediaCourse on Wikiversity
• ChatGPT session that led to the Wikimedia course
• ChatGPT session to create a Wikidata SPARQL query
• "TiddlyWiki" Wikipedia article
• SUNY Wikimedia Project
• "Monorail" Wikipedia article (has included a "possibly generated by LLM" warning since July 2023)

It’s been a year since ChatGPT and other more or less sophisticated AI tools entered our digital world. I say “tool”, because that is what I mostly hear, when I talk to Wikimedians. AI is a tool. For some is helpful, for others not.

It is a tool. But the importance comes from the fact that it’s also a medium (I’m not talking of ontological matters here, although I’m not underestimating the dark charm of Ava from Alex Garland’s Ex Machina). 

If Marshal McLuhan is right about the power of the mediums, we’re experiencing a major civilizational shift now. AI tools sped up the process that has started a hundred years ago. Let me talk about history first.

It had happened before. Around year 1450 Johannes Gutenberg constructed a printing press, and changed the whole civilization. The culture of the western world started to move from Spoken Word to Written Word. Before that, the story was told and the knowledge was absorbed by listening.

Marshal McLuhan ties the civilizational turning points with the changes in communication processes and with the appearance of a new medium. New medium changes the civilization.

The success of the culture of Written Word was not immediate. It took a while to develop the technology of mass printing, paper production, distribution. And it took people 400 years to learn to read. After four centuries, Written Word culture finally wholly triumphed. Around the year 1920 almost all citizens of western countries could read, and the written word became the first source of knowledge and information. The peak of the Written Word culture was not that long ago. It seems like yesterday, thousands of people from all over the world, started to create the biggest written project in history – Wikipedia. They did it for free and gave it to the world for free.  

At the same time, when the Written Word culture triumphed, a new culture was born. The cinema, radio and television came into existence, and Written Word culture had to make more and more space for the culture of Spoken Word and Moving Pictures. Two major ways of absorbing the knowledge: first by reading, second by listening and watching seemed to complement each other. But things have changed rapidly in the last twenty years. We have been observing how infotainment TV and social media with their short clips influenced the way we see the world.

Jacek Dukaj, Polish writer, goes further into the future and says that we’ll enter the Post-Written world, where the ability of reading and writing is forgotten by most of the society, because there are more efficient ways of absorbing the knowledge.

If McLuhan’s pattern is correct, the AI tools will speed up the change into Spoken Word and Moving Picture civilization. It also means that the change we observe now: young people like multimedia, older ones like text, is not only generational. It’s civilizational. What it means to Wikimedia? Well, Wikipedia is a white page with text on it, isn’t it?

And here comes Asaf Bartov. In September 2023 in Tbilisi, during the CEE Meeting Conference, Asaf had a presentation and said something that simply and witty is exemplifying the issue I’m talking about: the Wikipedia articles on dance didn’t or still don’t have video materials showing a dance. The dance is described by a text on a white page. Written Word culture vs Moving Picture culture.

Maryana Pinchuk precisely described the challenges for the movement. And these challenges are broad. Activities like visiting Wikipedia pages and reading the article will become rarer and rarer. It’s good to be prepared for a new civilizational environment.  And something tells me, this time, the whole process of moving from Written Word Culture to Non-Written will take less than 400 years.

So what can chapter like us can do about this?

First, let’s fill the multimedia gaps in articles. It’s not only enriching the content. It’s opening new channels of communication, and maybe, for example, new places to display banners. 

Second, let’s meet and talk. We know people who know people. We are not an influential empire, but we can try harder when it comes to informing the world about the importance of open sources and open knowledge.

We’ll listen and talk to the young. The forms of participation in Wikimedia movement will probably evolve. It would be great if the next generation of Wikimedians felt here like at home.

We’ll use Wikimedia Poland strategy as a guide and background for this and further actions. The directions in the document are quite accurate for new times.    

So, what I’m trying to say here is that AI is not just a tool. The appearance of a new medium means that the steady civilizational process that has lasted over a century now, will sped up and the idea of white page covered by text might be not that attractive as it was. But for now, let’s not drop the pleasure of writing. Please comment this by typing words. This is probably the last decade we do that. 

この投稿はチェコ語でもご覧いただけます。

この投稿はイタリア語でもご覧いただけます。

ウィキペディアに寄付をくださる皆さんは、さまざまな期待を込めておられることと拝察します。ウィキペディアを運営する非営利団体「ウィキメディア財団」は、お受けした寄付金全額をウィキペディア、ウィキメディアのプロジェクト群、その他の無料の知識の使命に使うことをお約束します。

毎日、ウィキペディアを開く人は大勢いても、ではそのアクセスが絶えないようにするには何が必要か、はっきりとわからないままではないでしょうか。その点を以下に7つ示しますが、いずれも皆さんからウィキペディアにご寄付をいただきたい理由でもあります。ウィキメディア財団という存在と役割をご説明し、皆さんからいただいた寄付金がどれほど重要かお伝えしたいと思います。

1. 非営利活動法人として、ウィキメディア財団は世界の読者や寄付者の皆さんのおかげで独立性を保っています。

ウィキペディアはお金もうけをしない団体が運営していると聞くと、びっくりされる人がたくさんおられます。実際には、グローバルなウェブサイトのアクセス数上位10件で、ウィキペディアだけが非営利組織の運営です。

広告収入で運営しない、購読料や会費を取らないことが重要で、 個人情報を売ってお金を稼ぐこともしません。運営経費の大部分は、ウィキペディアの読者の皆さんがくださる寄付金に支えられています（1口平均$11アメリカドル ）。ウィキペディアのページ上で寄付のお願いのバナーをご覧になり、クリックして手続きしてくださいます。この寄付モデルは私たちの独立性を守ってくれるもので、特定の団体や個人がウィキペディアのあり方や内容を操縦する事態がないように作用します。
これまで長年にわたり、非営利組織としてこの業界の最善手法を守って来ましたし、常にチャリティー・ナビゲータ（Charity Navigator）など非営利の評価団体から財政の効率性と透明性について、最高ランクの番付を受けて来ました。また年次報告書を一般公開して財政報告ならびに募金事業報告をどなたにも読んでいただけるようにしています。

2. ウィキペディアは数百万、数千万もの読者にサービスを提供し、運営経費は他の最上位ウェブサイトの数分の1でまかなっています。

ウィキペディアは毎月、閲覧数が150億回超に達しています。営利インターネット企業の多くと比較しますと、当財団は（比較相手より多くないとしても）世界的なトラフィックは同等レベルでありながら、予算も人員も数分の1で対応しています。当財団は職員700名超を雇用しています。その大部分は製品と技術部門に所属し、ページ読み込み時間の短縮、セキュリティの心配がない接続、閲覧や編集の体験改善に努めています。職員はソフトウェアとインフラを管理し、対応言語300超という世界屈指の多言語サイトの一つとして知識を閲覧できるようにしています。ウィキメディア独得の使命も業務と照らし合わせるなら、Google社が提供する翻訳機能は133言語対応、被雇用者数はMeta^※1が7万名超で同じくReddit^※2はおよそ1400名とされています（訳注※：1＝Metaは旧称Facebook社。2＝Redditは英語圏で利用されている掲示板型ソーシャルニュースサイト））。

3. 読者による寄付は技術を支援し、読者や編集者が知識を共有する場としてウィキペディアを成立させ、読んだり改訂する方法の改善を支えています。

財団の年次予算のおよそ半分はウィキペディアとその姉妹プロジェクト群の維持管理に直接、充当されています。具体的にはウィキペディアの技術面のインフラが月間数億回のアクセスに対応できるようにしますし、システム管理になくてはならない人材の人件費として、サイトの信頼性技術、ソフトウェア技術、セキュリティその他の役割を恒常的に保っています。
ウィキペディアを300超の言語で提供するには、読者も編集者もそれぞれが使いたい言語で読んだり投稿したりできるように、最高水準の多言語技術が求められます。また寄付金の使途として、ウィキペディアにおける利用者体験の改善、さらにボランティア編集者のグローバルなコミュニティの拡張を支えることにより、当サイトの知識を増やし、常に現実に即して正確で、役に立つように保っていけるのです。

4. 変化するテクノロジー環境にいる私たちは進化し続け、新たなニーズに応え、世界的脅威が新たに現れても課題に対応していきます。

ウィキペディアを創設から10年目までの期間に定期的に読んでおられた皆さんなら、きっとエラーメッセージが画面に出るなどの経験を一度はされたことでしょう。技術への着実な投資を重ねてきた現在では、もう、そのような事態は発生しなくなりました。投資の更新により、トラフィックがかつてないほど急増したときですら軽々と処理できますし、閲覧や編集の中断を予防しています。

また新たな課題にも適切に対応し、高度な偽情報戦術や政府による検閲などの脅威、サイバーセキュリティ攻撃、さらにウェブを規制する法案の変更などにも対処しています。セキュリティのプロトコルが更新されたおかげで、当財団のサイト群が攻撃者に悪用される可能性は抑制されますし、無料の知識をめぐる私たちの使命を守るため、当財団法務担当者も力を尽くしています。

現在、トラフィックの過半数をモバイル機器のアクセスが占めるようになりました。音声入力に連動した機器やウェブサイトでは、自社サービスの利用者ニーズに応じようと、ますますウィキペディアを援用する傾向を強めています。そこで私たちは進化の歩みを止めることなく、これらの需要に応じていきます。
編集記：この文章は当初、2022年11月に投稿したため、その後、ウィキメディアのボランティアのコミュニティばかりかウィキメディア財団も人々が知識を求める方法を人工知能がどのように変容させるか、探ってきました。私たちとしては最近、チャットGPT対応のウィキペディア用プラグイン試作版を新たに開発して情報の帰属と引用を適切に提供し、これによりウィキペディア利用者の皆さんが最新情報を検索できるように整えました。

5. 私たちは財政経営に責任を持ち、ウィキペディアの当面の需要と長期的な持続可能性をバランスさせます。

おそらく皆さんも、普通預金と定期積立預金の口座は使い道を分けておられるかと思います。

たぶん片方は日常の出費に当てて、もう片方は緊急事態用、つまり自家用車がいきなり故障したなどのため、あるいはまた退職後の家計などの長期的な経済計画に備えておられるのではないでしょうか。

非営利団体もそのあたりは似ています。私たちには普通預金のような役割を果たす口座が2口あります。また寄付基金口は、経済危機などの緊急事態、資金面の万が一に備えるために設けてあります。

その財団寄付基金口（endowment）は長期にわたる恒久的な資金源という存在です。寄付基金の投資で得た収益を土台に、ウィキペディアおよびウィキメディアのプロジェクト群の将来が安定します。これら寄付基金口の資金は、特定の長期目的のために確保して手をつけません。その点、当年に実施する現在の活動の資金には、ウィキペディアの読者の皆さんからお預かりした個別のご寄付の大部分を使います。
あらゆる種類の組織において、資本運用方針の策定、健全な財務準備金の維持は最善手法と認められています。 ウィキメディア財団理事会は資本運用方針の定義にあたり、たとえ、私たちの活動やウィキメディア提携団体（日本語ページ）の各種グループにおいて計画外の出費や緊急事態または収入不足が発生した場合であっても — 世界的な使命を担う全世界ネットワークとして — ウィキペディアやウィキメディアのプロジェクト群を継続して支援して、ボランティアの皆さんを助けて支えていくことを第一義としました。この方針はまた、支出に充当するキャッシュフローを年間を通して十分に確保することも可能にします。

6. ウィキペディアへのご寄付は、皆さんから私たちへの何よりの応援です。「世界中のあらゆる知識を載せるように」というご声援をありがとうございます。

ウィキメディア財団の助成金事業では、世界各地の個人の皆さんや組織を対象に、無料の知識の多様性と普及性、質も量も豊かにする活動を助成しています。この4年間の資金供与の実績は、世界の94の国と地域でウィキメディアのボランティア・コミュニティに向けて総額4千7百万アメリカドル超を達成しました。最近、年次予算の配分を見直して、ウィキメディアの提携団体のうち活動歴が短く規模が小さくても助成対象に含めるようにしたばかりです。

確かに目の前にある知識の格差はまだまだ大きいものの、ウィキペディアが載せる内容はますます世界をグローバルに映し出すようになりましたし、それは当サイトに投稿する編集者の皆さんの構成がそのように変わったことの現れでもあります。一例を挙げるなら2020年から2023年の期間にサハラ以南のアフリカで活動するボランティア編集者のコミュニティ成長率は36%増になりました。これはとりもなおさず、ウィキメディアのボランティア、提携団体とその他の皆さんがプログラムに従って綿々と努力を重ねられたからであり — 多くの事例で助成金や研修などの支援を財団から提供させていただきました。

ウィキペディアのボランティア分布が世界各地に及ぶかどうか、私たちが気にかけている理由でしょうか？ それは、投稿者の姿がそのままウィキペディアに投影されるからです。多種多様なものの見方が集まると、品質が高まり、多くの人の知恵を拾って共有でき、読者の一人ひとりに関連性のある知識を盛り込めるからでもあります。

7. 読者の皆さんが貢献されるからこそ、私たちは前へ前へ進めます

ウィキペディアにお返しをしてくださる個人の皆さんは — 寄付金でも応援メッセージでも、ページの編集あるいはそれぞれのご発案で手を差し伸べてくださる場合も  — 毎日、私たちの元気の素になっています。この機会にウィキメディア財団職員一同よりお礼を申し上げたいと思います。これまで皆さんがご寄付に添えてくださったメッセージをお預かりしていますので、その中から特に私たちの心に響いたものをいくつかご紹介します。きっと皆様にも何か伝わるのではないかと願っています。

ウィキペディアの優秀さにはいつも驚かされています。私の場合、コンピュータ・モニターを2台置き、片方で科学記事や医学記事を読むのですが、専門用語の意味や背景情報がますます曖昧になるばかりなので、常にもう1台でウィキペディアを開けておき、確認しながらの作業です。ウィキペディアは人類史で最大の共同プロジェクトだそうだけど、肝心なのは世界で最も優秀という点です！

アメリカ合衆国の寄付者より

ウィキペディアを今日も使えるようにしてくれて、本当にありがとうございます。誰か特定の人に独占させないようにすること、完全性や品質や気高さを保つこと、遠隔地にいても誰でも読めるようにすること、特に現代のように金、金、金のデジタル世界で妥協を許さず前進し続けること。それがどれほど難しいか理解していればこそ、感謝の言葉しかありません。

インドの寄付者より

さて、読者の皆さんがウィキペディアにお贈りくださるご寄付の意義と重みをご理解いただけましたなら、望外の喜びです。何かお尋ねになりたい場合は、お手数ながらよくある質問集（日本語ページ）をご参照ください。

もしウィキペディアにご寄付いただけるお立場でしたら、こちら（日本語ページ）からお手続きいただけると大変有難いです。

編集記：この投稿は当初、2022年11月3日に掲載しました。2023年10月時点でデータポイントや数値とリンク類をいくつか更新し、より直近の情報に差し替えてあります。

The post ウィキペディアに寄付をお願いしたい7つの理由 appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.

This is the second part in a two-part update on the MinT translation service. In the first part we covered what MinT does and how it impacts translations, in this post we’ll share volunteer experiences in using the service. 

Translators have shared their appreciation for MinT. Many of them feel the quality of MinT translation is better than that of other translation services they have used before. Underrepresented languages such as Kashmiri, Santali, Tumbuka, Sardinian, and several others have been lacking machine translation services until the introduction of MinT. Below are the experiences and thoughts of three translators from the underrepresented languages.

• Iflaq, a Kashmiri native speaker who has been a Wikipedian since 2020, found his inspiration to edit the English Wikipedia from a volunteer’s Facebook post. He clicked on the link in the volunteer’s post, and it took him on a learning adventure on how to edit Wikipedia. Eventually, he created his account, using an unusual username “511KeV,” meaning five hundred and eleven-kilo electron volts (a name that applies to a state in physics). He started his editing journey in English Wikipedia. Six months later, he discovered the Kashmiri Wikipedia while exploring Wikipedia. At first, he was disheartened to find that the user interface contained some information in English rather than Kashmiri, a language spoken by over 7.1 million population in India. Nevertheless, it was encouraging that it had few active contributors and 300 articles existed in the Kashmiri Wikipedia.

The discovery prompted a shift in his attention from editing the English to Kashmiri Wikipedia; at the point of his discovery, he was grounded in English Wikipedia and attained extended user rights. Notwithstanding his achievements in the above Wikipedia, he changed his focus to the Kashmiri language, mastered the Translate extension tool and tasked himself with translating the Kashmiri Wikipedia user interface from English to Kashmiri. Subsequently, he transitioned to making more content available on the Kashmiri Wikipedia by translating content from English to Kashmiri.

In addition, 511KeV actively engaged in outreach activities to recruit more volunteer translators for the Kashmiri Wikipedia. In his experience working with newcomers and translating content, it is time-consuming for Kashmiri Wikipedia contributors to translate because the language is underrepresented without initial machine translation support from the services available in other Wikipedia. He further explained that they translated from scratch without a “dictionary” embedded in the tool that suggested words in Kashmiri to compare, review and edit like other language Wikipedias to maximize our volunteer time.

For 511KeV and other Kashmiri contributors, It is a huge relief to have the long-awaited translation support service MinT in Kashmiri Wikipedia; the numbers say it all. The community have published a record-breaking 330 translations in just four months, 15% short of last year’s cumulative translations. The Kashmiri community openly expresses its delight in having this valuable assistance. Iflaq has effectively utilized MinT as an aid to publish over 120 sections from different articles in 3 months, including the biography of Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi and Aziz Hajini. He is optimistic that the quality of initial translations from MinT will improve to become 100% accurate, and we would have to request that the translation limit be adjusted to accommodate the improvement and ensure that translators still review and edit their translation before publishing it.

• Prasanta Hembram, who goes by username Rocky 734, Is a volunteer translator based in Odisha, India. Although Santali has 7.6 million language speakers around the world, it only has 3388 articles on its Wikipedia project. To address this gap, Prasanta has been using the content translation tool to translate articles from English to Santali since 2019. 

For the past several years, machine translation into Santali was one of the most requested software features from the volunteer community. For a long time, Prasanta was using a low quality translation service; It was also very tedious, and required manual copying, pasting and reviewing afterwards.. 

Finally, four months ago, the Wikimedia Foundation deployed the MinT translation service and Santali Wikipedia was one of the first Wikipedia communities to use it. Prasanta has now used the MinT translation service to translate approximately 200 articles, including articles about locations, plants, and biographies. The MinT translation service has helped him to speed up the translation process on articles into Santali. He is impressed with the overall translation quality for simple sentences, though it is not yet as effective at translating complex sentences. Other volunteer translators he has worked with also noticed that translating science and technology topics is still difficult, and wish that the service was available for more than English as a source language. Overall though, the creation of MinT is an important step forward. Almost all major contributors of Santali Wikipedia are using MinT as well as the section translation tool, which was also recently released. He is hopeful that MinT will continue to improve, and that the number of articles using the translation service will double. Overall, he shared, “We are extremely grateful to the developers for creating a machine translation tool in our language. We never expected such a tool to be available to us, and we are truly appreciative of their efforts.” 

• Adrià Martin is a Wikimedian who lectures in Translation Technologies at California State University Long Beach. Within his teachings, he introduces his university students to the Content Translation tool and encourages them to save their translations in their personal sandboxes for subsequent review and publishing. His work focuses on Catalan and Sardinian translations. Adria had collaborated with a team in the past that created a Machine translation system for the Sardinian language, and he was thrilled when someone sent him the link to test MinT through the web; “At that time, I was supervising a PhD thesis, and I used MinT to generate a machine translation of some of the statistical content from Italian to Sardinian; MinT did a great job in the translation.” Adria explained. 

He has yet to use MinT support in the content translation tool, but he uses the test instance often for his personal work. He commended the remarkable translation quality achieved in Catalan and Sardinian and highlighted the tool’s ability to support a broader range of language pairs; this is particularly notable considering the challenges posed by Sardinian’s under-resourced status and lack of a universally accepted standardized model for the language. Moreover, the diverse ways Sardinian is written pose a complex challenge for developing language technology for the language.

You can get started using MinT by visiting Special:ContentTranslation from Wikipedia in any language, on translatewiki.net, or directly in a test instance.

Keep track of the WMF Language team’s plans for the MinT translation on this page and be notified of recent happenings by subscribing to the Language team’s quarterly newsletter. If you have questions about MinT, don’t hesitate to ask on the project talk page.

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Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Changes later this week

• There is no new MediaWiki version this week. [1][2]
• Starting on Wednesday, a new set of Wikipedias will get “Add a link” (Quechua Wikipedia, Romansh Wikipedia, Romani Wikipedia, Rundi Wikipedia, Aromanian Wikipedia, Tarandíne Wikipedia, Rusyn Wikipedia, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Sanskrit Wikipedia, Sakha Wikipedia, Santali Wikipedia, Sardinian Wikipedia, Sicilian Wikipedia, Scots Wikipedia, Sindhi Wikipedia, Northern Sami Wikipedia, Sango Wikipedia, Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, Sinhala Wikipedia, Slovak Wikipedia, Slovenian Wikipedia, Samoan Wikipedia, Somali Wikipedia, Albanian Wikipedia, Serbian Wikipedia, Sranan Tongo Wikipedia, Swati Wikipedia, Southern Sotho Wikipedia, Saterland Frisian Wikipedia, Sundanese Wikipedia, Silesian Wikipedia, Tamil Wikipedia, Tulu Wikipedia, Telugu Wikipedia, Tetum Wikipedia, Tajik Wikipedia, Thai Wikipedia, Turkmen Wikipedia, Tagalog Wikipedia, Tswana Wikipedia, Tongan Wikipedia, Tok Pisin Wikipedia, Turkish Wikipedia, Tsonga Wikipedia, Tatar Wikipedia, Twi Wikipedia, Tahitian Wikipedia, Tuvinian Wikipedia, Udmurt Wikipedia, Uyghur Wikipedia, Uzbek Wikipedia, Venda Wikipedia, Venetian Wikipedia, Veps Wikipedia, West Flemish Wikipedia, Volapük Wikipedia). This is part of the progressive deployment of this tool to more Wikipedias. The communities can configure how this feature works locally. [3][4][5]
• The Vector 2022 skin will have some minor visual changes to drop-down menus, column widths, and more. These changes were added to four Wikipedias last week. If no issues are found, these changes will proceed to all wikis this week. These changes will make it possible to add new menus for readability and dark mode. Learn more. [6]

Future changes

• There is an update on re-enabling the Graph Extension. To speed up the process, Vega 2 will not be supported and only some protocols will be available at launch. You can help by sharing what you think about the plan.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

Join us in a week-long celebration, spanning from 20th–28th November, as we congratulate the remarkable accomplishments of the Wikimedia UK community. It’s often the case that efforts of Wikimedians go unacknowledged, so we’re excited that this campaign will share the pivotal role each member of our community plays in advancing open knowledge.

Over this past year the UK editing community has been as determined as ever to advance open knowledge online. An encyclopaedia is most valuable when it represents us all, and our community consists of individuals from diverse backgrounds and a variety of skills. Their contributions are vital in ensuring the availability of accurate, comprehensive information for people around the world. With each edit they make they strengthen Wikipedia and its sister projects, ensuring they remain a valuable resource for knowledge-seekers everywhere.

Giving Tuesday is the perfect opportunity to highlight some of the activities of our community. The last year has presented the UK editing community with new challenges, which have been met with determination and enthusiasm. We’ve seen new partnerships form, welcomed new groups into editing, and made great strides in our mission to represent all knowledge on Wikimedia.

Earlier this year, Wikimedia UK partnered with the Swadhinata Trust, a London-based Bengali heritage organisation, to enhance the representation of Bengali heritage and culture on Wikimedia platforms. This collaboration began with an introductory online workshop and continued with an in-person workshop, focusing on creating Wikimedia accounts, editing Wikipedia articles, sourcing information, and uploading images to Wikimedia Commons. 

The online workshop was followed by an in-person workshop at the Wikimedia UK office in April 2023, where participants learned how to create an account and to edit Wikipedia articles, as well as how to find reliable sources and avoid conflicts of interest. They also learned how to upload images to Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository that anyone can use. They explored some of the existing articles on Bengali topics and brainstormed for potential contributions.

The collaboration between Wikimedia UK and the Swadhinata Trust illustrates how Wikimedia projects can effectively celebrate and safeguard a wide range of cultural heritages while promoting community involvement. But it also highlights how important working alongside local community organisations is for us as an organisation in order for us to achieve our goals in driving community engagement.

We’ve also seen real progress being made through our Train the Trainer programme. Trainers support volunteers who are keen to deliver Wikipedia editing events. They play a key role in the delivery of Wikimedia UK programmes and extend our work to underrepresented communities, supporting them to become engaged in the Wikimedia projects. They train new and existing editors across the country, in-person, online or in hybrid sessions.

One of our trainers, Johanna Janhonen, began supporting Wikimedia UK last year, helping newcomers gain fundamental skills in the art of editing and learning from other Wikipedia trainers both in-person and remotely.

In April 2023, we began collaborating with an eager group of digital volunteers from the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. We initiated a practical three-week introductory program centred around Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. These volunteers came from various backgrounds, spanning from recent school graduates to retirees, each contributing their unique experiences and interests to the project. Over the three weeks, we covered essential editing techniques, addressed common questions about Wiki and cultural heritage, and discussed strategies for creating impactful edits. The program concluded with an online editing event in May 2023.

Throughout this process, we discovered a wealth of valuable content. We were particularly impressed by the significant contributions of local historians, highlighting their outstanding work on ‘Devon Women in Public and Professional Life, 1900–1950: Votes, Voices and Vocations,’ which significantly enriched our collaborative journey.

Nick Moyes, a former museum naturalist, has spent a career introducing people from diverse backgrounds to the wonders of museum artefacts, furthering their understanding of the world around them, and facilitating access to knowledge and information. Upon retiring a decade ago, he saw a new avenue for continuing this mission in Wikipedia. The platform offered an exceptional opportunity to carry on his work. It wasn’t long before he found himself assisting fellow editors in their contributions to Wikipedia. Last year, Wikimedia UK conducted a ‘Train the Trainers’ program, equipping individuals like Nick with the skills needed to conduct introductory group training sessions, whether in person or online.

Initially Nick provided support to other trainers, gradually building the confidence needed to lead his own training sessions on Wikipedia contributions. His sessions were tailored for professional astronomers and science educators in South Africa, and he received invaluable online support from a network of fellow trainers, part of the robust community of trained volunteers cultivated by Wikimedia UK.

Pledge your support this Giving Tuesday and help us celebrate the wonderful Wikimedia UK community as we bring 2023 to a close and look ahead to 2024. Follow our Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon and Instagram channels to stay up to date, and hey, give us a follow while you’re there!

P.S. We’re also holding our community at Wikimedia UK 2023 Community Meeting, taking place Sunday 26th November, 12-2pm, online. To join, sign up here. 

The post Unwrap the joy of giving: Open knowledge for all appeared first on WMUK.

07/11/2023-13/11/2023

Mapping

• barefootstache explained the methodology of addition and division mapping with the example of natural and landuse areas.
• The research team from HeiGIT have compared the completeness of road data in OpenStreetMap with the road data in the Microsoft RoadDetections dataset.

• Requests for comments have been made on these proposals:

  • GTFS Tagging Standard for tagging data from a General Transit Feed Specification feed.
  • Unification of post/parcel keys to unify the tags for handling parcels and postal services.

• Voting is open on:

  • highway=cyclist_waiting_aid, to map street furniture and devices for cyclists that are intended to make waiting more comfortable, until Tuesday 21 November.
  • historic=millstone, to map a large round stone used for grinding grain, until Wednesday 29 November.
• The vote on highway=ladder has closed, with the proposal being approved with 20 votes for, 1 vote against, and 3 abstentions

Community

• Binnette reported on a mapping party in the Saint-Barthélemy-de-Séchilienne region of France. This event was supported by OpenStreetMap France and the mayor Gilles Strappazzon as the local government representative. You can find the full report on this event with lots of ‘before and after’ pictures on GitHub.
• dentonny was selected as OpenStreetMap Belgium’s Mapper of the Month.
• Probelnijs wondered why maps.me is well known while no one seems to know OpenStreetMap.
• Gladys Aguilar, a dedicated language teacher shaping urban mobility in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has been honored as the Trufi Association’s Volunteer of the Month.

Events

• Ilya Zverev released live coverage of the State of the Map EU 2023 event on his Telegram channel. One of the topics he covered was the OpenStreetMap community’s response to OvertureMaps’ presentation.
• Christian Quest, founding member of the French OpenStreetMap local chapter, introduced the Panoramax project during the State of the Map EU 2023 event. Panoramax is a decentralised and federated project to collect and share ground level imagery under open licences.

Education

• Students participating in live UN Mappers courses can obtain a Certificate of Completion, which recognises the skills acquired. Each student receives personal feedback on the OSM edits, which verifies the quality of the mapping. Courses are announced on UN Mappers social media channels and the courses (Basics and Advanced) can be accessed on the UN Maps Learning Hub at any time (although certification is currently only available for live courses).

Maps

• The 30DayMapChallenge 2023 on Mastodon, LinkedIn, X, and BlueSky continues.

  It is not possible to adequately acknowledge the multitude of outstanding works. The selection we make is purely random and not an evaluation. Please take a look at the works yourself. The hashtag #30DayMapChallenge will help you.

  • Day 6: Asia
    • Boat rentals in Japan
    • Asian cities with a population over 1 million people
    • Historical Ukrainian diasporas in Asia
    • Exploring complex road structures: achieving visual harmony
  • Day 7: Navigation
    • Home to university
    • Charlotte Marathon
    • Mapped ferry routes in the Philippines
    • OpenRouteService & OpenStreetMap in action
  • Day 8: Africa
    • Population density across the continent
    • Map of waterways in Africa
    • Estimated temperature difference by the end of the century
  • Day 9: Hexagons
    • Archaeological Site Density in Denmark – hexes within a hex
    • Frequency of surface types of football pitches in Germany on a 25 km2 grid.
    • Presenting the bus stops of Bengaluru in Hexgrids
  • Day 10: North America
    • Trolleybus Networks of North America
    • Map of railway stations or depots in North America
    • The rivers and lakes of North America
  • Day 11: Retro
    • Politik auf Karten: "Berlin – Hauptstadt der DDR" und nebenan die unbesiedelte grüne Oase West-Berlin
    • Early Ordnance Survey maps
    • Stations of the historical Argentine railway network and its active branches in 2023
  • Day 12: South America
    • Places in South America connected with Ukraine and the population of Ukrainian origin
    • The Majestic Giants of Peru
    • Halftone Elevation Map of South America
    • The Cerro Guaiquinima, a plateau in the Bolivar state of Venezuela
• Juan Jose Iglesias reported that the OpenStreetMap Analytics service (osm-analytics.org) will soon be shut down. Users are advised to switch to a similar alternative service managed by HeiGIT.
• #geoObserver presented ► the Pathfinding project, which animates the process of routing on a map.
• Oliver Roick has calculated a rough estimate of the cost required to create a global tile server based on PMTiles, which is around $12 per month.
• Raquel Dezidério Souto ► coordinated the technical part of the second stage of the fifth Brazilian Cartographic Olympiad . There is a virtual exhibition ► of the participants’ maps on the theme Amazônia no Mapa (Amazon on the map).
• gislars tooted that the map showing the Berlin Christmas markets has been updated.

OSM in action

• Bldrwnsch is a map by Simon Legner based on OpenStreetMap, which shows objects from the German Wikipedia with an image request. The objects themselves are not part of OSM. Bldrwnsch is open source and uses Typescript and Python code.
• A free online course in English on public transport mapping has been launched by the Trufi Association and Mobility Hub.

Open Data

• Vikki released a collection of the open data sources that she has used while participating in the #30DayMapChallenge.

Software

• David Karlaš wrote about how to add additional buttons to the OpenStreetMap website using the Tampermonkey browser add-on.

Did you know …

• …that you can access a map of surveillance camera locations (man_made=surveillance) using the Surveillance under Surveillance web app?

Other “geo” things

• OpenCage has released a geo URI QR code generator. When the QR code is scanned the user’s default mapping application opens to the encoded coordinates.
• The jigsaw puzzle of an OpenStreetMap map of the Belgian territory, featured at the State of the Map Europe 2023 event, has been successfully completed.

Upcoming Events

Where	What	Online	When	Country
Budapest	Budapest : 2023 November OSM meetup		2023-11-13 – 2023-11-20
Salt Lake City	Salt Lake City Monthly Map Night		2023-11-16
Richmond	MapRVA Meetup		2023-11-16
แขวงพระบรมมหาราชวัง	SOTM Asia		2023-11-15 – 2023-11-17	th
Bochum	Bochumer OpenStreetMap-Treffen		2023-11-16
종로1·2·3·4가동	2023 국경없는의사회 지오위크 매파톤	✓	2023-11-16
Rio de Janeiro	GIS DAY 2023 – IVIDES.org & HUB YouthMappers Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)		2023-11-17
Eti Osa	#MapNigeria GIS Day 2023: Mapping Lagos for Waste Management		2023-11-17	ng
Dom Aleixo	OSM Community Meet-Up and Official Launching		2023-11-18	tl
Bengaluru	Let’s Talk Spatial – OSM Workshop		2023-11-18
Pforzheim	ÖPNV-Mapathon beim Verkehrsverbund Pforzheim-Enzkreis		2023-11-18
Lyon	Réunion du groupe local de Lyon		2023-11-21
San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2023-11-22
Bonn	169. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn		2023-11-21
Autelbas	Réunions des contributeurs		2023-11-21
Lüneburg	Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online)		2023-11-21
Köln	OSM-Stammtisch Köln		2023-11-22
Lübeck	137. OSM-Stammtisch für Lübeck und Umgebung		2023-11-23
Essen	FOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen 2023 Nummer 20		2023-11-24 – 2023-11-26
Biarritz	Rencontre festive Groupe local OSM Pays Basque Sud Landes		2023-11-24
Chambéry	Mapathon débutant saison 23/24 CartONG		2023-11-27
Bremen	Bremer Mappertreffen		2023-11-27
	OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2023-11-29
Düsseldorf	Düsseldorfer OpenStreetMap-Treffen		2023-11-29
Mbankomo	State of the Map Africa 2023		2023-11-30 – 2023-12-02
Oakland	A Synesthete’s Atlas: Cartographic Improvisations between Eric Theise and Santomieri-Farhadian Duo		2023-12-02

Note:
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This weeklyOSM was produced by Elizabete, MatthiasMatthias, Michael Montani, PierZen, Strubbl, Ted Johnson, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, rtnf.
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 This weekend I attended WikiConference North America. I decided to go somewhat at the last moment, but am really glad I did. This is the first non-technical Wikimedia community conference I have attended since COVID and it was great to hear what the Wikipedia community has been up to.

I was on a bit of a budget, so i decided to get a cheaper hotel that was about an hour away by public transit from the venue. I don't think I'll do that again. Getting back and forth was really smooth - Toronto has great transit. However it meant an extra hour at the end of the day to get back, and waking up an hour earlier to get there on time, which really added up. By the end I was pretty tired and much rather would have had an extra 2 hours of sleep (or an extra 2 hours chatting with people).

Compared to previous iterations of this conference, there was a much heavier focus on on-wiki governance, power users and "lower-case s" Wikipedia (not Wikimedia) strategy. I found this quite refreshing and interesting since I mostly do MediaWiki dev stuff and do not hear about the internal workings of Wikipedia as much. Previous versions of this conference focused too much (imho) on talks about outreach which while important were often a bit repetitive. The different focus was much more interesting to me.

Key Take-aways

My key take away from this conference was that there is a lot of nervousness about the future. Especially:

• Wikipedia's power-user demographics curve is shifting in a concerning way. Particularly around admin promotion.
• AI is changing the way we consume knowledge, potentially cutting Wikipedia out, and this is scary
• A fear that the world is not as it once was and the conditions that created Wikipedia are no longer present. As they keynote speaker Selena Deckelmann phrased it, "Is Wikipedia a one-generation marvel?"

However I don't want to overstate this. Its unclear to me how pervasive this view is. Lots of presenters presented views of that form, but does the average Wikipedian agree? If so, is it more an intellectual agreement, or are people actually nervous? I am unsure. My read on it is that people were vaguely nervous about these things, but by no means was anyone panicking about them. Honestly though, I don't really know. However, I think some of these concerns are undercut by there being a long history of people worried about similar things and yet Wikipedia has endured. Before admin demographics people were panicking about new user retention. Before AI changing the way we consume content, it was mobile (A threat which I think is actually a much bigger deal).

Admin demographics

That said, I never quite realized the scale of admin demographic crisis. People always talk about there being less admin promotions now than in the past, but i did not realize until it was pointed out that it is not just a little bit less but allegedly 50 times less. There is no doubt that a good portion of the admin base are people who started a decade (or 2) ago, and new user admins are fewer and further between.

A particular thing that struck me as related to this at the conference, is how the definition of "young" Wikipedian seems to be getting older. Occasionally I would hear people talk about someone who is in high school as being a young Wikipedian, with the implication that this is somewhat unusual. However when you talk to people who have been Wikipedians for a long time, often they say they were teenagers when they started. It seems like Wikipedians being teenagers was a really common thing early in the project, but is now becoming more rare.

Ultimately though, I suspect the problem will solve itself with time. As more and more admins retire as time goes on, eventually work load on the remaining will increase until the mop will be handed out more readily out of necessity. I can't help but be reminded of all the panic over new user retention, until eventually people basically decided that it didn't really matter.

AI

As far as AI goes, hating AI seems to be a little bit of a fad right now. I generally think it is overblown. In the Wikipedia context, this seems to come down to three things:

• Deepfakes and other media manipulation to make it harder to have reliable sources (Mis/Dis-information)
• Using AI to generate articles that get posted, but perhaps are not properly fact checked or otherwise poor quality in ways that aren't immediately obvious or in ways existing community practice is not as of yet well prepared to handle
• Voice assistants (alexa), LLMs (ChatGPT) and other knowledge distributions methods that use Wikipedia data but cut Wikipedia out of the loop. (A continuation of the concern that started with google knowledge graph)

I think by and large it is the third point that was the most concerning to people at the conference although all 3 were discussed at various points. The third point is also unique to Wikipedia.

There seemed to be two causes of concern for the third point. First there was worry over lack of attribution and a feeling that large silicon valley companies are exploitatively profiting off the labor of Wikipedians. Second there is concern that by Wikipedia being cut out of the loop we lose the ability to recruit people when there is no edit button and maybe even lose brand awareness. While totally unstated, I imagine the inability to show fundraising banners to users consuming via such systems probably is on the mind of the fundraising department of WMF.

My initial reaction to this is probably one of disagreement with the underlying moral basis. The goal was always to collect the world's knowledge for others to freely use. The free knowledge movement literally has free in the name. The knowledge has been collected and now other people are using it in interesting, useful and unexpected ways. Who are we to tell people what they can and cannot do with it?

This is the sort of statement that is very ideologically based. People come to Wikimedia for a variety of reasons, we are not a monolith. I imagine that people probably either agree with this view or disagree with it, and no amount of argument is going to change anyone's mind about it. Of course a major sticking point here is arguably ChatGPT is not complying with our license and lack of attribution is a reasonable concern.

The more pragmatic concerns are interesting though. The project needs new blood to continue over the long term, and if we are cut out of the distribution loop, how do we recruit. I honestly don't know, but I'd like to see actual data confirming the threat before I get too worried.

The reason I say that, is that I don't think voice assistants and LLMs are going to replace Wikipedia. They may replace Wikipedia for certain use cases but not all use cases, and especially not the use case that our recruitment base is.

Voice assistants generally are good for quick fact questions. "Who is the prime minister of Canada?" type questions. The type of stuff that has a one sentence answer and is probably stored on Wikidata. LLMs are somewhat longer form, but still best for information that can be summarized in a few paragraphs, maybe a page at most and has a relatively objective "right" answer (From what I hear. I haven't actually used ChatGPT). Complex nuanced topics are not well served by these systems. Want to know the historical context that lead to the current flare up in the middle east? I don't think LLMs will give you what you want.

Now think about the average Wikipedia editor. Are they interested in one paragraphs answers? I don't know for sure, but I would posit that they tend to be more interested in the larger nuanced story. Yes other distribution models may threaten our ability to recruit from users using them, but I don't think that is the target audience we would want to focus recruitment on anyways. I suppose time will tell. AI might just be a fad in the end.

Conclusion

I had a great time. It was awesome to see old friends but also meet plenty of new people I did not know. I learned quite a bit, especially about Wikipedia governance. In many ways, it is one of the more surprising wiki conferences I've been too, as it contained quite a bit of content that was new to me. I plan to write a second blog post about my more raw unfiltered thoughts on specific presentations.

31/10/2023-06/11/2023

Mapping

• AgusQui shared ► his experience of trying to map railway signalling on the Sarmiento line (Once Station – Moreno Station) in Buenos Aires City, Argentina.
• Andres Gomez Casanova described the various alternatives for integrating OpenStreetMap data with data from Wikimedia projects. At the end of the article he pointed out that the ODbL licence used by OpenStreetMap can sometimes be incompatible with the CC-BY licence used by Wikimedia.
• The OpenStreetMap community in Marikina City in the Philippines is planning to cycle through the city together and collect street-level imagery of the roads they will travel.
• Xtvn pondered some of the ethical questions regarding the GPS Traces feature on OpenStreetMap.

Mapping campaigns

• Tom Di Nunzio has proposed a project to import data from the Palenque Mapping Project’s archaeological research in the Chiapas region of Mexico to OpenStreetMap.

Community

• Professor Stefan Keller, from the OST Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, is working ► as a ‘mapper in residence’ in the city of Winterthur, Switzerland, for four Fridays in November 2023. The city administration described it as a win-win situation for the city and OpenStreetMap on LinkedIn with three clear benefits:
  • Link between the city administration and the OSM community.
  • Understanding of OSM among the organisation’s employees.
  • Promoting the improvement of OpenStreetMap content and processes through the community.

  We think this is highly recommended for imitation.

• Koreller has found two online sources with information about skyscrapers from all over the world. In his blog, he described how he took that opportunity to enrich several free projects with the buildings of Pyongyang; Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and OpenStreetMap.
• Matheus Gomes Correia blogged about using an Insta360 X3 camera for street-level imagery, which he investigated as part of of his PhD research. He concluded that the images are great, but the GPS software is not precise enough.
• Niels Elgaard Larsen reported about the maxspeed tag’s status and quality in Denmark.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• A wiki page outlining information about the 17th Annual General Meeting of the OpenStreetMap Foundation has been created.
• Dorothea Kazazi announced that the October OpenStreetMap Foundation board meeting has resulted in two new decisions, namely approval of draft travel policy and the approval of advisory board coordinator role.
• Arnalie Vicario, a board member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, asked the community for ideas on how to improve the current OSMF affiliation system.

Events

• OpenStreetMap Kerala have hosted their annual community meetup in Thrissur, Kerala, India. More than 70 OSM enthusiasts, users, and government officials joined to discuss using and improving OpenStreetMap data.

Maps

• Pierre Béland proposed, on the OSM Community forum, a map quiz where your challenge is to ‘locate on OpenStreetMap eight areas with a “Blue Map Style perspective”‘. Activate the Waterways JOSM style and download OSM data for your city or a coastal area. Pierre said that you should be surprised which major cities and coastal areas are represented. Other than JOSM edits, this style displays how water resource management varies across countries and can be managed in multiple ways. Use the JOSM Mappaint dialog box (F12 preferences/Mappaint) to download and activate the style. It renders only the natural and man-made water thematic content (water and waterways features) and hides other features.
• The 30-Day Map Challenge has been running since 1 November.

  Unfortunately, we can only present a few examples, most of which use data from OSM. The selection is neither an order nor a rating.

  For map lovers, the hashtag #30DayMapChallenge is your friend in November.

  • Day 1: Points
    • Street trees in Buenos Aires
    • Anton van Tetering – All place names starting with ‘Bad’ in Germany
    • watmildon – Density of private pools in one chunk of Phoenix Arizona
    • ‘The European tripoint constelation’ (A tripoint is a geographical point at which the boundaries of 3 countries.)
  • Day 2: Lines
    • Cyclability of roads in Milan (dedicated, allowed, forbidden)
    • stevefaeembra – London Tube Map.
    • Street map + Water courses
  • Day 3: Polygons
    • Building map of Miyajima, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan
    • Cluster areas of lynx sightings in France
  • Day 4: A bad map
    • BAD ways
    • Bad’est place in the US
    • Hic sunt vermes
  • Day 5: Analogue map
    • Traffic model
    • Gummy Bear Finland
    • India

OSM in action

• elDiario.es, a Spanish online news site, has published an interactive map explaining the history of vertical housing in Spain.

Open Data

• Lat × Long reported on how Overture’s Global Entity Reference System hopes to improve data interoperability but it’s not there yet. Overture has assigned GERS IDs to more than 1.6 million building footprints across several cities in North America, South America, and Europe. But it seems that GERS is of little use outside of Overture’s ecosystem.

Software

• GeoDesk has published a new version of its OpenStreetMap database toolkit. Store the entire OSM planet in under 100 GB, run queries 50 times faster than SQL, and now with full scripting support for Python. Free and open-source.

Programming

• Kamil Monicz (NorthCrab), a member of the Polish OSM community, has just announced, on the OSM Community forum, that he is working on a complete code rewrite of osm.org and the publication of API 0.7, written entirely in Python. More details are available on GitHub.

Upcoming Events

Where	What	Online	When	Country
Accra	Ghana YouthMappers Showcase online		2023-11-06 – 2023-11-10
Lorain County	OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup	✓	2023-11-09
Capanema	Oficina Openstreetmap Iniciando no Mapeamento Colaborativo com o Editor ID.		2023-11-08 – 2023-11-09
Recife	workshop Starting Collaborative Mapping with the ID Editor. / Iniciando o Mapeamento Colaborativo com o Editor ID		2023-11-08 – 2023-11-09
Berlin	185. Berlin-Brandenburg OpenStreetMap Stammtisch (Online)	✓	2023-11-09
Montrouge	Rencontre contributeurs Sud de Paris		2023-11-09
Berchem	State of the Map EU 2023		2023-11-10 – 2023-11-12
	Mapping for Impact 2.0		2023-11-10
	Birthday Virtual Mapathon		2023-11-10
Brno	Listopadový brněnský Missing Maps mapathon na konferenci OpenAlt 2023		2023-11-11
København	OSMmapperCPH		2023-11-12
Hannover	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover		2023-11-12
	HOT Disaster Mapathon: OSM GeoWeek		2023-11-13
Budapest	Budapest : 2023 November OSM meetup		2023-11-13 – 2023-11-20
Chambéry	Mapathon débutant saison 23/24 CartONG		2023-11-13
Grenoble	Atelier du groupe local de Grenoble le lundi 13 novembre		2023-11-13
臺北市	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata 月聚會 #58		2023-11-13
Berlin	Missing Maps – MSF & DRK Online Mapathon		2023-11-14
	OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2023-11-15
Salt Lake City	Salt Lake City Monthly Map Night		2023-11-16
แขวงพระบรมมหาราชวัง	SOTM Asia		2023-11-15 – 2023-11-17	th
종로1·2·3·4가동	2023 국경없는의사회 지오위크 매파톤	✓	2023-11-16
Bochum	Bochumer OpenStreetMap-Treffen		2023-11-16
Rio de Janeiro	GIS DAY – HUB YouthMappers Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)		2023-11-17
Pforzheim	ÖPNV-Mapathon beim Verkehrsverbund Pforzheim-Enzkreis		2023-11-18
San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2023-11-22
Bonn	169. OSM-Stammtisch Bonn		2023-11-21
Autelbas	Réunions des contributeurs		2023-11-21
Lüneburg	Lüneburger Mappertreffen (online)		2023-11-21
Köln	OSM-Stammtisch Köln		2023-11-22
Lübeck	137. OSM-Stammtisch für Lübeck und Umgebung		2023-11-23
Essen	FOSSGIS-OSM-Communitytreffen 2023 Nummer 20		2023-11-24 – 2023-11-26

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If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by MatthiasMatthias, PierZen, Strubbl, TheSwavu, barefootstache, derFred, rtnf.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

• Albania report: Celebrating Wikipedia’s 20th Birthday in Albanian Language
• Argentina report: Content, resources and platforms for open access!
• Australia report: October Report
• Brazil report: Wiki Loves Monuments Brasil 2023 and Open Midiateca
• Colombia report: Open Access Week and Wikidata; Opening Culture and Heritage training
• Côte d’Ivoire report: Wikimedia Côte d’Ivoire and Apsid-ci collaboration for Glam
• Croatia report: Looong summer is over
• Czech Republic report: Great first results in State Regional Archives and Wikiresident Group coworking
• Ireland report: Wikimedia Community Ireland Host WikiWomen Partner Meeting at Dublin’s historical Port
• Italy report: Results of funded projects within Call GLAM 2023
• Netherlands report: Wiki Loves Fashion in the Netherlands
• New Zealand report: Biodiversity Information Standards Conference 2023 (TDWG2023) and the Entomological Collection Network Meeting (ECN2023)
• Poland report: WikiMatejko, Internships, Open Heritage, folk costumes
• Portugal report: Open Access Week celebrations and an edit-a-thon to increase the visibility of black lusophone communities
• Serbia report: Dynamic October in Serbia
• South Africa report: Edit-a-thon for Librarians at the annual Library and Information Association of South Africa 2023 Conference
• Sweden report: Wikipedia for all of Sweden; Museums and Wikidata – why and how?; Photo memories from Stockholm and Rome; Negotiating Knowledge on Wikipedia
• Switzerland report: Swiss GLAM Programm
• UK report: Good omens for a rosy future
• USA report: Women in Environmental Justice; October WikiSalon
• AvoinGLAM report: AvoinGLAM joins the long-awaited GLAM Wiki 2023
• Content Partnerships Hub report: Let’s Connect
• Wiki Loves Living Heritage report: Learning and sharing
• Wikimedia and Libraries User Group report: The Wikimedia and Libraries AI Salons
• Calendar: November’s GLAM events

The European Media Freedom Act is a proposal for regulation put forward by the EU Commission in September 2022 aiming at safeguarding media freedom and pluralism in Europe. For Wikimedia it is relevant, because, on the one hand, it wants to regulate how online platforms moderate content by media service providers and, on the other, it introduces some general rules of media law, including the protection of journalists.

Democracy Online and Collaborative Decision-making

Democracy can only thrive if citizens can access and use free and pluralistic information. Freedom of expression is indeed a fundamental human right and the cornerstone of a well-functioning democracy. Wikipedia and its sister projects daily enact and defend this fundamental right, serving millions of European citizens by guaranteeing them access to a set of plural and reliable information and data. Free internet and collaborative projects are therefore a precious tool to substantiate this fundamental right and fruitfully empower citizens. Their role needs to be recognised and deserve a high level of protection. This is particularly true if we consider, for instance, disinformation: the Wikimedia model, i.e. a community-led model of decentralised collaboration and decision-making, proved to be among the most effective and resilient ways to address this threatening phenomenon. Ultimately, Wikipedia contributes to make Europe more democratic and empower citizens to constructively participate in democratic life. In other words, it exerts a public function and it contributes to reinforce the European digital public sphere that is a commons.

How to moderate media content on online platforms? 

The European Media Freedom Act (widely known as EMFA), which is currently under trilogue negotiations, needs to acknowledge Wikipedia’s peculiar role and protect its model. In that regard, there are two main aspects that lawmakers should carefully take into account when adopting the new law.

First of all, Article 17 of EMFA, which aims at introducing a sort of “media exemption”, also referred as “media privilege”, should explicitly exclude from its scope not-for-profit collaborative online encyclopedias as well as educational and scientific repositories archives. This, under the current circumstances, is the easiest and most effective way to preserve the peculiarities of Wikipedia, which has recently been designated as VLOP under Article 33 (4) of DSA, thus avoiding unintended consequences that can endanger its model.

In this sense, we encourage lawmakers to stick to the European Parliament position that contains an explicit carveout in the new recital 35a.

Protection of Journalists

Secondly, it is very important to stress the importance of introducing a strong and effective protection for journalists with regard to the possibility of deploying spyware against them and their sources, as foreseen in Article 4 of EMFA. 

A weak provision could de facto endanger Wikipedia and other projects, such as Wikinews, given that the deployment of spyware against media service providers can have negative consequences on freedom of expression, privacy and the credibility of sources. In that sense, one should bear in mind that Wikipedia fairly often deals with current events and therefore newspaper articles are widely used as sources to feed the online encyclopedia. Therefore, the possibility provided for in Article 4, if not properly curtailed, presents the concrete risk to put in danger both the fundamental rights to freedom of expression and to privacy, which are nowadays more and more intertwined, especially in the online sphere. 

We call on both Council and Parliament to find a balanced solution that is able to preserve these fundamental rights, which are the legal tools safeguarding European values, including democracy. If Parliament’s position is a good starting point that seems to properly balance the different needs at stake, Council’s exception related to national security has the risk of making the new protection empty.

Conclusion

Finally, if on the one hand we believe that the adoption of the European Media Freedom Act can represent a major step forward for the European Union and the protection of European values enshrined in Article 2 of TEU. On the other, we are convinced that, in order to fully achieve this goal, the new law cannot neglect the role of collaborative platforms as well as the peculiar needs of journalists and other media service providers operating in the online sphere.

Written by Jan Gerlach, Director of Public Policy at the Wikimedia Foundation; Phil Bradley-Schmieg, Lead Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation; and, Michele Failla, Senior EU Policy Specialist at Wikimedia Europe

(Wikimédia France, the French national Wikimedia chapter, has also published a blog post on the SREN bill)

The French legislature is currently working on a bill that aims at securing and regulating digital space (widely known by its acronym, SREN). As currently drafted, the bill not only threatens Wikipedia’s community-led model of decentralized collaboration and decision-making, it also contradicts the EU’s data protection rules and its new content moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA). For these reasons, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Europe call on French lawmakers to amend the SREN bill in order to make sure that public interest projects like Wikipedia are protected and can continue to flourish.

SREN is in part an implementation of the new EU DSA, but goes much further, placing numerous new obligations on platform hosts. Several provisions of the bill risk severely undermining the foundational principles of the world’s largest free online encyclopedia, built and curated through the efforts of more than 300,000 volunteer editors worldwide. Wikipedia is a digital public good serving all people and deserves a high level of protection. As recently as October 2023, French Wikipedia received more than 460 million pageviews from France, which speaks to the importance of this freely available source of knowledge in the country.

There are four main aspects of the SREN bill that are problematic. French lawmakers should fix them before adopting the new law.

1. Impossible removal deadlines. While Wikimedia shares the goal and commitment to protecting children, legislators should be mindful of the unintended collateral effects of well-intentioned child safety rules. An obligation to comply with takedown orders in less than 24 hours is close to impossible to implement for a platform that is community-governed, and operated by a comparatively small nonprofit organization with a limited budget. Decentralized mechanisms for decision-making would be harmed by short deadlines, which force platforms to interfere with good faith decisions by volunteers. A solution to this problem could be the introduction of a very tailored carveout for online encyclopedias and other educational resources, similar to the one already introduced in the 2023 “Majorité numérique” law. This would not make their distribution of child sexual abuse material lawful — it is already illegal, almost everywhere in the world. SREN’s obligation for platforms to prevent any user — even adults — from viewing material of an adult nature in case the user is aged under-18, is equally problematic. Such requirements, no matter how well-intentioned, have drastic practical consequences for projects like Wikipedia, as we have previously warned.

2. Unintended consequences of enforcement powers. The SREN gives the French regulator, ARCOM, the power to order hosting service providers to remove content that could infringe upon economic sanctions by the Council of the European Union. Such sanctions were used to block Russian state media in the EU. If such measures go too far, they could pose serious risk to Wikipedia’s ability to document examples of state-driven propaganda or collect information about sanctioned entities. An abuse of this power would harm the French people’s access to verified information about topics of critical importance. A specific carveout for online encyclopedias and other educational content could solve the issue.

3. Forcing platforms to violate data minimization principles. The SREN bill wants to make platforms assist the French state’s implementation of orders to punish citizens by banning them from using online services. For example, platforms would be required to prevent those citizens from creating any new accounts on said platforms. In practice, this could be very problematic for Wikipedia, including for all users who are not the subject of these French banning orders. The Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia projects aim at minimizing the collection of personal data, both to protect readers’ and volunteers’ privacy and their right to access, create, and share knowledge without fear of interference or retaliation. On the contrary, this new provision could oblige the Wikimedia Foundation to collect personal data needed to identify users. However, the Foundation cannot know if someone creating an account is on an official French “ban list” unless it systematically asks every new user to show reliable proof of ID. In this case as well, a specific carveout for online encyclopedias and other educational platforms could solve the issue.

4. Contradicting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). While the legislature intends to adapt the national legal system to the new European rules, the SREN bill does not take this opportunity to align French legislation to European Court of Justice (ECJ) jurisprudence regarding data retention: In 2004 the French government introduced an obligation for platforms to retain identifying data about all users posting user-generating content, for minimum periods of time; however, in 2020, the ECJ found that obligation (when applied to websites like Wikipedia) to be illegal, because it contradicts the 2016 EU GDPR. Removing this now-illegal provision from French law books would streamline platforms’ obligations and strengthen people’s privacy and security online.

Finally, it is important to highlight that the SREN bill could potentially undermine the effectiveness of the new DSA. Indeed, the DSA introduces a maximum level of harmonization to achieve a true European digital single market. Achieving such a goal will definitely be much harder, if not almost impossible, if new national rules affecting online content and user moderation are introduced. This in turn will result in a less vibrant and diverse internal market, since operating in the EU will become much harder for not-for-profit entities and small actors who don’t have the resources to implement different national rules. As a consequence, those who will lose the most from this situation will be EU citizens, including the French people.

The Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Europe call on French legislators to seize the opportunity to amend the SREN bill in order to ensure public interest projects such as Wikipedia are protected and can continue to thrive online.

By Robin Owain, Programme Manager for Wales

For the second year running, Wales had the second highest number of photos submitted to the Wiki Loves Earth competition. We’re so grateful to and hugely impressed by the entrants, who added over 5000 images of the Welsh National Parks and other protected areas, such as Sites of Scientific Interest. 50 countries took part, and once again Germany took the lead. This year the organising nation, Ukraine, came a close third with 4541 photographs. The list of all countries can be found here.

Before the international judges view the photos, a local panel in each participating country chooses a shortlist. Wales had a truly impressive top 10, which can be viewed here. Congratulations to all of the winners, and here’s a look at the top three:

Out of 5026 images, the top spot was awarded to Rufus Davies, who captured the image featured at the top of this blog. The action shot of two billy goats clashing heads was taken on a cliff face in the Ogwen Valley, located in the Eryri National Park (previously called Snowdonia). Not only is it impressive that Davies managed to get such a great shot, but the colours and composition of the photo are stunning.

The second place goes to Dwalad for their captivating photo of a glassy lake in Cwm Idwal – in the Glyderau range of mountains – of Darwin fame.

The third best photograph from Wales is this image of a grey heron, paused while fishing for small fry in the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley by WelshCarebear.

We were delighted that Northern Ireland also took part in the competition for the fourth year running, which for the first time Wikimedia UK helped organise. Like the Welsh Portal on Commons, the Northern Ireland portal was also bilingual, as we continue to strive for representation of native languages on wiki sites. This year, Northern Ireland’s number of photographs jumped fivefold, from 72 to 363!

Ultimately, the aim of adding photographs to Wikimedia Commons is so they are used and seen. Be it on Wikipedia articles or in another medium entirely, openly licensing images helps the Internet be more informative and useful for all of us. Images from WLE in Wales are among the most frequently added to Wikipedia articles. The numbers are still rising, but 27% of last year’s Welsh photos have been used, and in the few months that this year’s have been up we’re seeing a similar pattern of usage.

Wikipedia has over 335 languages, and the respect to the diversity of languages shown by the Wiki communities globally is excellent and inspirational. This is true of Wikimedia UK (if I may say so), where the conservation of that rich diversity is one of our main columns. The number of Welsh photographers was up from last year from 30 to 52 entrants, submitting over 5000 images for Wales. We have an International Football Team here in Wales, and it’s clear that Welsh photographers feel that WLE is the World Cup of photography competitions!

The post The winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2023 in Wales appeared first on WMUK.

Wikimedia Australia’s RSS feed is now included in Planet Wikimedia.

🕑 1 hour 6 minutes

Alissa Stern founded the organization BASAbali (later renamed BASAibu) in 2011, and the BASAbali Wiki in 2014. The BASAbali Wiki was originally intended to serve only as a dictionary for the Balinese language, but it has since grown to become a general communication hub for the Balinese community.

Links for some of the topics discussed:

• BASAbali Wiki
• BASAsulsel Wiki
• BASAibu
• Indonesian Superhero Luh Ayu
• Balinese-language Wikipedia
• "BASAbali Wiki Recognized by US Consulate" (February 2023 blog post, Bali Discovery)

24/10/2023-30/10/2023

Breaking news

• Over 30,000 people have been displaced by floods in the North Tongu district of Ghana. Stephen Mawutor Donkor is asking for help, on the mailing list, in mapping the affected region.

About us

• Five years of weeklyOSM in Portuguese! That’s right, it was five years ago that we started this adventure of translating (and then revising) weeklyOSM articles into Portuguese. We started with weeklyOSM 431 and now with this issue we have achieved 262 issues uninterrupted! We hope you enjoy our work! weeklyOSM would be much richer if everyone in the Portuguese-speaking community shared articles.Did you know that you can also contribute? Find out here.The editors of the weeklyOSM for the Portuguese language: Elizabete Oliveira and Nuno Azevedo send their warmest greetings from the Azores.

Mapping

• [1] Christoph Hormann explained the basics of mapping coastal geography in OpenStreetMap.
• Vincent de Château-Thierry has announced , on Mastodon, that the file replacing FANTOIR ► has finally been made available by the French Public Finance Department. This will make it possible to update the content of BANO ► and improve street mapping via Pifomètre in France. Pifomètre enables OSM data and FANTOIR to be reconciled by displaying a list of matched and not yet matched roads, by municipality.
• Ilya Zverev explained ► some of the OpenStreetMap tags needed for mapping trails.
• A request has been made for comments on crossing:continuous, a tag for mapping if a footway, cycleway, or similar continues uninterrupted across a road.

Community

• 38446 wrote a diary post about traveling with public transport and asks if one could render the interval key in maps based on OpenStreetMap.
• Nombuso and Ibrahim Kamara blogged about mapping eSwatini health data as their project for the open humanitarian mapping community working group mentorship programme.

OpenStreetMap Foundation

• Microsoft has awarded a grant of $150,000 to the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The grant will be channeled towards the improvement and maintenance of OSM infrastructure plus to fund local, regional, and global OSM community activities.

Events

• Topi Tyukanov has published the tasks for #30DayMapChallenge 2023.
• Geomob Finland will be held on Thursday 9 November in the city of Oulu.
• The SotM EU programme has been published.
• The SotM Africa will take place from 30 November to 2 December 2023 in Yaounde, Cameroon. Opportunities for sponsors are available.
• umbraosmbr published the posters and presentations from SotM Brasil 2023, which were kindly made available by their authors.

Maps

• GeoObserver used Datawrapper to quickly and conveniently create custom map visualisations.

OSM in action

• According to the accident statistics of the Social Insurance for Agriculture, Forestry and Horticultural Affairs (SVLFG), forestry work is one of the most dangerous professions in Germany. To make it easier for rescue workers to locate people in need of help, Intend GmbH has published the data set of the KWF ► (Board of Trustees for Forest Work and Forest Technology) in the app ‘Hilfe im Wald’ (help in the forest). It uses OpenStreetMap in the background and has the existing rescue points .
  In 2014 the community in Germany had executed ► a weekly task ► (for ‘CraftMapper’). Although the KWF data is under an ‘open licence’, according to information from KWF it cannot be transferred ► to OSM because of the licence.
• A research team from the University of Freiburg have created a global transit map (tram, subway, light rail, rail) using data from OpenStreetMap processed with the LOOM (Line-Ordering Optimised Maps) algorithm.
• Gislars commented on one of the projects included in the OpenStreetMap Hackweekend Berlin 2023: obstbaumkarte.de (Fruit Tree Map). You can hover over a tree on the map to bring up detailed information about it.

Software

• daniel-j-h shared his experience of creating vector maps using Maplibre and Protomaps.

Programming

• Mikhail Sarafanov showed ► how to use the Python library estaty to analyse urban accessibility.
• Rtnf has realised that the OpenStreetMap dataset could be queried using the QLever SPARQL engine.
• Igor Sukhorukov continued to demonstrate applications of his OpenStreetMap H3 tool and this time showed ► how to use it and Graphhopper to assess pedestrian accessibility and attractiveness of housing.

Releases

• OpenRailwayMap announced some improvements to their search feature. Full documentation of the API for this feature can be found on GitHub.

Did you know …

• … that you can help improve the shoreline and administrative boundary data in OpenStreetMap by using the OSM NightWatch app? The source code for this app is available on GitHub.
• … that the opening_hours tag has very complicated rules? However, you can use the Web to OSM Opening Hours app to automatically generate the tag from a URL or free text.
• … that MapComplete now comes with layer artwork? The data is retrieved in real-time using Overpass or OSM API queries, and you can also add new data to OSM directly through MapComplete.

Other “geo” things

• Some geographical coordinates on Earth have been dubbed “poles of inaccessibility” because they are the most remote point inside a boundary. One of them is Point Nemo, the point in the South Pacific Ocean region that is the farthest away from the shore.
• Nicolas Lambert explained why we shouldn’t add scale bars to world maps.

Upcoming Events

Where	What	Online	When	Country
Thrissur	OSM Kerala Annual Community Meetup 2023		2023-11-03 – 2023-11-04
Dublin	OpenStreetMap Ireland AGM		2023-11-04
Budapest	Picnic in Csörsz park to meet your local mappers		2023-11-06
Accra	Ghana YouthMappers Showcase online		2023-11-06 – 2023-11-10
	Missing Maps London Mapathon		2023-11-07
San Jose	South Bay Map Night	✓	2023-11-08
Berlin	OSM-Verkehrswende #53	✓	2023-11-07
Recife	workshop Starting Collaborative Mapping with the ID Editor. / Iniciando o Mapeamento Colaborativo com o Editor ID		2023-11-08 – 2023-11-09
Lorain County	OpenStreetMap Midwest Meetup	✓	2023-11-09
München	Münchner OSM-Treffen		2023-11-08
Capanema	Oficina Openstreetmap Iniciando no Mapeamento Colaborativo com o Editor ID.		2023-11-08 – 2023-11-09
Berlin	185. Berlin-Brandenburg OpenStreetMap Stammtisch (Online)	✓	2023-11-09
Berchem	State of the Map EU 2023		2023-11-10 – 2023-11-12
Brno	Listopadový brněnský Missing Maps mapathon na konferenci OpenAlt 2023		2023-11-11
København	OSMmapperCPH		2023-11-12
Hannover	OSM-Stammtisch Hannover		2023-11-12
	HOT Disaster Mapathon: OSM GeoWeek		2023-11-13
Chambéry	Mapathon débutant saison 23/24 CartONG		2023-11-13
臺北市	OpenStreetMap x Wikidata 月聚會 #58		2023-11-13
Berlin	Missing Maps – MSF & DRK Online Mapathon		2023-11-14
	OSMF Engineering Working Group meeting		2023-11-15
Salt Lake City	Salt Lake City Monthly Map Night		2023-11-16
แขวงพระบรมมหาราชวัง	SOTM Asia		2023-11-15 – 2023-11-17	th
Bochum	Bochumer OpenStreetMap-Treffen		2023-11-16
종로1·2·3·4가동	2023 국경없는의사회 지오위크 매파톤	✓	2023-11-16
Rio de Janeiro	GIS DAY – HUB YouthMappers Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)		2023-11-17
Pforzheim	ÖPNV-Mapathon beim Verkehrsverbund Pforzheim-Enzkreis		2023-11-18

Note:
If you like to see your event here, please put it into the OSM calendar. Only data which is there, will appear in weeklyOSM.

This weeklyOSM was produced by Elizabete, MatthiasMatthias, Strubbl, TheSwavu, TrickyFoxy, barefootstache, derFred, renecha.
We welcome link suggestions for the next issue via this form and look forward to your contributions.

AGADIR, MOROCCO, – The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that hosts Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, is today announcing the award recipients of the first Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards. Journalist Carlos Mureithi from Kenya is announced as the first place award recipient for the article “How a ‘headstrong historian’ is rewriting Kenya’s colonial history“, published in the Christian Science Monitor in January 2023.  

Mureithi’s article profiles Chao Tayiana Maina, a Kenyan historian and Dan David Prize winner who is uncovering buried and overlooked segments of Kenya’s history under the colonial era. He will be presented an award at Wiki Indaba 2023 (3–5 November), an annual gathering of Wikimedia communities across Africa being held this year in Agadir, Morocco.

Earlier this year, the Wikimedia Foundation launched the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards to celebrate the essential role journalists play in creating well-researched articles that volunteer editors can use as source materials to develop content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Their work helps to grow the knowledge base on one of the world’s most visited websites.

Between May 3 to June 30, African journalists living on the continent were invited to self-nominate articles they had written that help expand knowledge about Africa under the following categories: Arts, Culture, Heritage, and Sports; Health, Climate Change, and Environment; Women and Youth; Digital and Human Rights. In total 2,110 submissions were received from 37 African countries.

On receiving the news about the award, Carlos Mureithi said:

“I’m delighted and honoured that my article has been recognised in first place. The story was inspired by my passion for Kenyan colonial history, and my realization over the years that a lot of it is hidden or untold. The article is a profile of Chao Tayiana Maina, a Kenyan historian and digital heritage specialist who uses tech to tackle this problem, effectively deepening knowledge and understanding of the country’s past. 

The story shows the importance of filling historical gaps and making history accessible to people. This recognition validates my work to tell stories of African changemakers and put their voices on the global stage.”

Also announced today in second place is Nigeria’s Osaruonamen Ibizugbe, for her article “FGM: Survivors narrate experiences dealing with absence of the clitoris“, published in the Premium Times in January 2023. It highlights the stories of women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM), and details its negative effects. It highlights the voices of women who often go unheard.

On receiving the news, Osaruonamen Ibizugbe said:

“In my quest for answers, and as a Bini girl who works for women’s and girls’ sexual reproductive rights, I was inspired to investigate an area that is sometimes left out of the definition of disability: the removal of certain portions of the female reproductive organs due to FGM. The story documents the coping strategies adopted by survivors in dealing with the consequences of being circumcised, ranging from sexual dissatisfaction, pain, and frigidity in their sexual experiences. I firmly believe that the media is responsible for telling and amplifying African tales to influence narratives through its agenda-setting role. As a result, it is critical for journalists to ensure a more inclusive and balanced portrayal of varied voices and experiences in their media reporting, encouraging greater understanding and societal change in the process. Who will tell our African stories if we don’t?”

Anusha Alikhan, Chief Communications Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation, said:

“We congratulate everyone that has been recognised in this year’s Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards. Their reporting helps to close knowledge gaps on Wikipedia and ensure that the topics, events and perspectives of Africans are there for the billions who visit the site. Wikipedia articles can’t exist without reliable sources. We need more stories like these that help volunteer editors to grow the knowledge base on Wikipedia so that it is more reflective of our world.”

Four other outstanding articles have also received Special Mentions in each of the award’s four categories, including: Arts, Culture, Heritage, and Sports – Aanu Adeoye (Nigeria), “The Benin Bronzes and the road to restitution“, (Financial Times); Digital and Human Rights – Philip Obaje Jr. (Nigeria), “The silencing of Sudan’s journalists – again“, (Al Jazeera Journalism Review); Health, Climate Change, and Environment – Jackson Ambole (Kenya), “How Mombasa’s yoghurt cups powered a reforestation drive“, (Al Jazeera); Women and Youth – Jacqueline Muchazoreka (Zimbabwe), “The story of how a Zimbabwean woman treated obstetric fistula despite criticism from her church & community” (BellaNaija).

Currently, only 104,000 articles of over 6 million English Wikipedia articles (1.5%) are about Africa. This issue reflects content gaps in the wider media ecosystem; new information can only be added to Wikipedia by volunteer editors if it is supported by a citation from a published, reliable source. Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia ever assembled. Its knowledge is built on information that is supported by many sources, including news stories. Having a diversity of stories written by a diversity of people is vital to ensuring the encyclopedia is representative of many views, experiences and perspectives.

Olaniyan Ishola Oulushola, President of Wikimedia Nigeria, a group of Wikimedia volunteers in Nigeria, said:

“The Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards, has enabled us to cultivate an impressive repository of more than 2,000 quality articles thoughtfully submitted by African journalists for this prestigious recognition. These articles will help facilitate the curation of thematic stories that can enrich Wikipedia’s representation of African heritage. Furthermore, the Awards mirror the cherished African tradition of honoring and motivating those who distinguish themselves in their chosen paths, thus contributing to celebrating the excellence of African journalism.”

This year’s award categories and recipients were decided upon by the Wikimedia Foundation and a working group of volunteer African Wikimedia editors, as well as a group of external experts from across the fields of media, and academia on the continent.

For more information visit the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards page.

The post Wikimedia Foundation announces award recipients of the Open the Knowledge Journalism Awards appeared first on Wikimedia Foundation.