Wikimedia Slovenská republika

The idea for Wikimedia Slovenská republika ("Wikimedia Slovakia") was born in winter 2010-11, initiated by some Austrian and Czech editors while visiting Slovakia and participating in some meetings of Slovak editors. After long discussions in the community through the discussion platforms on the Wikipedia project, a small group of editors started the founding process in Slovakia. Indeed, some Slovak Wikipedia editors were not very happy about the founding idea but did not really have strong arguments for stopping the process. The few arguments centred on whether such a group was even necessary, whether there were enough people available, and whether the leadership would be transparently elected. After the first meeting in May 2011 some editors changed their minds and took a neutral position on the issue of founding the organization.

The main instigator of the founding process was the german-based slovak editor Rudko. The editor Nelliette is in real life a bookkeeper and was very interested to participate in the founding process. Editor KuboF is a young student, active on the Esperanto Wikipedia and he is one of the co-founders of the Slovak organization. There are other supporters of this project too. For example, some very active editors hail from Austria (more than 200 000 edits). There are also members of Wikimedia Österreich (WMAT), editors and members of Wikimedia Czech Republic (WMCZ) and Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE).

At the Haifa Wikimania 2011 editor Rudko discussed intensively the founding idea with other editors and members of Wikimedias from Switzerland, Georgia, Ukraine and Poland, as well as other interested persons. His idea of planning a timetable to meet quarterly with slovak and other interested editors was accepted. In the intervening three months between meetings there would be time to lead discussions and speak with the community about their wishes.

The Slovak corporate by-laws, based on the versions of WMAT and WMCZ, were passed with the assistance of a specialist lawyer. The official founding meeting was on 2 December 2011. A fortnight later (16 December 2011) the Justice ministry in Slovakia confirmed the founding of the organization as the by-laws passed at first reading.

The next steps for Wikimedia Slovakia are to begin some practical projects and to make contact with other organizations in Slovakia, as well as similar Wikimedia chapters in other countries, interest groups and user groups.

1 History
2 People
3 Activity
4 Plans of Wikimedia Slovakia
5 Documents
6 Rapports
7 Contact

History [edit]

For overview of founding process and work see: Wikimedia Slovenská republika/history

People [edit]

At the second general assembly on 9 September the new presidium and audit committee was elected.

Presidium

- President: Michal Matúšov
- Vic-president: Matej Grochal

Audit Committee

- President: Michal Páleník
- Member: Peter Baláž
- Member: Heinz Egger

Members

Activity [edit]

Wikipedia workshop and Wikimedia speaks during w:Conference on the Application of Esperanto in Science and Technology 2012
Wiki Loves Monuments Slovakia 2012; now preparing for 2013
Help for E@I about trademarks for offline version of Esperanto Wikipedia
Collaboration with Slovak Institute of Monuments

Plans of Wikimedia Slovakia [edit]

Cooperation with Slovak school system [edit]

School ambassadorial program
Vice president Rudko began the year 2012 with a low-cost project for sending informational materials about the Wiki project to every library and school in the Slovak Republic. The plan was to send a PDF letter to every library and every school via e-mail. The associations would be asked to print the PDFs on their own printers and to post it at public information tables in the libraries, schools, etc.