CEE/Newsletter/June 2018/Contents/Macedonia report

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Macedonia report: WikiLecture at Livadišta Summer Camp, WikiGap Skopje, Biology edit-a-thon, and WWI editing days[edit]

WikiLecture at Livadišta Summer Camp[edit]

By Македонец
Group photo with the kids at Livadišta Summer Youth Camp

On 18th of June, after a previous agreement with our member and collaborator Slobodan Trajkovski who is a main organizer of a youth summer camp in the autocamp Livadišta by the Ohrid Lake near the town of Struga in southwestern Macedonia, we have officially participated in the program of the camp by holding a lecture and giving interesting tasks to the pupils for collecting material to contribute as a content on Wikipedia on Macedonian language. The pupils aged between 13 and 15 collected information about the autocamp Livadišta such as its capacity, year of foundation, location, the Ohrid lake, villages and tourist sites nearby in the days of the camp and on the they when the lecture was given by Mario Šarevski who the last year participated on this youth summer camp as a hiking, mountaneering and geography guide for the kids and Ivan Živkoviċ, the kids besides being instructed how to create and edit an article and uploading images, where also given the task to take photographs of the facilities in the camp which showed as a real fun for them. Considering the limited and low quality of the internet on this mountainous place on the western coast of the Ohrid Lake and the short time scale for this activity the lecture about the basics of Wikipedia and Wikimedia was attended by all of the kids who were on this Youth Summer Camp but although only a few pupils have the chance to create and edit articles on Wikipedia on Macedonian language and upload the images on Wikimedia Commons despite all of them where attracted and contributed taking pictures and collecting information which they shared to their friends on the computers to add on Wikipedia. This activity was conducted for the first time prove to be interesting and attractive thus useful with a considerable success and we will think about to held it again with even better excellence in the future.

WikiGap Skopje[edit]

By Македонец
Group photo of the participants of WikiGap Skopje

After a notification in March and several meetings for preparations with the Swedish Embassy and the office of the United Nations for gender equality and straightening the woman's rights and position UN Women held in May and June, on 20th of June was held WikiGap Skopje edit-a-thon. Besides the main organizers the Embassy if Sweden in Skopje, UN Woman and Shared Knowledge as a Wikimedia chapter in Macedonia this event was also organized in partnership with dozen NGO's, civil associations, initiatives and institutes dedicated to woman's and human rights, gender studies, gender equality issues. The preparations went good with a constant e-mail communication for sharing ideas for articles and literature, which was provided by our employees from the Library of Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU) and printed from electronic materials in our possession, while some of the participants in the days prior the event have gathered information and prepared text of biographical content for female personalities from Macedonia who had impact in the social, cultural and public life. The main title of the event was "Prominent women from Macedonia" and the main focus was creating bibliographical articles about woman which are not visible on the internet space but nevertheless other articles on female and gender topics were also tackled and covered within the scope of this edit-a-thon. WikiGap edit-a-thon as a part of the a global Swedish initiative with the idea of bridging closer the differences and gender inequalities that persist in the online world held in Skopje had 54 participants who in a period of 4 hours (1 hour opening and instructional presentation and 3 hours of editing articles) have created 103 new articles on Wikipedia on Macedonian as well as they have contributed with uploading several images to Wikimedia Commons which was added to the articles and improving exiting articles on women topics.

Biology edit-a-thon[edit]

By Македонец

Оn the basis of the interest shown by professors of the Faculty of Biology in Skopje considering the fact that Wikipedia on Macedonian language lacks with a lot of articles on biological topics and themes we have agreed to organize an edit-a-thon which will also be аn lecture for instruction and training for the professors, assistant lecturers and technical staff of the departments biology and mycology on the Natural sciences faculty how to work and edit on Wikipedia. Primal aim of this edit-a-thon of biology on which participated professors, assistant lecturers, technical staff, researchers and members of the Macedonian Biological Society was to create and improve as much is possible articles on biological topics with the most accurate and reliable content by experts who will later share the skills of editing to the students, thus we discussed of the possibility to start educational program on the Faculty of biology. The event was held in the afternoon and evening hours of 26th of June in the Library of the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Skopje where 8 participants have created 13 new articles and improved one article. The work on this edit-a-thon was comprehensively and extensively done through the source editor and translation tool and the participants have edited articles by adding considerable amount of text, images, references, and in the process of compiling the results and the outcome in the aftermath we noticed that users have continued with creating and improving articles by themselves in the next days which is a sign about the interest and the possibilities for the future development of the work on Wikipedia on Macedonian language with the biologists.

WWI editing days[edit]

By Violetova
Working day of WiR at the City Library

In memorial of the Great War, WWI, Wikipedian in Residence at the City Library "Braka Miladinovci" in Skopje organized editing days for members of GLAM Macedonia, on 10 - 13 June 2018. Twelve Wikipedians created 21 new articles, and 25 existing articles were improved. On the same subject, Wikipedian in Residence at the City Library "Braka Miladinovci" in Skopje organized an edit-a-thon in April. Twelve Wikipedians and 8 members of the Wiki Club Staro Nagorichane participated. During the weekend, 15 new articles were created, and six existing articles were improved.

Altogether with other activities of GLAM Macedonia members, in the first half of the year 2018, 51 new articles were created on the subject of World War I, 32 existing articles were improved and more than 300 new references were added to the articles on the Macedonian Wikipedia. As there are still missing articles about the World War I on Macedonian Wikipedia, GLAM Macedonia members will continue to bridge the subject gap in the next months.