Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Hackathon satellite event in Palermo, Italy (ID: 22886413)/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
The Wikimedia Hackathon satellite event 2025 was the second hackathon of the technical community of Wikimedia projects in Italy, which gathered in Palermo with volunteers from local Open Data and Linux groups.
The event was a true collaborative sprint in which participants, people interested in web development and other aspects of the technical infrastructure of Wikimedia projects, worked together to solve problems and develop new features on tools related to Wikipedia and other projects.
After an initial round of introductions, in which everyone was able to set out the projects they wanted to work on and state what kind of help they would require from the others, the participants organised themselves to start collaborating on various tasks. The Wikimedia Hackathon is a very flexible event, leaving time for participants to create small working groups and focus on analysing problems, finding solutions, writing code, and then testing and finally implementing the result and presenting it to the community. At the end of the event, the working groups presented their projects and results.
After the event, we reach out to participants and received positive feedback, such as the following quotes:
‘At the hackathon, I had the opportunity to meet many competent people in person, historical and new users, and tackle a huge amount of technical problems and challenges, not only sharing experiences but doing real ‘triage’, breaking deadlocks, and producing prototypes that will help Wikimedia projects evolve.’
‘This is the first time I have taken part in a Wikimedia hackathon, and it was a good experience that allowed me to learn more about aspects of wiki that I did not know, such as Wikidata Lexemes, as well as solving, together with the users, an issue that is very dear to Wikipedia users in Lombard: the automatic adaptation to the spelling of some templates.’
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
During the event, the 15 participants worked on various tasks, bug fixing and projects, in group or alone. 12 of them have been presented during the showcase and documented on the event page. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2025/Satellite_Events/Palermo#Progetti_realizzati More tasks are also present on our Phabricator board https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/7742/
The hackathon was also an opportunity to share knowledge and skills not only within the Wikimedia community, but also with other groups active in Sicily working on similar topics (open data, Linux user groups or developer groups). We worked together on our respective projects, showed the other participants the tools and technologies we use, and created synergies between our projects.
We organized 3 workshops during the event: the Wikimedian Horcrux organised a workshop to present Wikidata and how to create queries using SPARQL, the open data expert Andrea Borruso introduced us to DuckDB, a data analysis tool, and Dennis Angemi explained how he uses artificial intelligence to help him with his projects related to drought data in Sicily.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/File:Presentation_of_duckdb_-_Hackathon_Wikimedia_Palermo_2025.jpg
Taking advantage of the presence of several Wikimedians in Palermo, we also organised a series of events on the sidelines of the hackathon: a meeting on the history of the Internet; a talk at the University of Palermo with students who improved Wikipedia entries on Sicilian gastronomy; finally, a meeting with a group of free software users from Palermo to talk about Wikipedia and Linux distributions.
A space for in-person collaboration, sharing with communities with similar goals, and a moment created to focus on problem-solving, the hackathon is an important event that allows volunteers working on the technical aspects of Wikimedia projects to collaborate to improve everyone's reading and contribution experience on Wikipedia.
See also the Commons category with pictures and visuals: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Hackathon_satellite_event_in_Palermo_in_2025
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
Opening slides https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mh6-SeQO28rw6J1g2GzwZIGfOE8tYlPmqkizPoYqsw8/edit?usp=sharing Closing slides https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1emTKFXbSQtD6LaDdKdi-Liqetv9hs0HzrjtqtC3PEjk/edit?usp=sharing Presentation of the project for potential sponsors: in English https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13th6egWw7y8LEKMpW4hGzxKZoAPwlIykajVzG-VEecc/edit?usp=sharing and in Italian https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1I3NqbdboxWXxi9xmGe2h8TOc-KWvAa1PjUb_7VATVaE/edit?usp=sharing
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Not applicable |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Not applicable |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Not applicable |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Not applicable |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Strongly agree |
| F. Other (optional) | Increased participants’ feeling of belonging to a worldwide community of open source developers |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: What are the main topics of interest of the Italian technical community?
What are the main pain points of the Italian-speaking (and dialects of Italy) Wikimedia projects and how can we address them?
What can we learn from like-minded communities (e.g. open source developers and open data)?
Through the initial project presentation and the discussions between participants, we identified several topics of interest of the Italian technical community (related to bots, templates, Wikidata). We also focused on Lombard Wikipedia, that has a small community and is missing some tools and templates that bigger Wikipedias may have. The exchange with the Open Data community was very interesting as we discovered several tools to scrap and analyze public data that could also be implemented in Wikimedians’ workflows.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
One of the participants was an architect and teacher in an art school and came all the way from Sardinia to meet us and talk about a way to involve her students on the Wikimedia projects. This is the sign that there are lots of interests and potential partnerships to develop in the underserved regions of Italy.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
The event and results were documented on the event page https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2025/Satellite_Events/Palermo as well as on a blog post published on Wikimedia Italia’s website https://www.wikimedia.it/news/hackathon-wikimedia-3-giorni-per-migliorare-e-creare-nuovi-strumenti-per-la-comunita/ that was also shared on various social media platforms.
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 25 | 15 | Unfortunately, several participants had to cancel last minute due to sickness or change of plans. |
| Number of editors | 25 | 25 | Since it was a technical event, we do not consider editors as editors of content on Wikipedia or such, but people who contributed in a way or another to the technical projects advanced during the event. |
| Number of organizers | 4 | 4 |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |||
| Wikimedia Commons | |||
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
7683
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
8318
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Upload the financial report
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A