Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Ukraine/2020

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Application or grant stage: grant in progress
Applicant or grantee: Wikimedia Ukraine
Amount requested: US$101,140.00 + US$4,000.00 unforeseen = US$105,140.00
Amount granted: US$105,140.00
Funding period: 1 January 2020 - 31 December 2020
Midpoint report due: 15 July 2020
Final report due: 30 January 2021

Background[edit]

Annual Plan[edit]

Budget Plan[edit]

Staffing Plan[edit]

Strategic plan[edit]

Introduction[edit]

Founded in 2009, Wikimedia Ukraine has been operating for more than ten years. It is the only organization consistently working on the support and development of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in Ukraine. We have developed a considerable “portfolio” of projects and programs outline below. Some of our major achievements include holding two major photo contests in Ukraine (Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine and Wiki Loves Earth, both the Ukrainian and international parts), long-term Wikipedia Education Program, GLAM cooperation, holding annual Wikiconference in Ukraine and two CEE Meetings (in 2014 and 2018), holding several hundred training sessions and more than two dozens article contests, and more.

For the first five years of our existence, the organization was driven entirely by volunteers, but, since 2014, we have been building the personnel of employees and contractors. Wikimedia Ukraine now works with two project managers, a full-time financial manager, and a part-time office manager. Major improvements in the financial management of the Organization have begun in 2018. That approach in 2019 has led to improvements in the process of organizing events that made it possible to implement a more systemic approach to advocacy, communication, project management as well as has helped to move from solving short-term goals to long-term strategic planning.

WMUA Strategy Session, June 2019, day 2

Leading up to 2020, the biggest change Wikimedia Ukraine has undergone recently is designing the 2020—2022 strategic plan, which was approved by the General Assembly in mid-October. It is the first multi-year strategic plan in the history of the organization. With the new strategy, we intend to prioritize our activities in a more effective way and consciously choose which projects we implement and which we do not. While the projects we will be working on in 2020 will not change significantly, they will be affected by the new strategy.

In 2020, we would like to pay more attention to research and long-term analysis, such as work on identifying specific content gaps we need to be aiming to close. We also intend to conduct several surveys to better understand our community and the external audience. That will help us use the best instruments and approaches to match their expectations, needs and motivation. Besides, we are planning to develop a communication strategy for the organization during the next year.

The 2020—2022 strategic plan is expected to inform our activity for the next three years, and thus the structure of this grant application mostly corresponds to the structure of our strategic plan. Our strategic plan includes five directions of the organization’s work: 1) Content Enrichment; 2) Increasing Participation; 3) Wikimedia Projects Community Support and Development; 4) Awareness for Wikimedia; 5) Advocacy. In this application, they are represented by four programs.

Programs[edit]

Content Enrichment

This program focuses on closing content gaps on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and other Wikimedia projects. In 2020, we will continue using existing successful models of sparking content enrichment, such as article contests and challenges, as well as photo contests. As mentioned in the introduction, we intend to pay more attention to identifying specific content gaps we need to aim at rather than hold contests sporadically. Besides, we would like to pay more attention to the quality of content, prioritizing it over quantity.

Bridging text content gaps

Why are we doing this?

The nature of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, which are developed by volunteers without a general plan, inherently leads to the emergence of content gaps. Bridging content gaps is arguably exactly the task where centralized work by organizations such as Wikimedia Ukraine is useful. Based on our experience, article contests and writing challenges are a powerful way to enrich content and work on bridging content gaps, though we have been using, and intend to develop, other ways to promote closing gaps.

Background
WikiGap 2019 in Kyiv
Awards ceremony of the Women in STEM article contest

Wikimedia Ukraine has been organizing article contests for eight years; throughout this time, we held 27 article contests, which helped create and improve more than 15,000 articles on Ukrainian Wikipedia. It accounts for some 1.5 percent of Ukrainian Wikipedia. In 2019, we held two big article contests (“Women in STEM” and CEE Spring) and several smaller challenges such as WikiGap or ”She Did it”; many of these projects were focused on the gender content gap. In 2018, we organized two writing challenges in Wikipedia sister projects (Wikisource and Wikivoyage), and this year Wikivoyage and Wikiquote joined CEE Spring.

Plans for 2020

First of all, we intend to continue holding article contests and writing challenges in Ukrainian Wikipedia. We would like them to be informed by the research on identifying Wikipedia content gaps; thus, our first plan is to actually conduct this research.

Some of the specific contests and challenges we are going to hold include:

  • An article contest devoted to women. We would like to continue previous years’ experience and either make a second edition of the contest for women in STEM or slightly shift its focus. We have developed partnerships in this direction, so we will be looking to conduct this contest with one or several partners.
  • WikiGap. WikiGap is an effective way to work towards closing the gender content gap and pay more attention to this topic. In 2019, we held simultaneous offline WikiGap events in three cities and an online marathon; we are going to continue and expand this work, cooperating with partners.
  • CEE Spring. We are going to continue participating in CEE Spring, which has been by far the most prolific contest among those we hold (e.g. bringing almost 1800 articles in 2019). At the same time, we would like to somewhat rethink its design so it focuses more on the specific gaps we need to close.
  • A contest devoted to school curriculum topics and/or a challenge to improve the most popular articles. Both topics are highly popular yet not always qualitatively represented on Ukrainian Wikipedia, and we have organizational resources to improve this situation. Update: Midway through 2020, this project was moved to the "Increasing Participation" direction, see details on the talk page
  • A challenge devoted to uploading existing sources published under free licenses. Integrating free-licensed sources into Wikipedia is an effective and obvious way to enrich its content, and we would like to incentivize it to achieve greater results.
  • One or several contests/challenges to promote local content. Improving content on local (regional) topics is also important for us from a strategic perspective. We will likely continue the WikiKharkivshchyna contest for libraries and will try to look into other opportunities in this direction.

Also, we are going to pay more attention to supporting thematic weeks and months on Ukrainian Wikipedia. Thematic weeks are a light version of contests, yielding less long-term results but requiring fewer resources and thus providing greater flexibility. It is a wonderful example of community self-organization as the thematic weeks project has long existed without Wikimedia Ukraine’s organizational involvement. At the same time, thematic weeks can benefit from our informational and material support.

In 2020, we will pay more attention to other Wikimedia projects, particularly Wikisource. We will promote digitizing for Wikisource either through putting more staff time to promoting Ukrainian Wikisource or holding a contest in Wikisource. We are also likely to conduct one or two projects in other sister projects; particularly, we have a demand for Wikimedia Ukraine’s support to Ukrainian Wikiquote and Ukrainian Wikivoyage.

Finally, we expect that Wikiexpeditions that we present in more detail below (#Attracting media content) will cover not only media but also text content gaps.

Objectives
  • 5 volunteers involved in uploading existing sources published under free licenses, creating or improving 200 pages
  • 2000 articles on identified gaps in Wikipedia created or improved
  • 100 articles on local content created or improved, representing 5 regions
  • 150 pages created or improved in sister projects, 5 works on Wikisource digitised

Enhancing quality of content

Why are we doing this?

In the quest for content enrichment, it is easy to lose sight of the quality of content being added and end up with a high number of poor-quality articles. However, quality of articles, and content in general, is important for the viability and popularity of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. That is why quality is one of Wikimedia Ukraine’s values outlined in the strategic plan.

Background

In recent years, Wikimedia Ukraine has been trying to pay attention to the quality of content within the Content Enrichment direction. For example, articles in our contests are being checked by jury teams, and quality is part of the grading criteria. Several times, we worked with Ukrainian Wikipedia patrollers to ensure improvement of the content produced thanks to our projects. However, we have not held separate projects designed specifically for improving articles.

Plans for 2020

An important task from the perspective of the quality of content is organizing targeted improvement of key articles, that is articles that are key to understanding a certain topic or most popular articles. To work on this goal, we will put time into identifying “key” articles first. Then, we will initiate a wiki-project and/or hold a writing challenge devoted to improving them.

We will continue a small-scale programme of book grants that will allow Wikipedians to order reliable reference books that are not publicly available, and use these books to improve Wikipedia content on some main topics.

We have long-term plans to organize the process of expert evaluation of articles’ quality in Ukrainian Wikipedia. For 2020, we plan only to initiate a community discussion on this topic; if it goes successfully, we will start implementing this project since 2021.

Besides, in this context, it is important for Wikimedia Ukraine that all materials generated thanks to our projects are properly categorized and structured, particularly on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons where applicable. This objective will be reflected in the requirements for organizers and participants of all our projects.

Objectives
  • 100 significant articles on at least 2 themes improved
  • All articles created as a part of WMUA initiatives are categorised and linked to Wikidata
  • Initiated discussion on expert review of articles

Attracting media content

Our strategic plan sets three tasks Wikimedia Ukraine will work on to attract media content: organizing research for identifying gaps in the Ukrainian content on Wikimedia Commons and working with volunteers to close them; organizing contests for photographs and other types of media; and working with institutions and experts to attract thematic media content.

Why are we doing this?

As well as with the text content gaps, closing gaps in media content is something Wikimedia Ukraine can do effectively, and it is an important task to focus on. Wikiexpeditions, photography contests, and working with partners to attract media content are effective ways to improve the coverage of Ukraine on Wikimedia Commons and other Wikimedia projects, thus advancing the idea of free knowledge. Photography contests specificallt are an effective way to improve the coverage of Ukraine on Wikimedia Commons, particularly showcase Ukrainian cultural and natural monuments.

Background
Wiki Loves Monuments photo exhibition, Pokrovske
Participants of the Wikiexpedition to Velykyi Burluk Municipality with a local historian and local government representatives

We have a long and successful history of organizing photography contests, particularly two major ones — Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth. Throughout eight years, photography contests brought around 280,000 photos of Ukrainian cultural monuments and 80,000 photos of natural monuments. Wikimedia Ukraine was notably behind Wiki Loves Earth on the international level as it was first held in Ukraine in 2013. In 2019, Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Earth are still popular and productive, having brought more than 30,000 and almost 10,000 photos respectively, and remain among our biggest projects. Also, for the first time in two years, we are holding the Wiki Science Competition 2019 this November, which includes a photography contest.

Also, we have a program of wikiexpeditions, supporting Wikimedians’ trips to visit places and sites to improve their coverage on Wikimedia projects. For the eight years of the program’s existence, we funded more than 30 expeditions to different regions of Ukraine.

We also have been working with GLAM partners to enrich Wikimedia projects with media content. In 2018, we held a nationwide contest specifically for librarians, while this year GLAM is represented by local initiatives (such as WikiKharkivshchyna), targeted partnerships with specific libraries, and cooperation with GLAM institutions within our other projects.

Plans for 2020

First of all, we will continue holding our big photo contests: Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments. We might slightly change the contests’ rules in the quest for higher relevance of media content produced (to attract more photos of the monuments not present on Wikimedia Commons) and drawing new participants, but the overall design will remain the same.

In 2020, we will continue to support the work of international Wiki Loves Earth, although in the longer term we are looking to delegate it to a dedicated team, starting the transition in 2021. In order for our work to be more effective, we would like to draw additional staff/contractor support for international Wiki Loves Earth in 2020.

Wikimedia Ukraine will continue to support Wikiexpeditions to attract both text and media context, such as articles on local topics, photographs and video. We lack the resources necessary to proactively initiate the expeditions, but we will try to promote this program more actively, with a focus on the regions less represented on Commons and Wikipedia, thus aiming for higher regional diversity.

A useful and flexible way to bridge content gaps and ensure media content enrichment is to provide targeted photography grants for Wikimedians to attend high-profile events, such as conferences and forums visited by notable people. We have experience in providing photo grants and are going to continue working with them in the future.

Finally, it is important for us to work with institutions and experts to attract thematic media content. We will keep developing GLAM partnerships, attracting partnerships with new institutions and encouraging them to release content under free licenses and share it with the Wikimedia community.

Objectives
  • 800 files related to Ukrainian content gaps uploaded on Commons, 300 of them are used, 5 regions or events
  • 100,000 images uploaded on Commons (including international WLE), 5% of them are used
  • International WLE organised
  • 100 media files uploaded in collaboration with 5 institutions or experts

Increasing Participation

Increasing participation in Ukrainian Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects has historically been an important priority for Wikimedia Ukraine. Our goal as set by the strategic plan is increasing the number of active volunteers in all fields of Wikimedia activity. From this perspective, two directions of development are important for us: striving for a bigger community and looking to increase its diversity.

Attracting new editors to Wikimedia projects

Wikimedia community’s growth is key to the success of Wikimedia projects, particularly in Ukraine. That is why it is important for us to work on attracting new editors to Wikimedia projects. A focus we want to make in 2020 is tracking the long-term impact of our programs for increasing participation, particularly long-term editor retention

Background
Map of Wikimarathon 2019 Meetups in Ukraine
Training for teachers in Kremenchuk

We run two major projects aimed at increasing participation. The first one is Wikimarathon, a flashmob for Ukrainian Wikipedia’s birthday, which was first held in 2015. Its aim is to cover the widest audience possible both online and offline. We ask as many people as possible to congratulate Wikipedia with creating an article, running an online marathon and supporting events all over Ukraine. In 2019, 650 users created 1776 articles in five days, and Wikimedia Ukraine supported 60 training events in 38 cities and villages from 21 regions of Ukraine (84% regions covered)

The second program that helps increase participation is Wikipedia Education Program. Wikimedia Ukraine is running education activities since 2011, and we have a considerable community of educators working with the integration of Wikipedia in the educational process. We hold workshops for teachers (in 2019 so far, we held one two-day workshop in Kremenchuk) and provide on-demand training for students. We also provide support to high school study courses that utilize Wikipedia; for example, in 2019, we cooperated with Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s educational course “Introduction to Gender Studies”.

Plans for 2020

In January, we will hold another edition of Wikimarathon and will, as usual, strive to reach as wide an audience as possible, particularly try to cover each or most Ukrainian regions. We will continue to provide training for Wikimarathon trainers and will pay more attention to editor retention, tracking more closely how many newbies stay in Wikipedia in half a year after the Wikimarathon.

Wikimedia Ukraine will keep sustaining Wikipedia Education Program. Our focus will be working with educators, in particular organizing workshops for teachers. We will also track long-term retention here, checking how many teachers have actually implemented the Wikipedia Education Program in a couple of months after the training. Using Program & Events Dashboard will be mandatory for teachers receiving our support within the Wikipedia Education Program so we can track their progress more effectively.

In 2020, we will continue to hold on-demand Wikipedia training sessions in educational institutions and for other purposes. At the same time, we would like to scale our activity on increasing participation. Thus, we intend to develop an online course on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in Ukrainian the next year. It would allow to make the training process more effective and engage new audiences with Wikipedia, as well as provide a possibility to reach a wider, more geographically diverse audience.

Objectives
  • 200 users participated in workshops, 20 of them continue editing half a year after the event
  • Online course on Wikipedia developed
  • 50 educators participated in workshops, 10 of them implemented Education Programme

Increasing diversity of the community of editors

Why are we doing this?

The importance of diversity and its benefits need little explanation. One of Wikimedia Ukraine's values as set by the strategic plan is diversity: we support knowledge equity and are open to everyone who supports our values. In this context, we want to be proactive about engaging groups underrepresented in Wikimedia projects.

Background and Plans for 2020

There are three dimensions to our work on community diversity in 2020. First, we will continue to work with GLAM and scientific institutions to engage experts in Wikimedia projects. While Wikipedia and its sister projects are built on the work of amateurs, they can benefit from the involvement of professionals, and this group is often not represented well.

Secondly, we will work on identifying underrepresented groups of users and holding targeted events aimed to engage them in editing Wikipedia. We have a background of supporting events held for women and even more about women, an obviously underrepresented group. We will keep doing so, while also looking to reach out to other poorly represented groups, such as the elderly. A survey or another form of research might be needed to identify the specific groups we need to focus on.

Also, our strategic tasks include supporting the development of communities of sister projects and projects in the languages of ethnic groups that have traditionally inhabited Ukraine. We will support events devoted to increasing sister projects' communities. As for the languages of Ukrainian ethnic minorities, we have already tried to develop the Crimean Tatar Wikipedia, but faced a lack of volunteers interested in the project. However, we would like to be open to supporting such initiatives if interest arises.

Objectives
  • Contributors from 10 institutions involved
  • 2 diversity events with 10 participants
  • 1 community initiative on sister projects and/or languages of ethnic groups that have traditionally inhabited Ukraine supported

Community Support and Development

Wikimedia projects would not be possible without a strong and motivated community of volunteers, and providing organizational support to this community is an essential task for Wikimedia Ukraine. This direction has long been part of the Organization's programmatic activities, and we will continue to use the proven ways of working with the wikicommunity. At the same time, in 2020 we seek to make an additional emphasis on developing the technical skills of the community in order to avoid “bottlenecks”: situations where the skills of several people are crucial to the quality and timeliness of projects. In addition, we plan to focus more on initiatives aimed at motivating contributors and improve communication on the Organization's work with the wikicommunity.

The direction of Community Support and Development consists of two tracks. First of all, we are seeking to develop community capacity by instructing community members, teaching them important specific skills, as well as facilitating experience sharing within the Ukrainian community and with the international one. Secondly, Wikimedia Ukraine will continue to work on motivating editors, as well as increasing their awareness about Wikimedia Ukraine and its projects that might be relevant to them.

Instruction for community members

Why are we doing this?

As an organization, Wikimedia Ukraine is well suited to provide targeted support for the Wikimedia community in capacity building and facilitation of experience sharing. Our strategic goal is having a "motivated, informed, active, responsible and skilled community which acts effectively and cohesively for sharing and popularizing free knowledge", and we will work towards it in 2020.

Background and Plans for 2020
WikiConference 2019 Kharkiv - Group picture

The first task for Wikimedia Ukraine in this direction is organizing training sessions for specific skills, such as templates, files, or mentorship. In 2019, we held several such events (for example, a training session on Wikidata and Commons in Kharkiv or a number of technical training events during the Wikiconference), and we will keep developing in this direction in 2020. We can also provide funding for our volunteers to participate in external trainings on relevant skills (such as photography or public speaking).

In a similar vein, we will work on organizing hackathons and other events for the development of technical skills for Wikimedia projects. We have not held full-scale hackathons before, but we have volunteers interested in organizing one.

As well as with our other activities, we would like to track the long-term impact of our training sessions and hackathons, and thus we will start doing surveys designed to measure training participants' progress in half a year after the training.

In 2020, we will keep organizing big events for the Wikimedia community which facilitate experience sharing between volunteers. Those include annual Wikiconference and General Assembly for Wikimedia Ukraine's members. In 2019, we held the Wikiconference in Kharkiv, which has brought around 60 Wikimedians and free knowledge activists from all over Ukraine, and two General Assemblies, including the extraordinary one to approve the strategic plan.

We would also like to establish a tradition of annual strategic sessions for the organization's members in order to review our strategic plan and ensure that it is up to date and that active Wikimedia Ukraine volunteers are on the same page. In 2019, we held two strategic sessions to come up with the strategy, but in 2020, with the strategic plan already existing, one such session will be sufficient. We will likely combine it with the Wikiconference or the General Assembly for logistical purposes.

Finally, we will continue to provide scholarships for attending international Wikimedia events. Such scholarships are a useful tool in boosting experience sharing and motivation. We traditionally disseminate scholarships for major Wikimedia events, such as Wikimania or Wikimedia Hackathon, from our budget, and run the selection process for scholarships awarded from other sources, such as for Wikimedia Summit our the CEE Meeting.

Objectives
  • 50 users participated in trainings, survey organised half a year after the event to measure impact
  • 50 users participated in WikiConference, survey organised half a year after the event to measure usefullness
  • 20 hackathon / technical events participants, 5 projects
  • 10 scholarships for international events

Increasing the community's motivation and awareness

Why are we doing this?

This track has two dimensions: motivation and awareness, and both are equally important for Wikimedia Ukraine. Motivating editors and distinguish their contribution helps develop the community, while its awareness about Wikimedia Ukraine's activity is key for community members to receive the support they need.

Background and Plans for 2020 — Motivation

For years, we have supported Wikizghuschivka, the program which rewards most active editors and most active newbies with small physical gifts to acknowledge their contributions, which is a great way to motivate people. Yet, in the recent few years, the program has faded because of the lack of volunteers committed to supporting it. In 2020, we might restore Wikizghuschivka, but we also want to think about other ways to motivate and distinguish most active editors, and we will be open to supporting community initiatives.

Background and Plans for 2020 — Awareness

It is important for us to develop both inward communication and outward communication with the community. First of all, we would like to learn more about community needs, and thus we intend to hold a first big survey for the Ukrainian Wikimedia community.

Secondly, we need to tell the community more about what we are doing. In 2019, we renewed the practice of monthly newsletter digests for the community, and we would like to grow it in 2020, using new channels of distribution and setting a specific date when the digest is published every month.

Objectives
  • 1 motivation initiative supported
  • 12 digests shared with the community
  • 1 community survey organised

Awareness about Wikimedia and Free Knowledge

Effective dissemination and promotion of free knowledge are only possible if there is widespread public awareness of Wikimedia projects and principles of their work. Promoting Wikipedia, wikiprojects and free knowledge has always been among the tasks of the Organization.

In 2020, we will continue to use the patterns we have developed in recent years, working with media outlets and building our presence on social media. At the same time, we would like to have a more informed view of our work in this direction; thus, we will also focus on developing the organization’s very first communication strategy and on organizing surveys to better understand our readers and target audience in general.

This direction also includes freedom of panorama, which is crucial for our promotional efforts. Absence of freedom of panorama makes the task of sharing free knowledge more complicated than it definitely should be. Thus, we will continue to press for reform of copyright legislation, first of all, by enhancing presence of our agenda in conventional media and raising awareness of the problem within our community. This will include meetings with journalists, creation of information materials for both internal and external use and communication with our partners and stakeholders.

Media support and promotion of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects

Why are we doing this?

Obviously, there is little point to our work if no one knows about it. Promoting Wikimedia Ukraine’s work — and promoting Wikimedia projects in general — is an underlying foundation of the success of all our other projects.

Background and Plans for 2020
Workshop for journalists in Kyiv

Importantly, we do not have a communication strategy yet, and we are seeking to develop one in 2020. The communication strategy will be guided by our 2020—2022 strategic plan; after it is developed, it will inform our work on the tasks outlined below. To assist with the development and implementation of the communication strategy, we would like to make changes in staffing, switching to a model with a dedicated communication manager and one project manager instead of two project managers.

In 2020, we will support and strengthen Wikimedia Ukraine’s visibility on social media and blog, providing easily readable and accurate information about Wikimedia. We use the blog to share detailed stories and major announcements, while social media is a more day-to-day tool that provides greater flexibility. Wikimedia Ukraine is currently on the track of slow yet steady increases in the number of the audience which reads our blog and follows the organization’s social media account; we will continue to sustain and grow the audience in 2020.

An important part of our activity, we will be organizing promotional offline events, particularly press events for important dates, such as Wikipedia's birthday or 1 million articles in Ukrainian Wikipedia (which is likely to happen in 2020). We will hold lectures and other promotional events for the general audience as there is always a demand for such events.

Objectives
  • 1 awareness survey organised
  • Communication strategy developed
  • 50 stories on organisation's projects and from volunteers shared on the blog and social media
  • 5 media / promotional events organised

Working with readers and the general public to increase awareness

Ukrainian Wikipedia reached all-time high pageviews this year, but we know little why that happened

Our strategic plan sets three tasks for this sub-goal. First, we will continue to cooperate with national and international partners in the field of free knowledge as obtaining and sustaining partners is important for Wikimedia Ukraine’s viability as an organization. That is why we support initiatives that help attract or sustain valuable partners.

Second, we would like to conduct a survey for readers and target audiences in order to better understand the audience of Wikimedia projects and thus receive a clearer view of what Wikimedia Ukraine should focus on. We do have volunteers interested in working with such a survey, though we will need to seek external expertise as well.

Third, we will continue the years-long work on developing information materials about Wikipedia, Wikimedia projects and free licenses, such as handouts and brochures. Besides, we will continue participation in external events, such as forums and conferences, to promote Wikimedia projects.

Objectives
  • 2 events with partners organised
  • Yearly survey for readers organised
  • 3 information materials developed
  • Participation in 3 events to promote Wikimedia projects

Freedom of panorama

Why are we doing this?

Ukrainian copyright law does not provide for freedom of panorama (FoP). This means that photographic and videographic content, depicting a significant part of Ukrainian architecture and sculpture, cannot be distributed publicly under a free license. Therefore, absence of freedom of panorama impedes our efforts to share free knowledge and spread information about cultural heritage. It also creates obstacles for independent photographers, publishers, directors and researchers directly or indirectly contributing to this cause.

Background
Wikimedia Ukraine Press Breakfast
An infographic explaining about lack of freedom of panorama (in Ukrainian)

In 2019 we launched our campaign aimed at recognition of freedom of panorama in Ukrainian legislation. The main focus was on communication with the allied members of Parliament (MPs), creation of info materials (articles, video) and organization of promotional events. The most significant achievement of our volunteers and allied MPs was the introduction of the draft law #10143 on copyright, explicitly providing for FoP in Ukraine. Unfortunately, this law had not been adopted due to snap election held on 21 of July. We, nonetheless, didn’t stop our efforts to raise awareness of the issue. On 13 of September, we held a press breakfast for media where FoP was one of the main issues discussed. This meeting resulted into several successful publications in Ukrainian media concerning FoP. We also refreshed our info materials in order for them to be compatible with the indefinite political situation.

Plans for 2020

Given that copyright reform is no longer prioritized by this Parliament, we will direct our efforts, first, at raising awareness of the FoP issue. Next year we will focus on creating a field for discussion since, unlike this year, there isn’t any we can join, in this Parliament at least.

We are elaborating on a new advocacy plan which is expected to be completed by the beginning of November.

First, it emphasizes on establishing new “alliances” with the MPs and within parliamentary committees since we have none yet. We aim at choosing those whom we can cooperate with according to their profiles. We compose these profiles based on their legislative activities and explicit statements of their position on issues adjacent to FoP and copyright.

It also points out at creation of a new strategy regarding media coverage, based on this year’s experience.

The new plan provides for publication of new info materials, as well as for organization of different events for promotion of FoP and ways of cooperation with our partners and stakeholders. Right after plan’s completion we will start implementing it as soon as possible, and will alter some provisions of the plan if needed based on self evaluation process. We also expect to publish info materials which were created last year and put on hold due to unexpected snap election.

Objectives
  • Advocacy plan developed
  • Supporters and opponents of FoP within the new government identified
  • Contacts with institutions established
  • 2 materials for target audiences developed, 2 advocacy events organised

Midpoint report[edit]

This is a brief report on the grantee's progress during the midpoint reporting period: 1 January - 30 June 2020.

Program story[edit]

Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

Developing Advantageous Partnerships Through Thematic Weeks

Progress[edit]

Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program progress. This should including reporting against each of the SMART objectives form your proposal.

Content Enrichment

Bridging text content gaps

WikiGap training session in Kyiv
External video
Recording of WikiGap webinar, YouTube video

In March, we joined WikiGap for the third time, holding online and offline activities in Ukraine. This year, we significantly expanded the scope of the project thanks to our strong partnership with co-organizers of the project — the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine, the UNFPA Office in Ukraine, and the National Democratic Institute in Ukraine.

As part of the project, we held a month-long online campaign throughout March, which saw 250 participants creating & improving around 1850 articles about women.

Also, we held two offline events in Kyiv and Mariupol (Eastern Ukraine), as well as one online webinar. We originally planned to organize two more offline events in both Western and Eastern Ukraine, but these events were canceled due to the lockdown. Events in Kyiv and Maripol attracted 45 attendees, and the webinar has gathered 307 views on YouTube as of late July (approximately 100 people participated in real-time via Zoom and YouTube).

We also helped promote WikiGap Challenge within the Ukrainian community (though the challenge itself was not organized by Wikimedia Ukraine, of course). Wikimedia Ukraine member Andrii Hrytsenko gained the first place for the second time.

Banner for CEE Spring in UkWiki

Traditionally, CEE Spring is our most fruitful article contest in Ukrainian Wikipedia. This year, it set a new record with 3929 new & improved articles to Ukrainian Wikipedia, which is more than ever for the contest in Ukraine (since 2015) and by far the highest number among 26 Wikipedias which participated in the international contest this year. 109 people joined, including 20 newbies.

Also, this year we held simultaneous CEE Spring contests in sister wikiprojects, Ukrainian Wikiquote and Ukrainian Wikivoyage. There, participants created and improved 64 content pages (20 in Wikiquote and 44 in Wikivoyage).

Currently, we are in the process of jury evaluation for all articles; detailed results are expected to be announced in the fall.

  • Thematic weeks and months

In 2020, we are widely using thematic weeks and months as a way to enrich Wikipedia on strategic topics, support small community initiatives, and develop important partnerships (see our Program Story for details on the latter part).

Yevhen Dykyi, the head of the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine, gives an award to Andrii Hrytsenko, the most active participant of the Antarctic Week
Banner for Birds Week in UkWiki

In the first six months, we organized and/or supported 10 thematic weeks, months and challenges in Ukrainian Wikipedia:

  1. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Month, as support to a community initiative (11 participants joined, 51 articles created)
  2. Antarctic Week, held in partnership with the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine, a government agency (36 participants joined, 247 articles created & improved)
  3. Cultural Monuments Month, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine photo contest (27 participants joined, 127 articles created & improved) (this project was covered by the 2019 budget, but was postponed to 2020 due to the high number of projects which we had to implement by the end of the last year)
  4. Contemporary US Politics Month, as support to a community initiative (15 participants joined, 86 articles created & improved)
  5. “Ukrainian Cultural Heritage”, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine photo contest (10 participants joined, 46 articles created & improved
  6. Ukrainian Diplomacy Month, held in partnership with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (24 participants joined, 188 articles created & improved)
  7. Lilac Sunday, as support to a community initiative (13 participants joined, 34 articles created & improved
  8. Ukrainian edition of the Turkic Marathon 2020, as support to a community initiative (10 participants joined, 420 articles created & improved + 5 articles created & improved in Ukrainian Wikivoyage)
  9. Birds Week, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine photo contest (14 participants joined, 151 articles created & improved)
  10. Journalism Month, held in partnership with nonprofit organization “Detector.Media” (started in June but ended in July, results are due to be announced & will be included in the annual report)

Thus, nine editing challenges we supported in January—June 2020 (not including the Journalism Month) have brought around 1350 new & improved articles to Ukrainian Wikipedia. Antarctic Week, Ukrainian Diplomacy Months, and Journalism Month are covered in greater detail in our Program Story.

Also, we supported a thematic week in Bashkir Wikipedia devoted to the Vinnytsia Region of Ukraine (10 participants created & improved 50 articles).

We have also provided informational support to several other thematic weeks & months which are not included here.

  • Sister Wikiprojects initiatives

Our most notable sister wikiprojects initiative in 2020 has been “Bookcase” («Книжкова шафа») in Ukrainian Wikisource, a contest devoted to proofreading scans of original books. This contest is a good way to help enrich Wikisource with original texts. The contest was held from February 15th until May 31st, and it saw 20 participants having proofread 5279 book pages.

In 2020, we held this contest for the second time (the first one was in 2018), and this year’s edition saw a 200% increase in the number of content pages developed.


Also, we worked with sister wikiprojects within some other content enrichment projects, most notably the CEE Spring 2020 article contest, as well as some thematic weeks; see details in respective sections above.

Enhancing quality of content

Overall, we are trying to pay more attention to the quality of content produced as the results of our projects. For example, we have emphasized that it is mandatory for articles and media files created within our article contests and the Wikiexpeditions program to be properly categorized and structured, particularly on Wikidata and Commons where applicable.

Within our article contests and thematic weeks, we are increasingly trying to incentivize creation of quality content as opposed to the pure volume of content. For example, within the WikiGap marathon this year, we decided not to award most prolific editors in terms of the number of articles created but rather distinguish those who have created articles that are recognized by the Wikipedia community as “good” or “featured”. Traditionally, our full-scale article contests have jury teams that check each contest article for quality.

As planned, we are providing book grants for Wikipedians within our general microgrants program. As of the first six months of 2020, we have approved one such grant (due to be implemented in the second half of 2020). We are trying to promote this program more actively; for example, we published a story in our blog on the topic in June.

We have not yet organized a writing challenge devoted specifically to improvement of key articles, but we plan to do so in the second half of 2020. Initiating community discussions on the process of expert evaluation of articles’ quality is also planned for late 2020.

Attracting media content

  • International Wiki Loves Earth
Infographic with main facts about Wiki Loves Earth
Map of Wiki Loves Earth 2020 participating countries

In 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine has for the 8th time organized the international edition of the Wiki Loves Earth photo contest. This year, 34 countries are organizing their competitions. Of these, WLE was organized for the first time in 5 countries (Belarus, Bolivia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Ireland). It became the 3rd highest number of countries participating in WLE since the start of the international contest (after 36 countries in 2017 and 37 in 2019).

This year, we have successfully found a project manager devoted specifically to international Wiki Loves Earth, and we are seeing positive results of this change for the contest’s quality and consistency.

Because of the pandemic, we extended the international round of the contest into July, so now it runs from May 1st until July 31st (with different countries adopting different dates within this timeframe).

Our preparations included working to improve guidelines for local teams (particularly a guide to funding, a guide on creating/improving lists of nature monuments, as well as a guide to COVID19 response). For the first time, we organized two webinars for local teams (an online training session on lists of nature monuments & a webinar on the WLX jury tool) after assessing the teams’ needs. As always, we have supported local teams before, during and after their contests via email and social media platforms, providing help with tasks like sending our invitations for previous-years’ participants or setting up a jury tool.

We have also expanded and improved our work on promoting the contest. We used various channels to spread the word, namely the WLE website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, mailing lists, as well as outside channels, such as Wikipedia Weekly podcast. The international WLE team cooperated with local teams in content creation, discovering contexts of different countries.

Communication on these channels helped the audience discover contest rules, updates, and interesting facts. Also, it helped grow the number of followers; for example, 397 new people followed the WLE page on Facebook since the start of this contest edition. The post about the competition launch has been seen by 3.1k people, and the post about the first month’s results got the reach of 2.1k people. The biggest reach (348) and number of impressions (393) on Instagram was received by post about WLE in numbers. WLE Twitter page has got a big number of retweets and mentions, for example, on the WMF page. Mailing list campaigns were aimed to give an overview of WLE news for a broad audience.

As of now, local organizing teams are choosing their national winners until the end of August. We are also in the process of setting up an international jury. The evaluation of photos for the international round will start in September, and international results are planned to be announced in October-November.

  • Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine
Banner for Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine

The Ukrainian edition of Wiki Loves Earth has traditionally been held throughout the month of May. However, due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, we moved the dates of the 2020 contest to July (the decision was taken as a result of the survey taken among the community), i.e. outside the period reported in the midpoint report.

During the period reported, we were actively working on preparing the contest, such as gathering the organizing team and preparing the infrastructure necessary for the contest itself. Promotion activities were particularly important as we significantly expanded our promotion efforts in comparison with the previous year.

The contest’s preliminary results show that these promotion efforts were successful — we are seeing a record number of over 20,000 images submitted to the contest, even though Ukraine is still in partial quarantine. A detailed analysis of the results will be included in our annual report.

  • Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine
Banner for Wiki Loves Monuments exhibition in Ivano-Frankivsk

Traditionally, most work for the Wiki Loves Monuments contest is being done in the second half of the year. In the first six months, we were mostly involved in preparational promotional activities.

In the first three months of 2020, we held four “traveling” photo exhibitions of the best pictures of Wiki Loves Monuments. Two exhibitions were organized in Kyiv, one in Ivano-Frankivsk (Western Ukraine) and one in Smila (Central Ukraine). Since the start of the pandemic, this program is on hold.

Also, Wiki Loves Monuments organizing team held two writing challenges in Ukrainian Wikipedia to improve media usage and help promote the project — Cultural Monuments Month and “Ukrainian Cultural Heritage” (see the subsection devoted to thematic weeks above).

  • Wikiexpeditions and photography grants

Wikiexpeditions is our program to support Wikimedians’ trips to visit places and sites to improve their coverage on Wikimedia projects. In 2020, we supported one Wikiexpedition — the expedition to the Dniester river valley. It brought 741 images to Wikimedia Commons; 6 of them have been recognized as quality images. 35 Wikipedia articles have been created & improved

Due to the pandemic and particularly the WMF ban on funding travel, the program of Wikiexpeditions has been suspended from mid-March, so the total number of Wikiexpeditions supported is likely to be lower than expected.

We are also providing photography grants for people to take part in noteworthy high-profile events visited by notable people. However, we have not received any application for a photo grant in 2020 so far, mostly because all in-person events have been canceled since mid-March.

  • GLAM
Wikimarathon 2020 in the Khmelnytskyi regional library (Western Ukraine)
Wikimarathon 2020 in the “Wiki Library” in Lviv

In 2020, we have continued to develop existing GLAM partnerships. We did not have any expenses on this program in 2020 so far because most of our GLAM activities either were fully online or overlapped with other programs and were covered by them.

  1. We cooperate with the “Wiki Library”, a local library in Lviv inspired by the ideas of Wikipedia. For example, in January, we held a wiki-workshop within Wikimarathon there (more on Wikimarathon in the “Increasing Participation section”), in March there was an online wiki-meetup, while in June our volunteer held an online Wikipedia training session devoted to the library’s anniversary.
  2. Traditionally, a notable project for our GLAM direction is WikiKharkivshchyna, an article and photo contest for libraries in the Kharkiv Region. The contest itself will be held in the fall, but our local volunteers have been working with libraries all over the region as part of the general project.
  3. We provide support to community initiatives for cooperation with GLAM institutions. For example, Perohanych held a lecture for a local museum in the Ivano-Frankivsk region (Western Ukraine) in February (funded by wikigrants, not by the GLAM budget).
  4. We cooperate with GLAM institutions, mostly libraries and museums, within our other projects. Traditionally, libraries are crucial as host institutions for Wikimarathon; in 2020, 26 libraries across the country hosted Wikipedia events within the week of Wikimarathon. Also, libraries and museums are important for our photo exhibitions; out of four Wiki Loves Monuments exhibitions we ended up organizing in 2020 so far, one was held in a library and another one in a museum.

We are seeing tentative volunteer interest in replicating our successful 2018 article contest for libraries, but no concrete plans have been made so far


Other content enrichment projects planned for 2020 but not mentioned above are planned to be implemented in the second half of the year.

Increasing Participation

Attracting new editors to Wikimedia projects

  • Wikimarathon and Wikipedia 16
Map of offline Wikimarathon events in 2020
Souvenirs for online participants of Wikimarathon
Wikimarathon in WMUA office in Kyiv

Traditionally, Wikimarathon is one of our biggest projects. This year, it was dedicated to Ukrainian Wikipedia’s 16th birthday and ran from January 26th to February 1st. Wikimedia Ukraine, as always, organized an online marathon and coordinated & supported offline events across Ukraine.

Overall, 1119 articles were created over the seven days of Wikimarathon; at least 387 users created an article. (This year, we changed the mechanics of counting results and counted only those articles which had been specifically marked as created within Wikimarathon, even though some people might not know about our marking requirement; hence the drop in the numbers as compared with previous years). Wikimarathon offline reached 37 cities and villages in 21 regions of Ukraine (which is 84% of regions except Crimea) with over 60 events.

The mechanics of Wikimarathon 2020 was similar to previous years’ Wikimarathons, including the one discussed in detail in our 2017 program story. This year, we continued to pay more attention to quality of articles created within Wikimarathon, having organized a sub-project on patrolling and improving articles created by newbies (16 people participated, 250 articles were checked), as well as to capacity building (developed new guides for local event organizers, held a training session in Kyiv for them etc.).

Wikimedia Ukraine also organized a general celebration of Ukrainian Wikipedia’s 16th anniversary. As always, we helped develop a number of informational and promotional materials about Wikipedia (such a series of infographics or a special Wikipedia logo devoted to the anniversary) and held an offline celebration in Kyiv on the date of the birthday. As compared with the previous year, we improved our work with the media and got wider media attention from both nationwide and local outlets.

  • Wikipedia in Education
Wikimarathon at a lyceum in the town of Kremenchuk, Poltava region
Wikimarathon at a school in the town of Bar, Vinnytsia region

Our biggest project in the education field right now is the article contest “Wikipedia for School”, which is devoted to topics included in Ukrainian secondary education curricula. In 2020, we worked to finalize the results of the contest’s first edition (for example, we held an online award ceremony in June, with 15 people participating). Right now, we are preparing the second edition of the contest, which is expected to take place in late 2020.

Because of the pandemic, schools and universities switched to distance learning in mid-March. It put most of our Education Program efforts on hold as teacher conferences have been canceled and the learning process has experienced considerable difficulties. We actively promoted opportunities for using Wikipedia in distance learning (e.g. we reached almost 7,000 people with one such post), but these efforts did not yield huge real-life results, most likely because teachers had a lot of difficulties adjusting to distance learning and thus had little time experimenting with new learning methods.

We continued to work with our community of educators, providing them with technical & informational support in their events. The list of events held by our volunteers with WMUA support includes:

  1. Мандрівниця presented Wikipedia at a teacher seminar in the Poltava region in February (appr. 30 people took part)
  2. WMUA staff provided training support to students of Ukrainian Leadership Academy (educational program for high school graduates) in Mariupol in March (appr. 15 people took part)
  3. Kharkivian held a webinar for students of Ukrainian Leadership Academy in Kharkiv in March (appr. 20 people took part)
  4. Kharkivian held two webinars for teachers and employees of the Sumy State University in April and May (appr. 50 people took part)
  5. Brunei held an online training for participants of a history & sociology practice in June (appr. 15 people took part).

As always, the Education Program has been benefiting from other programs and projects by Wikimedia Ukraine, most notably Wikimarathon. During Wikimarathon 2020, 20 events were held for school and university students/teachers, not counting events hosted by educational institutions but aimed at a general audience.

  • Wikipedia Editing Online course development

We have started the process of developing Wikipedia MOOC. As of now, we have already developed a plan for the course and reached a preliminary agreement to cooperate with a prominent Ukrainian MOOC platform. Most work for the course development itself will happen in the second half of 2020.

Increasing diversity of the community of editors

External video
Presentation of Crimean Tatar Wikipedia, Facebook video recording

In 2020, we have worked to support projects in the languages of ethnic groups that have traditionally inhabited Ukraine as we helped organize two offline events for the development of Crimean Tatar Wikipedia in January and February. The first one was a presentation, and the second one was a training session on creating articles in Crimean Tatar Wikipedia. The two events covered some 30 people; the presentation’s recording was viewed around 1,000 times on Facebook. (Thanks to our partners and in-kind donations, we did not have any expenses for holding these events). We have tentative plans to continue working with the Crimean Tatar community in this direction.

We also held some events on the topic of diversity within our other programs, most notably WikiGap (see details in the “Content Enrichment” section), which helped recruit several dozen female editors to Wikipedia (though we do not have exact numbers on exactly how many participants were female).

We have seen community interest in the direction of working with scientific institutions to engage experts in Wikimedia projects, but most work in this direction is likely to happen in the second half of 2020.

Community Support and Development

Instruction for community members

  • Training sessions for specific skills

In the first half of 2020, we held two offline training sessions for the community, four webinars, and continued to provide scholarships to participate in external events.

1. Training session for Wikimarathon trainers in Kyiv (January 25th)

We continued the practice of capacity building for local event organizers. Just before the start of Wikimarathon, we held a day-long training session for Wikimarathon trainers. It was attended by 9 people.

2. Training on NGO governance in Kyiv (March 7th)

Two weeks after the General Meeting, we held a day-long training session as part of onboarding new Board & Audit Committee members (all Board & Audit Committee members, as well as staff, were invited). 11 people attended.

3. Webinars for the community (June)

External video
“How to read the news critically”, a webinar for the Wikipedia community, YouTube video

In June, we held a series of three webinars for the Wikipedia community on the topics of freedom of panorama, open licenses, and free knowledge. One webinar was held in partnership with Creative Commons Ukraine, while two others were organized together with Digital Security Lab, a Ukrainian nonprofit. As of late July, the webinars’ recordings on YouTube have collectively been viewed over 400 times.

As part of our cooperation with “Detector.Media”, we also held a webinar titled “How to read the news critically” for the Wikipedia community. The recording has received almost 200 views as of late July. (More webinars on the topic were held in July, outside of the period reported.)

Wikimedia Ukraine General Meeting
Wikimedia Ukraine strategy session

4. Scholarships for external training sessions

Traditionally, we are willing to fund Wikimedians’ participation in external training events useful for the Wikimedia movement. In the first half of 2020, we received and approved one such application — 5 people attended a school on online event facilitation in June. Their experience should be beneficial for organising our future online events.

  • Event organisation & Strategy facilitation

On February 23rd, we held our Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Kyiv. As usual, the General Meeting elected a new Board and Audit Committee, as well as reviewed the organization’s activity in the previous year and decided on some housekeeping questions. 35 Wikimedia Ukraine’s members participated in the AGM in person, and all members could join the preparatory process online. (See a more detailed report on our AGM in English here).

On February 22nd, we also organized a strategy session for Wikimedia Ukraine members and the broader community. Its aim was to discuss the implementation of Wikimedia Ukraine’s strategic direction for 2020—2022, as well as to provide feedback to the international Movement Strategy Recommendations.


Also, we organized three offline & online award ceremonies for article contests and thematic weeks — Antarctic Week, Ukrainian Diplomacy Month, “Wikipedia for School”. While they were also in fact events for the community, they are covered by their respective projects and programs. Celebrations of Ukrainian Wikipedia birthday within and around Wikimarathon have also been de-facto events for the community.

  • Hackathons; Scholarships for international events

No work has been done in these directions, primarily because of the pandemic-induced event cancellation.

We are considering the option of holding an online hackathon or some other event for technical skills development. Scholarships for international events, because of the pandemic, are not likely to be active this year.

Increasing the community's motivation and awareness

Banner for our newest newsletter for the community

In 2020, we revived Wikizghushchivka, the program of providing small physical gifts (a can of condensed milk and souvenirs) to most active new & experienced Wikipedia contributors each month. The new organizing team was assembled, it developed rules of the program and started determining winners. (No expenses were made in the first half of 2020 as we had to delay shipment of gifts because of the quarantine).

Also, we continued preparing monthly newsletters for the community. As planned, we developed new channels of their distribution and thus increased the newsletters’ reach (e.g. started preparing versions for social media and for Wikipedia talk pages).

This program also covers wikigrants — small grants for members of the community for activities useful to the Wikimedia movement. In 2020 so far, we approved two grants. The first one partially funded our volunteer’s participation in German language courses, which will help him develop Wikimedia partnerships with Austrian cultural institutions. The second one funded our volunteer’s travel to hold a lecture on GLAM at a local museum in Western Ukraine.


Awareness about Wikimedia and Free Knowledge

Media support and promotion of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects

External video
Interview with Wikipedia volunteers during Wikimarathon on the national radio, YouTube video

Traditionally, media activities play a major role in the realization of our projects. During the first half of 2020, we have provided communication support to increase awareness and ensure visibility for the Wikimedia Ukraine projects with the following activities:

  1. Distributing 18 press releases about projects and activities (thematic weeks and months, article and photo contests, important milestones, interesting facts about good and quality articles etc.) to the wide range of the Ukrainian media.
  2. Working with partners on preparing joint materials about different aspects of how Wikipedia works (see more on the partnership with “Chytomo” and “Detector.Media” below). That resulted in 5 articles.
  3. Preparing information to media inquiries with additional information and comments from our speakers.

Overall more than 200 media publications referring to Wikimedia Ukraine, its projects, news and speakers were generated due to our efforts. Among the projects which have received the widest reach and media attention so far are Wikimarathon and Ukrainian Wikipedia’s 16th birthday, WikiGap, celebration of 1 million articles in Ukrainian Wikipedia, and Ukrainian Wiki Loves Earth.

  • Communication strategy development

We have not yet started the process of communication strategy development itself, but we managed to noticeably improve our communication practices, such as planning and media work, since we instituted a position of a communication manager in the organization’s staff in 2020.

Developing a comprehensive communication strategy remains in our plans, though it might be somewhat delayed as we are waiting for the WMF Board’s decision on Wikimedia movement branding.

  • Working with social media and blogs

As always, we widely use our blog and social media to cover and promote our projects. Wikimedia Ukraine’s blog remains an important communication channel for publishing information about the Wikimedia movement, our news and projects in different formats, e. g. announcements, interviews, articles on a wide range of themes.

As for social media platforms, we develop them to reach a wider audience, promote our blog’s content, invite users to interact, and get feedback. We also try to use the opportunities social media provide to experiment with presenting different types of content, manage it, set goals, and track results.

In January-June, we published 40 articles on the blog; it received 33,838 views from 21,961 unique users; the number of views increased by 56% year-over-year.

Video story on the people behind Ukrainian Wikipedia
Special Ukrainian Wikipedia logo devoted to the 1 million articles milestone. We organized a mini-contest among the community for the best logo

By July 27th, the number of our Facebook page followers increased by 10% since the beginning of the year (3,540 -> 3,952). All posts published from January 1st until June 30th received 159,209 views. The average organic post reach for this period is 638 users.  

By July 30th, Wikimedia Ukraine’s Instagram page had a 15% increase in followers, and the Twitter account showed a 6% increase (583 and 1496 followers, respectively). On Twitter, our tweets were viewed 64,385 times in January—June. During the same period, 49 posts were published on Instagram; they received 4,760 views.  

In May 2020, we launched Wikimedia Ukraine’s YouTube channel. As of the end of July, it has 110 followers and 12 videos uploaded.


We also run several separate blogs and social media accounts for some of our biggest projects, most notably photo contests. The most relevant one for the first half of 2020 is Ukrainian Wiki Loves Earth, which was a huge part of our promotional efforts. For this project, we run a separate site, Facebook, and Instagram.

Facebook page is the main tool to inform the audience about the contest updates and to interact with potential participants. By July 27th, we had a 24% increase in the number of followers since the beginning of the year (2,604 -> 3,435). As of July 29th, we made 61 messaging connections (50% more than last year). All posts published from January 1st until June 30th received 57,378 views and the average organic post reach for this period is 317 users. Starting this May, we also created an Instagram account for Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine. By July 31st, the profile had 147 followers. Since launch, 45 posts were published (as of the end of July); they received 1184 views.

See also numbers on the communication channels of international Wiki Loves Earth in the respective section above.

  • Events, presentations, media events

In mid-March, Ukrainian Wikipedia reached the milestone of 1 million articles. We had ambitious plans for organizing promotional offline events, such as press conferences, dedicated to this event, but we had to cancel them because of the pandemic.

Instead, we decided to create a video story on the people behind Ukrainian Wikipedia and dedicate funding to its promotion. As of late July, it was viewed more than 35,000 times on different platforms, with most views coming from Facebook. We also invested a lot of attention in working with media and social networks to promote this milestone in general, and the event got big reach.

Working with readers and the general public to increase awareness

In the first half of 2020, we focused on creating online informational materials about Wikipedia, both by ourselves and with partners. For example, we prepared a big FAQ article on Wikipedia dedicated to its birthday, as well as an explainer on paid articles in Wikipedia. Besides, we partnered with “Chytomo”, Ukrainian media outlet on books and literature, to prepare a series of articles on literature and Wikipedia (1, 2).

Within our cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see details in our Program Story), we held two online lectures on Wikipedia for Ukrainian diplomats abroad; around 130 people participated.

Also, we started implementing a common project with nonprofit “Detector.Media”, which includes holding a series of events on Wikipedia for journalists (due to be completed in the second part of 2020).

We have not had any direct financial expenses in this program so far because all the activities were online (though we did invest considerable staff time).

Freedom of panorama

Wikimedia Ukraine's brochure, which contains information on freedom of panorama; we used it in this year's outreach efforts

In the first half of 2020, we continued to engage in advocacy of freedom of panorama (FoP) and focused on enhancing awareness of this topic. Thus, our task has been twofold: 1) to participate in drafting relevant legislation in the field of copyright law for it to include provisions legalizing FoP and 2) to increase awareness about freedom of panorama via webinars and cooperation with media.

On the first front, we had achieved noticeable results in the first few months of the year. As a result of close cooperation both with MPs and other officials, we managed to secure provisions on FoP in the draft law published on 10th of March by the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine. The draft law can be accessed here. The text of the provision clearly accounts for both noncommercial and commercial freedom of panorama in Ukraine. Still, we are eager to help “polish” the provision at hand to make it more simple and comprehensible.

Unfortunately, it seems that the pandemic is slowing progress in this field. Because of the crisis, the parliament has focused on other issues and postponed a long-awaited reform of the copyright legislation. We are tracking developments and are ready to work with all stakeholders to help the reform pass.

Secondly, we continued to draw attention to the topic and raise awareness. In the first half of 2020, our advocacy manager has prepared several informational materials to be published by both our media partner, Detector.Media, and on our communication channels. For example, one of the articles draws a comparison between Ukrainian copyright legislation and legislative provisions in countries where freedom of panorama exists (it awaits publication); another one focuses on the relevance of FoP for Wiki Loves Earth.

In a similar vein, in June we organized three webinars on legal aspects of editing Wikipedia, one of which was specifically devoted to the absence of FoP in the context of editing Wikipedia and thus helped increase awareness of the topic. It was conducted by Maksym Naumko, IT lawyer and a representative of Creative Commons Ukraine. The webinars are covered by the program “Training sessions for specific skills”, see more in the respective section.

Spending[edit]

Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.

31651.23 USD (report can be found here; see also a copy in Google Sheets)
The weighted average exchange rate for the period January 1—June 30, 2020 was used

Final report[edit]

Program story[edit]

Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

Coordinating and improving a large international photo contest, while guiding it through the pandemic

Learning story[edit]

Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.

Setting up a two-day, two-track conference online

Results[edit]

Metrics[edit]

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. Number of participants 11,234 / 5,200 Target significantly exceeded, primarily because of the strong numbers of Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments photo contests. We also managed to cover more participants at promotional events thanks to the switch to online.
2. Number of of newly registered users 8,309 / 2,985 Target significantly exceeded, primarily because of the strong numbers of international Wiki Loves Earth. Other projects and programs were mostly in line with targets.
3. Number of content pages 172,181 / 106,090 Target significantly exceeded, primarily because of the strong numbers of international Wiki Loves Earth (significant absolute growth) and Ukrainian Wiki Loves Monuments (strong % growth). Minor factors include a higher-than-expected number of Wikipedia articles brought by article contests and thematic weeks.
4. Number of volunteers involved 220 / 115 Target noticeably exceeded because of the higher volunteer involvement in the Content Enrichment projects, which was driven mainly by our large and diverse jury and organizing teams for article & photo contests.
5. Number of media files used 6,512 / 5,370 Target met. In previous years, this metric was underperforming, but in 2020 we scaled up efforts to promote media usage for photo contests (two writing challenges related to Wiki Loves Monuments on Ukrainian Wikipedia, more attention to the topic from the Wiki Loves Earth international team etc.).


Content Enrichment

Bridging text content gaps

Per our plans to hold an article contest devoted to women in 2020, we organized the “She Did It” challenge in Ukrainian Wikipedia and Ukrainian Wikiquote in late fall.

For the project, we partnered with the organizations we traditionally hold WikiGap with (Swedish Embassy in Ukraine, UNFPA Office in Ukraine, and National Democratic Institute in Ukraine), as well as with tech startup “Biasless”.

This year, we made an emphasis on improving existing articles. Apart from highlighting important articles that needed to be improved, we worked with “Biasless” to develop a tool that would suggest style improvements in the context of gender stereotypes. (For example, the tool can find instances where a woman is referred to as someone’s wife or daughter rather than an independent professional).

As a result, around 120 articles were improved (105 in Wikipedia & 15 in Wikiquote) within 10 days. We expect to use this suggestions tool in our further projects, such as WikiGap 2021.

Detailed results on Wikimedia Ukraine blog (in Ukrainian).

WikiGap training session in Kyiv
External video
Recording of WikiGap webinar, YouTube video

In March, Wikimedia Ukraine joined WikiGap for the third time since 2018. As noted in the midpoint report, we significantly expanded the scope of the project this year thanks to strong partnership with co-organizers of the project — the Swedish Embassy in Ukraine, the UNFPA Office in Ukraine, and the National Democratic Institute in Ukraine.

We organized a month-long online campaign on Ukrainian Wikipedia and helped promote WikiGap Challenge that ran separately. We planned to hold offline events in four different corners of Ukraine — but, because of the pandemic, we ended up organizing two offline events and one webinar.

Overall, we saw 250 participants creating & improving around 1850 articles about women. 145 people participated in the events (45 offline, 100 online in real time), and the webinar has attracted 340 views on YouTube.

Detailed results on Wikimedia Ukraine blog (in Ukrainian).

Pots and catalpa tree seeds were among gifts to CEE Spring winners

CEE Spring is traditionally our largest article contest, and it set a new record in 2020. Over 100 participants created and improved 3929 articles on Ukrainian Wikipedia, by far the highest number among 26 Wikipedia editions that participated in the international contest this year. The contest seems to have “benefitted” from general increased activity on Wikipedia due to the lockdown, as well as from our improved communications processes.

We continued to emphasize the gender gap; almost 700 articles about women were created within the contest. We made an additional focus on articles present in many Wikipedias but either non-existent or short stubs in Ukrainian Wikipedia, which attracted over 100 contributions to cover these specific gaps. Also, we held simultaneous contests in sister wikiprojects, Ukrainian Wikiquote and Ukrainian Wikivoyage. There, participants created and improved 64 content pages (20 in Wikiquote and 44 in Wikivoyage).

Detailed results on Wikimedia Ukraine blog (in Ukrainian).

  • Challenge on uploading existing sources published under free licenses

We did not organize one in 2020 due to the lack of volunteer interest and the complexity of matching entries with existing articles. We are hoping to hold such a challenge in 2021, either by making another attempt to mobilize potential volunteers or by allocating more staff time, and by exploring available tools (notably Wikidata) or developing custom ones.

  • Contest to promote local content
External video
WikiKharkivshchyna's most popular webinar, YouTube video

Throughout November 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine held its traditional WikiKharkivshchyna (“Wiki Kharkiv Region”) contest for libraries in the Kharkiv Oblast. As well as before, the project was not limited to one time-bound contest, and cooperation with libraries to produce local content was supported throughout the year (though the pandemic limited the scope of outreach).

For the contest itself, nine libraries signed up, with participants bringing 425 photos and 20 Wikipedia articles. Three webinars held for the contest attracted around 100 participants in real time and gathered over 850 views on YouTube recordings.

  • Thematic weeks and months
Yevhen Dykyi, the head of the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine, gives an award to Andrii Hrytsenko, the most active participant of the Antarctic Week
Banner for Entomology Week in UkWiki

In the past several years, and particularly in 2020, thematic weeks have emerged as a great way for Wikimedia Ukraine to boost content enrichment on important topics, support initiatives from within the community, and develop important partnerships (see our midpoint report program story for more details).

  1. Wikipedia and Wikimedia Month, as support to a community initiative (11 participants joined, 51 articles created)
  2. Antarctic Week, held in partnership with the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine, a government agency (36 participants joined, 247 articles created & improved)
  3. Cultural Monuments Month, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine photo contest (27 participants joined, 127 articles created & improved) (this project was covered by the 2019 budget, but was postponed to 2020 due to the high number of projects which we had to implement by the end of the last year)
  4. Contemporary US Politics Month, as support to a community initiative (15 participants joined, 86 articles created & improved)
  5. “Ukrainian Cultural Heritage”, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine photo contest (10 participants joined, 46 articles created & improved
  6. Ukrainian Diplomacy Month, held in partnership with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (24 participants joined, 188 articles created & improved)
  7. Lilac Sunday, as support to a community initiative (13 participants joined, 34 articles created & improved
  8. Ukrainian edition of the Turkic Marathon 2020, as support to a community initiative (10 participants joined, 420 articles created & improved + 5 articles created & improved in Ukrainian Wikivoyage)
  9. Birds Week, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine photo contest (14 participants joined, 151 articles created & improved)
  10. Journalism Month, held in partnership with nonprofit organization “Detector.Media” (15 participants joined, 235 articles created & improved)
  11. Vinnytsia Region Week, as support to a community initiative (15 participants joined, 279 articles created & improved)
  12. Entomology Week, held by the organizing team of Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine photo contest (16 participants joined, 200 articles created & improved)
  13. Felidae (Cats) Month, held in partnership with a local nature park (12 participants joined, 69 articles created & improved)
  14. Transportation Marathon, as support to a community initiative (35 participants joined, 389 articles created & improved)
  15. “Memory Candle”, an annual campaign devoted to the Holodomor, as support to a community initiative (10 participants joined, 35 articles created & improved)

Thus, 15 editing challenges we organized or supported in 2020 have brought over 2550 new & improved articles to Ukrainian Wikipedia. Antarctic Week, Ukrainian Diplomacy Months, and Journalism Month are covered in greater detail in our midpoint report program story.

Also, we supported a thematic week in Bashkir Wikipedia devoted to the Vinnytsia Region of Ukraine (10 participants created & improved 50 articles), as well as the Popular Articles Month, which is covered below.

We also provided informational support to several other thematic weeks & months that are not included here.

  • Sister Wikiprojects initiatives
An example of promotional materials for the “She Said It” marathon in Ukrainian Wikiquote

2020 has been a productive year for developing content initiatives in sister wikiprojects. We held two separate content campaigns in Ukrainian-language sister wikiprojects & included sister wikiprojects in some Wikipedia-centric campaigns.

Our most notable sister wikiprojects initiative in 2020 was “Bookcase”Книжкова шафа») in Ukrainian Wikisource, a contest devoted to proofreading scans of original books. This contest is a good way to help enrich Wikisource with original texts. The contest was held from February 15th until May 31st, and it saw 20 participants having proofread 5279 book pages. In 2020, we held this contest for the second time (the first one was in 2018), and this year’s edition saw a 200% increase in the number of content pages developed.

Another initiative organized by Wikimedia Ukraine was the “She Said It” marathon in Ukrainian Wikiquote (December 10th—24th). It was held in the framework of the global “She Said” campaign aimed at improving the visibility of women. 21 participants created and improved 187 articles on women, increasing the percentage of women in the “People” category by 2.8%.

In terms of sister wikiprojects campaigns within other content enrichment projects, we engaged Wikiquote and Wikivoyage in CEE Spring, Wikiquote in the “She Did It” campaign, and several wikiprojects in some thematic weeks organized primarily on Wikipedia.

Bridging text content gaps: Program objectives

  • 5 volunteers involved in uploading existing sources published under free licenses, creating or improving 200 pages
    Not met. We did not organize a challenge on uploading existing sources published under free licenses
  • 2000 articles on identified gaps in Wikipedia created or improved
    Met. The target has been exceeded by many times thanks to the strong results of our article contests and thematic weeks.
  • 100 articles on local content created or improved, representing 5 regions
     Partly met. If we count programs aimed at local content specifically, the target is not met (we have 20 articles representing 1 region). However, articles on local content were also created as part of other programs, most notably Wikimarathon and GLAM.
  • 150 pages created or improved in sister projects, 5 works on Wikisource digitised
    Met. The target has been considerably exceeded (it’s important to note that we held a proofreading contest instead of a digitisation drive on Wikisource, as it was more suitable during the lockdown).

Enhancing quality of content

Wikiconference presentation by WMUA Project Manager Anton Protsiuk promoting book grants and other types of WMUA's support for the community

Enhancing the quality of content produced thanks to our projects has been an important priority for Wikimedia Ukraine throughout the year.

In terms of standalone projects aimed at content quality, we held the Popular Articles Month in Ukrainian Wikipedia (November 4th to January 4th, 2021). As the name suggests, it was devoted to improving the most popular articles on UkWiki. It saw 40 articles significantly improved, with additional 140 articles patrolled and/or slightly improved.

We also paid more attention to incentivizing quality among various other projects. For example, we devoted the “She Did It” challenge to improving existing articles on women (see details above) and incentivized creation of “good” and “featured” articles across some contests & challenges, such as CEE Spring, WikiGap, and several thematic weeks. Traditionally, our full-scale article contests have jury teams that check each contest article for quality, and organizing teams typically check content quality for other campaigns.

We provided book grants for Wikimedians. In 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine received and approved three book grants applications; collectively, they are expected to bring around 60 articles to Ukrainian Wikipedia (most of the work is in progress). We also promoted book grants via a blog story & during our annual Wikiconference.

Regarding our plans to organize the process of expert evaluation of articles’ quality in Ukrainian Wikipedia, we have conducted initial consultations with volunteers but have not started full community discussions due to the lack of volunteer resources; we are planning to do so in 2021.

Enhancing quality of content: Program objectives

  • 100 significant articles on at least 2 themes improved
    Met. 180 articles were significantly improved in the challenges devoted to women and popular articles. (“She Did It” improvement challenge is covered by the “Bridging text content gaps” direction, but it was also effectively a drive to enhance content quality.)
  • All articles created as a part of WMUA initiatives are categorised and linked to Wikidata
     Partly met. We’ve been paying more attention to categorisation and linking to Wikidata, though we cannot be sure yet that 100% of articles have been categorised and linked.
  • Initiated discussion on expert review of articles
    Not met. We have not initiated a discussion on expert review of articles; we are planning to do it in 2021.

Attracting media content

Map of Wiki Loves Earth 2020 participating countries

In 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine organized the 8th edition of Wiki Loves Earth — the biggest international photo contest for documenting the world’s nature heritage. Despite the pandemic, the contest’s results were generally in line with the previous years, and we improved organizational processes thanks to hiring a dedicated project manager.

Because of the pandemic, we extended the international round of the contest into July, so in 2020 it ran from May 1st until July 31st (with different countries adopting different dates within this timeframe). Local teams had until September to pick their winners, and international winners were announced in early December.

In this WLE edition, 34 countries from 5 continents participated. Among those, 7 countries have joined the competition for the first time: Belarus, Bolivia, Ireland, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, Turkey. The contest received 106,240 photos from 9,095 participants (notably, the vast majority of participants were newcomers — around 83% registered after the contest start). Both the number of countries and the number of photos are third largest in the contest’s history.

Read more about the highlights and lessons of Wiki Loves Earth 2020 in the program story for the final report.

  • Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine

Apart from the international round, Wikimedia Ukraine also organizes the Ukrainian local edition of the Wiki Loves Earth contest. In 2020, Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine was moved from May to July for the first time due to the pandemic.

Still, the pandemic has not prevented it from reaching record results. 475 people participated in the contest (including 387 newbies); collectively, they uploaded 20,449 images, the highest number in the project's history. The photos illustrate 2334 nature monuments, including 647 monuments not represented on Wikimedia Commons before.

Some of the project’s developments as compared with previous years include:

  1. Improved communications processes. Like our other projects, Wiki Loves Earth has benefitted from the organization’s improving communications processes. In 2020, we put more resources in working with regional authorities and mass media to ensure they were sharing information about the contests, as well as in social media advertising and social media activity more broadly.
  2. Special nominations. Organizing special nominations with dedicated partners has shown to be a productive way to generate more attention to the contest, attract partners and sponsors, and cover important topics. In 2020, we organized six special nominations (a record number for contest history) with six partner organizations.
  3. Working with Wikidata. In line with Wikimedia Ukraine’s broader plans to pay more attention our materials are properly categorized and structured, the organizing team worked to increase media usage by automatically adding contest photographs to relevant Wikidata items.
  4. Online award ceremony. Because of the pandemic, we were forced to move the award ceremony online. Although we would have prefered an offline event, holding it online allowed a record number of people to join. Around 80 people participated in the ceremony in real time, and its recording has since attracted 450 views.

A detailed project report is available on Wikimedia Ukraine site (in Ukrainian)

  • Wiki Loves Monuments in Ukraine

Traditionally, Wiki Loves Monuments is our biggest national-level photo contest. It has evolved from being just a competition to a large-scale project devoted to preserving and popularizing Ukrainian cultural heritage monuments, with a broad community of volunteers behind it.

Thanks to these systematic efforts, as well as the improvements in communications, the 2020 edition brought unprecedented results as 544 participants (including 308 newbies) uploaded 47,392 photos throughout September. The number of photos is both the largest in the contest’s history in Ukraine and the highest among all 50 countries participating in Wiki Loves Monuments 2020 on the international level. 2020 participants illustrated over 12600 cultural monuments.

In early 2020, Wiki Loves Monuments organized a traveling photo exhibition across Ukraine. It visited three regions in Ukraine (Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk in Western Ukraine, and Smila in Central Ukraine), before being forced to shut down because of the pandemic.

Instead of offline events, the organizing team held two writing challenges in Ukrainian Wikipedia to improve media usage and help promote the project — Cultural Monuments Month and Ukrainian Cultural Heritage (see the subsection devoted to thematic weeks above).

Detailed contest results are available on Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine blog (in Ukrainian)

  • Wikiexpeditions and photography grants

Wikiexpeditions is our program to support Wikimedians’ trips to visit places and sites to improve their coverage on Wikimedia projects. In 2020, we supported one Wikiexpedition — the expedition to the Dniester river valley. It brought 741 images to Wikimedia Commons; 6 of them have been recognized as quality images. 35 Wikipedia articles have been created & improved.

Because of the pandemic, we did not receive more requests for funding expeditions. (The program was fully suspended from March until October because of the WMF’s funding restrictions; during that time, we did not accept any requests).

No photography grant applications were received or approved in 2020 because of the absence of in-person events for most of the year.

  • GLAM
Wikimarathon 2020 in the Khmelnytskyi regional library (Western Ukraine)
Workshop for Kharkiv librarians

In 2020, we have continued to develop GLAM partnerships.

  1. We cooperate with the “Wiki Library”, a local library in Lviv inspired by the ideas of Wikipedia. For example, in January, we held a wiki-workshop within Wikimarathon there (more on Wikimarathon in the “Increasing Participation” section), in March there was an online wiki-meetup, while in June our volunteer held an online Wikipedia training session devoted to the library’s anniversary.
  2. Volunteers in Kharkiv held two webinars and three offline training sessions for librarians of the Kharkiv Korolenko State Scientific Library.
  3. Traditionally, a notable project for our GLAM direction is WikiKharkivshchyna, an article and photo contest for libraries in the Kharkiv Region; more on its results in the subsection devoted to bridging text gaps.
  4. We provide support to community initiatives for cooperation with GLAM institutions. For example, our volunteer held a lecture for a local museum in the Ivano-Frankivsk region (Western Ukraine) in February (funded by wikigrants, not by the GLAM budget).
  5. Our photo exhibitions provide an important tool for developing GLAM partnerships. In 2020, we held four exhibitions in three Ukrainian regions (we had more ambitious plans, but the pandemic intervened).
  6. We started developing a set of promotional and presentational materials for GLAM institutions on WMUA activities and Wiki Loves Monuments. We expect to finalize and use them in 2021, once we have an Education and GLAM contractor.
  7. We cooperate with GLAM institutions, mostly libraries and museums, within our other projects. Traditionally, libraries are crucial as host institutions for Wikimarathon; in 2020, 26 libraries across the country hosted Wikipedia events within the week of Wikimarathon.

We have more plans for this program in 2021 — we are both seeing interest in new projects and hoping to have more resources available once we hire an Education and GLAM contractor.

Attracting media content: Program objectives

  • 800 files related to Ukrainian content gaps uploaded on Commons, 300 of them are used, 5 regions or events
     Partly met. The number of files uploaded and used in this context is roughly as planned, but we have lower regional diversity because Wikiexpeditions were not held for most of the year.
  • 100,000 images uploaded on Commons (including international WLE), 5% of them are used
    Met. Over 150,000 images were uploaded on Commons, and around 5% of them are used in main namespaces of Wikimedia projects.
  • International WLE organised
    Met. We organised international WLE 2020; read more on our experience in the program story.
  • 100 media files uploaded in collaboration with 5 institutions or experts
     Partly met. We did work with GLAM institutions and experts but have not fully reached the planned number.

Increasing Participation

Attracting new editors to Wikimedia projects

  • Wikimarathon and Wikipedia 16
Ukrainian Wikipedia 16th birthday meetup in WMUA office
Map of offline Wikimarathon events in 2020

Traditionally, Wikimedia Ukraine holds an annual Wikimarathon dedicated to Ukrainian Wikipedia’s birthday. In 2020, it ran from January 26th to February 1st. We organized an online marathon and coordinated offline events across Ukraine.

Overall, 1119 articles were created as part of Wikimarathon; at least 387 users created an article. Wikimarathon offline reached 37 cities and villages in 21 regions of Ukraine (84% of regions except Crimea) with over 60 events.

The mechanics of Wikimarathon 2020 was similar to Wikimarathons we had in previous years, including the one discussed in detail in our 2017 program story. We continued to pay more attention to quality of articles created within Wikimarathon, having organized a sub-project on patrolling and improving articles created by newbies (16 people participated, 250 articles were checked), as well as to capacity building (developed new guides for local event organizers, held a training session for them).

Wikimedia Ukraine also organized a general celebration of Ukrainian Wikipedia’s 16th anniversary. As always, we helped develop a number of informational and promotional materials about Wikipedia (such a series of infographics or a special Wikipedia logo) and held an offline celebration in Kyiv on the date of the birthday. As compared with the previous year, we improved our communications planning and got wider media attention from both nationwide and local outlets.

  • Wikipedia in Education
Wikimarathon at a school in the town of Bar, Vinnytsia regionn

As always, we supported education institutions to implement Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in their activities.

Because of the pandemic, schools and universities switched to distance learning in mid-March; some schools returned to in-person learning in the fall, but higher education institutions generally stuck to remote teaching. Although greater awareness with online teaching tools will probably be beneficial for Wikipedia in the long run, in the short term the pandemic slowed down our educational programs — for example, because teachers and students had a lot of difficulties adjusting to distance learning and thus had little time experimenting with new learning methods.

We continued to work with our community of educators, providing them with technical & informational support in their events. The list of events held by our volunteers with WMUA support includes:

  1. Мандрівниця presented Wikipedia at a teacher seminar in the Poltava region in February (appr. 30 people took part)
  2. WMUA staff provided training support to students of Ukrainian Leadership Academy (educational program for high school graduates) in Mariupol in March (appr. 15 people took part)
  3. Kharkivian held a webinar for students of Ukrainian Leadership Academy in Kharkiv in March (appr. 20 people took part)
  4. Kharkivian held two webinars for teachers and employees of the Sumy State University in April and May (appr. 50 people took part)
  5. Brunei held an online training for participants of a history & sociology practice in June (appr. 15 people took part)
  6. Kharkivian presented Wikipedia at an EdCamp marathon in December (over 50 people took part)

At the end of 2020, we started a new project on Ukrainian culture with Ukrainian Institute (a government institution tasked with global representation of Ukrainian culture), which involves an educational part — cooperation with universities in Ukraine and abroad to teach students to edit Wikipedia. The project’s active part is in February-March 2021, but in 2020 we did preparatory work.

As always, the Education Program has been benefiting from other programs and projects by Wikimedia Ukraine, most notably those in the “Increasing Participation” direction. For example, during Wikimarathon 2020, 20 events were held for school and university students/teachers, not counting events hosted by educational institutions but aimed at a general audience.

  • Wikipedia Editing Online course development

Throughout 2020, we worked on developing Wikipedia MOOC, though the work has not been finished yet. We are hoping to have it ready and rolled out in early 2021.

In 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine held the second edition of our school curriculum contest called “Wikipedia for School”; it ran from October 20th to January 24th, 2021. Although it also brings useful content to Ukrainian Wikipedia, its main goal is recruiting new educators to Wikipedia and helping them familiarize themselves with the process of editing.

Winning photo of SPC: Collecting biological specimens from the Weddell seal female. Winter island, Vernadsky Research Station, Antarctica, 2020

This year, we expanded the contest to include more curriculum disciplines (eleven as opposed to seven in the first edition). We also developed new instructional materials — a guide on using the Outreach Dashboard and two webinars for contest participants (around 50 people participated).

Full results of the contest have not been determined yet (we are in the process of the organizing team checking the articles), but preliminary data shows that over 180 people signed up for the contest (though not 100% of them went on to actually participate; we will have more detailed data later) and over 650 articles were created or improved; that’s more than two times higher than the previous year.

In 2020, we organized a competition devoted to scientific photography, which ran throughout November. The contest was held for the fifth time, and this year we moved it from the “Content Enrichment” direction to “Increasing Participation” because of the focus on attracting scientists to Wikimedia projects rather than on simply attracting more media files.

As part of our outreach, the organizing team held an online presentation & training session for the contest; it attracted 260 views. More focus on outreach was fruitful — we saw record participation as the competition received more than 1400 photos from over 160 participants.

See detailed results of the contest in Wikimedia Ukraine blog (in Ukrainian). We are planning to hold an online award ceremony in February 2021.

Attracting new editors to Wikimedia projects: Program objectives

  • 200 users participated in workshops, 20 of them continue editing half a year after the event
    Met. While exact numbers might differ dependent on the counting method, both targets have been met.
  • Online course on Wikipedia developed
     Partly met. We started developing an online course, but the work is yet to be finished.
  • 50 educators participated in workshops, 10 of them implemented Education Programme
     Partly met. We did cover over 50 educators with workshops; however, we have not yet been able to track how many of them implemented the Education Programme.

Increasing diversity of the community of editors

External video
Presentation of Crimean Tatar Wikipedia, Facebook video recording

In 2020, we worked to support projects in the languages of ethnic groups that have traditionally inhabited Ukraine as we helped organize two offline events for the development of Crimean Tatar Wikipedia in January and February. The first one was a presentation, and the second one was a training session on creating articles in Crimean Tatar Wikipedia. The two events covered some 30 people; the presentation’s recording was viewed around 1,000 times on Facebook.

Regarding development of communities in sister projects, in 2020 we organized a project for rewarding most active users on six Ukrainian-language sister projects with souvenirs, which is aimed at drawing attention to these wiki projects and boosting participation.

We also organized diversity-themed events within our other programs, most notably WikiGap (see details in the Content Enrichment section), which helped recruit several dozen female editors to Wikipedia.

(We did not have any expenses on diversity events in this specific program because they were either organized at no cost to WMUA thanks to in-kind donations or covered by other programs).

Increasing diversity of the community of editors: Program objectives

  • Contributors from 10 institutions involved
     Partly met. While we have worked on engaging experts from GLAM and scientific institutions, we have not established full-fledged cooperation with 10 institutions.
  • 2 diversity events with 10 participants
    Met. We held two offline events with over 30 participants.
  • 1 community initiative on sister projects and/or languages of ethnic groups that have traditionally inhabited Ukraine supported
    Met. We supported the initiative for rewarding most active users of sister projects.

Community Support and Development

Instruction for community members

  • Training sessions for specific skills

In early 2020, we held two offline training sessions for the community. We also organized a number of online training events, and we provided scholarships to participate in external events.

1. Training session for Wikimarathon trainers in Kyiv (January 25th)

We continued the practice of capacity building for local event organizers. Just before the start of Wikimarathon, we held a day-long training session for Wikimarathon trainers. It was attended by 9 people.

2. Training on NGO governance in Kyiv (March 7th)

Two weeks after the General Meeting, we held a day-long training session as part of onboarding new Board & Audit Committee members (all Board & Audit Committee members, as well as staff, were invited). 11 people attended.

3. Webinars for the community

External video
“How to read the news critically”, a webinar for the Wikipedia community, YouTube video

Throughout 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine held six standalone webinars for the Wikimedian community (not counting training sessions held during the Wikiconference).

In June, we organized three online events on the topics of freedom of panorama, open licenses, and free knowledge; they were held in partnership with two other nonprofit organizations. Their recordings on YouTube have collectively been viewed almost 400 times.

As part of our cooperation with “Detector.Media”, we also held three online events on media literacy for the Wikimedia community. Their recordings on YouTube have collectively been viewed over 470 times.

4. Scholarships for external training sessions

We are funding Wikimedians’ participation in external training events useful for the Wikimedia movement. In 2020, we received and approved one such application — 5 people attended a school on online event facilitation in June. Their experience was beneficial for organizing the online Wikiconference in December (all five grantees went on to help organize it) and other online events.

  • Hackathons / events for the development of technical skills

We did not organize a hackathon in 2020. We planned to do an offline event, but the pandemic has made it impossible. We have not found a good format for replicating it online, so we decided to focus on the Wikiconference. The conference (described below) included several lectures and training sessions aimed at the development of technical skills.

  • Event organisation, strategy facilitation: AGM and strategy session
Wikimedia Ukraine General Meeting

On February 23rd, we held our Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Kyiv. As usual, the General Meeting elected a new Board and Audit Committee, reviewed the organization’s activity, and decided on some housekeeping questions. 35 Wikimedia Ukraine’s members participated in the AGM in person, and all members could join the preparatory process online. (See a more detailed report on our AGM in English).

On February 22nd, we also organized a strategy session for Wikimedia Ukraine members and the broader community. Its aim was to discuss the implementation of Wikimedia Ukraine’s strategic direction for 2020—2022, as well as to provide our feedback to the international Movement Strategy Recommendations.

  • Event organisation: Wikiconference 2020

On December 5th—6th, Wikimedia Ukraine held its 10th (and first online) Ukrainian Wikiconference. The move to online was challenging, but we are satisfied with the result.

The conference featured 22 sessions within two tracks. 110 people registered for the event, and around 80 participants joined in real time. Around a third of them had not participated in a Wikiconference before. We were able to invite a record number of international participants and speakers; for example, we had three sessions by international speakers from the WMF.

In the post-conference survey (filled out by 60 participants), 88% of respondents said the conference was “pretty useful” or “very useful” for them, while 93% evaluated the general organization as “pretty good” or “very good”.

We streamed most sessions on YouTube, and the recordings have been made available afterwards; they’ve gained over 1000 views by early February. (Read more on the technology we used to hold the conference in the learning pattern).


External video
International Wiki Loves Earth Award Ceremony, YouTube video

Also, we organized six offline & online award ceremonies for article contests and thematic weeks — Antarctic Week, Ukrainian Diplomacy Month, “Wikipedia for School”, Wiki Loves Earth in Ukraine, international Wiki Loves Earth, and CEE Spring. They are covered by their respective projects and programs, but they were also in fact events for the community.

When the pandemic hit, we continued awarding winners remotely, without physical events. Although preparing online ceremonies is not as exhausting and time-consuming as physical ones, organizing them is rather challenging, and we are still learning to do it better. Still, we believe in the power of recognition and consider award ceremonies to be important for community development.

  • Scholarships for international events

No scholarships were distributed in 2020 because of the pandemic-induced cancellation of all international events.

Instruction for community members: Program objectives

  • 50 users participated in trainings, survey organised half a year after the event to measure impact
    Largely met. Although measuring online participation is more challenging than offline, no less than 80 people were covered by webinars for the community (including in real time only), and additional 20 people participated in offline training sessions. Due to the online nature of most training sessions, we did not hold half-a-year surveys, but we try and monitor the effectiveness of our training events based on specific surveys, anecdotal reports, and other data.
  • 50 users participated in WikiConference, survey organised half a year after the event to measure usefullness
    Met. Around 80 people participated in the Wikiconference. It’s too early to measure its long-term benefits, but in the short term the vast majority of surveyed participants deemed it useful for their wiki work.
  • 20 hackathon / technical events participants, 5 projects
    Not met. We did not organize a hackathon because of the pandemic.
  • 10 scholarships for international events
    Not met. There were no scholarships because of the pandemic.

Increasing the community's motivation and awareness

In 2020, Wikimedia Ukraine revived Wikizghushchivka, the program of providing physical gifts to most active new & experienced Wikipedia contributors each month. We expanded it to reward up to five newbies monthly (as part of the push to motivate more people to stay in Wikipedia) and to give the present to patrollers (as part of the efforts to incentivize content quality). 66 users were rewarded in 2020 (not all of them received the gift as several people refused, and we have not yet been able to reach several other people).

In terms of community awareness, we prepared monthly newsletters for the Ukrainian community. As planned, we developed new channels of their distribution. Now, we distribute it on the mailing list, on subscribers’ Wikipedia talk pages, and on social media. Facebook is probably the biggest distribution channel; on average, a typical digest edition reached 667 people on the platform.

This program also covers wikigrants — small grants for members of the community for activities useful to the Wikimedia movement. In 2020, we approved two grants (apart from those related to book purchases and thematic weeks, which are covered separately). The first one partially funded our volunteer’s participation in German language courses, which would help him develop Wikimedia partnerships with Austrian cultural institutions. The second one funded our volunteer’s travel to hold a lecture on GLAM at a local museum in Western Ukraine.

Increasing the community's motivation and awareness: Program objectives

  • 1 motivation initiative supported
    Met. We restored and supported the Wikizghushchivka initiative, having rewarded 66 Ukrainian Wikipedia contributors.
  • 12 digests shared with the community
    Met. We kept and developed the practice of monthly digests for the community.
  • 1 community survey organised
    Mostly not met. We did hold a survey for WMUA members, and we did include broader community in the planning of our activities, but we postponed a big community survey to 2021.

Awareness about Wikimedia and Free Knowledge

Media support and promotion of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects

Ukrainian Wikipedia growth dynamics. Visual for the 1 million articles milestone materials

In 2020, we paid more attention to improving our communications processes and scaled up media support for both specific WMUA projects and Wikimedia promotion in general.

  • Communication strategy development

We have not developed a full communication strategy yet, having decided to postpone it to 2021. However, we did markedly improve the organization’s communication processes (e.g. planning, finding new ways to collaborate with the press, developing our communities in social media) that would lay the foundation for the communication strategy in the future.

As we decided to postpone developing a communication strategy, we also postponed holding surveys for readers and target audiences so their timing is aligned with communication strategy finalization.

  • Media relations
External video
Interview about Wikipedia on a national radio station, YouTube video

Although we have not emphasized this as a separate point in the grant application, relations with mass media have emerged as a major activity throughout the year, and we noticeably improved the way we interact with media outlets.

For efficient media activities, we systematically update and work with our media base, which includes over 350 media outlets of different types: news agencies, general interest media, regional media, specialized media, TV channels and radio stations.

To achieve diverse and stable media attention, we make a point to interact with media outlets according to their type (geography, audience, etc.) and topics we would like to present. We pay a lot of attention to crafting announcements and press releases, trying to be comprehensive and clear, as well as to provide necessary context. We also prepare pitches for the media and work with speakers invited to comment on Wikimedia Ukraine’s events.

During the last year, our efforts resulted in over 300 media publications referring to Wikimedia Ukraine. The majority of these publications were news stories based on our press releases, but there were also other types of content (e. g. interviews, multimedia stories, podcasts). Members of Wikimedia Ukraine are regular guests of radio and TV programs, and we have established collaboration with some major media outlets. For example, one of the final publications in 2020 was a column on “Ukrainska Pravda”, one of the biggest online publications in the country; it highlighted the main events of 2020 for Wikipedia.

Among the projects which have received the widest reach and media attention were Wikimarathon and Ukrainian Wikipedia’s 16th birthday, WikiGap, celebration of 1 million articles in Ukrainian Wikipedia, Ukrainian Wiki Loves Earth, and Ukrainian Wiki Loves Monuments.

  • Working with social media and blogs
Example of an original social media visual
Video story on the people behind Ukrainian Wikipedia

Blogs and social media accounts were a significant part of our communications in 2020.

In 2020, we published 84 stories on the blog (which was also moved to the new platform); it received 77,864 views from 50,945 unique users. The number of views is 47,5% higher in comparison to 2019. The most viewed post amid those published in 2020 was an article answering frequent questions about Wikipedia.

Facebook was our central social media platform. The number of our Facebook page followers increased by 21,7% since the beginning of the year (3,545 -> 4,317).

On Facebook, we used paid promotions for most important opportunities, events, and blog posts. We experimented with targeting and received positive results we could never reach with organic promotion only. For example, many of our photo contests’ participants reported it was a Facebook ad where they found out about the competition. According to the blog statistics, Facebook is the second referrer after search engines.

We also supported Wikimedia Ukraine’s Instagram and Twitter pages, though we did not prioritize them to the same extent as the Facebook page. Their audience showed a slight growth too. Among 2020 developments, we tried to adapt content to Instagram using its aesthetic opportunities. Also, we are interested in tools for interaction with the audience it provides. For instance, we have ideas for creating quizzes, a set of facts about our work to publish as Stories. Twitter has been a useful tool to communicate with the international Wikimedia community.

In 2020, we launched and developed Wikimedia Ukraine’s YouTube channel. As of February 2021, it has 230 followers and almost 10,000 cumulative video views.

To make our info materials more effective, we put more resources in enhancing the quality of visual content and making it more diverse. One of the successful examples is an infographic showing key facts and figures about the 16th anniversary of Ukrainian Wikipedia.

Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Earth, and Wiki Science Photo Competition have separate social media channels. 2020 proved again that these channels are an important instrument to coordinate the competitions, and we put a lot of resources into growing them as well.

Wikimedia Ukraine Blog Stats


  • Events, presentations, media events

Although we had plans for organizing promotional offline events, they have not materialized because of the pandemic. Instead, we put resources into developing online materials described in the subsections above and below.

To highlight one way we used online instead of offline, we developed and promoted video story on the people behind Ukrainian Wikipedia. It was dedicated to the milestone of 1 million articles on Ukrainian Wikipedia, which had been reached in the end of March (we were already getting ready for a physical press conference but the pandemic changed our plans). The video was viewed more than 35,000 times on different platforms, with most views coming from Facebook. We also invested a lot of attention in working with media and social networks to promote this milestone in general, and the event got big reach.


Media support and promotion of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects: Program objectives

  • 1 awareness survey organised
    Not met. As we postponed finalizing communication strategy, we did not organize an awareness survey in 2020; we are hoping to do it in 2021
  • Communication strategy developed
     Partly met. We did not develop a full communication strategy, but we did markedly improve the organization’s communication processes that would lay the foundation for the communication strategy in the future.
  • 50 stories on organisation's projects and from volunteers shared on the blog and social media
    Met. Although there are different ways to measure it, in any way the number of unique stories shared on our communication channels over 2020 was over 100.
  • 5 media / promotional events organised
    Met. Although the concept of an “event” in this context shifted after the pandemic had struck, we organized numerous online activities to replace traditional events.

Working with readers and the general public to increase awareness

Our work on increasing public awareness can be divided into creating informational materials and holding awareness events for the general public.

  • Creating info materials

Because of the pandemic, we focused on creating online informational materials about Wikipedia, both by ourselves and with partners.

For WMUA blog, we prepared a big FAQ article on Wikipedia dedicated to its birthday. We also did an explainer on paid articles in Wikipedia and a list of links on how to start editing Wikipedia. Collectively, these three articles have attracted around 2,000 views.

In terms of collaborations, we partnered with:

  1. “Ukrainska Pravda”, one of the most popular online publications in Ukraine, to publish Wikipedia explainers (for example, we published an explainer on creating a Wikipedia article about yourself)
  2. “Chytomo”, Ukrainian media outlet on books and literature, to prepare a series of articles on literature and Wikipedia (1, 2)
  3. “Detector.Media”, a media watchdog, to publish an article on working with Wikipedia for journalists.
  • Holding awareness events

In this section, we are counting events for the general public that are aimed at increasing awareness about Wikipedia rather than at teaching how to edit.

In April, Wikimedia Ukraine held two online lectures on Wikipedia for Ukrainian diplomats abroad within our cooperation with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see details in our midpoint report program story). Around 130 people participated.

Within our common project with nonprofit “Detector.Media”, we held two events on Wikipedia for journalists. They attracted almost 3,000 views on Facebook.

Working with readers and the general public to increase awareness: Program objectives

  • 2 events with partners organised
    Met. We organized three awareness projects with partners, not including separate online events.
  • Yearly survey for readers organised
    Not met. We did not have capacity to organize a survey in 2020; we are hoping to do it in 2021
  • 3 information materials developed
    Met. We developed close to 10 general information materials, not including project-specific ones.
  • Participation in 3 events to promote Wikimedia projects
    Met. Our staff and volunteers participated in numerous events to promote Wikimedia projects.

Freedom of panorama

Wikimedia Ukraine's brochure, which contains information on freedom of panorama; we used it in this year's outreach efforts

Throughout 2020, we continued freedom of panorama (FoP) advocacy and focused on enhancing awareness of this topic. In brief, we’ve had some successes, but our initial plan has not been fully implemented, largely due to the pandemic that had shifted lawmakers’ priorities.

Our task was twofold: 1) to participate in drafting relevant legislation in the field of copyright law for it to include provisions legalizing FoP and 2) to increase awareness about freedom of panorama via webinars and cooperation with media. Due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic, we ended up prioritizing the latter.

  • Participation in the legislative process

On the first front, we had achieved noticeable results in the first few months of the year. As a result of close cooperation both with MPs and other officials, we managed to secure provisions on FoP in the draft law (link) published on 10th of March by the Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine. Although it can be improved, the text of the provision clearly accounts for both noncommercial and commercial freedom of panorama in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, the pandemic is slowing progress in this field. Because of the crisis, the parliament had focused on other issues and postponed a long-awaited reform of the copyright legislation. In September, the information emerged that the previously negotiated draft law was about to be heading to Parliament. However, due to political turmoil and unwillingness of the MPs to press on the issues of copyright reform, no considerable developments have been achieved so far. We are tracking developments and are ready to work with all stakeholders to help the reform pass.

  • Increasing awareness of the issue

In 2020, we continued to draw attention to the topic and raise awareness. We prepared several informational materials to be published by both our media partner, Detector.Media, and on our communication channels. For example, one of the articles focuses on the relevance of FoP for Wiki Loves Earth. In September, we publicized the analysis of the government’s draft law mentioned above. Several other materials, such as an analysis of FoP legislation in different countries, await publication.

In June, we organized three webinars on legal aspects of editing Wikipedia, one of which was specifically devoted to the absence of FoP in the context of editing Wikipedia and thus helped increase awareness of the topic. It was conducted by Maksym Naumko, IT lawyer and a representative of Creative Commons Ukraine. The webinars are covered by the program “Training sessions for specific skills”, see more in the respective section.

We are currently exploring the opportunities for more partnerships to increase awareness of the issue.

Freedom of panorama: Program objectives

  • Advocacy plan developed
    Met. We have an internal advocacy plan.
  • Supporters and opponents of FoP within the new government identified
    Met. We did it to the extent possible during this tumultuous period, having held meetings with lawmakers and other stakeholders.
  • Contacts with institutions established
    Met. We worked to establish contacts with relevant institutions throughout the year.
  • 2 materials for target audiences developed, 2 advocacy events organised
    Met. We published two materials and organised three events.

Spending[edit]

Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.

95,003.13 USD (report can be found on Wikimedia Ukraine's wiki; see also a copy in Google Sheets)
The weighted average exchange rate for the period January 1—December 31, 2020 was used

Grant Metrics Reporting[edit]

Metrics, targets and results: general grants metrics worksheet here.