Grants:TPS/Samat/Wikimania/2014/Report

Participant

Samat

Hungarian Wikipedia

Outcome

I have a wide interest in everything related to the Wikimedia movement, therefore I would participate in almost every presentation, meetups and discussions. Of course, it is not possible, but I did my best during Wikimania. During Hackathon I participated in several discussions about Media Viewer, the new concept of the Upload Wizard and the idea of the Structured Data project for Wikimedia Commons, and I shared my views, feedback and input with the developers. During Wikimania I attended many presentations about different legal issues. Because of my studies, I have a deep interest in projects about maps, and I participated in presentations which were related to them. Additionally I talked to some developers about their projects and I tried to share my experience and professional knowledge. As a GLAM activist in Hungary, I was very curious about the latest GLAM projects and the successes of others in this field. I attended presentations about Wikisource and Wikidata, and several other presentations about technical tools and developments. I attended few featured presentations (as they were parallel with other presentations), but I watched many of their recorded versions later.

Option 1: Shared Experience: What is one way you shared something from your experience with your community (either locally or globally), after the event?

• I wrote a detailed report about my experience during Wikimania 2014. In this report (as usual) I didn't only summarize the content of each presentation and meetups with as much links as it is reasonable, but I tried to show the background of their topic, and I tried to depict future trends according to my knowledge and understanding.
• I posted a blog post on the Hungarian Wikipedia Magazine and
• I uploaded 165 pictures were taken during Wikimania 2014.

Connections

• As the main organizer of Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Public Art photo contests in Hungary, I participated in the meetup about this topic.
• I planned to participate in the Central and Eastern European Meetup, but after the time and place were changed I was no longer able to do so. Still, I was able to talk to many of the participants before and after the meetup.
• I had a personal meeting with Beat Estermann about the OpenGLAM Benchmark Survey, and how Hungary could join to it.
• We had an informal (and non-official, since I am not a representative of the chapter now) meeting with Alex Wang about the state, strategic plan and financial situation of the Hungarian chapter.
• I had a long discussion with Luis Villa about many legal problems raised in the Hungarian community and during GLAM projects in Hungary. I really appreciated his time (at night!) and advice.
• Many others :)

Anything else

At Wikimedia events like Wikimania, I always try to fulfill more roles, which is not easy in the same time. I am a wikipedian who is interested in every piece of news about the Wikimedia projects. I am a Wikimedia chapter member (former board member) who tries to keep in touch with other chapters and organizations. I am organizer of many different projects, mainly related to GLAM or photo contests, and I would like to know others' experiences, best practices. I am an engineer in the field of civil engineering and geoinformatics, and I am interested very much about the development of the technical background and maps related projects. And I try to be familiar with the legal issues as much as possible for somebody who is not a jurist and who has no professional knowledge about the international law.

I feel it is very important to participate in Wikimania for myself, for the projects I am working on for Wikimedia, and for the community where I can share my experiences and gathered knowledge. Wikimania is a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face others who worked with you during the whole year, and for personal discussions where you can solve problems much easier than in the online communication. In a personal discussion it is easier and faster to learn from others, understand others point and view. It is much easier to be angry with a nick than with a face you can contact to it. Without Wikimania the movement would be an impersonal online group of different people, with Wikimania and other regional and local meetups, we can be good friends (also in the offline, personal life) who can rely on each other.

I learned a lot during Wikimania and I really appreciate that I could attend Wikimania with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation.