North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group/Annual reports/2021
In 2021 the user group of Wiki-Historians increased by one person and reached the number of 28 Wikimedians. Such a small increase is explained primarily by the fact that the user group has gone from the growth strategy to the development. In previous years part of our resources was spent on attracting new participants, but now, when the number of active Wikimedians (that is users who make regular edits and downloads on our topic, and as well participate in offline events) in the group reached 22, we were able to focus on the development of Wikimedia activities and now hope that it would serve as advertising and would attract newcomers.
Offline activity
.jpg)
In 2021, the intensity of our offline activity rose. The main reason was the change in the expected format of sightseeing phototours and other events. Previously we considered the real events of the user group only those ones that were attended by at least three people, and the rest were recorded as personal activities. In 2021 we decided to consider photowalks and sightseeing phototours with two members of the user group also "collective events". The solution was due to two reasons: first, the COVID-19 pandemic did not subside and impose adjustments to our activities, and secondly, we realized that two Wikimedians with various experience and interests give the maximum efficiency relative to the content produced in terms of man. With more participants, plots and angles of photographs, for example, can be repeated from different authors; in addition, with mass sightseeing phototours, the attention of participants may be scattered.
In addition to that, according to this decision we managed to rise the activity of our division in Petrosavodsk. For some personal and business reasons they often make trips around Karelia Republic in 2 persons. Now, they also make plenty of content in Wikimedia projects about remote places of Karelia based on the results of these trips.
At the same time, we do not refuse collective events, and try to make mass trips and photowalks as often as circumstances allow. The most large-scale trips were committed to the Gatchinsky district of the Leningrad region in March 2021 (9 participants) and to the Pitkyarantsky district of the Republic of Karelia in September 2021 (11 participants). During both trips, numerous cultural heritage sites were examined and photographed; it's important to say that before that, there were no descriptions & photos of many of these sites in Wikimedia projects. A qualitative breakthrough in the activities of the user group happened in July 2021 when we had a journey to the Pskov region: we never previously visited this region as a user group because of its comparative remoteness. As a result of this journey, we fully examined and photographed all existing cultural heritage sites in the city of Gdov and a number of sites in the Gdovsky district. As well we wrote the article about Gdov in Russian Wikivoyage, which received the status of "Full One" (status similar to the status of "Good Article" in Wikipedias) in November 2021.
So in 2021 we had 24 offline events (photowalks and sightseeing tours) in 5 out of 6 regions of our activity. In 2021 only the Vologda region turned out to be not covered by our organized actibities, although the participants of the user group did some individual trips there. As a result of organized events, 3 825 photos and video were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The number of files uploaded as a result of the personal activity of the participants can be estimated at about 2-3 thousands. Part of the photos was uploaded within various photo contests. Also, we edited a lot of cultural heritage sites lists and articles in Russian Wikivoyage and wrote a number of Wikipedia articles.
Speaking of personal meetings and gatherings, we reduced them nearly to extinction. That happened mostly because of fast-changing epidemical situation, so it was much more easier to organize online meetings. Anyway, where were only 4 offline meetups in 2021 and 3 of them were connected to some memorable dates such as UG birthday.
Wikimedia activity
In 2021 our user group online activity developed on 3 main directions of content generation: Wikipedia, Wikivoyage and Wikimedia Commons.
Most of our activity was in Wikimedia Commons: during 2021 our members uploaded 14 284 files (12 929 photos, 11 997 of those were made by themselves), notable part of files was uploaded during "Wiki Loves Monuments", "Wiki Loves Earth" and "Wiki Loves Folklore" competitions. Also user group members continued making videos: we uploaded 90 own video files. Also we've done huge work on categorizing files, because we discovered that many regular Commons categories such as "Buildings in some city" didn't exist yet in the most categories of populated places in our regions. Sometimes files are not categorized properly even if proper categories exist; this often happens with a bot uploads from Flickr or Panoramio, those files are categorized only with region or country categories. We can't measure the exact number of properly categorized files, and we evaluate this as more than 500 new categories and more than 5000 properly categorized files.
Also we worked hard in Russian Wikivoyage: in 2021, the user group members supplemented (most often fully rewrote) and held the quality assessment with the assignment of the status for the 4 articles, approximately 15 got small and medium-sized edits in order to actualize the existing information and add the new one. The activities of the addition, improving, actualization and correction of special sections of Wikivoyage — lists of Cultural Heritage Sites and Natural Monuments of Russia. We made more than 10 000 edits in these lists. Corrections and additions were made mainly in the lists of sites in our coverage area, but the participants of the user group did not neglect the volunteer activities, helping the other participants of the Russian Wikivoyage to work on the lists of other Russian regions (such as Komi, Tatarstan, North Ossetia, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Kursk, Rostov, Saratov, Yaroslavl regions, Moscow, etc.).
Wikipedia activities were mainly in Russian: in 2021, more than 50 new articles were written in Russian Wikipedia, the same amount was significantly updated. The articles were mostly written as the personal initiative of the user group members but some of them were written as a part of various contests (for example, 3 articles were written for the "Road of Life" competition). One article written in 2019 and translated into English in 2020, received the status of "Good Article" in English Wikipedia.
Also, the participants of the user group regularly complement articles in Wikipedia in different languages with illustrations - both on their own ways and for the "Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos" contest. At the same time, the volunteer activities of our members in illustrating, editing and improving Wikipedia articles are not limited to the regions of our coverage area and includes many articles, related to history, culture and local history in all regions of Russia. In addition, we constantly working on providing articles about cultural heritage sites of Russia with the corresponding templates and the binding of these articles to the appropriate lists in Wikivoyage both through direct references and through Wikidata.
Organization and representation
.jpg)
During 2021 our user group expanded its representation. In Wikimedia Movement in Russia our representation hasn't changed since 2020 and was mostly expressed in our participation in different events of Wikimedia Russia, such as annual Wiki-conferences or Wiki-excursions. We've made three reports on Wiki-conference 2021 (one of those, made by UG coordinator Nikolay Bulykin, was about our UG activity), also we've actively participated in different discussions. UG coordinator Yekaterina Borisova received Wiki-award as a result of 2020 personal activity (her nomination was "leaders of edit count in Wikimedia projects in Russian", Russian Wikivoyage, 25847 edits); that's her third Wiki-award for such activity.
Members of the user-group actively participated in photo contests "Wiki Loves Folklore", "Wiki Loves Earth" and "Wiki Loves Monuments" For Russian part of WLM 2021 the user group, as in 2020, organized the special nomination – this time it was industrial architecture: we wanted to pay attention to the abundant industrial architectural heritage of the North-West Russia, which is often lacks attention of photographers and also intentionally or accidentally collapse, as, for example, it happened to the building of the Neva Manufactory, the fire of which one of the participants of the user group was able to picture using drone. Besides Russian part of WLM 2021 was the good experience for us as the user group members showed excellent results in long list (90 shots, 10.06% of the total number of photos in the long list) and in short lists of various nominations. In total we have uploaded 4681 photos to WLM (1009 of them were made outside of our regions), which is approximately 21.5% of the total number of downloads to the Russian part of the WLM. Also we uploaded 928 photos to "Wiki Loves Earth" contest (288 of them were made outside of our regions), which is approximately 14.9% of the total number of uploads to the Russian part of the WLE.
Also in 2021, the founders of the user group first decided to participate in "Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos" contest. It was an experiment and it ended up by 348 articles illustrated which is not so bad.
User group also tried to establish contacts with different individuals and organizations out of Wikimedia Movement, who, in our opinion, can support us in our mission on promoting free knowledge. Most of this tries were unsuccessful. Mostly that was because of low interest in distribution of their knowledges, they were afraid that our mutual activity will affect their "property" on some specific knowledges. Anyway, we succeed in one case: Stained Glass Windows of Russia movement agreed to move their photographic collection under free license and to upload it in Commons. At the end of 2021 we were working hard to make this possible.
Financial activity
In 2021, as before, our user group haven't any financial activity and payed all expenses from members personal funds. As exсeption, at the end of 2021 we've bought DJI Mavic 3 using Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grant. First photos we've made using this drone are illustrating Wikipedia articles already.