North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group/Annual reports/2023

Two new members, who had previously participated in our events and edited articles on our topics but weren't a members, formally joined our user group in 2023. Overall, in our fourth year, we can say for sure that we've completed our growth, although we'll still be happy to have more new members. It should also be noted that in 2023 we lost several members who left the group for various reasons related to the current political situation in Russia. So, our user group is still consist of 35 members, as it was a year ago.

Due to the difficult situation in Russia, some of the local wiki-historians still remain outside of our country, so the offline activity in the regions of our coverage - in exception of Saint Petersburg - has decreased remarkably. On the other hand, our online activity in Wikimedia projects has increased several times, and our branch in Kazakhstan continues to develop the Wikimedia Movement in Central Asian countries.

Offline activity

Offline activity in 2023 has declined sharply, continuing the trend that began in 2022. Due to the political situation in Russia, more and more editors, if aren't refusing to participate in the creation and editing of content in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, at least stopped attending the group meetings and photo walks, which, as a result, are organized much less than before. The financial situation of many participants has also deteriorated, affecting the ability to organize long-distance trips that require certain expenses.

However, in 2023 the user group held 14 of offline events, 13 of which were focused on photographing various objects and only one was a meeting not aimed at creating content. Most of these events took place in Saint Petersburg and its surroundings, but we also managed to get to Petrovodsk and Volosovsky District of Leningrad Oblast. In addition, some participants visited different locations in Pskov, Novgorod and Leningrad Oblasts with local history studies. There was also one meeting in Moscow, where live some participants of our user group.

Wikimedia activity

In 2023 participants of our user group wrote 344 articles in Russian and English Wikipedias; and 39 were improved. Big help here was the edit-a-thon that we organized inside the UG from February 6 to March 31. It had two topics: Art Nouveau architecture and small architectural forms. During this edit-a-thon 50 new aticles were created and 5 were improved. Also, 8 articles were saved from the deletion by the actions of our User Group.

Illustrating articles also occupies an important place in our activities. Last year total number of illustrated articles in different Wikipedias was 3000, including 2359 illustrated during #WPWP competition. One of our participants found herself in the Top-10 of #WPWP activists and got a prize. And, of course, photographing and uploading our own photos to Commons goes in parallel with illustrating activity. The exact quantity of our uploaded photographs is uncountable, but we estimate that in 2023 UG members have uploaded around 8000 photographs. Most of those were uploaded during «Wiki Loves Folklore» (125) and «Wiki Loves Monuments» (5108) competitions.

The focus on online activities in 2023 has resulted in the rapid development of two intragroup projects. One of them — «Building instead of Institutions» — dedicates to writing articles about architectural monuments, where hospitals, schools, museums, theaters and other institutions are located — was conceived in 2020, but almost never developed, but was born a second time in 2023; many of articles mentioned above were written within this project. The second project — «Poorly Illustrated Objects» — was born in 2023; it is dedicated to photographing not only architectural monuments, but also infrastructure objects (bridges, streets, roadways, metro stations, etc.). In the framework of this project, more than 200 streets of Saint Petersburg were photographed in the spring-autumn season, articles about which had not previously been illustrated at all, as well as many other places and objects; in addition, the existing illustrative series of many articles was significantly improved. Often, user group activity covered both projects simultaneously: some participants wrote new articles, while others took necessary pictures to illustrate these articles. Both projects have attracted great interest from the participants, so we're planning to develop them further.

To promote encyclopedic information about our regions and to attract potential editors to topics related to these regions, our user group members regularly focused on nominating their articles to the "Do You Know That...?" Wikipedia project. As a result, in 2023 there were 25 our articles in this project.

It is also worth noting that last year we have strengthened the tradition of giving to our members articles created in Wikipedia or photos uploaded to Commons on topics of their local history interests as a birthday gifts.

As usual we improve not only the quantity but also the quality of our content. In 2023 17 of our atricles became the Recommended ones and 3 ones got the Good article status. One article (Moscow thriumphal gates) got the Featured article status and became the Article of the Year in Russian Wikipedia in «Architecture and Construction» section. Also we tried our hand to apply our photos to the Quality Image project. As a result more than 100 of our pictures got QI status and 6 pictures got Featured Image status.

Also we continued our work of improving the categorization of files in Commons and articles on Wikipedia, as well as positioning of coordinates and editing the cultural heritage lists.

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  Myllylampi Lake near Orusjärvi village in the Republic of Karelia, the Featured Image
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  Kazan Cathedral colonnade, the Quality Image
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  Benchmark with a bullet mark at the Znamenka Estate chapel, the Quality Image
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  Nikolayevsky dry dock of Kronstadt Marine Plant, the Featured Image
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  Tarkovichi railway station, the Quality Image

Organization and representation

Our user group traditionally participates in many global contests, such as «Wiki Loves Folklore», «Wiki Loves Earth» and «Wiki Loves Monuments». Russian round of WLE 2023 wasn't organized, but some members of our UG took part in the local rounds in other countries (Czech Respublic, Kazakhstan, etc.) Also our User Group members participated actively in WLM (uploading photos from Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Uzbekistan) and organized our special nomination in the 4th time. This year we offered participants of Russian round to take pictures of estates and mansions of the North-West.

Also our members were present at CEE Meeting in Tbilisi (Georgia) in September, where they informed attendees about our activities by poster and postcards made by our user group. As one of the results of it we became friends with a representative of Wikimedia communities of Tajikistan and Iran, who payed us a visit while after and took part in some of our activities in Saint Petersburg. After that, one of our members visited Wikimedia conference in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) to help local Wikimedia community to develop.

Individually, members of the user group also participated in various international online events that were not directly in our area of interest, but helped them to improve their Wiki skills (including in foreign languages) and establish working connections. For example it were Photo challenge, WikiForHumanRights, Editatón Mujeres en las ciencias, 16 días de activismo 2023, Mikrosoutěž mosty 2023, Czech Wiki Photo 2023 and Asian Month.

In addition, the local stage of the photo competition Wiki Loves Earth 2023 in Kazakhstan was again successfully held in 2023 with the active help of our user group members located in Kazakhstan. The WLE and WLM competitions were held with the help of user group participants in 2023 in Uzbekistan, and the Uzbek photo was among the winners of the international stage of WLE. Also, in September UG participants located in Moscow and Saint Petersburg read two reports via Zoom at the conference held in Astana (Kazakhstan).

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  Nikolai Bulykin at the 1st Kazakh Wikimedia conference in Astana
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  Anastasiya Lvova at the CEE Meeting in Tbilisi
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  Yelena Zdanovich at the meetup with the local Wikimedians in Almaty
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  Nikolai Bulykin participates in a brainstorming with Uzbek Wikimedians in Tashkent
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  Anastasia Lvova at the 1st Tajik Wikimedia conference in Dushanbe

Financial activity

Due to the political situation, since February 2022 our user group can not receive grants from the Wikimedia Foundation and other foreign organizations, and any donors in Russia are not rushing to finance projects related to «hostile» non-profit organizations. As a result, all expenses during the events organized by our user group were once again, as in its early years, held by its participants. The user group has not and does not conduct official financial activities.