User:Ziko/Paris diary

Participants of the 1st WikiConvention

From August 19th to 21st, 2016, the French capital Paris saw the first large meeting of Wikipedians. Wikimedia Franca invited the French speaking communities to the Halle Pujol in the 18th arrondissement. Jokingly I presented me as the 'official' (and only) observer from Wikimedia Nederland. We had WMFR's Anne-Laure at our own conference in Utrecht last November, and talked with her about ideas for a conference in France. Now it was my turn to learn for WMNL. Read my Paris diary about the WikiConvention francophone 2016.

Friday

Discovering the Montmartre quartier

The streets around the Gare du Nord are much less populated in the early morning than the evening before, when I arrived. The convention started on Friday 13.00h with the registration. The first participants had already arrived, among them Lucas, a Wiktionary activist from Lyon who is also a référent, the local contact person for WMFR (maybe the first item on my list of inspirations for WMNL?). Wiktionary is a challenging project, with significant differences between the language versions, and especially with regard to small and minority languages which is also an interest of Lucas'.

Shortly after, a guided tour started to the quartier Montmartre with its Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Although Wikimedia Commons should not lack much views of this touristic area, the tour was pleasant in spite of a little rain, and accompanied with encycopedic input from our guide. At the same time, a writing afternoon took place at a nearby library.

The evening was still very informal. My impression was later confirmed by the statistics: the large majority (75 percent, or 100 people) of the participants were French, with many Wikimedians from the Paris region. Twelve people came from other European countries, mainly Germany, and another from Northern Africa (12, nearly all from Tunisia). Eight participants were from the rest of Africa, mainly Ivory Coast, and one from Canada. A fifth was female. Most of the participants stayed in the youth hostel, of which Halle Pujol is a part of.

Writing session or 'editathon'

As my French dates basically from school days, I have always indicated it as fr-1 on Wikimedia wikis. The French were so kind to say that its okay to make it fr-2. I did manage quite well but felt from time to time the need to change into English. It seemed that circa half of my fellow participants were fine with that, the others felt uncomfortable speaking English, to the benefit of my language training.

The French and I found out that from the 1960s to the 1980s there was still a significant cultural transfer between France and Germany. Since, there are hardly any French stars on cinema and TV screens in Germany, and vice versa. After Louis de Funès, Pierre Richard and Gilbert Bécaud, nowadays there is maybe the occasional Asterix movie that unites France and Germany. (Besides me, three staff members of WMDE attended the WikiConvention, and a German lady living for many years in France.)

Saturday

Anne-Laure at the cérémonie d'ouverture. She will sadly leave the French chapter at the end of August.

The second day of the convention started with the official opening ceremony. It resembled the frugality of the breakfast; some kind words were followed by technical information. No ballet, no pantomime, no jonglage. The organising team with Pierre-Iyves delivered a slate polured enough for the future, open to be more appropriated by the community and find its form. He explained later to me that it is holiday time in France, and that keynote speakers and mayors are difficult to get.

The shortness of the introduction allowed us to recover time at the sessions. The programme was spread out over five tracks/rooms. There was still some empty space in it, and a couple of sessions did not take place (e.g. the lightning talks). The programme was presented on a single paper that easily fitted in my lanyard card holder. Honestly, why our Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland has a whole booklet with programme information, as the additional, complete, info about the sessions is online anyway?

The linguistic diversity of France is not evenly represented in the Wikimedia wikis

Two Moroccan participants, Reda and Anass, presented the linguistic situation in their country. With Arabian and Berber being the official languages, French is still important in the education sector but marginalized more and more. The Wikipedians in Morocco face the dilemma that French and Arabic have the most advanced language versions, but are languages of the elites, while Wikipedia is supposed to spread knowledge to everybody. In which language you'd get most information about Morocco, I ask. That depends, they said, on the topic. For history and religion Arabic might serve better, but about the larger cities or the king you find more or less the same quantity of information in both languages.

Under the title 'Wikipédia en classe', Alexandre, Christophe and I had our panel discussion about Wikipedia and education. Alexandre is a historian and talked about his contacts with universities, while Christophe teaches young school children how to write about their own village. I combined an overview of different objectives and different stakeholders (in French), with a short report about an assignment in a German school (in English, certainly to the silent relief of the lovers of the French language). We had a vivid discussion with the audience, with some detours about the problems of education in France in general.

Among the other sessions of Saturday I enjoyed, for example, a presentation by Lionel about several projects with regard to photography. It started with Benoit's Wikipedian-residency in Versailles and introduced also the book scanner that was present at the WikiConvention.

The evening was board games evening. A larger part of the interested folks joined a pair of games enthusiasts who brought a plethora of games with them. A smaller part were the guests of Prismatik. This French company has produced a game that helps you to analyze games and make your own. Needless to say: more than one Wikipedian dreamt about creating a game about Wikipedia.

Sunday

Hobbit books, railway fans, board games, of course screens screens screens, and me linguistically challenged in between. The weekend became my quiet days in cliché.

After a Visual Editor session, in which Benoit presented this still rather new editing tool and some new features, I went to a well attended meeting about the future of the WikiConvention. Topics where the location (Paris or elsewhere), a system of coach surfing for the less affluent, the length (possibly a week?), more contact with Academia and GLAM, more photo tours, more travel grants.

The rest of the day consisted mostly of workshops, for example the translation meeting led by GastelEtzwane with the Paralympics as the topic, ironically categorized as 'paid editing' because you were rewarded with Swiss chocolade coins. Enormous was the Wikidata session, guided by Armanda, who appeared to me as the spiritual leader of this wiki in France. The 1st WikiConvention ended in the late afternoon with a closing ceremony, this time not in the theatre hall. The contributors to the convention were thanked, and Pierre-Yves received a warm applause.

On my travel home, the security control at the train station (!) reminded me of the times we live in now. My stay was perfectly peaceful, inside and outside the convention venue. I did observe whether metropolitans and Africans mixed at the breakfast tables, and I must admit that I may not have picked up tensions playing in the Francophone community. It was my impression that the French speaking wiki activists came without knowing what to expect, and spontaneously created a relaxed and productive atmosphere.