Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/CEE Spring comes to Wikipedia

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Title ideas[edit]

  • CEE Spring comes to Wikipedia
  • Spring comes to Wikipedia in a contest of Central and Eastern European countries
  • ...

Summary[edit]

  • A wide international project named CEE Spring starts in Wikipedia on March 21. It is all about writing articles about countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

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Logo of the CEE Spring contest. Image by Aktron, freely licensed under CC BY 3.0.
A girl in a red polka-dot dress. Painting by Stanisław Wyspiański, National Museum in Warsaw, public domain.

A wide international project named CEE Spring starts in Wikipedia on March 21. It is all about writing articles about countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In contemporary times the CEE region has experienced several unfortunate Springs that have resulted in misunderstandings, conflicts and disappointment (exempli gratia the replacement of Dubček in April of 1969 to reverse the Prague Spring, escalating conflicts in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the Spring of 1988, intensification of Transnistrian conflict in March of 1992, the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo in April of 1992 and most recently the Spring of 2014, which marks the beginning of the War in Donbass).

These historical events made "European spring" be a sad expression. Wikimedia CEE Spring 2016 is to turn it into a positive one! The project aims at joining locals to share free knowledge about history, culture and people in every corner of the region thus supporting mutual understanding. This also means increasing the quantity and quality of free knowledge available about the CEE region globally, and that is great!

The event itself will take place from March 21 to May 31. During this time period there will be an individual article competition on 21 related Wikipedias concentrating on creating and significantly editing articles on topics of culture, nature & geography, economics, society, sports, politics, transport, history, science and education, meaning notable phenomena, events and people of each and every participating country from the region.

Last years edition of the contest, CEE Spring 2015, was very successful and inspiring, with thousands of articles created across the Wikipedia, like Demographics of Armenia or Slovak cuisine, Solomiya Krushelnytska or Mihailo Lalić and many others.

Join us! Find your language Wikipedia in the list of participants and follow to the local page — or just write on any CEE topic! Let Wikipedia bloom with our articles

Vira Motorko, Ukrainian Wikipedia editor

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