Wikimedia CEE Meeting

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Wikimedia CEE Meeting is an annual conference centered around the Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia and similar projects) in countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It features presentations about Wikimedia projects, other wikis, free/open source software, free knowledge and free content, and the social and technical aspects which relate to these topics.

The idea was conceived at an informal meetup that took place on 6 August 2011 at Wikimania 2011 in Haifa. Most of the attendees from the countries of the region were present, and shared their experience in the efforts to establish a more global community.

Background[edit]

Many countries of the Central and Eastern Europe are not only connected by their geographical proximity, but they also share similar cultural traditions and some historical issues.

Justification/goals[edit]

  • a lot in common:
    • shared cultural heritage from previous eras (and in many cases also from present co-operation)
    • similar legal environment (many EU members or striving to be EU members)
    • common copyright problems related to socialist/communist era (e. g. orphan images from dissolved organizations)
    • NGO sphere underdeveloped, little willingness for donations
    • many languages used only in a single country
  • easy & relatively cheap to travel between many of these countries
  • great opportunity to exchange experiences, learn best practices, create a meta community that spans country borders but has tighter connections than the global Wikimedia community
  • could be used for chapters to learn from each another & to coach new/planned chapters
  • could be used to combine national narratives into NPOV on various historical and political topics

Overview[edit]

Wikimedia CEE Meeting[edit]

Wikimedia CEE Meetings
Conference Date Place Attendance Archive of presentations
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2012 13-14 October 2012 Belgrade ~45 Documentation
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013 14-17 November 2013 Modra ~35 Slides
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014 19-21 December 2014 Kyiv ~75 Slides, Etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 10-13 September 2015 Voore ~60 Slides, Etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 27-29 August 2016 Dilijan ~70 Slides
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017 22-25 September 2017 Warsaw 104 Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018 13-15 October 2018 Lviv ~125 Slides
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019 11-13 October 2019 Belgrade ~90 Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020 2-4 October 2020 Online ~110 Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021 5-7 November 2021 Online ~130 Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022 14-16 October 2022 Ohrid 107 Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023 15-17 September 2023 Tbilisi 141 Category on Commons
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2024 October 2024 Istanbul
  • future events are denoted in italics

Other events[edit]

Map

It would be nice to have a large event where all CEE Wikimedians can meet at the same time but also have a lot of smaller events like joint wikimeetups for two neighbouring countries, or even just inviting people from neighbouring countries for local wikimeetups. (Maybe we should have a separate Meta page for more general CEE collaboration topics?)

New ideas and recent discussions[edit]

Older discussions[edit]

See also[edit]