Read about our amazing celebrated Wikimedians and get inspired by their work. And if you want, you can check their individual pages and congratulate them and share some wikilove!
Finding joy in what she contributes to Wikimedia and how she accomplishes that is fundamental for Penny Richards (userpage). Penny loves that she can make connections with folks around the world and join efforts with a large global project like Wikipedia all the while from home and in her pajamas.
It’s a chance to use my research and writing skills every day. I don’t have an academic job and I don’t have space in my life for a big independent research project right now, but a daily biography is manageable and satisfying. [...] My usual project on Wikipedia is WikiProject Women in Red; that’s where I put most of my energy and find most of my community.
Meenakshi first noticed Malayalam Wikipedia when she and her daughter were browsing the internet to learn about medicinal plants. Malayalam is spoken by 34 million people in India and millions more in diaspora. Meenakshi found that Malayalam Wikipedia had a wealth of information as well as knowledge gaps. This prompted her to start editing.
Her first edit was on 4th November 2017 and she eventually became a dedicated admin and contributor. Meenakshi is proud to have written 8,796 articles in Malayalam and 25 in English, and has some edits on Wikisource and Wikidata. The first article she worked on, Paramaribo (in original Malayalam), became featured on Malayalam Wikipedia. She read more, edited more, and participated in different contests, like the Wikipedia Asian Month and took on multiple 100 wikidays challenges. Feeling lonely at home, Meenakshi would sometimes be on Wikipedia from morning to evening, at one point writing 25 articles in a day. Two other of her most favourite featured articles on Malayalam Wikipedia are the oscar fish (original Malayalam) and the Arunachalesvara Temple (original Malyalam).
Sara Horvat might be a newcomer, but this student is already proving the importance of education work in Wikimedia. She is a Wikimedian from the CEE Community, editing Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata, with the main focus on education projects. This month we celebrate her work and her dedication to education projects in our movement.
The idea of knowledge equity is important to Sara: Wikimedia projects unite people and can erase all class divisions between them. Once only the aristocracy could get high-quality education. Now, it is more and more available to everybody. I want to help make authentic knowledge as accessible as possible to every single person. This important mission keeps her motivated and present. Asked about the advice she would give to every Wikipedian, she says: Be persistent and patient. Remind yourself why you started in the first place. Remember that it’s about something way bigger than yourself alone.
Wikipedia is truly inseparable from Johnny Au’s life. This English Wikipedia editor has been editing each day since November 11, 2007, which makes him the Wikimedian with the longest editing streak. This month we celebrate his amazing work and his longtime and continuous dedication to free knowledge.
Johnny Au started contributing to Wikipedia in 2006, and at some point editing became a part of his everyday life. I have a habit of editing every day. I edit when I wake up and I edit before heading to bed to ensure that I maintain my editing streak, he says.
Each day Johnny checks his extensive watchlist, which includes articles related to his beloved hometown Toronto. From local sports teams and art galleries, to Toronto transit system - Johnny is passionate about all things Toronto-related, and carefully watches over Wikipedia articles about it. Including his favorite one: the article about Toronto subway public art (because he really enjoys looking at the subway system’s artworks).
This is probably a situation familiar to many of us: while reading Wikipedia, we stumble upon an unexpected red link, indicating that there is an article missing. The majority of us just keep reading on, but some just can’t resist filling that knowledge gap. This is how the Wikipedia adventure started for Vera, also known as Pinky sl, a Slovenian Wikipedia editor, tech contributor, administrator and our Celebrated Wikimedian for September. She was reading Slovenian Wikipedia and noticed a red link, where a link for an article about a Hygrometer. So she decided to write that missing Wikipedia entry. And that decision made her a Wikimedian. 17 years later she is a dedicated contributor with more than 100 000 edits, a template and module creator, and an active community member for the Central and Eastern European region.
Alice, a librarian in Goethe-Zentrum Kampala, began her Wikimedia journey in 2017. She claims to still be learning something new everyday and she knows for certain that she would not get tired of it. Contributing to Wikimedia has changed how she sees the world and exchanges with others. Alice shared that "This may sound selfish, but I initially got on this platform to contribute to topics that were undocumented but of interest to me – this has not changed".
Readers around the world are familiar with the mainspace side of Wikimedia projects: the verified article pages, the proofread books, the treasure trove of open source media, and countless dictionary definitions, to name a few. There is also a lot happening in the background. Without the work of people resolving conflicts in talk pages, creating bots and giving creative solutions to conflicts the work around content would be much more difficult. Today we are celebrating usuário:Albertoleoncio, a Wikimedian who likes to work on the backstage of the Portuguese Wikimedia projects: watching and performing oversight content, working as an interface administrator and being a volunteer for VRT.
Salicyna knows the struggle of lacking access to knowledge all too well. Growing up in rural Poland, she was a passionate reader with no access to well-stocked libraries and cultural institutions. This was still in the pre-Internet times, and her family, struggling financially, couldn't provide the resources she yearned for. "I remember this unsatisfied hunger for knowledge as stronger and more severe than the physical hunger," she reflects. “Sadly”, she says “millions still face this very knowledge hunger today, restricted by geographical location, poverty, disabilities, or illness”. Salicyna sees Wikimedia projects, with their free access to knowledge and culture, as a powerful tool to help alleviate this yearning, at least partially.
February 2024
Next celebrated Wikimedian
This place waits for another Wikimedian of exceptional contribution!
March 2023
