WMAT applied for the 2016 hackathon in order to expand its tech community in Austria. The idea of hosting this event already created a momentum in the Austrian community and for the first time we were able to send three instead of one volunteer to the hackathon. Apart from hacking (e.g. SurfaceImageContentGap, tool for the Austrian Monuments list), they also focused on learning from the organizers on how to plan and execute such an event. Unfortunately, WMAT was not chosen to host the next hackathon. However, we provided all our documentation and learnings for the Isreali chapter who won the bidding process and who were not able to participate this year themselves. The timing would have been perfect for WMAT, concerning the organizational and strategic circumstances and at this point in time we are not sure whether we will be able to apply again next year and we hope that despite this setback the momentum will not be lost completely. Most importantly, we hope that the criteria for the decision making on the location for the hackthon will be more transparent next time. This year we had the impression that a lot of the criteria where made up on spot without proper communication beforehand. Would we have known for example, that the location of the respective Wikimania in the same year has an (quite considerable) impact on the decision, we would probably not have applied in first place, as the time that needs to be invested in such an application is considerable for a lean chapter like ours.
Individuals involved: 4 (active editors: 3 (retaining 1 active editor who became a new active WMAT volunteers in 2014 into the planning and/or executing), WMAT staff: 1). – WMAT support: travel grants (for 2 volunteers), travel costs (for 1 staff member).
The WikiDienstag (“WikiTuesday“) is a weekly meet-up in the WMAT office. Volunteers share their knowledge and work together on improving the content of Wikimedia projects.
Topics in May:
May 7th: Community consultation on WMAT's emerging mission statement.
May 12th: Technical improvement of WMAT's members wiki.
May 20th: Wiki Loves Earth prejury's preparatory meeting.
May 26th: Open editing.
Individuals involved: 24 (active editors: 22 (engaging 1 active editor who has formerly not or very rarely been an active WMAT volunteer into the planning and/or executing), WMAT staff: 2). - WMAT support: infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion.
Thanks to Conchita the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 took place to Austria this year. Organizing accreditations and lending equipment for Wikimedia Commons photographers is a standard procedere for WMAT. Nevertheless the ESC 2015 was an exceptional event in terms of outcome. One photographer was accredited for the main shows, another one specialised in the extensive ESC 2015 fringe program in Vienna. Getting high quality images of all relevant people and events was an exhausting experience for the volunteers. Their efforts combined with the worldwide interest in the Eurovision Song Contest resulted in extraordinary figures: nearly 500 distinct images of ESC 2015 supported by WMAT are used in the main namespace of 59 Wikipedia language versions.
Image usage in Wikimedia projects (date: 2015-06-08)
Wikiměsto Hustopeče ("Wiki-town Hustopeče") took place in the Czech town of Hustopeče near the Austrian border from May 8th to 10th. With the help of local organizations, 11 Czech und 3 Austrian Wikimedians met for the weekend in order to improve Czech and German-language Wikipedia articles and to make pictures for Wikimedia Commons, all about Hustopeče. The event as a whole was supported by WMCZ. WMAT offered travel grants for the Austrian volunteers.
The territories of the Czech Republic belonged to the Austrian Empire from 1516 to 1918. At the latest after the First World War, the Czech and the Austrians alienated from each other. The Iron Curtain made it even more difficult to stay in contact - culturally and from person to person. Nevertheless many centuries of a shared history and an often very similar cultural heritage make it rewarding to strive for free knowledge together: in two different Wikipedia language versions.
Results in Wikimedia projects
Namespace(s)
Bytes moved (absolute)
Bytes added (positive)
Bytes removed (negative)
Pages created
0,1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
292220
283234
8986
64
0
190672
186197
4475
27
Images from Wikiměsto Hustopeče
Rajhrad monastery
Práče church
Kočičí skála
Oleksovice church and cemetery
Wine press
Mackovice chapel
Image usage in Wikimedia projects (date: 2015-06-16)
The Writing Competition ("Schreibwettbewerb") is a traditional contest for high-end articles in the German-language Wikipedia. WMAT supported the 22nd edition by donating a trip to the Wikimania 2016 as a prize. 40 editors participated in the 22nd Writing Competition. 39 articles were nominated, 18 of them were new and 21 improved articles.
After the competition, many of these were nominated as featured or good articles. Here is a list of articles which were recognised as featured or good articles (until 2015-06-30):
The "Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb" is a contest for removing cleanup templates in the German-language Wikipedia. It is held four times a year. WMAT supports the contest by donating 11 prizes: "Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb" shirts designed especially for the competition. The Spring 2015 edition made it clear that the contest has become a stable institution in the German-language Wikipedia. 3846 improved articles set a new record. The number of 26 participants was average compared to the four last editions.
"Jubilee" didn't refer to the edit-a-thon itself (it was the 5th in Austria by the way) but to several celebrations in Vienna this year: 150 years of Vienna Ring Road, 150 years of trams in Vienna, 650 years of University of Vienna and 200 years of Vienna University of Technology. The basic idea came from a volunteer editor: to attract active editors of the Austrian community to improve articles and other Wikimedia content dealing especially with the institutions mentioned before. The edit-a-thon was scheduled for Whit Sunday and took place at the Museumsquartier, a large cultural area in the city center of Vienna where WMAT (as a member organization) can use premises for events for free. The edit-a-thon wasn't as attractive for the experienced Wikimedians as we hoped. From our experiences with similar events we expected at least ten active editors to participate and it turned out to be only three. Some community members told us that the were too many Wikimedia events within a short span of time and that they had to choose between different options. The three cheerful participants decided to make a true editing marathon out of it - which finally lasted for 14 hours without a single break. The results in Wikimedia projects they were able to achieve would have been impressive even for an edit-a-thon with ten participants.
Results in Wikimedia projects
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Edits
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0,1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
109590
108818
772
140
33
0
95116
94371
745
116
28
Individuals involved: 4 (active editors: 3 including 1 WMAT board member, WMAT staff: 1). – WMAT support: co-organization, books from WMAT library, snacks and drinks. – In-kind donations: usage of the Museumsquartier premises and infrastructure for free.
This edit-a-thon at the Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies (TFM) of the University of Vienna was a follow-up event to the 1st TFM Edit-a-thon in April 2014. The University hosted the event and offered exclusive access to the TFM institute's library. Its main target group were students and university staff with no or limited editing experience. Despite a rather extensive promotion by the university, the number of participants was smaller than at the 1st TFM Edit-a-thon (15 in 2014, 6 in 2015). All of them attended both TFM edit-a-thons and were not absolute beginners, so WMAT volunteers and staff assisted them by giving hints for advanced Wikipedia editing.
Results in Wikimedia projects
Namespace(s)
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Edits
Pages created
0,1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15
19253
18909
344
56
8
0
18743
18573
170
48
4
Individuals involved: 6 (active editors: 6 (engaging 2 active editors who have formerly not or very rarely been active WMAT volunteers into the planning and/or executing), WMAT staff: 1). – WMAT support: information material, give-aways, presentation/workshop.
During the last year, after the Wikipedia meets University event, WMAT intensified its cooperation with the University of Vienna which resulted in various projects and events. In order to foster exchange among the various people and institutions involved and to share learnings and good practices for existing and new partners we decided to organize a regular meeting (once per semester) for all the stakeholders. The first meeting was held in May and the feedback of the participants (concerning usefulness) was quite positive. To keep up the communication between meetings and to improve planning and coordination a mailing list will be created.
The participants included:
3 Wikimedians (2 WMAT staff)
3 representatives of the Vienna University Library
3 lecturers of
the Department of Art History, Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies
the Department of Communication, Faculty of Social Sciences
the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies
3 operators of the students' platform for course materials based on MediaWiki
Individuals involved: 12 (active editors: 1, WMAT staff: 2, University of Vienna representatives: 9). – WMAT support: organization.
Movement sustainablitiy is one of WMAT's main priorities and we consider the Wikimedia Conference as one of the most important platforms to promote this topic. Hence, we wanted to contribute to making this a successful and useful event by allocating staff time to its preparation and by sharing our experiences and know-how. Claudia Garàd, WMAT's Executive Director, was a member of the program committee and WMAT staff and volunteers hosted or co-hosted three sessions on the topics of volunteer support, quality management and chapter effectiveness. We are also working closely together with the Program Coordinator Cornelius from the hosting chapter WMDE in order to document the results for the wider movement and to support the follow up on the various topics in the coming months.
Eurovision Village
Måns Zelmerlöw
Maria Olafs
Edurne
Nina Sublatti
Mélanie René
Ann Sophie
.JPG)
Rajhrad monastery
Práče church
Kočičí skála
Oleksovice church and cemetery
Wine press
Mackovice chapel
