Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Österreich/October 2015
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October 2015 |
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Community Support[edit]
WikiDienstag[edit]
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 October:
- October 6th: Visit of Australian, British and Swiss Wikimedians
- October 13th: European Science Photo Competition 2015
- October 20th: Impact of WLM in Germany on Austria
- October 27th: Preparation of editing session with Tyrolean church guidebooks
Individuals involved: 22 (active editors: 19 (engaging 1 active editor who has formerly not or very rarely been an active WMAT volunteer into the planning and/or executing), WMAT staff: 3). - WMAT support: infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion.
Arbitration Committee meeting[edit]
There are real-life meetings of the Arbitration Committee (Schiedsgericht) of the German-language Wikipedia twice a year. This time 7 members and 1 former member of the Committee met each other in Leipzig, Germany. Two of them were Austrians. The main topics were "bias of Wikipedia functionaries", "sockpuppet investigations by the Arbitration Committee" and "amnesties by the Arbitration Committee". The participants reported profound and sophisticated discussions and decisions - and a joyful visit of the Leipzig Wikipedia meet-up in the evening.
Individuals involved: 8 (active editors: 8). - WMAT support: travel grants for 2 participants from Austria.
Free Content Generation[edit]
Monuments Day Photo Competition[edit]
- Winning images
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1st place -
2nd place -
3rd place
For several years, the Austrian Monuments Day is not only an important outreach event in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Monuments Office (see Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Österreich/September 2015#Monuments Day for more details) but also the occasion for a special photo competition connected to the more general Wiki Loves Monuments competition. The Monuments Day Photo Competition focusses on the monuments across Austria which - on Monuments Day - open their doors for visitors or provide access to areas which are usually closed for the general public. This years' competition attracted 37 participants (26 active editors and 11 new editors).
| Monuments Day 2013 | Monuments Day 2014 | Monuments Day 2015 | All years | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total number of images | 713 | 596 | 517 | 1826 |
| Distinct images used in all projects, main namespace only (Date: 2015-11-04) | 30 | 31 | 17 | 78 |
Individuals involved: 40 (active editors: 27; new editors: 11; WMAT staff: 1; contractor: 1). - WMAT support: coordination, prizes.
- → Monuments Day 2015 in the German-language Wikipedia
- → Images on Wikimedia Commons
- → Tag des Denkmals @ wikilovesmonuments.at (in German)
open4data challenge 2016[edit]
Contests have proven to be an effective way to engage new stakeholders in open culture topics - most prominently of course photo competitions such as Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments. But also more complex topics such as open data can get more attention by such means. In Austria we already had some positive experiences in the past: In 2013 the apps4austria competition, which was designed to promote the use of data from the open government data portal (OGD), was well adopted by diverse Austrian communities (developers, designers etc.) and created many useful and interesting applications. Hence, for the new edition of the competition, which started in October 2015, it was standing to reason to include the open data portal Austria (ODP), the sister project of OGD which was founded in 2014. In order to provide special incentives for adding data to or using data from the ODP, i.e. creating applications and visualisations, we decided to fund "ODP connect" our own prize category within the contest. The prize will be rewarded with a scholarship to attend the MediaWiki Hackathon during this year’s Wikimania in Italy, which is also a good way to connect the winner with the international Wikimedia community. The open4data contest is conducted in cooperation with the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellor’s Office), the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna University of Business and Economics), and the Cooperation OGD Austria.
Individuals involved (planning): 10 (WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: coordination, hackathon scholarship as prize - Bundeskanzleramt support: overall sponsorship, organization, and coordination; marketing; development of a jury tool.
- → open4data.at challenge 2016 (in German)
Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness[edit]
MDW Wiki-Day[edit]
Over the last 1.5 years WMAT has intensified its collaboration with the University of Vienna, resulting in various collaborative courses, edit-a-thons and Wikipedia trainings with students and staff. In October we launched another cooperation with the Vienna University of Music and Performings Arts (MDW) – the starting point was a WikiDay at the university which was designed to introduce interested staff and students to the wikiverse. The concept was adopted from a similar event (Wikipedia meets University) we hosted at the university of Vienna in 2014. The aim was to explore potential fields for future collaboration and to reduce common misconceptions and stereotypes about Wikipedia and its sister projects.
What makes the MDW especially interesting for possible cooperation is not only the acess to expert knowledge as in our traditional university courses, but the possibility to generate freely licensed audio and/or video files of (especially Austrian) classical music and other music related educational content under free licenses for Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. The MDW WikiDay in many regards confirmed previous experiences with similar educational institutions: The truly interested stakeholders are staff members (in case of MDW one is even a longstanding active editor who has formerly not been an active WMAT volunteer), students usually display a very pragmatic approach, and only become interested when the relevance of Wikimedia related activities for their respective courses / university work is clear. Hence, the way forward is to find and engange professors and teachers, and develop concepts that integrates Wikimedia activities into their coursework.
Individuals involved: 40 (active editors: 4, WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: coordination - MDW support: venue, catering, promotion material (posters, flyers).
Edit-a-thon: New Media in History and History Education[edit]
In 2016, the 21 students of a course on New Media in History and History Education at the University of Vienna are going to publish a collaboratively written Wikipedia article. None of the students had experience as Wikipedia editor. In order the introduce them to Wikipedia editing a team of WMAT staff and volunteer held a three-hours edit-a-thon with a special concept described in our learning pattern Editing leads to media literacy.
The edit-a-thon resulted in the creation of the Wikipedia article Paul-Speiser-Hof (+ 8997 bytes) about a distinctive residential building erected by the city of Vienna in the 1930s.
Individuals involved: 28 (active editors: 4, WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: organization, information material, give-aways.
Edit-a-thon: War and Propaganda until WWI[edit]
The circumstances of this edit-a-thon were similar to those of the event described in the section above. This time the participants were 28 students of a course on War and Propaganda until WWI at the University of Vienna. Their task is to write one Wikipedia article each (with the help of Wikipedia tutors) in 2016. The three-hours edit-a-thon which introduced them to Wikipedia editing was based upon the concept of Editing leads to media literacy again.
The edit-a-thon resulted in the creation of the Wikipedia article Stefan Stratil (+ 7310 bytes) about the Austrian film director, graphic artist and judoka.
Individuals involved: 34 (active editors: 4, WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: organization, information material, give-aways.
Cochrane Wikipedia Symposium in Vienna[edit]
Cochrane and Wikipedia have been working in partnership since 2013 to improve the evidence base of Wikipedia articles on healthcare topics. This year the annual Cochrane Colloquium took place in Vienna, in the context of this event an international group of Wikimedians organized one day with a Wikipedia symposium with the help of local Austrian volunteers. This symposium provided an opportunity to bring together some of the most established contributors to Cochrane evidence and Wikipedia healthcare content worldwide, working in both English and German. The aim was to highlight the importance and relevance of this partnership to both organizations, establish and develop relationships between the Cochrane and Wikipedia communities, and inspire broader participation in furthering the partnership. The content included presentations, discussion, and demonstrations on a number of relevant topics, including how to cite high-quality sources such as systematic reviews within Wikipedia, translation initiatives in Germany and Austria, as well as updates on current and planned partnership initiatives.
Individuals involved: 20 (active editors: 10 (50% from Austria; engaging 1 active editor who has formerly not or very rarely been an active WMAT volunteer into the planning and/or executing), WMAT staff: 0). - WMAT support: Information material.
- → Cochrane Wikipedia Symposium 2015 on Meta
- → Cochrane Collaboration in the German-language Wikipedia
- → Report in Members Wiki (in German)
Learning Pattern[edit]
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