Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Belgium/Activity/2015

This is the annual activity report of Wikimedia Belgium over the year 2015.

On 8 October 2014 Wikimedia Belgium was officially founded, and on 19 November 2014 we organised our founding meeting. 2015 is our first year in what we existed as chapter, and we focussed this year on setting up our chapter.

Wiki Loves Art

Logo Wiki Loves Art

Wiki Loves Art is a photography contest in what we ask the public to take photos in participating museums and upload them on Wikimedia Commons for use in Wikipedia. In this way we try to reduce the limited availability of Belgian art in Wikipedia, and to get acquainted with museums and other cultural heritage institutions in Belgium.

For Wiki Loves Art, 2015 is the year of the preparations. The preparations included connecting with our partners, creation of a website for cultural institutions that are interested to join, creation and printing of two brochures - each in three languages, creation and printing of cheatsheets for use in editing workshops, deposit the publications in the Royal Library of Belgium (as required by law), and the first steps to reach out the cultural institutions.

In this preparation year we had four preparational meetings.

Project Days

Wikimedia Belgium wants to work on a better Free Knowledge and wants to support all efforts in this regard. Wikimedia Belgium cannot do this on their own and needs the help of people and organisations to do projects. To assist in plans and projects a Project Day was organised on 4 February 2015. There members and guests had the opportunity to meet and to talk about possible projects.

Workshops & presentations

Members of Wikimedia Belgium give/organise during the year various workshops, edit-a-thons and presentations about Wikipedia, (uploading photos to) Wikimedia Commons, editing and using Wikidata, and more. As well as how to edit Wikipedia and write an article.

14 January - Wikipedia Workshop with the staff of Mundaneum and Mons2015 at Mons
19 January - Training about Wikipedia for European Commission in Brussels
20 February - Workshop on the Roadmap in Leuven
25 February - Presentation concerning the role of CC licenses during the Europeana Fashion, International Conference, Workshop 'Handling Intellectual Property in Fashion Images', Antwerp
28 February - Wikimedia Presentation in Louvain-la-Neuve University
7-8 March - Art + Feminism Brussels Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
11 April - Wikipedia Workshop in Mons2015
21 April - Wikimedia Presentation in the Bibliothèque Communale d'Ixelles during La Semaine du Numérique
24 April - Talk about free licenses and the challenges
24 April - Workshop Wikipedia in the Chiroux library in Liège
27 October - Le Livre sur le Livre, presentation about Wikisource in Mons
28 October - Presentation of project Flemish art collections, Wikidata and Linked Open Data in Brussels
28 October - Workshop: How to write articles for Wikipedia? for Vorming+ in Brugge
20 November - Edit-a-thon in Library Lab UGent with WeChangEd

Besides these workshops, various other meetings with educational organisations and cultural institutions took place in 2015.

Conferences

FOSDEM

On 31 January and 1 February the annual conference FOSDEM took place at the ULB in Brussels. Wikimedia Belgium had a stand at the conference about Wikimedia, MediaWiki and Wikidata, supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Deutschland.

Open Belgium

Open Belgium is an annual conference about open knowledge, open data and more in Belgium. This year's edition was organised in Namur. At the conference we gave a presentation about Liquid Lobbying (project page).

Wikimedia Conference

The Wikimedia Conference (WMCON) is an annual meeting of representatives of Wikimedia Chapters and Affiliates, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and other movement groups. The conference is used to exchange experiences, share best practices, and learn about tools and projects. This year the conference was organised in Berlin from 13 to 17 May. From the board of Wikimedia Belgium three participants joined the conference.

Wikimania

Wikimania is the annual conference for the Wikimedia movement. This year the conference was organised from 15 to 19 July in Mexico-City. From Wikimedia Belgium only one person was present at the conference.

SOIMA

SOIMA is an international conference on ensuring a safe and creative future for sound and image heritage for organisations around the world. Wikimedia Belgium sponsored the conference, together with three other European Wikimedia chapters. The conference took place during 2 to 4 September 2015.

At the conference Wikimedia had a stand where we informed the participants of the conference about the possibilities Wikipedia and Wikipedia offer for our sound and image heritage around the world. Info materials where provided by Wikimedia France, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia UK, and Wikimedia Nederland. Three members of Wikimedia Belgium were manning the stand and participated in the conference.

To inform the participants of the conference about the possibilities of collaborating with Wikipedia and Wikimedia, we published two brochures. One about Creative Commons licenses (file), and one about how to collaborate with Wikipedia (file). Each participant received these two brochures in their conference bag. The first specimen of both brochures were reached out to the director of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA), the organiser of the conference and long-term partner of Wikipedia volunteers in Belgium.

During the conference also the project Wiki Loves Art was (pre-)announced, as well as an upcoming collaboration with the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage.

GLAM-WIKI

GLAM-WIKI is an international conference where the Wikimedia movement shares their experiences with working together with cultural institutions from around the world. During the conference participants learn about best practices, ongoing collaborations, and the various possibilities of collaborating with the GLAMs. This year the conference was organised in The Hague on 9 to 12 April. From Wikimedia Belgium three members participated in the conference to learn more about these collaborations.

Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland

The Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland is the annual Wikimedia conference organised by Wikimedia Nederland for the Dutch speaking Wikimedia community. During the conference various topics that matter to the Dutch community are presented, discussed and trained. The conference also included multiple workshops in editing Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata and more. From Wikimedia Belgium multiple members were present.

Other meetings

Besides, workshops, edit-a-thons, presentations and conferences, also other meetings took place which were organised by Wikimedia Belgium or where we participated in. These meetings include:

29-30 January - Attending the Europeana Photography Final Conference at KUL in Leuven
7-8 March - 2015 European GLAMwiki Coordinators meeting in Paris
9 May - WikiZaterdag in Utrecht with WMBE-WMNL meeting
6 June - WikiZaterdag in Utrecht with WMBE-WMNL meeting
7 June - Wiknic in Charleroi
14 November - Wikimeet in Antwerpen
20-21 November - Annual meeting of the Wikimedia Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU in Brussels
23 November - Study day Wikipedia in Amsterdam
25 November - Lecture Jimmy Wales in Amsterdam
25 November - Prize giving ceremony of Erasmus Prize in Amsterdam + wikimeet
25-27 November - Private viewing historic encyclopedias at the University of Amsterdam Special Collections in Amsterdam
4 December - Presentation OpenRefine (Open data) Library Lab UGent
15 December - Present at board meeting of Open Knowledge Belgium in Brussels

Publications

This year, Wikimedia Belgium published two brochures, which both have been published in three languages: Dutch, French and English. One brochure is about free knowledge as result of Creative Commons licenses, and why a non-commercial clause often won‘t serve the needs of the user (files: Dutch/French/English). The second brochure is about how organisations can collaborate with Wikipedia and Wikimedia with practical tips and best practices from Wikimedia collaborations from around the world (files: Dutch/French/English).

We also published cheatsheets for use in Wikipedia workshops and other editing sessions.

Social media

Wikimedia Belgium is also active on social media to reach out to the world about our activities, projects, and to promote the vision of free knowledge with the people in Belgium and beyond. So far, the Wikimedia BE Twitter account posted 934 posts, follows 290 accounts, has 743 followers, liked 53 posts, and is added to 5 lists.

Governance

General Assembly

In 2015 Wikimedia Belgium had its first General Assembly since the founding of the Wikimedia chapter. It was organised in Brussels on 24 January.

Board meetings

During the year the board had seven board meetings to discuss and decide on the various topics that needed to be organised. The board meetings were six times organised in Brussels, and one time in Antwerp.