WorldPride is an international event that aims at promoting LGBT issues by holding parades, festivals, and cultural activities during the celebrations of Stonewall riots anniversary. The event has been held previously in Rome, Jerusalem, London, Toronto, and this year in Madrid, Spain.
We decided to join WorldPride with a Wikipedia event, so that we could help highlight LGBT issues by adding content about them on Wikimedia projects. 15 participants from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Poland, UK, Germany and Spain attended the event, held from 23 to 27 June 2017. The group created 49 new articles in 10 different languages, took and uploaded more than 100 photos to Wikimedia Commons, and more.
The editing workshop took place at Medialab-Prado, a cultural space in the city center of Madrid. During the event, Wikipedian DaddyCell advised the group on possible topics to write about and helped the new editors learn basic editing skills.
The event was organized by Wikipedia for Peace, a community project to improve Wikipedia’s content on social movements, justice and peace. So far, two writing camps were held for the project in Austria, in 2015 and 2016, organized by Wikimedia Austria and Service Civil International Austria. In 2017, the project expanded to Germany and Spain, this year’s host for the WorldPride event.
Contributing to Wikimedia projects wasn’t our only activity at WorldPride. Our free time activities included attending Mayte Martin’s concert, a concert for the benefit of functional diversity LGBT people in Matadero, and city tours in Madrid. Also we took the opportunity to attend the human rights summit in Madrid that began on 26 June.
The organizers provided free tickets for our participants and two press passes to take photos during the talks. Some memorable moments were meeting Frank Van Dalen, the vice-president of InterPride, and the talk of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the former prime minister of Iceland and the first openly gay head of a government. The next day we were invited to attend the round table discussion in the main auditorium. Florence Claes, from Wikimedia Spain, held a vital discussion on “the internet and social networks role in making minorities visible.”
The next WorldPride will be held in New York in 2019, and we are considering plans for a similar event in New York.
Saskia Ehlers, Wikimedia Germany
Rubén Ojeda, Wikimedia Spain
In brief
Wikimedia affiliates update: The Wikimedia Affiliations Committee (AffCom) has recognized four new user groups. The Wikipedia Library user group will aim to combine and multiply collaboration with libraries and librarians, from edit-a-thons hosted at libraries, to the Wiki Loves Libraries outreach campaign, to the broader institutional and publisher outreach of the Wikipedia Library, to a single forum open to all Wikimedia community members and any librarians interested in working with Wikipedia. Odia Wikimedians aims at bringing together contributors to Odia-language Wikimedia projects, as well as individuals who contribute to other Wikimedia projects on topics related to the Odia language, the Odia people, and the Indian state of Odisha. Wikimedians of Cameroon aims at supporting Wikimedia projects in Cameroon, supporting Cameroonian Wikimedians. Hindi Wikimedians will be working on supporting Wikimedia projects and the contributors to them in the Hindi language. Congratulations to the new affiliates.
Belgian Wikipedians celebrate freedom of panorama with a photography contest: This month, the Wikimedia community in Belgium is holding Wiki Loves Public Spaces photography contest. This month marks one year since freedom of panorama laws have come into force in Belgium. The change allows photographers to take and freely share photos of buildings and works of art in public spaces.
MedinaPedia: Participants of the MedinaPedia project in Tunisia started their initiative to install QR codes on monuments in the Medina of Tunis. The QR codes will let the monument visitors get information from Wikipedia about every monument in different languages.
Swedish court rules against freedom of panorama: The Swedish Patent and Market Court ruled against Wikimedia Sweden (Sverige) in a lawsuit filed by Visual Copyright Society in Sweden (see previous blog coverage). Wikimedia Sweden, an independent chapter in the country, had created a database of Swedish public art with photos from Wikimedia Commons.
Outreach activities in Nigeria: Last week, the Wikimedia user group Nigeria held a workshop on basic Wikipedia training at Nigerian Institute of Journalism in Lagos. The user group has also participated in the Open Data Day 2017, where Wikipedian Sam Oyeyele gave an introductory workshop to Wikidata.
Cycle three of the movement strategy discussion has started: In the first two cycles of the Wikimedia movement 2017 strategy, the community has expressed their opinions on what the movement should achieve and what challenges and opportunities are facing the movement. This cycle is dedicated to considering the challenges identified by the research and exploring how we may want to evolve or respond to changes in the world around us. In July, each week, a new challenge and insights will be posted, so that you can share how it connects to or changes your perspective on our future direction. Learn more and join the discussion on meta.
Compiled and edited by Samir Elsharbaty, Digital Content Intern
Wikimedia Foundation
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