Wikiexpedition Lower Silesia illustrates 550 articles

Wikiexpedition Lower Silesia was a four-day wiki-photographer event in Lower Silesia, Poland to illustrate Wikipedia with photographs and advocate it as a good resource of information. Five photographers from the Czech Republic traveled in July 2019 to the site to support the hard work of local Wikimedians. The event was organized thanks to the financial support of Wikimedia Polska.

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While the Wikiexpedition was for about four days, the processing of images took more time afterward. Finally, the team had uploaded more than 5700 free images out of 115 villages (5 of them in the Czech Republic and the rest in Poland). 22 % of all images are in use mostly on Wikipedia and the rest on Wikidata. Most illustrated articles are on Polish, English, Ukrainian, Cebuano and Czech Wikipedias. Altogether we illustrated about 550 articles cross different language mutations. As a part of our distribution effort, we have created almost 50 new articles on the Czech Wikipedia about Polish settlements.

Local people, who went in contact with our photographers, where evaluating Wikipedia as a great source, so as a reminder we have awarded them by leaflets produced by Wikimedia Poland. Moreover, in Swierzawa, the town in south-western Poland, we have received some books in English about the region, which we took home and used to create some new articles.

It is expected the event will be repeated in 2020 with international attendance. We are also thinking about organizing an editaton afterward, which would help to increase the usage of these files. More you can read in the Final report.

Wikiexpeditions originally started among the Polish community and then the concept has spread to other parts of the World. Czech Wikiexpeditions are organized since 2016 every year. Until this time we have created tens of thousands of free images, illustrated thousands of Wikipedia articles and items on Wikidata and recruited two new contributors.