A three-day Edit-a-thon to remember the sacrifices of Indian freedom fighters

The Odia Wikimedians User Group organized the Indian Independence Day Editathon to remember the sacrifices of the Indian freedom fighters against British rule in India. During this three-day long event, the Wikimedians wrote and improved articles about the Indian freedom activists, Independence movement on the Odia Wikipedia. The main objective of the campaign was to create or translated Wikipedia articles from English Wikipedia.

Preparation and Participation

In 2018, an edit-a-thon on the same theme was organized for 8 days and during that event, a total of 8 users wrote 30 new articles and improved 12 existing articles related to the Indian freedom movement. After five years in 2023, during the community call that happened on 31st July, the community members decided to organize the next edit-a-thon this year.

India is celebrating Independence Day on the 15th of August, so the timeline has chosen the previous and the next day of it. To invite the participants, a message was left on the talk page of the active users. The Fountain tool was used for article submission and review, facilitating both processes. Sangram Keshari Senapati and Mrutyunjay Kar were the jury members from the community.

Result

Fortunately, the response was as good as expected. A total of 6 participants from the community joined this edit-a-thon and created 27 new articles. Pritiranjan Tripathy has created only one article and the other 26 articles were translated from the English Wikipedia. User Ssgapu22 has written a maximum of 16 articles. Soumendra Kumar Sahoo, Aliva Sahoo, Psubhashish, and Harihar Satapathy have translated 4, 3, 2, and 1 articles respectively.

Participants are provided with Wikipedia Barnstar and e-postcards issued by the User Group. From next year, the user group is planning to organize this edit-a-thon every year during the same timeline and involving other interested communities.