Wikimedia World 4

Hi. This is User:Eugene Ormandy from Toumon Wikipedian Club Japan. In the “Wikimedia World” series on Diff, I curate various archives of the Wikimedia movement. I hope it will encourage Wikimedians to learn more about the movement around the world, to compare the activities of other Wikimedians with their own, and to create archives of their experiences.

Javanese Wikisource Competition

Do you know Wikisource? It is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Volunteers who are fascinated by the media have organized various editing events. Let’s take a look at an example called Javanese Wikisource Competition.

In 6th of March, the Yogyakarta Wikimedia Community (Komunitas Wikimedia Yogyakarta) held the first of what’s planned to be annual Javanese Wikisource Competition (Kompetisi Wikisumber). Although this is the first time the Yogyakarta Wikimedians organize this competition, they were no stranger to edit-a-thons and writing challenges, having previously organized WikiTeroka 3.0 (2022) and WikiTeroka 4.0 (2023) for Javanese Wikipedia. In fact, this is not the first time there’s a competition involving Javanese Wikisource either. The Indonesian Wikisource Community (Komunitas Wikisource Indonesia) held an annual Indonesian Wikisource Competition since 2020, and in the 2022 edition the community invited the recently hatched Balinese and Javanese Wikisource to participate. There was 10 Latin Javanese books and 2 Javanese script books, totaling almost two thousand pages that were proofread and validated in just 2 weeks.

Bennylin (13 March 2023) “Javanese Wikisource Competition” Diff.

Wikimedia and social issues

Some editathons (Wikimedia editing events) focus on social issues. For instance, Wikimedia Bangladesh held a plastic pollution-themed Wikipedia editathon.

Wikimedia Bangladesh organized the third editathon to celebrate World Environment Day. During this event, Wikipedians wrote and improved articles on plastics and the environment in Bengali Wikipedia (https://bn.wikipedia.org/). It was a three-day-long editathon jointly supported by Wikimedia Bangladesh’s regional communities, the Chattogram Wikipedia Community and the Mymensingh Wikipedia Community. The main objective of the campaign was to create a new Wikipedia article focusing on the impact of plastic pollution on the environment. Plastic pollution has emerged as a pressing environmental issue, as the production of disposable plastic products has outpaced the world’s capacity to manage them effectively. This editathon played an essential role as Bengali Wikipedia usually lacks such types of articles.

Moheen Reeyad (20 July 2023) “A three-day Editathon on Plastic Pollution in the Environment” Diff.

Collaboration with various institutions

It is very important for Wikimedians to look for ways to work with different institutions that are interested in the Wikimedia movement. The diplomacy of the EduWiki Uganda project shows us great achievements.

During April, the EduWiki Uganda project initiated contact with several organizations, including Ashinaga Uganda located in Nansana, Wakiso district of Uganda. The institution has several potential Edu Wiki collaborators such as primary teachers, students awaiting university studies outside Uganda, and administrators.

Another institution for which contact was made is the Uganda National English Language Teachers’ Association (UNELTA) which is an umbrella body for teachers of the English language from the various schools in the country, discussions are ongoing for a collaborative experience where Edu Wiki trainers can embed themselves into the general training needs and program of UNELTA to further the access to free access to world knowledge in 2024 and beyond.

Other institutions visited were: Alliance S. S, and Makerere College School with the potential to finally transform these initial engagements into partnerships.

MetaWiki [[Education/News/April 2024/EduWiki Updates From Uganda]] 17:42, 16 May 2024 (UTC) (CC BY-SA 4.0)