A true Wiki marathon: How Wiki Movimento Brasil organized events in three different states for five consecutive days

Between August 22 and 26, three different types of activities were organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil across three regions of the country: From the 22nd to the 24th, a mapathon in Belém, the capital of Pará; on the 24th and 25th, a Wiki Takes event in Cáceres, a municipality in Mato Grosso; and on the 26th, an editing marathon on Wikipedia in the city of Rio de Janeiro (RJ).

The multiplicity of actions was only possible through our strategy of decentralized governance and encouragement of local leadership development, wich also guides the organization in its community activation policy and hiring of staff members, aiming to diversify the regions with WMB representatives throughout the Brazilian territory.

Territorialization and Plural Protagonisms

Wiki Movimento Brasil operates in a country with continental dimensions that offer a diversity of contexts, cultures, and experiences better understood by those who actually live in contact with their communities. Understanding this dynamic, which is also challenging, inspired the organization to provide a responsible autonomy environment for its professionals, encouraging a plurality of actions, organizations, and types of events with the goal of promoting free knowledge and stimulating the use of Wikimedia platforms by various stakeholders.

In WMB’s strategy, the territorialization of governance reflects a cultura based on collaboration and broad participation, as well as the clear definition of roles and responsibilities, respecting the contexts in which Wikimedia agencies operate. Our objective is to act based on the affirmation of plural emancipatory protagonisms, strengthening the sense of community and increasing the visibility of underrepresented knowledge, filling the knowledge gaps about local realities, and improving the diversity and quality of information available on the internet in Portuguese.

Below, we delve into the specifics of each of the events carried out simultaneously by our team, with the participation of volunteers and presenting the Wikimedia project model to students, educators, and local leaders who had no previously edited.

Amazonian Knowledge on Wiki: Open Science, Technology, and Biodiversity Protection

Amazonian Knowledge on Wiki is a project organized by WMB, funded by Creative Commons and Wikimedia Switzerland, which aims to disseminate information about the biodiversity of the Amazon in Pará. The collections highlight the crucial role of open knowledge in the preparation for COP-30 (30th UN Climate Change Conference), which will be held in Belém in 2025.

The project’s first action brought together 20 Geoscience students for open mapping and documentation of the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi (MPEG), in Belém. The mapathon was organized in partnership with the Federal Institute of Pará by Professor Tatiana de Freitas Pará and her georeferencing research group in the Amazon, “Meninas da Geo”, with the support of the MPEG. Located in the center of Belém, Pará’s capital, the MPEG was chosen for being the largest Natural History Museum in Brazil, and the most important research institution in the Amazon of Pará. This event aimed to improve the georeferencing of buildings and the largest trees located in the park.

The first two days of the activity took place at the IFPA and served to build the activity strategy and enhance the participant’s knowledge, with a hands-on lab session on open mapping and documentation. On the third day, we went into the field to validate the data obtained in the preliminary survey and carry out forest mapping.

To ensure the success of the fieldwork, the mappers were divided into groups responsible for: (1) Animal nursery areas; (2) Building areas; and (3) Areas with large tree canopies. The mapping used the forest inventory technique, measuring the height, diameter, and other characteristics of the trees.

For Gisele França, one of the participants and a member of the Meninas da Geo group, the experience was very enriching, as it involved both “theory, using mobile phones and computers in the lab, and practice outside the classrooms, using the apps and platforms necessary for the mapping.” Additionally, regarding the field activity carried out on August 24 at the MPEG, Gisele reported that:

“The reception from the Museum’s team was excellent, allowing us to conduct the mapping in the best possible way. Groups were formed to carry out the task practically, gathering as much information as possible within the time we had. Participating in this first field experience for cartographic purposes was extremely enriching. The teams from Wiki Movimento Brasil and the Emilio Goeldi Museum made this experience something special and memorable, both in my personal and professional journey.”

By promoting free access to cultural resources, the “Amazonian Knowledge on Wiki” project aims to enrich the understanding and appreciation of Amazonian heritage while also fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing on a global scale. More in-person activities will be held until the end of 2024, expanding the involvement of the local community.

Wiki Takes Cáceres, the “Little Princess of the Pantanal”

Wiki Takes Cáceres is an initiative linked to Wiki Loves Mato Grosso aiming to reduce knowledge gaps about this state on Wikimedia platforms. To achieve this, the project seeks to “occupy” the city of Cáceres for a weekend with more experienced wikimedians, who travel and carry out various activities so that the local population becomes familiar with the use of platforms such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and others.

Located on the border with Bolivia, Cáceres is a municipality known as the “Little Princess of the Pantanal” and quickly won the hearts of the participants of Wiki Loves Mato Grosso. In addition to its vast natural beauty, with about 70% of its territory classified as part of the Pantanal, it is fed by Paraguay River, where the FIPe takes place – the largest sport fishing festival in the region.

Cáceres is 245 years old, but its history was poorly documented in Wikimedia projects and on the internet in general. This gap about the city and local culture in the digital environment made it difficult to disseminate information about its importance and consequently hindered the preservation of its material assets, as well as the Pantanal’s fauna and flora. For this reason, Cáceres was chosen to host Wiki Takes on Mato Grosso.

For this significant task, on August 24 and 25, six wikimedians from five different brazilian states gathered in Cáceres to offer workshops and activities aimed at  environmental and cultural preservation. In partnership with a local university, UNEMAT, we invited teachers, students, and the community to participate in workshops on editing Wikipedia entries, digitizing collections, and uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons.

On the second day, a photographic walk was held in the city’s historic center, led by UNEMAT History professor Acir Fonseca Montecchi, who guided participants through the most important monuments and shared knowledge about the local history and culture.

Due to the wildfires already affecting some areas of Mato Grosso, particularly the Pantanal, a team was sent to take a tour of the Paraguay River. Our goal was to photograph the landscape around the river and preserve the memory of the animals and vegetation there. In Brazil, the spread of wildfires has been used in disinformation campaigns, increasing the community’s responsibility to ensure reliable documentation of the local situation.

In addition to having facilitated the upload of, so far, over 900 photographs to Wikimedia Commons and the creation of Wikipedia entries, Wiki Takes Cáceres has left a legacy: a group of teachers and students who are now multipliers of the knowledge generated and intend to continue new initiatives, especially during the city’s anniversary month in October.

Edit-a-thon Women in Science and Arts, on COC/Fiocruz

The Edit-a-thon Women in Science and Arts was an in-person event organized by Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz in partnership with Wiki Movimento Brasil and the Art+Feminism project on August 26. Through this action, we invited wikimedians, students, researchers, and interested individuals to learn how to edit Wikipedia and collaborate in improving and creating entries about notable Brazilian women in the fields of science and the arts, combating the gender gap on the internet in Portuguese.

The event took place at the auditorium of the Center for Documentation in Health History of COC/Fiocruz, in Rio de Janeiro, with 35 participants. The event lasted a full day, which gave us the opportunity to carry out a robust action, with a theoretical part on Wikipedia and gender gaps – online and offline -, and a more practical part with an editing workshop.

In the first part of the edit-a-thon, several speakers had the opportunity to encourage the audience to reflect on what Wikimedia platforms are and their potential. We discussed the importance of inserting quality content on the internet and the need for engagement to address the gender gap, particularly by promoting research on the lives and works of women who have impacted Brazilian society.

We also heard an institutional report from Casa de Oswaldo Cruz about its commitment to free knowledge through the sharing of content under open licenses. COC/Fiocruz is a technical-scientific unit of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, created in 1986 to preserve institutional memory and promote the history of science and public health policies in Brazil. A GLAM partner of WMB, the institution aims to expand free access to its archival, bibliographic, and museological collections, promoting activities that disseminate quality information about history, science, and health in Brazil. In the context of the Edit-a-thon Women in Science and Arts, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (COC/Fiocruz) shared on Wikimedia Commons 1,828 images from six collections of women scientists from the institution: from Alda Falcão, Dyrce Lacombe, Elizabeth Leeds, Hortênsia de Hollanda, Maria Cristina Fernandes de Mello, and Virgínia Portocarrero.

During her participation in the edit-a-thon, researcher Cristiana Facchinetti addressed the gender gap in history and the need to reinvent archives, dig through our drawers, and find different ways to recover the history of women who made their mark in various fields of knowledge. She used references to reflect that, in recent decades, debates “have shown that historiography about great men and their deeds is the result of choices and a power structure that organized gender, race, and class differences in a hierarchical and colonial way,” according to Facchinetti in “Women in Brazil: How We Got Here” (Rio de Janeiro: Andrea Jakobsson Estúdio Editorial Ltda., 2003).

In the afternoon, participants had the opportunity to learn the basics of Wikipedia editing and apply them to entries related to the event’s theme. By the end of the activity, 20 articles were created, 39 articles were edited, and 193 references were added. These and other data can be accessed through the activity dashboard.