How can we celebrate the contributions of volunteers who’ve dedicated literally dozens of years to making Wikipedia better? This year Ukrainian Wikipedia marked a 20-year anniversary, and we launched a special award for people who’ve shaped this great run.
In late October, 38 volunteers across 18 categories received an award for their contribution – from the mining scientist who created 27,000 articles over 18 years to the financial manager who’s made the most edits, to the teacher who founded a wiki club in her hometown.
The award ceremony took place at Ukraine’s annual Wikiconference in late October. Here’s a brief look into why and how we organized the awards.
Recognizing the community’s achievements
“Wikipedia 20” is an award that recognizes the achievements of the Wikimedia community and celebrates their contributions made over the 20 years of Ukrainian Wikipedia’s existence
The award was supported by Wikimedia Ukraine, led by a volunteer organizing team and supported by a jury of five experienced community members (including Vira Motorko, 2024 Functionary of the Year).
Depending on the category, the winners were determined by quantitative data or by the jury’s evaluation based on nominations from community members. Overall, we awarded 38 users in 18 categories: from one to three winners in each.
For example, there were awards for improving the quality of articles, for systematizing knowledge (e.g. working on templates and categorization), for promoting Wikipedia, for the highest number of articles created, and for most “good”/”featured” articles.
37 people were awarded once. Ukrainian Wikipedia admin Marian Dovhanyk knocked it out of the park with four awards: for most articles created, for most automated articles created, for most admin actions, and for the most notable contribution to Ukrainian Wiktionary.
Celebrating the winners
The award ceremony took place on October 27 at Ukraine’s annual Wikiconference in Kyiv. Organizing team member Mariana Senkiv and Wikimedia Ukraine’s programs coordinator Anton Protsiuk announced winners and presented the awards to the five people who were able to participate in-person.
We weren’t able to reach all winners – since the award is for the work that spans 20 years, some just are no longer active on Wikipedia – but around 20 people received the prizes via post after the ceremony.
We recognize that we weren’t able to distinguish everyone who deserves an award, but hopefully this initiative will help motivate some existing volunteers and inspire new ones.
As Taras Korzhyk, Ukrainian Wikipedia admin and one of the winners put it when describing his motivation to contribute, “I wanted to do something useful, to leave my mark on the world and know that I had not lived my life in vain. I like to think of it as the butterfly effect: you do something here and now, and it will take months and years for noticeable impacts to emerge, but they will definitely emerge. And the impact of Wikipedia on everyday life is hard to overestimate”.
- Full list of winners (in Ukrainian)
- Recording of the award ceremony (in Ukrainian)
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