My Five Goals for Wikimania 2024

When I checked my email on 26 January 2018, I was surprised to find a confirmation about my participation in the Youth Winter Wikicamp in Armenia. I usually encountered errors and missing content on Armenian Wikipedia and had no idea it was possible to contribute to Wikipedia until then. 

Fast forward to 26 February 2024, when I received another email informing that I had been selected for a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2024 in Katowice, Poland. This was my first in-person Wikimania experience and my first encounter with Wikimedians from different countries all over the world.

I have been in the Wikimedia movement for six years. It may seem not too long for those who have been actively involved for more than 10-20 years. However, as a young Wikimedian from a small country (Armenia), those six years were full of ups and downs, achievements, and disappointments, and I believe that my participation in Wikimania 2024 is the outcome of all the experiences I gained during those years.

For half a year before Wikimania, I had been continuously thinking about my goals and expectations from the largest Wikimedia gathering. Now that Wikimania is over, I want to share some of them with you.

Successfully Delivering Speeches

My first goal was to successfully deliver my two speeches – the “Financial-Economic Wikimonth connects Wikimedia Armenia with the Central Bank of Armenia” lightning talk and the “CEE Youth Group: a successful youth organization within the movement” panel along with two other young Wikimedians from the CEE Youth Group.

I can definitely say that I learned a lot, even by presenting in front of my peers. My speech in the lightning showcase lasted only five minutes, but I was able to share Wikimedia Armenia’s outstanding experience working with the Central Bank of Armenia. 

As for the CEE Youth Group panel, it was our first presentation as a youth organization within the movement. I felt responsible and a little bit nervous. We shared our story as a CEE Youth Group member and our experiences in our local communities. I presented the youth component of Wikimedia Armenia’s work – school Wikiclubs, Wikicamps, and university internships. We received many questions from the audience, and it made me feel less nervous because I knew that we were able to interest those present. 

What I learned from our presentation was that you should never alternate between speakers, instead one should present several slides and topics and then the other. We were going back and forth among the three speakers and only one microphone, which seemed less professional and, to some extent, confusing for the audience:) It is definitely true that one learns by doing.

Networking

My second goal was to meet and talk to other Wikimedians. I met many interesting people, shared my experiences, and learned about theirs. I believe that networking is one of Wikimania’s most essential and impactful sides. I had meaningful conversations with Wikimedians from Italy, Malaysia, Ukraine, North Macedonia, Turkey, Nigeria, the USA, Poland, etc. I met representatives from Western Armenian Wikipedia, Armenians, of course, but from the Diaspora. 

Organizing Youth Game Night

My third goal was to successfully organize the game night with the CEE Youth Group for the Wikimania participants. On the second day, we had two hours to prepare fun activities and games for everyone interested; we had a quiz on CEE nations, a pictionary game, Uno, a language similarities game, and Wikeys. I prepared the language similarities game, the idea of which was basically to guess the meanings of words in different CEE languages. The words were chosen in a way that had similarities with words from other languages and had similar roots or etymology. I was very excited that a lot of people played my game and they also had fun. Even Jimmy Wales played the game. I hope he enjoyed it:)

Attending Different Sessions

My fourth goal was to attend different sessions and learn about other people’s work, new tools, tendencies in the movement, new projects, etc. I also participated in several meetups during lunchtime. I especially enjoyed a key partner’s session called “Ethnographic Museum – Digital ethnography moves into the real world” which was about digitisation of cultural assets and museum collections. As someone who highly values GLAM projects and collaborations, I believe that this session gave insight into museums’ missions and the possibilities of using digitized materials. In my opinion, one way of the latter is obviously making it accessible to wider audiences through Wikimedia projects.

Another interesting session was the introduction to “WikiOutdoor Training.” In my opinion, the method discussed in the presentation and which will be used in this training is the most structured and well-developed one for documenting and photographing cultural heritage, natural monuments, and villages. I was selected as a participant in “WikiOutdoor Training”; unfortunately, I will not be able to experience this amazing training because of visa issues. Thus, I look forward to learning about the project’s outcomes during the CEE Meeting 2024 in Istanbul.

Making memories

My last goal was to have fun and make memories with other Wikimedians. The best memory that I will keep forever is the karaoke night when people sang songs in their native languages. Wikimedia projects unite all of us, and so does music. Even though most of us didn’t understand the languages of the songs, we all cheered for each other and sang at the top of our lungs, most probably pronouncing the words incorrectly:) Sorry for that!

When I was flying to Poland from Armenia, I kept asking myself whether I was one of them and if I felt like a part of the global Wikimedia community, as this was my first Wikimania. Now I have an answer to this question. I definitely am, and I belong to this community.