Don Wikimedians User Group/Report 2020/en
January 25 - Traditional Winter Meeting of the Don Wikimedians
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On January 25, during the International Student's Day, a traditional winter meeting of the Don Wikimedians User Group was held in Rostov-on-Don. Group's most active members met in the Don State Public Library, and then moved to the “Vkusnolyubov” restaurant, where they discussed current affairs with blini and delicious tea. During the meeting, issues related to the Strategy of the Wikimedia movement, as well as the Universal Code of Conduct and the rejection of a number of its theses by the majority of the Russian Wikipedia community were discussed; the participants of the meeting tried to understand the reasons. Group's members unanimously didn't support the Foundation's initiative to rename the “Wikimedia movement” to the “Wikipedia movement” — they noted that such a decision would offend those members of the Movement who focused their efforts on Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wiktionary, and other projects. Don Wikimedians have scheduled some main events for 2020, which, unfortunately, have undergone huge adjustments due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
February 15 - Start of the “My Childhood Is a War. Biographies” competition
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On February 15, the “My Childhood Is a War. Biographies” competition started. The competition was organized by the Non-profit Partnership “Wikimedia RU”, the Don Wikimedians User Group, and the Association of honorary citizens, mentors, and talented youth, with the support of a member of the Civic Chamber of Russia, Leonid Alexandrovich Shafirov. The site of the competition was Wikipedia — a free encyclopedia. The competition was timed to the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and was dedicated to the creation of biographical articles about the lives and destinies of people who had not reached 18 before the start of the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 — the day of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany). Newly created biographical articles, as well as additions to already created articles, were accepted for the competition. Based on the results of the competition, 2018 articles were created and expanded on Wikipedia. In the framework of the competition, the Don Wikimedians User Group established the special category “Children of War — Don citizens”, in which more than 100 articles about war heroes who lived on the Don were written.
February 16 - Presentation of the textbook “Wikipedia. Introductory course”
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On February 16, a new textbook “Wikipedia. Introductory course” was presented at the 2020 Vsenauka Forum in Moscow. The creation of this textbook was started in 2019 by Dmitry Zhukov, a representative of the DWUG, and by the end of the year, it was completed by more than 70%. It took more than a year to implement the project and the goal was achieved — the book was published. “Wikipedia. Introductory course” has been published in both paper and electronic form, and is distributed under the CC-BY SA 3.0 open license. It is available on Wikimedia Commons in PDF format. A new book is dedicated to helping beginners — students of Russian higher educational institutions of all specialties — to start editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in the right way. The authors of the textbook are experienced Russian Wikipedians, including members of the NP “Wikimedia RU”, administrators of Russian Wikipedia and Wikipedia editions in other languages, volunteers of the international Wikimedia movement. In the autumn of 2020, “Wikipedia. Introductory course” became the official textbook of a special course on editing Wikipedia at Moscow State University.
March 16 - “Week of the Republic of Srpska” on Russian Wikipedia
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In 2019, at the CEE Meeting in Belgrade, DWUG representatives Dmitry Zhukov and Gennady Lipunov agreed with Boyana Podgorica, a representative of the Wikimedians of the Republic of Srpska, to hold a joint thematic week dedicated to writing articles about the culture, geography, science, and personalities of the Republic of Srpska on Russian Wikipedia. The project began in the spring of 2020. Together, a list of the most important topics about the Republic of Srpska, not reflected in the Russian Wikipedia, was created; a page for the thematic week on Russian Wikipedia was created; motivation for authors and evaluation criteria have been developed. Finally, on March 16, the week was launched. As a result, 73 articles were created, over 100 free files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. In memory of their participation in the event, more than 10 Russian Wikipedians received commemorative postcards from the Republic of Srpska.
May 21 - Don Wikimedians took part in Wikimedia CEE Spring 2020
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In 2020, Don's Wikimedians took part in the Wikimedia CEE Spring 2020 international contest for the third time. In March 2020, the dictionary table about the cultural heritage of the Don region, consisting of 142 articles for writing by the participants of the contest, was significantly revised and expanded. At the same time, Don Wikimedians wrote articles in Russian about the cultural heritage of other countries participating in the contest — more than 50 such articles were created. As a result of the contest, more than 130 articles in foreign languages were written about the Don land and its outstanding people. Unfortunately, travel restrictions and the cancellation of CEE Meeting 2020 in North Macedonia due to the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow the best Don author to attend the international meeting of Wikipedians, but the prize will await the victory over the coronavirus and the winner's trip will definitely take place.
June 22 - Start of the “My Childhood Is a War. Biographies. Round 2” competition
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On June 22, the 2nd round of the “My Childhood Is a War” competition was launched in Russian Wikipedia. Like in the first round, the competition was timed to the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and was dedicated to the creation of biographical articles about the lives and destinies of people who had not reached 18 before the start of the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 — the day of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany). The competition was launched at the request of the participants of the first round: the authors of the articles made it clear that the topic of the competition has not been exhausted. For the second time, DWUG established the special category “Children of War — Don citizens”, in which more than 100 articles about war heroes who lived on the Don were written. In addition, in parallel with the competition, the project of video memories “My Childhood Is a War” was launched on the competition's channel on YouTube. These videos served as sources for creating articles within the main article competition. As a result, 933 articles were created on Russian Wikipedia.
September 26 - Wiki-Conference 2020
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On September 26–27, St. Petersburg hosted the 14th international conference dedicated to the development of Wikimedia projects in the languages of Russia, as well as challenges of free knowledge creation and dissemination overall. It is likely that Russia has become the only country that held an annual offline conference — of course, with all the necessary precautions. For those Russian-speaking Wikimedians who, given the epidemiological situation, considered it unsafe to meet offline, the conference was broadcasted via Zoom and YouTube. There were several representatives of the DWUG at the conference. Two of them made reports, and also took a part in discussions on various topics of the round tables. The conference was held in a friendly, positive, and motivating environment.
October 1 - Start of the “Wiki Loves Caucasus 2020” annual contest
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On October 1, the “Wiki Loves Caucasus 2020” international annual contest was launched. The contest, held for the second time, was jointly organized by Don Wikimedians User Group, Wikimedia Community UG Georgia, Azerbaijani Wikimedians UG, Wikipedians of North Caucasus UG, and Wikimedia Russia. In addition to Russian Wikipedia, the contest took place on Avar, Lezgi, Ossetian, Chechen Wikipedia editions, as well as Azerbaijani, Georgian, Turkish and Uzbek Wikipedias. The main goal of the contest was to create articles about the Caucasus. The main purpose of the contest in the North Caucasian languages (Avar, Lezgi, Ossetian, and Chechen) was to increase the number of articles on Caucasian topics in these editions, to involve them in the international Wiki-movement, as well as promote these Wikipedia editions to potential new users. In total, more than 450 articles were created in the Russian Wikipedia and Wikipedias in the languages of Russia during the contest.
November 7 - Participation in “North Caucasian Wiki-meetup 2020” in Grozny
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On November 7, 2020, the National Library of the Chechen Republic hosted the second North Caucasian Wiki-meetup (or Wiki-seminar) which was also attended by representatives of the Don Wikimedians User Group. The seminar was attended by users of the Russian, Lezgi, Ossetian, and Chechen editions of Wikipedia, library staff, as well as people interested in spreading free knowledge. When holding the event, the Rospotrebnadzor restriction on holding events with no more than 30 participants was taken into account. In addition, all participants from other regions of Russia had certificates/test results valid at the time of entry into the Chechen Republic on the absence of COVID-19. Dmitry Zhukov from Rostov-on-Don, the administrator of Russian Wikipedia and organizer of the DWUG, made a report on the contests that took place in the Russian editions of Wikipedia over the past year, focusing on those contests in which editions in the languages of the North Caucasus took part. Satsita Israilova, Director of the National Library of the Chechen Republic, expressed confidence that the North Caucasian Wiki-meetup would become a traditional event, and invited Wikipedians to come to Grozny again in November 2021.
December 15 - Educational lectures and workshops in Yakutsk
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On December 15, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) organized a number of meetings with employees of the central library system of Yakutsk and with students from a number of humanitarian faculties of the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University. The rich three-day program of events included lectures, seminars, and workshops. Lecturers and event leaders were: Dmitry Zhukov, leader of the DWUG, representatives of NP “Wikimedia RU” — Vladimir Medeyko and Natalia Senatorova, and Nikolai Pavlov, leader of Sakha Wikipedians. The lecturers talked about how the new era, based on communications and information technologies, makes it necessary for cultural and scientific institutions to adapt to changing conditions. Internet and information technologies allow people to remotely study the required unique materials directly from the workplace or from home. Thus, the value of online accessibility and openness of libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of science and culture became apparent. Digital technologies are proving to be useful for these institutions themselves, as they open up opportunities to fulfill their mission more effectively. The goals of cultural institutions and Wikimedia projects — the dissemination of knowledge, and their active interaction — have a mutually beneficial effect.