Esperanto kaj Libera Scio/Reports/2023

Draft of the Annual report 2023 of the Wikimedia User Group Esperanto and Free Knowledge (in Esperanto Esperanto kaj Libera Scio, shortly ELiSo).

The official version will be published after its approval by General Assebly.

2023 was definitely a challenging year. It was defined by several “first timers” and technical issues. The main topic of the year was 3 running Erasmus+ - 2 of them finishing in 2023, the other one requested and started. Because of that we have for the first time hired a temporary bookkeeper, project manager, trainer and translators. It was challenging, but we have also learned a lot and have experience and skills for the future.

As we have invested so much time, effort, energy and focus to these Erasmus+ projects, rest of our work was rather limited. Part of it went into building a stronger technical infrastructural foundations, but some of it we even couldn’t use because that software crashed.

We had also updated our Board and Audit Committee and was working on onboarding. We became a member of another world-wide organisation, a World Esperanto Youth Organisation. For a brief period of several months we had our representative in its highest decision making body, until he moved into its Board.

Overall, the year was really challenging but also rewarding. We had learned a lot, developed our skills and prepared better for the future stabilisation and growth. The year had revealed some our weaker points that we have to address in the future but also provided tools to strengthen our foundations for the long future to come.

Mision work

Talks, Training & Edit-a-Thons

Talks:

Wikipedia and language learning: how to use it effectively and contribute to it? (Polyglot Gathering, Poland)
Whole-Slovakian Esperanto Congress (Slovakia)
- Why the European Union had supported Wikipedia?
- Annual raport of ELiSO
- Speak with a mobile phone in Esperanto
Wikipedia, more than encyclopedia (German Esperanto Congress, Germany)
Technical infrastructure for success of your organisation (IJK, Italy)
News about ELiSo (Zamenhof Day, Slovakia)
JES
- Live forever or die trying
- Also *YOU* can do science!

Events presentations:

International Youth Congress: participation in the Youth Movement Foire (Italy)

Webinars:

Improve Wikimedia using Erasmus+
- targeted to get more participants into our education program using Erasmus+

Trainings:

Wikis for Europe (ViPE) by Erasmus+
- Copyright, citation and multimedia uploads (SEMEO, with partner Esperanto Culture Center, France)
- Wikisource (Slovakia)
Wikipedia training (German Esperanto Congress, Germany)
Professional-level project management using OpenProject (IJF, Italy)
Wikipedia in Action: Learn How To Make World a Better Place by Practicing Languages (Polyglot Gathering, Poland)
Create your first website (IJK, Italy)
Create with us a free map (OpenStreetMap) (JES)

Contests, Campaigns

CEE Spring Esperanto
- done, part of Erasmus+ project ViPE
Wiki Loves ZEOs (Zamenhof / Esperanto objects)
- planned, not done
- precursor: Database of ZEOs (Zamenhof/Esperanto objects)
  - planned, not done
campaign about Wikimedia content about developing skills
- planned, not done
Eventejo (Wikivoyage competition)
- planned for considering, not considered

ending of past contests

Translation contest 2015
- not closed
American month 2021
- the competition couldn’t be closed because the WMF grant department does not had enough capacity for that
CEE Spring English 2022
- not closed
Event place 2022
- not closed

Competitions and edit-a-thons based geographically

planned, not done

Community & Activists Development & Engagement

We have been recruiting volunteers using our volunteer recruitment tool. But the usage in 2023 was limited because of technical problems.

We have succeeded to distribute organisational roles to some more activists, but still insufficiently. Onboarding was still an issue, mostly for the Board and the Audit Committee. More work on this topic was planned to be done during creation of the strategic plan, which itself was again postponed.

We have continued development of our internal knowledge base.

Membership recruitment campaign was postponed to 2024. The reason was the need for better preparation - better knowing our members and community members (that is planned to be done as part of creation of the strategic plan), need for improvements of our membership application form workflow and marketing funnel (to be done with help of invited expert thanks Erasmus+) and over-occupation of the responsible person.

Community Capacity Map evaluation wasn’t done.

Participation in Wikimedia meetings

Wikimedia CEE Meeting
- not participated because of problems of local organisers
Wikimedia Europe meeting (Czechia)
Meeting with veterans of foundation of the Czech Wikipedia (Czechia)

Participation in Esperanto meetings

SEMEO (Toulouse, France)
- training
Whole-Slovakian Esperanto Congress (Slovakia)
- talks
German Esperanto Congress, Germany (Germany)
- talk, training
IJF (Italy)
- training
IJK (Italy)
- talk, training, participation in movement foire
JES (Italy)
- training, talks

Participation in other meetings

Polyglot Gathering, Poland
- talk, training

Other mission work

Advocacy for freeing of materials from other organisations and projects

planned, not done

Outreach to Esperantists about Wikimedia and its values

done through the year, mostly on social media

Organisational work

Organisation development

Membership applications in other organisations:

Recognition as a Wikimedia Thematic Organisation
- put on hold in 2023, waiting for AffCom to have enough capacity
Thematic section of World Esperanto Youth Organization
- accepted

In 2023 our web experienced major issues. We have succeeded to restore the main website (WordPress), but the project manager (OpenProject) is still to be restored. Also, the web infrastructure was not very much developed. That influenced also the planned membership recruitment campaign, as the possibility to pay membership fees directly on the web site was an important part of the planned campaign.

We progressed a lot in improving the ‘’Annual plan’’ project template in our OpenProject. But, unfortunately, we couldn’t profit from it as at that time our OpenProject crashed.

The planned Strategic plan 2025-2025 wasn’t done because of over-occupation of the assigned activist. We have prepared a reasonably detailed plan for its organisation, but it was clear that we would need more work hours to fulfill it.

We have continued our evaluation of the possibility of accepting cryptocurrencies for paying membership fees and donations. Already in 2022 we have elected Nano (XNO) as an ecologically sustainable, feeless, open source, non-profit option. In 2023 we had focused on the legal aspect of accepting cryptocurrencies, especially bookkeeping. But our bookkeeper was over-occupied by other work, so we had not progressed in this topic. We are still considering also other cryptocurrencies.

We have hired our first temporary employee. He was managing our Erasmus+ projects. Also, a couple of other people were contracted / hired for short-period tasks for our Erasmus+ project ViPE. The experience gained will be invaluable for the next years when we intend to have stuff for more time.

We have partially progressed in improving our organisational sustainability.

We have considered to set up an Incubator / Accelerator for free culture organisations in Esperanto. That would need our stronger foundations first, so we have postponed it. Although, we have done some partial work, e.g. training on OpenStreetMap.

Organisational situation

The 1st regular General Assembly was done on 7th January. We have updated our Board and Audit Committee. We have also elected our very first Honorary Member - Chuck Smith, the founder of the Esperanto Wikipedia and its early promoter.

The 2nd regular General Assembly (planned every year at the end of the year) wasn’t done.

The Board had frequent asynchronous communication, but had problems with real-time meetings mostly because of over-occupation of the Chair. Updating the Board will be an important task for 2024.