The Marathi Wikimedians User Group Annual Report of activities for year 2021-2022

Introduction

The year 2021-2022 was also affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdowns, and restrictions that affected the outreach activities. Still, the Marathi Wikimedians User Group conducted a good number of activities. Members focus more on awareness content creation and joint activities for Marathi Wikipedia.

Some key user group activities

Marathi Wikipedia with Art+Feminism

Marathi Wikimedians User Group organized editathon with ART + Feminism for the creation of content on Marathi Wikipedia. Due to the pandemic situation, the event was organized in virtual mode. The response from editors to the online event was overwhelming. More than 80 articles were created during the event.

The dashboard for the event is here.

Number of Articles Created - 85
Numbers of Articles Edits - 282
Total Edits - 1.13K
Number of Editors - 79
Bytes Added - 898k
Article Views - 44.8k
Commons Upload- 7

Marathi Wikipedia Women's editathon 2022

Conducted Women's Editathon on World women’s day for bridging the gender gap on Marathi Wikipedia. The event page is here

To counter the gender imbalance on the Marathi Wikipedia, the Marathi Wikimedians user group started conducting a Women's Editathon. This year a week-long event was organized from 8th March 2022 to 15th March 2022 in partnership with Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad.

The articles created were related to Women's business, women's sociology, women's politics, women’s fashion, jewelry, women’s education, and business.

The objective was

To bring the women to Marathi Wikipedia
Train them to use it
Create new articles
To grow the Marathi Wikipedia editor's community

Reading Week 2021

To create a knowledge society it is very necessary to inculcate the reading habit in individuals.

To promote reading, the Government of Maharashtra started celebrating "Reading day" (Wachan Prerna Din) in the state of Maharashtra on the birth anniversary of the late president of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

Marathi Wikimedians User Group conducted a reading week on Marathi Wikipedia, during 15 to 22 October 2021 to encourage reading on Marathi Wikipedia.

Marathi Language Day Celebration and Training Program

On the occasion of Marathi Language Day and National Science Day, the Marathi Wikimedians user group conducted an online training program on 28th February 2022. More than 200 participants attained the training. In view of the Covid pandemic and its restrictions, the program was conducted online and offline (hybrid mode).

Joint Venture for Marathi Language Conservation Week

Marathi wikimedians user group has collaborated with the knowledge Board, under the encyclopedia creation board, Government of Maharashtra. We jointly organized a training program on "Art and Skills of Encyclopedic Writing".

Miscellaneous

Apart from the above activities, the Marathi Wikimedians User Group arranges regular meetups.

The volunteers of the user group participate in wiki awareness campaigns and mentoring on regular basis.