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Wikimania 2022/Individual Reports/Matama Mariam

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Welcome back from Wikimania 2022! Please write your report here. Once you have completed the application, please email the link to wikimania(_AT_)wikimedia.org (by 20 September 2022). If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email us.

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Matama Mariam

How did you attend Wikimania (virtually or in-person)?

I attended the Event both Virtually and also attended the in-person event organized by Wikimedia User Group Uganda at Capital Kitchen in Kampala Uganda.

What did you spend the scholarship funds on?

I spent the Scholarship funds on data, Meals and Transport but thanks to the Wikimedia User group for offering me a Wikimania t-shirt so I did not pay for it.

Takeaways – choose 3 specific Wikimania sessions you attended and describe your key take-aways per session.

I wont only mention 3 but 4 including the amazing in-person one;

1. I attended the opening session plus a few session on the first day of the event and I was of course not yet familiar with platform(pheedloop), went on catching up slowly but on the second day I attended the in-person event where I met a lot of new people and we had this strategy planning session where we were divided into groups to share and answer these question: How do you imagine the Wikimedia Community User group Uganda in 3-5 years?

What does it look like?

What does it do?

What does it not do? This was really an amazing session of brainstorming about the future of the user group and I was in group 3 and almost all the groups had the same ideas as they were presented after. There was also a quiz where I learnt of when Wikipedia was started, who stared it, how many languages it is currently, how many articles on the English Wikipedia, how many users on the English currently registered and many more. Also Learnt of the basics of an article on Wikipedia plus quality assurance.


2. I am professionally a nurse and one of the most interesting Carla Toro from Wikimedia Chile shared about a topic called the benefits of science communicators on Wikipedia where she said that : Wikipedia is one of the five most visited sites but can we help if the source where people are looking for information is outed.

  • The scientific news presented in Chile and Latin America isn't so trustworthy
  • Science itself reveals that most of the publications are behind payment walls and most of it done in English so they can not allow people to access them freely without paying.
  • Science is like a spectrum and about the issue of access only approximately 47% is in open access so they either of be knowing English which is not obvious that everyone knows English.

and that most articles only have unexplained formulas.

  • Being a nurse, I will try to do my best to research and do some science articles on Wikipedia, it being a free to access site.


3. Digital Security Basics: This session was one those sessions that showed me how un serious I am with my security and safety online because I am that kind of person who uses almost the same password on everything. Konstantin explained why one should conscious with their security online, he also said that long passwords are better especially with special character. So since this session, I have been thinking of changing my passwords, all of them.

4. I personally had not known of Wikimedia Commons(Wiki Commons) but Sandra give us a glimpse of it in her session called Batch uploading to Wikimedia Commons with OpenRefine. Though the session was for those that already knew how things work on Wikimedia Commons but I wanted to learn how I could share my photos with the world and I believe I will get more assistance on this from the Ugandan User group and that there's a tool called OpenRefine that I can use to upload a batch of photos with their captions and descriptions at once.

5. Wikimedian of the year, learnt that anyone could become a Wikimedian of the year. Plus Several Sessions that I learnt from.

How did you connect with other people during Wikimania 2022? How did you celebrate at Wikimania 2022?

I connected people through the lobby and message in the app and I connected with Sarah Skaron, Drake Tamale. I also connected more during the in-person event where I met people like Faith, Sandra, Geoffrey, Divine, Alvin and many more people as well in the WhatsApp group.

EXTENDING MY SINCIRE GRATITUDE TO THE SCHOLARSHIP COMMITEE THANK YOU SO MUCH!

(Optional) Please share link(s) to your social media post(s) about Wikimania
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