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Wikimedia Community User Group Malta/Reports/2023 Annual Report

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This is the seventh annual report for Wikimedia Community User Group Malta. The report is designed to fulfill a requirements for officially affiliated Wikimedia user groups. It covers the period from 1 August 2022 until 31 July 2023.

Overview

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Wikimedia Community User Group Malta revolves around the work of the Malta-registered non-profit voluntary organization Wikimedia Community Malta, which was originally registered with the Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector in October 2015. The organization was officially recognized as an affiliated Wikimedia user group on 1 August 2016. All reports created by this affiliated user group are available here.

A general action plan for 2022 was drafted in December 2021, based on an informal evaluation of work from a previous year. For the purposes of this report, the general action plan for 2023, drafted in December 2022, should also be of interest.

The user group was administered through a series of regular meetings by the founding board held throughout 2022 and 2023.

The organisational year for this user group runs from January to December of each year, so the annual report required from it as an officially affiliated Wikimedia user group relates to work split over the latter part of one calendar year and the first half of the next year.

Activities

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For the third consecutive year a list of planned activities for the seasonal year (coinciding with the dates covered by this report) started being prepared in the summer just before the start of the seasonal year.

Highlights of activities between 1 August 2022 and 31 July 2023 include:

Grants for activities

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The period 1 August to 31 December 2022 was covered by a previous grant through the Wikimedia Community Fund 2022 (General Support), which enabled WCM's activities throughout 2022: see WCM Simple Annual Plan 2022

One grant application was submitted during the period covered by this report, which was the Wikimedia Community Fund 2023 (General Support): see our application. This was submitted in September 2022, favourably received, and awarded fully in December 2022. As far as this report is concerned, this grant covered activities from 1 January - 31 August 2023.

Furthermore, WCM benefited indirectly from the CEE Spring 2023 grant, which provided financial support for the prizes on that contest; administered by WMAT. It should also be noted that some WCM activities were made possible through in kind support by Spazju Kreattiv and the European Commission's Representative Office in Valletta, Malta.

Metrics

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Here are some basic metrics from our activities with links to statistic tools:

Media coverage

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Collaborations

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Collaborations with other organisations

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We hold our close collaborators to heart as they make much of what we do possible. This is a list of our active collaborators, indicating relevant activities in the 2022/23 period covered by this report:

  • Electronic Music Malta (EMM) is a nonprofit organisation active in the field of Electronic Music in Malta. An informal collaboration with EMM aims to provide EMM members with training and awareness opportunities for Wikimedia projects. Their annual conference in May 2018 included a keynote speech on editing Wikipedia in the context of histories of electronic music, especially in Malta. Keynote video available here. This point remains active as WCM continues to collaborate on the history of Electronic Music in Malta, with a target to explore Wikidata in 2023/24.
  • Following an initial invitation for Toni Sant to present at a Wikipedia perspective at the Digital Prospects for the Maltese Language symposium in November 2019, the European Commission's Malta Office invited WCM to organise a series of events around the 2019 European Parliament election leading to a 2019 European Parliament Election Edit-a-thon in Valletta. This has led to the involvement of the Language and Translation Directorate within the European Commission's Malta Office to support the development of Rebbiegħa CEE Spring 2021 after the relative success of 2020. Online Wikipedia editing training for Maltese translators based in Luxembourg and Brussells was also provided by WCM in January 2021. This work has helped buoy WCM in its language project in 2021/22. They also continue to support CEE Spring activities in Malta, including by providing a venue in Valletta for face-to-face activities, such as Wikipedia editor training and edit-a-thons.
  • M3P Foundation is the Malta Media Memory Preservation organization, a Malta-registered non-profit VO which provides us with technical support and resources, including web hosting and an office address, as well as other general assistance through our shared goals.
  • Spazju Kreattiv through a formal collaboration agreement with Fondazzjoni Kreattività, Malta's national centre for creativity, since April 2016. The initial period of the agreement expired in April 2019 when the agreement was renewed for another five year period. Spazju Kreattiv was central for the success of Art+Feminism in Malta in both 2019 and 2020. It has also helped us establish a smooth transition to online meetings, workshops, meet-ups and edit-a-thons during the Covid-19 lockdown period. The working relationship was been re-established fully after Covid-19. It is not foreseen that the formal agreement will be renewed again after April 2024, mainly because the overlapping focus has drifted over the years.
  • An exploration on the possibility of developing an Education Program in collaboration with the University of Malta started in early 2022. As a pilot project we delivered Wikipedia editing training to students on the MA in Translation Studies, and they in turn took part in our Feminism & Folklore activity. This was carried forward into 2023, with another workshop for the translation students. Furthermore, a pilot Wikipedia editing was delivered an online summer course in 2023; this will be developed further in 2024.
  • Our working relationship with Heritage Malta was re-established in May 2022 through an activity WCM organized for International Museum Day. During the period covered by this report (2022/23) Enrique Tabone conducted a Wikidata project with the National Museum of Archeology focusing on creating a dataset for prehistoric female figurines in their collection. This work has led to further work within WCM, leading to the publication of an academic journal article by Tabone with Toni Sant.

Interactions with other Wikimedia affiliates

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We recognize that interactions with other Wikimedia affiliates are essential for the healthy growth of our user group. This is a list of other Wikimedia affiliates with which we had meaningful interaction during the period covered by this report:

During the period covered by this report WCM members presented their work on mt.wikipedia during:

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