Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Belgium/Activity/2023

This is the activity report of Wikimedia Belgium over 2023. We will try to give an overview of our activities of Wikimedia Belgium (WMBE), and the partners with whom we have completed the activities.

Wiki Loves Heritage awards ceremony

On Wednesday afternoon, 15 February 2023, the prizes of the Wiki Loves Heritage Belgium 2022 photo competition were awarded at the Royal Library in Brussels. Obligatory registration by 14 February 2023.

People could (optionally) participate in the study day of the annual public domain day, organised by meemoo in collaboration with a number of Flemish museums, archives, universities and libraries. The day ended with a drink offered by Wikimedia Belgium.

Everyone is also encouraged to add captions and depict statements.

Wiki Loves Heritage 2022 Report

Serck photo collection

A writing session about the construction company Serck, organised by the Industriemuseum, the Flemish Architecture Institute, the University of Antwerp and Wikimedia Belgium, took place on 2 March at the University of Antwerp. The aim is to write Wikipedia articles about the Serck construction company. The Industriemuseum provided photos for this purpose under a free licence.

General Assembly

It was the first physical general assembly of Wikimedia Belgium since 2019. The general assembly on 29 April unanimously approved the 2022 financial year. There were 10 members present, 2 proxies and 1 non-voting volunteer. A detailed discussion of the balance sheet followed, as well as the audit committee's report.

This was followed by the election of the new board. Mike and Sam indicated they would not renew their terms of office for personal reasons. We would like to thank Mike and Sam for their many years of contributions to the Wikimedia community. They become advisors to the board, as per our governance procedures. We welcome a new board member: Norbert Matheuwezen (Norbert zeescouts).

Please find the report of the meeting. You can also read the activity report and the 2022 financial report there.

We were guests of Amazone where a writing session on their project "Wikipedia as a tool for gender mainstreaming" was held in the morning.

Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund Projects

The Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund exists since December 2019. On 18 November 2022, the Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund Committee held a meeting in the offices of the King Baudouin Foundation in Brussels.

In 2022, the Committee was able to select two projects that were realised in 2023. The Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund has the honour of successfully concluding the first two projects. For the two projects together, we disbursed €9,600, based on invoices and the activity report. These projects are supported by tax donations through the King Baudouin Foundation.

KOERS. Museum van de wielersport, history of cycling; upload photos from the collection to Wikimedia Commons and to supplement Wikidata with data on Flemish cycling races, and to write articles about them.
Amazone, gender mainstreaming, the inventory of women's associations; document selected documentation on women's societies on the Wikimedia platforms.

New projects are welcome via friends@wikimedia.be.

Metadating photos about cycling

The KOERS. Museum of Cycling curates the Charles Aerts collection. To this end, the community is invited to describe the photographs.

The interactive application runs on a platform of the Meise Botanical Garden funded by the Flemish government's Digital Access to Heritage Collections department. You can simply log in with your Facebook or Google account, or you can also activate a special user account.

Then choose the project you want to collaborate on and describe the photos. You can participate at any time. The application is very easy to use and requires no training.

The ultimate aim is to later add the photos with their descriptions to the KOERS website and on Wikimedia Commons. The photos can eventually be used as illustrations for Wikipedia articles.

On Wednesday 15 February, the KOERS museum organised a writing session to write articles about Flemish Fairground races.

KOERS. The Museum of Cycling in Roeselare described again photos of cyclists on Saturday 30 September. The the programme and registration link. Participation is possible also online.

Donations to the Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund

We would like to warmly thank our generous donors. A tax certificate is made available by the King Baudouin Foundation for donations of at least €40. Support the Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund.

We have a new QR code available that allows you to donate directly via Payconiq. Scan the code with your smartphone, enter the amount and confirm the payment. Never has transferring a donation been so easy. The King Baudouin Foundation provides Belgian tax certificates for donations of at least € 40. A classic structured bank transfer remains possible at any time. Several European countries accept a tax certificate, according to their own conditions.

Through the Friends Fund we have a yearly budget of €8.000, available for external projects, completely independent from the WMF Grant.

Four Photo Contests Wiki Loves

The summer of 2023 is going to be very busy in terms of photography. From July to September, no less than four photo contests will go on under the motto "Wiki Loves", on the subject of heritage and monuments.

Two contests are going international (Wiki Loves Living Heritage and Wiki Loves Monuments). There is a national photo competition (Wiki Loves Heritage), and a regional one (Wiki Loves Pajottenland Zennevallei) as an initiative of the Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei.

The Wiki Loves Living Heritage, Wiki Loves Heritage and Wiki Loves Pajottenland Zennevallei events run from July to September, while Wiki Loves Monuments takes place in September only.

Those interested in judging can let us know at jury@wikimedia.be. Judging is a very exciting activity and takes place entirely online. It takes place in October, during which you might spend 4 evenings on this task. Judging uses the Montage tool. The aim is to complete one round each week. You can evaluate the photos at your own pace. The judges evaluate the photos independently. The jury makes a motivation report for the winners together. The more judges, the lighter the work…

Four photo contests on heritage and monuments are running in Belgium under the motto "Wiki Loves" until the end of September. As there are no photo competitions in Luxembourg, photos from Luxembourg can also be uploaded.

Two contests are going international (Wiki Loves Living Heritage and Wiki Loves Monuments). There is one national photo competition (Wiki Loves Heritage), and a regional one (Wiki Loves Pajottenland Zennevallei) as an initiative of the Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei.

Wiki Loves Heritage, (WLH) from July to September
Wiki Loves Living Heritage, (WLLH) from July to September
Wiki Loves Monuments,(WLM) September only
Wiki Loves Pajottenland Zennevallei, (WLPZ) from July to September

Winner WLH 2022
Winner WLH 2023
Winner WLLH 2023
Winner WLM 2023
Winner WLPZ 2023

We were able to recruit 13 jury members. This made it easier to judge the photos during the month of October. More information on the way of judging. We used the Montage tool, which is straightforward and doesn't require formal training.

Wikipedia pages wanting photos contest

Wikipedia articles often don’t have a photo, even though media files are available on Wikimedia Commons. Sometimes a photo is missing in a single language. This is unfortunate, because a photo makes an article enjoyable to read.

Add a first photo to a Wikipedia article. This is very easy to do. Either you can add an infobox that automatically uses a photo from Wikidata.

You automatically enter the competition until the end of August by mentioning #WPWP #WPWPBE in the edit summary of the relevant Wikipedia article. This activity is useful to combine with the above photo contests. We developed a Pywikibot script to do so automatically.

Dutch Wikipedia writing contest

As usual every year, the Dutch Wikipedia is once again organising a writing contest. Get motivated and join in to write a great article! You can participate from 1 August onwards. Articles must be finished by October 31. You can participate here and find more information.

Collaboration with museums

Wikimedia Belgium collaborates with multiple museums. This is a good opportunity to encourage volunteers to help document museum collections. We have multiple partnerships:

The Fotomuseum Antwerpen Goes to document the Gevaert photo paper.
The Guido Gezelle archief has a year-long project to archive Guido Gezelle's letters.
The Industrial Museum Ghent: writing session every first Thursday of the month at 4 p.m.
The Jenevermuseum Hasselt is working on a year-long project to list gin distilleries on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata.

Wikimedia Belgium collaborates with several GLAM organisations. This is an excellent opportunity to encourage volunteers to help document collections and archives.

From September till December 2023 Wikimedia Belgium runs multiple writing sessions in collaboration with Flemish museums, archives, heritage organisations, and archives. You can find here a list, with detailed session descriptions, and possibility to register. You can participate physically on-site, but you can as well participate online. Read about the sessions, and how you can join.

On 9 September, a writing session took place at the Photomuseum of Antwerp about Gevaert photopaper.
Erfgoedlijnen - Roeselare (21 Sep 2023)
Vrouwen van papier (Guido Gezelle-archief) - Brugge (28 Sep 2023)
Jenevermuseum - Hasselt (4 Oct 2023; a lot of other sessions in diverse provinces)
Industriemuseum - Gent (5 Oct 2023; every first Thursday of the month)
Iedereen Leest - Antwerpen (18, 29 Nov 2023)
Bibliotheek Beveren (Waas) (20, 27 Nov 2023)

Fotomuseum 9 September 2023
Writing session Vrouwen van papier
Writing session stokerijen in Oost-Vlaanderen
Writing session in Jenevermuseum
Writing session Jenevermuseum

Partnerships

Wikimedia:

External:

Wikipedia in education

More and more universities, colleges and humanities schools contact us to teach their students how to write a solid article for Wikipedia. It helps students do research on a topic, look up sources, and make their knowledge available to the public. Some concrete examples from the past few months:

Atheneum of Beveren-Waas in collaboration with the local heritage organisation.
History course for journalism students of the Erasmushogeschool Brussel.
Sint-Paulusinstituut Herzele
ISFSC school for journalists
History of the Middle Ages UGent
VIVES
Women and science with ULiège

Heritage institutions and archives

We realised multiple projects with heritage organisations:

With the project Wiki Loves Pajottenland Zennevallei we collaboratively published a brochure “Erfgoed ontsluiten via Wikipedia”.
Edit-a-thon Erfgoedlijnen Roeselare
Timelab Gent, Critical making project

Tool to find regular Wikipedians

Would you like to know which wikipedians are active every day? There exists a tool to find out. Would you like to know the absolute champions?

Leading writing sessions

As we get more and more requests for writing sessions, we are in greater need of good and enthusiastic facilitators. We are aware of this. There are an estimated 350 volunteers in Flanders who write on Wikipedia (about 1 per 20000 language users). If we can pick 3% supervisors out of those, we will be 10... two per province. We are also looking for volunteers for Wallonia and Brussels, where we have an estimated 250 volunteers. Candidates can apply at writing@wikimedia.be.

Board activities

We organised two days Board planning days on 25-26 September 2023 to discuss and review:

Our projects and ongoing activities
Strategy for the coming years
Prepare budget 2024

Diverse activities

14 January 2023 - participated at the new year's meeting of Wikimedia Nederland
23 January 2023 - What is Wikipedia, presentation for the Femma Women’s association in Mollem
27 January 2023 - Presentation for BIRA, The Belgian Aeronomy association
16 February 2023 - Meeting and presentation at the European Parliament library
15 March 2023 - Commons Upload session at meemoo
27 April 2023 - Philanthropy day of the King Boudewijnstichting
19-21 May 2023 - Hackathon Athens
3 June 2023 - Wiki Loves Living Heritage in Gent
9 June 2023 - General assembly Wikimedia Europe in Prague, Czechia
26 October 2023 - meeting about pURI Immaterieel erfgoed Vlaanderen
28 November 2023 - 5 year Capital vzw
2 December 2022 - Wikimeet in Antwerp

Échos et reflets, digitalisation on Wiki Source

For those wishing to view the presentations from Wikimania 2023.

On 7 September, Wikimedia Commons celebrated its 19th anniversary. Wikimedia Commons is based on Creative Commons (founded on 15 January 2001 -- on the same day as Wikipedia). All Wikimedia projects use free licences based on Creative Commons. Wikipedia adopted the CC BY‑SA licence from 2009.

Active volunteers who would like to purchase a Museum Pass, valid for one year of free museum visits, can submit an expense report for this purpose. A precondition is that the volunteer uploads photos, or creates Wikipedia pages in return. More information on submitting a expense note.

Wiki Loves Living Heritage in Gent
Digitalisation of Wiki Source

Third party activities

On 12 October, collaborative transcribing of botanical records will take place at Meise Botanical Garden, via the www.doedat.be application. This application was also used by KOERS. The data will be axed at www.botanicalcollections.be. Registration is possible via this link. More info is available at wedigbio.org. Participating can be done physically or online.

A Festival voor het Afrikaans is going on in The Hague on 24-26 November. More information also at Wikipedia.

The Tropical Institute of Antwerp has a new website, WikiTropica, under a CC BY‑SA licence. Information could be reproduced, subject to attribution, by Wikipedia. More information.

Wikimedia platforms

Wikimedia Belgium

Third-party websites

Press about Wikipedia and Wikimedia

We participated again with https://be.wikimedia.org/wiki/Standaard_Solidariteitsprijs, but did not win a prize.

Share your knowledge with Wikipedia; an interview and article in De Standaard on how Wikipedia articles are written and how the Wikimedia community is organised.

Public relations

We answered hundreds e-mails from new Wikipedians, people asking more information about fundraising, and institutions that wanted to conduct a project with WMBE.

We attracted new editors.

Software development

We develop multiple Pywikibot scripts to support Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikipedia platforms.

Reciproque 1:1 relation Wikidata P18 - SDC depicts P180 (both ways)
Register heritage in Wikimedia Commons SDC
Add pictures, categories, authority, and infoboxes to Wikipedia articles
Creating ISBN edition items