CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/20 years of Ukrainian Wikipedia: annual Wikimarathon, celebrations in the Ukrainian community
January 30th marked 20 years of Ukrainian Wikipedia. Traditionally the community, with the support of Wikimedia Ukraine, used this opportunity to celebrate, recruit new volunteers, and raise awareness of the Wikipedia model in the media.
The biggest project for Wikipedia’s birthday is our annual Wikimarathon, a campaign that aims to recruit as many new volunteers as possible with an online marathon and a series of offline events.
Wikimarathon 2024 took place from January 26 to February 4. 365 people, including over 100 newcomers, created their own article. Overall 900+ people participated in almost 50 events in Ukraine and for Ukrainians abroad.
Among the events outside Ukraine Poland stood out in particular with events in Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Łódź and Poznań. We also supported events in Lithuania, Switzerland, Norway, and the Netherlands.
Apart from Wikimarathon, we used the occasion to:
- Gather the community and celebrate our achievements. We had two meetups for the birthday – one online and one in-person in Kyiv. Participants networked, shared their stories, and competed in the quiz on the intricacies of Ukrainian Wikipedia's history
- Attract attention to Wikipedia and its unique volunteer-driven model in the media. We sent out a press release on January 30th and did a lot of media activity like interviews and TV comments around the birthday.
- Create and share instructional materials about Wikipedia, like our brief video answering 10 questions about Wikipedia and a set of infographics on 10 ways to help Wikipedia (inspired by 101 ways to contribute to Wikimedia).
- Wikimarathon events in Ukraine
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- Wikimarathon events abroad
- Community celebrations
