CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/CEE Newsletter Serbia/May - June 2024

May - June 2024

By: Ivana Madžarević

Between May and June, Wikimedia Serbia had numerous activities. The most important event was the eighth local conference of Wikipedians from Serbia - WikiLive, and next to it, the CEE Spring competition, the Wikipedia competition on the occasion of International Museum Day, as well as the Wiki For Human Rights and World Refugee Day edit-a-thons were organized. Knowledge dissemination took place at the Wiki Education Speaker Series webinar organized by Wiki Education, as well as at the 5th Encuentro WikiEducación event, organized by Wikimedia Mexico. Also, research on the motivation of the new Serbian-language Wikipedia editors was completed, which can be read in the prepared report.

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Education Program

The research project on the motivation of new Wikipedia editors in the Serbian language has been completed. Project was financed by the Wikimedia Foundation Research Fund, and lasted from May 2023 to April 2024. The report based on the findings was published in Serbian, English and Russian.
An accredited seminar for teachers was held in the Elementary School "Borivoje Ž. Milojević" in Krupanj. The participants of the seminar had the opportunity to get acquainted with the use of Wiki tools in teaching and to learn how to edit Wikipedia.
Examples of good practice were presented at the Wiki Education Speaker Series webinar, organized by WikiEducation, as well as at the 5to Encuentro WikiEducación event, organized by Wikimedia Mexico. The promotion of Wiki Senior was also held in "Božidarac" (Belgrade), where permanent training is planned.
Wikipedia editing workshops were held at the Ninth High School in Belgrade, at the Pedagogical Society of Serbia, as well as at the Elementary School "Jovan Sterija Popović".
Registrations for the Edu Wiki camp, which will take place in Banja Koviljača from July 22 to 25, have ended. The camp is intended primarily for students and high school students who are motivated to learn more about Wiki projects. Wiki ambassadors are chosen from among the camp participants.

GLAM Program

As part of the Wikipedia in Residence project, which is realized in collaboration with the Little Theater Duško Radović, during the first two months, 54 articles were written, 15 were improved, and 12 were illustrated. 336 files have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, four of which are monographs. The WiR was extended for another month.
As part of the global initiative to increase content on Wiki projects on the occasion of International Museum Day, a competition was organized on Wikidata. The competition lasted from May 18 to 26, 2024, and almost four thousand changes were made to 465 items, while 8 items were created.
34 articles were written by 8 editors, within edit-a-thon called Women who left a mark. This event was organized by Wiki librarians. In addition to that, Wiki librarians organized one accredited seminar.

Diversity Program

The eighth WikiLive conference (local Wikipedian conference) was held on May 18 and 19. The event was realized under the slogan United in Knowledge and gathered around 70 Wikipedia editors, as well as collaborators on the project. The program included a variety of topics - from technical news, through discussions about content quality, motivational factors, panel discussions with partners from educational and cultural institutions, to discussions about how generative artificial intelligence tools can influence the project. The blog post is prepared and published, while the photos are uploaded on Wikimedia Commons.
Wikimedia Serbia has joined the Wiki For Human Rights global campaign for the fifth time, which aims to increase the visibility of human rights content, and this year the focus was on environmental sustainability. As part of the campaign, an edit-a-thon was organized, which lasted from May 27 to June 2. 8 editors participated in Wikipedia in the Serbian language and 20 new articles were written.
Wikimedia Serbia organized the tenth jubilee CEE Spring competition. The competition was realized in collaboration with Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska. As part of the competition, 566 new articles were written, while 102 were improved. 93,300,058 bytes were uploaded within this competition.
Wikimedia Serbia and the Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska, in collaboration with the Center for Research and Development of Society - IDEAS, for the third time organized an edit-a-thon on the occasion of World Refugee Day, which lasted from June 20 to 27. This event aimed to raise awareness of the refugee crisis and xenophobia by writing Wikipedia articles, and was followed by organized editing workshop. 8 editors participated in the marathon and a total of 19 articles were written.