Don Wikimedians User Group

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Don Wikimedians User Group (Донская группа викимедийцев) — is a group of people participating in Wikimedia Movement, interested in the Don region and Don Cossack culture. Don region is a historical and geographical region in the South of Russia.

Based on the intention to participate fully in the global Wikimovement and contribute to its main objective—the free dissemination of knowledge in all languages of the world—the initiative group of editors of Don region decided to register itself as a user group.

Don region

Don Region

Don region is a historical region in the Southern Russia, along the middle and lower Don. The region, best known as a home of Don Cossacks, has a long and rich history; since the ancient times, it had been populated by Scythians and other nomadic peoples, as well as ancient Greeks (who created there a colony named Tanais), Venetian and Genoan merchants (in the Late Middle Ages), Ottoman Turks (who built a fortress in Azov) and, since the 16th century, Cossacks, who created the Don Cossack Host, which by the 19th century became the largest and the most significant of the Cossack hosts. Don Cossacks played important and often crucial role in all the important military campaigns of Russia, colonization of Siberia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and also in popular uprisings such as Bulavin Rebellion and Pugachev's Rebellion. Local writer Mikhail Sholokhov produced an epic Nobel Prize-winning novel And Quiet Flows the Don about the lives and struggles of Cossacks during the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War. Memory of Cossack history is still alive in the region, and many people seek to revive and preserve Don Cossack traditions and other traditions of the Don region.

Now, most of the region is covered by Rostov Oblast of Russia, with an area of 100,800 km² and population of 4,277,976 (as of 2010). Its administrative center is Rostov-on-Don, which is also the center of the Southern Federal District and, with more than 1 million inhabitants, one of the most prominent economical and cultural centers of Russia. Other significant cities include Taganrog, Shakhty, Volgodonsk and the Cossack capital Novocherkassk.

Objectives

IX All-Russian WikiConference, organized in 2010 in Rostov-on-Don with participation of Wikimedia activists from Don region

Promotion and dissemination of free knowledge about Don region and Cossack culture.
Promotion of Wikimedia projects in Don region.
Engagement of new people into the Wikimedia Movement.
Cooperation with local authorities, organizations and individuals to receive grants and other materials to promote free knowledge.

Activities

Wikimeetup in Rostov-on-Don. 2010

To promote Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects within Don region;
To organize article and photo contests, marathons and thematic weeks;
To collaboratively improve the quality of Wikimedia project content through edit-a-thons, workshops, educational programs, wiki-seminars, wiki-clubs and more;
To support any Wikimedia-oriented events or organizations operating within Don Region;
To establish a sense of community within our group.

History

Don wikimedian holds RuNet prize. 2015

A group of users, who wished to promote Wikipedia in Don region, appeared in Russin Wikipedia in 2009. To achieve this, they cooperated with Wikimedia RU to organize the all-Russia WikiConference in Rostov-on-Don in May 2010. There were more than 40 attendees.

In 2011 Don Wikipedians participated in the next WikiConference in Voronezh, and all other WikiConferences since then.

In 2013 Wikimedia RU in partnership with Rostov-on-Don regional educational organization Association of Honorable Citizens, Mentors and Talented Youth, with participation of Don Wikimedians, organized a contest devoted to Don region, «Gallery of Fame». Due to the contest about 1700 articles were created and more than 400 free media files were uploaded.

In 2014 this experience was used to organize the second stage of the contest, that resulted in more than 6000 articles and more than 4000 media files.

In 2016 there was organized a large geographical contest devoted to the Don region, «Know Russia. Start with Don»; more than 3000 articles were created and more than 2000 photos of the region were uploaded.

In 2017 there was the second stage on this contest, and the geographic component was supplemented with a new nomination dedicated to literature of Don; more than 2000 articles were created in different languages. A distinctive feature of the contest was translation of the contest page in 8 languages, to help Wikimedians from all over the world to participate the contest.

In 2017 there was a round table «Information volunteering: a factor for rise of human capital and increase of tourist appeal of the territories» with Don Wikimedians. During the event the guests summarized series of educational projects: "Know Russia. Start with Don" (1st and 2nd stages) and discussed a role of information volunteering as a factor of rise of human capital.

Also in 2017 there was a seminar in Rostov-on-Don under Open Library project, which was devoted to promotion of free knowledge, open access, free licenses and WikiSource and Wikimedia Commons projects.

This 8-year experience led to a decision to create a user group in order to make this work more systematic and effective. The decision was formalized at the wiki-meetup in Rostov-on-Don on 25 November 2017.

Contest «Know Russia. Start with Don» multilingual page

2017 events

24-11-2017 Open Library Project introduced in Rostov-on-Don

On 24 November 2017 in members of the Don Wikimedians User Group together with Wikimedia RU introduced the Open Library project to the local librarians' community in the Don State Public Library. The project's objective is to maximize open access to digital archives of libraries of the Russian Federation. Don State Public Library is the oldest library in the Don region and the entire Southern Russia, it stores more than 5 million items.

27-11-2017 Open Library Project introduced in Taganrog, Chekhov's birthplace

On 28 November 2017 representatives of the Don Wikimedians User Group together with Wikimedia RU held a seminar about the Open Library project in the Chekhov Library in Taganrog. Seminar was attended by representatives of all the libraries of Taganrog city. Wikimedians discussed the problem of open access to library archives and presented the Open Library project which aims to help solving the problem of open access to digital archives of libraries.

19-12-2017 Wikimeetup. "Discover Russia. Start from Don – Round 2" contest awards ceremony

On 19 December 2017 during the forum of honorary citizens of the Rostov oblast, members of the Don Wikimedians User Group who participated in the "Discover Russia. Start from Don – Round 2" article contest were awarded with prizes. Yelena Davydova, who won prizes in 2 nominations, received her winner certificates in the presence of more than 200 people at the stage of the Gorky Drama Theatre. Together with her, other Wikipedians and the contest jury members were present at the stage. The audience applauded to the Wikimedia volunteers.

2018 events

26-01-2018 Graduates and Mentors of the Rostov oblast in Wikipedia

On 26 January 2018 a start of the international article-writing contest Learn about Russia. Graduates and Mentors was announced. The competition is dedicated to creating and improving Wikipedia biographic articles about mentors and graduates of Soviet and Russian educational institutions. Don Wikimedians User Group together with public organizations of Rostov oblast will award special prizes to 3 authors of the largest number of best articles about mentors and graduates of education institutions that were or are placed in the Don region.

30-01-2018 Members of the Don Wikimedians User Group visited the Civic Chamber of Russia

Wikimedia projects editors met with members of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation for the first time in history on 30 January 2018. Participants of the meet-up discussed their activities, described to each other their projects and outlined the further ways of cooperation. Don Wikimedians User Group was represented by Dmitry Zhukov, who told to the members of the Civic Chamber about Wikipedias in various languages of Russia. He noticed the significance of the Russian Wikipedia for the post-Soviet countries: residents of these countries not only read Russian Wikipedia, but also actively contribute to it. According to Dmitry Zhukov, Russian language remains to be one of the means of international communication and is used by Wikimedians at the international level.

28-02-2018 Lecture in the Gorky Volgograd Oblast Library

A seminar was held in the Gorky Library in Volgograd city during the Project trends: from ideas to realization conference. Representatives of the librarians community of Volgograd oblast were told about the importance of open access to information and specifics of usage of open licenses in library activities. Wikimedians told to the librarians that Russian libraries store huge amount of documents in public domain (e. g. their copyright has expired), and large regional libraries can store unique materials absent due to one or another reason in the largest national libraries of Russia. Currently, these materials are almost inaccessible to most of the Russian speakers in Russia or abroad, and their publication in open access could broaden the horizons of the Russian cultural space.

19-05 World Cup 2018 information volunteers olympics

On May 19 2018 in Rostov-on-Don, in Southern Federal University premises (Philology and journalism faculty) there was held a first Russian olympics for pupils completely devoted to Wikipedia editing. Joint efforts by Don wikimedians user group, Ministry of Education of Rostov region, and several NGOs resulted in large-scale event, that was attended by 17 school teams from Rostov-on-Don and Rostov region. In general more than 150 new users contributed to Wikipedia. The organizes tried to reach two aims: to test a new approach to learn foreign languages by translation of Rusian Wikipedia articles into other language editions of Wikipedia with further improvements in direct contact with native speakers working in those Wikipedias, and to add as more articles about Rostov region tourist attractions into these Wikipedias, that should attract more tourists before anticipated flow of visitors to World Cup 2018. As a result, more than 200 articles were written and nore that 150 new uses joined Wikipedia.

26-05 Know Russia. Graduates and mentors contest results.

On May 26 2018 there were decided winners in large scale Know Russia. Graduates and mentors contest, that was organized in several language editions of Wikipedia. The contest is devoted to writing and improving bio articles about mentors and graduates of Soviet and Russian universities and other institutes. It was organized by Wikimedia RU, Don wikimedias user grous and Don regional NGO "Association of citizens of honor, mentors and gifted youth". The result was 1775 biographic articles created in 5 official UN languages, plus in German and Japanese. Also educational institutions and NGOs with help of Rostov region authorities created a lot of reliable sources that was used by the contestants. Most articles – 430 – were about Don region inhabitants. The contest was supported by the Committee for science, education and culture of Council of Federations, Ministry of Foreing Affairs of Russia, governors of several Russian regions.

31-05 Don wikimedians user group participated pan-european Wikimedia CEE Spring 2018 contest

In march 2018, Don wikimedians user group decided to participate annual pan-european Wikimedia CEE Spring 2018 contest, when durin 2 months wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe write articles about each others' cultural and historic heritage. Hence there was formed a words list table to write articles about Don region. Also wikimedians from Don wrote articles about heritage of other contesting countires in Russian. As a result, 150 Don-related article were created. The experience was found quite positive and further cooperation within Wikimedia CEE decieded.

13-06 "How to write a Wikipedia article in English, German, or French in 8 steps" webinar for pupils

On June 13 2018 Dmitry Zhukov of Don Wikimedians user group drove an interactive webinar how to write a Wikipedia article on Rostov region touristic attraction in English, German, or French in 8 steps. It was attended by 45 putipls from schools with enchanced studying of foreign languages from all over the Rostov region. The idea of the webinar came because some settlements are quite distant from Rostov-on-Don, 360 km and more. The webinar took about 3 hours, it was Wikipedia editing under mentorship. The result was 20 full-fledged articles in English and German. Also Pupils got practical experience of editing Wikipeda and knowledge about Wikimedia movement and projects.

30-07 Know Russia. World Cup 2018 cities and regions.

On July 30 2018 there were decided winners in Know Russia. World Cup 2018 cities and regions contest, devoted to wring articles in all languages and downloading free images about objects and attractions of Russian regions participating in World Cup 2018. The visionaries of the contest were Don wikimedians user group and the Public chamber member Leonid Shafirov; it was organized by Wikimedia RU. There were special prizes for authors writing about Don region atrractions. The result is 2200 articles of attractions of these regions, and more 16 800 photos of these regions. 361 articles in 8 languages were written about Rostov region attractions. There were 64 authors due to information campaign, that included seminars (including one in Rostov-on-done) and webinars before the contest.

1-11 Know world. Start with twin towns

On November 1 2018 there was started a Know world. Start with twin towns contest, devoted to articles on attractions of cities and regions for Russia and their foreign sister or partner territories. It was organized by Don Wikimedians user group and Wikimedia RU, with support of Rostov region NGOs. There is a special Rostov region prize. There will be winners who wrote most articles in two categories – one category in Russian, the second one in other languages. The contest page was translated in 9 international lagnuages. Several seminars and webinars are planned.

12-12 The digital openness of objects of Russian cultural heritage by regions rating created

In December 2018 Don wikimedians decided to create a The digital openness of objects of Russian cultural heritage by regions rating, in which Russian regions are weighted according to their openness and participating in Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikivoyage. Its aim is to allow volunteers to work more effectively with local authorities, and should lead to signifcatnt help to Wikimedians, namely for Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves contests. Also it should help to persuade regional authorities to release the information fulfilling the law and other obligations.

30-12 Certificates for Don wikimedians from the Ministry of Education of Rostov oblast

In the New Year's eve Yelena Davydova and Gennady Lipunov from the Don Wikimedians User Group were awarded certificates by the Ministry of Education of Rostov oblast.

2019 events

2-03 Discover the world. Start with the sister cities — Part 2

On 2 March 2019 Discover the world. Start with the sister cities — Part 2 contest started, organized by Wikimedia RU, Don Wikimedians User Group and the Association of honorary citizens, mentors and gifted youth with support of Leonid Alexandrovich Shafirov, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. Contest participants wrote 2213 articles about attractions of Russian cities and their sister cities, as well as uploaded 27 600 free illustrations of these attractions. In the first nomination, the largest number of articles (148) were dedicated to attractions of sister cities of Rostov oblast, such as Finnish city Kajaani, Scottish Glasgow, German Dortmund, Turkish Istanbul, Bulgarian Pleven and hero city Odesa.

05-04 Don Wikimedians User Group takes part in the Wiki-Spring 2019 international contest

In 2019 Don Wikimedians for a second time participated in the Wiki-Spring 2019 international contest, where wikipedians from Central and Eastern Europe write articles about cultural and historical heritage of each other. In March 2019, a list of 100 articles about the cultural heritage of Don region was significantly reworked and expanded. At the same time, Don wikimedians wrote about 60 articles in Russian language about cultural heritage of other countries participating in the contest. As a result of the contest, more than 150 articles in foreign languages about the Don region were created. Author of the largest number of articles from the Don region got an opportunity to visit CEE Meeting 2019 in Belgrad.

8-04 Lecture in the Don State Public Library

On 8 April 2019 employees of the Don State Public Library were lectured about the Wikimedia projects and importance of their cooperation with education institutions, about free knowledge and their popularization in Russia. Lecture was held by Wikimedia RU director Vladimir Medeiko and Don Wikimedia User Group leader Dmitry Zhukov. The event started with a greeting speech by the library deputy director Anna Vasilyevna Zhelyabovskaya. In the first part of the lecture Vladimir Medeiko told about transition of works into a public domain, in the second part Dmitry Zhukov spoke about libraries granting free access to their digital archives.

8-04 Don wikimedians wiki-trip to the Rostselmash plant

On 8 April 2019 in Rostov-on-Don members of the Don Wikimedians User Group made a wiki-trip to the Rostselmash machine-building plant which is the leading Soviet and Russian producer of agricultural equipment. The trip started at the Rostselmash museum, where examples of the plant's production since the beginning of it's history were exhibited. After the museum, participants of the wiki-trip visited various workshops of the Rostselmash plant, where they made a large number of photos of agricultural equipment to illustrate Wikipedia articles. After the wiki-trip, there was a wiki-meetup where wikipedians decided to make excursions to large manufacturing plants of the Don region a tradition.

1-08 Lecture in the Anapa Central Library

On 1 August 2019 there was a presentation in the Anapa Cental Library which introduced Wikimedia projects to the representatives of librarian community of Anapa city. The lecture was given by the leader of the Don Wikimedians User Group Dmitry Zhukov and Stanislav Alexandrovich Kozlovsky from Wikimedia RU. Attendees of the event were told about the importance of online access for libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions. It was noticed that currently Wikimedia projects are the most popular non-commercial internet platform in the world used by 1.6 billion people, and cultural institutions which cooperate with these projects contribute to the development of the humanity as well as obtain a unique opportunity to increase by orders of magnitude number of people who know about them and use them.

2-09 Discover Russia. Start from Don. Attractions, life and work of Chekhov, Sholokhov and others writers

On 2 September 2019, a contest started in Russian Wikipedia and wikipedias in other languages, organized by the Don Wikimedians User Group and entirely dedicated to the literary heritage of the Don region. More than 400 articles about Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Sholokhov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Anatoly Kalinin, Vitaly Zakrutkin and other writers of the region were created, and more than 1000 free images related to their work were published in Wikipedia. Among others, contestants produced articles about pre-revolutionary Don Cossack writers, about Sholokhov's and Solzhenitsyn's short stories, dramas and stories. International contest drew participants from Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine. More than 200 articles were written in Armenian and Belarusian languages. Most of the images were photos of Chekhov's places of Taganrog.

01-10 International congress of volunteers of culture and media

On 1-4 October 2019 Rostov-on-Don hosted the International congress of volunteers of culture and media. The main theme of the event was cultural, and especially literary heritage of the Don region. The opening ceremony was held in the Rostov State Musical Theatre. Main part of the ceremony was awarding certificates to volunteers who won various competitions. Among those who received awards there was Yelena Davydova, one of the most active members of the Don Wikimedians User Group, who edits Wikipedia as БИБЛИОТЕКАРЬ. She won the aforementioned "Discover Russia. Start from Don. Attractions, life and work of Chekhov, Sholokhov and others writers" contest. Wikimedians had their own section on this congress in the Don State Public Library: "Creating the encyclopedia together: millions will read". Dmitry Zhukov moderated the section and told about Wikipedia, Alina Vozna about Wikicommons, Dmitry Rozhkov about Wikivoyage, Aleksandr Krasotkin about Wikinews. The most significant result of the congress was that wikimedians had an opportunity to tell about four different Wikimedia projects.

7-10 Start of the "Wiki loves Caucasus" international contest

In March 2019, in Berlin, during the Wikimedia Summit, Don wikipedian Dmitry Zhukov and a member of the Georgian User Group Mekhman Ibragimov decided to organize an international contest "Wiki loves Caucasus" in Autumn 2019. Later, on Wikimania 2019 in Stockholm, representatives of Armenian and Azerbaijani Wikipedias and Wikipedians of North Caucasus User Group joined the dialogue. The contest started on 7 October 2019; it's participants created 1016 articles in 10 languages of the world. In it planned to make the contest annual.

11-10 CEE Meeting 2019

Three members of the usergroup (JukoFF, GennadyL and Visem) took part in CEEM-2019.

Wikimedians visited local monuments and churches, such as the Church of St. Sava, as well as buildings affected by the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. After returning home, GennadyL created several articles about Serbia and uploaded photos from Belgrade to the Wikicommons.

22-10 First textbook on Wikipedia editing in Russian language

In Spring 2019 Dmitry Zhukov from the Don Wikimedians User Groups in collaboration with Reda Kerbouche from Wikimedia Algeria started working on the first Russian-language textbook on Wikipedia editing. This work, as well as search for funding, took half a year. Later the project was joined by Wikimedia RU members, and in Autumn 2019 the book named "Wikipedia. Course for beginners" (Википедия. Вводный курс) was published as both printed book and e-book under the CC-BY SA 3.0. license. It is available on Wikimedia RU official site in PDF format. The book targets students of higher education institutions of Russia and provides the basic information needed for editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Authors of the textbook are experienced Russian wikipedians: Wikimedia RU members, adiminstrators of Russian and other Wikipedias, international Wikimedia movement activists. "Wikipedia. Course for beginners" was created as a part of the "Graduates and mentors of Russian universities" project. It was presented on 16 February 2020 on the All Scientific Forum 2020 in Moscow.

5-12 First massive open online course "Text creation in Wikipedia" in Russian language

In December 2019 as a part of the "Know Russia: school of information volunteers in the cultural sphere" Don Wikimedians User group developed and organized online course "Text creation in Wikipedia". This course became the first massive open online course on Wikimedia projects editing in Russian. As a part of this course on the online training platform there were created educations videos, prepared a complex of materials for self-education and held practical online courses about article creation in Wikipedia. More than 300 Russian-speaking users from Russia and other countries of the world passes this course. Their final task was creation of a Wikipedia article in Russian language about one of the natural or cultural monuments of Rostov oblast. Each one of them chose a theme for their future article from lists of monuments of the Rostov oblast on Wikivoyage and then gradually created the article during the course. Overall, more than 50 articles about monuments of Rostov oblast were created thanks to the online course.

2020 events

January 25 - Traditional Winter Meeting of the Don Wikimedians

On January 25, during the International Student's Day, a traditional winter meeting of the Don Wikimedians User Group was held in Rostov-on-Don. Group's most active members met in the Don State Public Library, and then moved to the “Vkusnolyubov” restaurant, where they discussed current affairs with blini and delicious tea. During the meeting, issues related to the Strategy of the Wikimedia movement, as well as the Universal Code of Conduct and the rejection of a number of its theses by the majority of the Russian Wikipedia community were discussed; the participants of the meeting tried to understand the reasons. Group's members unanimously didn't support the Foundation's initiative to rename the “Wikimedia movement” to the “Wikipedia movement” — they noted that such a decision would offend those members of the Movement who focused their efforts on Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wiktionary, and other projects. Don Wikimedians have scheduled some main events for 2020, which, unfortunately, have undergone huge adjustments due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

February 15 - Start of the “My Childhood Is a War. Biographies” competition

On February 15, the “My Childhood Is a War. Biographies” competition started. The competition was organized by the Non-profit Partnership “Wikimedia RU”, the Don Wikimedians User Group, and the Association of honorary citizens, mentors, and talented youth, with the support of a member of the Civic Chamber of Russia, Leonid Alexandrovich Shafirov. The site of the competition was Wikipedia — a free encyclopedia. The competition was timed to the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and was dedicated to the creation of biographical articles about the lives and destinies of people who had not reached 18 before the start of the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 — the day of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany). Newly created biographical articles, as well as additions to already created articles, were accepted for the competition. Based on the results of the competition, 2018 articles were created and expanded on Wikipedia. In the framework of the competition, the Don Wikimedians User Group established the special category “Children of War — Don citizens”, in which more than 100 articles about war heroes who lived on the Don were written.

February 16 - Presentation of the textbook “Wikipedia. Introductory course”

On February 16, a new textbook “Wikipedia. Introductory course” was presented at the 2020 Vsenauka Forum in Moscow. The creation of this textbook was started in 2019 by Dmitry Zhukov, a representative of the DWUG, and by the end of the year, it was completed by more than 70%. It took more than a year to implement the project and the goal was achieved — the book was published. “Wikipedia. Introductory course” has been published in both paper and electronic form, and is distributed under the CC-BY SA 3.0 open license. It is available on Wikimedia Commons in PDF format. A new book is dedicated to helping beginners — students of Russian higher educational institutions of all specialties — to start editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in the right way. The authors of the textbook are experienced Russian Wikipedians, including members of the NP “Wikimedia RU”, administrators of Russian Wikipedia and Wikipedia editions in other languages, volunteers of the international Wikimedia movement. In the autumn of 2020, “Wikipedia. Introductory course” became the official textbook of a special course on editing Wikipedia at Moscow State University.

March 16 - “Week of the Republic of Srpska” on Russian Wikipedia

In 2019, at the CEE Meeting in Belgrade, DWUG representatives Dmitry Zhukov and Gennady Lipunov agreed with Boyana Podgorica, a representative of the Wikimedians of the Republic of Srpska, to hold a joint thematic week dedicated to writing articles about the culture, geography, science, and personalities of the Republic of Srpska on Russian Wikipedia. The project began in the spring of 2020. Together, a list of the most important topics about the Republic of Srpska, not reflected in the Russian Wikipedia, was created; a page for the thematic week on Russian Wikipedia was created; motivation for authors and evaluation criteria have been developed. Finally, on March 16, the week was launched. As a result, 73 articles were created, over 100 free files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. In memory of their participation in the event, more than 10 Russian Wikipedians received commemorative postcards from the Republic of Srpska.

May 21 - Don Wikimedians took part in Wikimedia CEE Spring 2020

In 2020, Don's Wikimedians took part in the Wikimedia CEE Spring 2020 international contest for the third time. In March 2020, the dictionary table about the cultural heritage of the Don region, consisting of 142 articles for writing by the participants of the contest, was significantly revised and expanded. At the same time, Don Wikimedians wrote articles in Russian about the cultural heritage of other countries participating in the contest — more than 50 such articles were created. As a result of the contest, more than 130 articles in foreign languages were written about the Don land and its outstanding people. Unfortunately, travel restrictions and the cancellation of CEE Meeting 2020 in North Macedonia due to the COVID-19 pandemic did not allow the best Don author to attend the international meeting of Wikipedians, but the prize will await the victory over the coronavirus and the winner's trip will definitely take place.

June 22 - Start of the “My Childhood Is a War. Biographies. Round 2” competition

On June 22, the 2nd round of the “My Childhood Is a War” competition was launched in Russian Wikipedia. Like in the first round, the competition was timed to the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and was dedicated to the creation of biographical articles about the lives and destinies of people who had not reached 18 before the start of the Great Patriotic War (June 22, 1941 — the day of the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany). The competition was launched at the request of the participants of the first round: the authors of the articles made it clear that the topic of the competition has not been exhausted. For the second time, DWUG established the special category “Children of War — Don citizens”, in which more than 100 articles about war heroes who lived on the Don were written. In addition, in parallel with the competition, the project of video memories “My Childhood Is a War” was launched on the competition's channel on YouTube. These videos served as sources for creating articles within the main article competition. As a result, 933 articles were created on Russian Wikipedia.

September 26 - Wiki-Conference 2020

On September 26–27, St. Petersburg hosted the 14th international conference dedicated to the development of Wikimedia projects in the languages of Russia, as well as challenges of free knowledge creation and dissemination overall. It is likely that Russia has become the only country that held an annual offline conference — of course, with all the necessary precautions. For those Russian-speaking Wikimedians who, given the epidemiological situation, considered it unsafe to meet offline, the conference was broadcasted via Zoom and YouTube. There were several representatives of the DWUG at the conference. Two of them made reports, and also took a part in discussions on various topics of the round tables. The conference was held in a friendly, positive, and motivating environment.

October 1 - Start of the “Wiki Loves Caucasus 2020” annual contest

On October 1, the “Wiki Loves Caucasus 2020” international annual contest was launched. The contest, held for the second time, was jointly organized by Don Wikimedians User Group, Wikimedia Community UG Georgia, Azerbaijani Wikimedians UG, Wikipedians of North Caucasus UG, and Wikimedia Russia. In addition to Russian Wikipedia, the contest took place on Avar, Lezgi, Ossetian, Chechen Wikipedia editions, as well as Azerbaijani, Georgian, Turkish and Uzbek Wikipedias. The main goal of the contest was to create articles about the Caucasus. The main purpose of the contest in the North Caucasian languages (Avar, Lezgi, Ossetian, and Chechen) was to increase the number of articles on Caucasian topics in these editions, to involve them in the international Wiki-movement, as well as promote these Wikipedia editions to potential new users. In total, more than 450 articles were created in the Russian Wikipedia and Wikipedias in the languages of Russia during the contest.

November 7 - Participation in “North Caucasian Wiki-meetup 2020” in Grozny

On November 7, 2020, the National Library of the Chechen Republic hosted the second North Caucasian Wiki-meetup (or Wiki-seminar) which was also attended by representatives of the Don Wikimedians User Group. The seminar was attended by users of the Russian, Lezgi, Ossetian, and Chechen editions of Wikipedia, library staff, as well as people interested in spreading free knowledge. When holding the event, the Rospotrebnadzor restriction on holding events with no more than 30 participants was taken into account. In addition, all participants from other regions of Russia had certificates/test results valid at the time of entry into the Chechen Republic on the absence of COVID-19. Dmitry Zhukov from Rostov-on-Don, the administrator of Russian Wikipedia and organizer of the DWUG, made a report on the contests that took place in the Russian editions of Wikipedia over the past year, focusing on those contests in which editions in the languages of the North Caucasus took part. Satsita Israilova, Director of the National Library of the Chechen Republic, expressed confidence that the North Caucasian Wiki-meetup would become a traditional event, and invited Wikipedians to come to Grozny again in November 2021.

December 15 - Educational lectures and workshops in Yakutsk

On December 15, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) organized a number of meetings with employees of the central library system of Yakutsk and with students from a number of humanitarian faculties of the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University. The rich three-day program of events included lectures, seminars, and workshops. Lecturers and event leaders were: Dmitry Zhukov, leader of the DWUG, representatives of NP “Wikimedia RU” — Vladimir Medeyko and Natalia Senatorova, and Nikolai Pavlov, leader of Sakha Wikipedians. The lecturers talked about how the new era, based on communications and information technologies, makes it necessary for cultural and scientific institutions to adapt to changing conditions. Internet and information technologies allow people to remotely study the required unique materials directly from the workplace or from home. Thus, the value of online accessibility and openness of libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of science and culture became apparent. Digital technologies are proving to be useful for these institutions themselves, as they open up opportunities to fulfill their mission more effectively. The goals of cultural institutions and Wikimedia projects — the dissemination of knowledge, and their active interaction — have a mutually beneficial effect.

2021 events

January 16 — Traditional Winter Meeting of the Don Wikimedians

On January 16, 2021, the traditional winter meeting of the Don Wikimedians was held. Because of the difficult epidemiological situation, a number of participants were not able to attend the meeting, but those participants who had been vaccinated by mid-January were able to meet in person. The Don State Public Library was chosen as the meeting place, but later the participants moved to the nearest coffee shop. At the meeting, questions concerning various Russian Wikipedia article writing contests and various innovations of the Wikimedia Foundation were raised and discussed. Separately, the question of the functioning of an active Wikimedia movement community around the world in the face of the spreading pandemic of the coronovirus was touched upon. Meeting participants outlined plans for the new year 2021, it was decided to hold several Wikiexpeditions, including an expedition to the Russian stage of the series of Formula One car races in Sochi (these plans have been implemented only partially).

March 1 — Participation of Don Wikimedians in the Wiki School

In late winter of 2021, representatives of the Don Wikimedians User Group received an invitation from colleagues from the Wikimedians of Bashkortostan User Group to participate as mentors in the Rustam Nuryev Online Wikischool. The invitation was accepted. After getting acquainted with the class schedule, course program, and study materials, classes began.An experienced wikimedist Dmitry Zhukov (JukoFF) was the lecturer and workshop facilitator from the Don Wikimedians User Group. During the course Dmitry participated in the training of 3 streams of students, held respectively in March, May and July 2021. In the classes, future Wikipedians received an overview of the Wikimedia movement, as well as hands-on training in editing Wikipedia, uploading media files to Wikimedia Commons, and gaining basic knowledge about the functioning of Wikidata. In all, more than 50 students were trained in three streams, each of whom hand-wrote a Wikipedia article, illustrated it with a free image uploaded to Commons, and integrated it into Wikidata at the final exam.

April 19 — Meeting of representatives and participants of Russian user groups in Moscow

Оn April 19, 2021, a one-day wiki excursion to the Central House of Aviation and Cosmonautics in the center of Moscow was devoted to exploring the center's exposition. Representatives of the various Russian user groups in the Wikimedia movement, both active and emerging, came to Moscow to participate in the event. After the wiki tour was over, representatives of Russian user groups organized a wiki meeting. A wiki-meeting took place in the restaurant "Patio" at "Dinamo" metro station in the evening of April, 19. There were representatives of Russian Wikimedia RU chapters, North-West Russia Wiki-Historians User Group, Don Wikimedians User Group, Wikimedians of Moscow User Group, and representatives of Yakut wikipedia - Wikimedians of Sakha Republic. The meeting was held in a friendly and creative atmosphere, and the participants shared their experiences in the functioning of their user groups and their interaction with representatives of the Wikimedia Foundation. Representatives of yet-to-be-recognized user groups received practical advice on the procedure of official recognition and integration into the international wiki space.

May 8 — WikiGap 2021

According to the plan outlined at the beginning of the year, the representatives of the Don Wikimedians User Group decided to actively participate in a series of international events connected with WikiGap 2021, and in particular to support the Russian-language writing contest devoted to bridging the gender gap in Wikipedia in Russian and other languages of Russia. The gender composition of the Don Wikimedians User Group is in line with global trends, and its majority is male. The only female member of the user group is Elena Davydova (БИБЛИОТЕКАРЬ), a librarian working in a small rural library in the city of Donetsk, Rostov region. Elena is an active participant in Russian Wikipedia article contests and writes articles about prominent residents of the Don land. In the WikiGap 2021 article contest dedicated to outstanding women of Russia and the world, Wikimedians from Don wrote more than 120 articles, and one of the group members - Gennady Lipunov (GennadyL), won honorable third place in the contest in the category "Outstanding Women of the World" - articles in Russian. Gennady received a diploma on winning the contest from Swedish Ambassador to Russia Milena Mard, it was the Swedish embassy in Russia that initiated the article contest.

May 21 — Don Wikimedians took part in Wikimedia CEE Spring 2021

For the fourth time in 2021, Don's Wikimedians took part in the international Wikimedia CEE Spring 2021 contest, in which Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe write articles about each other's cultural and historical heritage for two months, competing against each other. In March 2021 the word table of more than 150 articles that were offered to contestants to write about the cultural heritage of the Don region was significantly revised and expanded. At the same time, Don wikimedists wrote articles in Russian about the cultural heritage of other countries participating in the contest - more than 40 such articles were created. More than 100 articles in foreign languages were written about the Don land and its prominent natives as a result of the contest. This year representatives of the Don Wikimedians group acted as prize operators for the All-Russian part of the contest. Encyclopedic book sets were purchased for the 5 winners who wrote the largest number of articles in Russian within the contest and mailed to the addresses of the authors of the articles. This work was carried out in collaboration with the Russian and Austrian chapters.4

June 12 — Start of the «Discover the world. Start with the sister cities — 2021» annual contest

June 12, 2021 was the start of the international competition «Discover the world. Start with the sister cities — 2021» to create and finalize articles devoted to the attractions of cities and districts of the Russian Federation and their foreign twin and partner territories, also within the competition participants were invited to write biographical articles devoted to honorary citizens of the twin cities around the world. The contest was organized by the Don Wikimedians User Group and WikimediaR U, with support from public organizations in the Don region. The contest established a special nomination "Rostov region" - "The best articles on the attractions of the twin cities and partner areas of towns and districts of the Rostov region", in which more than 50 articles were written. During the contest, 590 articles were created and supplemented (299 about places of interest and 291 about honorary citizens), and 1,785 free illustrations were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Twenty-four wikipedists took part in the competition, 10 of whom won prizes in various categories and special categories. A number of editatons and webinars were held to promote the contest.

September 26 — International Wiki Conference 2021

On September 25-26, the 15th international conference on the development of Wikimedia projects in Russian languages, as well as the problems of free creation and distribution of knowledge in general in Russia and around the world, was held in Moscow. In yet another year, Russia was almost the only country to hold its annual conference offline with live people - with all the precautions in place, of course. For those Russian-speaking participants in the Wikimedia movement who felt that offline meetings were unsafe given the epidemiological situation, the conference was broadcast on Zoom and YouTube. There were several representatives of the Don Wikimedian group at the conference. Two of them gave plenary speeches (one offline and one online) to the assembled conference participants and also participated directly in the dialogues that broke out as part of the discussions of the various roundtable topics. A distinctive feature of the conference was the participation of a large number of foreign participants who spoke at Zoom, especially the speech of a colleague from Wikimedia Community User Group Nigeria, who spoke about working with local libraries. The conference was held in a friendly, positive and motivating atmosphere.

October 15 — Start of the “Wiki Loves Caucasus 2021” annual contest

On October 15, the “Wiki Loves Caucasus 2021” international annual contest was launched. The idea for the contest, now in its third year, was born during a conversation at the 2019 Berlin Summit between Dmitry Zhukov of the Don Wikimedians User Group and Mehman Ibragimov of the Wikimedia Community User Group Georgia. The contest, held for the third time, was jointly organized by Don Wikimedians User Group, Wikimedia Community UG Georgia, Azerbaijani Wikimedians UG, Wikipedians of North Caucasus UG, and Wikimedia Russia. In addition to Russian Wikipedia, the contest took place on Avar, Lezgi, Ossetian, Chechen Wikipedia editions, as well as Azerbaijani, Georgian, Tatar and Ukrainian Wikipedias. Traditionally, the contest was devoted to writing articles on topics related to the Caucasus. Its goal was to create articles directly or indirectly related to the Caucasus in the various language communities of Wikipedia. Sixteen Russian Wikipedia authors took part in the contest (one out of a competition). A total of 601 articles were created in the Russian section, 231 more than in 2020 and more than four times as many as in the 2019 contest (144). In total, more than 650 articles were written in Russian-language Wikipedia and Wikipedia in the languages of the peoples of Russia, corresponding to the theme of the contest.

November 5 — Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021

The Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021 was held on November 5 and took place in virtual space because of the coronovirus pandemic. The Don Wikimedians decided to prepare a presentation and deliver it at one of the line sessions of the conference. The authors of the report were Dmitry Zhukov and Gennady Lipunov, both of whom have extensive experience in organizing and participating in various thematic competitions taking place on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. It was on the basis of this experience that the theme of the report was chosen - "Article contests in Russian and other Wikipedias in the languages of Russia", and a lot of work with statistical material was done to create the presentation. The main thesis of the report was the fact that about 10% of the articles in the Russian Wikipedia are created through contests. It was assumed that friends and colleagues from other Wikipedias would be interested in how to run contests in which authors can be motivated to create 1,000 or more articles in 45 days. The report aroused great interest among the audience, at the end of which the speaker answered all the questions that arose from the audience.

November 12 — Wiki-seminar at Volgograd State University

On November 12, 2021, Volgograd State University hosted a lecture and master class on writing and revising encyclopedic Wikipedia articles about prominent alumni and professors of Russian universities. The event was organized and held thanks to the joint efforts of the Don Wikimedians User Group, the Wikimedia Russia, and representatives of the university. The event began with a meeting with the Rector of Volgograd University, Alla Kalinina, at the meeting it was declared a mutual interest in the development of educational, career guidance and engineering activities, including the dissemination of free to use encyclopedic, educational, scientific and reference information in the Russian Federation. Then Stanislav Kozlovsky, a representative of WMRU, and Dmitry Zhukov, a representative of the Don Wikimedians, moved to the walls of the "Terra Media" journalism school at the university's journalism faculty. More than 70 students were waiting in the auditorium for an introductory lecture, which covered important issues on the basics of editing in the universal Internet Encyclopedia. After the lecture, the most active participants of the event were invited to a master class on editing Wikipedia. Under the responsive guidance of experienced mentors, the students were offered to write their first articles of the Russian Wikipedia. The created articles were dedicated to the outstanding professors of Volgograd University, who stood at the origins of the university.

November 24 — Lecture and master class at the Russian-Kazakh forum "Young Scientists"»

On November 24, Dmitry Zhukov, a representative of the Don Wikimedians User Group, was invited to give a lecture on Russian Wikipedia and Kazakh Wikipedia, as well as a master class on writing articles at the international scientific forum "Young Scientists", which was held in Samara in November 2021. The forum is an annual event and is aimed at developing cooperation between educational and scientific structures of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, creating conditions for the development and implementation of joint Russian-Kazakh projects in the scientific field, as well as the development of intercultural dialogue and humanitarian cooperation between young people in the participating countries as a whole. The forum was held in a "hybrid" format, with some scientists participating offline and some online. During the forum, Dmitriy Zhukov told the audience about the principles of the Wikimedia Movement, the main projects, and in more detail about the history and statistical indicators of the Russian and Kazakh Wikipedias, finding many similarities in the history of their development. In the second part of the event, forum participants turned on their laptops, divided into teams, and began to write articles from a wordbook prepared in advance for the forum. The editaton resulted in more than 20 biographical articles, but much more importantly, more than 50 young scientists received the skill to write encyclopedic articles for Wikipedia. At the end of the event, the most active participants were given memorable prizes with Wikipedia symbols.

Report

Criteria for joining the group

Any user, regardless of his language, can join the user group if he shares the goals of the Wikimedia Movement (promotion and dissemination of free knowledge) and has an interest in the Don region theme. Active participation in the WMF projects is desirable, but not mandatory. In order to join, a new member has to send a request for joining by e-mail or contact any group member using any other mean of communication.

Contact information

JukoFF, Russian, English, Ukrainian / Dmitry Zhukov (Е-mail: jukoff_@mail.ru)
Altes, Russian, English / Alexander Teslyuk (Е-mail: alexteslyuk@gmail.com)
Be nt all, Russian, Ukrainian
GennadyL, Russian, Ukrainian / Gennady Lipunov

Commons

Category:Don Wikimedians User Group

Interested in participating

JukoFF (talk) 23:42, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Altes (talk) 01:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
GennadyL (talk) 10:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
LIBRARIAN (talk) 14:30, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Be nt all (talk) 07:52, 28 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Being a descendant of Orenburg Cossacks, I support creation of this user group. But my full participation can be only after I visit Rostov Oblast. I hope, it will be during the FIFA World Cup 2018, where I'm planning to visit one of the games of Uruguay national team.--Soul Train (talk) 13:27, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
--Erokhin (talk) 11:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
--Frhdkazan (talk) 10:01, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
--Рөстәм Нурыев (talk) 10:47, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
--Visem (talk) 14:23, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
--Sergasl (talk) 19:04, 08 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
--JustApex (talk) 20:30, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
— Niklitov (talk) 15:28, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Argenberg (talk) 09:15, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
STomasovitch-WMF (talk) 3:07, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Recognition

Recognition Don Wikimedians User Group (12 February 2018)