Grants:TPS/Ctac/Wikimania/2014/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2014!

Participant

Ctac (Stanislav Kozlovskiy)

Russian Wikipedia, Wikimedia Russia

Outcome

1. My visit to Wikimania was useful in understanding how to organize major events for Wikimedians. This experience was useful for me and other members of Wikimedia Russia when we were organizing the major Wiki-Conference for Russian-speaking Wikimedians, that took place in Moscow in September, 2014. Now we are preparing another major conference, Wiki-Sabantuy, that is tied to the Bashkir Wikipedia 10-th anniversary, and oriented primarily to Wikimedia projects in languages of Russia other than Russian.
2. Annually, Wikimedia Russia gives Wiki-Prize to most prominent Wikimedians writing in Russian and other languages of Russia. There was a similar event at Wikimania, but Jimbo presented the honorary award also to people and organizations that are not part of the Wikimedia Movement, but did something important for dissemination of the free knowledge. I liked this, and Wikimedia Russia introduced the new Free Knowledge Award, to encourage those who helps to disseminate these knowledge in Russian Federation. Wikimedians in Russia selected the winners, and we handed over these in September, 2014 during the solemn ceremony.

Connections

1. I talked to a lot of members of the Wikimedia Chapters and User Groups. It was quite useful to exchange the information on the projects that they organize in their countries. What are the successes and failures. Their experince in fundrasing was quite invormative. Probably we will organize some of the projects similar to those that were discussed during those meetings.
2. Wikimedia Russia historically has ties with Chapters from former Soviet Republics and Eastern Europe. So the meeting within the CEE group was especially fruitful in the exchange of experience.
3. In Russia, Wikipedia is included in the Internet Blacklist; but the access to Wikipedia is not blocked yet. I talked to the WMF programmers and discussed tehnical issues related to this.
4. I met WMF Legal Counsel, Yana Welinder and discussed a lot of legal issues important for Wikimedia Russia.
5. Last but not least, it was very important to meet Lila Tretikov. We discussed a lot of topics related to communications between WMF and Wikimedia Russia.