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Wikimedia Community User Group Malta/Reports/2020 Annual Report

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This is the fourth annual report for Wikimedia Community User Group Malta. The report is designed to fulfill a requirements for officially affiliated Wikimedia user groups. It covers the period from 1 August 2019 until 31 July 2020.

Overview

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Wikimedia Community User Group Malta revolves around the work of the Malta-registered non-profit voluntary organization Wikimedia Community Malta, which was originally registered with the Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector in October 2015. The organization was officially recognized as an affiliated Wikimedia user group on 1 August 2016. All reports created by this affiliated user group are available here.

A general action plan for 2019 was drafted in December 2018, based on an informal evaluation of work from a previous year. For the purposes of this report, the general action plan for 2020, drafted in December 2019, should also be of interest.

The user group was administered through a series of regular meetings by the founding board held throughout 2019 and 2020.

The organisational year for this user group runs from January to December of each year, so the annual report required from it as an officially affiliated Wikimedia user group relates to work split over the latter part of one calendar year and the first half of the next year.

Activities

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From this year a list of planned activities for the seasonal year (coinciding with the dates covered by this report) started being prepared in August.

Highlights of activities between 1 August 2019 and 31 July 2020 include:

Grants for activities

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For the second year in a row, no grants were received. No applications were submitted during the period covered by this report. However, WCM benefitted indirectly for the CEE 2020 grant, which provided financial support for the prizes on that contest. It should also be noted that WCM activities were made possible through in kind support by Spazju Kreattiv, Heritage Malta, and the European Commission's Malta Office.

Media coverage for activities

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WCM Activities received the following press coverage between 1 August 2019 and 31 July 2020:

Metrics

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Here are some basic metrics from our activities:

  • Wiki Loves Monuments in Malta 2019: 136 uploads - 32 images used on wikis (23%) - 11 uploaders
  • Art+Feminism in Malta 2020: 14 Wikipedia articles created - 55 articles edited - 8 editors
  • Rebbiegħa CEE Spring 2020: 91 new artiles on mt.wp - 112 articles edited on mt.wp - 291 articles about Malta created/edited in other languages - 11 editors on mt.wp
  • Other Wikipedia Editing Workshops in 2020: EUFORGEN - EFI Bonn March 2020: 30 articles edited - 121 edits - 14 editors - 2.6K words added

Collaborations

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Collaborations with other organisations

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We hold our close collaborators to heart as they make much of what we do possible. This is an alphabetical list of our official collaborators since 2016, indicating relevant activities in the 2018/19 period covered by this report:

  • Bioversity International first requested a Wikipedia editing workshop and a general introduction to Wikimedia projects at their head quarters in Rome, Italy, through Wiki Media Community Malta in 2016. We delivered a second workshop for Bioversity in January 2018. The collaboration is ongoing and has now developed to include the European Forestry Institute (EFI) more directly through a project called EUFORGEN. Two Wikipedia Editing workshops were delivered in January and March 2020. more details here.
  • Blitz is a Malta-registered nonprofit artists-run space in Valletta, which spearheaded Malta's first Art+Feminism edit-a-thon in February/March 2018. Blitz founder Alexandra Pace was a WLM 2018 judge. They were also invited to participate in Art+Feminism 2019 and 2020 but declined. The collaboration is now determined to be dormant and thus no longer reported after this year, unless reignited.
  • Electronic Music Malta (EMM) is a nonprofit organisation active in the field of Electronic Music in Malta. An informal collaboration with EMM aims to provide EMM members with training and awareness opportunities for Wikimedia projects. Their annual conference in May 2018 included a keynote speech on editing Wikipedia in the context of histories of electronic music, especially in Malta. Keynote video available here. This point was reiterated again in May 2019. During the period covered by this report there were further discussions on way to collaborate on the history of Electronic Music in Malta, with a target to explore Wikidata in 2020/21.
  • Following an initial invitation for Toni Sant to present at a Wikipedia perspective at the Digital Prospects for the Maltese Language symposium in November 2019, the European Commission's Malta Office invited WCM to organise a series of events around the 2019 European Parliament election leading to a 2019 European Parliament Election Edit-a-thon in Valletta. This has led to the involvement of the Language and Translation Directorate within the European Commission's Malta Office to support the development of Rebbiegħa CEE Spring 2020.
  • Gabriel Caruana Foundation collaborated with WCM for Wiki Loves Art in Malta in 2017, with continued engagement towards planning for future activities. Wiki Loves Art in 2019 included an edit-a-thon associated with w:en:Gabriel Caruana, who died during the period covered by the previous report. Details here. The relationship became dormant in 2020 owing to the Covid-19 lockdown situation in Malta, but it is hoped that it will be reignited again once some type of normality is restored.
  • Heritage Malta the official agency handling cultural heritage in Malta hosted aspects of Wiki Loves Monuments in Malta 2018 and 2019, including the 2019 exhibition at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta. They also sponsored the prizes for Wiki Loves Monuments in 2019.
  • M3P Foundation is the Malta Media Memory Preservation organization, a Malta-registered non-profit VO which provides us with technical support and resources, including web hosting and an office address, as well as other general assistance through our shared goals.
  • Spazju Kreattiv through a formal collaboration agreement with Fondazzjoni Kreattività, Malta's national centre for creativity, since April 2016. The initial period of the agreement expired in April 2019 when the agreement was renewed for another five year period. Spazju Kreattiv was central for the success of Art+Feminism in Malta in both 2019 and 2020. It has also helped us establish a smooth transition to online meetings, workshops, meet-ups and edit-a-thons during the Covid-19 lockdown in the period covered by this report.
  • A new working relationship was discussed during the period covered by this report towards the establishment of a Wikimedian-in-Residence program at the Valletta Design Cluster. This is set to start in September 2020, subject to a formal agreement.

Interactions with other Wikimedia affiliates

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We recognize that interactions with other Wikimedia affiliates are essential for the healthy growth of our user group. This is a list of other Wikimedia affiliates with which we had meaningful interaction during the period covered by this report:

During the period covered by this report, WCM members presented their work on mt.wikipedia during the Celtic Knot Conference, which took place in July 2020. CEE Spring 2020 has served as a catalyst for WCM to work more closely with editors and administrators on mt.wikipedia for the first time in the User Group's history.

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