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Wikimedia Community User Group Malta/Reports/2024 Annual Report

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This is the eighth 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 2023 until 31 July 2024.

PLEASE NOTE: 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.

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.

An operational action plan for 2023 was drafted in December 2022, based on an informal evaluation of work from a previous year. For the purposes of this report, the operational action plan for 2024, drafted in December 2023, should also be of interest.

The user group was administered through a series of regular meetings by the founding board held throughout 2023 and into 2024.

The main website for the user group was switched from MediaWiki to Wordpress in March 2024. This may result in some broken links, even if every effort has been made to keep old pages active one way or another. If you notice any broken links within this report, please let us know on the talk page.

Activities

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Highlights of activities between 1 August 2023 and 31 July 2024 include:

Grants for activities

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The period 1 August to 31 December 2023 was covered by a previous grant through the Wikimedia Community Fund 2022 (General Support), which enabled WCM's activities throughout 2023: see WCM Simple Annual Plan 2023

One grant application was submitted during the period covered by this report, which was the Wikimedia Community Fund 2024 (General Support): see our application. This was submitted in September 2023, favourably received, and awarded fully in December 2023. As far as this report is concerned, this grant covered activities from 1 January - 31 July 2024.

Furthermore, WCM benefited indirectly from the CEE Spring 2024 grant, which provided financial support for the prizes on that contest; administered by WMAT.

Metrics

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Here are some basic metrics from our activities with links to statistic tools:

Media coverage

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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 a list of our active collaborators, indicating relevant activities in the 2023/24 period covered by this report:

  • 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 remains active as WCM continues to collaborate on the history of Electronic Music in Malta, with a target to explore Wikidata in 2023/24. We aim to continue this work in 2024/25.
  • 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 2021 after the relative success of 2020. Online Wikipedia editing training for Maltese translators based in Luxembourg and Brussells was also provided by WCM in January 2021. This work has helped buoy WCM in its language project in 2021/22. They also continue to support CEE Spring activities in Malta, including by providing a venue in Valletta for face-to-face activities, such as Wikipedia editor training and edit-a-thons. In 2023/24 this collaboration was stalled because of the European Parliament Elections. It is hoped that this collaboration continues into 2024/25.
  • 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 office space, as well as other general assistance through our shared goals.
  • At the 2023 Malta Book Festival, we announced a partnership with The Times of Malta, in the form of a Wikimedian-in-Residence to explore ways of sharing knowledge. This arrangement continues into 2024/25.
  • An exploration on the possibility of developing an Education Program in collaboration with the University of Malta started in early 2022. As a pilot project we delivered Wikipedia editing training to students on the MA in Translation Studies, and they in turn took part in our Feminism & Folklore activity. This was carried forward into 2023 and 2024, with further Wikipedia editing workshops for the translation students; working primarily on Feminism & Folklore articles. Furthermore, we also delivered Wikidata workshop for a group of students on the MA in Gender Studies in early 2024. Both these lines of activity make us hopeful towards the development of a more formal education program for the University of Malta.
  • Our working relationship with Heritage Malta was re-established in May 2022 through an activity WCM organized for International Museum Day. During 2022/23 Enrique Tabone conducted a Wikidata project with the National Museum of Archeology focusing on creating a dataset for prehistoric female figurines in their collection. This work has led to further work within WCM, leading to the publication of an academic journal article by Tabone with Toni Sant. Further work in this direction is planned for 2024/25.

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:

2023/24 Highlight

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We would particularly like to highlight our collaboration with Wikimedia Morocco on an ongoing edit-a-thon, which we aim to develop into a broader pan-Mediterranean collaboration between Wikimedians, in the foreseeable future.

Wikimedia Gatherings

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During the period covered by this report WCM members presented their work on mt.wikipedia and Wikidata during:

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