Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Shared Knowledge/August 2016

SHARED KNOWLEDGE Activity report

August 2016

Debarca Wikiexpedition

Map of settlements in Debarca Municipality covered by the expedition

Wikimedians talking to locals in Zlesti

On Saturday, 13 August 2016, Shared Knowledge held a wikiexpedition in the region of Debarca consisting of Ehrlich91, Kiril Simeonovski and Македонец, covering a total of 16 settlements.

The limited availability of Македонец due to his commitment to holdingthe third part of the geoexpedition to Šar Mountains on the following day, this expedition was held only on the Saturday. It should be noted however, that we still managed to cover 16 villages out of a total of 29 settlements in the modern Debarca Municipality, only half of which belong to the the true Debarca region. We will cover the rest of these settlements on one of the following weekends, thus completing the entire modern municipality that also bears the name of the traditional region.

As soon as we finished work on Friday, we headed straight to Ohrid, where we spent the night so that we can be fully rested and able to photograph the villages of the Debarca region. We started with the village of Botun and covered the villages of the former Belčišta Municipality. It was indeed fortunate that the settlements were near each other, so that we were able to move between them quite quickly. The locals were very welcoming and with their help we managed to take images of the interiors many village churches.

When visiting the newly-built Zlesti Monastery in Zlesti and its Nativity of the Theotokos Church, we were very surprised to find remains of an old temple in the monastery yard. We learnt that this is an important archaeological site, which we gladly photographed. We also came across the All Saints Monastery monastery in Lešani, which also has well-preserved old buildings where monastic life has been revived. In Velmej we took pictures of important old churches, among which was the famous Immaculate Mother of God Cloister Church. The old village church contained valuable frescoes, which were explained to us by a knowledgeable local.

We concluded the expedition by photographing the remains of the former Slatino Reservoir, whose dam had collapsed a few year ago, and now is overgrown with reeds. We also took a panoramic image of the village of Laktinje on our way back to Skopje.

Results

A total of 144 images were uploaded. This so far resulted in 5 new and 3 improved articles, all about the places visited and photographed.

Geoexpedition on Šar Mountain

On 14th of August 2016, the next day from the Wikiexpedition, our member Македонец went on our second geoexpedition to Šar Mountains. He have hiked over 35 kilometers on foot visiting several peaks, lakes, rivers, springs and areas in the central part of the mountain range, where he have taken many photographs. During this expedition were visited the two biggest glacial lakes Bogovinjsko and Crno (Black) Lake, and several of the highest peaks on Šar Mountain such as Rudoka, Borislavec from where the taken photographs of other high peaks and landscapes of the mountain.

Outcomes and results

This geoexpedition has so far resulted in 164 uploaded images of 28 different features/landforms and the creation of 9 and improvement of 19 articles. 150 images are used in articles, representing 91.46% of total images made on the expedition

Gallery

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  Bogovinje glacial lake
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  Crno (Black) glacial lake
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  Highest peaks on Šar Mountain
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  Smreka stream on Šar Mountain
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  Upper and Lower Dobroste glacial lakes

Macedonian Dialects Project

Logo of the Macedonian Dialects Project showing two people saying the word "wolf" in two different dialects

Samples of dialect recordings

About the wedding customs in Štip Sample of the Štip–Kočani dialect (help | download | file info)

The Sufferings of the Beautiful Princess Sample of the Lower Polog dialect (help | download | file info)

Civil War experiences Sample of the Solun-Voden dialect (help | download | file info)

This August we completed the Macedonian Dialects Project (Проект „Македонски дијалекти“) in collaboration with the Božidar Vidoeski Research Centre for Areal Lingustics at MANU aided by our Wikimedian-in-Residence there illustrated the rich variety of Macedonian dialects with 25 recordings representing 16 dialects from various regions of the country, as well as regions with traditional Macedonian population that are now situated in neighbouring countries. Some dialects are represented with more than one recording. The recordings were then used in articles as samples about the dialects, but also to illustrate articles about the settlements where these recordings come from, to illustrate local culture.

You can see all of the recordings at Category:Audio files of Macedonian dialects on Wikimedia Commons.

Results

All 25 recordings are used in a total of 87 articles (so far) in three Wikipedia language editions (Macedonian, English and some Bulgarian).

Additional material and purpose

We also obtained a large volume of audio material (around 2000 hours) containing the full-length versions of the recordings, as well as various other recordings of value in for the Macedonian folklore, ethnology and history. These will be used in a new project.

Wikimedian-in-Residence

Аpart from the involvement in obtaining 42 audio CD's of 2000-hour recorded dialect speech held in the collection by Božidar Vidoeeski Research Centre for Areal Lingustics in MANU for the Macedonian dialects project conducted by Shared Knowledge, Wikimedian-in-Residence have scanned the entire book "Birth of the Macedonian Nation" on 276 pages for the purposes of the project Википедија:Македонство whose main aim is gathering, digitization and writing overview of the content of each book dedicated on the Macedonian national identity and struggle from freedom. So far, within this project, 6 books have been scanned and proceed. Besides that, another entire book of poetry of Heinrich Heine on 156 pages was scanned and uploaded to the article as well as 15 other articles were improved or created with materials provided from publications from the Library of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Other upcoming GLAM and community projects

Logo of the Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia on Wikidata project

Edit-a-thons logo

• September: Obtaining photographs of actors in the Comedy Theatre in Skopje, to be released under a free licence for use in biographical articles about the actors.
• September: Contemporary Art Museum of Macedonia on Wikidata, incorporating data about the museum's rich collection of modern artworks into Wikidata.
• end of September: Edit-a-thon of the same nature as above, with the Macedonian chapter of the European Medical Students' Association (EMSA), covering various medical topics that address large gaps in that area in the Macedonian Wikipedia.
• TBA: Edit-a-thon at the Union of Mathematicians of Macedonia. We will organise a editing day, engaging young (and old) mathematicians to fill-in the large gaps on this subject in the Macedonian Wikipedia.
• TBA: Open Streets of Skopje, a photography and editing project with the students of the Faculty of Architecture aimed at illustrating buildings and places of significance along the more important streets of Skopje and creating/improving content about them.
• September-October: Wiki Loves Performing Arts - obtaining crecordings from performances of the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, as well released under a free licence. There is also possibility to photograph members of the orchestra in October.