Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Österreich/September 2017

September 2017
Report

WMAT strategy meeting in Salzburg

Participants	10	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	2

Strategy meeting participants

In September the new WMAT board met for their first big strategy meeting in Salzburg. The meeting was structured in two parts: Firstly, a conflict mediation for conflicts which emerged during the last straining months between various stakeholders - the aim was to clear the air for the new team to work together on our future without the burdens of the past. Secondly, a strategy workshop covering topics from the endorsement of the movement strategy, revising the budget and program planning for 2018, and organisational development. The now bigger board will organize in working groups around the major strategic focus areas and revisit the bylaws, governance codex, and procedural rules in order to equip the organisation for the future.

The participants were 8 board members (1 ♀, 7 ♂), 1 male staff member (♂) and 1 male facilitator (♂). The organizer was our ED (♀). On Saturday evening the board and staff met for dinner with the local community in Salzburg.

This activity is part of our program Community Support.

WikiAlpenforum meeting in Trento

Participants	4	Newly registered	–	Content pages	3	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Wikimedians at the WikiAlpenforum meeting in Trento

WikiAlpenforum is an international community project for free content in Wikimedia projects about the Alps. It focusses on Wikipedia articles in German, French and Italian as well as on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. WikiAlpenforum involves communities from the Alpine regions of Austria, France Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

The three-days WikiAlpenforum meeting in Trento, Italy included guided tours to a library, a museum and an Alpine garden, edit-a-thons and photo tours. 17 Wikimedians participated in the meeting, three of them were Austrians for whom we covered travel costs. Besides new images for Wikimedia Commons, the Wikipedia articles de:Botanischer Alpengarten Viote, it:Giardino botanico alpino Viote, it:Biblioteca comunale di Trento and it:Rhododendron ferrugineum were written/improved.

→ Project page in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Report by Austrian participant Yung in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Free Content.*

WikiCon 2017 in Leipzig

Participants	283	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	66

WikiCon is the annual conference of the German-speaking Wikimedia communities. In 2017, it took place in the city of Leipzig in Germany from September 8th to 10th. It attracted 283 participants (without main organizers). The four main organizers were the Wikimedians DCB, Don-kun, Stepro and Ubahnverleih. WMAT supported the conference as a whole financially and ten Austrian participants with travel grants in particular. During WikiCon 2017, the WMAT staff was awarded a WikiEule for the organizational work throughout the year. The anonymous participants survey conducted via Qualtrics after WikiCon once again showed the German-speaking communities' high demand for and satisfaction with WikiCon. Its complete results can be found on Wikimedia Commons; what follows is a selection of some significant results.

About the participants of WikiCon 2017

The participants about WikiCon 2017

"Participating in WikiCon 2017 strengthened my motivation to contribute to Wikipedia and/or its sister projects."	"Regarding your expectations towards the conference: Your expectations towards the conference were ..."	"How do you rate WikiCon 2017 as a whole?"

→ WikiCon 2017 in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Results of the WikiCon 2017 Participants Survey (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

This activity is part of our program Community Support.

Consultation for European Union Copyright Reform

Participants	2	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Map of Austria in the EU

The European Union is currently debating about a reform of copyright law, an advocacy topic whch has a lot of impact on Wikimedia projects and hence is of utmost importance to the Free Knowledge advocacy group EU (FKAEU). The Austrian ministry of Justice invited Austrian stakeholders to give their feedback and input concerning the current draft of the European Commission in written form (in August) and in person during a meeting in September. Dimitar Dimitrov from FKAEU supported us in drafting the written statement and was - together with our ED - present during the meeting in Vienna in September, in order to voice the concerns of the Wikimedia communities and demonstrate the possible impact on projects such as Wikipedia. The meeting in Vienna was also valuable to build relationships with the Austrian representatives in charge and to get an idea of their position on crucial points, as Austria will hold the EU Council Presidency next year, possibly during the time when the laws will be passed.

As always our actions were coordinated with Austrian partner organisations and individuals from Creative Commons AT, Epicenter Works, and the Netpolitical Evening.

This activity is part of our program Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness.

Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017 in Warsaw

Participants	4	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	1

Group photo

This year's edition of the Wikimedia CEE meeting was held in Warsaw, Poland. It was attended by four WMAT representatives (one board member, one female staff member, two volunteers who work with or belong to other CEE language communities). They contributed to the programm with five sessions (on Wikidata, the CEE spring, organisational development, and the CEE cooperation around the Wikimedia Hackathon), a lightning talk, and the facilitation of various other sessions. The conference was a good mixture of sharing experiences and know-how with other communities and gathering impulses from others for our own work.

As in the last years we were impressed how tirelessly and passionate the CEE community works during their yearly meeting - often until late at night, especially around the challenges of the current movement strategy process. We were also happy to receive positive feedback concerning our own input to the conference and CEE projects from WMF staff and CEE volunteers. The preparation and facilitation of the event by the hosting organisation Wikimedia Poland was very professional and welcoming.

→ SPARQL workshop

→ Lua workshop

→ Wikimedia Hackathon goes CEE

→ Trials and tribulations of Wikimedia Austria

→ Review CEE Spring

→ Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017 on Meta

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

This activity is part of our programs Community Support.

Monuments Day 2017

Participants	2537	Newly registered	–	Content pages	1	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Crowd at Wikipedia area, Monuments Day 2017

Nora Stanton Barney, added to the list of notable female architects

Monuments Day is an annual event in Austria which is organized by our long-time partner, the Federal Monuments Office. Selected cultural heritage monuments are open to the public for one day. For the 7th time, WMAT was involved in Monuments Day. We supported a Wikimedia Commons photo competition (see October report) and were present with an Wikipedia information area at Hofburg palace in Vienna. This area was attended by 2,537 visitors this year, many of them were senior citizens. The Monuments Day's motto changes every year. On the occasion of Empress Maria Theresa's 300th birthday, this year's motto was "Home to great daughters", deriving from a verse in Austria's national anthem:

Home to great daughters and sons,

A nation highly blessed with beauty,

Much-praised Austria,

Much-praised Austria!

Due to this cause we not only informed the visitors how their contributions as authors and photographers for Wikipedia's documentation of cultural heritage monuments are welcome, we also conducted an edit-a-thon at which the visitors could add a line to a new list of notable female architects in the German-language Wikipedia:

de:Liste bedeutender Architektinnen (16.201 bytes)

The Wikipedia area at Hofburg palace was conceived by the Wikimedian Regiomontanus along with two WMAT staff members and a representative from the Federal Monuments Office.

→ Tag des Denkmals website (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons (of the photo competition mostly)

This activity is part of our programs Free Content* and Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness.*

Open Minds Award

Participants	7	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	6

WMAT and WMF representatives with award and blinking bows

The first Austrian Open Source Award was established this year in order to raise awareness and visibility for our local Open Source Communities and their projects. The jury consisted of representatives from across the various Open Communities in Austria (Open Knowledge, Linux, and Drupal among others) and honoured outstanding projects in the categories Open Data, Open Software, Open Hardware and Diversity. Our international team around the Wikimedia Hackathon mentoring program won in the category "Diversity". They particularly mentioned the comprehensive documentation under a free license which enables other event organizers to apply our ideas and concepts and to build on them. We are very happy about this positive signal for inclusive events, which make it easier for all newcomers to join our great communities and hope it encourages us to also make our other Wikimedia more and more newcomer friendly. A special thanks goes to our awesome Wikimedia mentors who were the heart and soul of the Mentoring Program and the Hackathon!

7 Wikimedians (4 female, 1 male, 2 male foreigners) were present at the award ceremony.

→ Open Minds Award website

→ Press release (in German)

This activity is part of our program Community Support..

Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb Summer 2017

Participants	32	Newly registered	–	Content pages	804	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Logo

The "Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb" is a contest for removing cleanup templates in the German-language Wikipedia. It is held four times a year. WMAT supports the contest by donating prizes, e. g. Wikipedia chocolate bars. The Summer 2017 edition had 32 participants who edited in teams or by themselves. The competition resulted in 804 improved Wikipedia articles.

→ Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb Summer 2017 in the German-language Wikipedia

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Free Content.*

Wikidata Election Data workshop

Participants	27	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Wikidata Election Data workshop

Two weeks before the 2017 Austrian legislative election, we used election data ("Wahldaten" in German) for introducing beginners to Wikidata. The workshop aimed at Wikimedia adepts (like Wikipedians, Wikimedia Hackathon newbies ...) as well as election aficionados (like data journalists, election researchers, political science students ...) in particular. We organized it together with Open Knowledge Österreich – which operates the project offenewahlen.at. The workshop was also co-organized by a newbie from the Wikimedia Hackathon.

We had more attendees than planned - we expected 15-20 and ended up with 27 participants, many of which showed up spontaneously and with no registration. After a common introduction, our Wikidata mentors and attendees split up in two groups: One aimed at beginners introducing them to Wikidata and Sparql and a second one for people with basic experience around elections and/ or election data. After registering a Wikidata account, most participants made their first steps on Wikidata by researching information about political candidates and adding it. The attendees also discussed problems and the possible future of Wikidata around political entities.

Similar to the Pre-Hackathon workshops, the workshop showed that Wikidata can spark quite some interest and motivation among tech-savvy volunteers. For 2018 we plan to continue the workshops and intensify the community building - the extensive documentation of the workshop concept on GitHub can be used by others and serves us as a basis for a refined future concept.

→ Project page on Wikidata

→ Workshop announcement at offenewahlen.at

→ Workshop documentation on GitHub

→ Media files on Wikimedia Commons

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness.*

ART+TECH+FEMINISM Edit-a-thon in Linz

Participants	8	Newly registered	6	Content pages	5	Quality	–	Diversity	9

ART+TECH-FEMINISM Edit-a-thon in Linz

The edit-a-thon focussing on art, tech and feminism took place in the Wissensturm in the city of Linz, Upper Austria on 30 September. The Wikimedian Krennmayr and a WMAT staff member organized this event for 8 participants, 6 of them were new users. Among the participants and organizers were 9 women. The Wikipedia articles Charlotte Seidl, Traude Wagner-Rathgeb and Annja Krautgasser were created during the edit-a-thon, the articles Ulrike Böker and Radio FRO were improved.

WMAT supported the event with organizational help, travel costs for one organizer and one participant and with Wikipedia merchandise and information material.

→ Project page in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Free Content.*

Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon in St. Pölten

Participants	7	Newly registered	7	Content pages	10	Quality	–	Diversity	9

This Art+Feminism edit-a-thon was organized by the female Wikimedians Elena Patrise and Akabradabra at the Lames cultural association in the city of St. Pölten, Lower Austria. The additional participants were 7 new female editors. The edit-a-thon lasted for two days (Saturday and Sunday) and resulted in 7 improved Wikipedia articles 3 new Wikipedia articles and , among them the article on the female Austrian artist Renate Bertlmann.

WMAT supported the event with counselling via Skype during the edit-a-thon and with Wikipedia merchandise and information material.

→ Project page in the German-language Wikipedia

This activity is part of our programs Community Support, Free Content* and Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness.*

Wikipedian in Residence (WiR): Vorarlberg State Archive

Participants	–	Newly registered	–	Content pages	60	Quality	–	Diversity	–

The article about archivist Victor Kleiner was created during the WiR program

From August to September 2017 our community member Thomas Planinger served as a Wikipedian in Residence (WiR) at the State Archive of Vorarlberg (Landesarchiv Vorarlberg) in Western Austria. During this time multiple articles about Western Austria were improved, publications were added as references, and historic photographs were added to Wikimedia Commons and used for articles. There are plans to continue the cooperation between the arcive and Wikipedia after the WiR program ended.

He created or improved 53 German-language articles and uploaded 7 files on Wikimedia Commons.

→ http://www.vorarlberg.at/pdf/pritchardwir.pdf

→ Interview with Dr. Ulrich Neubaur (in German)

This activity is part of our programs Free Content* and Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness.*

WikiDienstag

The WikiDienstag (“WikiTuesday“) is a weekly meet-up in the WMAT office. Volunteers share their knowledge and work together on improving the content of Wikimedia projects.

→ WikiDienstag in the German-language Wikipedia

5 September 2017

Participants	4	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Topic: Wikipedia consultation (for new users and the interest public)
Volunteer organizers: Gugerell

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness.*

12 September 2017

Participants	4	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Topic: Embedding images by WikiDaheim newbies
Volunteer organizers: Funke

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Free Content.*

19 September 2017

Participants	6	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Topic: WikiCon debriefing
Volunteer organizers: Funke

This activity is part of our program Community Support.

27 September 2017

Participants	2	Newly registered	–	Content pages	–	Quality	–	Diversity	–

Topic: New images from WMAT's slide scanner
Volunteer organizers: Braveheart and Nadine 13131

This activity is part of our programs Community Support* and Free Content.*

Individual Wikimedia Commons activities

We support Wikimedia Commons contributors with equipment from our tech pool, accreditations for events, travel grants, post-processing software and skill transfer activities.