Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Belgium/Activity/2020
This is the annual activity report of Wikimedia Belgium over the year 2020.
Large activities edit
Wiki Club Brussels edit
The Bi-weekly Wiki Club meeting: via video calls we coach individual users how to write for Wikipedia.
The Wiki Club Brussels meeting did not attract many volunteers because of corona and the fact that the physical meetings were converted into a video conference. Volunteers did find those virtual sessions less attractive. But we were able to attract new young (25-35) and older people (+60).
Iedereen Wiki - Schrijven voor Wikipedia Ternat edit
In the Library of Ternat we organised again Iedereen Wiki, a training Writing for Wikipedia about local subjects, bringing people together in workshops.
Industry museum Ghent edit
We organised 2 trainings “How to write for Wikipedia” for the Industriemuseum Gent. Statistics
Women street names edit
The names of public spaces (streets, avenues, squares and others) define the identity of a city and how citizens interact with it. Brussels suffers from a major inequality between male and female street names and we want to make this more balanced! The names of public spaces (streets, avenues, squares and others) define the identity of a city and how citizens interact with it. Brussels suffers from a major inequality between male and female street names and we want to make this more balanced!
There are several ways to approach the inequality of street names and leverage a positive change in our society. Ours is with the use of Open Data. We want to use technologies to create a world where knowledge creates power for the many, not the few.
Several not-for-profits, Open Knowledge Belgium, OpenStreetMap Belgium, Wikimedia Belgium and the feminist collective Noms Peut-Être are partnering up to build a map visualizing the street names of Brussels by gender. To make this happen, we use open data - data which can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose - from OpenStreetMap and Wikipedia.
Some data already existed, we want to link both data sources. During this event, we added Wikidata tags (a tag containing all the information from a Wikipedia page) to the streets on OpenStreetMap. Linking this data allows many possibilities such as using existing Wikipedia pages as suggestions for cities or analysing what types of profiles are used for street names. Statistics
RTBF Wikipedia Marathon edit
On the 5th of March, the International Women's Rights Day, we organised an edit-a-thon, in collaboration with the RTBF, the Belgian French speaking radio and TV broadcaster, in collaboration with Open Knowledge Belgium and Les Grenades.
Objective: We want to increase the 18% female biographies. An under-representation that influences the way we know the history. We wanted to create 100 new women's articles on Wikipedia. The marathon lasted a whole day, from 7am to 11pm. Statistics
At the Flemish national television one of our volunteers presented how he created an article on Wikipedia about Miss Athléta, a woman circus artist.
Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei edit
Together with the Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei we make an inventory of the region's heritage. We take photos and write articles on Wikipedia. We are making the inventory of the bunkers of the KW Line from the Second World War. Everyone is invited to complete this list; many pictures are still missing…
Webinar training “Wikipedia for Heritage groups”. As part of these projects we made an inventory on Wikidata and lists of possible pages are automatically collected through Listeria. We have recorded a video of the webinar that we presented on this occasion and a presentation. Statistics
OTRS upload campaign edit
The user account Erfgoedcel Pajottenland Zennevallei has been recognized by OTRS to release images of heritage under a free licence. Now we are ready to upload hundreds of images of heritage.
Women and dance edit
In collaboration with CEMPER and meemoo we have set up a project to better document about Women and dance. We want to make the performing arts better known. Therefore we organised a training and an inventory of existing and missing pages. Statistics
Digital storytelling with Linked open data edit
The University of Ghent organised a Webinar on digital storytelling about women's editors. WeChangEd is a project of Ghent University, Digital Humanities. They have a research project to create a distributed digital archive on Female Writers. On June 29th they presented the results of their project.
Wiki Loves Heritage Belgium 2020 edit
The Wiki Loves Heritage photo contest Belgium 2020 has started on 1 July 2020. It is an extension of the worldwide Wiki Loves Monuments campaign, which also runs around this period, and is specifically aimed at monuments. With the Wiki Loves Heritage campaign we want to highlight movable, immaterial, maritime heritage, landscapes and museum collections. It is the third time that Wikimedia Belgium organises the Wiki Loves Heritage photo contest since the European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018. We find it important to make the inventory and describe heritage.
Why are we doing this? We want to document heritage in all its aspects. There are still many heritage items that have not yet been inventoried and described on Wikidata/Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons.
The Wiki Loves Heritage 2020 prize session in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek van Brussel with presentations about national Public domain projects.
On 2 February 2021 10 prize winners were awarded. Wiki Loves Heritage 2020 produced fewer uploads than the year before during the European year of Heritage, but the images were very interesting. There were a lot of well known photographers that already won a prize before and some newbies. Some participants only contribute to Wikimedia Commons, others collaborate very intense to a lot of other Wikimedia platforms.
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Conferences edit
Volunteers active in Wikimedia Belgium visit regularly conferences and conference like events (study days, symposiums, seminars, workshops, etc) inside and outside Belgium to stay informed, to inspire organisations to release materials on Wikimedia Commons, to get ideas for new activities, and more, all to improve the content of Wikipedia and her sister projects.
Open Data Day edit
In Hasselt we presented Wikidata on the Open Data Day. Statistics
Collaboration with musea and other institutions edit
Schrijven voor Wikipedia at the University of Ghent edit
In 2019 we gave 2 trainings “Writing for Wikipedia” for the University of Gent. We learned librarians how to write for Wikipedia and how to benefit from Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons.
The library has a huge inventory of scanned books, that they licensed as CC BY-SA. In August-September there was a writing campaign about medieval manuscripts with the University of Ghent that resulted in 316 uploads and 106 new articles.
Vlaams Architectuur Instituut edit
We organised 2 writing sessions with 60 and 90 students together with the Vlaams Architectuur Instituut. Due to corona we could not organise a physical training. The students were given a video conferencing where we presented what Wikipedia is and how you can write good articles. We have recorded the training session.
4 faculties participated: KASK, Universiteit Gent, Universiteit Antwerpen, KU Leuven. The professors and Wikimedia Belgium coached the students, and answered their questions. 98 students wrote articles on the English and Nederlandse Wikipedia. 50 new articles were written; 41 published; 47 artikels updated, 16 images uploaded.
VIVES Kortrijk edit
We contacted Benedict Wydooghe, who is history teacher at VIVES Kortrijk. He orders students to write about social and historical subjects on Wikipedia as part of their curriculum.
Iedereen Leest edit
We prepared to organise in March 2021 4 writing sessions about Flemish youth authors. Therefore we created an inventory in Wikidata.
Heritage organisations edit
Several heritage organisations are willing to collaborate with us to write articles about local heritage subjects.
National Library edit
We are in progress to establish a collaboration with the Belgian Koninklijke bibliotheek.
Radio - TV and Press edit
Interview Iedereen Wiki edit
In Ternat the city magazine published an interview with the Wikimedia Belgium president about Wikipedia and Wikimedia.
Women Street names edit
This was part of a TV series.
Strategic campaigns edit
Support volunteers edit
We supported volunteers with small expenses to allow them to write decent Wikipedia articles (car allowance for short travel, museum tickets, buying a book).
Individual coaching edit
Individual coaching via sharing the desktop was frequently done, and led to quick solutions for volunteer questions.
Motivating volunteers edit
We invited volunteers to participate in writing articles related to the projects we are conducting. Each time explaining to them how they can benefit from the integration of Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons.
We participated in activities of Wikimedia Nederland: the Schrijfwedstrijd and the Maand van de geschiedenis.
Book "Schrijven voor Wikipedia" edit
We continue to distribute the book Schrijven voor Wikipedia to volunteers that have completed at least one new article on Wikipedia.
Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund edit
A Belgian fund wmbe:Fund Friends of Wikimedia Belgium was established within the Koning Boudewijnstichting to permit us to issue fiscal certificates to Belgian tax payers providing a gift to our cultural, social and heritage projects. In 2021 we will be able to fund one or more projects with the budgets we acquired in 2020.
Social media edit
Wikimedia Belgium is also active on social media to reach out to the world about our activities, projects, and to promote the vision of free knowledge with the people in Belgium and beyond.
Governance edit
General Assembly edit
We held a General Assembly on 29 August 2020. A new board was elected, and a new office address was approved.
On 19 September 2020 we held an extraordinary General Assembly to approve the new statutes.
Board meetings edit
See board meeting for more information
Statistics edit
| Event | Editors | New editors | Articles edited | Articles created | Improved articles | Image upload | Percent used | Wikidata items | Wikidata statements | Organisations | #Sessions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volunteer program | 81 | 59 | 359 | 65 | 294 | 38 | 57% | 65 | 228 | 4 | 15 |
| GLAM program | 45 | 14 | 525 | 102 | 423 | 625 | 54% | 385 | 11123 | 5 | 9 |
| Education program | 100 | 62 | 582 | 147 | 435 | 323 | 74% | 96 | 1392 | 6 | 6 |
| Wiki Loves Heritage Belgium | 17 | 2 | 840 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Total | 243 | 137 | 1466 | 314 | 1152 | 1826 | 546 | 12743 | 16 | 31 |