Wikimedia CEE Meeting

Wikimedia CEE Meeting is an annual conference centered around the Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia and similar projects) in countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It features presentations about Wikimedia projects, other wikis, free/open source software, free knowledge and free content, and the social and technical aspects which relate to these topics.

The idea was conceived at an informal meetup that took place on 6 August 2011 at Wikimania 2011 in Haifa. Most of the attendees from the countries of the region were present, and shared their experience in the efforts to establish a more global community.

Background

Many countries of the Central and Eastern Europe are not only connected by their geographical proximity, but they also share similar cultural traditions and some historical issues.

Justification/goals

• a lot in common:
  • shared cultural heritage from previous eras (and in many cases also from present co-operation)
  • similar legal environment (many EU members or striving to be EU members)
  • common copyright problems related to socialist/communist era (e. g. orphan images from dissolved organizations)
  • NGO sphere underdeveloped, little willingness for donations
  • many languages used only in a single country
• easy & relatively cheap to travel between many of these countries
• great opportunity to exchange experiences, learn best practices, create a meta community that spans country borders but has tighter connections than the global Wikimedia community
• could be used for chapters to learn from each another & to coach new/planned chapters
• could be used to combine national narratives into NPOV on various historical and political topics

Bidding process

This page outlines the bidding process and all relevant information for interested hosts. In the past, bidding process for determining the next host of the CEE Meeting were organised only in 2017, in 2024 and the most recent one for the upcoming meeting in 2025.

Overview

Wikimedia CEE Meeting

Wikimedia CEE Meetings

Conference	Date	Place	Attendance	Archive of presentations
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2012	13-14 October 2012	Belgrade	~45	Documentation
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2013	14-17 November 2013	Modra	~35	Slides
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2014	19-21 December 2014	Kyiv	~75	Slides, Etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015	10-13 September 2015	Voore	~60	Slides, Etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016	27-29 August 2016	Dilijan	~70	Slides
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2017	22-25 September 2017	Warsaw	104	Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2018	13-15 October 2018	Lviv	~125	Slides
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019	11-13 October 2019	Belgrade	~90	Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2020	2-4 October 2020	Online	~110	Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting 2021	5-7 November 2021	Online	~130	Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2022	14-16 October 2022	Ohrid	107	Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2023	15-17 September 2023	Tbilisi	141	Category on Commons, Master etherpad
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2024	20-22 September 2024	Istanbul	195	Category on Commons
Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2025	2025	Thessaloniki

• future events are denoted in italics

Other events

It would be nice to have a large event where all CEE Wikimedians can meet at the same time but also have a lot of smaller events like joint wikimeetups for two neighbouring countries, or even just inviting people from neighbouring countries for local wikimeetups. (Maybe we should have a separate Meta page for more general CEE collaboration topics?)

New ideas and recent discussions

• Ideas (from 2022)
• Evaluations (from 2022)

Older discussions

• Old discussion (from 2005) (also some discussion at CEEWikiLink)

See also

• Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe
• WMCEE Calendar 2015 - 2016 - 2017