Wikimedians of Bulgaria/2016

See also: Wikimedians of Bulgaria/2016/Calendar

In 2016 the Wikimedians of Bulgaria grew further. We organised more projects than ever, most notably Wiki Loves Earth with a prize awarding ceremony, but also Wiki Loves Monuments and our first national conference. A post stamp with an image from Wiki Loves Earth was published in Bulgaria. We continued our Wikimeetups and Wikiseminars and tried a Wikiquiz. We were in the press with more TV interviews than in recent years, there was a very high coverage of Wiki Loves Earth in newspapers and magazines - online and paper editions, and our education programme grew further with the addition of learning Wikiweekends.

We were not only active at a national level, but also played a leading role in organising the international article-writing contest Wikimedia CEE Spring, participated very actively with presentations and moderation of discussions at the Wiki Education Colab meeting, the Wikimedia Conference, Wikimania, the Wikimedia CEE Meeting, the WikiCon and WikiLive, the national wiki conference of Wikimedia Serbia.

The number of active and very active editors on Wikipedia stayed rather equal to last year. 4 of 15 (27%) administrators on Bulgarian Wikipedia are female. One new administrator was elected this year. We have one administrator on Commons, who is female.

National meetings

We had the same number of wikimeetups as last year (4), but one of them was outside of the capital city of Sofia, in Varna. We had two wikiseminars less (2 compared to 4 last year), but we organised two learning wikiweekends for complete newcomers to Wikipedia, and we had our first national conference, which was organised with a rapid grant.

• Wikimeetups (Apr, Jun, Aug, Sep), including one in Varna
• Wikiseminars (Mar, Apr)
• National Conference (17-18 Dec)

National initiatives

We failed with an initiative, called Wikiquiz and the microgrants programme was not prolonged. (3 microgrants given in 2015)

• Wikiquiz (report)

International and regional cooperation

We continued our active international work, mostly together with Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe. The hugely successful 100wikidays was started in 2016 by more than 100 people and spin-offs like 100commonsdays was created and 100wikidays in Wikisource and Wikiquote were created. Total number of language versions where the challenge has spread into is 53, with a total number of 199 individuals who have undertaken it, some of whom more than once.

Furthermore, we organised the second edition of the article writing contest Wikimedia CEE Spring together with Wikimedia Polska and Wikimedia Ukraine and made it the largest article writing contest in the wikiworld.

We were part of the programme committee of the successful Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 in Armenia and were seen as a trusted member of the regional cooperation Wikimedia Central and Eastern Europe and helped facilitate the meetings at the Wikimedia Conference and Wikimania. Of course we continued to use and add to the resources of the regional group actively. We also participated at the international organisation – both as part of the team and as part of the jury – of Wiki Loves Earth.

Since August one of our members is also a member in the Simple APG Committee.

• 100wikidays (report)
• Wikimedia CEE Spring 2016 (grant report, PEG grant)
• Participation and support in the creation of the programme of the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016
• Facilitation of the CEE Meetings at the Wikimedia Conference and Wikimania
• Wiki Loves Earth (see below)
• Contributing to the Facebook group Central Eastern European Wikimedia Community and other resources (main page of Wikimedia CEE, WMCEE Calendar, Social Media Calendar)
• Participation at the Simple APG Committee

Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Monuments

In 2016 the Bulgarian Wikicommunity took part at the two large international photo contests, Wiki Loves Earth (initiated in 2013 in Ukraine) and Wiki Loves Monuments (initiated 2011 in the Netherlands). We organised a prize awarding ceremony for Wiki Loves Earth for the first time. This led to a higher number of images during Wiki Loves Earth and more contributors, as well as better press coverage.

• Wiki Loves Earth (grant report from the national competition, including prize awarding ceremony, report about the participation at the international organisation and jury)
• Wiki Loves Monuments (report)

Participation in regional and global Wikimedia events

We continued our participation at regional and global Wikimedia events. We participated actively by sharing our knowledge with presentations, talks and practices. Four members of the user group participated at five events and participated as presenters or facilitators of over 10 sessions.

Spiritia at the Wiki Education Collab Meeting in Stockholm

Nikola Kalchev presents CEE Spring at the Wikimedia Conference

A Wikidojo at the Wikimedia Confrence

Spasimir Pilev presented the "Archives Challenge" at Wikimania

• 4 – 7 March: Wiki Education Collab Meeting, Stockholm – Spiritia
• 22 – 24 April: Wikimedia Conference 2016, Berlin, Germany – Nikola Kalchev
  • Co-facilitation of ABCD of Storytelling
  • Lightning talks on #100wikidays and CEE Spring.
  • Wikidojo
• 22 – 28 June: Wikimania 2016 – Vassia Atanassova, Nikola Kalchev, Vladislav Nedelev, Spasimir Pilev (reports by the participants with grants: Spiritia, Spasimir)
  • 100wikidays meetup (Vassia)
  • The Archives Challenge (Spasimir Pilev)
  • Participation in the pre-conference Learning days with two posters: Learning patterns poster, 100wikidays poster (Vassia)
  • Comparison of large international article writing and photographic contests (Nikola Kalchev on WMCON follow-up day, together with Vira Motorko from Wikimedia Ukraine)
  • Wikidojo (organised by Nikola Kalchev)
• 27 – 29 August: Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 – Spasimir Pilev, Nikola Kalchev
  • Participation in the programme committee of the conference
  • Presentation on Wikimedia CEE Spring
  • Presentation on Communication
  • Facilitation of multiple sessions
  • Wikidojo
• 16 – 18 September: WikiCon (the conference of the German Wikipedians) – Nikola Kalchev, invited by Wikimedia Österreich
  • Report from the CEE Meeting, together with Gereon Kalkuhl, Philip Kopetzky and Cornelius Kibelka

Wiki Education

• 6 – 7, 13 – 14 February: Learning Wiki Weekend, Sofia - Spiritia, Спасимир, Laveol
• 4 – 7 March: Wiki Education Collab Meeting, Stockholm - Spiritia
• 14 March: Introductory lecture to Wikipedia in front of two groups of students (bachelors and masters) in New Bulgarian University - Justine Toms, Spiritia
• 11 April: Talk – Introductory lecture to Wikipedia in front of two groups of students (majors "Intellectual Property" and "Cultural Heritage") in University of Library Sciences and IT - Plamena Popova, Spiritia
• 13 April: Talk – Introductory lecture to Wikipedia in front of students in 2nd School, Sofia - Journalism students grade 9 and 10, on history and idea of Wikipedia and how to contribute Justine Toms
• 7 May: Talk – Social Media in Informal Education (main focus: Wikipedia), Sofia - Justine Toms

GLAM collaborations

• 16 January: Meeting in the Regional Museum of Natural History – Plovdiv, Stellentina, VladislavNedelev, Спасимир, Spiritia
• 19 February: Meeting in the Polish Institute of Sofia, regarding article writing collaboration – Spiritia, Iliev, Спасимир
  • Collaboration announced in our blogpost and in the PI website
• 18 March: Meeting with the PR manager of the National Polytechnics Museum – Sofia, Spiritia
• 6 April: Interdisciplinary PhD Forum in Bulgarian Academy of Sciences – Sofia, Spiritia
  • Presentation on "Wikipedia in Science - Whether, When and How?" (Commons (no fairuse) | Slideshare (with fairuse))
• 7-8 April: National meeting "Volunteers in Bulgarian Museums" – Sofia, Spiritia, Ilikeliljon
  • Presentation on "Successful Practices of Collaboration between Wikipedia and Cultural Institutions" (Commons)
  • Full report: Wikimedians of Bulgaria/2016 Report/Volunteers in Bulgarian museums
• 7 October: Wikipedia stamp validation in the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia – Spiritia, Спасимир, Сале, Ket, ShockD and others

Online activities

• Blog: 41 publications in 2016
• Facebook page: 5969 followers (as per Dec 18 2016)
• Twitter: 147 followers (as per Dec 18 2016)

Outreach

Media outreach

We continued maintaining our blog.

The highest press coverage during the year was during Wiki Loves Earth. For more information, check the grant report from the national competition. Furthermore there was coverage, connected to CEE Spring, The Archives Challenge and Wiki Loves Monuments, but there were also articles with technical tips about using Wikipedia offline, the reliability of information on Wikipedia, interviews with editors, etc.

Public lectures / Discussions

• Asaf Bartov: How Reliable Is Wikipedia? at the American Corner in Sofia

Interviews on TV

• Justine Toms and Asaf Bartov, Wikipedia and the Reliability of Information, on Bulgarian National Television
• Petar Bakalov and Asaf Bartov, What is the Future of Bulgarian Wikipedia, on Bloomberg TV
• Asaf Bartov and Vassia Atanassova, The Day with Veselin Dremdjiev, TV+

Learning patterns

• Treasures or landmines: detecting uncategorized, language-specific uploads in Commons (6 endorsements)
• Cleaning the Augean stables: DIY discovery of fermented vandalisms, copyvios and other unwelcome stuff
• Illustrating Wikimedia related publications and blog posts (1 supportive comment)

Plans for 2017

draft

• Blog
• CEE Spring (national and international part)
• Education Programme: University and School Projects
• National Conference
• Social Media Profiles
• Wiki Loves Earth
• Wiki Loves Monuments