Wikimedians of Western Armenian Language User Group/2021-2022 Report

Wikimedians of western Armenian user group annual Report August 2021 - august 2022

Article Overview

Western Armenian Wikipedia currently has more than 10,000 articles. The number of WA Wiki articles at the time of writing of this article (31th of August) was 10,261.

The User Group's activities include numerous edit-a-thons, editing education workshops, in-person workshops, partaking in global initiatives, etc. The User Group focuses on developing Western Armenian Wikipedia. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, most of the User Group's activities were held online.

Editors

An active group from Istanbul, Aleppo, Yerevan, Athens, Vienna, and Beirut have been diligently working towards increasing quality article quantities on Western Armenian Wikipedia. By April 2022, the number of active editors of Western Armenian Wikipedia was 65. That is the highest number on record since the foundation of Western Armenian Wikipedia as an independent entity.

These editors, 65 in number, have made at least one edit on Western Armenian Wikipedia in the past 30 days. The lowest number of edits per editor is 1, the highest is 105. This number does not include the number of edits on non-Wikipedia sister Wiki projects i.e. TranslateWiki, MetaWiki, etc.

A number of new editors, with previous experience in editing in the language, have signed up on Western Armenian Wikipedia and have taken their first steps on the platform. We expect them to continue editing.

Increase the number of administrators from 3 to 4 + add a bot - Update

So far, the Western Armenian Wiki has been granted three administrators, Azniv Stepanian, Sevan Meguerian, and Shahen Araboghlian, regular adminships. In the past year, Haigan Minassian was the last community member to receive regular adminship status. This will help us more efficiently work on keeping the Western Armenian Wiki to its higher standards.

Weekly News Updates

Western Armenian Wikipedia had weekly news updates on the Main Page of the platform.

Article of the Month

Western Armenian Wikipedia had a featured article of the month on the Main Page of the platform.

Fun Facts

Western Armenian Wikipedia features fun facts on a monthly basis on the Main Page of the platform.

TranslateWiki

Throughout 2020 and 2021, we worked with TranslateWiki and drastically changed the majority of non-Western Armenian content to Western Armenian over hundreds of backend edits.

In order to translate infoboxes to Western Armenian, we are eager to train some of our community members to edit Wikidata. Editing and translating Wikidata will create one of the largest Western Armenian databases in the future. An active user who got involved with our projects due to our first annual Wiki workshop is currently under training to understand the skeleton of the Wiki projects and how to contribute to them.

Additionally, we will continue improving Western Armenian Wikipedia by adding to and correcting the articles written in the first 5 years of the Western Armenian Wikipedia projects. This plan has been implemented throughout 2020 and has been continuing continue. Most community members of Western Armenian Wikipedia will be divided among certain tasks, based on the level of their abilities.

Online Wiki Editing Workshops

On two occasions through 2021, we offered online Wiki editing workshops to total beginners who wish to learn editing from scratch. The participants spanned all around the world and some of them have been continually active editors, marking the workshops a success.

These weekly Zoom sessions took place to teach Armenians from the diaspora how to edit on Western Armenian Wikipedia throughout the month of March and June, which has pushed many of them to continue editing and adding info on Wikipedia. A total of 30 individuals signed up for the sessions, yet the number of participants for the 4-week training was 25 total participants. total participants. The participants’ ages ranged from teens to late 60s.

Overall, we had a total of around 25 participants.

Misc Initiatives

Wiki Editing Workshops

Currently, workshops on Wikipedia editing are taking place on a bimonthly basis, where totally unfamiliar individuals are taught the ways to edit, create, and cite on Western Armenian Wikipedia. We had 16 responding participants for the workshops in March 2022.

Linguistic Rules with Linguist Harutyun Kurkjian

On the 24th of September, 2021, a meeting of the WA Wiki community with renowned linguist Harutyun Kurkjian was held virtually. Participants learned how to adapt and follow certain grammatical and spelling protocols for the sake of consistency across the WA Wiki platforms.

Transcription & Spelling Workshops with Dr. Hagop Tcholakian

Throughout the first half of 2022, we organized 3 workshops with linguist Dr. Hagop Tcholakian over the course of three weeks. The average number of participants per session was around 40. This has been, by far, the most successful event we’ve had to date since being granted affiliate status by the WMF, with more than 115 participants registered to either tune in live or to receive the link to the sessions. The sessions were then uploaded on the community’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Please find the recordings on Facebook here and on YouTube here.

Diaspora High School Workshops

Dozens of Armenian high school students in six schools in five countries partook in a Wikipedia editing training workshop, facilitated and hosted by our Wiki community members in the respective countries. These countries include Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Austria, and Greece. Thanks to a rapid grant, these students were each gifted a USB and a certificate of completion of the workshop series.

Grtasiratz Sarkis Chemberchian High School, Aleppo
AGBU Lazar Najarian-Calouste Gulbenkian High School, Aleppo
Armenian School of Blue Cross of Greece "Zavarian", Kokkinia
Getronagan Armenian High School, Istanbul
Getronagan Armenian High School, Istanbul
The Theological Seminary of the Catholicos of Cilicia of the Great House in Lebanon

Edit-A-Thons

Throughout the annual plan 2021-2022, we organized 3 edit-a-thons. You can find more information on our edit-a-thons here and here; the former having taken place on 24-26 September 2021 and the latter on 17-19 December 20212021, and the last one on 28-30 April.

For the September edit-a-thon, the focus was mostly on improving the quality of articles; therefore 25 articles were improved. For the holidays’-themed December edit-a-thon, 18 articles were created, half of which were season-related. The April edit-a-thon, was dedicated to free topic articles, 17 articles were created, and 1 article was improved. We aim to continue the tradition of edit-a-thons for the upcoming year.

Social Media and Outreach

Social Media

Starting January 2021, the community already has its own Facebook page since September 2020, under the name of «Արեւմտահայերէն Ուիքիի Բարեկամներ» (translated:Friends of Western Armenian Wiki). The Facebook page currently has 1,110 followers.
On Twitter, we currently have 382 followers.
On Instagram, we currently have 553 followers.

Starting the first week of January 2021, the community has been sending out newsletters via email (using MailChimp, free version) to the email addresses of a list of concerned individuals whose life interests involve the language. This has been a weekly tradition ever since, being sent out to a current total of 469 users. The weekly newsletter includes three promotional and social media material posts each. We have sent 78 newsletters so far and created more than 230 unique post content for the newsletters.

Media

Hartag

One of WA Wiki’s admins, Azniv Stepanian, was interviewed by Hamazkayin Canada’s Hartag online platform, watch here. A detailed presentation of the Wikipedia project, its Western Armenian presence, and the progress we’ve so far achieved.

User Group Online Link-Ups

The User Group hosts an estimated monthly opportunity window for members of the User Group to meet via Zoom and discuss topics that interest them, give suggestions, ask questions, etc.