GLAM/Newsletter/January 2015/Contents/Belgium report
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SOIMA 2015; Wiki Loves Art; European Commission; Mons 2015; Mundaneum; FOSDEM
SOIMA 2015
In September Wikimedia Belgium is the partner in the international conference of SOIMA 2015, organised in Brussels. SOIMA 2015: Unlocking Sound and Image Heritage is an international conference on ensuring a safe and creative future for sound and image heritage. In the days before the conference workshops are organized.
Wiki Loves Art
In January and February we are discussing and preparing the organisation of Wiki Loves Art in Belgium. Already multiple partners in the field of open data and cultural institutions have indicated they are willing to organise the project with us. The plan at this moment is to organise the contest in February 2016, while we like to start the project in March to begin with contacting cultural institutions and other organisations that are possible interested in participation.
European Commission
On 19 January we had organised a workshop for the representatives of the European Commission. We explained how Wikipedia is organised and how should be dealt with issues in Wikipedia articles. The project will continue in coming months.
Mons2015 & Mundaneum
On 14 January we had organised a discovering workshop for the staff of Mons 2015 and the Mundaneum. Following this, Mons 2015 decided to organize two publics wikipedia workshops per month throughout the year 2015. For its part, the Mundaneum, has upload many pictures from his collections (Category:Mundaneum).
FOSDEM
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On 31 January and 1 February Wikimedia was present with a professional stand at FOSDEM, the yearly Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting in Brussels. The stand was organised by Wikimedia Belgium and the Wikimedia Shop provided us materials to be used at our stand, including stickers, pens, flyers and buttons. Wikimedia Belgium and Wikimedia Deutschland provided also some materials. Participants at the conference who Twittered about the Wikimedia Shop or provided some proof of being an editor of Wikipedia/Wikimedia, got a free Wikimedia T-shirt. Editors could also choose a water bottle or a hoodie.
At the stand we got, besides the questions about Wikipedia and Wikimedia, a lot of questions about Wikidata and MediaWiki. At the conference software developers from MediaWiki and Wikidata were present, and also gave some talks about these subjects. The focus of the stand was this yearly mainly on Wikimedia and Wikipedia. Next year we like to expand this also with more materials related to MediaWiki and Wikidata, as that would attract more attention to the software in what most people here have interest in.
Even while the gendergap at FOSDEM is larger than in the Wikimedia movement, we had the chance to speak with a lot of female Wikipedia contributors. The impression I got from these conversations and my experiences with organising writing sessions is, that to attract female contributors like
- in-person workshops/edit-a-thons to have a social interaction.
- social software on-wiki to enable users easily to form groups so they are not feeling alone, but easily can work together with other users in a group. Groups will have a central discussion page, there are recent changes to be able to see the activities of other group members, being able to create tasks, having a wish list, and so on.
At FOSDEM Quim Gil and Andre Klapper had a talk with the subject Wikimedia adopts Phabricator, deprecates seven infrastructure tools - First hand experiences from a big free software project on a complex migration. (link)
Links:
Hi everybody,
I am writing to ask more information about how the Wikitoolset for Europeana actually works. I would be very interested in leraning more about it. I think that as Wikimedia Belgium we would give a great help to GLAMs in our zone if we organized an introductory training for those who are interested in opening up their archives. Tailoring a business plan, which is related to the problem of controlling licenses, is only one of the barriers that keep GLAMs from getting involved. The other, which is as much big, is the difficulty of acquiring a techical know how, and that's where we can play an important part. Thanks for your attention and looking forward to reading from you!
Best,
--Ste.caneva (talk) 11:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)