Don Wikimedians User Group
Don Wikimedians User Group (Донская группа викимедийцев) is a group of people participating in Wikimedia Movement, interested in the Don region and Don Cossack culture. Don region is a historical and geographical region in the South of Russia.
Based on the intention to participate fully in the global Wikimovement and contributes to the main objectives - the free dissemination of knowledge of all languages of the world - the initiative group of editors of Don region decided to register this initiative group.
Don Region
Objectives
- Promotion and dissemination of free knowledge about Don region and Cossack culture.
- Promotion of Wikimedia projects in Don region.
- Engagement of new people into the Wikimedia Movement.
- Cooperation with local authorities, organizations and individuals to receive grants and other materials to promote free knowledge.
Activities
- To promote Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects within Don region;
- To organize article and photo contests, marathons and thematic weeks;
- To collaboratively improve the quality of Wikimedia project content through edit-a-thons, workshops, educational programs, wiki-seminars, wiki-clubs and more;
- To support any Wikimedia-oriented events or organizations operating within Don Region;
- To establish a sense of community within our group.
History
A group of users, who wished to promote Wikipedia in Don region, appeared in Russin Wikipedia in 2009. To achieve this, they cooperated with Wikimedia RU to organize the all-Russia WikiConference in Rostov-on-Don in May 2010. There were more than 40 attendees.
In 2011 Don Wikipedians participated in the next WikiConference in Voronezh, and all other WikiConferences since then.
In 2013 Wikimedia RU in partnership with Rostov-on-Don regional educational organization Association of Honorable Citizens, Mentors and Talented Youth, with participation of Don Wikimedians, organized a contest devoted to Don region, «Gallery of Fame».
Due to the contest about 1700 articles were created and more than 400 free media files were uploaded.
In 2014 this experience was used to organize the second stage of the contest, that resulted in more than 6000 articles and more than 4000 media files.
In 2016 there was organized a large geographical contest devoted to the Don region, «Know Russia. Start with Don»; more than 3000 articles were created and more than 2000 photos of the region were uploaded. A distinctive feature of the contest was translation of the contest page in 8 languages, to help Wikimedians from all over the world to participate the contest.
In 2017 there was the second stage on this contest, and the geographic component was supplemented with a new nomination devoted to literature of Don; more than 2000 articles were created in different languages.
In 2017 there was a round table «Information volunteering: a factor for rise of human capital and increase of tourist appeal of the territories» with Don Wikimedians. During the event the guests summarized series of educational projects: "Know Russia. Start with Don" (1st and 2nd stages) and discussed a role of information volunteering as a factor of rise of human capital.
Also in 2017 there was a seminar in Rostov-on-Don under Open Library project, which was devoted to promotion of free knowledge, open access, free licenses and WikiSource and Wikimedia Commons projects.
This 8-year experience led to a decision to create a user group in order to make this work more systematic and effective. The decision was formalized at the wiki-meetup in Rostov-on-Don on 26 November 2017.
