2019:Community Growth/From nothing to large community

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Community Growth/From nothing to large community

Description

Wikipedia is considered to be a free source of human knowledge and we strive to enlarge and enhance its content. On the other hand contributors of Wikipedia improve their knowledge, skills of formulating thoughts, writing skills, concentrations skills, even their thinking skills. In addition continuous editing of Wikipedia helps contributors to grow in their studying and investigating field. For these reasons , I had localized similar to Wikimedia commitment: Every human being in Armenia will know about Wikipedia and its policy and have a chance to learn through and to contribute to Wikipedia. The most important thing that inspired me is that I saw that through Wiki projects we can change mindset of ordinary people regarding their vision to many aspects of their and the society life: to be the seed for everyday behavior volunteering, collaborating, learning habits and even making them to love language and even homeland.

Most people who had listened to my vision of dissemination of Wikipedia, claimed, that it is utopia.

The basis of the ecosystem are Wikiclubs. Our target is to have Wikiclubs in every settlement of Armenia, especially in the villages, also in universities. (WikiClub is a comfortable room equipped with laptops and Internet connection, usually located in a space provided by the village council or the cultural house. Its activities are facilitated by a coordinator, who is an experienced Wikipedia editor. Visitors are typically school students, young people. They get acquainted with Wiki editing tools with the help of the coordinator and afterwards contribute to the Armenian Wikipedia and Wiktionary by their own. The coordinator teaches them how to use computers, checks their translations and created articles, helps them to competently express their thoughts. To boost the spirit of the community we organize expeditions and events, and even celebrate birthdays of dedicated members).

It was not very easy to achieve: we needed free places in the middle of the rural settlements, the presence of experienced wikipedians as well as laptops and internet connections.

To build up coordinators we arranged to organize Wikipedia training week for the teachers. Any teacher who has been contributing to Wikipedia for more than six months can receive a license of a coordinator. At the moment we have about 20 wikiclubs in Armenia and 3 in Artsakh. The most impressive notable achievement is that those students that have attended our wikiclubs have gradually shown impressive academic results at school

Relationship to the theme

The organisers of the community growth space believe that the space will address the following Sustainable Development Goals:

• 10 Reduced inequalities
• 11 Sustainable cities and communities

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

Relationship to the space

The organisers of the space and the community have identified a number of topics they wish to address in this space. Please explain how your proposal its into these topic areas.

As a reminder, the proposed topics are listed at 2019:Community Growth

This session will address the topics of the Growth space in the following manner:

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

Session leader(s)

• Susanna Mkrtchyan, Wikimedia Armenia, president, susanna.mkrtchyan@wikimedia.am

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Conference presentation

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room:a projector + screen

• Audience:

• Recording:

• Time requested:

Relationship with the organisers of the space

The organisers of the community growth space wish to provide any necessary support to presenters and participants that they may need and also wish to have an active role in shaping the content of the space to maximise the benefit of all attendees. Please let us know if you would appreciate any help, and if you consent to constructive suggestions from the organiser team that would allow the largest amount of people to share and benefit from each other's contributions.

• I would be interested in receiving help in shaping my submission: YES / NO.
  • In particular, I would need the following type of help or advice:
• I consent to the organisers of the space contacting me to discuss alternative ways to present my knowledge (for example, merging two proposals into a common presentation, a panel debate instead of a lightning talk, etc.), or ways to modify and improve my proposal (for example by ensuring a gender diversity on panels) : YES / NO
• If my proposal is not selected for a presentation, I would be interested in presenting my proposal in the form of a poster in the Community Growth space: YES / NO
• I consent to my proposal being proposed to organisers of other spaces if it would be a good cross-over topic or if it fits better into the other space's scope: YES / NO