Summary of this newsletter
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Wiki Loves Earth
The photo contest Wiki Loves Earth 2020 in Canada, aiming at documenting natural sites, was held in July.
The top 10 winning pictures from Canada have been announced and submitted to the international jury of Wiki Loves Earth. The winning photograph (above) was submitted by Jasonpetit. It is from the Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area in Ontario. Congratulations!
We have received a total of 1,172 pictures in Canada from more than 160 participants, with more than 80% of them who registered on Wikimedia projects after the beginning of the contest. Already more than 10% of the pictures are used on other Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia and Wikidata.
In a few weeks, the international jury will announce the 10 best pictures of the international edition of Wiki Loves Earth 2020.
Wikimedia Canada wishes to thank all the participants as well as the volunteers who helped to organize and the jury.
Learn more >
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#WPWPCA
The campaign #WPWPCA (Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos in Canada) finished last August 31st. It was the first edition of this contest aiming at adding pictures to Wikipedia articles that began on last July 1st.
During this campaign, contributors from Canada made more than 2,600 contributions on nearly 1,900 Wikipedia articles in more than 135 languages. There were 17 participants from Canada, half of them were women.
The organizing team from Wikimedia Canada selected the two participants who contributed the most to offer them a $100 gift certificate for an independent library in their community. We would like to congratulate Webfil, a contributor from Quebec who made 870 contributions, and Mhsheikholeslami, a contributor from Toronto who made 336.
Globally, the international #WPWP campaign has seen pictures added to more than 80,000 Wikipedia articles in nearly 270 languages, and 569 people participated.
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Wikimedia projects in Indigenous languages
For the last few years, Wikimedia Canada has been working with Indigenous communities to develop Wikipedias in their languages. The vision of this project is to contribute to preserve all languages of Canada.
There are around 60 different Indigenous languages in Canada from 11 distinctive linguistic families. Most of them are vulnerable or in danger of extinction. At the beginning of this project of Wikimedia Canada, there were only two existing Wikipedias in Indigenous languages of Canada, in Cree and Inuktitut, but both are unfortunately inactive.
Indigenous languages are an integral part of the Canadian culture. Every language has its own history and represents a distinctive culture. The importance of languages for Indigenous peoples and communities is enormous. Many Indigenous communities have undertaken programs to revitalize their languages during the last few years, including projects to record elders that can speak the language well for example or the creation of dictionaries. This is where Wikimedia projects can intervene by offering a free tool to those communities to support them in their projects.
Indeed Indigenous cultures and languages can take advantage of Wikimedia projects. The Internet offers a context of use of the language that is very modern that can contribute to the education of the younger speakers since the new generations are more and more familiar with digital tools. As such Wikimedia projects can bring them to develop their knowledge and skills with their language and culture.
For a first project Wikimedia Canada collaborated with the Atikamekw First Nation in Quebec, specifically the Atikamekw Community of Manawan, starting in 2013, in order to launch a pedagogic project to develop a Wikipedia in Atikamekw language. As such in 2013 and 2014 students of the Otapi High School in Manawan had to write articles in the Atikamekw Wikipedia under the supervision of their computer teacher and the support of a language keeper from the community as well as the technical support of an experienced volunteer from Wikimedia Canada. During this initial project a hundred articles in Atikamekw were created; which is remarkable for a language that had no Wikipedia article before.
In 2016 the project was launched again at a larger scale. The Wikipetcia Atikamekw Nehiromowin, the Wikipedia in Atikamekw language, was officially launched on June 21st, 2017 during the National Day of Indigenous Peoples. Since 2016 an annual photo contest called “Nistakinan in pictures” has also been organized. It aims at documenting the territory and the traditions of the Atikamekw First Nation with pictures and videos uploaded on Wikimedia Commons; the Nitaskinan being the territory of the Atikamekw People.
As part of this project a “Indigenous Languages and Knowledge on Wikimedia Projects Toolbox” as well as a guide on how to create and manage a Wikipedia in the context of the First Nations (in French) were published.
Last August the Translation Bureau of the Government of Canada published an article on its blog “Our Languages” about “Revitalizing Indigenous languages in Canada” in which they mention the Wikipetcia Atikamekw Nehiromowin project.
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A Board Member from Wikimedia Canada honoured
Jean-Michel Lapointe, PhD student in communications, librarian of the Arts Library of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), member of the Laboratoire sur la communication et le numérique (LabCMO), and Board Member of Wikimedia Canada, was admitted to the Excellency Circle of the network of the Université du Québec.
In 2019, during the 50th anniversary of UQAM, Jean-Michel organized a series of activities to augment the presence of UQAM, its history and the people related to it on Wikipedia, including a multilingual edit-a-thon. He also gave training to university staff to improve their understanding of Wikipedia as well as workshops for the professors and lecturers to support them in integrating the free encyclopedia in their pedagogical activities. Thereby he trained several professors and hundreds of students, and organized many workshops about Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons.
Jean-Michel has been contributing to Wikipedia since 2016 under the username Benjamenta. He joined the Programs Committee of Wikimedia Canada in 2018 and has been chairing this committee since 2019. At the 2019 Annual General Meeting, he was elected on the Board of Directors of the chapter.
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8th birthday of Wikidata
Wikidata was launched on October 29, 2012. Wikidata is a free and open database that is use among other things as a central repository for the structured data of Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia, but that is also used by other websites and for research purposes since all its data are published under a free licence.
In October and November Wikidata will celebrate its 8th birthday. All communities throughout the world are invited to host online events to mark the event. If you are interested in organizing an activity in Canada, do not hesitate to contact us. We can support you.
Learn more >
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A few news from the Wikimedia Movement
Volunteers from the French Wikipedia launched a project called “Observatoire des sources” (“Sources Observatory”) to help contributors with questions about the quality of a source such as a website, a media or a publisher, and its use in Wikipedia articles. This is an index repertoring for each source the discussion(s) about it and eventually a concise summary. Wikimedia France published a blog article about it (in French).
For reminder, the Wikipedia Library gives Wikipedia contributors free access to academic articles, books, and newspapers to help them write Wikipedia articles.
Wikimedia Deutchsland (WMDE) published a document titled “COVID-19: How Wikipedia helps us through uncertain times”.
In October, volunteers from the French Wikipedia are organizing the Wikipedia American Month (in French). This is the second edition of this editing campaign aiming at creating and improving Wikipedia articles in French about the American continent (North America, Central America and South America).
The Interwiki Women Collaboration campaign is ongoing from 20 August to 20 September. This is the fourth edition of this campaign inviting to contribute to Wikimedia projects in all languages about women.
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