(This is the eighth installment in a series of updates from the WikiHistories summer research fellows, who will be studying the virtual community history of different Wikipedia editing communities.)

Almost 15.000 articles since 2003 and just a few dozen active contributors: how to change the situation?

Well, looks like 2011 can be a year of change for Վիքիփեդիա- the Armenian Wikipedia, as the community, supporting organizations and even the state have started taking Wikipedia seriously.

Armenian Wikipedians and volunteers translating Wikipedia guidelines at the hackathon, April 2011

For the first time on April 3 of this year, a 1-day Wikipedia hackathon was organized for Wikipedians and their friends to come together in one place and translate Wikipedia policies and guidelines. About 50 people gathered and 17 guidelines were translated during the day. Even though many of those 50 people did not edit another article afterwards, it was an important step for the development of the Վիքիփեդիա: this in fact was the first event organized by a few interested parties such as educational – humanitarian foundations, software developing firms, IT NGOs and of course, the Wikimedia community.

It all started after Richard Stallman’s visit to Armenia. The Web2.0 activist shared his enthusiasm about open, interactive and collaborative online platforms and suggested, “Why not have another look at Wikipedia?”.

Armine, who works for the educational NGO “Instigate” says that Stallman’s enthusiasm was contagious and, soon after his visit, she and her colleagues registered on Wikipedia, tried and loved it. They thought this was something particularly useful for kids and students and they announced the start of the “Wikipedia: School and University- Armenia” project that now unifies 6 organizations and groups, including the Wikipedia community.

Apart from the hackathon, the initiators of the project visited a few schools: not all of the school headmasters greeted them with enthusiasm, but some were really open to innovations. However, it was Spring, the end of the school year, and both teachers and pupils were too busy to try something new.

15-year-old Mariam is the head of the student council at the Anania Shirakatsi National Lycee.  She is eager to take the first steps as soon as the schools open in September. She has asked some of the active Wikipedians to teach the students the basics of editing and the main principles of the Armenian Wiki community. She says that every student in the Lycee writes over 10 essays during the school year that can be suitable for the online encyclopedia. Besides, she thinks that Wiki platform can be a good place for developing and editing the articles in collaboration with classmates and teachers.

“What can be more attractive for children than the feeling that their work will be available and useful for millions of people. This will also make them more responsible and motivated”,- says Armine. She believes that the sense of collaboration is ideal for classrooms and hopes that more schools will adopt the tool.

The idea has been proposed to the Ministry of Education as well. The reaction was positive, but so far it hasn’t gone any further.

Separate from the School and University project, another Wikipedian - SusikMkr (Susanna Mkrtchyan), has started a process for establishing a Wikimedia Chapter in Armenia. “The community will not grow without a proper organization”, she says.

Susanna works at the Science Management Department of the National Science Academy Computing Institute of Armenia. Discovering Armenian Wikipedia, she was astonished to find the right tool for promoting science and knowledge but disappointed with the current situation. She registered as a Wikipedia contributor last December. Since then she has been reading the policies and studying the experience of other countries trying to find ways for developing Wikipedia. In August she took part in the WikiMania 2011 conference in Haifa and gave a presentation about the situation in Armenia, with suggestions on how to change it. Now she says she is in touch with the Wikimedia Foundation and has their full support to realize  her plan, i. e. to  increase the number of contributors and articles, and establish a  chapter for coordinating the job.

Armenian Wiki community discussing the measures of Wikipedia promotion in Armenia

 This Saturday she invited the active Wikipedians for a talk and discussion of her ideas. She says she already has the support of the Science Academy: they will provide a room and most likely some computers for the workshop and training. Also, the Academy is happy to help with the content.

“We have lots of great minds, scientists who are retired and do not know how to keep themselves busy. We also have high rates of unemployment in the country, so there are a lot of people who have the knowledge but don’t know how to share it. They do not know about Wikipedia. We need to inform and train people”, Susanna insists.

She is also up for more practical approaches: schools should incorporate Wikipedia in the curriculum, universities should take responsibility for enriching the encyclopedia with X number of articles per month, including policy translations. Also, there might be competitions for Wikipedia articles to encourage children to start contributing.

The veteran-Wikipedians, however, are a bit sceptical about these plans. Being guards of Wikipedia traditions and rules, they strongly believe in “good faith”, “openness”, voluntarism” of Wikipedia. If there is any chance that anyone will be paid or forced to contribute to Wikipedia, the community will resist.

Susanna promises not to break the rules and to discuss every step with the community and the Foundation, but one thing is clear for her: she needs to do something about the situation. For her Wikipedia is not just a tool but a philosophy that can be used in all spheres of cultural, social and academic life. 10 years after the creation of Wikipedia, Armenians want to give it another try and really make use of it.

Lusine Grigoryan

MSc Digital Anthropology (UCL), journalist

(This is the second installment in a series of updates from the WikiHistories summer research fellows, who will be studying the history of different non-English Wikipedia editing communities and publishing their findings over the course of the summer.)

I am writing this post from a nice, cool part of Armenia called Ijevan, where I’ve come to escape from the unbearable heat of the capital city, Yerevan.

Fresh air and green mountains for fresh mind.

For the last week 40 degrees Celsius was the temperature in the city where over 1/3 of the population of the country lives and all the major developments in social life take place. I ran away from the city buzz for a few days to enjoy the cool air and breathtaking nature, which makes fieldwork fun and helps me get a fresh perspective on thoughts and ideas.

But to explore the Armenian Wikipedia community you need to spend time in Yerevan. This is where I met some of the Wikipedians during my first week in Armenia: Aleksey, Maro, Rob and Mher are Wiki activists and contributors. We found a nice open-air cafe for the meeting: Armenian Wikipedia does not have any office, Wikimedia headquarters, or any other physical space. They are just a small community of people who contribute to Wikipedia in their local language and try to promote the movement in their country. Passion for Wikipedia is something they all share, but the community is quite diverse – from high school students to mid-age professionals, architects, historians, web-developers, etc…

About 14.000 articles, a few dozen or hundred contributors and only 6 admins: these are the general figures about the Armenian Wikipedia that can be traced back to the founding of the project in 2005. Armenians write about their interests, idols, hobbies, but more intensively they share information about their country, history and culture. As some of Wikipedians mentioned, they would welcome more articles on science and innovation.

The first wiki-meetup in Armenia took place in 2009, when the most active members met to put faces to

January 2011: Armenians celebrate Wikipedia's 10th birthday!

usernames, to talk and to share their concerns. The last official meeting was Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary, which they celebrated with a symbolic cake.

Xelgen is one of the small number of admins and active contributors. He is active in promoting not only Armenian Wikipedia but the Armenian language on the internet in general. He believes that paper is no longer the main medium for language; it’s digital technologies, and the language we use on the iPad, computer, and cell phone largely affects the way we think.

Xelgen (Aleksey Chalabyan in real life), thinks that having Wikipedia in Armenian is important to store knowledge in the local language and to give everyone in Armenia access to that knowledge.

Taking into consideration overall internet usage figures, the Armenian-speaking audience is very limited (in Armenia about 37% of the population uses Internet), so many people prefer sharing English or Russian content to reach a wider audience. The main reason is that the vast majority of Armenians also speak Russian or English. Despite operating in Armenia, many blogs and corporate websites do not have an Armenian-language version. Moreover, there are lots of Armenians who have been living abroad for generations, many of whom don’t know Armenian very well.

Using Armenian on the Internet means facing certain technical issues, as well: Armenian still can’t be used on many mobile phones and there is no one unified Armenian keyboard: with 39 letters and tons of punctuation marks, Armenians need to agree to some compromises…

Aleksey and his friends are concerned with these tendencies and they feel that promoting Armenian Wikipedia will help people to feel more comfortable reading and writing in their local language on the Internet. They meet with NGOs, visit universities and schools to encourage young people to join them.

During our meeting Xelgen, Chaojoker, Rob and Beko were discussing the translation of words such as “fellowship” versus “scholarship,” “state” versus “region” versus “province” to find the right Armenian words for certain articles: none of them is a linguist, but getting the translation right is a priority for them all.

The dominance of English on the Internet is a major issue for many nations, even for big ones. For small nations like Armenia, it is a matter of national identity, and they take the language issue very seriously. Armenians, who are very proud of their rich and unique language and 1600-year-old alphabet, consider Armenization of the Internet a key mission, and developing Armenian Wikipedia is a big part of this battle. Wikipedians are optimistic: they say that the number of articles has almost doubled during the last year, although they put stress on quality rather than quantity. Over the summer they also hope that many students will use their holidays to spend more time adding and editing articles on Armenian Wikipedia.

Lusine Grigoryan

MSc Digital Anthropology (UCL), journalist