Community digest: Wiki Loves Earth winner helps promote free knowledge in Serbia; news in brief

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Photo by Boris Petković,CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo by Boris Petković,CC BY-SA 4.0.

Last month, the international winners of Wiki Loves Earth were announced, and Čedomir Žarković from Serbia took first place with his photo of the Stopića limestone cave.
The announcement made Žarković into a viral TV and social media star for a short time, and we hope that the resulting media coverage of him and his photo will encourage future participation in similar free knowledge sharing events.
People in Serbia have seen this success as a matter of national pride. Over 46,000 people viewed our blog post announcing the results, and 30,000 saw the post on our Facebook page, all in addition to thousands of visits and shares other news websites received.
The attention was contagious as it traveled from social media to classical media channels. Wiki Loves Earth was the topic on fourteen TV shows, three radio interviews, five papers and magazines (including covers and front pages), in addition to sixty-five posts on blogs and news websites.
The awards ceremony was held at the National Tourism Organisation of Serbia, covered by several news agencies. Žarković was awarded a plaque and a voucher to attend Wikimania, the annual conference of the Wikimedia movement. Filip Maljković, the president of Wikimedia Serbia, handed out the prizes and took the opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of all participants in promoting the value of free knowledge and the natural heritage of our country.
Local cultural organizations didn’t miss the opportunity to lionize Žarković. The Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia awarded the winner with the monograph Protected Cultural Heritage of Serbia, in addition to a stay at Tara National Park to give him inspiration for other work to promote the nature of Serbia. Moreover, the National Tourism Organization will invite Žarković to participate in the organization’s winter campaign and have him travel through Serbia.
Finally, Žarković’s winning photo was displayed on eight billboards across Serbia in the following month, thanks to the donations from Alma Quattro and Babbler Media Group.
Photo by Filip Maljković,CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo by Filip Maljković,CC BY-SA 4.0.

We believe that the media coverage of the winning photo was a great tool to promote Wiki Loves Earth in Serbia, as well as promoting the culture of free knowledge in our country.
Ivana Guslarevic, Communications Manager
Wikimedia Serbia

In Brief

Wiki Women Prize in the Arab World announces the winners: Wiki Women Prize is a monetary prize on the Arabic Wikipedia to encourage female participation and writing about women on Wikipedia. The fourth round of the competition was held between September 1 and November 30, 2016 and the results were announced yesterday. Congratulations to the winners.

Polish Wikipedia Community gets ready for their winter meeting: Wikimedia Poland, the independent chapter that supports the Wikimedia movement in the country, has opened registrations for their winter meeting. The meeting will be held between January 27 and 29, 2017 and registration is now open. More information about the meeting is available on Wikimedia Poland website.

Archives Challenge winner is announced: Wikipedian Gikü was the highest contributor during the Archives Challenge on Wikimedia Commons. Both Gikü and his bot (robot software) have added descriptions to thousands of photos and documents on Wikimedia Commons in addition to categorizing and using photos on Wikipedia. You can see more about the contest in our previous digest about it.

Affiliations Committee calls for new members: The Wikimedia Affiliations Committee (AffCom), the committee responsible for guiding volunteers in establishing Wikimedia chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups—is looking for new members. All applications will be posted on Meta, and all members of the community are invited to provide comments and feedback about each candidate. Applications will be accepted until the end of December. More information about the role and selection criteria is available on Meta.

Wikipedia as a platform for impactful learning: Education and Information Technologies, a scientific journal by Springer Nature, shared an article by Wikipedian Shani Evenstein. Evenstein’s article discusses using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in a new course model in higher education. The article is available on Springer Nature’s website.

WikiCup to begin: The WikiCup, an annual friendly competition designed to spur content creation on the English Wikipedia, will be offering monetary prizes this year for the first time. It is entering its tenth iteration. You can sign up to participate over on their page.

Voting for Military History WikiProject prizes under way: The English Wikipedia’s Military History WikiProject is voting on the recipients for their two year-end annual prizes: the “military historian of the year” and the “military history newcomer of the year.”

New This Month in GLAM: The newest monthly edition of This Month in GLAM has been published, covering developments in the GLAM sector (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) for the month of November.

Samir Elsharbaty, Digital Content Intern
Wikimedia Foundation

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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