Wikimania 2024 Katowice (Day 1) – Diff

Everyone can have significant moments in their life. For me, Wikimania 2024 Katowice is a milestone. I would like to share with you my experiences at Wikimania 2024 Katowice, which took place from 7 to 10 August 2024.

Preparation steps

I participated in two joint presentations at Wikimania this year. One was a presentation on “The Wikimedia Friendship between Japan, Malaysia and Turkey” with Taufik and Eugene Ormandy, whom I met at Wikimania last year and who are the winners of the Wikimedian of the Year and Newcomer of the Year awards. The other was a presentation on the CEE Youth Group, the youth group of the CEE region, entitled “CEE Youth Group: A Successful Youth Organization in the Movement”, which I presented with Mari and Nikos.

And before the first day of the conference, when I arrived in Katowice, I don’t know why, but I didn’t feel tired at all. So I met my Wikimedia friend Eugene Ormandy, with whom I had started the Wikimedia Japan-Türkiye Friendship Project, and Wadakuramon, and we met outside in a cafe.

I did it!

The opening ceremony on the first day was a milestone for me, as I gave the title to this article. In my 10th year in the Wikimedia movement, which I started participating in 2014, I was honored by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales with the Media Contributor of the Year award, one of the most prestigious awards of the year. Wikimedian of the Year rewards.

I would like to share my feelings with you. First of all, I am very happy and excited to have been deemed worthy of this award. Being honored in this way for my design work that I have done for many different events, projects, and other fields has motivated me even more. In fact, I am actually a little surprised. Because at the award ceremony at the opening of Wikimania 2023 Singapore, I promised myself that I would receive this award next year. And yes, it happened as expected. I won the Multimedia Contributor of the Year award at the Wikimedian of the Year awards.

I was also honored by what Jimmy Wales said about me at the awards ceremony:

This year, we celebrate an individual who has been a champion of supporting communities by creating unique visual designs for their Wikimedia events, campaigns, and projects. She uses graphic design to help Wikimedia communities communicate their culture, history, and identity. Her designs are not only about helping others promote their Wikimedia work, but also about doing so in a visual language that captures and explains who they are. This individual is from the CEE region, but her impact extends far beyond one region.

– Jimmy Wales, Wikimania 2024 Opening Ceremony Katowice, August 7, 2024

Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska, who officiated the ceremony, then told me that she knew that this work contained elements of communities linked to culture, and that it was important for me to explain it through the graphics, and she asked me to explain it. Here is how I explained it briefly:

Graphic design is very important to me, I integrate objects from the cultures of the communities into my works… I designed stickers of Central Asian Turkic culture, such as Dombıra and Yurt, which belong to our common history. For the first time, I also designed two cute mascots for the conference. The male mascot wore a traditional Kyrgyz hat, while the female mascot wore traditional Turkish clothes. Seeing the participants having fun taking pictures with these mascots in the conference area made me very happy and I felt that I had succeeded in promoting the local culture.

– Y. Caner Özyayıkçı (Kurmanbek), opening ceremony of Wikimania 2024 Katowice, August 7, 2024

You can read more about the Wikimedians of the year 2024 in the Diff article below:

After the opening ceremony, I attended several sessions and I would like to tell you a little about some of them.

Preserving Stories, Preserving Identity: Wiki Loves Folklore Revealed by Tiven2240

The session focused on the history of Wiki loves folklore. Launched in 2019 as Wiki Loves Love, the contest has now taken its current form. I realized that it was quite easy to enter the contest and I learned something very interesting. There was a writing part of the contest called “Feminism and folklore“In this part, they focus on popular culture and the gender gap. In the 5 years since the contest was first held, a total of 37,854 articles have been created. The country with the highest number of submissions is India.

My opinion: I think we should definitely organize the Turkey section of this contest in the future. It will provide us with a lot of content about Turkey.

Media education, libraries and schools – the Czech experience by Pavel Bednařík, Klára Joklová and Lucie Schubert

This session, organized by Wikimedia Czech Republic (WMCZ), was one of the most interesting for me. Indeed, there are various activities in Turkey whose aim is to help newcomers discover Wikimedia projects, especially Wikipedia.

During the session I learned that WMCZ has 3 main programs: “Educational Programs”, “Community Programs” and “Partnership Programs”. The part that interested me here was media education. Indeed, in the presentation it was mentioned that Wikimedia projects are a great tool for media education. The media education project includes trainings and workshops for future librarians from the universities of Prague and Brno. It also includes an educational program, a portal and a manual with 5 activities for teachers. (I am interested in Wiki education with a manual, maybe we can create a Wiki education manual in the future.) After the presentation, we also experienced this educational process with a small test. (In their own words, we became students for 10 minutes :))

My cycling and Wikipedia journey (from images on Commons to the bike ride to Katowice) by Toni Ristovski

How about a Wikimedian cycling thousands of kilometers (1100 km) to get to Wikimania? Since 2010, Toni Ristovski, who joined Wikipedia in 2010 and has been cycling since 2015, cycled from Skopje to Katowice in 6 days for Wikimania 2024.

At the beginning of his presentation, he explained that TV series and writing articles about cycling on Wikipedia were what inspired him to buy his first bike. At first, he said, he did not upload the photos he had taken while cycling to Commons. However, he heard about Wikiexpeditions at the Wikimedia CEE 2012 meeting in Belgard. After two years, he planned to organize a local Wikiexpeditions event in Macedonia. During these trips, he photographed many churches, villages, lakes and waterfalls and uploaded them to Commons. However, Toni talked about the importance of finding models for a proper expedition: the route, the people, the places, the roles and the equipment.

At the end, Toni has a message for us:

If you enjoy outdoor activities, combine Wikipedia with your hobby

Toni Ristovski, presentation of My cycling journey and on Wikipedia (from images on Commons to the bike ride to Katowice), August 7, 2024

Central Asian Wikimedians Meeting

At the Meetup of Central Asian Wikimedians, a gathering of Wikimedians from Central Asia and interested in Central Asia, we heard about the work being done in the region by Wikimedians from the region. We also exchanged ideas about the events and activities that have taken place.

Here is my first exciting day at Wikimania 2024 Katowice. See you in the post of the second day!

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