After my horrible COVID experience in Singapore last year, I was a bit skeptical about attending this year's Wikimania. However, I am glad I did. From the beautiful cultural performances to the exciting activities and the wonderful participants, I must say that I had a wonderful time in Katowice. Attending this year's edition gave me the opportunity to see some Wikimedians I had not seen for a very long time, and I made some new contacts. While some of the conversations I had with some contributors encouraged me to continue the work I am doing within the movement, others inspired me to do more.
What I gained from participating in the conference
BearbeitenI had the opportunity to attend several insightful sessions where I learned from other Wikimedians while contributing to the discussions. One of the sessions I enjoyed the most was the Commons Categorisers Meetup, which was organised by Benutzer:MB-one and user:BugWarp. During the session, we discussed the usefulness of structured data on Commons and their lack of practical applicability so far. This session shed light on the challenges users face finding/searching for images on Commons. We also discussed the possible solutions to these issues. As a writer for Global Voices, this challenge resonated a lot with me because I mostly use Wikimedia Commons images in the articles I publish.
I also found the Wiki Women Summit session very beneficial. We discussed the outcomes from last year's WikiWomen Summit in India. We also discussed the way forward for future endeavors towards gender equity in our movement.
Another session I also enjoyed was the session about how we can do campaigns better. During this session, we discussed the need to be strategic in the use of resources in deciding the campaigns to run each year. We also discussed how to improve the quality of articles by implementing effective methods which motivate editors to pay attention to the quality of articles.
What did I pass on to others?
BearbeitenIn addition to sharing my contributions and experiences during the sessions I attended, as mentioned above, I did an interview with Wikimedia Deutshland's communication team.
