From October 2015 to March 2016, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (OBC) hosts a Wikipedian in Residence (WiR) in the framework of its cooperation with Wikimedia Italia and its membership in the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). The wikipedian will enrich and systematize the articles on media freedom and pluralism in Europe, in several linguistic versions, while training and assisting the OBC staff in order to allow them to contribute autonomously to the encyclopedia in the future.
Organisations edit
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso (OBC), based in Rovereto (Italy) is a think tank focused on South East Europe and the EU Neighbourhood countries. It works as a hub for journalists based in the wider region, as a forum for knowledge-sharing and dialogue among civil society organizations, and as a research centre providing specialized as well as popular publications and trainings in order to stimulate public awareness and discussion. It works in multiple languages, is committed to open access, and makes use of crowd-sourcing and social media to engage with the citizenry.[1]
The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) is a cooperative of 25 organizations throughout Europe, committed to fight for press and media freedom. It aims to develop a database of media law in Europe and of all attacks against media freedom, as well as provide support to threatened journalists and to like-minded organisations across the continent.[2]
To this aim, OBC has partnered with Wikimedia Italia to start a GLAM initiative and benefit from the presence of a Wikipedian in Residence in order to achieve common aims. Through the WiR, OBC will benefit of the dissemination capacity of Wikipedia, the widest and most popular platform for knowledge sharing, while it will help it by enriching and systematizing the repertoires of information about media freedom and pluralism in Europe. The collaboration will produce open-access, freely-reusable quality contents for the wider public in multiple languages, thus contributing to knowledge sharing.
Aims edit
- Curating the development of the articles concerning freedom of information and freedom of the press in Europe, particularly in the areas of expertise of OBC (South East Europe)
- Training the staff of OBC/ECPMF on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, as well as on the wiki techniques of collecting, organizing and disseminating data
- Supporting the OBC staff in the further dissemination of contents, by facilitating the relations with the Wikimedia chapters from the countries involved (e.g. Germany, Ukraine, Serbia)
- Produding an interim and final relation of the project
Main articles edit
For a full list of articles created/improved see: http://www.rcmediafreedom.eu/Wiki-for-mediafreedom
People edit
- Wikipedian in Residence: Davide Denti (OBC)
- OBC staff trained:
- Marzia Bona (OBC) (ECPMF Resource Centre)
- Roberta Bertoldi (OBC)
- Rossella Vignola (OBC)
- Chiara Sighele (OBC)
Wiki4MediaFreedom edit-a-thon edit
As a follow up of the GLAM project, in November 2016, in cooperation with Wikimedia Serbia and Wikimedia Italia, and with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso organised the first edition of the "Wiki4Mediafreedom" edit-a-thon aimed at improving media freedom-related contents in Wikipedia. The edit-a-thon took place in Belgrade.
For more information see the dedicated page on META: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki4MediaFreedom_edit-a-thon
Wiki4MediaFreedom template edit
The articles created and improved within the Wiki4Mediafreedom initiative are marked with {{Wiki4MediaFreedom}} in the talk pages, which automatically includes them in Category:Wiki4MediaFreedom articles.
Press corner edit
- Interview with the first Wikipedian in Residence Davide Denti, ECPMF, 13 November 2015. Also on the OBC website
- Wikipedia 'edit-a-thon' seeks to boost contents on media freedom and pluralism, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa, 28 October 2016]
- Wikimedia Foundation Blog / community Digest - In brief, Wikimedia Foundation Blog, 5 December 2016
- GLAM Newsletter January 2016