HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 GUIDES — Part Eleven: Wikimania Katowice
Welcome to the DCG 201 Guides for Hacker Summer Camp 2024! This is part of a series where we are going to cover all the various hacker conventions and shenanigans both In-Person & Digital! This year in 2024 we have completely lost our minds and thus we will have a total of 18 guides spanning 3 months of Hacker Insanity!
As more blog posts are uploaded, you will be able to jump through the guide via these links:
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part One: Surviving Las Vegas & Virtually Anywhere 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Two: Capture The Flags & Hackathons
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Three: Design Automation Conference #61
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Four: ToorCamp 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Five: LeHack 20th
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Six: HOPE XV
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Seven: SummerCon 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Eight: DOUBLEDOWN24 by RingZer0
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Nine: TRICON & REcon 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Ten: The Diana Initiative 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Eleven: Wikimania Katowice
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Twelve: SquadCon 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Thirteen: BSides Las Vegas 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Fourteen: Black Hat USA 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Fifteen: DEFCON 32
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Sixteen: USENIX Security Trifecta 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Seventeen: HackCon 2024
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Eighteen: SIGS, EVENTS & PARTIES
Wikimania Katowice 2024
Date & Time: Wednesday, August 7th @ 8:00am PST — Sunday, August 10th @ 9:00pm PST
Location: International Congress Centre Katowice (plac Sławika i Antalla 1, 40–163 Katowice, Poland)
Website: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2024:Wikimania
Tickets: https://wikimania-tickets.eventyay.com/wikiorg/Wikimania/
Virtual Platform(s): Zoom, Eventyay
— Schedule —
Wiki: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2024:Program
GUI: https://wikimania.eventyay.com/2024/schedule/
Source: TBA
Live Streams:
Virtual Chat: Zoom Chat, IRC
Android App: https://github.com/Wilm0r/giggity
Affordability: In-person registration fee is USD $100. It’s subsidized by Wikimedia Foundation and covers lunch as well as morning and afternoon snacks on every day of the event (7–10 August), dinner on 7 and 10 August, the opening party on 7 August and the closing party on 10 August, and event swag. The registration fee for scholarship recipients will be completely covered by the Foundation. The costs of the virtual event are fully covered by the Foundation — virtual attendance will remain free.
Code Of Conduct: https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Universal_Code_of_Conduct | https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy:Friendly_space_policy | https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Photography_policy
Wikimania is the annual conference celebrating all the free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation with days of conferences, discussions, meetups, training, and workshops. Hundreds of volunteers and Free Knowledge leaders from around the world gather to discuss issues, report on new projects and approaches, and exchange ideas.
The 19th edition of Wikimania will happen in Katowice, Poland from 7–10 August as a partnership between Wikimedians of the Central and Eastern Europe region and the Wikimedia Foundation. It will host free knowledge leaders from around the world to discuss issues, report on new projects and approaches, build networks, and exchange ideas.
Wikimania this year is for those who are either digital academics that care about the data and information side of things and/or the Free Culture section of the hacker community. Unique to this year is it takes place during the entire traditoinal 3-day weekend of Hacker Summer Camp. If you need your Citations Needed and are a true believe of Copy-Left Freedom of Information online, this is a convention NOT to miss!
HOW TO POLAND
The conference will be held in International Congress Centre in Katowice. It’s located in a city center, not far from the train station and accommodation options.
The International Congress Centre in Katowice is a modern and award winning venue that has hosted large international summits such as the United Nations conferences: World Urban Forum in 2022 and Climate Change Conference in 2018.
We will be using multiple areas for programme sessions, main hall events, casual networking, and social experiences. The venue is located near the Silesian Museum and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra buildings, and has plenty of green space around it. It has a very high standard of audio visual facilities, and of course, much needed high-speed internet designed for large traffic. It also features an interesting interior and architectural design, linked to the history of the area. The venue is also fully accessible in all areas we will be using. There will also be space for prayer rooms and quiet areas.
Emergency Numbers
Fixed Phones:
999: Ambulance
998: Fire Brigade
997: Police
981: Road Assistance
986: Municipal Police
Cell/Anywhere:
- Ambulance — tel. 112 / 999
- Fire brigade — tel. 112 / 998
- Police — tel. 112 / 997
- Municipal Guards — tel. 986
Connections with these numbers are free of charge from both private telephones and public payphones. Once you dial the emergency number, hold on. If you decide to hang up, it may prolong the entire procedure. Once you get connected, the dispatcher will forward your call to the relevant service depending on the type of incident or accident your are reporting.
Your report should be short, clear and precise. It must contain information about:
- The place of incident (e.g. characteristic point and/or landmark should the street name be illegible or out of sight),
- The kind of incident (e.g. assault, theft, murder, rape, scuffle/battery, collision/road accident, burglary, robbery, car theft, fraud, etc.),
- The name of the person reporting the crime or incident (first name, surname, contact telephone).
Using mobile phones: remember to dial the local code before the number, for example:
22–997 to call the police in Warsaw. Emergency calls from phone boxes are free of charge. If you do not know the local code, dial the general emergency number for mobile phones: 112. The operator will request the appropriate emergency unit. We recommend using direct emergency numbers in the case of danger (997, 999, 998) because in some areas the general emergency number (112) still does not work properly.
These numbers may also be useful:
International flight departure information (22) 650 39 43
International flight arrival information (22) 650 42 20
https://wikitravel.org/wiki/en/index.php?title=Katowice
CONFRENCE MAPS
Requirements To Enter Poland (Giggity)
Anyone arriving in Poland with passports from outside the Schengen Zone should prepare to have the following items on hand:
- A valid passport. It must not be older than ten years and should be valid for at least three more months, recommended six months, beyond its intended departure date from the Schengen Area.
- Blank passport pages. Your passport must have at least two blank pages for the entry stamp.
- A valid Schengen Visa. You must carry your Schengen visa with you when you travel through the Schengen Area. Usually, your visa is affixed to your passport, so those two go hand in hand. (More information on applying for visas can be found on a separate page).
- Evidence on the purpose of entry. While not required for all non-visa holders, attendees should carry documentation explaining that they will be attending Wikimania. Wikimania attendees can request invitation letters from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Poland by emailing wikimania
- wikimedia.org with the subject line “Wikimania Invitation Letter Request”.
- Proof of sufficient financial means. Documentation that proves you have enough financial means to visit the Schengen Area. For Poland, this amount is a minimum bank balance of PLN 300[3] for three days plus PLN 75 for each additional day, provable by a printed bank statement. You can also provide proof of employment or sponsorship, which the Wikimedia Foundation will provide to scholarship recipients.
- Proof of return flight. Print out your travel itinerary to show when you will be departing.
Health Insurance
People who are required to have a visa in order to come to Poland must have an insurance as one of the conditions for applying for visa. Costs of medical services should be settled between the medical facility and your insurer. Please have a proof of insurance with you — without it, you will be charged, and you might then ask your insurer for a refund.
People, who have their health insurance in EU/EFTA countries, are entitled to receive free medical help in case of accidents and emergencies. You have to present a European Health Insurance Card, or you’ll be charged for the services (in the latter case, you may then ask your insurer for a refund). EHIC cardholders are eligible for drug reimbursements under the same rules as Polish citizens. (see more).
VISAS (NOT MASTERCARD)
Out of nearly 200 countries in the world, Poland, as part of the Schengen Zone, requires visas for 106 of them. If your country is on the list, you should look to start your visa process as soon as possible.
Some countries describe long processing times–for example, Turkiye and Nigeria recommend the application to be submitted for review 6 months in advance of the departure date; most countries, though, recommend applicants submit their completed applications around 2 months in advance. Review the instructions for applying for a visa, which will guide you through gathering your documentation, filling out your application, and making an appointment.
Visa Documentation
Wikimania attendees should apply for a tourist visa, the requirements of which are described in detail here. They are as follows:
- Visa application form.
- Two recent color photos which were taken less than 6 months ago with 35 x 45 mm size.
- Valid passport, with a minimum validity of 3 months after your travel dates.
- Roundtrip reservation and travel itinerary, including dates, a description of where you will be when, and flight numbers.
- Travel Health Insurance to cover the duration of your stay. Scholars will be provided with insurance from the Wikimedia Foundation and will receive proof of travel health insurance via email. For everyone else, please refer to the list of insurers and insurance policies duly recognized by Poland.
- Proof of accommodation. Hotel/hostel booking or similar. Scholars that are having their accommodation covered by the Wikimedia Foundation will receive a copy of their hotel booking via email.
- Invitation letter from the conference organizers. Scholars will automatically receive an invitation letter from the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Poland via email. Other attendees can request an invitation letter by emailing wikimania
- wikimedia.org with the subject line “Wikimania Invitation Letter Request”.
- Proof of financial means. Documentation that proves you have enough financial means to visit the Schengen Area. For Poland, this amount is a minimum bank balance of PLN 300[1] for three days plus PLN 75 for each additional day. You can also provide proof of employment, sponsorship, or pre-paid accommodation. Wikimania scholars will receive a scholarship letter via email to meet this requirement.
- Evidence of employment status or evidence of student status.
Your Visa Appointment
Once you have all your documentation collected, you can make an appointment on the Poland Embassy website to submit your full application. For most countries, you will aim to schedule this appointment 2 months before your intended travel date. You may need to submit biometrics as part of this appointment. Following your appointment, your visa officer may schedule an additional interview approximately 1 month before your departure, so be prepared to attend that as well. It is important to note that the final decision regarding visa approval rests solely with the government office.
Flying
Katowice is served by an international Katowice-Pyrzowice airport (KTW / EPKT). It’s the fourth-busiest airport in Poland and is located about 30km from Katowice. The route from airport to the city is operated by public transport buses and taxis.
Warsaw or Kraków. You might also want to book a flight to Warsaw or Kraków (the largest Polish airports) and then come to Katowice by train. Coming from Warsaw airport would take 3–4 hours and from Kraków around 90 minutes. Both trips require a transfer at one of the main stations in Warsaw or Kraków.
Rules and regulations that apply to airborne travel don’t differ much from other countries, especially the Schengen Zone. The amount of fluids you can have in your hand luggage at security control is limited to 100 ml per bottle (and no more than 1 liter in total) — there are no CT scanners on Polish airports yet.
Domestic travels by plane in Poland are not that popular. For most people they serve as a first or final step in an international travel. Most domestic flights offered in Poland are to/from Warsaw.
Katowice Airport (KTW / EPKT)
Katowice airport with bus stop and train station (blue markers). Venue location marked in red and main Katowice train station in purple
Katowice is served by the airport located 25 km / 15 mi north of the city center. At the airport, there is frequent bus service. (There is a train station but there are no direct trains to Katowice at the time of writing).
Warsaw Airport (WAW / EPWA)
Warsaw airport with train station (blue markers) and Warszawa Zachodnia station (green)
Main Polish airport, situated in Warsaw (crow’s flight distance to the city center: 7.5 km / 5 mi). Next to the airport terminal, there’s an underground train station from where trains to Warsaw depart every 15–20 minutes (except for nights). You can use city buses as well (it’s served by 4 day lines and one night line).
From Warsaw you can book a LOT flight to Katowice (there are 5 flights a day). If you’re arriving at Warsaw and wish to go directly to Katowice by train, the recommended way is:
- Go to the airport train station Warszawa Lotnisko Chopina and take any train, get off at Warszawa Zachodnia station — the trip takes ca. 15 minutes and is served by two carriers: Szybka Kolej Miejska (SKM) and Koleje Mazowieckie (KM); regular Warsaw public transport tickets apply (see above).
- Take express train (TLK, IC, EIC, EIP) from Warszawa Zachodnia to Katowice — there are around 15 direct connections every day and the trip takes between 2h 30min and 3h 30min, depending on the train you pick. We encourage to buy tickets a few days in advance. Polish Railways allow to buy tickets a maximum of one month in advance (two months for international trains), and they are the cheapest in the earliest days of availability.
The main train stations in Warsaw are: Warszawa Centralna, Warszawa Wschodnia, Warszawa Zachodnia, Warszawa Gdańska.
Kraków Airport (KRK / EPKK)
Kraków airport with train station (blue markers) and Kraków Główny station (green)
Kraków airport is the second largest Polish airport. It’s located 10 km / 6 mi from the city center and — like in Warsaw — there are direct train connections from the airport to the city (departing every 30 minutes for most of the day). There is a bus stop as well, but we recommend train for travelling to Kraków center.
Since Kraków is 70 km from Katowice, there are no plane connections between these cities. In order to get from Kraków airport to Katowice, we recommend the following:
- Go to the airport train station Kraków Lotnisko and take any train, get off at Kraków Główny station — the trip takes 17 minutes and is served by Koleje Małopolskie.
- Take a train from Kraków Główny to Katowice, there are over 30 direct connections a day (either regional or express); the trip takes 50–80 minutes, depending on which train you take.
For both parts of the trip you’ll need a regular train ticket (contrary to what is the case for Warsaw). We recommend taking an express train (TLK, IC, EIC, EIP) for the second part as you’ll get a seat reservation there.
The main train station in Kraków is Kraków Główny, which is a kilometer away from the historic old town.
Local Transportation
The local transport is organized by Polish communes independently. Therefore, ticket types, prices and specific regulations will vary between cities. Most types of ticket are for specific travel durations (eg. 20 min, 1 hour, 24 hours etc.), so it’s a good idea to check how long your trip is going to take in advance.
Jakdojade (pronounced yahk-doh-YAH-deh) is a useful app for planning mass transit trips in Katowice (and Poland in general). It can consult transit schedules and also purchase transit e-tickets.
Jakdojade For Andriod: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.citynav.jakdojade.pl.android
Jakdojade For iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/jakdojade-timetables/id506795511
It’s available on web at jakdojade.pl as well, but purchasing tickets is possible only in mobile apps. Jakdojade supports over 30 Polish cities and allows to buy tickets in many of them.
Please note: Tickets in Polish local transport are valid only after you validate them. After getting on the bus, please go to a stamping machine (usually orange) and put your ticket there. (Do it only once per ticket — don’t repeat it once you transfer to another vehicle during the original ticket’s validity period). In order to validate tickets bought with an app, scan a QR inside the vehicle (usually on a window near a door; other cities may have different policies regarding e-ticket validation).
All tickets allow you to change between lines as long as your ticket is valid.
Prices laid above apply when buying a ticket with an app (any app). Paper tickets cost PLN 0.60 (USD 0.15) more.
Please note: There are traAm track repairs going on near the Katowice market square (which is between the venue and the railway station). Some routes are served by replacement buses. Up-to-date schedule is available in Jakdojade app.
Trains
Koleo App for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pl.koleo
Koleo App for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/koleo/id1256462727
Koleo Website: https://koleo.pl/en/
Trains are the preferred means of public transport for domestic travel in Poland. Every Polish major city has a train station somewhere near the city center. The Katowice train station is located 1.5 km from the Wikimania 2024 venue, and even closer to numerous hotels, and the accommodation arranged for scholarship recipients.
There’s a good number of trains coming from both within Poland (including Warsaw, Kraków and Wrocław), as well as trains crossing Poland’s western and southern borders. There are direct connections with e.g. Berlin, Ostrava, Prague, Budapest and Vienna. More international routes are possible with transfers.
There are two main categories of trains: regional and express ones. Regional trains stop at every station along the route, making them significantly slower but they are also cheaper. There are some quick regional connections that cover longer distances and skip some stops. On the contrary, express trains skip many smaller villages and towns and allow to quickly cover longer distances (this is not a high-speed railway, though — these usually run no faster than 160 km/h).
Please note, that (due to how train numbers are assigned) the actual number of the train you’re boarding and the one you might have on your ticket can differ by one (eg. IC 7322 and IC 7323 refer to the same train).
Express Trains
Express trains in Poland are operated by PKP Intercity. In order to ride such a train, you’ll have to buy a ticket in advance. The sales open 30 days (for international trains: 60 days) before departure and close 5 minutes before scheduled departure time. Tickets are sold for a specific relation and specific time. This means that you have to know precisely when you’ll be travelling.
Express trains can be divided into subtypes:
- TLK (Twoje Linie Kolejowe), IC (Intercity) — cheaper ones, they stop in main and medium cities along the route,
- EIC (Express Intercity), EIP (Express Intercity Premium) — more expensive ones, they stop only on most important stations (and thus are slightly faster).
Tickets for express trains generally include a seat reservation (which in itself is free, but tied to a ticket). If a train is fully-booked, it’s still possible to buy some amount of tickets without seat guarantee. In such a case you can sit on any free seat, but you have to give it up to the person that has booked it.
Both compartment and compartmentless cars are available. Compartments of first and second class have 6 seats, except for TLK trains where second class has usually 8 seats per compartment.
Please note, that if you want to book two seats next to each other, they will not have consecutive numbers. A general rule is that the following seat numbers make pairs: _1 and _3, _2 and _8, _4 and _6, _5 and _7, see more (in Polish).
Regional Trains
Regional trains are operated by Polregio and other regional companies, e.g. Koleje Śląskie (you might assume that every carrier with Koleje in their name is a regional one).
Contrary to express trains, tickets for regional trains are sold for a relation and not a specific trip from a schedule. This means that you can use the ticket for another train on the same route (provided that it’s during the ticket’s validity time). Regional train tickets are valid for at least 3 hours from the time printed on the ticket (actual validity time can be longer and is decided on by the carrier and may depend on the trip length, check here — in Polish).
Some of the regional carriers honor tickets issued by other regional carrier (there can be some limitations still). Cross-honoring between Polregio and Koleje Śląskie (two main carriers in the Katowice region) applies to the following segments (more information — in Polish):
- Katowice — Katowice Szopienice Południowe,
- Katowice Szopienice Południowe — Mysłowice,
- Częstochowa — Częstochowa Raków,
- Nędza — Racibórz,
- Kalety — Tarnowskie Góry,
- Herby Stare — Częstochowa,
- Herby Stare — Lubliniec.
Booking Tickets
Train tickets are available for purchase is ticket offices at many stations. They can also be bought on-line, for example on Koleo or Jakdojade app (Jakdojade offers only express trains). Regional train tickets can be bought from the Skycash app that also allows to buy other kinds of transport tickets.
In all trains except EIP it’s possible to buy tickets on board. In order to do so, immediately after getting on the train or while still at the platform you’ll have to find the train conductor and ask for a ticket. An additional fee of PLN 5–20 (ca. USD 1–5) will be incurred, except if you’re getting on at a station without a ticket office.
Tickets bought at stations are printed without the passenger’s name. On the other hand, online platforms require the buyer to provide the passenger name and you might be asked by a train conductor to show your document (ID card, passport, driver’s licence etc.) along with the ticket.
Please note that if you want to cancel your ticket, you have to do it through the same channel you bought it (ticket office or on-line platform). You’ll usually get 85% of the ticket’s price back in such a case. It’s also possible to change the time or destination point of travel once. You’ll have to pay the price difference between the new and old ticket then.
Train Delays
It’s not that unusual to experience a train delay of a few minutes. Therefore we don’t recommend booking travels with less that 10–15 minutes for a transfer between trains. In case of hardware failures or excessive heat, more delays can occur.
If you planned to transfer between express trains and because of the first one’s delay you might miss the second one, go find a train conductor and tell them about the situation. Express trains can be held on a station for up to 10–15 minutes in such cases (it’s not guaranteed, though). If — due to the delay — you can’t get to your second train, ask the train crew or a person at the ticket office to print a confirmation of the delay for you. It will allow you to take the next train without additional costs.
If you’re experiencing a serious delay — don’t panic. The carrier is still obliged to bring you to the destination point. You can as well decide to take another train or to cancel your further trip and go back to the departure place. If you want to change your plans due to the delay, go to the ticket office or the train conductor to get a confirmation. It will enable you to use the ticket on a different train or you will be entitled for a refund.
In case of doubts, feel free to ask train crew or at the ticket office what to do.
Ride Hailing Apps
Bolt For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ee.mtakso.client
Bolt For iOS: https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/bolt-request-a-ride/id675033630
Free Now For Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=taxi.android.client
Free Now For iOS: https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/freenow/id357852748
Money
Poland uses the złoty. Not the euro!
Cashless payments are very popular in Poland. You can pay by card at almost all places — be it small shops or supermarkets. If you want to exchange money after coming to Poland, there are money exchange points (called kantor in Polish) at the airports as well as in the city center.
The most common foreign currencies accepted for exchange are: Euro (EUR), British pound (GBP) and US dollar (USD). Usually you may also find others in the currency exchange offices, especially the European ones.
Climate
Poland lies in a humid continental climate zone. The mean temperature in August during the day is 25°C (76°F) and at night 13°C (55°F), although it can occasionally get hotter, reaching up to 30°C (86°F). You should be prepared for some variability in weather, including the possibility of occasional rain. On average, there are 12 rainy days in August, with about 75mm (3in) of precipitation in the whole month. People with sensitive skin should consider bringing a sunblock. The day in August begins around 4:40 AM, and it’s bright until around 9:00 PM.
It’s a good idea to pack lightweight clothing such as t-shirts, shorts, and summer dresses for the warm days, but also bring along a light jacket or sweater for cooler evenings or if the weather turns unexpectedly chilly.
HOW TO KATOWICE
Katowice is a large city in the Silesian Voivodeship in the south of Poland. Is has a population of over 300,000; it’s the central city of GZM metropolis (population 2.3 million) which in turn is part of Upper Silesian-Moravian metropolitan area sprawling across the Czech border. It’s not scenic, but has a rich industrial heritage — especially coal mining and heavy industry.
Apart from Katowice, the agglomeration consists of 40 towns, including Chorzów, Bytom, Zabrze, Ruda Śląska, Tychy, Gliwice and Tarnowskie Góry (see the linked Wikivoyage pages for more information). They all have a unified local transport systems with the same tickets. Some towns may be easier reachable by train and some by bus or tram. For such a trip, consider buying a 24 hour ticket, as it’s valid in both local transport and regional trains in the Katowice agglomeration.
Other places that we invite you to visit, but outside of the agglomeration are:
- Auschwitz-Birkenau (30km / 20mi) — a cluster of Nazi concentration, labor and extermination camps in Oświęcim and Brzezinka,
- Częstochowa (60km / 40mi) — major pilgrimage site in Poland, best known for the Jasna Góra shrine, holding the Black Madonna icon,
- Kraków (70km / 45mi) — former capital of Poland, one of most-visited Polish cities,
- Wieliczka (12km / 7.5mi from Kraków) — famous of ancient salt mine.
Kosher Food: https://www.pyszne.pl/en/order-kosher-food-katowice-katowice
COMMUNICATION
Mobile Communications & SIM cards
Poland is part of the European Union, so EU/EEA residents can use cellular services according to the Roam like at home principles with no or almost no additional costs (please consult your carrier for limitations regarding fair use policy etc.).
Other Options:
- If you want to buy a physical SIM card after arriving, you can do so in a store in the arrivals terminal at the Katowice Airport. It is mandatory to present a passport or ID card in order to register the SIM card. You can do it in carriers’ stands in e.g. shopping malls or in the stores that sell them.
- You should be prepared to see offers like 5000 GB of internet on the SIM card covers, they usually refer to the amount of data you’ll get during a whole year. Please check whether you have to perform any action to get the indicated data packet when buying the SIM card. All main carriers offer a mobile app for Android and iOS you can use to manage the service.
- If you want to buy the card later, they are available in convenience stores around the city. In case of any troubles, all four carriers have their stands in the shopping mall next to Katowice railway station.
- Consider a virtual eSIM using a mobile app if your phone supports it and you are only interested in a data plan. This is usually cheaper than a physical SIM and much easier to purchase, as it has no ID/passport requirement. If you are travelling to other regions of Europe, eSIMs have good deals that cover wide regions. Popular eSIM options include brands such as Airalo, Holafly, Ubigi, or Maya. Caveat: the eSIM options are usually data-only, and will not provide a new phone number.
Telegram
- General Wikimania chat group: @WikimaniaChat
- Social chat: @WikimaniaSocial
- Hackathon social group: @WMHack
IRC
Connecting to Libera.Chat
Libera.Chat can be accessed using an IRC client.
Connect to Libera.Chat with TLS at irc.libera.chat on port 6697.
Additional regional and address-specific hostnames are available:
Defaultirc.libera.chatEuropeirc.eu.libera.chatUS & Canadairc.us.libera.chatAustralia and New Zealandirc.au.libera.chatEast Asiairc.ea.libera.chatIPv4 onlyirc.ipv4.libera.chatIPv6 onlyirc.ipv6.libera.chat
Additional ports are available:
Plain-Text: 6665–6667, 8000–8002
TLS: 6697, 7000, 7070
Accessing Libera.Chat Via TLS
Libera.Chat provides TLS client access on all servers, on ports 6697, 7000 and 7070. Users connecting over TLS will be given user mode +Z, and is using a secure connection will appear in WHOIS (a 671 numeric).
In order to verify the server certificates on connection, some additional work may be required. First, ensure that your system has an up-to-date set of root CA certificates. On most linux distributions this will be in a package named something like ca-certificates. Many systems install these by default, but some (such as FreeBSD) do not. For FreeBSD, the package is named ca_root_nss, which will install the appropriate root certificates in /usr/local/share/certs/ca-root-nss.crt.
Certificate verification will generally only work when connecting to libera.chat. If your client thinks the server’s certificate is invalid, make sure you are connecting to irc.libera.chat rather than any other name that leads to Libera.Chat.
For most clients this should be sufficient. If not, you can download the root certificate from LetsEncrypt.
Client TLS certificates are also supported, and may be used for identification to services. For instructions, see our guide on CertFP. If you have connected with a client certificate, has client certificate fingerprint f1ecf46714198533cda14cccc76e5d7114be4195 (showing your certificate’s SHA512 fingerprint in place of f1ecf46…) will appear in WHOIS (a 276 numeric).
Accessing Libera.Chat Via Tor
Libera.Chat is reachable via Tor using our onion service.
Configuration requirements with details below:
- Update
torrcconfiguration file to map to the onion service. - Configure your client to use your Tor SOCKS proxy (typically
localhost:9050). - Configure public-key (not plain) SASL authentication.
- Connect to
palladium.libera.chat.
# torrc entry for libera.chat onion service
MapAddress palladium.libera.chat libera75jm6of4wxpxt4aynol3xjmbtxgfyjpu34ss4d7r7q2v5zrpyd.onionThis service requires public-key SASL authentication using either the EXTERNAL or ECDSA-NIST256P-CHALLENGE (but not PLAIN) mechanisms. See our guide on setting up CertFP for more information.
Some clients lack SOCKS4a or later support. In this case you will need to change your torrc file to map a private IP address to the onion service address instead and disable TLS hostname verification in your client. Onion service names securely identify a service. The connection will still be secure.
The default tor configuration only optimizes some ports for long-lived connections: For IRC, only 6667 and 6697. If you use a different port, you may face frequent disconnects unless you update LongLivedPorts in your torrc file.
#wikimania — This Year’s Channel
#wikimaniaconnect — Wikimania Discussions
#wikimania-staff — Wikimania Staff
#wikipedia-abstract-tech — For technical engineering discussions about WikiLambda, Wikifunctions, and Abstract Wikipedia.
#wikipedia-pl — Wikimedia Polska
DIGITAL SAFETY
(NOTE: For more Hacker-level Advance Security Mesaures see the
HOW TO FORTIFY YOUR DEVICES TO NOT GET HACKED section in
HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 - Part One: Surviving Las Vegas &
Virtually Anywhere 2024 (COMMING SOON)Wikimania presents exciting opportunities for us to connect as fellow Wikimedians, share ideas and have a good time; traveling and attending online sessions, however, presents digital safety risks. Below we have compiled a few best practices as you attend this year’s Wikimania.
Audio Visual Sharing
Whether you’re posting on Instagram, creating a TikTok video, or uploading photos to Commons, remember to be respectful of people’s privacy and seek their permission before sharing content that includes them. While many may display their preferences through lanyards, it’s only respectful to get their explicit consent. See here the conference’s photography policy for more details.
On Online Sessions
When attending online sessions, be aware if you are being recorded, as it may capture all voice, video, and text from the meeting. And before switching on your camera or sharing your screen, consider what information may appear and make sure confidential information is not visible.
Backup Your Data
Before heading to the conference, backup all your essential data, either on the cloud or an external storage device. In the unfortunate event of device theft, loss, or damage, having a recent backup will save you from losing valuable information and ensure a smoother recovery process.
Be Wary Of Phishing Attempts
Cybercriminals may take advantage of the excitement surrounding Wikimania to launch phishing attacks. These deceptive emails or messages often masquerade as legitimate organizations and aim to trick you into revealing sensitive information or clicking on malicious links. Always double-check the sender’s email address or phone number and verify any suspicious requests before taking action. Checkout Shira, to learn how to identify and defeat phishing attempts.
Encrypt Your Devices
Encrypting your devices is a powerful defense against unauthorized access to your data, and it plays a vital role in enhancing your overall digital safety. Whether it’s your laptop, smartphone, or tablet, encrypting these devices adds an extra layer of protection to your information, ensuring that even if your device falls into the wrong hands, your data remains secure.
Consider Installing A VPN or Tor
These tools either help provide a secure network connection or mask your internet activity through relays, which is most important when you are away from home. While a trusted VPN or Tor is a good idea whenever you’re connected to the internet, it becomes even more crucial while traveling to safeguard your network traffic on insecure networks, such as at airports or hotels.
Looking To Charge Your Device?
When traveling, no doubt you’ll have your cell phone or another portable device you’ll need to recharge at some point. While convenient, be aware that using free USB port charging stations, such as those found in airports and hotel lobbies can lead to data theft or malware installation on your device. As such, carry your own charger and USB cord and use an electrical outlet instead. Also, if you’re using another person’s device (like a laptop) to charge your own, a prompt regarding data sharing or trusting the device might pop up — make sure to decline.
Regarding Public-WiFi
Especially when we are traveling, we are more likely to use freely available public Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi networks present opportunities for threats like man-in-the-middle attacks and data interception. If possible, use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to encrypt your internet connection, adding an extra layer of protection when accessing sensitive information on public networks.
Further Resources
Digital Safety Resources Page: A meta page where you will find articles, tools and links to interactive learning platforms to learn about digital safety concepts and inform yourself of the various risks and threats that exist as you interact with digital technologies online.
Assess your digital security risks: This course provides a five part assessment of the different aspects of your digital security and provides a curated list of resources to improve on the areas it is lacking.
Digital safety considerations for Wikimedians: This document highlights some of the main digital safety considerations for new and seasoned Wikimedians.
From the Safety and Advocacy Series:
- How can a username keep you safe?
- Doxing 1: Why should you care?
- Doxing 2: Have you tried doxing yourself?
WIKIMANIA HACKATHON
The Wikimania Hackathon is a working event where Wikimedians from around the world meet to co-work on Product and Technology problems. This includes discussions, coding, user testing, and more! We will have a dedicated space for you to work in and collaborate with others on your projects.
The Wikimania Hackathon will take place at the Wikimania venue, running concurrently with the main program, from Thursday, 8 August (the second day of the conference) to Saturday, 10 August. The opening ceremony of the Hackathon will be held on Wednesday, 7 August in the Auditorium.
Hackathon Opening Ceremony
The kickoff to this year’s Wikimania Hackathon will happen on Wednesday, August 7 at 12:15pm to 1:15pm, local time (CEST, UTC+2). Grab your lunch plate and join us in the Warsaw room! The opening session will not be recorded or live-streamed. Volunteers are needed to help take notes and find links, please add your name to the Phabricator task.
During the opening ceremony, we will introduce you to this year’s Hackathon. Then, participants will have a chance to spend the remaining time (with an open mic) to talk about their projects. If there are people who are in need of collaborators, they can also briefly announce what they are doing and what they need help with. Others can simply announce an offer of help in their area of expertise.
Hackathon Ppace
The main Hackathon space (the Voore room, see the floor plan) will remain available until the venue closes (probably between 9pm and 10pm each night) on 8 and 9 August.
Lightning Talks
Lightning talks will be held in the auditorium on August 8 and 9, from 3:30pm — 5:00pm local time (CEST, UTC+2). We highly encourage you to participate!
Hackathon Closing Showcase
The Wikimania Hackathon Closing Showcase will be held on Saturday, August 10th in the Kyiv Auditorium (floor plan) from 3:30pm to 4:45pm, local time (CEST, UTC+2). Hackathon participants will each take a maximum of two minutes to showcase their (completed or not yet finished) projects concisely and in a way that is understandable to non-technical Wikimania attendees. After the Hackathon closing showcase, the official Wikimania closing session will be held in the main hall, starting at 5pm.
Preparing for the Hackathon
- Registration | If you’ve already registered for the main event, you’re all set — no need for a separate registration.
- Participants list | You may add yourself to the Hackathon participants list. Listing yourself is completely voluntary.
- Projects | Feel free to add your own projects or browse and comment on others’ Hackathon projects on our event’s Phabricator work board. As the event date approaches, more projects will be added, so remember to check back regularly for updates and new opportunities. Let’s collaborate and make this Hackathon a great success together!
Communicate
The following channels are traditionally used to connect with other participants; some of them are more or less active throughout the year:
- The chat room is bridged across three different networks; you can join using whichever service you prefer (you only need to be in one):
- Telegram: Wikimedia Hackathon group
- Matrix: #wikimedia-hackathon:matrix.org
- IRC channel: #wikimedia-hackathon connect
- The hashtag
#wmhackon Mastodon, Twitter, and other social media
Code of Conduct
To ensure a positive and inclusive environment, all Hackathon participants must adhere to the Code of Conduct for technical spaces. We prioritize respect and cooperation among attendees. Failure to comply with these policies may result in being asked to leave the event. Let’s work together to create a welcoming and safe experience for everyone involved.
WikiWomen Summit 2024
We are thrilled to announce the return of WikiWomen Summit at Wikimania in 2024, marking a significant milestone in our movement’s history. This event serves as a pivotal opportunity to unite contributors passionate about addressing the gender gap within Wikimedia projects.
Building on the success of last year’s WikiWomen Summit 2023, where contributors shared insights and rallied for collective action, our focus in 2024 is to review past achievements and chart a course for future endeavors towards gender equity in our movement. Workshops will delve into outcomes from WikiWomen Camp 2023, including the Declaration and Engagement Plan, which outline key recommendations for enhancing safety, participation, and engagement among gender-focused contributors.
Aligned with the ethos of Wikimania’s theme, “Collaboration of the Open,” we extend a warm invitation to all contributors interested in advancing gender equity to join us for WikiWomen Summit 2024 on August 07th, 2024. Together, let’s sustain our commitment to making gender equity a priority within our movement.
Throughout the years, the Wikimedia movement has organized various global events dedicated to closing the gender gap. Notable among these are the WikiWomen Camp in India (2023) and Mexico (2017) and Argentina (2012). WikiWomen Summit provides a unique platform to synthesize learnings from WikiWomen Camp 2023 and expand participation in shaping the future of gender-focused initiatives. We recognize the invaluable contributions of gender organizers and contributors who have propelled us forward and aim to broaden participation for a more inclusive movement.
The Summit embodies feminist solidarity, prioritizing gender inclusion and equality. It offers a safe and inclusive space for sharing strategies, fostering debate, forging alliances, and nurturing skill development essential for our collective growth in the Wikimedia movement.
Organizing in the Wikimedia movement often happens online, so the opportunity to meet in person and build relationships is irreplaceable for connection strengthening and skill building, which is essential for us to thrive individually and collectively in the Wikimedia movement.
WikiWomen Summit at Wikimania Workshop
Date: 7 August 2024
Room: Voore, Room # 19, 26 and 25
Format: Livestream and Onsite, with Interpretation
Wikimania Main Program Conference Session: Outcomes & Next Steps from WikiWomen Camp 2023
Date: 8 August 2024
Room: Istanbul
Format: Hybrid
Session Details: Rise Up, Map Up: Outcomes and Next Steps from WikiWomen Camp 2023
Session Leads: Chinmayee Mishra & Manavpreet Kaur with support from Masana Mulaudzi
WikiWomen Lunch
Date: Friday, 9 August 2024, 12:15–13:15
Room: Lviv room (Rooms 21, 22 and 23)
Keynote: Barbara Klen, CEE Hub Coordinator
Format: Onsite*
Coordinating Team: Nitesh Gill, Camelia Bobhan and Vicky Doronina
DIGITAL SAFETY CLINIC
The Digital Safety Clinic is a dedicated space staffed by Foundation staff knowledgeable in digital safety topics and practices. Its purpose is to educate and empower Wikimania participants to navigate the digital world safely and confidently. Attendees will have the opportunity to address concerns, ask questions, and receive practical solutions to digital safety challenges.
Digital Safety Table
Where: Room 6 (see venue description page)
When: Throughout Wikimania
Throughout the conference days, we will be situated in Casual Room number 6 (see venue description page). Whether you are a seasoned digital safety practitioner in your day-to-day life, or someone who never or rarely thinks about your digital safety, come have a chat, share your experience or find guidance on topics and concerns you may have. Below is a non-exhaustive list of questions you can come with:
- How can I protect my personal information and privacy online?
- What steps can I take to secure my social media accounts?
- How do I recognize and avoid phishing scams and fraudulent websites?
- What are the best practices for creating strong and secure passwords?
- How can I protect my devices (computer, smartphone, etc.) from malware and viruses?
- What should I do if I suspect my online accounts have been hacked or compromised?
- What are the risks associated with public Wi-Fi networks and how can I stay safe when using them?
- How can I safely use public or shared computers without compromising my information?
- What should I do if I receive suspicious emails or messages requesting personal information?
- How can I safely store and backup my important digital files and documents?
- Are there any steps I can take to limit the data collected about me by online services?
Meet-Up Session
Where: Room 9 (see venue description page)
When: Day 3 of Wikimania (Friday August 9th), 12:15 to 13:15
We will keep our meetup session flexible and open to suggestions. We’re interested in learning about the topics and issues attendees are facing to organize the session accordingly. If you have any ideas on how to best use the hour, please let us know on the talk page or by coming to our table. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Digital Wellness Check
Adapted from the Center for Digital Resilience, the Digital Wellness Check (DWC) is a framework designed to assess the digital health of Wikimedia Affiliates (groups and organizations) and individual Wikimedians. The goal is to assess your digital wellness, highlight areas of excellence, and identify areas needing improvement, ultimately providing you with an actionable roadmap to improve your overall digital safety. We look forward to hearing your questions around the DWC, and sharing information on the process of conducting when you visit us at our table.
Printed Resources
Common(s) Cause
Creative Commons, Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Future, and Wikimedia Europe are hosting a day-long side event to Wikimania 2024. The event will take place in Katowice, Poland, on 6 August 2024, the day before Wikimania kicks off on 7 August 2024.
Wikimania 2024 is the biggest meeting of open movement activists and organizations this year. It offers a rare occasion for activists to meet in person. We are making use of this opportunity to bring together those working in the field of Openness, Free Knowledge, and the Digital Commons to talk about shared advocacy strategies: the political challenges of Knowledge Commons. We are counting on the participation of people already planning to attend Wikimania, and those who will come especially to attend our side event. We are expecting around 70 people to join our event.
Our goal is to establish relationships needed to design a shared advocacy vision that over time can result in stronger, collaborative advocacy work. To this end, the event will focus on three topics: 1) Legal and Policy issues, 2) Communication and Global Campaigns, and 3) Community activation and Sustainability.
GLAM Global Meetup
Every two years, the European GLAM Coordinators group meets and talks about their GLAM-Wiki-related work. This year, as Wikimania is happening in Poland, the group decided to have this gathering as a global meet-up instead. This event is now being coordinated by GLAM coordinators and Wikimedians in Residence from different continents and we welcome people from all countries.
Important notice: This event is intended for people who work in the intersection of cultural heritage and Wikimedia, or GLAM-Wiki (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums on Wikimedia), and have professional responsibilities related to this event. This is especially the case for GLAM coordinators within affiliates, GLAM staff, or Wikimedians in Residence. This requirement is important to make sure this meetup is more beneficial for the participants.
The event will take place in Katowice, Poland, on 6 August 2024 (the day before Wikimania begins), from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm.
Opening Session
9:30am–10:15am
- Introductions
- Guidelines for the day
1st Session: GLAM Global Community
10:30am–12:30pm
Interactive session around these questions:
- How could we work together better as a global GLAM-Wiki network?
- How can we learn more effectively from one another?
- Should we have a user group?
- How do we organize ourselves?
Topic drivers: Susanna Ånäs (AvoinGLAM) & Kamila Neuman (Wikimedia Poland)
Facilitators: Gorana Gomirac (Wikimedia Serbia) & Michelle van Lanschot (Wikimedia Nederland)
2nd Session: Tools and Technical Needs
13:30pm–15:30pm
Interactive session around these questions:
- What are the technical needs of our community?
- What is working, what is not working, and what is being done to solve the needs?
- What obstacles do you face when contributing to Wikimedia projects with existing tooling?
Topic drivers: Andrew Lih (Smithsonian) & Jamie Flood (National Agricultural Library & Wikimedians of Indiana)
Facilitators: Angie Cervellera (Wikimedia Argentina) & Katarzyna Makowska (Wikimedia Poland)
Closing Session
16:00pm–17:00pm
- Addressing urgent issues that were left unattended
- Defining global GLAM priorities for 2024–2025
- What can we do to move forward?
- Next steps?
Poster Sessions
The Poster session at Wikimania Katowice will will occur on 9 August from 17:45–19:00 local time. It will be one of the prime events in Wikimania — refreshments will be served, and attendees will be encouraged to mingle and discuss ideas with poster authors. It will feature all posters accepted through the program submissions process. It is an opportunity for participants to interact with their audience one-on-one, for a longer time, and in greater depth. It will be the primary venue for attendees to showcase their own projects at the conference.
Poster authors will submit their posters using the correct Commons category by end of day 22 July. Event organizers will print the posters and hang them in the Main Hall for the session.
Poster authors who will be present in Katowice are encouraged to stand by their posters during the session in order to discuss with attendees. Poster authors who will not be there in person are encouraged to include contact information on their poster where attendees can reach out with questions and feedback.
Meet-Ups & Activities Highlights
There will be many events and meet ups and we can’t list them all here. Also, some might change schedueling due to demand or lack there of. We instead will provide links for resources and offer some hilights including some repeated information from HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Eighteen: SIGS, EVENTS & PARTIES (COMING SOON)
Wikimedia LGBT+ Meetup
Date and Time
Friday, 9 August12:15–13:15 local time or 10:15–11:15 UTCRoom 7, ICC, Katowice, Poland
This meetup is intended for queer Wikipedians and allies as a space to socialize and also to discuss initiatives currently being worked on by the Wikimedia LGBT+ user group.
Young Wikimedians Meeting
Thursday, 8 August 12:15–13:15, 60 minutes, room 10
A meeting for Wikimedians below the age of 28. It’s a meeting which will unite youth Wikimedians present in Wikimania in Katowice, where they will discuss the developments of the youth part of the movement, meet the members of the CEE Youth Group and in general connect with young Wikimedians from all the world in Katowice.
Originally it was scheduled to be a CEE Youth Group meetup, but as there was interest by Wikimedians around the world under the age of 28 to join and the organisers also suggested that direction, it will be a global meetup of young Wikimedians.
If you are above 28 and you are passionate or interested about empowering youth in Wikimedia, you are welcome to participate in the meeting.
OpenRefine
Belgrade room (no. 8), Friday 9th August, 18:00–19:00
A meetup to talk all things OpenRefine at Wikimania? How exciting! Hold my records mode, I need to run to it, said the busy Wikimedian.
Dark Mode Meet-Up
The meeting will take place on Thursday 8 August at lunch break in the large room Warsaw (20+24).
We developed the Vector 2022 skin between 2019 and 2023. Our goal was to make the interface more welcoming and usable for readers and to maintain utility for existing editors. Our testing concluded that Vector 2022 makes it easier to read and learn, navigate within the page, search, switch between languages, and more, without negative effects to pageviews, account creation, or edit rates.
Dark mode has been one of the most requested features. It improves accessibility and reduces eye strain for readers and communities across Wikimedia projects. The feature is now available on select wikis, on mobile and desktop, in both reading and editing mode. When we deployed it and shared this news on Twitter/X, it was the post with the most engagement in the last 365 days!
We would like to bring Vector 2022 and dark mode to more wikis. We need to start with working together with technical editors who would check pages for mobile- and dark mode-friendliness, check gadgets for compatibility etc. We also need to collaborate with translators to translate the Vector and Minerva interface messages.
Let’s have lunch together and chat about these and other things that need to happen for dark mode and Vector 2022 to be available for everyone on all wikis.
Commons Video Meetup
- Thursday, 8 August 17:00–18:00 local time or 15:00–16:00 UTC
- Belgrade Room 8, ICC, Katowice, Poland
The Commons Video Meetup is an opportunity to discuss all things Video within our movement.
This meetup aligns with Wikimania 2024’s spirit “The Collaboration of the Open” by focusing on the community collective efforts to promote and develop free and open video content within the Wikimedia projects. Aside from that session will contribute to this theme by:
- Showcasing Collaborative Efforts: Highlighting the progress made since the last discussion in Wikimania 2017 through community engagement and technological advancements in video on Wikimedia platforms.
- Encouraging Open Dialogue: Facilitating discussions on recent topics from the Wikimedia-l mailing list, promoting transparency and community involvement.
- Fostering Inclusivity: Seeking to include diverse perspectives from Wikimedians active in video content upload, the technical community, Wikimedia Foundation and Commons users engaged in watching/ reusing videos.
By addressing these points, this session will embody the spirit of open collaboration that is central to Wikimania 2024, contributing to the larger open movement of free knowledge sharing.
Wikipedia Races
- Time: 5–6 PM
- Location: Room 21+22+23 at the ICC in Katowice
Have you ever played in a “Wikipedia Race”? It’s a game where people compete to “click” from one Wikipedia article to another using only the hyperlinks on each article. The goal is to use the fewest number of clicks.
Sometimes it’s called WikiClick, sometimes it’s called Wikiladders, sometimes it’s called Wikispeedia, but the goals is always the same!
- A laptop, tablet or a smartphone
- An account on TheWikiGame.com
Wikimaps User Group Meetup & OpenStreetMap Birthday Party
Friday, 9 August 12:15–13:15 local time or 10:15–11:15 UTC, 60 minutes, room 10 (M)
Commons Photographers User Group Photowalk
Photowalk on Thursday, August 8 at 19:00 local time after the CPUG Meetup starting in room Ohrid. All camera types are welcome from phones to DSLR to film. Support for all skill levels especially those in the I have never taken a photo for Wikimedia Commons but want to learn.
Katowice is a city with many cultural and heritage places to see and visit, as well as outdoor squares and parks to enjoy. The Wikimania COT has been working with multiple local partners to enrich the experience of the Wikimedians traveling for Wikimania to Katowice and has curated the following tours/experiences exclusively for Wikimania 2024 attendees.
Important Note:
- Tours are limited and subject to availability.
- Please reserve a slot after due consideration of your plans and availability. If your plans change, please make sure you cancel on eventbrite to allow others to join.
- Please read the details carefully and registration is available on a first come first serve basis.
- All reservations will be confirmed via email early August.
- Only registered participants will be allowed in the tours.
Updated Deadline: Since we are receiving cancellations, Tour sales will be open upto 12 hours before the respective start time. Please keep checking the tour registration page for availability.
WALK THROUGH THE HISTORIC SETTLEMENTS OF KATOWICE
Nikiszowiec consists of picturesque apartment blocks built of red brick. The block of the neo-Baroque St Anne’s Church dominates the estate.
Giszowiec, also designed by the Zillmans, is a neighboring, also historic, patronal estate which was built for the miners of the “Giesche” coal mine between 1907 and 1910. Originally, it consisted of small houses, mostly one- and two-family ones, referring in their shape to a country house from the vicinity of Pszczyna. Giszowiec used to be a compact mining estate, the architectural layout spoiled by the large-panel blocks of flats built in the 1970s.
Both Nikiszowiec and the neighboring Giszowiec are located on the Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Voivodeship.
WALK THROUGH THE ARCHITECTURE OF KATOWICE
Katowice is a city with a rich industrial history, which in recent years has been transformed into a modern center of culture and science. The city’s architecture is unique, combining industrial elements with modern, avant-garde buildings. During a walk of about 3.5 km, we will get to know some of Katowice’s best-known and most characteristic buildings. Here are some of the points we will visit during our two-hour walk in Katowice:
- Spodek: This iconic building, resembling a flying saucer, is one of the most recognisable symbols of Katowice.
- NOSPR: The headquarters of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a modern building that combines concert, educational and research functions. Designed by Tomasz Konior, the building refers to the industrial architectural landscape of Silesia.
- CINIBA: The Centre for Scientific Information and Academic Library is one of the most modern buildings at the University of Silesia. Its monolithic body, clad in red brick, is reminiscent of the austere brickwork of the neighboring buildings.
- Faculty of Film and Television building at the University of Silesia: a modern facility that serves as a creative center for film and television students. The building houses, among other things, a film studio, a projection/film room and specialist studios.
- Academy of Music building: The new Academy of Music building is a true music center. The building consists of around 640 rooms, including concert halls: symphonic, chamber, theater and opera and organ.
- Silesian Seym (Parliament) Square with its surroundings: This historic square, surrounded by magnificent buildings including, in particular, the Silesian Parliament, has representative functions. In the middle of the square is a monument to Wojciech Korfanty.
- Katowice Skyscraper: This historic building, also known as the Tax Office Building, was the second skyscraper built in Poland after the First World War. It was completed in 1934 and is considered the most interesting and spectacular example of functionalism in Poland.
Workshop: Create your own Traditional Bolesławiec Pottery Mug
Bolesławiec pottery is a traditional Polish ceramics, widely known for the characteristic blue and white pattern, which has become one of the cultural symbols of Poland. At Wikimania you will have an opportunity to paint (and take home!) your own Bolesławiec mug.
Participants of the workshop will paint their own traditional Bolesławiec pottery mug. The mugs will be then taken by the organizers to be fired in a kiln and then given back to the creators on Saturday. The workshop will also contain information about the Bolasłwiec pottery.
The event is being hosted in collaboration with the National Agriculture Support Centre
Location: Main Hall (Gdańsk), International Congress Centre, Katowice (Main Wikimania Venue)
You have to register for the workshop. Deadline: End of Day, 6th August, 2024 (CEST)
Wikimania 2024 Afterparty with National Museum in Kraków
National Museum in Kraków, partner of Wikimedia Poland, invites Wikimania 2024 attendees for a walk throught its three branches and the Kraków Old City. You will see MNK Wyspiański, MNK The Sukiennice, and MNK Czartoryski Museum. Thanks to continuous additions and donations, museum owns more than 1 million pieces of art and culture heritage, making them the largest collection in Poland. Digital reproductions of items are published by the museum at zbiory.mnk.pl and on Commons through WikiProject GLAM — National Museum in Kraków.
Registration deadline is by August 10th.
Price is 25 Polish złoty (less than 6 euro).
Please note that this activity takes place in Kraków, which is 70km (45 mi) from the Wikimania venue. Transport to Kraków is self-organised and not covered in the entrance fee.
Closing Ceremony + Closing party
08–10, 17:00–21:00 (Poland), Gdańsk Main Hall (streaming + interpretation)
Join us in the Main Hall for the Coolest Tool Award, some final words, and then walk with us to the Katowice National Radio Symphony Orchestra for a special event to close out Wikimania 2024.
Wiki-Fashion Show
After The Closing Cermony
A show of wiki-fashion, in all its forms, as modeled by Wikimedians. Show off your style and creativity by dressing up as your favorite wiki-related character, concept, or meme. You’re encouraged to come dressed in your finest Wikimedia clothing and accessories (bags, buttons, even books), or clothing connected to the topics you edit on wiki projects, show off your getup on the runway and tell the origin story of how you got them. In addition to explicit “wiki” swag, we welcome you to show off clothing and accessories related to areas you have edited on. We may also have a t-shirt / swag live creative design session and contest.
DCG 201 TALK HIGHLIGHTS FOR WIKIMANIA KATOWICE 2024 (PST)
This is the section where we have comb through the entire list of talks on both days and list our highlights for the talks that stand out to us. Note that this does not invalidate any talks we didn’t list, in fact, we highly recommend you take a look at the full convention schedule beforehand and make up your own talk hilight lists. These are just the talks that for us had something stand out, either by being informative, unique or bizarre. (Sometimes, all three!)
Lightning Talks @ Wikimania
As with every Wikimania, Wikimania Katowice will feature dozens of lightning talks. These talks are an opportunity for speakers to showcase their work and ideas to a large audience in a concise and impactful session.
This Wikimania, we will hold two Lightning Talks Showcase sessions to highlight samples of some of the compelling concepts and powerful thinking developing across the globe from multiple corners of the Wikimedia Movement. These Showcases will be produced, high-visibility events with multiple talks delivered one after the other. The talks will present innovative bursts of ideas, 5 minutes at a time.
Due to constant edits, please refer to here for Dates & Times for the Lightning Talks:
ETHERPADS FOR MAIN TALKS: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2024:Program
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7th
Communicating as human beings. An introduction to nonviolent communication (introductory session)
08–07, 10:00–10:25 (Poland), Belgrade (streaming)
Language: English
Being able to communicate and interact in a positive way with other people is critical in all parts of life, and especially in a complex and diverse environment like the Wikimedia movement.
This will be a workshop for beginners on Nonviolent Communication, an approach to communication that seeks empathic dialogue and understanding among all parties. It is aimed at understanding Nonviolent Communication and learning how to use it. We will spend most of the time on hands-on practice.
This is an introductory workshop to Nonviolent Communication, covering one full day plus an optional short follow up the day after.
We will start on August 7th in Belgrade room with a short introduction, and then move to Modra room for the rest of the day. While shown separately in the program, these form one session. On August 7th, depending on participants’ interest, we will have a 60-minutes follow up session to reflect together on our experiences of the day through the lens of nonviolent communication.
During the workshop, we will cover the basics of Nonviolent Communication and learn how to use it. Most of the time will be spent practicing. Participants will be invited to bring real-life cases of difficult or frustrating conversation they have experienced, if they feel comfortable doing so.
Data Products as tools for Collaboration
08–07, 10:00–10:25 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
The tenth recommendation from Movement Strategy 2030 is “Evaluate, Iterate & Adapt”. This measurement process is a crucial piece of supporting healthy communities. The Wikimedia Foundation’s newly formed Data Products team would like to share our progress towards building the capabilities that allow for collaborative evaluation of user experience, Movement health, and impact.
The aim for this presentation is to share information about how data products can be used to make collaborative data-informed decisions.
We will answer questions like: what is a data product? What public data products are currently offered and how can Wikipedians use them? What data products are not available publicly and why?
We will outline a vision for a metrics platform as a stable single source of truth for Movement metrics and demonstrate our progress towards this goal. In particular, we will discuss our progress towards our preliminary emphasis on tools that enable product team experiments.These experimentation tools will allow product teams greater transparency and collaboration across communities when making data informed decisions based on user interaction data and standardized metric calculations.
We hope to close the session with a live demo and Q&A.
Trust and Safety Product 1/2: Getting Better at Blocking Bad Activity on the Wikis
08–07, 10:30–10:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
The Wikis rely heavily on IP blocking as a mechanism for blocking vandalism, spam, and abuse. But IP addresses are increasingly less useful as stable identifiers of an individual actor, and blocking IP addresses has unintended negative effects on good faith users who happen to share the same IP address as bad actors. The talk discusses approaches to improve the effectiveness of these mechanisms.
The combination of the decreasing stability of IP addresses and our heavy reliance on IP blocking result in less precision and effectiveness in targeting bad actors, in combination with increasing levels of collateral damage for good faith users. We want to see the opposite situation: decreased levels of collateral damage and increased precision in mitigations targeting bad actors.
To better support the anti-abuse work of functionaries and to provide building blocks for reuse in existing (e.g. CheckUser, Special:Block) and new tools, we are working on exploring ways to reliably associate an individual with their actions (sockpuppetting mitigation), and combine existing signals (e.g. IP addresses, account history, request attributes) to allow for more precise targeting of actions on bad actors.
Trust and Safety Product 2/2: Temporary Accounts are coming
08–07, 11:00–11:25 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Temporary Accounts will be rolled out in the next few months on all projects. Learn about what they are, how they will impact you and what you need to do. This project is very much in development stages. We will be gathering feedback as much as disseminating information about the work.
Temporary Accounts have been a work in progress over the last few years. The goal for this legally-mandated project is to replace IP addresses with auto-generated temporary accounts. IP addresses will be accessible only to those users who require access for anti-vandalism purposes. This is a widespread change that will impact many tools and extensions. It will also impact anti-vandalism workflows across our projects. Our goal for this session is to spread the word about this change and gather feedback or questions about this work.
Bringing a fork to the the dronefight: encyclongs of the Russian Wikipedia
08–07, 11:30–11:55 (Poland), Istanbul (streaming)
Language: English
“Forking” — creating a copy of the existing content — is one of the fundamental features of the open-source movement. Russian Wikipedia has spawned numerous forks called “encyclongs” — after early copying that automatically replaced “wiki” with “encylo”. The “encyclongs” usually lack NPOV and promote a particular, usually right-wing POV, have a dedicated if the small community and usually devolve into a dictatorship. Finally, the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war led to the creation of the two forks by long-term wikimedians, wulfson and DrBug. This session will discuss the current state of the Russian Wikipedia encyclongs.
A presentation followed by a discussion in English, Russian and Ukraininan.
A session about the forks of Russian Wikipedia will aim to achieve several objectives, including:
Understanding History: Explore the historical context and reasons behind the creation of various forks in Russian Wikipedia. This would involve tracing the timeline of events leading to the forks and understanding their ideological, political, or cultural motivations.
Comparison and Contrast: Analyse the similarities and differences between the original Russian Wikipedia and its forks. This would involve examining content policies, editorial guidelines, community dynamics, and user demographics.
Impact on Knowledge Dissemination: Assess the impact of the forks on knowledge dissemination and accessibility in Russian-speaking communities. This could involve examining factors such as readership, editor engagement, and the availability of information on different platforms.
Community Dynamics: Explore the community dynamics within each fork, including governance structures, decision-making processes, and dispute-resolution mechanisms. This could provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of different organizational models.
Future Directions: Consider the prospects and challenges facing the Russian Wikipedia.
This could involve discussing potential strategies for collaboration, reconciliation, or integration between different branches and the evolving role of Wikipedia in the digital age.
Overall, the session could serve as an opportunity for participants to deepen their understanding of the complex dynamics surrounding Russian Wikipedia forks and explore ways to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration within the Russian-speaking community.
Museums, Media, Data & Gender: How to Make Images of Women More Visible on Wikimedia?
08–07, 13:30–14:55 (Poland), Lviv (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
This session intends to be a collaborative workshop in which participants will learn how to better use Wiki-related tools to make images of women (fictional and real) more visible on Wikimedia projects. Attendees will explore how museums and their media collections are particularly useful in uplifting women’s stories, contributions, and perspectives while employing structured data on Commons.
This workshop will be conducted by Michaela Blanc (Wikimedian in Residence at Pérez Art Museum Miami; Regional Ambassador, Art+Feminism), Lucy Moore (Wikimedian and researcher), and Giovanna Fontenelle (Program Officer, Culture and Heritage, Wikimedia Foundation).
For this year’s Wikimania we are expanding on the themes of Collaboration of the Open through a GLAM and knowledge equity lens. We aim to establish a cross-community pathway to increase visual reference of women actors (fictional and real) on Wikimedia projects. In this workshop, attendees will learn how to improve their usage of Wiki tools to uplift the representation of women on the Wikimedia projects, and consequently on the internet, and we will do it by utilizing museum and wider cultural collections as valuable points of visual reference.
In this context, this workshop will (1) discuss the lack of visual references of women on Wikimedia projects, (2) demonstrate how museum collections and image-based archives can further advance the work of Wikimedians and vice-versa; (3) present the pathways in which participants can improve data and make images of women more findable on the Wikimedia projects, and (4) ensure participants how images can help the Open Access movement to tell more diverse and complete stories. This presentation can be particularly helpful to GLAM professionals and Wikimedians interested in knowledge equity through Commons and related tools.
The session will include a range of case studies, drawing on the practitioner’s experiences, including: LEEDS 2023 (a ‘year of culture’ in Leeds, UK), National Trust (the largest heritage and conservation charity in Europe), NaPupila Wikimedia edit-a-thons, and many other experiences.
WikiJournal: 10th anniversary
08–07, 15:30–15:55 (Poland), Istanbul (streaming)
Language: English
We provide a brief overview of WikiJournal and what it achieved over the past 10 years. We also update on the latest activities from WikiJournal that took place since last Wikimania. This includes published articles, updated journal citation metrics, ongoing proposal to become a new sister project, new collaborations, latest initiatives, challenges encountered, and upcoming plans.
WikiJournal was launched in March 2014. Started off as a platinum open access journal for Medicine, it has since expanded to two additional journal to cover science and humanities. The session will talk about how our project bridged the gap between academic researchers and Wikimedia community. We showcase a small sample of published articles in WikiJournals and its impacts to both research community and Wikimedia projects. We will also answer the concerns raised by community members in our sister project proposal (e.g. publishing original research content, article quality). We also talk about some innovative initiatives that the project experimented to reach wider audiences (such as dual-publishing articles in English and non-English languages). The session also shares information on how to participate in the project as an author, editorial board member, subject matter peer reviewer and community reviewer.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 8th
Polish Cuisine Panel
08–08, 10:00–10:55 (Poland), Kyiv Auditorium (streaming + interpretation)
Language: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ
Dromaderros: Why Making Mistakes is Crucial In Learning
08–08, 10:00–11:25 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Let me introduce You to a herd of stuffed camels, Dromaderros, that will guide You through a design thinking process. We will explore how our (and our children’s) approach to making mistakes, testing and taking constructive feedback shapes a resilient attitude to self-guided learning, builds perseverance and boosts creativity. I will give some school/educational insights, but this is a workshop for anyone who wishes to take a deep dive into the subject.
I will bring a real herd of stuffed animals made by an artist, Uchatka, for the School with Class Foundation and designed especially to work with mistakes in the educational process. My aim is to show You what elements of traditional teaching and learning do not support resilience, understood as an ability to bounce back from challenging life situations and what we can do to change it (Warning! It’s difficult but not impossible!). We will also talk about how schools can open up and absorb skills and knowledge from different sectors, including business and universities and use design thinking as an example. It will be a workshop, so we will exercise, experiment and exchange ideas. I may have some slides, but I hope it will be all about being here and now group experience so I will minimize theory to let you experience.
Objectives:
Participants will understand what it means to be resilient (online and offline). Participants will learn the design thinking process and its potential in the school/learning context. Participants will have a chance to participate in a forum discussion and group activities to share and inspire. Participants will explore how opening up to learn from different contexts and sectors can benefit schools and educational systems.
Charts, the successor of Graphs: A secure and extensible tool for data visualization
08–08, 10:30–10:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles used to contain graphs as a way to enrich the text-heavy nature of the wikis, but in 2023, the extension was disabled for security reasons. This year, the Wikimedia Foundation is working to bring back basic data visualization capabilities to the wikis through a new secure extension. This session will introduce the project and preview an early prototype.
We are building a new secure tool, which we are calling Chart, as a successor to the Graph extension. It will handle the majority of simple data visualization uses on Wikipedia articles. The new tool will be built in a way that will make it easy to add support for more use cases in the future.
This session will introduce the effort the Foundation has committed to investing in this year as part of the 2024–25 annual plan. The focus will primarily be on how editors will be able to create charts by demoing an early prototype.
Learn more: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Chart/Project
Smell on Wikidata
08–08, 10:30–11:10 (Poland), Dilijan (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Wikimedia projects focus primarily on text and images and, sometimes, sound. Yet sight and hearing are only two of the five senses, so how can Wikimedia projects represent our senses of smell, taste and touch better? To begin a conversation this demonstration will focus on the sense of smell and how Wikidata can be used to build and share information related to this sense, particularly related to health. We invite participants to bring their own exciting ideas on how smell-related data could benefit their projects and advocate for smell-related information as a significant potential area for expansion.
This interactive session will demonstrate how smell-related data is used on Wikidata, share a case study related to health, and provide space for future ideas regarding smell-related data to be shared. It will be interactive, with smells provided to spark conversation. It will be split into three sections. The first will demonstrate the items and properties currently in use on Wikidata to represent smell-related information. We’ll be encouraging participants to translate the items and properties as we go.
In the second section, our core case study participants will understand how smell-related data can be used to better understand the diagnosis and treatment of smell loss and associated coping strategies. The session will help us to deal with smell loss, symptoms, control and cure. It will help us to identify the consequences of smell loss (negative consequences) associated with risks, diminished food enjoyment and odour dictation. It can lead us to identifying patients with olfactory disorders and how olfactory disorders can link together.
Our final segment creates space for participants to share how they might apply smell-related data to their activities. As well as health, this has an impact for those who work in biology (fungi identification!) and in GLAMs (scented sculptures!). We imagine there are many more applications to consider, both now and for the future.
By the end of the session, attendees will:
- Understand how smell is currently represented in Wikidata
- Have greater awareness of how smell-related content influences medicine and health
- Imagine future possibilities for smell-related information in Wikidata
Information Integrity during Elections: Collective effort to address mis and disinformation
08–08, 11:00–11:55 (Poland), Istanbul (streaming)
Language: English
In 2024, 4 billion people will participate in elections across 64 countries, making it the biggest election year in history. The integrity of these elections is at risk due to disinformation campaigns, which can polarize society. Wikimedia projects are essential platforms for providing free and neutral and information, including on elections and are therefore critical to the democratic process. Community editors play crucial role in governance and content moderation, while the WMF supports communities to mitigate disinformation campaigns, and connect with other stakeholders. This panel aims to stocktake the effort of WMF and community editos in addressing disinformation during elections.
The year 2024 will witness major elections in twenty countries, and elections at different levels in more than seventy-six countries, involving approximately 4 billion people, half the world population. The integrity of these elections is at risk due to the spread of disinformation by state and non-state actors, which can polarize society. With 15 billion views monthly, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are essential platforms for providing free and neutral information, including on elections. Community editors play a crucial role in governance and content moderation, while the WMF supports communities’ response to elections with efforts to mitigate disinformation campaigns, and connecting with other stakeholders to protect communities. This panel session aims to stocktake the joint effort of WMF and community editors in addressing mis and disinformation during elections. By sharing best practices and examples from this year’s work around elections, as well as possible mitigation strategies, this panel will also increase volunteers’ capacity to address disinformation on the projects.
The aim of this panel discussion is to bring together experts, practitioners, and stakeholders to discuss the challenges and opportunities in maintaining information integrity during elections. The panel will explore the role of community editors and the WMF in addressing mis and disinformation, share best practices and examples from past elections, and discuss potential mitigation strategies to enhance the capacity of volunteers to address disinformation on Wikimedia projects. It will also discuss the advantages of the Wikimedia model in dealing with disinformation campaigns, compared to other digital platforms and make the case that for a healthy information ecosystem, governments need to understand and protect our model.
Suggested Speakers and moderator:
Moderator: Rachel Judhistari, WMF Lead Public Policy Specialist for Asia and the Pacific.
Costanza Sciuba Caniglia, WMF Anti-Disinformation Strategy Lead and Abhas Tripathi, Manager Trust and Safety to discuss WMF’s efforts to address mis and disinformation during elections and its collaboration with community editors.
Wikimedia Indonesia, Wikimedia Ukraine or Wikimedia France to discuss the role of affiliates and community editor on content moderation and governance on Wikimedia projects to share their insights and best practices in the context of elections and dis/misinformation.
Yale Digital Ethic Institute, insight on collaboration with Wikimedia movement in addressing disinformation during elections
Denmark Govt, to share insight about our collaboration in Freedom Online Coalition to ensure information integrity.
Frontlines of Truth: Strategies and Tools for Combating Disinformation
08–08, 13:30–14:55 (Poland), Istanbul (streaming)
Language: English
In an era where disinformation can spread faster than ever before, equipping individuals with the knowledge and tools to discern truth from falsehood is critical. “Frontlines of Truth: Strategies and Tools for Combating Disinformation” is a timely session designed to address this challenge head-on. This lecture offers a comprehensive overview of the current landscape of disinformation, alongside practical strategies for defense, including an exploration of the most effective fact-checking tools available.
Participants will be introduced to the theoretical underpinnings of disinformation, understanding its mechanisms, sources, and the reasons behind its rapid spread across digital platforms. This foundational knowledge will serve as the basis for the subsequent focus on practical defenses against disinformation. Attendees will learn how to employ critical thinking skills and digital literacy to question and verify the information they encounter online.
Wikifunctions Tutorial
08–08, 13:30–14:55 (Poland), Belgrade (streaming)
Language: English
This hands-on, interactive, in-person tutorial will provide an introduction to Wikifunctions. It will be co-organised with Nicolas Vigneron, user of Wikifunctions. We will first give a gentle, high-level overview of Wikifunctions. We will then lead the audience members in a set of introductory activities, each of which can be done through the wikifunctions.org site. These activities will include finding and calling existing functions; creating new functions, tests, and implementations; and editing existing functions, tests, and implementations.
Wikimania 2024 provides an outstanding and timely opportunity to raise awareness of Wikifunctions and accelerate the growth of its community. This hands-on, interactive, in-person tutorial will provide an ideal forum in which to make this happen. The workshop will be run conjunctly by the Wikifunctions team and Nicolas Vigneron, user of Wikifunctions.
We will first give a gentle, high-level overview of Wikifunctions, briefly describing its supported user-journeys and some background knowledge that’s helpful in working with it. Following that, we will lead the audience members in a set of introductory activities, each of which can be done through the wikifunctions.org site. These activities will include finding and calling existing functions; creating new functions, tests, and implementations; and editing existing functions, tests, and implementations. If time permits, we will also touch on the topic of debugging functions under development.
As a key objective for Wikifunctions is accessibility to non-experts, the materials and activities will assume no prior knowledge of Wikifunctions or of programming. We aim for attendees to leave the tutorial feeling “at home” in the Wikifunctions UI, with a sense of fun and excitement around exploring and contributing to Wikifunctions.
A brand new citation option — What does this mean for citation templates?
08–08, 15:30–16:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
We, WMDE’s Technical Wishes team, are working on a new option for referencing: With a new attribute, you can reuse the same source in an article several times, but with different details (page numbers, chapters, verses, etc.). We expect to enable this new option on Wikimedia wikis this year.
This workshop is for creators and maintainers of citation templates. We give a presentation of this new feature, and then participants can ask questions, discuss with the development team and other template creators and explore together if and how this new feature could be implemented into citation templates.
We, WMDE’s Technical Wishes team, are working on a new, optional way to create references: With a new attribute, you can reuse the same source in an article several times, but with different details (page numbers, chapters, verses, etc.). We are planning to enable this new option on Wikimedia wikis this year.
Many wikis use templates to create citations, and this workshop is for creators and maintainers of those templates: We will give a brief presentation of this new feature, and then participants can ask questions, discuss with the development team and other template creators, and explore together if and how this new feature could be used in citation templates.
Participants of this session will:
- Understand how the new attribute works
- Give feedback that could influence its development;
- Explore possibilities for using the new referencing option in citation templates
- Receive help if needed.
Why Do Japanese TV Shows Insist on Editing Wikipedia While Understanding Nothing about It?
08–08, 16:30–16:55 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
This talk examines the trend of Japanese TV shows editing the Japanese Wikipedia for purposes of entertainment, highlighting the negative aspects of ‘Collaboration of the Open’. Multiple TV programmes in Japan have edited Wikipedia to amuse their audiences by adding funny but irrelevant information to articles, which violates various regulations of the Japanese Wikipedia.
In a recent example, TV Tokyo’s late-night talk show Ano-chan’s Dendendenpa on 13 February 2024 broadcast an episode called ‘Let’s Edit Wikipedia’ on which its host Ano-chan, a Japanese singer, edited the article on Paledusk, a Japanese rock band who were the episode’s guests. None of the information written by Ano-chan included footnotes, and the edits were nothing but vandalism according to the standards of the Japanese Wikipedia, comprising mostly personal and trivial information about the band, such as each band member’s sexual activities. The show was heavily criticised, and its Wikipedia accounts were blocked.
It was not the first time that Japanese TV shows had caused trouble by editing the Japanese Wikipedia. Introducing several examples, this talk ascribes such behaviour to the Japanese broadcast TV companies’ lack of understanding of Wikipedia as social infrastructure. Because Wikipedia is an open, collaborative project, some mistakenly regard it as a playground for trivial information rather than as a socially important information resource. Addressing the lamentable situation that even Japanese TV companies treat Wikipedia as a playground, this talk considers how to improve this situation through publicity and community building.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 9th
Introducing the Citation Watchlist
08–09, 10:00–10:25 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
There is a Watchlist. There are lists of good, bad, or suspicious sources. We put them together, so you can monitor any source, or lists of sources, on your precious Watchlist.
The Watchlist is an essential monitoring and quality-assurance tool. But it lacks visibility when it comes to citations, a cornerstone of reliability. Now you can be alerted to good, bad, or suspicious sources while checking the articles that matter most to you. You can can also make your own custom lists to follow sources of personal interest or concern.
This session will include a background on citation quality and misinformation, a full tool introduction and demo, including how to use-it, and directions for future features and integration as a gadget or extension.
Participants will be able to give feedback and impact the direction of the tool’s development.
Strengthening Wikimedia Collaborations with and for Open Science
08–09, 10:00–11:05 (Poland), Istanbul (streaming)
Language: English
The open science and Wikimedia communities share the common goal of developing high quality openly available content, yet collaborations between the movements have been limited. This workshop will focus on building connections between the communities, and will begin with a brief introduction to open science, followed by a presentation of different barriers that exist for open science, and examples from different parts of the world. It will then provide a structure for looking at how Wikimedians can support the development of open science policies and practices. Finally, the workshop will discuss coordinated efforts for national and regional collaborations.
This workshop aims to explore both shared goals and missions between the Wikimedia and open science movements and possibilities for synergies between the two, in particular in supporting each other to achieve the goal of wider access to knowledge. It looks to explore, in turn, the key issues facing the open science movement and how these mirror onto (or contrast with) those affecting Wikimedians in their work, and then the particular policy challenges that are often faced. The workshop will also explore the specific challenges faced by those in the Global South to support the development of equitable access to research.
On the basis of this evidence, the session will then look to bring forward positive examples of how Wikimedians and open science/open access advocates can work together in the advocacy space. Possible areas of focus include work around promoting more open licensing of academic outputs and building a culture of sharing in general, efforts to address contractual practices that close knowledge, as well as mandatory collective licensing practices.
Understand Emotions. Become Resilient to Disinformation
08–09, 10:30–10:55 (Poland), Dilijan (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Our emotions play a crucial role in our vulnerability to misinformation, both online and offline. During our session, we will introduce “Fake kNOw more,” (en version) — an educational initiative developed in collaboration with partners from Poland, Spain, Romania, and the Czech Republic. This program focuses on building resilience to disinformation by promoting self-awareness. By understanding how emotions shape our responses, participants can navigate digital spaces thoughtfully. Join us to explore innovative solutions and become more mindful digital citizens.
Our emotions wield a powerful influence over us, shaping not only our real-world interactions but also our online behavior. This emotional impact significantly affects our vulnerability to misinformation.
In our session, we’ll introduce you to ‘Fake kNOw more’, an educational initiative crafted by the School with Class Foundation in collaboration with partners from Poland, Spain, Romania, and the Czech Republic. The program is based on an innovative and open approach to building resilience to disinformation through self-awareness and includes a comprehensive curriculum and an engaging educational game.
In ‘Fake kNOw more’, we guide young individuals in understanding how their emotions and personal experiences shape their responses. By cultivating this awareness, they can navigate both online and offline spaces with greater thoughtfulness and mindfulness. Join us to explore these innovative solutions and learn how we can all become more thoughtful digital citizens.
Objectives:
Participants will get to know our approach of building resilience to disinformation through self-awareness.
Participants will get to know our materials and how they can use them and localize to their local context.
Hearing the Unheard: Bridging the Multimedia Gap with Audio on Wikipedia
08–09, 10:30–10:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Despite Wikipedia’s vast repository of knowledge, a significant multimedia gap persists, notably in the realm of audio content. “Hearing the Unheard: Bridging the Multimedia Gap with Audio on Wikipedia” is a session dedicated to addressing this oversight and exploring the potential of audio to enrich the encyclopedia’s multisensory learning experience. This presentation delves into the current state of audio on Wikipedia, the challenges of incorporating sound into a predominantly text-based platform, and the opportunities that audio presents for making knowledge more accessible and engaging.
Participants will explore the importance of audio in educational content, its potential to enhance understanding and retention, and how it can serve non-traditional learners and those with visual impairments. The session will present case studies of successful audio integrations on digital platforms, offering insights into how Wikipedia can bridge the multimedia gap. Attendees will be invited to brainstorm and discuss innovative strategies for sourcing, creating, and integrating audio content into Wikipedia articles, focusing on practical solutions and community collaboration.
The Impact of the Wikipedia Editing Course for Autistic People
08–09, 10:45–11:25 (Poland), Tbilisi (streaming)
Language: English
The session will present a groundbreaking Wikipedia training program designed for autistic individuals. Recognizing their potential to enrich Wikipedia, the course bridges the gap by addressing their unique learning styles. We’ll explore the project’s rationale, course structure, and pilot program results, including increased participant confidence and a supportive learning community. This session is ideal for those passionate about inclusion and a more diverse Wikipedia editor base.
This session aims to showcase a groundbreaking Wikipedia training program designed for autistic individuals addressing their unique learning needs.
Project Rationale: The session will open with a discussion on the rationale behind creating a Wikipedia editing course for autistic individuals. We will explore the potential for this initiative to:
Expand Wikipedia’s knowledge base by leveraging the strengths and interests of autistic people.
Foster a more inclusive online community by welcoming new editors from diverse backgrounds.
Empower autistic individuals by providing them with valuable digital literacy skills and a platform to share their knowledge.
Course Design and Delivery: We will delve into the details of the course structure, highlighting its innovative approach to cater to autistic learners. Key aspects to be covered include:
Accessible online learning modules that are concise, visually engaging, and presented in a clear and structured manner.
Interactive synchronous sessions that allow for real-time interaction, clarification of doubts, and peer-to-peer learning.
Personalized mentoring provided by experienced Wikipedia editors who are trained to understand and address the specific needs of autistic participants.
Challenges and Adaptations: The session will not shy away from discussing the challenges encountered during the pilot course delivery. We will explore these challenges with transparency and showcase the innovative adaptations made to ensure a successful endeavor. Examples may include:
Building Trust & Safe Space: Check-ins, small groups, and clear communication guidelines to foster trust and comfort in the virtual environment.
Effective Communication & Collaboration: Active listening, visual aids, structured discussions, and individual coaching addressing communication style differences and collaboration challenges.
Managing Expectations & Emotional Support: Written agreements, clear Wikipedia guidelines, prompt intervention, regular check-ins, and individual debriefing sessions ensuring a positive learning environment and addressing emotional needs.
Outcomes and Impact: A key part of the session will be sharing the positive outcomes achieved through the pilot course. We will present data and testimonials that highlight:
Increased confidence and self-esteem among autistic participants who gained valuable Wikipedia editing skills.
The creation of a supportive learning community that fosters collaboration, knowledge sharing, and a sense of belonging.
Measurable contributions made by autistic participants to Wikipedia in the form of new and improved content.
Recommendations and Future Directions: The session will conclude by offering actionable recommendations for improving future iterations of the course. This may involve:
Refining the curriculum based on participant feedback and best practices in autism education.
Exploring partnerships with autism advocacy organizations to reach a wider audience.
Developing a train-the-trainer model to empower other communities to replicate this successful approach for neurodiverse learners
We believe this session will spark lively discussions and inspire others to explore similar initiatives within their communities. By fostering a more inclusive Wikipedia, we can all contribute to a richer and more comprehensive encyclopedia.
The Kiwix4Schools Journey: Building an Ecosystem of Open Collaboration for Accessible Education
08–09, 11:00–11:25 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
The Kiwix4Schools Program, led by Open Foundation West Africa, aims to democratize education by providing free, accessible content to schools across Africa. Collaborating with Wikimedia Foundation, Kiwix, and British Council Ghana, we’re refining the program to align with SDG4, Africa Union’s Agenda 2063 and Ghana’s Education Strategic Plan. This abstract explores our efforts to enhance teaching quality, eliminate barriers to online learning, and empower educators and learners. Through strategic partnerships and innovative approaches, we’re catalyzing positive change in education, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to thrive.
In an era where information is readily available, access to quality education remains a privilege for many. For the past four years, Open Foundation West Africa has been on a mission to change this narrative through the Kiwix4Schools Program. This groundbreaking initiative aims to bring free, offline educational content to schools across Africa and beyond, bridging the digital divide and ensuring equal access to knowledge.
The Kiwix4Schools Program has transcended the borders of Ghana, inspiring communities across the continent. Recognizing the growing demand, Open Foundation West Africa launched the Kiwix4Schools Africa Mentorship Program in 2023. The response was overwhelming, with 200 participants registering from various African countries. Ultimately, 64 Kiwix4Schools Ambassadors, representing 20 African nations, successfully completed the program, taking the torch of knowledge to their respective communities.
Consequently, the Kiwix4Schools Program has been piloted in five countries: South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Nigeria, and Burundi. As the program’s implementation progressed, it became evident that a pause for reflection and strategic realignment was necessary to ensure its long-term success and impact.
In collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation, Open Foundation West Africa has undertaken a comprehensive restructuring of the Kiwix4Schools program. The revised objectives align with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), African Union’s Agenda 2063, Ghana’s Education Strategic Plan (ESP), and EduWiki’s theory of change. The core goals are:
- Make educational content freely and easily accessible to educators and learners in schools.
- Remove accessibility barriers to online educational content, such as high internet costs and poor connectivity, using the Kiwix offline reader.
- Improve teaching and learning outcomes in junior and senior high schools.
- Revitalize the teaching profession to ensure quality and relevance at all levels.
- By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development.
- Strengthen science and math curricula and disseminate scientific knowledge and the culture of science in African societies.
Years of implementation and feedback from users have led to the identification of crucial gaps, which have been confirmed and refined through initial research during the alignment process. These gaps include:
Quality of Teaching: Metrics related to teacher qualifications, teacher training effectiveness, and teacher retention rates.
Overall, the current implementation seems to be focused more on learners and gives little room for teachers to operate effectively.
To address these gaps and ensure effective and efficient teaching and learning, Open Foundation West Africa has partnered with the Wikimedia Foundation, Kiwix, and the British Council Ghana. Together, they are developing strategies to leverage the power of the Kiwix software and offline educational content to empower teachers and students alike.
This presentation will provide an update on the program’s progress, discuss the challenges faced, and explore potential partnerships to help make this initiative a success. The Kiwix4Schools Program recognizes that achieving its ambitious goals cannot be accomplished alone and so we call for partnerships and collaborations to support this transformative initiative, making quality education a reality for all.
Wikipedia’s Role in Preserving Minority Languages through Open Technology
08–09, 11:30–11:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
The preservation and promotion of minority languages has become crucial as the number of endangered languages continues to grow. Open communities such as Wikipedia are of the essence to preserve linguistic diversity through collective wisdom. Language technology has the capacity to play a significant role in supporting these languages. In this session, we will bridge the gap between Wikimedians and language technology research, by exploring how Wikipedia is used in current cutting-edge approaches and focusing on open-source initiatives, as opposed to proprietary systems. The outcome of this merge will hopefully lead to a fully open-source powered Wikipedia.
In a world where the digital divide is not only about access to technology but also about representation within it, minority languages face the threat of digital extinction. The preservation and promotion of minority languages has become crucial as the number of endangered languages continues to grow. Open communities such as Wikipedia are of the essence to preserve linguistic diversity through collective wisdom.
Furthermore, language technology has the capacity to play a significant role in supporting these languages. By developing tools for under-resourced languages, we are prolonging their life in the digital era by enabling users to actively use that language online. Machine Translation (MT), in particular, has the potential to greatly benefit these languages by increasing access to information and resources, as well as facilitating communication between speakers. In fact, MT is a central tool within the Wikiverse.
In this session, we will bridge the gap between Wikimedians and language technology research, by exploring how Wikipedia is used in current state-of-the-art approaches and by focusing on open-source initiatives, as opposed to proprietary systems. The outcome of this merge will hopefully lead to a fully open-source powered Wikipedia.
Crowdsourcing Wikimedia Positions on AI and the Impact on the Platforms
08–09, 13:30–14:55 (Poland), Tbilisi (streaming)
Language: English
The world of AI moves very quickly, and the debates are heated. Ethical implications, copyright, bias of data, impact on jobs, control of personal data, the list can be made longer. But what does the Wikimedia movement think?
This session aims to gather Wikimedians with an interest in AI to understand different viewpoints, concerns, and ideas that could inform future advocacy work from WMF, chapters, affiliates, and volunteers.
In the dichotomy between producers and consumers, Wikimedia platforms and Wikimedians have for long primarily been considered consumers of information, reusers of others’ information. The rapid AI developments are however making it clear that Wikimedians are also, or perhaps primarily, producers of information. The Wikimedia platforms are sources for others to reuse, not the least AI models. How does the rapid development of AI impact the Wikimedia platforms and the movement, and what should be think about it?
During the spring of 2024, Wikimedia Sverige will write a paper on artificial intelligence and text and data mining, especially in relation to copyright issues. New pieces of legislation or policy are emerging at the national, regional and international level, but so far, an international dialogue within the Wikimedia movement has been lacking. How will AI affect Wikimedia projects? What are Wikimedia standpoints? How do we ensure that our positions are aligned, when we talk with the legislators or policy makers?
Using the position paper as a starting point, this workshop aims to gather input, thoughts, information, concerns and feedback from attendees, highlighting what is considered to be the largest issues and what our response to those issues should or could be.
“Written by AI” — How to moderate content on wikis in a changing Internet?
08–09, 15:30–16:55 (Poland), Dilijan (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
We want to make it easier for people to learn from Wikipedia. This will require the usage of new technologies and ways of delivering content we have not previously explored — from generating article recommendations to using machine learning to remix or summarize various pieces of information.
How do we ensure we build these systems in an ethical way, while retaining editorial control for communities?
In the fiscal year 2024–25, product and technology teams within the WMF will begin introducing new curated, accessible, and community-driven browsing and learning experiences. Some of these experiences will appear in the form of recommendations, and many will require machine learning models and other APIs. Others might rely on existing curation that communities are doing right now. We propose a session to introduce communities to the purpose of this work and to begin brainstorming what curation can look like in the future. We would like to:
- Identify what concerns communities have with recommendation systems and what community-approved and ethical ways to use these systems could look like
- Collaborate on a way to define any necessary community oversight and editorial control within these proposed features
- Brainstorm ways we can use community-curated content to provide a better experience for readers and make it easier for them to discover content and learn
Empowering Wikidata Editors and Content with the Wikidata Quality Toolkit
08–09, 15:30–16:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
This workshop focuses on presenting and showing how to use the tools included in the Wikidata Quality Toolkit (WQT). The WQT consists of tools, built on top of recently published research, that aim at assisting Wikidata editors in three of their daily tasks: recommending editors what items to edit (based on their expertise and edit history); detecting item references that do not support claims well (and ways of improving them); and automatically generating EntitySchemas to find items with missing information. We will demonstrate these tools, help editors in using them, and gather feedback for further improvement.
The Wikidata Quality Toolkit (WQT, https://king-s-knowledge-graph-lab.github.io/WikidataQualityToolkit/) is a set of tools that various researchers, developers, and open knowledge activists and enthusiasts are currently working on to improve the quality of content in Wikidata and improve the workflows of editors in their everyday tasks. These tools are built on top of successful, recently published research about Wikidata (including a paper that received the Wikimedia Foundation Research of the Year Award in 2022). Our aim is to help transition these tools from the lab into the community and the world.
The WQT contains three tools covering the spectrum of Wikidata content quality and editor workflow improvement, and solve three tasks: verifying the quality of references in supporting claims, recommending items based on expertise automatically, and generating schemas for item completion.
- Reference Quality Verification (RQV). RQV provides an automated pipeline that verifies whether Knowledge Graph triples are supported by their documented sources. It involves text extraction, triple verbalization, sentence selection, and claim verification using rule-based methods and machine learning models. The users can verify the reference quality of specific document or wikidata item by using this tool. Futhermore, this tool supports to verify a batch of documents and wikidata tiems automatically.
- Wikidata Game+. Wikidata Game+ builds upon the Wikidata Game by incorporating a novel recommendation system that provides personalised recommendation items for the editors, relying on both item features and item-editor previous interactions. It utilises users’, items’ content, and items’ relations representations using matrix factorization, ELMo, and TransR embedding techniques.
- EntitySchema Generator. There are numerous issues with Wikidata modeling and data quality, with inconsistent modeling of EntitySchemas being one of the most significant challenges nowadays. The EntitySchema generator addresses this by generating reference patterns of entity schemas for specific topics of entities based on Large Language Models (LLMs). By training on both good and bad examples, it can generate reference patterns and evaluate the quality of entity schemas. Additionally, it can modify inconsistent entity schemas based on the generated best patterns, and provide explanations and additional comments leveraging the capabilities of LLMs.
Leveling Up Wikipedia: A Gamification Approach for Newcomers by Wikimedia Polska and Grow Uperion
08–09, 16:15–16:55 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Entering the vast ecosystem of Wikipedia can be daunting for newcomers. Recognizing this, Wikimedia Polska and Grow Uperion have embarked on an innovative collaboration to make Wikipedia more accessible and engaging for beginners. “Leveling Up Wikipedia: A Gamification Approach for Newcomers” is a session that explores this unique partnership between a seasoned non-governmental organization and a dynamic startup. Together, they have developed a gamification platform designed to ease the learning curve for new Wikipedia contributors, making the process of contributing to the encyclopedia more intuitive and rewarding.
This presentation will delve into the journey of creating and implementing the gamification platform, showcasing how it incorporates elements of game design like missions, rewards, and progress tracking to motivate and guide new users through their initial Wikipedia editing experiences. Attendees will get an inside look at the challenges faced, solutions developed, and the impact of this collaboration on enhancing newcomer engagement.
Key highlights of the session include:
An overview of the gamification platform’s features and how they align with the needs of Wikipedia newcomers.
Insights into the collaborative process between Wikimedia Polska and Grow Uperion, including how NGO-startup partnerships can drive innovation within the open knowledge community.
The results and feedback from the initial rollouts of the platform, and how these learnings are shaping future development.
A discussion on the potential of gamification and similar innovative approaches to lower barriers to entry for new contributors, ensuring a diverse and growing community of Wikipedia editors.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 10th
The Wikiesfera Formula: A Feminist Approach to Bridging the Gender Gap
08–10, 10:00–10:25 (Poland), Istanbul (streaming)
Language: English
This session explores how Wikiesfera, a community of feminist editors with a horizontal model of governance known as the “Consejo de sabias,” uniquely addresses gender disparities on Wikipedia. By focusing on collaborative activities and inclusive decision-making, Wikiesfera increases and enhances the representation and participation of women and underrepresented groups on the platform. We want to share Wikiesfera’s methods, impacts, and how our approach could inspire broader changes within digital knowledge spaces, highlighting the importance of feminist principles in combating systemic biases online.
This talk will review Wikiesfera’s path from its origins a decade ago to the current moment with a stable community of over 50 regular and many more occasional editors, totaling over 300 in-person and nearly 100 virtual meetings, training over 650 wikipedians. What is unique about our community, at least in the Wikimedia Movement, is that it is composed mainly of women. And we want to share with you how we have managed to accomplish this.
We will show you how our community works, the type of activities we have organized — including more than 120 editatonas among them! — and how we have achieved an innovative governance model comprised of 100% women. Also, we will highlight the importance of creating and guaranteeing safe spaces, especially when your community is composed of women or people from underrepresented groups.
Our wonderful community which has been nurtured and empowered over the years has published in Wikipedia over 5,600 articles and enhancing more than 30,000 others. We’ve also enriched Wikidata with around 2,500 new items and improved over 10,400, alongside uploading roughly 3,500 files to Commons. This collective effort has generated an impressive 18 million page visits, largely filling knowledge gaps across various subjects.
Since Wikipedia needs more women (with only 13% of Wikipedia editors identifying as women and only 19% of all Wikipedia biographies about women) we believe that our model can be replicated by other groups to reduce these gaps. Also, we are sure that some learnings could be useful for other groups, even those that do not have women as their main target.
As we are continuously learning and iterating ourselves, we will be happy to share perspectives and future challenges with the attendants during the Q&A.
Wikipedia and Public Television — A Match Made In Heaven?
08–10, 10:30–11:10 (Poland), Dilijan (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
More and more educational clips from German public service broadcasters are making their way into Wikipedia, improving hundreds of articles and raking in tens of millions of views. This success story would not have been possible without the work of community project “Wiki Loves Broadcast” which helps the broadcasters to identify suitable content for Creative Commons licensing and is responsible for integrating relevant videos into Wikipedia articles. In this session, Wiki Loves Broadcast and Wikimedia Deutschland showcase their work and invite the international Wikipedia community to join a growing effort to bring publicly funded audiovisual content into Wikipedia.
Educational content from public broadcasters should be permanently available online under a free license like CC BY-SA 4.0. It is all of us who fund this content through our license fees or taxes, so we should all be allowed to freely use it. This helps fulfill the mission of the broadcasters, aids teachers and students, and benefits Wikipedia. The German-speaking Wikipedia community (“Wiki Loves Broadcast”) and Wikimedia Deutschland have been working to make this a reality for over five years.
In consequence, public broadcasters in Germany are now blazing the trail on the usage of Creative Commons licensing. Once uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and integrated into relevant articles, these video clips — on subjects like the construction of the Taj Mahal, the US voting system or the ancient city of Angkor Wat — have improved hundreds of articles and continue to rake in millions of monthly views on Wikipedia. This success story deserves to be shared and replicated. Wikimedia Europe, Wikimedia Switzerland and also the Wikimedia Foundation have already implemented or begun to implement similar projects. After all, the more public broadcasters join in, the more Wikipedia versions will benefit from high quality educational content. Crucially, this requires a solid community foundation to interface with broadcasters and be responsible for integrating relevant content.
In this session, Wiki Loves Broadcast and Wikimedia Deutschland will showcase how they convinced public service broadcasters to think of Wikipedia as a third-party platform and invite the international Wikipe
Wikimedia vs AI: The Tale of Two Cultural Technologies
08–10, 10:30–10:55 (Poland), Ohrid (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
What does the use of Wikimedia for AI training imply? Is this simply one more way in which Wikimedia is being reused, in line with the vision of free knowledge established two decades ago? Or does AI development present a challenge that necessitates the exploration of new governance methods for the production, distribution, and usage of the knowledge commons? I will address these questions in my presentation, drawing on the work the Open Future Foundation has done on the commons-based governance of AI datasets.
What does the use of Wikimedia for AI training imply? Is this simply one more way in which Wikimedia is being reused, in line with the vision of free knowledge established two decades ago? Or does AI development present a challenge that necessitates the exploration of new governance methods for the production, distribution, and usage of the knowledge commons?
I will address these questions in my presentation, drawing on the work the Open Future Foundation has done on the commons-based governance of AI datasets. Our work assumes that various collections forming the knowledge commons — especially Wikimedia, are increasingly being conceptualized and treated as AI training datasets. And that this is a new way of thinking about the knowledge commons that requires a response from their stewards.
It is the AI developers who largely define how the commons is conceptualized and used as AI datasets. For instance, in 2014, 100 million openly licensed photos from Flickr were compiled into a training dataset for a face recognition system — without consulting either the photographers or Flickr, the platform’s steward.
To meet this challenge, it’s necessary to establish rules for using knowledge and cultural commons for AI training, ideally as standards collaboratively developed and adopted by communities and organizations creating these commons.
To aid this effort, Open Future has recently undertaken two activities:
- We developed a six-principle framework for commons-based dataset governance, which can guide organizations in devising new ways of managing resources that are either purposely made available as training datasets, or are being used as such.
- We organized an online Alignment Assembly on AI and the commons to better comprehend the perspectives of creators, commons stewards, and activists. We utilized the pol.is platform to identify aligned and divisive issues.
In my presentation, I will apply the principles of commons-based dataset governance and the insights gained from the assembly to Wikimedia. I will demonstrate how certain Wikimedia projects exemplify new governance mechanisms for the commons. For instance, Wikimedia Enterprise is a significant initiative to devise mechanisms for corporate users to “give back to the commons”. I will also highlight where gaps exist, and where additional mechanisms could enhance the governance of Wikimedia resources, considering the emerging technologies and their associated challenges.
I will end with an argument that viewing Wikimedia solely as a dataset for AI training is too simplistic. Wikimedia should not be treated as just a resource for AI development, but rather be recognized as ia unique “cultural technology” that is collectively built. This term, coined by Alison Gopnik, refers to the various methods societies use to pass down knowledge. Gopnik suggests that AI is not truly a synthetic “intelligence”, but also just a type of cultural technology. Therefore, we can compare Wikimedia and AI, on equal footing. This comparison will help us fully understand Wikimedia’s role as a guardian of free knowledge in a knowledge ecosystem influenced by emerging generative AI technologies.
Wikipedia and journalism: The Experience of Comunicar Diversidad from Wikimedia Argentina
08–10, 10:30–11:10 (Poland), Lviv (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Since 2022 Wikimedia Argentina has been carrying out a training and support program for journalists and small media. The goal is to generate positive feedback between the media and the Wikimedia universe. This project seeks to promote Wikimedia tools and projects among journalists, and to sensitize media and journalists on how they can contribute to reduce the gender, sexuality and diversity gap in Wikimedia. In this conference we want to provide useful insights and recommendations so that other groups can replicate the experience.
Since 2022 Wikimedia Argentina carries out a program that seeks to articulate alliances with journalists and media with the purpose of promoting Wikimedia projects, among professionals who produce information. In the framework of the program we work with small media outlets whose communication agenda includes the LGBT community and other underrepresented communities and we help them understand how Wikimedia platforms can be useful for their work. We also train them on how to contribute to free knowledge on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. In this way, positive feedback is generated resulting in the production of knowledge about these underrepresented communities, taking into account the gender and sexuality gaps identified in the Wikimedia projects.
This Conference Aims:
- For attendees to glimpse the positive feedback between media and Wikimedia Projects
- For attendees to take away the necessary tools to replicate the experience in their territories.
In this session we will present how the Communicating Diversity project was generated, the challenges and opportunities we found in the collaboration with journalists and media, the results of the two previous editions and the ways in which Communicating Diversity contributes to reduce the gender and sexuality gap in Wikimedia.
How I created an Introduction to Wikipedia Course on WikiLearn
08–10, 11:30–11:55 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
WikiLearn is a Wikimedia project where participants can enrol in online courses related to Wikimedia. I created an introductory course about Wikipedia, and will detail the creation process and feedback from their recent roll out. Because the course are pre-recorded, they have allowed new users to learn in their own time without having to travel to a major city. There are still challenges, and I will share feedback collected from users who have completed the course.
To make learning about Wikipedia more accessible, I created an ‘Introduction to…’ course on the Wiki Learn platform. I used to present introductory sessions in person and online around Australia, but found there was limited resources to refer people to after. A second problem was, a lot of people couldn’t attend in-person events because of the time or location, while for online sessions, others struggled to watch the Zoom session and practise editing in real time.
The WikiLearn platform allows for new users to enrol in a course focused on Wikipedia and complete the course in their own time. They can pause videos, read additional documentation and transcripts, or download and print everything as needed. This allows them to continue the course offline if needed too.
By taking quizzes, their progress is measured, and by the completion of the courses a new user should have made several edits to Wikipedia and better understand how contributions are made.
Once completed, the participant receives a certificate or badge/micro-credential, which they can display on their CV, website, LinkedIn, etc. It doesn’t mean they are an expert, but it shows they have an understanding of the basics on these platforms.
Other people around the world are also creating courses on WikiLearn, so this presentation will be an opportunity to show my experience, and highlight the other work happening on WikiLearn.
Protecting Children on-Wiki: AChild Rights Solutions Workshop
08–10, 13:30–14:55 (Poland), Tbilisi (streaming)
Language: English
During this interactive workshop, participants will review the recommendations of the Wikimedia Foundation’s recently published child rights impact assessment to prioritize actions and to collaboratively develop plans of action for the community to undertake in order to help keep children safe on Wikimedia projects.
In January, the Wikimedia Foundation published its first child rights impact assessment analyzing the human rights impacts and opportunities of Wikimedia projects on children, as well as the risks minors face in using or participating in Wikimedia projects.
This report offered a number of recommendations for the Wikimedia movement to consider in order to better protect children on our projects. Using an interactive workshop format, participants will review and prioritize recommendations from this using a modified Eisenhower matrix to assess potential impact vs. urgency.
Participants will then break into small groups to develop concrete plans of action for the community to undertake to implement the highest priority topics identified in the previous exercise. At the end, small groups will present their action plans to the entire group and receive feedback from other participants.
WMF Future Audiences Experiments: Exploring the Future of Free Knowledge
08–10, 14:15–14:55 (Poland), Dilijan (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Given recent technological developments — e.g., AI, new social apps, new devices — how might future generations learn from and contribute to Wikimedia projects?
Through quick experiments in last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has gathered insights on how our free knowledge projects can continue to meet the needs of generations to come, even as technology and user behavior online evolve. In this session, attendees will see examples of Future Audiences experiments (e.g., “Citation Needed,” a browser extension that uses generative AI + Wikipedia to evaluate the reliability of online information), hear what we are learning, and discuss ideas for new experiments.
In July of 2023, WMF created “Future Audiences,” a new initiative to explore how we can continue to meet the needs of knowledge-seekers and knowledge-sharers for generations to come. Future Audiences doesn’t build products — it launches time-bound experiments to identify and recommend opportunities for the Wikimedia Foundation to innovate. lf an experiment yields promising results, it may lead to the Wikimedia Foundation making bigger investments in new products and/or approaches to engaging new audiences; if it doesn’t, we will still have gained valuable insights, quickly and without significant impact on our movement’s resources.
Since then, we have carried out experimental research to better understand opportunities in generative AI and social apps popular among global youth (e.g., TikTok, YouTube, etc.). We are excited to share new experimental features and findings, and to discuss new experiment ideas with the Wikimedia community!
Open Education and Collaboration Amidst War in Ukraine
08–10, 15:30–16:10 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: Ukrainian
Through our storytelling of recent events in 2023 and 2024, we will demonstrate the power of OER as a tool for cross country collaboration, connection and as support for learning communities in Ukraine. We will invite participants to join our collective story, as we explore ways to support Ukrainian colleagues translating and localizing OER on needed skills training amidst full-scale war.
This demonstration shares a real story of how OER enabled reuse and adaptation across countries enabled by networks, humble funds, and growing friendships. It will also serve as a call to action for audience members to volunteer to support open education in Ukraine, where the need for localized OER is acute.
Our story begins with a local University in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro during the ongoing war. The USUST librarians, staff and faculty were working on an Open Textbooks project. Open Textbooks and OER around specific skills are sorely needed in Ukrainian language.
One librarian, Tetiana Kolesnykova, and her colleagues sought to secure and expand access to open education in Ukrainian, at a national level. They began to collaborate with a European network of Open Education Librarians (ENOEL) and networks of open education advocates, including the Creative Commons Open Education Platform. Despite limited funding, the communities found ways to support Ukrainians’ open education efforts.
As a result: Ukrainian librarians successfully executed a project to translate and localize an award winning MOOC on OER into Ukrainian, and to upskill Ukrainian librarians and staff. The MOOC was openly licensed, and the librarians secured limited funds to cover some costs.
This experience enabled new OER in Ukrainian, and also kick-started new collaborations — some of them novel and unexpected — across countries. It demonstrates the promise of open education amidst extreme challenges of wartime and is also applicable in other extreme crisis contexts.
We invite the audience to join us in the next chapter of this story, finding more ways to translate useful OER into Ukrainian.
Wikidata and Authority Control for Fesearchers: The Cases of Switzerland and Italy
08–10, 16:00–16:25 (Poland), Dilijan (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
This session explores the transformative potential of Wikidata in scholarly data curation, focusing on Swiss and Italian initiatives under the WikiCite umbrella. Emphasizing manual refinement and outreach, these projects aim to enrich academic author items and provide support to fragmented institutional repositories. Challenges include reconciling disparate data sources and addressing homonyms. Strategies for stakeholder engagement and social media utilization are discussed, with a goal of establishing national-level Wikidata communities. The feasibility of this framework and potential progress metrics are explored, highlighting the importance of comprehensive collaboration for maximizing Wikidata’s impact on research visibility and collaboration.
In the realm of scholarly data curation, Wikidata stands out as a potent platform for fostering research visibility and collaboration. This session offers a preliminary comparative analysis of two significant ongoing initiatives in Switzerland and Italy, focusing on indexing academic authors within the Wikidata framework.
The two projects have been incorporated into the WikiCite initiative umbrella. However, they adopt an approach centered around manual refinement, outreach, and long-term comprehensiveness. The initial phase is primarily geared towards enhancing researcher profiles, aiming to facilitate the enhancement of numerous currently string-based institutional repositories.
We will explore various approaches and address challenges involved in integrating academic information within different national contexts. Specifically, we’ll discuss strategies on Wikidata for handling fragmented or uniform institutional repositories, reconciling to them relevant authority files and citation databases and proposing relevant ID properties.
We also illustrate our approach for the case of homonyms and the need of a more integrated effort on this aspect to reach full potential, especially on data-round tripping.
We will also discuss how to reach out to institutional stakeholders, and employ appropriate social media strategies.
Our objective is in the end to demonstrate the feasibility of establishing a national-level framework for engaged Wikidata communities with a focused strategy. Additionally, we will briefly examine potential metrics and evaluation methods for reporting progress.
Impact Visualizer: A New Tool to Explore How A Collection of Articles Develops Over Time
08–10, 16:15–16:55 (Poland), Warsaw (streaming + interpretation)
Language: English
Impact Visualizer is Wiki Education’s new data visualization and exploration tool. It is designed to analyze a set of articles (a topic area), and show data about how that set of articles has evolved over time. In this session, we will show off some of the interesting things we’ve learned with this tool, provide examples of research questions that it can answer, and invite participants to ask their own topic-focused questions that could be explored with it.
Impact Visualizer is a data visualization tool that Wiki Education began building in 2023. It has now reached ‘alpha’ status — live at https://impact.wikiedu.org. We built this tool as a way to show off the impact of Wiki Education’s programs on specific content topics and to provide dashboards to funders to track Wikipedia’s coverage of an entire subject area. As we’ve begun using it for our own programs, we’ve become very excited about its potential for answering a wide variety of content-focused questions across the Wikipedia community. From analyzing WikiProjects’ content areas, to tracking content gaps and initiatives to fill them, to looking that the impact of individual education program courses, editathons, and other events, the Impact Visualizer can be used to compile and present how a set of articles evolves over time, and what portions of that evolution are driven by a specific set of users (for example, program participants).
Similar to what we’ve done with Programs & Events Dashboard (based on Wiki Education Dashboard), we plan to release a version of the Impact Visualizer that is open for use by other Wikimedians. We hope to have this ready for use in time for Wikimania.
In this session, we will demonstrate how the Impact Visualizer works with a series of example article sets that highlight the kinds of research and data exploration it’s good for. One example from Wiki Education’s Student Program dramatically highlights a well-known effect: contributions by new editors in a topic area spur additional contributions from other editors. Another example — looking at biographies of women physicists — shows how effective the Wikipedia community has been at focusing on the gender gap in science coverage. We’ll also examine several WikiProjects, as well as the impact a single highly-productive Wikipedia editor can make over a long time period.
During the last segment of our session, we will invite attendees to brainstorm with us about potentials applications of this tool and research or data exploration questions that could be answered with it.
CONTINUE TO: HACKER SUMMER CAMP 2024 — Part Twelve: SquadCon 2024 (COMMING SOON)
