A chairde,
Welcome to our October newsletter! It is very fitting that we find ourselves on the brink of Samhain which is a pagan religious festival originating from an ancient Celtic spiritual tradition as I have lots of Celtic Knot updates for you! After a full year of planning, Celtic Knot took place at the end of September and was a great success, you can read on for more but let me just say that it was a spirited and impactful event where the community got to knot together after two years of virtual conferences! It’s safe to say that most participants, myself included left with a refreshed vigour and determination to continue their endeavours for minority language and digital activism.
In Irish folklore Samhain, being the end of the harvest period is a reminder for us to tie up any loose ends before the end of the year. Not that we will be slowing down at the WCI (virtual) office, without further adieu let me give you the rundown of what we have been up to this autumn season before we brace ourselves for the winter ahead! Get carving those turnips!
Mihaela Bodlovic, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What Happened at Celtic Knot 2024?
September brought the much anticipated Celtic Knot International Wikimedia Languages Conference to Ireland. We hosted the three-day event in collaboration with Wikimedia UK. Wikimedians, language activists, policy-makers, and researchers, gathered in the historic city of Waterford, Ireland, from, September 25th to 27th for three days of learning, discussion and cultural exchange. The conference took place at the Tower Hotel overlooking the iconic Reginald’s Tower.
Almost 150 people attended Celtic Knot throughout the three days. We welcomed 72 delegates to Ireland including, 26 scholarship recipients. 72 participants tuned in online including, 29 digital scholars.
While providing a platform for many Celtic and minority language communities to ‘knot’ together, this year’s conference also had a focus on the Irish language and cultural heritage, as has been the tradition with each iteration of Celtic Knot. In addition to Gaeilge, languages represented included Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Manx, Scots Gaelic, Basque, Saami, Dagbani, Bunduliwan and more. International delegates travelled from near and far with Wikimedians from Malaysia to Wales and everywhere in between.
Rooted in the spirit of collaboration and community empowerment we came together to explore innovative approaches to language preservation, promotion, and recognition of Celtic and minority languages in the digital space. The conference structure devoted each of its three days to a thematic focus on the past, present and future. This meant the program covered explorations of historical legacies learnings from experience, celebration of community incentives, current challenges and finished off with envisioning future solutions to overcome these barriers, and opportunities for collaboration.
Highlights included our keynote speakers who spoke about AI and Vicipéid, how language and more specifically poetry contain cultural fingerprints, and how digital breathing spaces are essential for minority languages to thrive. Keep an eye out for an in-depth report on Celtic Knot 2024 on our website very soon!
If you attended Celtic Knot, we would love to invite you to contribute your blog posts, reviews, and reflections on the experience to the event’s meta page under the ‘documentation’ tab. Don’t forget to upload your photos, videos and presentations here.
We are also delighted to announce that the official photos have been uploaded to Commons and can be viewed here. Videos of the conference will be available by the end of the month.
Benjicarter, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Wiki Women Eramus+ Toolkits Launched!
The official launch of the WikiWomen Erasmus + Project took place as part of the Celtic Knot program. This project is an ongoing collaborative effort between Irish, Frisian, and Basque Partners. The goal of WikiWomen is to highlight the gender gap in content and empower students in minority language communities (Gaeltacht regions, Basque, Friesland) to write Wikipedia articles about underrepresented women in their languages.
The launch was formally opened by the Waterford Metropolitan Mayor Cllr Joe Kelly. In his welcome address, he remarked “The WikiWomen project is an inspiring example of how we can bridge gender gaps and promote language diversity online while connecting communities through shared knowledge and culture.
Representing Ireland (and the Irish language) in this project alongside WCI is Coláiste Oiriall, a secondary school in Monaghan. The highlight of the session was a presentation made by four students, accompanied by their múinteoir, Faela Mhic Dhomhnaill. The students shared their experiences working on the WikiWomen project, including their research on notable women and how it helped them develop both their communication and research skills, through a bilingual presentation in Irish and English.
The presentation was met with praise from all attendees, including John Walsh from Foras na Gaeilge, who described the project and students’ presentation as “absolutely inspirational and exceptional and exemplary.”
The WikiWomen Erasmus+ Schools Toolkits are freely accessible to all via Meta-Wiki and will provide educators, students, and GLAMS (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) with free resources and lesson plans to engage with work on their regional language Wikis. The toolkits are designed to be translated into different languages and used internationally.
Student presenters at the WikiWomen Erasmus+ Toolkits Launch
Check out the Toolkits here!
Wiki Loves Monuments Judging Process and Special Guest Judges
We are excited to announce that the judging process for Wiki Loves Monuments 2024 is currently underway. On our judging panel, we have Gary Dempsey from Digital Heritage Age and the Waterford Metropolitan Mayor Cllr Joe Kelly, who will judge our special Waterford category. We had 1,270 entries this year many of which were taken in Waterford and entered into the special category to celebrate Celtic Knot.
Adapt Collaboration with Wikimedia Community Ireland Wins Prize at International Conference on Natural Language Generation in Tokyo
This September a paper by Simon Mille from the Adapt Centre in collaboration with Wikimedia Community Ireland won the best demo award at the International Conference on Natural Language Generation in Tokyo.
The paper titled “Filling Gaps in Wikipedia: Leveraging Data-to-Text Generation to Improve Encyclopedic Coverage of Underrepresented Groups” presents a new tool to support efforts to fill in these gaps by automatically generating draft articles and facilitating post-editing and uploading to Wikipedia.
Education Outreach at UCD and UL
This September we kicked off our first educational outreach partnerships once again at the University of Limerick and University College Dublin. At UL, Sophie our project and communications manager delivered a Wikipedia Editing and Digital activism workshop as part of the MA in Public History and Cultural Heritage with Dr Karol Mullaney-Dignam. Students were very engaged and key areas of discussion included notability, conflicts of interest and translating Wikipedia.
We are also continuing our longstanding partnership with Dr Crystal Fulton as part of her DigiComp Core Competencies for Digital Citizenship. We will be delivering training sessions on Wikipedia, knowledge equity and the open knowledge movement. Each student will have selected a biography to create or edit as part of the course and we will finish the semester with a hands-on edit-a-thon in November.
New Collaboration with Maynooth University
This month Sophie started off an exciting new partnership with Dr Jeneen Naji at Maynooth University.
Sophie gave a guest lecture that introduced the students in the Digital Critical Skills Module to Wikipedia. The presentation touched on topics ranging from digital ethics, and challenges to knowledge equity and underrepresented groups in information. She also talked about how notability guidelines and led a debate about why they are important but complex and can reinforce bias and underrepresentation of marginalised groups with the students. The class also introduced a case study about the WikiWomen Erasmus+ Project to demonstrate how possible ways to overcome the gender gap/ elevate minority languages in the digital space. The second part of the two-hour session was an interactive demonstration and introduction to Wikipedia editing.
Dr Naji is the Associate Professor of Digital Media and Head of Practice in the Department of Media Studies. Her research is in digital cultural artefacts and intersectional feminism in digital humanities. She is also involved in a really interesting project called Full Stack Feminsim which is run in collaboration with the Irish Research Council. It is an interdisciplinary research project tasked with developing an intersectional feminist framework for digital arts and humanities (DH) practice and research. Check out the project here and watch this space!
Wiki Loves Earth Winners
In September we were excited to announce the talented winners of the Wiki Loves Earth photography competition for 2024!
This year, we were overwhelmed by the number of stunning entries that showcased the diverse and awe-inspiring natural landscapes and wildlife found across Ireland.
For those unfamiliar, Wiki Loves Earth is an annual photography contest held to encourage the documentation of protected natural areas for use on Wikimedia projects. This initiative not only promotes the appreciation of natural beauty but also creates an open-access resource for images that can educate and inspire people worldwide.
Check out the 2024 winners here.
WCI at Oiracheactas na Gaeilge 2024
Oireachtas na Gaeilge, meaning “The Irish (language) Gathering,” is an annual festival celebrating Irish arts and culture, dating back to the 1890s. The festival features various events centred around the Irish language and cultural traditions such as the ‘pop-up’ Gaeltacht. Oireachtas na Samhna (“the November gathering”), is taking place on the last week of October through to the first weekend of November and typically attracts over 10,000 attendees to the week-long celebration.
Our Irish language Officer Amy will be attending the event and will have a stand at the event so make sure you drop by for a chat if you are attending!
AN NUACHT IS DÉANAÍ: an update from our Irish Language Officer
Le cúpla seachtain anuas, bhí sé de phribhléid agam freastal ar roinnt imeachtaí tábhachtacha a thagann le mo chuid oibre. Ar dtús, bhí an chomhdháil Celtic Knot againn i bPort Láirge, áit a sheoladh an tionscnamh Wiki Women, tionscadal nua a bhí á dhéanamh againn le níos mó ná dhá bhliain anuas. Bhí cur i láthair iontach ó daltaí Cholásite Oiriall lena múinteoir Faela ann agus bhí a léacht thar bharr. D’oibríomar le Wiki RA don imeacht agus chuireamar go leor oibre isteach le bliain anuas chun é a thabhairt chun críche. Deis iontach a bhí ann an obair is féidir le Wikimedia a dhéanamh ar son na teangacha agus iad a chur chun cinn.
D’fhreastail mé ar Chomhdháil Pleanála Teanga a d’eagraigh Foras na Gaeilge, a dhírigh ar straitéisí chun an Ghaeilge a bhuanú agus a chur chun cinn. Bhí na cainteanna ar phleanáil corpais, straitéisí sealbhaithe, agus na dúshláin atá roimh na ceantair Ghaeltachta agus an Ghaeilge í féin. Bhí na smaointe maidir le pobail agus imeachtaí do mhionteangacha, agus baineann siad go foirfe lenár gcuid oibre ar an Vicipéid agus muid ag dul ar aghaidh ag forbairt tionscnaimh nua chun rannpháirtíocht dhigiteach a chothú i bpobal na Gaeilge.
An tseachtain seo, bhí deis agam freastal ar chomhdháil/cheardlann eile, a d’eagraigh a Ionad inar chuir mé i láthair faoin ngluaiseacht Eolas Oscailte agus an chaoi a bhfuil deis chun Vicipéid a úsáid i bhforbairt na Gaeilge sa spás digiteach, agus samhail teanga mhór. Bhí an t-aiseolas a fuair mé thar a bheith luachmhar. Tá go leor spéis ag daoine obair linn agus táim ag tnúth le cuid de na smaointe seo a chur i bhfeidhm inár dtionscadail.
Ag féachaint romhainn, tá feachtas Aiteachas a chur ar an Vicipéid á leathadh amach againn, ag díriú ar cursaí LADTA+ níos mó ábhar Gaeilge a chruthú ar Vicipéid. Mar chuid den fheachtas seo, tá comórtas scríbhneoireachta agus grianghrafadóireachta dar teideal “Is Breá le Vicí an Bhróid/Wiki Loves Pride” á sheoladh againn, agus duaiseanna le buachan.
Beidh mé ag freastal ar Oireachtas na Samhna 2024 i mbliana freisin, áit a mbeidh seastán againn in Aonach an Oireachtais, mar sin buail isteach linn dá mbeidh tú ann!
OifigeachWMIE, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Doodle Poll for Next Community Meeting
We are hoping to have a community meeting to catch up soon via Google Meet. If you are interested in attending please fill out this Doodle Poll. At these meetings, we discuss what we have been up to, and future plans and brainstorm ideas together. It typically takes place on a mid-week evening. We would love to see some of you there, old faces and new welcome!
