*Wikimedia Community Ireland Newsletter - May 2017*
*First staff member* After receiving its first Simple Annual Plan Grant https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Simple for the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Community Ireland is delighted to announce the hiring of its first staff member! Rebecca O'Neill is the group's Project Coordinator, acting as the point of contact for anyone interested in working with Wikimedia Community Ireland. She will continue and expand the work she has been doing with editing workshops and discussions on Wikimedia with those working in education and cultural sectors. She has been an editor on Wikipedia since 2011, and is currently about to finish her PhD which was connected to her work with the Wikimedia community.
*Europeana 1914-18* Europeana 1914-18 is a major project to digitise and publish primary and secondary historical sources on the First World War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_War. It is coordinated by Europeana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeana, as part of a broader program to digitise European cultural heritage. As part of this work, Europeana are hosting an on-Wiki competition which challenges Wikimedia affiliates to create a portfolio of their past and current activities relating to the theme of 1914-18. These portfolios will be judged by jury, submissions close on July 31. All of the details can be found here https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Europeana/1914-18.
We are interested in hearing from the community if there are any events that you would like to see run on this theme, so do get in touch!
*Wiki Loves Monuments 2017* It is fast coming around to that time of year again, time to think about this year's Wiki Loves Monuments! This year we hope to focus on the monuments that have yet to have any photos uploaded to Commons, so let's think about all those yet to be discovered monuments that deserve the Wiki Loves treatment.
If you are interested in helping out in the organisation this year, either virtually or by helping out with an event such as a photowalk in your area, we would love to hear from you. If you are a photographer, start spreading the word with your friends and photography clubs. It is a lot of fun, you could win a prize, and you are showing off the unique built heritage of Ireland to the world!
*Vicipéid and Celtic Knot conference* As a group, we have been getting more and more involved in Vicipéid and editing through Irish. We'd love to get in touch with more Irish language editors, to hear your thoughts on what we could do to enhance the use and contributions to Vicipéid. In particular we have been inspired by the Welsh Wikipedia, which recently became the largest language Wikipedia to have an equal amount of biographies https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2016/12/the-welsh-gender-equilibrium-welsh-becomes-the-biggest-language-wikipedia-to-achieve-gender-balance/ of men and women.
There is a Twitter account called @Ga_Vicipeid https://twitter.com/Ga_Vicipeid which has not been active for a few years, if you know who set this up, please do let us know as it would be great to get it tweeting again.
On 5 July this year, Wikimedia UK are hosting a conference for those interested in the Celtic language Wikipedias, called Celtic Knot https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2017. This conference is partly possible due to the first Scots Gaelic Wikimedia in Residence https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2017/01/wikimedia-uk-and-national-library-of-scotland-announce-new-gaelic-post/, and other fantastic initiatives coming from smaller language Wikipedias like our own. Please spread the word about the conference, it is sure to be a rewarding two days.
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