Submissions/Wikimedia projects as a publication platform for local heritage resources

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 6045

Title of the submission: Wikimedia projects as a publication platform for local heritage resources

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission: Urjanhai

E-mail address: Special:EmailUser/Urjanhai

Username: Urjanhai

Country of origin: Finland

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)

Personal homepage or blog: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Käyttäjä:Urjanhai

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Wikimedia projects can be usead as a publication platform for local heritage resources concerning both culturural and natural local heritage.

In many countries, including the Nordic countries, one of which is Finland, the local heritage movement is one of the notable popular cultural movements that developed during the 19th and 20th centuries (see, for example, http://www.kotiseutuliitto.fi/etusivu/english ).

Today, instructions are given how to use the internet, open data and digital resources in local heritage research and publishing. (See, for example, http://www.kotiseutuliitto.fi/abc )

One platform that, to my opinion, is well suitable for such activities, are the Wikimedia projects trough which it is possible to share and make available in an organised manner resources such as photographs, maps (see, for example, http://wikimaps.wikimedia.fi/wikimaps-nordic/ ) and written accounts that are based on secondary sources and do have references.

To my opinion, and also according my own experience as a Wikipedian with some 60 000 edits in Finnish language wikipedia, it is much more fruitful to produce such contents in a crowdsourced environment than for example under one's own or some organisation's web pages. The notability criteria that exist do not form any great hinder in this respect, because lots of topics exist, that meet the general notability guidelines in each project. The guideline "No original research" can as well be met easily by using only the secondary sources that are available, and in fact, the main advantage of writing about local heritage topics in Wikipedia, to my opinion, is just to make the most central secondary sources available (if they are online) or to make a list of them available (if they are offline). Once this has been been started by someone in any given locality, it can easily be continued by others.

In Finnish language wikipedia, there are several examples of editors, who edit articles concerning the natural or cultural heritage of a certain area, some concentrating, perhaps, more on the natural heritage, and some, perhaps, more to the cultural heritage, or, further, on some particular aspects of these. I myself am one of these, and as the geographical intrest areas as well as the specific interests on substance matters of many editors do overlap, the co-operation in this area is very rewarding.

Taking one editor as an example, the results of such edits may include items such as a good article of a small rural willage ([1]) from the nature and people of which a famous finnish author ([2]) took inspiration to her novels and poetry, and several promising articles (in Finnish lupaavat artikkelit) on other local heritage issues both natural and cultural, such as manor houses ([3]), buildings ([4]), watercources ([5]), other geographical features ([6]), cultural heritage such as nationally important cultural historical environments ([7]), or intangible cultural heritage ([8]) and so on, and uploads of a couple of hundred photoes in wikimedia commons mostly of these same topics.

For those interested in publishing local heritage material in the internet, I would gladly recommed the Wikimedia projects as one possible platform to do this.

Track

Open Scholarship

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Depends on the scholarship or possible other financiation, with own cost not possible.

Slides or further information (optional): Not available yet

Special requests

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Susannaanas (talk) 21:43, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Djembayz (talk) 12:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
SarahStierch (talk) 15:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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