WikiProject International Botanical Congress 2024
08-07, 11:00–11:25 (Poland), Belgrade (8)
Language: English

This presentation will summarise how the collaborative Wikidata WikiProject International Botanical Congress 2024 (the IBC Project) was conceived and created. It will highlight how the organisers were successful in engaging and collaborating with the botanical and Wiki communities. We intend to outline the challenges faced and successes achieved, including how the project has led to further opportunities for engagement by the organisers, participants and the wider botanical community. This collaborative IBC Project has improved the amount and quality of openly shared data on botanists and their research in Wikidata, and provided training to participants to continue Wikidata editing.


The International Botanical Congress (IBC) takes place every six years and is attended by thousands of botanists from all over the world. At the time of writing our team aims to deliver a multilingual Wikidata workshop to Congress participants and also to present or co-author Wikidata related posters and presentations. We aimed to improve the coverage of open data about Congress organisers and participants in Wikidata and planned to undertake efforts to engage with this community during the Congress to improve their knowledge of Wikidata. This presentation will outline how previous Wikiverse collaborations inspired and led to the formation of this group. It will summarise the aims of the IBC Project including delivering a multilingual workshop at an international scientific conference and how we organised this multinational collaboration across time zones. We will also include details on how we obtained funding and support from the wider Wiki community via engagement with multiple Wiki administrative organisations such as the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand, Wikimedia Germany, and Wikimedia Spain. We will outline the challenges faced and triumphs experienced when delivering on our project aims, from project conception, planning, and implementation, to post-workshop follow-up.

The main objective of this session is to give practical advice to other Wikimedians on how to replicate this type of collaborative community engagement, the issues that may need to be overcome by organisers and the methods that can be used to replicate our successful results.

Session recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/iRw444uS1-E?feature=shared&t=3925


How does your session relate to the event themes: Collaboration of the Open?*

This project was very much an international collaboration between Wiki editors as well as members of the botanical community from different countries, speaking different languages, with the support of multiple Wiki administrative groups. The session will outline how organisers formed this WikiProject to offer engagement opportunities to the wider botanical community, encouraging and collaborating with them to create and enrich open data about botanists, collections, institutions and taxa via Wikidata.

What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?*

Everyone can participate in this session

How do you plan to deliver this session?*

Onsite in Katowice

What other themes or topics does your session fit into? Please choose from the list of tags below.

Collaboration, Conferences, Capacity building, Events

See also: Slides for presentation

Hi I'm User:Ambrosia10, also known as Siobhan Leachman. I live in Wellington, New Zealand. I co-organise both the Wikipedians in Wellington Meetup as well as the virtual Aotearoa New Zealand Online Wiki meetup, both of which are held monthly. For my contributions to various WikiProjects see https://wikidata.wikiscan.org/user/Ambrosia10 . I'm interested in New Zealand, natural history, the OpenGLAM movement, supporting GLAM engagement with WikiProjects, and increasing the participation with and the generation of content in English Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. I am keen supporter of Women in Red, WikiCite, events such as #1Lib1Ref, as well as Wikidata WikiProject Biodiversity and Wikidata WikiProject Research Expeditions. I am the chairperson of the BHL-Wiki working group and was awarded the Wikimedia Laureate award in 2023. More detail on my other contributions to the Wiki-verse can be seen on my ORCID profile https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5398-7721.

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Kia ora, I’m Heidi Meudt, User:Stitchbird2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Stitchbird2) and I am both a Wikimedian and a botany curator. I am originally from the United States but I live in Wellington, New Zealand. I am an active member of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Aotearoa_New_Zealand), regularly attending the Wikipedians in Wellington Meetup and other Wiki events in New Zealand. I’m interested in New Zealand's natural history and biodiversity, and I am an active editor on the following projects: Wikipedia (mostly English and some Spanish), Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. I am also Curator Botany at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Museum_of_New_Zealand_Te_Papa_Tongarewa). I have a PhD in Botany and have published about 50 scientific research papers (see my ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2433-9071) and over 50 blog posts (https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/author/heidim/). I am also an active botanical collector (https://bionomia.net/0000-0002-2433-9071) and iNaturalist user and curator (https://inaturalist.nz/people/heidimeudt). As a Wikimedian, I edit on topics related to biodiversity, botany, taxonomy, plant species, specimens, scientists (especially botanists and women scientists) and scientific papers.