2023 Strategic Plan
Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey (WMTR)
2023-2024 Strategic Plan
About WMTR
Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey (WMTR) is a user group of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), an U.S.-based non-profit organization that operates and manages the Wikimedia projects. WMTR consist of active members of Wikimedia contributors in Turkey, who are interested in organizing and participating in outreach activities on a national level in addition to contributing Wikimedia projects by editing. After getting officially recognized by WMF in 2016, WMTR registered an official legal entity in Turkey in July 2019 under Dijital Bilgi Derneği (Dijital Knowledge Association) name.
The main objective of WMTR is the encouraging people to collect, develop and disseminate scientific, educational, cultural and historical content under a free license, in Turkish and other languages.
In 2023, strategic priorities of WMTR is increasing the number and diversity of the contributions to Wikimedia projects; strenghtening the community, building partnerships with educational institutions and other external partners.
Mission
The mission of Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey is to support and engage people of Turkey to collect, develop and disseminate knowledge and other educational, cultural and historic content in all languages of Turkey, under a free license or in the public domain.
Vision
Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey shares the vision statement of the Wikimedia Foundation:"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
Programs
Wikimedia Community User Group Turkey advances its strategic priorities through its four primary program areas
- Students Editing Wikimedia Projects
- Grow the content program
- Stronger Community
- Collaboration with Global Movement
Students Editing Wikimedia Projects
In next two years, we will be extending Students Editing Wikimedia Projects Program to more universities in Turkey; increasing the diversity of the topics covered in the assignments and finding out new and sustainable methods to effectively implement the program.
We will cooperate with secondary schools and try to find out proper ways to make students experience editing Wikimedia projects before university in order to prepare themselves to become enlightened consumers and also producers of digital content before they enter university.
Grow The Content
We will work on increasing the diversity of the topics covered mainly in Turkish language Wikimedia projects, and increasing the diversity of the perspectives covered in the articles. We acknowledge that the proliferation of contributors ensures the projects cover more diverse subjects in higher quality by providing different viewpoint.
With this understanding, we will organize outreach activities to reach potential new contributors with different backgrounds to Wikimedia projects mainly Turkish Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, in partnership with civil society organizations working on different fields, local governments from different regions of the country.
We will be communicating those activities in the media and make Wikimedia projects seen more in the relevant media outlets in order to increase awareness and understanding of the general public about Wikimedia projects.
Stronger Community
The editor community of Wikimedia projects in Turkey consists of dedicated volunteers distributed across the country. We will work on keeping people informed and diversify the channels of interaction.
We believe contributors could inspire and encourage each other in their contributions as long they stay in touch in a friendly atmosphere. We will support building such athmosphere through regular online and offline meetings, local community wiki-parties, in-group trainings on topics that the community is interested in developing their capacities.
Collaboration with the Global Movement
Our local community would be stronger as the members acknowledge themselves as a part of the global Wikimedia community. The community historically is low in participation to the global discussions and decision-making of the Movement; attending to global Wikimedia events. The program aims at increasing awareness and motivation for taking part in global events and initiatives.