GLAM/Newsletter/August 2016/Contents/Mexico report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VI, Issue VIII, August 2016

Mexico report

Documenting Tolerance; Murals in Sonora

Edit-a-thon at Museum of Memory and Tolerance

Wikimedia Mexico has a new ally in the GLAM initiative: the Museum of Memory and Tolerance (MMyT), which holds a very distinct mission than other museums: to promote the importance of the values of tolerance, non-violence and human rights through the documenting of crimes against humanity. Its collection documents genocides and other crimes, hoping to alert against the dangers of indifference, discrimination and violence.

The Museum's facade
Inside the Museum

In this new alliance, we immediately looked for the most critical places where we could improve Wikipedia and its sister projects. The first thing noticed was that the articles for the main themes of the museum (namely Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing and International Criminal Law) were too technical for the layman and lacking structure. Thus, the first Editatón Memoria y Tolerancia was born.

Unlike other edit-a-thons, we focused on a small number of articles to be edited very carefully, guided by the museum staff who specializes in Human Rights, Criminal Law and Sociology. Our goal was to establish exhaustive articles on general themes so that the subsequent edition of particular cases gets easier with time. This time, in-site collaboration was more important than ever, as every table became a small class discussing not only particular cases, but also coordinating in real time to write in offline word processors to avoid editing conflicts.

Each table was assigned to one and only one article
We measured total added bytes to get our Top 7 contributors, mostly women

This unique model led us to measure our success in terms of net added bytes to the encyclopedia, as we knew that all editions and references had been at least factually reviewed by a specialist. After making a quick sum, we proudly announced Mirserz, Psanchez820, Verónica LS, Paulina Lordméndez, B.jars, Edo21c and Nataliarabell as winners, after several hours of intense research and contributions. Congratulations and thank you for helping Wikipedia! May we never forget the atrocities of the past, and build towards a more tolerant future.

Simulation of the Bus Number 2857 of Montgomery, Alabama, "Rosa Parks bus"
Yo tengo un sueño are the famous words of Martin Luther King, translated to Spanish: I have a dream...
¡No nos callarán! (We won't be silenced!), one of the temporary exhibitions at MMyT

In the media

Note at Mexico's Secretary of Culture site
Museo Memoria y Tolerancia tweets about the edit-a-thon

Murals in Sonora

On August 13, we hosted the first edit-a-thon in the northern state of Sonora! Wikipedia editors Namakasia and Sonderflux were inspired by the efforts and results from our 72-hour long edit-a-thon and decided it was time for Sonora to host their own, documenting local museums and murals.

Sonora is one of the largest states in Mexico, home to several indigenous peoples (most notably, the Yaqui and Seri peoples) and a unique biodiversity even within Mexico. It is also quite far away from the capital, Mexico City. The physical distance between the northernmost states and the capital has made difficult for enthusiasts to participate in other Wikimedia Mexico events. So, as the saying goes, if Sonoran editors can't come to an edit-a-thon, we will take the edit-a-thon to Sonora.

On this occasion we had the opportunity to give a workshop on Wikipedia the day before the actual edit-a-thon took place. There was one question of note: How can we upload images to Wikipedia?. This simple technical request led us to a very interesting conversation, since most notable murals in Sonora are still not in the Public Domain. We discussed about Copyright Laws and why Wikipedia must comply with them, about the process by which an artist can donate photos of his works to Wikipedia and what it entails in terms of the permissions given by the Creative Commons licenses used in Wikimedia projects.

Ms. Fragoso, part of the organizing team that invited Wikimedia Mexico
We had an amazing team of enthusiasts, eager to document Sonoran art
The final group photo

The first official Wikimedia event in Sonora was a rousing success! The 22 new editors contributed information on 29 artists and museums in Sonora, their history and collections. At the end, we gathered to learn more about Wikimedia projects and briefly discussed how big events like multi-day edit-a-thons are, ultimately, done with the efforts of many volunteers. We hope to return soon to such an enthusiastic community!