GLAM/Newsletter/December 2019/Contents/Kosovo report

This Month in GLAM – Volume IX, Issue XII, December 2019

Kosovo report

Transitional Justice edit-a-thon held in Prishtina

During December Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group organized a thematic edit-a-thon on transitional justice intending to bring together editors to write articles on events related to the Kosovo War. As a result, students of different backgrounds participated in the edit-a-thon which took place in Prishtina and lasted 3 days.

On our first meeting with the participants, we held a training session during which we taught them the basics of editing in Wikipedia, answered their questions and encouraged them to choose a topic within the theme to start their research.

Our next gatherings were during the weekend of 14-15th of December; this time to get busy and start writing. To help the participants with the brainstorming process, we also invited for short lectures Shkëlzen Gashi and Furtuna Sheremeti. Shkëlzen has done comparative research on the portrayal of key historical events related to Kosovo in school textbooks across the region whereas Fortuna is doing her PhD on war reparations. The speakers sparked discussions about transitional justice, the sensitivity of the topic, challenges and issues to be cautious about when writing on the topic.

Outcomes of the edit-a-thon

Editors helped expand or wrote new articles about massacres that happened during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. It was quite interesting to engage in conversations about the importance of documenting such sensitive topics in the best way possible, to identify the problems faced in the process and of course to meet new editors who we hope will continue their journey as editors of Wikipedia.