Four packed days and over 1000 people from all areas of the Wikiverse on site in Katowice: that was the impressive Wikimania 2024! And we participated as the Digitalwarenkombinat!

After applying in spring to present our GLAMorous Europe project at Wikimania in Katowice and actually receiving an invitation for a lightning talk in June, we finally went to Katowice in August. (By the way, you can find out how our project is progressing in this blog post.).

We were very excited about the conference, because apart from our project, the passive use of Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons and a few contacts with Wikimedia Deutschland, we had hardly had any contact with the wiki community. What we found was very impressive: 1000 participants on site, another 2000 online and a total of participants from 130 countries. In addition to lectures, presentations and discussions, which took place in parallel in 11 event rooms, there was also a hackathon during the conference.

For my part, I can say that I have never attended such a large and international conference before.

After being overwhelmed at first, we took the opportunity to attend some presentations and talks from very engaged people (e.g. from the Wiki loves Folklore project or Wikidata coordinators), as well as from cooperating partners such as the National Museum in Kraków.

Our presentation of GLAMorous Europe in the form of a 5-minute lightning talk was scheduled to take place on the third day of the conference, but was prepared in great detail and with empathy in the days before. After an initial brief meeting with the organizers of the lightning talk show cases on the first day of the conference, we were even able to test the stage again on the morning of the presentation and go through all the presentations. I have rarely seen conference presentations so well prepared. This also took the excitement and pressure off all the participants.

Credit: Adjoajo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Our five minutes of fame went very smoothly and relaxed. You can find the video of our appearance here on Youtube. 🔗

Our presentation got us talking directly to some Wikidata managers, which will hopefully result in a few more options for the further development and use of GLAMorous Europe.

Four days full of program and insights into various sister projects from the Wikiverse, some of which we had never heard of before, showed us once again what great projects are being initiated by committed people all over the world. And where we can still get involved ourselves.

Thanks to the new onboarding options for Wiki beginners, we took advantage of the enthusiasm we had experienced and got straight to work on editing Wikipedia articles and Wikidata titles.

When the conference takes place in Paris in 2026, we’ll definitely be there again.

Credit: Kasia Ostrowska (bazgra_nina), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons