Volunteers speaking Turkic languages from 10 countries and autonomous regions around the world are gathering at Üsküdar Üniversitesi for the Wikidata Conference to be held on October 21-23, 2022. Wikidata, created through the collaboration of volunteers, is a very extensive database supporting over 300 Wikipedia language versions.
Volunteers speaking Turkic languages gather in Istanbul for the Wikidata Conference
The three-day Wikidata Conference, to be held at Üsküdar Üniversitesi Central Campus in Istanbul, aims to enhance the knowledge and skills of volunteers speaking Turkic languages regarding Wikidata, thereby supporting their efforts to make information about their cultures and languages accessible on the internet.
Participants from Turkic-speaking countries come together
Organized in collaboration with the Digital Knowledge Association and the Turkic Languages Wikimedia Community, the conference brings together participants from Azerbaijan, Bashkortostan, Georgia, Iranian Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Sakha, Tatarstan, and Turkey.
Each of the participants is a knowledge volunteer who contributes to Wikipedia and its sister projects (such as Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikisource) in their respective countries through writing, translating, and coding.
At the conference, which includes Üsküdar Üniversitesi Founding Rector Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan among its opening speakers, presentations and workshops will be held on topics such as how data is queried and shared in the Wikidata project; inspiring projects realized using Wikidata in various fields of work and countries; and the use of Wikidata in recording a language's lexical information. Additionally, presentations will showcase local activities carried out by participants in their own countries and introduce different collaborative knowledge formations in Turkey.
Opportunities for joint projects will emerge
Stating that an international Wikidata event is being organized in Turkey for the first time, the conference organizers expressed their hope that this event will create opportunities for the development of joint projects among Turkic-speaking communities, adding that the fruit of these efforts will be the provision of higher quality content about Turkic culture and Turkic languages on the internet in the future.