Azerbaijani Wikipedians Hold First Summer Camp

The Azerbaijani authors of articles (users) in the World Wide Web Encyclopedia Wikipedia discussed the urgent problems and exchanged experiences during the Wikipedia Azerbaijan Summer Camp. The camp was held on August 12-13 in the village of Ilisu, Gakh region. Participants in the meeting were 30 users, of whom 90% are newcomers who came to the camp to gain new knowledge and skills necessary to work in Wikipedia, attract new authors and expand the scope of publications in the World Encyclopedia.

Professionalism and vandalism in Wikipedia, the use of computer procurement (bolt), competition with the historical opponent, subjectivism and objectivism, access to other languages, citation, and use of Wikipedia in scientific work - all these were told by the authors of the Azerbaijani (Latin alphabet) pages in Wikipedia - administrators Elgun Ataliyev, Tarkhan Pashazadeh, Emin Allahverdi and others.

The World Encyclopedia was created by two Englishmen in 2001, and the first articles of Azerbaijani authors written in the Arabic alphabet appeared in 2004, created by Azerbaijanis from Iran. Later, a group of Azerbaijani authors in the Republic of Azerbaijan, working on the Latin alphabet, was established. Their first articles on Wikipedia were about Azerbaijan and Karabakh, the administrator E. Ataliyev said.

All authors proceed from the basic principles of voluntariness and disinterestedness in the creation of articles.

Currently, Wikipedia stores 47.7 million articles, including 5 million in English, and 123,000 in Azerbaijani. The authority of these publications is growing. In the British media corporation BBC they believe Wikipedia is close in accuracy of the facts with Encyclopedia Britannica.

The Azerbaijan page of Wikipedia still gives way to the Armenian one, because Armenian authors connected to the virtual encyclopedia before, creating, in particular, many sources for citing articles on the Karabakh issue, T. Pashazadeh said. Azerbaijani authors cannot prevent the appearance of false publications about Karabakh, but can change their content, as well as Armenians and their supporters can interfere in the creation of any article on Azerbaijan. The way out is to work a lot and find new sources in the archives, creating our wide database for citing in new articles, Pashazadeh said.

"But the Karabakh conflict cannot be resolved by information wars. The victory of Azerbaijanis in Wikipedia will come when the Azerbaijani army liberates our land," he added. He set the task for the young - to attract new segments from all professions to the Azerbaijani segment of Wikipedia, so that each of them would find and attract other active users.

Practice shows that interference, even government assistance, does not have a significant impact on the development of Wikipedia. Its strength is only in the disinterested active participation of social forces," the speaker noted.

During the discussions, a group of five female participants of the camp initiated the creation of a women's society of Azerbaijani Wikipedians. The offer of the girls was supported by administrators.

In 2014 the First National Forum of Azerbaijani Wikipedians was held in Baku.