For this message in Dutch, click here.

Dear everybody,

We would like to invite you all to participate in an Edit-a-thon focusing on World War I. The Edit-a-thon is jointly organized by Wikimedia Sweden (WMSE) and Europeana Foundation (www.europeana.eu) as part of the Europeana Awareness project that will run until December 2013. The Edit-a-thon will take place in the 'Jaartallen' room, in the Salons Georges venue in Leuven, Belgium from 13.45 on the 13th of June, the entire day on the 14th and until 14 o'clock on the 15th of June. Its much encouraged to join us for the whole stretch, but you can participate during only one of the days if you so prefer! On the 15th, after the Edit-a-thon has ended, the best contributors will be awarded great prizes. If you would win but for some reason cannot participate at the award ceremony on the 15th we will mail you the prize. The purpose of this Edit-a-thon is twofold: of course we strive for a greater amount of high quality articles about WWI on Wikipedia, but even better if these are well illustrated! Therefore Europeana will donate a large quantity of images, some from people who participated in the project Europeana 1914-1918. While the exact rules and criteria are still being drafted, prizes will be awarded to the editors who create the best material regarding WWI; who make the best use of cultural content (digitized material from Europeana); and for the one who is the most productive editor overall. Food, coffee and tea will be provided each day for free (including dinner at the Europeana Plenary!).

To provide participants with some inspiration before writing, a free guided tour will be given of the WWI related places around Leuven. To help create as good material as possible there will also be a number of World War I experts present during parts of the Edit-a-thon, along with a number of experienced Wikipedia editors. Hopefully we will be able to use literature from the Leuven University Library but if you have any suitable literature at home, please bring it with you! If you attend the event you will be reimbursed for your basic travel expenses and accommodation by the Europeana Foundation. Read all about the reimbursement rules here.

There will be power outlets (Europlug) and Internet in the room, but PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN LAPTOP AND CABLES so that you can take active part in editing.

For more information about the Edit-a-thon and to sign up for the event, please have a look here for the event page (English). Be sure to sign up as soon as possible so that we know how many people will attend the event!

We hope that many of you are interested in participating in the Edit-a-thon and look forward to any questions or comments that you might have!

Thank you,

John Andersson, a.k.a. John Andersson (WMSE), Lennart Guldbrandsson, a.k.a. Hannibal (WMSE), Anne Marie van Gerwen (Europeana) and Thijs van Exel (Europeana)