WikiStipendiya

WikiStipendiya (Uzbek for WikiScholarship) was a WikiProject aimed at improving content on the Uzbek Wikipedia. The project was organized by the Youth Affairs Agency of Uzbekistan, the Council of Young Artists, and the Wikimedians of the Uzbek Language User Group. The name of the project is a portmanteau of the words "wiki" and "stipendiya" (scholarship). It focused on encouraging content creation on the Uzbek Wikipedia, particularly by students, but was not limited to any group. Another goal was to increase the number of editors on Uzbek-language wikis.

The first phase of the project, which ran from May to December 2022, was focused on encouraging individual participants to create quality content on projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, primarily Uzbek Wikipedia. The second phase, which ran from June to December 2023, was organized as series of shorter-term thematic edit-a-thons, with each month dedicated to a specific region of Uzbekistan. The second season also encouraged users to upload photographs of settlements and cultural heritage monuments in Uzbekistan to Wikimedia Commons. The third season, which lasted from May to December 2024, was organized as a seven month edit-a-thon among groups of at least five members.

The edit-a-thon generated significant interest in Uzbekistan, with major publications running stories about the project throughout its duration. In 2023, WikiStipendiya won Best Project of the Year Award of the independent Rost24 news agency. However, the project also led to the creation of a large number of poor-quality, machine-translated articles, as the organizers prioritized rapid article growth.