Dear GLAMwikimedians, particularly those involved in the GLAMWiki Toolset, 

Europeana has decided not to further invest in a new version of the GLAM-WIKI toolset (GWT). This includes developing a “version 2” of the current system as was proposed in the grant application [1], or as a standalone system using O-Auth as proposed by Erik earlier in this thread. 

We have come to this conclusion after a lot of internal discussions, and talking with key stakeholders, notably by presenting several options at the European GLAMwiki Coordinators meeting. We have received an overwhelming consensus that investing our energy in other forms of co-operation was the best approach.[2] This is not a repudiation of the GWT in theory or in practice - the GWT is not going away and we are very supportive and proud of it.

As previously mentioned, it had become clear that the “version 2” grant request would never be approved on the basis that the WMF would not allocate code review nor would it support the project once build.[3] Redeveloping as an independent “stand alone” tool would solve the first problem, but conversely it would exacerbate the second problem. 

It is universally agreed that moving to an independent tool would make for a more flexible, powerful and faster-to-develop system. However, consistent feedback from stakeholder consultation was that there is no demonstrable external investment in supporting a third-party mediawiki development ecosystem. The primary encouragement we received rebuild using O-Auth and the API was not for the tool itself, but rather as a test case for those systems. Europeana has therefore decided that, in the current environment, this would not be the best use of our resources.

Instead, we intend to focus our GLAMwiki resources in community event/activity support, rather than into software development. In particular, we are very interesting in “pivoting” our attentions towards Wikidata and the potential that holds for supporting digital cultural heritage.[4]

That said - this does NOT mean that the GWT as it currently stands is going away. It is, and will remain the most stable and integrated way to provide mass-uploads to Wikimedia Commons, probably for many years to come. We are aware that many Wikimedia Chapters have written GWT into their annual plans, and we intend to continue supporting training and related events. Also, given that there will not be an “all new” version of the GWT, we are also investigating asking for funding to close the major bugs that we had already triaged.[5]

Finally, we also hope to make greater use of the GWT for ourselves. There is a large and increasing amount of content on Europeana that has an open license and has quality metadata and image quality for it to be uploaded to Wikimedia. We hope to start sharing this material directly with Commons soon. Making the uploads ourselves would have the advantage for our many partner GLAMs to be able jump straight into the fun part of working with their local wikimedia community on editathons etc., rather than their time wrangling metadata.

Liam/Wittylama

In my capacity as Europeana GLAMwiki Coordinator (and the guy who gut Europeana into this project 4 years ago…)

p.s. In response to Erik’s comparison of the GWT to the WikiEd Foundation redeveloping the Education Extension as an independent tool [6]. The significant difference is that the WikiEdu Foundation’s organisational purpose is to run activities and maintain software for Wikipedia outreach to the education sector. Therefore the long term ‘ownership’ of software built for this goal, and of which they will be the primary user, is well within their mission. Neither was ever intended to be the case case for Europeana and the GWT.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Europeana/GLAMwiki_Toolset 

[2] Minutes of that section of the discussion are here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_European_GLAMwiki_Coordinators_meeting#Next_steps_for_GWT

[3] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/glamtools/2015-February/000356.html 

[4] In particular the “sum of all paintings” project https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_sum_of_all_paintings 

[5] Which was ‘item 1’ in the grant application https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Europeana/GLAMwiki_Toolset#Identify_major_bugs_in_current_system_and_fix 

[6] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/glamtools/2015-March/000365.html