FYI - an update from our friends in Catalonia (not an official
Wikimedia chapter). This is the first I've read about the Mozilla
Drumbeat Festival in Barcelona in November (
http://www.drumbeat.org/drumbeat_festival_2010 ), which some of you
may be interested in attending.
All best,
Erik
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: J. G. Góngora <ganastonia(a)hotmail.com>
Date: 2010/8/8
Subject: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] [Non-officially recognised]
Wikimedia CAT July 2010 report
To: chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to submit the following Chapter report for the potential
Wikimedia CAT chapter:
Yours,
J. Gustavo Góngora Goloubintseff
(User:Góngora)
----
Courses and lectures
This month, where courses are over, there have not been any courses
but we are managing to prepare more activities for next month.
* Meeting with the Department of Education of the Catalan Government
and the UOC for the project Viquilletra, which begins in September.
(User:Barcelona)
* Meeting with the UOC (Catalonia Open University) in order to make
them use Wikipedia on postgraduate studies. (User:Barcelona)
* Meeting with the Department of Pedagogical Innovation of the
Balearic Government. They confirm an economic support of 4.000€ for
the 2010-2011 edition of Viquibalear and the spread of it through the
department at the schools. (User:Paucabot)
Content release
* The collaboration at the free knowledge and free content coordinator
begins to be fruitful. Miquel Adroer has uploaded at Wikibooks the
Ubuntu Guide. (User:Miquel Adroer).
* The Department of Linguistic Standardization of the Balearic
Government has set under consideration the possibility of releasing
contents. Especially, the ones from web hudà. Further information:
(User:Paucabot)
Media
* 20 July: meeting at the "Racó Català" in order to see how we can
improve the outreach of the news on Wikipedia.
* A letter has been sent to the media just to let them be aware of the
British Museum awards. Some journalists have already published
something about it: La tafanera, Racó Català. (User:Gomà)
* At Wikimania, we participated at several interviews with the media.
For instance, the Mediapro staff interviewed some members from the
Catalan Delegation for a TV program they are preparing and that it
will be available on many European TV channels.
Institutional relations
* 15 July. Meeting at the Picasso Museum of Barcelona with several
regional museums: Macba, CCCB, Archaeological, Sciences, MNAC. We are
grateful to Liam Wyat for his incredible task in explaining his
experience with the British Museum. He even translated most of the
slides into Catalan (without our help). Further information:
(User:kippelboy).
* 27 July. Meeting with the Centre d'Estudis Comarcals del Baix
Llobregat. We are considering the idea of running the project that we
have worked at for so long with the support of Fundació Punt CAT (Dot
CAT Foundation). The idea is to carry out a pioneering project which
later can be applied to other study centres of the Catalan Countries.
Further information: (User:KRLS)
* 28 July: Meeting at the Department of Linguistic Standardization of
the Balearic Government. They are going to buy our book on Wikipedia
and deliver different copies of it at each library and at each school
of the Balearic Isles. Further information: (User:Paucabot).
Miscellaneous
* We encouraged more participation at Wikimania 2010. The Catalan
group made an effort. At Wikimania, there has been the possibility of
participating at the European Project and we have also met different
entities interested in getting involved with the Comenius Project,
among which we find a Polish school. More information soon.
*Within the free knowledge and free content coordinator, we have set a
joint agenda. We hope it will help to increase the synergies and the
crossed collaborations between entities to promote free knowledge.
(User:Gomà)
* We are working on the organization of the Mozilla Drumbeat Festival
in November, where we are going to participate with workshops about
contents edition on Wikipedia and initiatives of education by using
Wikipedia. This year's motto is "Learning, freedom and the web".
(User:Esenabre, (User:Toniher), (User:Barcelona).
_______________________________________________
Chapters-reports mailing list
Chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/chapters-reports
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
And another monthly report from Wikimedia Germany. We also blogged
about the Skillshare conference mentioned below here
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2010/skillshare-the-slightly-different-open-conte…>.
Erik
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pavel Richter <pavel.richter(a)wikimedia.de>
Date: 2010/7/21
Subject: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] Chapter Report WMDE June 2010
To: chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Dear Chapters,
please find below the chapter report of Wikimedia Germany for June 2010.
Dear friends of free knowledge,
=== School project ===
At the end of June the deadline for application for consultants for the
Wikipedia-school project closed. Among many interesting and dedicated
applications we also received offers for support from teachers, scientists
and mediaculturecentres. To prepare selected candidates for their tasks we
have invited them from the 23th-25th of July to Essen (at the Linuxhotel).
During this summer-camp [1] we are going to develop standardized schooling
and the necessary material for the coming workshops. In order to be able to
start the first workshops with the new consultants directly after the summer
holidays, we started and intensified contact with the media centers and
media consultants.
Additionally we prepared a workshop at the Berlin Lessing-Grammar School.
There we will communication about the correct and critical handling of text
with 30 pupils on the 5th of July using Wikipedia as an example. The
workshop will be accompanied by a camera team of the RBB.
=== Zedler-Medal 2010 ===
In July the first meetings and talks with partners and potential supporters
occurred. In cooperation with publishing company Spektrum der Wissenschaft
("Spectrum of Science") and the Academy of Science and the Literature Mainz,
Wikimedia Germany is going to increase the dedication to the Zedler-Medal
[2] this year. Concept, targets and target-group were partly modified and
the competition expanded by a few aspects: Due to the Year of Science 2010
Wikimedia will offer a special prize for the topic "Future of Energy" [3]
additional to the awards for natural-science and humanities. In addition to
articles another special prize will be offered for outstanding photos or
graphics, which illustrate an insufficient article in the German Wikipedia.
The competition is about to begin on the 15th of July and will end on the
30th of September. The Award-ceremony will occur in November in Frankfurt in
context of the Wikipedia Academy.
This year we want to increase including members and community in planning
and organization and have asked for concrete help [4] in a few points. We
are especially happy to present David Ludwig, a member of many years and
winner of the Medal 2009, as a member of the jury.
At the moment we are looking for cooperation with partners, which will help
us with the event, for example sponsoring the award-money, donation of
material prizes or helping us with covering the costs of the event.
=== Wikipedia Academy 2010 ===
Also the preparations for the Wikipedia academy, which will occur in
November 2010, is taking more and more shape. The key context of this year's
event is the Year of Science 2010 "Future of Energy". Central purpose of
this conference will be an exchange of concepts about knowledge-use and
communication as well as a discussion about the question of broad effect
versus scientific accuracy in online-projects such as Wikipedia. Among
others the main aim of the academy is the increase of public awareness for
the societal relevant topic-complex "Future of Energy" as well as the
retrieval of further qualified Wikipedia authors, lecturers and editors for
the topic of energy.
For the sake of further development the dialogue between Science and
Wikipedia, we will include experiences from projects such as "Renewable
resources in Wikipedia" and intensify contact to external experts. In
context of the Academy the starting signal for the network "Trust lecturers
for free knowledge" in German grammar schools.
We chose Frankfurt as venue for this event, the search for adequate
conference rooms and cooperation-partners will be continued in July.
=== Skillshare ===
During the first weekend in June the Community-event "Skillshare" [5]
occurred in Lüneburg, which was also supported by Wikimedia Germany, during
which multiple members offered workshops. The atmosphere was as good as the
organizations, the workshops were excellently prepared and the feedback from
the community was very good.
=== Board of directors-meeting ===
Mid-June the Board of directors-meeting occurred in Lage, about which were
reported in detail here [6]. The agency prepared this meeting, i.e. we
organized the accommodation and catering, ensured that the equipment works
and much, much more. Yet again the CEO accepted the invitation by the board
of directors and took part.
=== Lobbying ===
It is more and more noticeable: the new Enquete-commission "Internet and
digital society" [7] led to an clear increase in interest of the political
parties in regards to net politic topics. Also Wikimedia Germany is sought
of as contact person, as a result I was invited in June to a talk with
members of the Bundestag (Lars Klingbeil [8] (SPD), Sylvia Canel [9] (FDP)
and me were invited to a "net politics dialogue" with the Green party.
During such meetings I mention the school-project as well as questions about
copyrights. In order to be better able to show our position in future,
Mathias is currently working, in context of the Compass 2020, on a series of
position-papers about for us important political questions, which then can
be communicated to the responsible decision makers.
=== Third Basket ===
End of June the Federal Ministry of Justice started the hearing of the Third
Basked about copyrights, among other things it is concerned with the
ancillary copyright for publishers. The coming hearings will be concerned
about Open Access and Orphan Works. Wikimedia Germany is invited to these
hearings and will take part. This is the beginning of a very long process.
=== Open Government Data ===
On the 17th of June occurred in the Ministry of Economics of Niedersachsen a
conference of task group about "Open Government Data", in which Mathias took
part. The Ministry is at the beginning of a process if, how and which data
of the Ministry can be published and which benefits it would bring for the
land.
=== Free Catalogue-data ===
The library of the RWTH Aachen is now also a member of the growing circle of
libraries which offer free access to their catalogue (License CCO) [10].
=== Wikisource ===
As mentioned in last month's report, we are very happy, that the
digitization of the book "Funny natural history or zoologia Comica, which is
an accurate description of all in this book occurring animals of the world
with 86 accurate illustrations" [11] by Franz Bonn from 1877 has now
arrived: Natural science; with pretty but not too serious illustrations.
With this, five books of this authors are now available by Wikisource in
fully corrected versions: "The funny natural history" from 18772 of which
the image/text site about "Vampyr" [12] should be mentioned and the sequel
second book "Funny Botany and Geology" [13] in second edition of 1880.
Additionally writings "To modern education" [14] of 1836, "Laypeople-
scientific Lecture by Dr. Sulphurius about School and education" [16] from
1880 and "laypeople-scientific lecture about Chemistry by Dr. Sulphurius" of
1882 [16].
It took long until the delivery of the in two volumes coming book
"Fantasypiece in Callot's manner" [17], which E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote between
1814-15: Ordered in January, the CD finally arrived in June. By now the PDFs
of this 2nd edition of the work from 1819 to regeneration and editing has
started. Who wants to help and has time to, is invited to help editing.
The best for the end! Until a few days ago there was a gap in by Wikisource
published editions of "Children and Home fairy tales" of the Brothers Grimm;
in each case the first and second volume of the 1. (1812/15), 2. (1819) and
the 4. to 6. edition (1840,-43, -50 and -57) and the first volume of the 3.
edition of 1837 were available (List of all volumes: [18]) but the 2. volume
of the 3. edition were still missing. Paulis found this volume by chance in
the catalogue of the national library of Berlin and the Wikisource employees
did not hesitate long with the Digitalsat-request: This PDF will no slowly
suspended and is also waiting for keen helpers for the editing [19].
=== Themes in the Media ===
The press release [20] about the new user interface evoked little interest
by the press and almost solely caused news coverage by Online-media.
Another source for interest from the media was the deletion of pornographic
images from the Commons and the announcement of Wikimedia Foundation, or
rather the Board of Trustees to employ an external consultant, to develop a
suggestion about the handling of potential offensive materials. Questions of
the German press were mainly concerned with background information.
=== Press contacts ===
Catrin established in June contact to the Polish Embassy in Berlin, in order
to reach, in context of the Wikimania 2010 in Gdansk, the local German press
as well as Polish journalists. The embassy is willing to send out
invitations and press releases via their press-distributors and to provide
contacts to the media. Unfortunately the organisation of the Wikimania is
going slowly.
Contacts to the media such as "Brandeins" [21] and the "Neon-Magazin" [22]
led in June to intensive preparations and research for in-depth
Wikipedia-Portraits. Catrin is currently creating a distributor for
Wikipedia-authors, to have faster access to potential interview partners in
the future. Precondition is especially, the willingness to speak with
journalists, the publishing of photographs of the authors and naming of the
full name.
In context of the school-project Catrin started contact to the rbb [23] (a
public TV-channel) and is currently preparing a coverage for the evening
show. Denis Bartel will give a workshop in July at a Grammar-school in
Berlin, which will be accompanied by a camera team of the rbb. More
information and air-time will follow.
=== Wikimedium ===
In June preparations for the 3rd editions started, which will be published
in August. Currently Catrin is collecting ideas for editorial topics. Due to
a cooperation with the host of the Science Berlin 2010 [24] the contents
will be expanded and for the next edition are, for the first, external
articles planned. Additionally Catrin is in negotiations with the print
office, to increase the length of the wikimedium by 2-4 sites and to double
circulation from 5.000 to 10.000. Since the print office is offering the
newspaper for free, we hope to extent this engagement.
=== Knowledge in Clip format ===
The realization and cooperation with the Berlin Fenster GmbH (a journey TV
in trains) had to be delayed, because license- and tax related issues about
the use of Wikipedia contents, the compliance of licensing and the
integration of Donation-appeals took more time than anticipated. From the
beginning of July the Knowledge-clips should be shown in Berlin's
underground-trains. With careful preparation and development of written
contracts with potential (media-) partners Catrin will (hopefully) be able
to achieve future cooperation faster.
Further talks with media partners are followed up annually and are searched
among other things project related. For example is Catrin currently
searching for another media partner in addition to the Spectrum Publisher of
Science. For this there will be talks in July with the Hessisch Radio and
The Frankfurter Rundschau.
=== Festschrift ===
Due to encouragement by Marcus Cyron [25] (Wikipedia-author and member) an
anniversary writing was created. Ideas, concepts and writing was supplied by
Marcus Cyron and Catrin printed in cooperation with PediaPress 25 copies. In
July we will report who received them- we don't want to spoil the surprise
:) In context of Compass 2010 are the following arrangements in the area PR
still to be taken care of:
The information leaflets for Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and Wikiversity
are in the final stages: Texts are almost finished and the layouts are
integrated or rather adjusted, shortened and supplied with graphs and
images. Individual Community-members helped Catrin with the development of
texts and layouts. In the third quartile the production of the information
leaflets is meant to be finished for all 10 Wikimedia-projects.
Due to the 10. anniversary of Wikipedia next Year the Club plans to publish
a Wikipedia book. In context of the book project first preparations,
research and talks with wikipedians have started. The first contents were
collected, contact to potential publishers was picked up and further working
steps were defined. Further details can be found in the next report.
=== Members ===
In the course of June we recruited 20 new members, of which applied for
active- and 17 for sponsoring membership. Unfortunately we also received a
note of termination.
On the 2. of June all member were contacted by mail who pay their fees via
bill or transfer: if you did not receive a mail from us, look maybe in your
spam file or give us your new email address (office(a)wikimedia.de).
Also contacted (25th of June) were all members who pay via direct debit: we
will collect all member fees on the 5th of July for the year 2010. Also this
time the appeal: If your bank connection has change since last year please
let us now via email (also office(a)wikimedia.de).
=== Community Budget ===
We enabled Martin Zeise to travel to Belgrade: There he took part in the 4th
regional Wikimedia conference Western Balkan, which was held on the 5th and
6th of June by Wikimedia Serbia. He was one of 25 Wikipedians which took
part, who mostly arrived from Serbia. About the contents and topics of the
conference are a few citations from Martins report (obviously with his
consent):
There was a quickly developed German-Polish-Hungarian presentation about
sighted versions, which are not yet integrated in the Serbian Wikipedia. The
lecturers however, were not able to convince the locals about the usefulness
of this activity, rather it was perceived as a "scheme aimed to create
work".
Further key points were lectures and discussions about the critical handling
of sources using the "Prophecy of Kremna" [26] as an example, the meaning of
the work of stewards for the smaller Wikipedias, censorship within Wikipedia
(on the basis of image deletion from Jimbo Wales) as well as the future of
Wikipedia in general. Here the German Wikipedia was used as an example for a
"saturated Wikipedia" with a constant number of active, alternatively very
active users, or rather new articles, but with reducing number of new users.
The presentation and discussion about guidelines about allocation of money
from the Community-Budget was topic of a workshop, which Henriette held on
the 4th of June at the "Skillshare" conference: 18, mainly Wikipedians, were
not only interested in the topic, but also had lively discussions, good
suggestions & ideas and criticized when they thought it to be necessary. We
want to thank every participants for their valuable input, which will be
integrated in the new versions of the guidelines.
=== Literature scholarship ===
Last month we were able to celebrate a nice anniversary with the thousands
article, meanwhile the "daily trade" continued processing new applications
but in parallel also works on the announce relaunch are done. To not get
ahead of ourselves, there won't be further details on this now, but more
information will be given during the next month.
=== From the engine room ===
Since the beginning of June an external IT-provider is handling the
IT-infrastructure in our office. To begin with this is handling simple
things such as a standardized Backup-solution or a better telephone-system,
etc.
The area development we had some advances: the extension to display
TIFF-images is now in the review stage by members of foundation, it seems
that the extension might soon be available to Wikimedia Wikis. Further
Daniel Kinzler implemented a first prototype of the extension to integrate
bibliographic data ("DataTransclusion"). Different solutions to service the
data are still discussed.
The integration of external data can be tested in our new prototype-Wiki:
here [27] a short text, this site [28] offers an insight about how this is
meant to be used when it is finished. The TIFF-extension is also active in
this Wiki, as demonstration this example [29] is used.
At the end of the months we were hosts of the third Wiki4Enterprise-meeting.
These MediaWiki-user meetings are concerned with the exchange of experience
and Know-How between companies and institutions, which use Wikis.
=== Fundraising ===
June was shaped by numerous small but important activities and meetings.
On the 11th of June there has been a meeting between representatives of
Wikimedia Germany and the German central institution of the Blind in
Leipzig. During this meeting the possible cooperation to improve the access
of blind and visually impaired to Wikipedia was discussed. Among others the
topic was the creation of the article of the day as podcast as well as the
related technical issues. Further there have been talks about the campaign
"Wikipedia to listen", which is meant to be the beginning of a long-term
collaboration as a fundraising campaign. However, this campaign is not to
start until next year.
Further multiple meeting with fundraising agencies and providers of donated
software was held. The decision about cooperation as well as selection of
donated software will take place in July.
Finally three fund-raising activities are to be mentioned. Firstly, soon an
information campaign for German donors of the Wikimedia Foundation will
start. Aim of this is inform about activities of Wikimedia Germany and in a
second step the gaining and binding of these donors. For this Till Mletzko
is in contact with Rand Montoya, the responsible fundraiser for Wikimedia
Foundation. Secondly the selected donors for Wikimedium were contacted. With
this activity "Faces behind Wikipedia" we want to enable donors to tell
their story. This possibility will be expanded in the future. Last but not
least the we have to mention the successfully running funding
membership-campaign. Through this 16 new funding members could be gained
until the end of June.
The next report will be published on the 2nd of August 2010.
Links:
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia-Schulprojekt/Sommercamp
[2]
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2010/06/14/erste-informationen-zur-verleihung-der-z
edler-medaille-2010/
[3] http://www.zukunft-der-energie.de/
[4]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Zedler-Medaille_2010#Einbindung_von_Community
_und_Vereinsmitgliedern
[5] http://www.skillshare.eu/
[6]
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2010/06/21/die-posaunen-von-lage-oder-die-klausur-i
m-teutoburger-wald/
[7] http://www.bundestag.de/internetenquete/
[8] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Klingbeil
[9] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Canel
[10] http://www.bth.rwth-aachen.de/offbibdat.html
[11]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Lustige_Naturgeschichte_oder_Zoologia_comica
[12]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Lustige_Naturgeschichte_oder_Zoologia_co
mica.djvu/20
[13] http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Lustige_Botanik_und_Mineralogie
[14] http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Zur_modernen_P%C3%A4dagogik
[15]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Popul%C3%A4r-wissenschaftlicher_Vortrag_des_Dr
._Sulphurius_%C3%BCber_Schule_und_Erziehung
[16]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Popul%C3%A4r-wissenschaftlicher_Vortrag_%C3%BC
ber_Chemie_von_Dr._Sulphurius
[17]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Fantasiest%C3%BCcke_in_Callot%E2%80%99s_Manier
[18] http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Kinder-_und_Hausm%C3%A4rchen
[19]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Kinder-_und_Hausm%C3%A4rchen_Band_2_(1837)
[20]
http://wikimedia.de/fileadmin/wiki/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/PM-Vector.pdf
[21] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_eins
[22] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_%28Zeitschrift%29
[23] http://www.rbb-online.de/abendschau/index.html
[24] http://www.wissenschaftberlin2010.de/
[25] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Marcus_Cyron
[26] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_from_Kremna
[27]
http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/Wikipedia:DataTransclusion
[28] http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/Ameisenigel#Literatur
[29] http://prototype.wikimedia.org/wmde-sandbox-1/Datei:Multipage.tiff
Kind regards, / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Pavel Richter
Executive Director
-------------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Eisenacher Straße 2
10777 Berlin
Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
**** Unterstützen Sie Freies Wissen mit einer SMS. Senden Sie einfach WIKI
an 81190. Mit 5 Euro sichern Sie so die Verfügbarkeit und Weiterentwicklung
der Wikipedia. ****
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
_______________________________________________
Chapters-reports mailing list
Chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/chapters-reports
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Here's 6 months worth of reporting from Wikimedia Italy about their
recent activities. One particular piece of news below that I found
very interesting is the announcement of a library space-sharing
agreement -- hopefully we'll see more dedicated physical spaces for
free culture soon :-)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
Date: 2010/7/19
Subject: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] WM-IT chapter report January-June 2010
To: chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Excuse me if I use HTML, I hope it won't bother you too much but there
are lots of links. You can find the issue online, as always:
http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Wikimedia_news/numero_29/en
_________________________________________
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wikimedia_news1.png>
*W i K i M e D i A N e W s* no. 29 - July 19, 2010
Official bulletin from Wikimedia Italia Association.
TOC
* 1 Editorial <#Editorial>
* 2 What happened during last months <#What_happened_during_last_months>
* 3 Special on Digital Freedoms Festival
<#Special_on_Digital_Freedoms_Festival>
o 3.1 Events <#Events>
* 4 What will happen next months <#What_will_happen_next_months>
* 5 News from our groups <#News_from_our_groups>
o 5.1 Wikimedia Roma <#Wikimedia_Roma>
+ 5.1.1 New premises for Wikimedia Italia!
<#New_premises_for_Wikimedia_Italia.21>
o 5.2 GLAM <#GLAM>
* 6 News from our projects <#News_from_our_projects>
o 6.1 News from Biblioteca <#News_from_Biblioteca>
o 6.2 News from Wiki@Home <#News_from_Wiki.40Home>
+ 6.2.1 We need volunteers <#We_need_volunteers>
* 7 News from WMF projects <#News_from_WMF_projects>
* 8 News from the Board <#News_from_the_Board>
* 9 Monthly strip <#Monthly_strip>
* 10 Featured Wikimedian/Picture of the month
<#Featured_Wikimedian.2FPicture_of_the_month>
Editorial
After a heated internal debate about the reasons and motives that we
have and led to the creation of Wikimedia Italia, we decided - better:
on Frieda's suggestion I decided - to ask directly to our members, and
generally to those who would care to respond, what role WMI should have
in their opinion.
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Conosci_wmi.png>
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Conosci_wmi.png>
Do you know WMI?
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wikimediaitalia_e.png>
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wikimediaitalia_e.png>
What is Wikimedia Italia?
From the questionnaire it seems evident that Wikimedia Italy has a
problem of identity. Most respondents, while claiming to know us, have
in fact a wrong idea of the role of WMI: many of them confuse us with
WMF or the alleged "maintainers of Wikipedia". Few really know who we
are and cite our aim correctly, /to spread free culture/- even if they
often think we simply promote wiki projects, and even among these people
our role is not always clear and understood.
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Sei_iscritto_ad_un_progetto.png>
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Sei_iscritto_ad_un_progetto.png>
Do you participate to a wiki project?
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wmf_e.png>
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wmf_e.png>
WMF is?
On the one hand we act as WMF, collecting donations through the
sitenotice - by the way someone thinks it is an abuse of power, on the
other hand we are not doing the things that the foundation should do but
did not always, first of all protection from all legal issues related to
Wikipedia, and their clarification.
Proposed changes to our action could be divided into two categories:
* changes not acceptable, because we don't want or cannot put them
into practice. We should make an effort to explain why we cannot
nor want to have direct responsibility in Wikipedia, and why we
want to emphasize that we are something different and distinct
from Wikipedia.
* changes potentially acceptable, or proposals we already take care
of and that maybe nobody knows.
I will present a more detailed version of the result of the survey in
September: for the time being, here there is a brief annotated list of
some of the proposals that I believe fall under the second category.
1. Keep media relations. We are already moving in this area, but we
could obviously do more to improve our image.
2. Lobbying. Having more visibility, see above, would allow us to
exert some political pressure.
3. Relations with the "civil society". Establish relationships with
cultural institutions, authors, publishers and so on. We are
already doing it, or at least we try, but it does not seem this is
well known.
4. Distributed presence. Our new base in Rome seems a step in this
direction.
5. Use resources to free content (digitizing). We are talking about
this at this very time: as soon as we'll have something concrete
we will publicize it.
6. Create a DVD of Wikipedia. Apart from the traditional problem of
finding a publisher, now we have a further problem: the use of the
logo, and the associated economic agreements, must be agreed
directly with Wikimedia Foundation.
DracoRoboter <http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Utente:DracoRoboter>
What happened during last months
Note: all links are in Italian
* January
o Aubrey and Laurentius teached Tuscany librarians about
Wikipedia and Progetto Comuni. See #GLAM.
o Massimiliano Navacchia took part in Accessibility e CMS Camp
2010 in Bologna.
* February
o VirtualSkiz made a report during the event Sentieri Digitali
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Sentieri_Digitali>.
o Laurentius took part in Caffè-Scienza /From Free Software to
Wikipedia: collaborating in a network
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Dal_software_libero_a_Wikipedia:_collabor…>/.
o Roman members organized a WikiTrip
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Raduni/Roma_WikiGita_febbraio_20…>
to Anzio and Landing Museum.
* March
o LaPizia, supported by Marcok, Cotton and Jaakko, teached two
lessons to present Wikipedia at the Faculty of Economics,
University Ca 'Foscari, at the kind invitation of Professor
Micelli: report of the day
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Associazione:Venezia_2010>.
MarcoK <http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Utente:Marcok>
reports:
+ On Tuesday, March 2, 2010, we were invited - through
"LaPizia
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Utente:LaPizia>"
a.k.a. Annalety - to cooperate with the Faculty of
Economics Ca' Foscari in Venice for two lectures held
by professor Stefano Micelli (Dept. of Economics and
Management) and Alessandro De Rossi (researcher).
Alessandro follows us since long ago, and he made one
of the first studies on the most active Wikipedians
(some of us have even met him in person at our
events). In addition to the LaPizia there were Marcok,
Cotton and Jaakko. After a general introduction about
the tools of Web 2.0 by Alessandro, Anna overviewed
Wikipedia, then gave way to many students' questions
to which everyone of us responded in turn. 60 students
participated overall (40 in the first class and 20 in
the second), I think all from the M.Sc. courses in
Economics. Apart from the interest in the subject (by
teacher and students) we however noticed that while
everyone knew and used Wikipedia, only one in 60
college students had changed (once and as an
anonymous) a Wikipedia article, while at least 30% of
them did not even know that the contents could be
altered, also without being registered. This
unexpected result can be attributed at least in part -
according to Professor Micelli - to our "assuming"
Wikipedia rules for granted by everyone. Only a small
proportion of students reported that they found errors
on Wikipedia, mostly spelling-related (and we know
that large or small errors there are in all entries of
Wikipedia and all other encyclopedias). A student made
the interesting observation, interesting that the main
page does not give much importance to the fact that
the contents of the Encyclopedia are changeable, so
that he did not realize it. Overall the day was
interesting and useful.
o Frieda teached in Bocconi University in the course Strategy
and governance of cultural organizzations, about Wikipedia
business model. Here
<http://www.slideshare.net/ubifrieda/the-wikipedia-model-3376984>
the slides (in English).
o Laurentius and IgnLig took part to a meeting organized by
Firenze Linux User Group Here
<http://www.slideshare.net/ignazio71/wikipmediaefirenze-090714053012-phpapp0…>
the slides.
o General assembly of Wikimedia Italia in Pistoia (public page
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Raduni/Pistoia_2010_Assemblea_WMI>):
2009 financial report
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Bilancio_consuntivo_2009>
and 2010 budget
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Bilancio_preventivo_2010>
were approved.
o March 26th, Torino: international meeting Extracting Value
From Public Sector Information: Legal Framework and
Regional Policies at Aula Magna and Aula Allara of the
Rectorate of the University, in the framework of EVPSI
project
<http://www.epsiplatform.eu/news/news/evpsi_public_launch>.
.mau. took part to the afternoon session (Focus on Italy)
with a speech "Obstacles to Accessing and Re-using (Italian)
Cultural PSI on Wikipedia", listing the problems Wikipedia
faces in trying to reuse public data, in coping with Italian
copyright laws and in pushing for free licenses. English
abstract
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:EVSPI-abstract-eng.odt>
and slide
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:EVPSI-slide-eng.odp>
here.
o Marcok took part in meeting Didattica aperta - Libero
accesso a software e saperi nella Scuola e nell'Università
(Open education - free access to software and knowledge at
school and university) with a poster.
* May
o May 7th: CristianCantoro took part in Internet Ergo Sum,
here in depth <http://blog.popolis.it/7maggio2010/>, talking
about Wikipedia in a high school in Leno (Brescia): themes
are Wikipedia and freedom in the Net, which most students
found interesting. With him Guido Nardo, former Facebook's
developer and social network specialist, presenting social
networks e talking about the problem with the use of
Facebook and privacy on the Internet. In the afternoon the
workshop on Wikipedia had a good success among students,
even if it was optional; it was structured as a tutorial for
the prospective editors.
o Wikimedia Italia organized Festival delle Libertà Digitali
(see next section)
o Schio (VI): Cotton presented Wikipedia, WMI and the
Wikimedia projects in a meeting organized by /I Mercoledì
della Piazza Telematica/, a department of Informagiovani at
the communality of Schio. The meeting, attended by an
audience of elderly, confirmed that in that demographics
there is a lot of room to increase knowledge and
participation to Wikimedia projects.
* June
o musicamp (Laurentius) (report
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/MusiCamp>)
o CristianCantoro took part to the first IULM BarCamp;
unfortunately its speech could not be delivered. He was
however conctacted for an interview broadcasted on Radio24
and made by the students of the Master in Radio
Communication at IULM.
o Cotton and La Pizia took part with a small Wikimedia booth
to /No Skei Day/ at San Vito di Leguzzano (VI), a yearly
meeting based on free exchanges of goods and knowledge. Even
if the town is very small, we had some success in giving out
information and distributing brochures and Wikimedia cards.
Special on Digital Freedoms Festival
From 10 to 16 May 2010, the association organized the second Digital
Freedoms Festival <http://libertadigitali.org> (FDLD, for "Festival
delle libertà digitali") in Milan entitled "Milan frees all". Events
were numerous and ranged from comics to photo via OpenAccess and free
games.
The festival was born as a container for different events with a common
goal: bringing people and an entire city to the issues of digital
freedom, free licenses and sharing of knowledge.
Certainly the festival was an opportunity for growth for the
association, which was able to test his strength on a difficult location
like Milan: results, despite a relatively low public participation in
general, have been useful to increase our contacts with other
associations with whom we share goals and philosophy.
The most successful events will be replicated in the future.
Events
May 10
* Sharing, science, common good
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/condivisione-scienza-bene-comune>:
a meeting where experts from Open Access, academy and teachers
debated.
* SGRUNT! Paper and bits for open culture
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/sgrunt-carta-e-bit-al-servizio-dellopen-c…>:
a panel discussion on comics, authors and the comparison between
"paper" and "network" media.
May 11
Open&Crowd, supplementary gears
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/open-crowd-le-marce-in-piu>
May 12
fotoMIgira <http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/fotomigira>: look at Milan
from behind a lens, communicating with other passionate photographers,
to discover that encyclopedias have a photographic soul.
May 13
Open Web - Una serata al collegio di Milano
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/open-web-una-sera-al-collegio-di-milano>:
Wikipedia, la libertà e la rete: quanto è libera la rete? Siamo
diventati più responsabili nel nostro approccio alla rete dalla nascita
del web 2.0 ad oggi? Wikimedia Italia e Google incontrano i ragazzi del
Collegio di Milano.
May 14
GGDMilano#12 - Ignite: How to
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/girl-geek-dinner-milano-12-howto>:
GGDs (Geek Girls Dinners) are dinners or meetings aimed at women who are
passionate about technology, Internet and new media. Twelfth Milan
dinner was an "Ignite", where speakers presented their "How to", that is
how to do something particularly "geek".
May 15
GNUfun - Milano frees music
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/gnufun-milano-libera-la-musica>:
Saturday with free music, in collaboration with GNUFunk: openday @ "Kubi
studio" (Via Carlo Botta, 13) from 15:00 and concert +dj-set with fre
music @ "Le trottoir alla Darsena" (Piazza XXIV Maggio, 1)
May 16
OpenGamingCamp - Milano frees games
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/opengamingcamp-milano-libera-i-giochi>:
the fun side of freedom: a BarCamp, that is a non-conference where
anyone can "get in the chair", propose a topic and talk to others,
accompanied by free games tournaments.
Throughout the event, WikiWall - a Wikipedia page at Triennale
<http://libertadigitali.org/eventi/wikiwall-una-pagina-di-wikipedia-in-trien…>:
an installation at the Triennale similar to a Wikipedia page: people can
write, edit or attack photos to tell what the digital freedom is.
What will happen next months
* in September (tentative location: Bologna) we'll have our annual
meeting.
News from our groups
Wikimedia Roma
New premises for Wikimedia Italia!
Wikimedia Italy will soon have a physical location. Offices, large
enough to host some workshops and a dozen workstations, are in Rome, via
Grotta di Gregna 27 (Google map
<http://maps.google.it/maps?q=41.913514,12.564609&num=1&sll=41.819915,12.440…>).
The premises are the result of an agreement between the Department of
Culture of the Municipality of Rome, the Libraries of the City of Rome
and the association Liber Liber <http://www.liberliber.it/>. The planned
activities consist in setting up three laboratories: video editing,
e-book digitizing/layout and audio editing for the creation of
audiobooks. We also expect to participate in European calls, for example
to promote the Open Alexandria <http://www.openalexandria.org/>, and
others that may be proposed by the most active volunteers of Wikimedia
Italy and Liber Liber.
Premises will also be used to host civil service volunteers and interns,
to organize courses and cultural events, in collaboration with the
adjacent library "Vaccheria Nardi", who has large rooms with multimedia
stations, area conferences, and of course reading rooms (the structure
as a whole has three buildings).
Opening date is still uncertain. Some details remain to be defined
(collection of certificates of conformity of equipment, testing
elevators, etc.), and we are looking for sponsors for the setting up of
laboratories. We hope to start before the end of August, even with few
workstations and without the laboratories. Anyone interested in
collaborating is invited to contact Marco Calvo
<http://www.marcocalvo.it/>.
GLAM
The WMI GLAM committee, through Aubrey and Laurentius, organized two
workshops in collaboration with Regione Toscana. The workshops (each one
during a day) were aimed to teach two different groups of librarians
from Tuscany regions how to edit and create article in Wikipedia. The
objective of the event s were to illustrate breifly how Wikipedia works
and how articles can be created: especially, librarians were interested
in municipality and cultural heritage articles, as well as articles
dedicated to libraries. The workshops partially touched also Commons and
Wikisource, as well as copyright issues.
The feedback from participants has been positive, though several issues
were raised by the low level of computer skills of many participants, as
well as inexperience from speakers in explaining clearly and linearly
Wikipedia basics. At the end of the day, the projects worked as a useful
pilot: it is hoped to have the possibility to organize other similar
events to build a stable and fruitful relationships with librarians and
other GLAM professionals.
News from our projects
News from Biblioteca
We started System Reference Document 3.5 Project
<http://biblioteca.wikimedia.it/wiki/Progetto:SRD>, together with 5°
clone <http://www.5clone.com/>, group whose purpose is to promote
intelligent games (in particular, role games).
The project intends to translate into Italia the correspondent document
<http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35> of Wizards of
the Coast <http://www.wizards.com/>, which will be released under a Open
Gaming License <http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/v35/Legal.rtf>.
News from Wiki@Home <http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Wiki@Home>
Many news from Wiki@Home: many interviews were completed, among them the
one with Umberto Eco (English version
<http://it.wikinews.org/wiki/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco/Traduzione>) made
by Aubrey <http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Utente:Aubrey> and taken up by
some bloggers and the famous online magazine Punto Informatico
<http://punto-informatico.it/2892321/PI/Commenti/contrappunti-gogol-non-prob…>.
We also repory the completion of the interview with Patrizio Roversi
<http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrizio_Roversi> by Capsicum
<http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Capsicum>. Finally, Monday, June
28, 2010 the referent of the project, CristianCantoro
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Utente:CristianCantoro>, attended a
meeting at the School of Journalism "Walter Tobagi"
<http://www.giornalismo.unimi.it> at University of Milan to present
Wikimedia Italy, the world of Creative Commons licenses and of course
Wiki@Home project.
We need volunteers
Wiki@Home staff needs willing young people of all ages to unwind
interviews, make transcripts, fix typos, create new interviews and
material for the presentation of the project. For more information
please write at the contact for the project, CristianCantoro
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Utente:CristianCantoro>, at the
address: kikkocristian(presso)
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svg>gmail.com.
News from WMF projects
* *Wikibooks*: DynamicPageList extension
<http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:DynamicPageList_%28Wikimedia%29>
is now active: now automation of shelves
<http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Biblioteca> may start.
* *Wikinotizie*: Published an intervew to Umberto Eco
<http://it.wikinews.org/wiki/Intervista_a_Umberto_Eco>, see above
<#News_from_Wiki.40Home>.
* *Wikiquote*: Fazio degli Uberti
<http://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fazio_degli_Uberti> is our 10,000th
article, but it.wikiquote is no more the second local version with
respect to number of articles for the first time since November
2007. pl.wikiquote had an acceleration that lead them to overtake us.
* *Wikisource*:
o Finished the joining of headers
<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Bar/Archivio/2010.03#E.27_finita.2…>
in {{Heading Template
<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:Intestazione>}}.
o Reached 45,000 pages
<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Bar/Archivio/2010.04#45.000>,
after automatic addition (between February and April)
through {{Count pages Template
<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:Conteggio_pagine>}})
of invisible links in 30K pages containing just templates
and therefore were not counted
<http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Using_custom_namespaces#Content_namespaces>
even if they contained "good" stuff, falsifying statistics
<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Bar/Archivio/2010.02#Mistero_svela…>
(after wikt:en:Template:count page
<http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/en:Template:count_page>).
o Alex Brollo
<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Utente:Alex_brollo> was
elected sysop.
* *Wikiversity*: WHacko
<http://it.wikiversity.org/wiki/Utente:WHacko> was elected sysop:
now we have 3 sysops.
* *Wiktionary*: Limonadis
<http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Utente:Limonadis> was elected
sysop: now we have 9 sysops. For the first time in years,
Wiktionary has more registered users than Wikiquote (14,300 vs
14,200 on July 14), becoming thus the first Italian Wikimedia
project besides Wikipedia. Looking at active users in the last
month (roughly 60 and 160 respectively) Wikiquote remains the
first among the sister projects.
* *Wikipedia*:
o January: Welcome Project
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Progetto:Coordinamento/Accoglienza>
for new users started.
o April: big controversy
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Enciclopedia_su_…>
about the "social pages" Facebook added, containg the text
of the relative voice of Wikipedia if it exists and a link
to the modification page. Some users were troubled that the
sentence «Conquer new fan of your cause or ideal by creating
a social page» could be seen regarding the contribution to
Wikipedia (against neutral point of view
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:punto_di_vista_neutrale>),
and in general that only users not fit to Wikipedia could
come from Facebook. Two sysops resigned.
o May: another controversy
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Facebook,_lo_sap…...>
(or better, a ForestFire
<http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/ForestFire>) starts about
Facebook groups which defame Wikipedia and urge users to
modify it towards a certain direction, and in general about
the perceived increase in organized groups of users that
alter consensus to impose their own point of view. A new
procedure has been adopted to value and if neceassary block
such group of users (called "programmatic users
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Blocchiamo_le_ut…>",
that is irrecoverably altering consensus). The first
application of the new procedure blocked some users by
mistakes; the users were immediately unblocked by another
sysop, but a sysop was not confirmed and left the project,
while four other ones quit. The community put up an essay
about how to cope with so-called single-purpose users
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Utenza_monoscopo>,
re-orienting the issue.
o May-June: five new sysops were elected.
o June: The group rollbacker
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Rollbacker> was
created in it.wiki too. Bureaucrats assign people to this
group at their sole discretion, after a public but
non-advertised request and without voting. In the first
month 12 users were assigned to the group.
News from the Board
In June, Cristian Consonni succeeded to Nicola Izzo as Board member.
Monthly strip
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Singloids-492eng.jpg>
Featured Wikimedian/Picture of the month
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wikimania_2010_portrait_22.jpg>
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Wikimania_2010_portrait_22.jpg>
Aubrey <http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Utente:Aubrey> at Wikimania
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editorial staff:
* Frieda Brioschi;
* Marco Chemello;
* Nemo (section "News from WMF projects")
* Aubrey (section "News from Biblioteca" and GLAM)
* Christian Cantoro (section "News from W@H" )
* .mau. (English version)
To contact the staff, write at: redazione(a)wikimedia.it or directly to
the editors:
* Frieda Brioschi - ubifrieda(presso)
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svg>gmail.com
* CristianCantoro - kikkocristian(presso)
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svg>gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Notice. This newsletter is exclusively intended for information about
Wikimedia Italia, both to its members and to the general public; as per
Art. 1, Comma 2, Legge 7 marzo 2001 no. 62, it is not an editorial product*
_______________________________________________
Chapters-reports mailing list
Chapters-reports(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/chapters-reports
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi all,
I'm pleased to announce that the book about Lech Wałęsa, which was
prepared for Wikimania 2010 in Gdańsk, has been published at Wikimedia
Commons.
The book contains biographies of Lech Wałęsa[1] in 104 languages of
the world. Every biography comes from a different language version of
Wikipedia. All the text was retrieved at the same moment - On the 1st
of March, 2010. The book was prepared by volunteers from the Polish
Wikipedia community and the whole book, including the cover, is
available under CC-BY-SA 3.0. All the authors are listed on the book's
last pages.
During the closing ceremony of Wikimania 2010 the book was shown for
the first time in public. And a few days after Wikimania, the
President of Gdańsk, Wikimania organizers and Polish Wikipedians gave
Lech Wałęsa the first copy of the book[2].
Now the book is available in PDF on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walesa_-_Biographies_in_the_language….
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lech_Wa%C5%82%C4%99sa
[2] - http://www.gdansk.pl/galeria?c=663
Regards,
Leinad
Dear friends,
Today, here in Gdansk, at the meeting of the Board of Trustees during the sixth annual Wikimania Conference, the Board made some important changes. I'm pleased to share this news with you. The Foundation will be issuing a public announcement shortly as well.
Every year at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Board appoints its officers for the coming year. This year we have changes to each of the Officer roles. As of today's meeting, I was fortunate to be appointed Chair of the Board - and I'm grateful to have the support of the Board in this new role.. Stuart West was appointed Vice-chair (and continues as Board Treasurer), and Samuel Klein becomes Board Secretary.
Also, the Wikimedia chapters have made their selections for the two chapters-selected Board seats. Arne Klempert has been reappointed to his seat, and Phoebe Ayers has also been appointed to join the Board.
This means that Michael Snow will be leaving the Board: he has been invited to join the Advisory Board, and the Board warmly thanks him for his service.
Michael Snow has been a tireless and dedicated leader of this Board, and the whole Wikimedia movement, over the past two years. I want to express my sincere thanks to him on behalf of the Board and all of the Wikimedia community. I am also excited to congratulate and welcome Phoebe Ayers to the Board, and also to congratulate Arne Klempert for his re-appoitment to the Board in a Chapter-appointed seat.
There are 10 seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees and according to the Foundation's bylaws, three members are elected by the Wikimedia community, two members are selected by the Wikimedia chapters, a Community Founder seat held by Jimmy Wales, and four members appointed by the Board itself to provide additional, specific expertise. Currently all seats on the Board of Trustees are filled.
This is the first time that the official Chapters selection process has been carried out. Members of Wikimedia's global chapters, made a call for nominations for new members and voted to elect their two members. In this year's election nine candidates from the Wikimedia community originally stepped forward. Two of those candidates stepped out of the process, leaving seven candidates for selection by the Chapters.
All of the officer appointments are effective immediately, and we are pleased to welcome Phoebe to the Board right away.
I'd like to thank the Chapters for their thoughtful work in convening a process and carrying out their voting process. I would also like to thank all of the candidates who stepped forward for with their nominations.
I'm looking forward to an incredible year ahead. We have an ambitious plan for the Foundation and the projects over the next year, and we have a tremendous group to tackle a busy year ahead.
Sincerely,
Ting
--
Ting Chen
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
E-Mail: tchen(a)wikimedia.org
Hello all,
I regret to inform you that Rand Montoya will be leaving the Wikimedia
Foundation. His last day with us will be September 30, 2010.
Rand has generously agreed to support and advise us for the next three
months as we're gearing up for the 2010 fundraiser while he looks for
opportunities outside Wikimedia.
Rand will especially help us close the loop on our discussions in
Bristol: finalizing the next version of the chapters fundraising
agreement, and coordinating a self-assessment process of the chapters
fundraising work to-date.
Since Rand joined us two years ago, he has been tremendously
successful in his work for the Wikimedia Foundation. The 2008 and 2009
fundraisers set new record revenue numbers for the organization, and
have enabled us to expand our mission activities and grow our impact
world-wide. Rand also helped us to establish good fundraising
practices, including improved donor communication and cultivation, and
led efforts to help the international Wikimedia chapters fundraise.
Please join me in thanking Rand for all he has done for Wikimedia, and
wishing him the best for his future.
All best,
Erik
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hello all,
I'm very happy to announce Rob Lanphier (user:RobLa) in his new role working as a full-time Engineering Programs Manager reporting to me, effective yesterday (June 30th). Rob first came to the attention of Wikimedia Foundation during the CTO search, and he has been working under contract to Wikimedia Foundation for a some time now, acting as backup EPM for the trial rollout of Pending Changes and also performing an audit of EPM tools currently in use at the Foundation and in the larger FOSS world to determine the best tooling strategy to increase both reliability and transparency of our engineering planning.
In his new role, which is also new in the organization, Rob will be working with me to build out core services that all of our engineering efforts rely on (such as Software Quality Assurance, Documentation, Release Management& Analytics). Using EPMs to assist the engineering teams in gaining the best outcome in their efforts to serve the Wikimedia Community was pioneered by Naoko Komura on the recently concluded User Experience project and its a practice we plan to broaden over the coming year. We would usually expect WMF positions to be posted and boarded, but in this case Rob had responded to a previous job posting and he was identified then as someone who would be of exceptional value to the team. I felt it would be inauthentic to hold his hire for the formality of posting.
Rob's longtime interest in Wikipedia (he is editor number 96), his long history of managing high-profile open source engineering projects (he was at RealNetworks and Linden Labs before joining us), and his general focus on patiently working through every imaginable detail using methods that are both effective and community-inclusive make him ideal for this new role. Rob has also proven to be very effective at working semi-remotely; he comes into the office in San Francisco every other week and lives the rest of the time in Seattle, Washington. As we grow the Tech team I believe it will be advantageous for us to consciously create distributed teams both to mirror the composition of the larger Wikimedia Community and to encourage even more collaborative working patterns.
Rob has been a great addition to our team in the time he's been with us, and I look forward to his continued contributions. Please join me in welcoming and congratulating him.
Danese Cooper
CTO, Wikimedia Foundation
danese(a)wikimedia.org
(FYI)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Veronique Kessler <vkessler(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: 2010/6/29
Subject: [Foundation-l] 2010-11 Annual Plan Now Posted to Foundation Website
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Hi,
The 2010-11 Annual Plan and Questions and Answers have just been posted
to the Foundation website
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports#2010-2011_fiscal_year).
The plan was approved by the Board last week.
The 2010-11 plan differs from previous years in that this plan is rooted
in the five-year (2010-2015) Wikimedia Strategy which has been developed
collaboratively over the past year. In 2010-11, we have planned
continued growth over previous years reflecting continued and increased
investments to serve our mission and increase our impact.
The 2009-10 year is projected to exceed revenue targets and to be
underspent in expenses primarily due to underspending in the first
quarter of the 2009-10 fiscal year.
Veronique
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Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hey All--
It is with deep appreciation, many congratulations, and a touch of
sadness that I tell you that Anya Shyrokova will be leaving Wikimedia at
the end of July to go to graduate school. Anya has been accepted to the
University of Michigan's School of Information. Her last day at WMF
will be July 30, 2010.
Anya began work as our first Development Associate on August 26, 2008.
In September 2009, Anya earned a promotion to Stewardship Associate,
working with our middle donors ($500 to $10,000). Anya was a large part
of the success of our 2008 and 2009 Annual Fundraisers, managing an
infinite amount of donor inquiries and setting up many of our policies
and procedures.
The fundraising team, along with the entire organization, will miss
Anya's eternal earnest hard work and her deep commitment to Wikimedia's
mission. Please join me in wishing Anya the best as she pursues her
academic endeavors. She has mentioned more than once that she plans on
staying involved in the projects and our mission.
Rand Montoya
Head of Community Giving
--
Rand Montoya
Head of Community Giving
Wikimedia Foundation
www.wikimedia.org
Email: rand(a)wikimedia.org
Phone: 415.839.6885 x615
Fax: 415.882.0495
Cell: 510.685.7030
“At some future time, I hope to have something witty, intelligent, or
funny in this space.”
