The December newsletter has been published at http://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Newsletter/December2008 and
is copied below for your convenience:
Summary: You can now join Wiki UK Ltd, which hopes to become the
official UK chapter of Wikimedia in January. The organisation is
planning its first Annual General Meeting, where members can vote on
who is on the board, and put forward and vote on resolutions. The
organisation is already supporting activities such as a bid to hold
Wikimania 2010 in Oxford and the exciting Wikipedia Loves Art project
at the Victoria and Albert Museum. We also bring you news of the the
recent Wikimeet in London.
In this month's newsletter:
1. Chapter formation
2. Membership
3. AGM
4. Wikimania 2010 - Oxford bid
5. Wikipedia Loves Art
6. London Wikimeet
Chapter formation
As mentioned in our November newsletter, the Chapters Committee has
recommended we are approved as a chapter of Wikimedia, and we are
expecting the Wikimedia Foundation to decide on this at their next
meeting, on 9th–11th January. We hope to complete bank account
opening shortly after we are approved. In the meantime, we are
preparing for the rush of events which will happen immediately
afterwards (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/
Timeline ), and we are also supporting activities ranging from the
bid to hold Wikimania 2010 in Oxford to Wikipedia Loves Art.
Membership
As we announced in our last newsletter, we are now inviting
membership applications: being a member gives you an official say in
what the company does, allowing you to attend and vote at AGMs, put
forward written resolutions, elect the new boards at the AGMs, and
much more. You can download the application form here: http://
meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Wiki_UK_Ltd_membership_application_form.pdf .
We will start processing the applications received as soon as the
bank account is set up. We should also be able to accept tax-
refundable donations at that point, and claim back the tax from the
donations already received with the permission of the donors.
AGM
As soon as the chapter status is approved and the bank account
opened, the board will move to call the first AGM. This is currently
pencilled in for the end of February, giving us enough time to give
the statutory notice and to organise the elections. However, if there
are any delays this may be pushed back. The draft of the agenda for
the AGM (see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/AGM )
currently includes the election of the first permanent Board,
discussing the priorities of the chapter and passing some formal
resolutions.
Wikimania 2010 - Oxford bid
Wiki UK Limited is keen to bring Wikimania to the UK, and the 2010
Oxford bid still seems like the best chance we will have for this in
the next few years, since there is a common feeling that 2010 is
Europe's year. Organising a conference on the scale of Wikimania is a
lot of work, and we desperately need your help (see below for details
of things you could do). A lot of progress was made on the bid over
the summer, but since then the momentum has died down a little due to
the other commitments of those who had been working on it. In the
last few weeks, Seddon has once again begun work, obtaining the
support of the local flickr group, and investigating a new source of
sponsorship for us.
How you can help:
* work on the bid page (expand existing sections, fill in place
holders) - see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford
* contact potential sponsors and partners on our behalf (see
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/
Oxford#Organisations_not_currently_being_investigated and the talk page)
* show your support by signing up as a member of the local team:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/Oxford#Local_team
Wikipedia Loves Art
The Victoria and Albert Museum, the world's largest museum of
decorative arts and design with a collection of over 4.5 million
objects, is joining in with a world-wide project in February 2009 to
photograph major pieces of work and release the images under public
licence: Wikipedia Loves Art. They have invited Wikipedians to get
involved in collecting the images, putting them online and using them
in Wikipedia articles. More information is available here: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WLA@V%26A . Please sign up to get involved
and let us have your ideas!
London Wikimeet
Sunday 14th December saw the 16th London Wikipedia meetup ( http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/London_16 ). As the numbering
suggests the meetups have been running for quite some time, with the
first one in June 2004. The meetups currently take the form of a pub
lunch at the Penderel's Oak in Holborn on the second Sunday of every
month. Eight Wikipedians came along, falling within the stereotypical
Wikipedia demographic (15-45, higher education, involvement in a non-
manual job). Topics discussed included Wikimedia UK and its current
status, the (now concluded) Arbitration Committee elections,
(briefly) contract law and various other tidbits. The meetups are
excellent fun and a good opportunity to meet other Wikipedia
contributors and get to know them; several projects people have
worked on have come about as a result of interactions with people at
these meetups. The next one is due to be held on Sunday 11th January
2009 at 13:00 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/
London_17 ).
Wiki UK Limited is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in
England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. The Registered Office is
at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom.
*W i K i M e D i A N e W s* no. 22 - December 3rd, 2008
Official monthly bulletin from Wikimedia Italia Association.
Editorial
This number of Wikimedia News, just before Christmas, is being published
in a characteristic period for our association and all of WMF; we are in
the middle of fundraising
(http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/it). I believe that
everybody, and especially our members, know that it's necessary to
support, also financially, both Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia
Foundation. Together with the usual reports for activities and events,
so, the Board wants to urge all readers to take part, both physically
and financially, in the needs of the the association.
Senpai
What happened last month
* November 2, Pavia: we attended /Sapere libera tutti!/, a day
dedicated to the new ways for creating a collective culture. The
report from EdoM:
I don't know what kind of promotion the event had, but at
least in the morning there were just we speakers among the
members of WMI. I don't know if in the afternoon some other
people came.
Cristina Moretto made a short introduction, then Simone talked
about history and logic of the licenses. His talk was quite
interesting, and the public from a lot of questions. I talked
more or less for 20 minutes about wiki philosophy and the
various projects.
The other speakers were Simone Cortesi (OSM) and Christian
Biasco (about his work).
* November 28-30, Faenza: we attended Meeting delle Etichette
Indipendenti. The report from Senpai:
This year, Meeting delle Etichette Indipendenti was below par.
Maybe there were less visitors, but it's certain that they
were much less willing to support our projects. Takins were
much lower than last year: many visitors looked at our stand,
said "Oh, Wikipedia", and then went away. I had the impression
that the casual user takes our projects for grant. Maybe we
should try and explain that the fact that Wikipedia and the
other WMF project are free (as in beer) does not mean that we
don't need money to run them.
Maybe we could think at some effective slogan to let people
know that the lack of donations will lead to the closing of
the projects.
Leaving aside the financial issues, we took advantage from
MEI. We managed to get in touch with some music companies
interested in copyleft; in the near future we will be
therefore able to insert a lot of new content, especially for
classical music, but also for some rock and electronic music,
in the pages of our project Musica <http://musica.wikimedia.it>.
Future events
* March WMI Meeting: The meeting which should let us change our
Charter and eventually become a Non Profit association might not
be held. After the proposal of a few location for the meeting, no
official bid has been made yet: we need to have a final bid by the
end of December, or the meeting shall not be held.
* Wikimangia: Since March and April 2009 will be full of events (WMI
Meeting, Chapter Meeting, Easter), Senpai thought that it would be
nice to anticipate the usual "eat-and-drink-alot" gathering in
February. The program will consist in a day of skiing (Saturday),
while laziers will appreciate the typical pubs near the ski
tracks, and quaff hot chocolate or alcoholic beverages. As usual,
we need quickly to know how many people think to attend the event,
so please gave us some feedback!
News from our projects
News from Italian WMF projects
* *Wikibooks*: New logo
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikibooks_simple_book_blue_beige.svg>
was approved. We need just the last details.
* *Wikinotizie*: Reached 6,500 articles.
* *Wikipedia*: Fundraiser started. Here there are the statistics
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/11/25/wikimedias-fundraiser-which-banners-cl…>
about efficacy of the various requests to donate.
* *Wikiquote*: A proposal
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wikiquote:it:Bar#Burocrazia> was
made to promote all sysop to bureaucrat, like in es.wiki. Two new
pages featured: /Matrix <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/it:Matrix>/
and /Fight Club
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/it:Fight_Club_%28film%29>/.
/Catechismo della Chiesa cattolica
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/it:Catechismo_della_Chiesa_cattolica>/
was voice #8,000.
* *Wikisource*: Still discussions
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/s:it:Wikisource:Bar#Sempre_sempre_copyright_.…>
about copyright: text of posters, leaflets, flysheets, may be
defined /public domain/ like public speeches?
* *Wikiversità*: Danielg
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/v:it:Utente:Danielg> quit from sysop.
* *Wikizionario*: Approved
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/it:Wikizionario:Discussione_policy#transfen_e…>
a rule which will lead to deletion of thousands
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/it:Categoria:Da_ricontrollare> of
lemmata
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/it:Categoria:Voci_trasferite_dal_wikizionario…>
automatically imported from en.wikt in 2005 and 2007.
News from association
* Wikimedia Italia, together with Wikimedia Nederland
<http://nl.wikimedia.org>, sent a statement about the Green Paper
on copyright
<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Libro_verde_su_%C2%ABIl_diritto_d%27autor…>
which European Union prepared (the link refers to the statement by
Wikimedia Italia).
* For the holiday season, our Association promotes *"Regala
Wikimedia"* (Wikimedia as present). Through our online shop, at
this page <http://shop.wikimedia.it/index.php?main_page=gv_faq>,
people may buy a gift token that can be spent in Xmas gadgets by
WMI; we suggest to every member to pamper her/himself with a
wikigift! By the way, we added new pins and some stickers; we are
also purchasing a new model of t-shirt and a new sweatshirt.
* Wikimedia Hungary <http://wiki.media.hu>, one of the latest
Wikimedia Chapters, partially modeled its homepage after ours.
News from Biblioteca
* Mizardellorsa has nearly completed the upload of the latest book
by Simone Aliprandi about copyleft. Whoever wants to lend a hand
will find our guidelines here
<http://biblioteca.wikimedia.it/wiki/Guida_all%27uso_delle_licenze_e_degli_a…>.
News from Musica
* At MEI we approached some recording label interested in copyleft.
During the next days we will fatten our site.
Chapters update report Wikimedia Nederland November 2008
==Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland==
Wikimedia Nederland organized the annual Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland on
November 1. Please see our previous report for more details.
==Green Paper reaction==
Wikimedia Nederland submitted a reaction to the ''Green Paper on Copyright
in the Knowledge Economy''[1] to the European Committee. This reaction was
written within the working group Groenboek, and translated into English[2].
The translated version was sent to the other chapters, with the suggestion
to submit a reaction as well. Wikimedia Deutschland[3], Wikimedia Italia[4]
and Wikimédia Magyarország (Hungary)[5] have submitted a reaction based on
this. Wikimedia Polska submitted a reaction seperately earlier on. The
working group consisted of Elly, Wutsje, Esther, Marco and Fruggo.
==Speeches&Conferences==
Wikimedia Nederland was present at FIFI2008 and Hay gave a speech at PLUG in
Hilversum.
==Press attention==
In November there was a lot of attention for Wikimedia and Wikipedia in The
Netherlands. A full overview can be found as always on [6] (Dutch). Press
attention focused on the Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland, the blocking of
the German Wikipedia, the fundraiser, the decision by Winkler Prins (the
Dutch traditional encyclopedia) to stop publishing paper encyclopediae, the
legal issue described below and the 500.000 articles on the Dutch language
Wikipedia.
==Legal==
Wikimedia Nederland has been sued by a Dutch business man to a) remove his
article from Wikipedia and b) give the personal details of the author of the
article. Wikimedia Nederland is of the opinion that it is not able to comply
to either of the demands, and above that, that the demands are not
justifiable. The judge will rule on December 10.
==Fundraising==
Wikimedia Nederland signed the fundraising agreement with the Wikimedia
Foundation.
==Links==
*[1]:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52008DC0466:EN:…
*[2]:
http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bestand:20081123_Brief_Groenboek_aan_EU.pdf
*[3]: http://blog.wikimedia.de/2008/12/13/stellungnahme-grunbuch/
*[4]: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Alcuni_Wikipediani/Libro_verde
*[5]:
http://wiki.media.hu/w/images/6/65/Response_to_Green_Paper_on_Copyright_in_…
*[6]: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Persaandacht
