Wikimedia News no. 28 - January 14, 2010
Editorial
This year Italy joined for the first time the annual fundraising campaign
launched and organized by Wikimedia Foundation. We made this choice because
now we are listed in the register of Associations for Social Promotion, and
so the donations we receive are tax deductible; this could attract and
encourage further the potential donors. Wikimedia Italy joined the campaign
a few weeks later it started because we wanted to be sure to become an APS.
The worldwide result of this year's fundraising has been quite good: the
Foundation reached its target of 7.5 million dollars well ahead of schedule.
As for WMI, despite the late start and some unexpected obstacle on the way
(PayPal blocked our account on Christmas Eve because of the high traffic),
the fundraising can overall be judged satisfactory; the final result, with
more than 3,300 individual donations, exceeded the forecasts that the
hopeful Board members made at its start.
Donation amounted to more than 58,000 euro. After taking the expenses away,
approximately 26,000 euro will be sent to Wikimedia Foundation, while
approximately 32,000 euro remain available to the Association for promotion
and development of our projects.
We take this opportunity to thank especially all the members who wanted and
were able to become donors.
It is important to note that the fundraising also created the opportunity
for many people to approach to our Association as well as to the projects of
the Foundation; between mid-December and early January we enrolled 31 new
members. A hearty welcome among us to all of these people!
Cotton
WMI Treasurer
2010 subscriptions campaign
Social year 2010 started. Everyone who became member of the Association
before October 1st, 2009 can renew their membership by sending their share
in the usual ways:
- *money transfer* on the bank account of the Association (IBAN:
IT73K0200861804000100330777)
- Moneybookers - use account *iscrizioni[image:
(presso)]<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svg>
wikimedia.it*
- PayPal - use account *iscrizioni[image:
(presso)]<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svg>
wikimedia.it* (If you pay with PayPal, please add 2€ for commission
fees.)
In all cases you should always send an email to *iscrizioni[image:
(presso)]<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svg>
wikimedia.it* with the references and the receipt of the transaction, and
any other communications.
Further information is available at: Associazione:Rinnovi
2010<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Associazione:Rinnovi_2010>.
What will happen
- January 14, Florence: Laurentius and Aubrey will hold a lecture to
Tuscan librarians about Wikipedia and the Municipalities project.
- January 22, Bologna: Barcamp Accessibility and CMS 2010 (
http://www.barcamp.org/Accessibilit%C3%A0-e-CMS-2010 ), organized by
Emilia-Romagna region; some some members will attend it.
- February 18, Florence: caffescienza ( http://www.caffescienza.it )
about Wikipedia and Free Software.
- Date yet to be determined:
meeting<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Raduni/Lugano_fondue_2010>for
a fondue among Wikipedians for knowing each other, chatting, pulling
out
some ideas and discussing possible activities to be held in Italian-speaking
Switzerland (not just Ticino).
News from our groups Wikimedia Roma
After the Christmas break we are back with the group. At the end of the
month we'll have a meeting to draw up a calendar of upcoming activities.
GLAM
- Thanks to a contact with Wikipedia OTRS service, All About Apple Museum
of Valleggia (SV) ( http://www.allaboutapple.com/ ) released all the
pictures on its website (unless otherwise specified) with a Creative Commons
license cc-by-sa 2.5. Moreover, the museum staff is willing to make pictures
of the items in the museum upon request.
*Bravo!* and *thanks!* to the All About Apple Museum!
- On 14 January a workshop will be held, with support by WMI, with
librarians in Tuscany. The meeting aims to train participants on the culture
and methods of the Wikimedia projects, among which are emphasizing
Wikipedia, Commons, Wikisource. More information, including the agenda and
materials used, may be found
here<http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Associazione:Commissione_rapporti_con_le_…>.
News from our projects News from Biblioteca
Publication of *Il sapere
liberato<http://biblioteca.wikimedia.it/wiki/Il_sapere_liberato>
*, a book released under Creative Commons license by LASER Group, is going
on.
News from Wiki@Home <http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/Wiki@Home>
The second season of W@H ends with the shift between IlCorda (aka
DracoRoboter) and CristianCantoro as project manager. The second season
ended with a fall of the number of interviews compared to the previous year;
the project should therefore be relaunched in the new season (2009/2010).
Note the new format of the project Wiki@Home-Video, with its first reports;
the new formula (though still to be defined in detail) must certainly be
supported for the upcoming interviews.
We'll try and broaden participation in the project even among users of
Wikipedia or Wikinotizie, opening it also to contributions external to the
association. We really hope that this will also bring new members to WMI
itself; premium Wiki@Home (not awarded in 2008/2009) should be exploited in
this regard. Of course, we also seek volunteers within the association,
since there is much to be done (maintenance of the pages, proofreading,
etc.) To make a new proposal, what about a business card for the
wiki-reporters (a related proposal is discussed in depth in Proposal:Wikinews
Accredited Reporter Identity
Cards<http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/strategy:Proposal:Wikinews_Accredited_Report…>)?
News from WMF projects
- *Wikipedia*: Wikipedia in Italian language won the 2009 Golden Shield
Award 2009<http://www.centrostudiaraldici.org/notizie/1000420/premio-scudo-doro-2009-a…>issued
by Heraldic Studies Center, for the category "generic heraldic sites"
(here<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:_Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Premio_Scudo_d%…>the
discussion at it.wiki Village Pump).
- *Wikiquote*: Community keeps working on an automatic filtering
extension-based AbuseFilter
<http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbuseFilter>to spot at least some
insertion of new quotations without source, and warn
users of the inconveniences of this practice, as per our
guidelines<http://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/it:Aiuto:Fonti>,
before they even save the page.
here<http://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/it:Speciale:AbuseFilter/4>the
technical details).
- *Wikisource*:
- Wikisource start a brand new homepage<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/>,
with a compete reorganization of content and graphics. Among the
innovations, there is a page *Help Wikisource*, to invite new users to
contribute to the project.
Help<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Aiuta_Wikisource>Wikisource
you too!
- After a software update, it is now possible to load texts in .pdf
format as images in parallel
texts<http://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Speciale:IndexPages>(the feature
was requested in 2007 and implemented only in August 2009, see
technical details <http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/bugzilla:11215>).
- *Wikiversity*: Community
started<http://it.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversit%C3%A0:Bar&oldid=5438…>
Progetto
aiuto <http://it.wikiversity.org/wiki/it:Wikiversit%C3%A0:Progetto_aiuto>,
designed to facilitate the growth of the project community.
- *Wiktionary*:
- The process of choosing the logo for Wiktionary is finally winding
up: after the first vote in December, a ballot between the two most voted
logos will be going throughout January. Participants from any
WMF project in
any language may vote. The purpose of the selection, initiated
by Cary Bass,
WMF Volunteer Coordinator, is to determine the final overall logo for
Wiktionary (Wiktionary) in all languages, because different editions
(especially the English one) have resisted the adoption of the
logo chosen
by vote in 2006, and have maintained that the provisional one created
earlier. It seems that the Italian community prefers to keep the
logo chosen
in 2006.
- After Wikiquote did in November, also Wiktionary has reached 10,000
registered users. Wikiquote remains the italian project with
more registered
users, after Wikipedia.
- Community has started to consider seriously and to work on some
projects to improve the content of Wiktionary, and in particular the
inclusion of tens of thousands of
terms<http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/it:Wikizionario:Importazione_dizionari_PD>contained
in some dictionary now into the public domain after the expiry of
their copyright, and construction within Wiktionary of a Italian-Italian
Sign Language (LIS)
dictionary<http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/it:Wikizionario:Bar/Archivio/2009-nov#richies…>.
Monthly strip
See it at http://www.wikimedia.it/images/Singloids201_eng.jpg (yes, it's in
English, don't worry :-) )
------------------------------
Reports from WM-IT may also be found at
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Italia.
ciao, .mau.
Workshop
On December 19, a workshop on Wikimedia was organized for Wikimedians,
together with a workshop for OTRS agents. The workshop was visited, despite
the bad weather, by 11 people, including Lyzzy, who was involved in the
discussions on OTRS and explained the German Flagges Revisions system.
Translation Rally End 2009
VWN Sponsored two "*Translation Rallies*" at
translatewiki.net<http://translatewiki.net/wiki/>this year. The second
rally ran until the end of the year (UTC) and resulted
in over 33,000 new translations for MediaWiki and its extensions.
New Year cards
Snail mail New Year cards were sent to all members and the volunteers who
helped the chapter in the activities in the past year. The members were also
invited in a letter for the New Year drinks, and the volunteers were thanked
for their help with a hand written note. Also several organizations with
whom the chapter worked together in the past year received a card. Several
recipients expressed that they were very pleased by this gesture.
Wiki Loves Art exposition
In the maritime museum in Rotterdam, an exhibition has been placed of Wiki
Loves Art/NL photo's taken last summer. The exhibition is on sight until
March 2010 in the main hall of the museum.
New Year Reception
In cooperation with Creative Commons NL and the Tropenmuseum, on January 23
a New Year reception will be organized in the Tropenmuseum. This will be
combined with a tour through the Marron exhibition, a cooperation project
between Wikimedia Nederland and the Tropenmuseum. Wikimedians, cultural
heritage institutions and marrons are invited to participate the reception.
(want to come? http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/ontmoeten )
Fundraising
Wikimedia Nederland was participating in the fundraising of end 2009, and
was able to offer iDEAL transactions, an online payment method used a lot in
the Netherlands. Results will follow later.
Coming Up
- New Year reception
- Fundraising results
- Thank you notes for donors
- Annual General Assemblee: March 13
