WM-IT chapter report January-June 2010 - Chapters-reports

19 Jul 2010

      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:_collaborare_in_rete/.
o Roman members organized a WikiTrip
            http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/it:Wikipedia:Raduni/Roma_WikiGita_febbraio_2010
            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-phpapp02-3363042
            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-culture:
      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-triennale: 
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=41.819915,12.440528&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&ll=41.913591,12.564669&spn=0.002331,0.002411&z=19&layer=c&cbll=41.913576,12.564601&panoid=9dlTb7_ntyOO7iEyPH9XbA&cbp=12,68.01,,0,-5.03). 
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-problema.aspx. 
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.svggmail.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.21_Le_vecchie_intestazioni_sono_orfane.21
            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_svelato:_Speciale:Statistiche
            (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_Facebook,_adesso_per_davvero
            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_sapevo...
            (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_utenze_programmatiche%3F",
            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@wikimedia.it or directly to 
the editors:
* Frieda Brioschi - ubifrieda(presso)
      http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svggmail.com
    * CristianCantoro - kikkocristian(presso)
      http://www.wikimedia.it/index.php/File:Presso.svggmail.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*