[Wiki Loves Monuments] State of the Monuments - March 2012

Hi all, as promised, here is our first monthly overview of the State of the Monuments! We have been working on the project for some time already, and here is a small report on where we are and what is going on behind the scenes. Please note that this might not be a complete overview -- if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. And please see at the bottom of this e-mail for some action points for all countries (and make our lives easier)! == International coordination team == This year, there's a team of (still) four people who are trying to facilitate WLM internationally. Elke and Tomasz will join Lodewijk and Maarten in trying to keep the troops together, and help the countries share information and experiences and coordinate their work as effectively as possible. All four have experience with organising Wiki Loves Monuments at least for one year. As Wiki Loves Monuments is growing each day, and there are some things that even the most skilled volunteers cannot do (due to the lack of time, willingness or motivation), during our meeting in Amsterdam in December, we brought up the idea of a paid employee to help us organise WLM 2012. This person will primarily help us to keep tasks timely and on track. We are now happy to announce that Wikimedia Deutschland have agreed to host and fund an employee to help us facilitate the contest, and we will be meeting with him/her very soon. More information on this will follow in a fortnight, so please bear with us; and for now -- vielen Dank, Wikimedia Deutschland! Furthermore, we are still looking for a volunteer to join the coordination team, and help take care of the international budget for this year. Wiki Loves Monuments is fun, but the bigger it gets, the more money we need -- and This Is Serious Business (unlike the meme). So, if you'd like to take care of our budget, or you know a talented and responsible person who has some experience with budget and finances (for instance, your local Wikimedia treasurer), please contact any of us off-the-list. A helping hand would be greatly appreciated! == Countries == So far, over 25 countries indicated that they will participate, and 15 more have indicated interest in participating (see <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Participating_countries>). Several more countries have privately shown interest, so things are definitely going in the right direction! countries set up the contest in their country as efficiently as possible. Besides the obvious on-line help (like setting up mailing list or OTRS queues), we can help you by giving real life workshops: Lodewijk has already given a successful workshop in the United Kingdom, and Tomasz will be travelling to Ukraine and the Czech Republic this very weekend; Italy is to follow soon. If you feel that a brainstorming meeting in your country with one of us present would be helpful to sort some things out, please let us know, and we'll try to help. We have some budget available to accommodate in case your chapter has no funds. Recently, we have also redesigned our progress page (<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Progress>) to suit the needs of so many countries, and would like you to update the status of the preparations in your area. Keeping that page up-to-date would ensure that we can always keep track of the goings-on in all countries, and also give you some help when needed. == Documentation == The lack of proper documentation was identified as one of main problems of the previous edition of the contest. This year, we have started working on the documentation from the very beginning (with Tomasz being our docmeister); all of this is merely a work-in-progress, but we currently have a few pages (re)written and ready to use: * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments/Philosophy * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Timeline * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Who%27s… * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Communi… * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/FAQ Besides that, we have been taking notes from all our Skype sessions, and they are all linked at <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Meetings> for your convenience. These are mostly some internal notes and discussions, but they are of course 100% public ;-) == Tech == Elke and Maarten have taken the lead on the technical side of the preparations, and have worked on some of the things. We are in a constant touch with Wikimedia Foundation developers about the UploadWizard (some bugs have already been fixed, and some features implemented) as well as about the mobile application. Elke created a Wordpress theme for the local teams (more information to follow soon!) an did some work on the toolbox (<http://toolserver.org/~erfgoed/toolbox/>) together with Maarten and Andre (Akoopal). Maarten and Raymond worked on setting up some OTRS queues, and Nicole has helped to forward the .EU domain to .ORG -- some additional work on the website (a more powerful hosting, etc.) is still ahead of us. Maarten has been working on the monuments database, too, and requested some help with documentation; we'll work on that in the upcoming weeks. For some additional detailed information on the tools and recent developments, please see Maarten's e-mail from this past Saturday: <http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikilovesmonuments/2012-March/002582.html>. == Partners == We're working very hard on getting in touch with relevant partners on an international level again. There are no definite results that we can announce apart from the existing partners from last year, so more about that will follow later. If you have suggestions or have contacts that can help out, please get in touch with Maarten! == Action points == This will be the end of the report for February-March, so thank you for taking the time to read it :-) As a follow-up, please: #1: Fill in the progress page for your country (<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Progress>),adding all the information you have -- and if you don't have information on something, feel free to omit it; #2: Create a page for your country on Wikimedia Commons; the US page <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_in_the_United_States> might be a good example. #3: Make sure at least one or two people of your local team are on this list; please sign up at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikilovesmonuments>. Thanks! -- Elke, Lodewijk, Maarten and Tomasz