Hi everyone,
It’s time for the fifth edition of the Coolest Tool Award!! 🎉
Tools play an essential role at Wikimedia, and so do the many volunteer
developers who experiment with new ideas, develop & maintain local & global
solutions, and enhance the experience for Wikimedia communities.
We’d like to invite you all to nominate your favourite & most used tools
and help us celebrate the people who create them!
To nominate your favourite tools, simply follow this link:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award#Coolest_Tool_Award_2024.
Feel free to submit multiple nominations by completing the form as many
times as you'd like. The deadline for Nomination is* May 10th 2024.*
For further details on the nomination and selection process, the Coolest
Tool Award Academy, and the upcoming award ceremony, please visit
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coolest_Tool_Award.
The award is organized & selected by the Coolest Tool Academy. We plan to
award the coolest tools in a variety of categories (see last year’s
categories for an example). Excitingly, we're returning to an in-person
event for the first time since 2019, with winners set to be unveiled at
Wikimania 2024.
Thank you immensely for your participation and recommendations. Together,
let's celebrate innovation and collaboration within the Wikimedia community!
Regards,
On behalf of the Coolest Tool Academy 2024
Hello!
We are happy to announce that there is now a free and publicly accessible
course on the learning platform, WikiLearn, on how to upload and edit files
on Wikimedia Commons using OpenRefine: *OpenRefine for Wikimedia Commons:
the basics*
<https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_GLAM001+2023/…>
.
OpenRefine <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OpenRefine> is a free
data-wrangling tool that can be used to process, manipulate, and clean
tabular (spreadsheet) data and connect it with knowledge bases, including
Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.
This online course is available at any time, for free. Anyone with a
Wikimedia account can enroll with the click of a button. It can be followed
at your own pace, with computer-graded exercises. A certificate is awarded
at the end to those who complete the course.
The training is suitable for Wikimedians, Wikimedia affiliate staff, and
partners (e.g. GLAM staff and Wikimedians in Residence). Accomplishing the
course should take an average of 6 to 8 hours.
This course was developed as part of the Wikimedia Foundation's training
and sustainability grant to OpenRefine
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OpenRefine/Training_2023-24>.
It is currently available in English and can be easily translated into
other languages (more about the translation process here
<https://studio.learn.wiki/meta_translations/discover_courses/> and here
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutorial_on_how_to_translate_course…>).
Translations for this course in French, Spanish, and Portuguese are being
worked on and will be available very soon.
Please, feel free to share this course with people you think might be
interested in learning more about OpenRefine or Wikimedia Commons, who are
part of your network, in groups, social media, or any other places.
Thank you!
Best,
Giovanna & Sandra
Giovanna Fontenelle (she/her)
Program Officer, Culture and Heritage
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Hi Folks,
We encourage each and everyone of you to create a program submission. You can submit an interactive workshop or panel, a lecture, a short lighting talk or a poster for our dedicated poster session. Submissions are catered to both onsite and online (live or pre-recorded) or a hybrid combination. We at the Core Organizing Team would like to see a program submission related to community initiatives such as Wiki Loves Public Art.
The theme for this year's Wikimania is Diversity, Collaboration, Future. Topics that strengthen collaboration on online campaigns and initiatives are topics we like to see this year. There are also photography outreach (photo walks, teaching participants on photography). It is great way to collaborate with each other. There is also a spacious Wikimania Expo space where achievements on Commons like Wiki Loves Public Art can be exhibited. Singapore is one of a few countries where Freedom of Panorama exists.
For participants joining virtually, we also have allocated online hours for you too to allow you to participate & present.
Session submissions for Wikimania 2023 are open until 28 March.
Visit the following links for further info:
Wiki page: https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2023:Program/Submissions
Diff post: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/02/28/be-part-of-the-wikimania-2023-program/
Program Submission Form: https://pretalx.com/wm2023/cfp
Kind regards,
Butch Bustria
Chair, Program Subcommittee
Event lead, ESEAP Wikimania 2023 Core Organizing Team
Dear all,
If there is sufficient interest from the community, I will propose a workshop on the WLM participants' survey and the insights we can gather from it.
I think it is important that as many people involved in the organization of WLM 2012 and WLM 2013 as possible take part in the workshop, so we can get some collective sense making going.
So please sign up on the proposal page if you are interested:
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/What_can_we_learn_from…
It would certainly also be possible to present the results from the organizers' survey during the same workshop (possibly asking for a bit more time). Please let me know if that would be an option.
Concerning the participants' survey in 2014, we discussed with John Andersson about having one survey for all photo contests during this year.
Please let me know what you think. - Whether a participants' survey will be carried out this year at all, will probably also depend on the interest among WLM organizers. It's a lot of work; so I would suggest doing it only if there is a concrete demand for it. Any feedback is appreciated.
Kind regards,
Beat
_____________________________________________________
Beat Estermann
Research Associate
Berne University of Applied Sciences
E-Government Institute
Morgartenstrasse 2a
Postfach 305
CH-3000 Bern 22
beat.estermann(a)bfh.ch
www.e-government.bfh.ch
Phone +41 31 848 34 30
Phone (direct number) +41 31 848 34 38
Fax +41 31 848 34 31
Dear all,
I have published today a first set of analyses from the WLM 2013 participant's survey:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013/Partic…
- The first file contains frequency analyses and basic statistics for the entire sample
- A second, rather big file (600+ pages) contains the same analyses detailed per country (for countries with at least 10 respondents)
- The third file contains some summary statistics from the contacts data file (which is separate from the other data file)
Earlier this week, I have communicated the participants' contact data to the local organizers of WLM 2013 as well as to the local chapters. Most notably, we were able to identify ca. 500 contest participants who indicated that they would be interested in helping with the organization of this year's contest(s). Therefore, if you are planning to organize a photo contest in your country, I warmly recommend you to get the contact data from last year's organizers or from your chapter and try to get those people on board. - In order to get an overview of the contact data that is available for your country, please have a look at the third file with the summary statistics of the contacts data file.
Next steps:
I have drafted an analysis plan that indicates how we may proceed in order to get more out of the survey: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VuDuu0kZ8TxQljaiB2jq0iZ-9wHPYfdd2lwkS9L…
Feel free to comment it. Right now, I don't really know who is going to do all these analyses as they are quite time-consuming and the time I can put in this is rather limited. I have talked to the WMF program evaluation team, but so far they don't seem to be eager to analyze the data, although it seems to me that the insights that can be gained from the survey would be complementary to what they have already done: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal/Library/WLM
Therefore, if any of you feels like doing a part of the analyses sketched out in the analysis plan, please get in touch with me so we can split up the tasks.
And don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions regarding the survey or the results.
Kind regards,
Beat
_____________________________________________________
Beat Estermann
Research Associate
Berne University of Applied Sciences
E-Government Institute
Morgartenstrasse 2a
Postfach 305
CH-3000 Bern 22
beat.estermann(a)bfh.ch
www.e-government.bfh.ch
Phone +41 31 848 34 30
Phone (direct number) +41 31 848 34 38
Fax +41 31 848 34 31
Dear John,
That's a real shame! I hope you would not mind my making the same
suggestion, of creating structured lists of UK public artworks, to the
organisers of Wiki Loves Monuments instead? According to the timeline
here<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2014/Timeline>the
first arrangements for WLM 2014 are just about to begin.
We are lucky in the UK in that we have no problems concerning FOP of 3D
works (2D works are another matter), and I'm sorry to hear about the legal
difficulties Wikimedia Sverige has encountered. I hope things will improve
in 2015.
Best regards,
Marc
Hi,
I have just discovered the existence of Wiki Loves Public Art and even
though it's rather behind schedule I would really like to see the UK being
involved. I have edited many list articles on public art in London (most
notably List of public art in the City of
Westminster<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_art_in_the_City_of_Westminster>,
which I am hoping to bring to featured status -- in fact I'm going to ask
for a microgrant to do the necessary travel, which I could time so as to
upload the photos in May) and one of Cardiff (the capital of Wales) on the
English Wikipedia.
The relevant body to contact in order to obtain a database for making
structured lists is the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association (PMSA),
who already have a database online in the form of the National Recording
Project (NRP). Details are
here<http://www.pmsa.org.uk/national-recording-project/>.
Unfortunately this does not cover the entire UK, only about 70% of it. I
know of three further online databases which cover areas not in the NRP:
Sussex <http://www.publicsculpturesofsussex.co.uk/>, Norfolk and
Suffolk<http://www.racns.co.uk/>
and Sheffield <http://public-art.shu.ac.uk/sheffield/index.html> (though
this last one is not, to my mind, very good). UK involvement in the WLPA
would presumably be dependent on the PMSA being willing to give us a copy
of their database to create the necessary lists in time for May.
I am on good terms with Robin Owain, the Wales Manager of Wikimedia UK so I
could contact him next in order to set the ball rolling. Is it best for the
local chapter to contact the relevant institutions?
Best regards,
Marc Haynes (User:Ham)
Dear everybody,
During the last weeks there have been ongoing discussions within our chapter about Wiki Loves Public Art and our chapter's active involvement. We have been extremely happy and proud over what was achieved last year but still we have had to reconsider. Yesterday the team working on the international contest sadly took the decision that we will postpone the contest and review the possibility again next year. We have reached this conclusion as as there are a number of issues that have to be solved for the contest to make sense, and each of them are a potential show stopper:
The once again ongoing discussions on Wikimedia Commons about PD images and URAA[1] and also images under Freedom of Panorama in the source country but not in the US[2] – we feel that it would be irresponsible to use movement resources in this way if the images might end up being deleted. If the Community isn’t convinced all photos might end up being deleted even if it is not necessary. We believe that these discussions need to be closer to a solution before we run this contest again;We lack strong international partners/sponsors this year which means that the value of these efforts decreases and the cost would increase. Europeana the other day informed us about their new focus areas for the year – where WLPA is not prioritized;The technical issues with Maarten Damers’ tools. As you might know Maarten recently informed the WLM team that he will not work on moving the tools to Labs, and therefor they might all stop working shortly when the Toolserver is killed. The Ukrainian Wiki Loves Earth team has said that they can take over the work with them, but this is still not solved as far as we know – and they might not have time to help with WLPA either. In our team we sadly don’t have the capacity to do this work.
Additionally, there are a few new legal developments in Sweden that we are currently dealing with. The chapter is currently involved in legal actions regarding publications of photos of works of art from Sweden, as there are some legal ambiguities in Swedish legislation. This severely limits what we could have done in Sweden during the contest, as we do not want to risk contest participants being dragged into the process. Thus meaning that there will be no national contest in Sweden.
Obviously you can still do a national contest if you so please, but as it seem now, Wikimedia Sverige will not take on the international coordination this year. I am really sorry for this as we all have spent time working on this and we have had great fun working with you all. We sincerely hope that we will be able to pick up the contest again in the future!
Any data already collected could still be used to generate lists on Wikipedia and we could help with that if needed. If you do plan to carry on, obviously we are still available for questions and consultation if needed.
On Commons and other places there have been many discussions on what we could do with photo contests in the future. This might be worth thinking a bit more about.[3]
Please let us know your thoughts.
Best,
John Andersson, on behalf of the international team
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Use_of_Foreign_Works_Restored_und… [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/Non-US_Free… [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013/Future
Dear Colleagues,
I would like to recommend you this page about the future of Wiki loves ...
projects:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013/Future
and there is a section about the Wiki Loves Public Art contest:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2013/Future…
In Hungary, we plan to organize this contest in the following year, and I
would be very happy if other countries joined to the contest (specially if
countries around Hungary would participate in it next year), and it could
be an international contest (again).
For countries, who participated in WLPA this year (Austria, Finland,
Israel, Sweden, Spain) it is not a big deal to repeat the contest based on
the existing lists, but there is a huge potential to cover new areas and to
add new targets to the list in every countries.
I am waiting forward to our fruitful cooperation.
Best regards,
Samat
Thanks
again for all of your great work with Wiki Loves Public Art 2013!
We at
Wikimedia Sverige are considering to organize the contest again in 2014
and I am wondering if there is interest from the teams that took part
this year to organize the contest again
in your countries? You can either simply use existing lists or expand to
more cities.
I believe that we have proven the concept as we had thousands of
artworks successfully digitized and hence digitally preserved them for the future and shared them with the world, a good
amount of new and old volunteers participated and we also had a good
deal of media attention. With all this said, I really
hope that we can do it again!
Please let me know your plans and ideas!
Best,
John
- - - -
John Andersson
Wikimedia Sverige
Project Leader Europeana Awareness
Phone: +46(0)73-3965189
Email: john.andersson(a)wikimedia.se
Skype: johnandersson86
Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @wikieuropeana
Visit http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Projekt:Europeana_Awareness/English for more information about our
project!
Vill du stödja fri kunskap? Bli medlem i Wikimedia Sverige! / Would you like to support free knowledge? Please consider becoming a member of Wikimedia Sweden!