This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in the
seminal case of *Golan v.
Holder<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/golan-v-holder/>
.* Striking a significant blow to the strength and stability of the public
domain, the Court upheld a law that took a considerable number of foreign
works out of the public domain and placed them back under copyright
protection.
This important decision underscores the extent of the power Congress has to
decide and control what information is available to the public.
Furthermore, this decision demonstrates the reasons we cannot rely on the
Court alone to defend our access to knowledge.
In the face of this disappointing news, we are all reminded to speak up
when Congress acts against the public good.
Today, the Wikipedia community has taken a strong and united
stand<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page%3Fbanner=blackout>against
SOPA <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act> and
PIPA<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIPA>,
legislation that are also attacks on free knowledge and an open Internet.
Today, we say ‘Enough’ to Congress.
*FAQ*
*What is the Golan v. Holder case*?
In 1994, as part of the Uruguay Round Agreements, Congress passed a law in
a misguided attempt to reconcile U.S. and foreign copyright by taking works
out of the U.S. public domain that were still under copyright in their
source country. The case was brought by re-users of the works previously in
the public domain: educators, community orchestras, and artists who relied
on the freely available works for their own projects and could no longer
use those works because of the law.
In a 6-2 decision, the Court in *Golan *held that the U.S. Constitution
does not prevent Congress from “restoring” copyright to works previously in
the public domain. Justice Stephen Breyer, in his dissent joined by
Justice Samuel Alito, noted that the purpose of copyright is to incentivize
authors and artists to create new works, but “[t]he statute before [the
Court], however, does not encourage anyone to produce a single new work.”
*Why is this case important?*
Today’s decision marks the first time that the Court has ever indicated
that Congress not only has the power to extend the life of a copyright, but
take works out of the public domain and place them back under copyright
protection. Works like Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” Sergei Prokofiev’s
“Peter and the Wolf,” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” have been taken out
of the public domain as a result of this law and this decision. This newly
declared power that Congress now wields threatens the stability of the
public domain and puts those who rely on it at risk.
*Why does this matter to Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects?*
* *
Wikimedia projects are some of the largest repositories of public domain
material in the world. The projects are a gateway for millions of users to
access free knowledge and information that they would never otherwise see.
Those repositories shrink as a result of today’s decision.
*Where can I find the full decision?*
The full decision can be found at :
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
However, please note that the Supreme Court’s website seems to be having
some problems today and the link above may not be functioning properly.
Wired.com also has the full decision available at:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/01/golanscotusruling.pdf
*I don’t want this to happen again! What can I do to fight SOPA and PIPA?*
* *
Call your Senators and Representative and tell them you oppose SOPA and
PIPA. If you need help finding out who your Congressional representatives
are, you can simply type in your zip code
here<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page%3Fbanner=blackout>.
Alternatively, you can look up who your Senators are
here<http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm>and
who your Representative is
here <http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/>.
--
Michelle Paulson
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
mpaulson(a)wikimedia.org
415.839.6885 ext. 6608 (Office)
415.882.0495 (Fax)
NOTICE: This email message and all attachments transmitted with it are
intended solely for the use of the addressees and may contain legally
privileged, protected, or confidential information. If you have received
this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email reply
and please delete this message from your computer and destroy any copies. You
must not copy or disclose the contents of this message or any attachment to
any other person.
Hello everyone,
Scholarship applications are now being accepted for Wikimania 2012 in
Washington, D.C. The application window will be one month (through
February 16). To learn more about Wikimania scholarships, see
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
To apply for a scholarship, you can fill out the application form
here: https://secure.wikidc.org/wm/schols/
For the Wikimania 2012 team,
James Hare
*English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
*
San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the
English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the
U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If
passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring
about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United
States.
Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in
a public statement (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_c…
):
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take
against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in
a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level
of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage
greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition
to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even
a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free
speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
precedent of Internet censorship for the world."
We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
internet to remain open and free.
*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.
*Media Contact:
*
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
(To be removed from this mailing list, please reply with 'unsubscribe' in
the subject line)
Dear all,
Greetings from Wikimedia India !!!
We are delighted to present the last monthly Wikimedia India report of the
year 2011, almost a year after the chapter received the formal recognition
from the Government of Karnataka on 3 January 2011. The journey so far
wasn't easy, but we appreciate your continued patronage , support and
participation.
*Organisational Updates*
*Formation of Task Forces:*
As announced earlier, with the objective of increasing the engagement and
participation of the members of the chapter actively in various
initiatives, the India chapter has come up with focused Task Forces for
coordinating and driving various chapter activities [1]. There are two
types of Task Forces - Project Task Forces and Operations Task Forces. The
Project Task Forces are focused on growing the Wikimedia projects. The
Operations Task Forces are critical functions to enable the Project Task
Forces and the Chapter in growing the movement. The operations group
consists of Administration, Fund raising, & Communications. The Projects
task force consists of City and Langugage SIGs and Special Projects. The
new task forces will be led by the following people:
- Anirudh Bhati, Head, Fundraising.
- Arun Ramarathnam, Chair, Special Projects.
- Srinivas Gunta, Head, Administration.
- Sudhanwa Jogalekar, Chair, City and Language Special Interest Groups.
- Tinu Cherian, Head, Communications, PR & Media Relations.
*Membership:*
The Chapter membership stands at 190 members as of 31 December 2011.
*Donations:*
Total donations received in Dec 2011 - INR 700
Average donations in Dec 2011 - INR 350
*FCRA:*
Our application for FCRA prior permission under the Foreign Contribution
(Regulation) Act with the Government of India is still pending. An official
from the Home Ministry has visited Arjuna Rao Chavala, President.
*Internet Relay Chat(IRCs):*
>From time to time, Wikimedia India conduct planned online IRC chat
sessions. The Dec 17, 2011 was anchored by Arun with the focus on Chapter
City & Language Special Interest Groups. [2]
*Board Meetings:*
The Chapter Executive Committee had two Tele-conference meetings in the
month of December (dated 07 Dec and 14 Dec, 2011). The Wikimedia India
chapter and Wikimedia Foundation had one joint co-ordination call on 21 Dec
2011, which was attended by Arjuna Rao Chavala, Arun Ramaratnam, Naveen
Francis, Sudhanwa Jogalekar, Tinu Cherian, Anirudh Bhati, Asaf Bartov and
Hisham Mundol. The summary of the joint coordination call was shared
earlier [3].
Community City and Language Special Interest Groups
City and Language Special Interest Groups are a mechanism to engage the
diverse interests of members across India. The objective is to grow the
wiki projects in their areas of interest by reviewing the status, planning
and executing events of interest through growing the community involvement.
The leadership of these groups is part of the extended leadership of the
Chapter.
The Wikimedia Chapter is proud to announce the appointment of the next
batch of City and Language Special Interest Group Chairs [4] as given
below:
*City*
- Delhi SIG - Noopur Raval (noopur [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Bangalore SIG - RadhaKrishna (Arkrishna [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Mumbai SIG - Kundan Amitabh (kundan.amitabh [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Pune SIG - Mandar Kulkarni(mandar.kulkarni [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Kolkata SIG - Kalyan Sarkar (kalyan [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
*Languages*
- English SIG - Ashwin Baindur (ashlin [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Kannada SIG - Omshivaprakash H L (omshivaprakash [at] wikimedia [dot]
in)
- Marathi SIG - Mahitgar (mahitgar [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Telugu SIG - Rahimanuddin Shaik (rahimanuddin [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
The current sign-ups of Members for the SIGs are as follows:
*City Special Interest Groups*
City Members Bangalore 10 Delhi 2 Mumbai 3 Pune 6 Kolkata 2
*Language Special Interest Groups*
Language Volunteers Bengali 1 English 15 Hindi 1 Kannada 3 Marathi
4 Malayalam 8 Nepali 1 Odia 3 Sanskrit 2 Telugu 3 Events
A round-up of Wikimedia events and initatives around the nation is as
follows.
- *Wiki Academy @Jaya Engineering college * ( 10 Dec 2011) : The first
Wiki Academy in Jaya Engineering college, Chennai,[5] was organized by the
Wikimedia chapter and co-hosted by Jaya FOSS Club. Odia Wiki Chair &
Chapter member, Subhashish Panigrahi explained basics of Wikipedia, how it
is edited by millions of volunteers, how Wikipedia is exclusively
encyclopedic and kind of articles and notability of articles in Wikipedia,
how Wikipedians communicate and form community, and organization of
Wikimedia foundations and active projects. Then he took the audience
through active editing by signing up, searching for articles, choosing
articles to create. Then he demonstrated about creating an article by using
the Edit toolbar, citing the text by searching the web and uploading and
adding pictures in articles. The editing session was followed by a Q & A
session. Hisham Mundol, Consultant, Wikimedia Foundation India Programs,
connected with the audience via Google Hangout. Hisham interacted with the
audience by giving a talk about the nature of the event, few details about
Wikipedia, WMF and Chapter and foundation are trying to do in India. He
answered questions raised by the audience. Nitika Tandon , Consultant,
Wikimedia Foundation India Programs, later explained about the India
Education program (IEP), how it functions and the
student-teacher-foundation collaborations through the education program.
The photos of the event are available here [6].
- *Coimbatore 1st Meetup*( 10 Dec 2011) : The first Kovai (Coimbatore)
meetup [7] was held at KGISL Campus, Saravanampatti, Coimbatore. The Meetup
was organised by Srikanth Ramakrishnan (User:Rsrikanth05) and
User:Sodabottle.
- *Bangalore Wikimeetup 40* ( 11 Dec 2011) : Around 11 people attended
the 40th Wikimeetup in Bangalore [8]. The Bangalore SIG Chair, RadhaKrishna
presented a talk on the experiences on WikiConference India 2011 and
WikiAcademy events in IT companies. Experiences of Wiki Academy in Jaya
engineering college and way forward was shared by by Subhashish Panigrahi.
Plans regarding Wiki Eleven in January 2012 was discussed. The photos of
the event are available here [9].
- *Wikipedia Meetup1 Salem*( 11 Dec 2011) : A Wikimeetup was organised
at Salem, Tamil Nadu, [10] by Tamil Wikipedians Sodabottle and Surya
Prakash.
- '*Wikipedia Takes Kolkata /Kolkata Photo Walk* (18 Dec 2011) : A Photo
Walk was organised in Kolkata, West Bengal [11] by Kalyan Sarkar (Kolkata
SIG Chair), Jayanta Nath (Bengali SIG Chair) and Biswarup Ganguly. Around
437 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as a part of this
initiative.[12]
- *GLAMcamp Amsterdam * Noopur Raval ( Delhi SIG Chair and GLAM
enthusiastic) attended GLAM worskop in Amsterdam, hosted by Wikimedia
Nederland. [13]
- *Wikipedians participation in CMDA IT Expo , 2011*: Indian Wikipedians
participated in the annual CMDA IT Expo 2011, Pune.[14] The stall were
manned by Sudhanwa Jogalekar ( EC member), Mahitgar ( Marathi SIG Chair),
Ashwin Baindur ( English SIG Chair) , Hisham Mundol and Nitika Tandon ( WMF
India Programs), and Campus Ambassador (IEP) volunteers.
- *Malayalam Wiki-Academies:* Malayalam Wiki-community organised two
Wiki-Academies in Kerala in the month of December at Alappuzha ( Dec 13)
and Kollam (Dec 31). The Alappuzha (2nd Wikiacademy) held at St.Joseph
Vanitha College was led by Adv. T.K Sujith, Adv. M.P.Manojkumar and Akhil
Krishnan. The Kollam (4th Wikiacademy) held at Govt. Higher Secondary
School, Anchal West, was led by Kiran Gopi ( User:Kiran_Gopi) , Faud A.J. (
User:Faudaj) , Kannan Shanmugam ( User:Fotokannan)and Sugeesh (
User:Sugeesh)
Other News
- A new initiative named *"Featured Wikimedian* was started on the
public wiki of Wikimedia India. Every month, one Indian wikimedian will be
featured. [15]
- * Tamil Wikimedia contest*: The Tamil Wikimedia community has
organised an international contest to get more photos, videos and audios
related to Tamil, Tamilians and Tamil culture to the Tamil Wikipedia and
Wikimedia Commons. [16] (themed “Eluthu mattum arivanru” or “Knowledge
beyond text”) . The Tamil Wikipedia Community and the Wikimedia Foundation
have jointly sponsored a prize money of $850 (with nine prizes) for
winners. (The first, second and third prizes are $200, $100 and $50. Three
prizes of $100 each are for those uploading the maximum number of quality
entries. A special prize of $150 is for media files on traditional Tamil
arts and crafts. Winners would be announced on March 15, 2012 and they
would get certificates with their entries displayed on the front pages of
Tamil Wiki projects. The contest (, November 15, 2011 to February 29, 2012)
is open to all and is on Facebook [17].
- India Wikipedians Sengai Podhuvan , Karthik Nadar and Aniruddha Kumar
joins Jimmy Wales among others in the *Wikimedia Fundraising 2011 banners
* [18].
- *New Mailing lists* are created for Gujarati Wikipedia[19], Assamese
Wikipedia [20], GLAM India [21] and India related content on English
Wikipedia & related projects. [22].
Milestones & Anniversaries
* December 2011* [23]
25
- The Tamil Wikipedia<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Ta:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
reached 1,000,000 page edits.
- The Urdu Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ur:> has reached
10,000 total pages.
21
- The Malayalam
Wikipedia<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Ml:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
turned 9.
18
- The Bengali Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bn:> has reached
2,000 entries, as a user adds over 1,300 entries for Malagasy words in 5
hours.
16
- The Bihari
Wikipedia<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Bh:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
reached 100,000 page edits.
9
- The Sanskrit Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sa:> has
reached 100 entries.
- The Urdu Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ur:> has reached
5,000 entries.
5
- The Marathi
Wikibooks<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=B:mr:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
reached 1,000 registered users.
4
- The Kannada Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kn:> has reached
150,000 entries.
Media Coverage
- 28 Dec : Financial Chronicle : Wikipedians say Indian govt should ease
copyright curbs<http://www.mydigitalfc.com/knowledge/wikipedians-say-indian-govt-should-eas…>
- 27 Dec : Ahmedabad Mirror : " Ahmedabad to go Wiki with your clicks"
<http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011122720111227022617405d732bc46/…>
- 24 Dec : The Economic Times : "Wikipedia enlists Indians to be the
standard-bearers for its fund-raising
efforts"<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/wikipedia-enlists-indians…>
- 18 Dec : The Hindu : "Creative Commons: the licence to
evolve"<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article272537…>
- 16 Dec : The Hindu : "Contest to add files to Tamil Wikipedia gathers
steam"<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2719118.ece?textsiz…>
- 1 Dec : Tech Marathi: मराठी विकिपीडिया संपादन – अवघड की
सोपे?<http://techmarathi.com/?p=1243>( Marathi)
We look forward to your continued support and active participation.
Best,
On behalf of Wikimedia Chapter (India)
Thanks,
Naveen Francis
Secretary, Wikimedia India Chapter
[image: File:Wikimedia India logo.svg] <http://wikimedia.in/>
reachout
एक ऐसे विश्व की कल्पना करें, जहां प्रत्येक अकेला मानव सम्पूर्ण ज्ञान के
भण्डार को सबसे बांट सकता है।* यही हमारा संकल्प है। **.*
Notes:
- 1)
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Call_for_participation_of_Members_in…
- 2) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Internet_Relay_Chats/Dec_17,2011
- 3)
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Chapter-Foundation:_Co-Ordination_Ca…
- 4) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/City_and_Language_SIG_subcommittee_chair
- 5) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Jaya_Engineering_College
- 6)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jaya_Engineering_College_Wiki_Ac…
- 7) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore/Coimbatore1
- 8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Bangalore40
- 9)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangalore_Meetup_December2011
- 10) http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SALEM1
- 11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Kolkata
- 12) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Takes_Kolkata
- 13) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAMcamp_Amsterdam
- 14
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/006135.…
- 15) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Category:Featured_Wikimedian
- 16) http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest/en
- 17) http://www.facebook.com/tawmc
- 18)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011#A_Parade_of_Appeals.21_Dece…
- 19) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-gu
- 20) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-as
- 21) http://lists.wmnederland.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wlm-in
- 22) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-en
- 23) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Milestones_and_Anniversary
Dear all,
Here is our activity report for the period of October-December 2011
(apparently monthly reports are difficult to keep up, so we’re
switching to less frequent quarterly reporting).
== General Assembly ==
On December 18th, Wikimedia Israel held a General Assembly in Tel
Aviv, to present our Board’s plans and budget allocation for 2012 and
to approve the final general and financial reports for 2010.
Most of the GA was devoted to hearing reports from our volunteers in
the field about the various projects now underway - we are
experiencing a true renaissance of outreach activity since hosting
Wikimania in August. In this report we’ll mention some of the
activities presented in the GA.
The GA was attended by 16 people, 14 of which are formal members of our chapter.
==GLAM==
===GLAM: IMJ project ===
As reported before, part of the GLAM:IMJ project included a
Wikipedian-in-Residence program. The first WIR, Yair Talmor, began his
work at the Museum on Sep. 18th, and his residency ended on Nov. 30th.
Throughout his two months at the IMJ, Talmor worked in order to
promote the goals set at the beginning of the project. This was no
easy task - although an effort was made to have realistic and
reachable milestones, the project was very ambitious and much energy
was invested in it, just as part of it being the first GLAM project in
Israel.
As part of his residency, Talmor led editing sessions with Museum
staff, promoted the relations between museum staff, volunteers of the
Information Center and the Hebrew Wikipedia community, worked with the
museum in order to release media files to Wiki Commons and cultivated
a personal relationship with artists [and their families], who
eventually donated info and media to the project.
* http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/December_2011/Contents/I…
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/IMJ (project page on en.wp)
==== The 8th Digital Heritage Conference at the Van Leer Institute,
Jerusalem ====
On November 16th, we had the privilege of attending the 8th annual
conference on the digitization of cultural heritage. The conference is
probably the most professional & important one in Israel on the
subject, so we were fortunate to have a two-hour session to present
our projects.
The session, which was called "Wikipedia and GLAM Projects - How
galleries, libraries, archives and museums work with Wikipedia &
Wikimedia to share knowledge", was chaired by Dr. Allison Kupietzky,
Collections Database Manager and Head of the Information Center for
Israeli Art at the IMJ, and had 5 parts:
* "How to change the world while still in your slippers - Wikipedia,
Wikimedia and the free content movement" - A presentation by Tomer
Ashur, Chairman of Wikimedia Israel.
* "Wikimedia's Outreach Projects - from Africa to GLAM" - A
presentation by Shani Evenstine, GLAM Projects Coordinator, Wikimedia
Israel.
* "Israeli Art on Wikipedia as part of the GLAM IMJ Project" - A
presentation by Dr. Allison Kupietzky, Head of the Information Center
for Israeli Art, IMJ & Yair Talmor, Wikipedian-in-Residence, IMJ
Project.
* "Working Together - The National Library and Wikipedia" - A
presentation by Ido Ivri, Manager of Digital Programs, the National
Library of Israel. The lecture described the National Library of
Israel's initiative for providing access to a historic collection of
3,000 photographs, by making it accessible on Wikipedia, the benefits
of the process to the general public, what the National Library gains
and possible implications on the digitization and licensing processes.
* A Q&A panel with the audience.
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/December_2011/Contents/I…
===GLAM: NLI Project ===
It is with great pleasure that we announce the beginning of the second
big GLAM project in Israel - a collaboration with the National Library
of Israel. This project also hosts a Wikipedian-in-Residence, Daniel
Tzvi Framowitz, who will work at the NLI once-twice a week, in the
coming six months. The project was initiated by Ido Ivri, Manager of
Digital Programs at the NLI, and a new wikipedian.
* http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/December_2011/Contents/I…
== Copyright Legislation ==
We are continuing our ongoing effort to introduce a change in Israeli
copyright law that will allow free use of all pictures and media
created by state employees. With a 18 months delay, the Economy
Committee of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) started to discuss
this change in the law, and in its next meeting will vote on whether
to accept the change as drafted by Wikimedia Israel and the Israeli
Internet Association (ISOC). More information and our policy paper
published before the meeting: http://blog.wikimedia.org.il/?p=325 (in
Hebrew)
== Israeli Ministry of Education ==
Following meetings between the chapter’s representatives and the
Science and Technology Administration at the Ministry of Education, we
held a trial series of virtual meetings teaching fifth and sixth grade
pupils about crowdsourcing, wisdom of the masses, history of Wikipedia
and how to use Wikipedia in a smart and responsible way. The material
was written by Deror Avi and Amir Aharoni and taught by the charming
Tamar Hayardeni to 380 classes in three rounds, with 13,300 (!) pupils
watching it altogether.
== A lecture to Arab teachers in Baqa al-Gharbiyye ==
On December 4 Amir Aharoni gave a lecture about Wikipedia in the Arab
town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye to twenty five Arab teachers of history and
geography. The lecture presented Wikipedia and the principles behind,
showed the teachers how to read and search Wikipedia effectively, how
to use in their particular classes and how to improve articles for the
benefit of their students and all Wikipedia readers. This was the
first WMIL activity with the Israeli Arab community.
== Haifa University Faculty of the Humanities ==
As part of a big cooperation initiative with the Faculty of the
Humanities in the Haifa University, Hana Yariv is instructing factuly
staff and students on Wikipedia and its inner workings. In a few
courses provided by the faculty, students are required to write
Wikipedia articles as part of their coursework.
== Haifa University Faculty of Public Health ==
Deror Avi is leading a cooperation project with the Faculty of Public
Health at Haifa Univeristy, in which graduate students will write
Wikipedia articles as a mandatory assignment in their coursework. The
articles will be graded and verified by the course teachers. A meeting
with the faculty staff was held in December, and a training session
given to the students.
== Ben Gurion University ==
Danny W. is leading a few parallel cooperation efforts with Ben Gurion
University in Beersheba: mainly with professors who are friendly to
our cause and willing to introduce article improvement assignments as
part of their coursework, and with the Dean of Students in order to
form a formal student club of Wikimedians which will have its own
humble budget from the university.
== Public outreach talk in Ra'anana Municipal Library ==
On November 22nd, Tomer Ashur gave a presentation in the the municipal
library of Raanana. The presentation included about 30 people which
engaged in the discussions and were very interested of the topic.
After the presentation we started receiving requests from other
libraries which heard about this presentation.
== Cooperation with Librarians in the Western Galilee ==
Liron Dorfman has been giving a group of librarians and students of
information studies in the College of the Western Galilee
(http://www.wgalil.ac.il/) a series of lectures on Wikipedia and its
inner workings.
== Wikipedia Training to Teachers of Civic Studies, Center for
Educational Technology ==
On January 2nd, Harel Cain delivered a training session about
Wikipedia and using it in the classroom, with an emphasis on civic
studies (solving disputes in Wikipedia, questions of privacy and
libel, of censorship etc) to a group of 20+ teachers of civic studies
in Israeli high schools, at the Israeli Center of Education Technology
(CET).
Followup acitivties and meetings at the CET are planned for the coming weeks.
* http://video.cet.ac.il/VideoPlayer.aspx?xmlConfigPath=Civic/2012/Ezrahut_Hi…
(video of talk, in Hebrew)
== Annual Meetup of Wikipedians in January 2012 ==
On January 13th, 2012, Wikimedia Israel held an annual meetup of
Wikipedians at Tel Aviv University, which was attended by dozens of
Wikipedians. The program contained both informal mingling and a series
of updates and talks on various projects and trends in the Wikimedian
universe, with a focus on Wikimedia Israel’s activities.
* http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedian_meetups_in_Israel:_Ja…
* http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%…
(program, in Hebrew)
== Wiki Photo Hunts - Elef Millim Project ==
We continue our long tradition of monthly self-guided tours for and by
Wikimedians, which also serve as photo hunts generating hundreds of
photos for Commons. In October we made to Jaffa, in November to Kafr
Qara and in December to Neve Tsedek (one of the old neighborhoods of
Tel Aviv).
* http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%…
* http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%…
* http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%…
Sincerely,
Harel Cain
Secretary, Wikimedia Israel
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for December, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version is on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_December_2011
and the reports are posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
We are now also publishing a separate "Highlights" summary. Please
consider helping non-English-language communities to stay updated, by
providing a translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_December_2011
Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into
Danish, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and Vietnamese!
While continuing to focus on WMF activities, the "Highlights" now
include a small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole
movement. Suggestions for the upcoming January issue are welcome at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights (until the first
week of February).
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, December 2011
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 Visual editor prototype
o 3.2 Fundraiser ends with record-breaking donations
o 3.3 Annual Report published, for the first time with
translations
o 3.4 Collaborative drafting process for Terms of Use update
completed
* 4 Technology
o 4.1 Operations
o 4.2 Features Engineering
o 4.3 Mobile
o 4.4 Platform Engineering
* 5 Research
* 6 Community
o 6.1 Projects
o 6.2 Fundraising
o 6.3 Fellowship Program
o 6.4 Community Relations
* 7 Global Development
o 7.1 Grants Program
+ 7.1.1 Grants Awarded and Executed
o 7.2 Brazil Catalyst
o 7.3 Arabic Language Initiative
o 7.4 Wikimania Scholarships
o 7.5 Mobile and Business Development
o 7.6 Global development research
o 7.7 Wikipedia Education Program
o 7.8 India Programs
+ 7.8.1 Indic Languages
+ 7.8.2 India Outreach
+ 7.8.3 India Education Program
+ 7.8.4 Other
o 7.9 Communications
+ 7.9.1 Major announcements
+ 7.9.2 Major Storylines through December
# 7.9.2.1 WMF's 2010-11 Annual Report launched (December
17)
# 7.9.2.2 Wikipedia visual editor (December 13)
# 7.9.2.3 WMF opposes SOPA / WP shut down?
+ 7.9.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 7.9.4 Wikipedia Signpost
+ 7.9.5 WMF Blog posts
+ 7.9.6 Media Contact
* 8 Human Resources
o 8.1 Staff Changes
o 8.2 Statistics
o 8.3 Department Updates
* 9 Finance and Administration
* 10 Legal
* 11 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for November:
474 million (-0.4% compared with October; +15.6% compared with the
previous year)
(comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will
release December data later in January)
Page requests for December:
16.3 billion (-6.2% compared with November; +17.1% compared with the
previous year)
(estimate from Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects
including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for November 2011 (>= 5 edits/month):
83,444 (-1.2% compared with September / comparison data for November
2010 currently unavailable)
(Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects except for
Wikimedia Commons)
Report Card for November 2011:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2011_11_detailed.html
The report card is currently undergoing a redesign as a more
fully-featured dashboard (integrating various statistical data and
trends about WMF projects).
== Financials ==
(Financial information is only available for November 2011 at the time
of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the period of July 1, 2011 -
November 30, 2011
Revenue: $14.5 million
Expenses:
* Technology Group: $3,916,000
* Community/Fundraiser Group: $1,732,000
* Global Development Group: $1,454,000
* Governance Group: $406,000
* Finance/Legal/HR/Admin Group: $2,419,000
Total Expenses: $9,927,000
Total surplus/(loss): $4,573,000
Revenue was ahead of plan due to grants of $2.8 million and additional
donations ahead of plan of $2.1 million.
Expenses were below plan at $9.9 million actual versus $11.6 million
plan. Expenses were below planned due to lower than planned expenditures
in capital expenditures, chapter grants, recruitment cost and other
activities due.
Cash of $22.8 million, which is twelve months of cash reserves at
current spending levels and ten months of cash per the annual plan.
== Highlights ==
<Image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Visual_Editor_(side-by-side).png
Wikitext (right) and its representation in the Visual Editor (left)>
=== Visual editor prototype ===
The team developing a Visual Editor for Wikipedia and our other projects
presented a first prototype for testing
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:VisualEditorSandbox> on December 13.
Its development has been one of the Foundation’s top priorities
according to the 2011-2012 Annual Plan. Wiki-markup is a substantial
barrier that prevents many people from contributing, and it is hoped
that the Visual Editor will make editing easier.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/help-test-the-first-visual-editor-deve…
=== Fundraiser ends with record-breaking donations ===
<Image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WCI(2011),sengai_podhuvan_with_vict…>
Tamil Wikipedia Editor Dr. Sengai Podhuvan being interviewed by Victor
Grigas for a fundraiser testimonial>
The 2011 annual fundraiser ended on January 1, 2012 raising a
record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million donors in
nearly every country in the world. This year’s campaign highlighted
staff and volunteers who help to create Wikipedia. It featured
testimonials from volunteer editors in countries such as Argentina,
Brazil, India, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States ranging
in age from 18 to 76.
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/02/wikimedia-fundraiser-concludes-with-r…
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_AR11_SHIP_spreads_15dec11_72dpi…>
WMF annual report 2010-2011
=== Annual Report published, for the first time with translations ===
The Wikimedia Foundation's latest Annual Report
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report> was posted in PDF and
wiki format in mid-December. This year's report focusses on the
Foundation's major strategic efforts: supporting growth in India,
expanding our mobile reach, improving and simplifying our software, and
building our global education program. The report also highlights
accomplishments within our community through the last fiscal year, and
features a center spread article about the creation of the Arab Spring
article on Wikipedia. For the first time, we produced 'summary' versions
in seven languages.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/17/our-latest-annual-report-how-the-world…
=== Collaborative drafting process for Terms of Use update completed ===
After more than 120 days, the comment period for the proposed user
agreement comes to an end with powerful and effective community
participation. See the present version of the proposed user agreement
and extensive discussion here <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use>.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/31/terms-of-use/
== Technology ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for December 2011
can be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2011/December
Department Highlights
Major news in December include:
* The deployment of WebFonts
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/11/ready-for-a-webfonts-soft-launch/>
to selected Indic wikis;
* The first developer prototype
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/help-test-the-first-visual-editor-dev…>
of the Visual editor (see also general "Highlights" section above);
* A new version
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/20/a-new-way-to-contribute-to-wikipedia/>
of Article Feedback being tested on the English Wikipedia;
* Progress on the Swift media storage project.
=== Operations ===
* Data Centers — The team deployed the puppetmaster dashboard, and a
new UDP-based profiling tool to better identify potential
performance issues. Some database servers were moved to newer
hardware, including OTRS.
* Media Storage — As part of our preparation for the migration of our
media service to Swift, a distributed storage back-end, we need to
keep the current system afloat a bit longer. We reclaimed some space
by purging thumbnails not newly generated and not in use on any of
our projects. We also performed Swift thumbnail integration and
stress testing.
* Wikimedia Labs — 15 projects
<https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Ask/-5B-5BResource-20Type::p…>
and 36 instances
<https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Ask/-5B-5BResource-20Type::i…>
have been created and 46 people
<https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListUsers> have been
given Labs accounts so far. OpenStack Nova was upgraded from
/cactus/ to /diablo/. A GlusterFS filesystem was added on all
compute nodes via puppet, to act as storage for the instances.
=== Features Engineering
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Features_engineering>===
* Visual editor — The team deployed a developer prototype of the
visual editor sandbox to mediawiki.org for public feedback and
testing: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:VisualEditorSandbox .
Work continued on the parser test runner and the parser pipeline
including the tokenizer and its grammar and template expansions.
* Internationalization and localization tools — The WebFonts extension
was deployed to select Indic languages and projects, making it
possible to read content in languages using non-Latin fonts without
installing fonts manually. The deployment uncovered bugs and issues
that were addressed by the team, like cross-site font loading. The
team also improved the Narayam and Translate extensions, and the
latter was enabled on mediawiki.org to facilitate the translation of
software documentation.
* Article feedback — The team launched three test versions of the new
feedback forms on a sample of pages on the English Wikipedia, and
began evaluation of feedback comments.
=== Mobile <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Projects> ===
* MobileFrontend — We quietly launched mobile user login and better
support for tiered JavaScript. We also fixed long-standing issues
like the locked viewport and we updated image description pages.
Finally, we deployed HTTPS support on mobile for Wikipedia, with
plans to enable it for sister projects soon.
* Android Wikipedia App — Several release candidates were released
over the month and we're nearing completion of the first version of
the app. Nightly builds are available for testing.
=== Platform Engineering
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Platform_Engineering>===
* MediaWiki 1.19 — As of December 31st, about 600 revisions remain to
be reviewed in trunk before a new release can be deployed. Brion
Vibber proposed a feature freeze in trunk, to catch up on code
review and get the backlog down to zero in preparation for full
adoption of continuous integration.
* Continuous integration tools — The TestSwarm package was Debianized
and its configuration almost entirely entered into Puppet. TestSwarm
was then deployed to production and is now running at:
http://integration.mediawiki.org
* Volunteer coordination and outreach — Eleven developers got commit
access, all from the non-staff MediaWiki community. Sumana also
prepared for the January San Francisco hackathon and the February
Pune hackathon and recruited participants. Partly in preparation for
these coding events, Sumana and Guillaume Paumier continued to
consolidate training documentation to facilitate the onboarding of
new developers.
== Research ==
* The Research Committee held an extraordinary meeting [1] to review
the implications of the Berkman study – a large-scale online
experiment which was launched in December and recruited participants
among enwiki editors for a few hours [2] – and to discuss the way
forward to support subject recruitment for research purposes.
* We launched a public consultation to understand how to best serve
the research and developer community with open data from our
projects [3]. The consultation will remain open through January and
the full set of responses will be released at the end of the month
under a CC0 license.
* We continued reviewing, supporting and documenting research projects
and collaborations. We concluded the first six months of existence
of the Wikimedia Research Index with a total of 81 projects
(including the 2011 Summer of Research sprints) documented in the
project directory [4].
* We published the 6th issue of the Wikimedia Research Newsletter [5].
In the past half year it has covered a total of 93 references from
the recent scholarly literature on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia
projects.
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Meetings/Meeting_2011-12-…
[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Dynamics_of_Online_Interactions_and…
[2]
http://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dGNBSGFUcTdJLU…
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Projects
[5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2011-12-26
== Community ==
Department highlights
* Sarah Stierch joined as WMF's first Community Fellow focused on the
gender gap (see fellowships section below for more info)
* Over 1600 volunteers translated the banners and appeals for the
annual fundraiser into 112 languages, helping reach hundreds of
millions of people.
=== Projects ===
Editor Retention
* Karyn Gladstone joined the team as Director of Community Operations.
She will drive the operational agenda of the Community Department;
take initiative to relieve the CCO of detail work and create a
central coordination of activities so that we can achieve our
primary goals.
* Maryana Pinchuk and Steven Walling have continued their A/B testing
of the content of user warning template notifications to new users.
In December, they concluded tests for Huggle and XLinkBot, and began
new tests for SDPatrolBot, ImagetaggingBot, and shared IPs [1].
Together with Stuart Geiger, Aaron Halfaker and others, work was
completed on an automated analysis infrastructure for template
tests, with publishable results expected early in January.
* Basic planning is underway for our first "community convenings" —
meetups for community members interested in solving specific editor
retention issues. We're reaching out to the community for
participants for convenings of bot herders (users who manage
applications that take care of automated tasks - like adding a
template to an article), convenings about policy simplification, and
convenings focused on learning from the good governance decisions of
growing Wikipedias.
* Recruitment is underway for 2012 Community Summer Analysts, building
off of last year's Wikimedia Summer of Research. This summer,
analysts will focus on tackling practical analytic questions for
answering longstanding editor retention questions to help us
determine our next projects [2].
* See also Teahouse Project below
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_user_warnings/Testing
2.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings/Summer_Community_Analytics
== Fundraising ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Fundraiser_Boiler_Room-1-3.jpg
Boiler room banner analysis during the fundraiser>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Fundraiser_Boiler_Room-1-4.jpg
Life in the boiler room>
Fundraiser
(see also general "Highlights" section)
* The 2011 annual fundraiser ended on January 1, 2012 raising a
record-breaking USD 20 million from more than one million donors in
nearly every country in the world.
* This year’s campaign highlighted staff and volunteers who help to
create Wikipedia. It featured testimonials from volunteer editors in
countries such as Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, the United
Kingdom and the United States ranging in age from 18 to 76,
explaining why they edit Wikipedia and why they think readers should
support the Wikimedia Foundation.
* Daily testing of messaging, form optimization, and payment methods
continued throughout the campaign. [1]
* A full report of the 2011 fundraiser will be posted in 2012.
* The fundraiser was translated by over 1600 volunteers into more than
100 languages. See fellowships section below for more info on the
translation project.
1. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011
Major Gifts and Foundations
* Secured a $100,000 grant from the Kaphan Foundation
* Brought in $500,000 in $5000+ individual donors and family
foundation gifts during the annual fundraiser
* Received $400,000 installment from the Hewlett Foundation
=== Fellowship Program ===
Program Activities
* Launched a recruitment drive for 2012 Community Fellowships.[1]
We're using various communication channels to get the message out
around the world, including chapter outreach and the Global Message
delivery system to post an open call to over 500 on-wiki community
spaces.
* Liam Wyatt's Cultural Partnerships Fellowship wrapped up this month.
Many thanks go to Liam for his year spent building enthusiasm,
awareness, and working models for cultural institutions to partner
with Wikipedians in producing open content for the public.[2]
* Sarah Stierch began work as our first Community Fellow focused on
gender gap projects, visiting the Community Department towards the
end of the month to plan her first project (see also Teahouse,
below).[3]
Translation Project
* Over 1600 volunteers translated the banners and appeals for the
annual fundraiser into 112 languages, helping reach hundreds of
millions of people. [4] 19 batches of text containing 7663 total
source words have resulted in 567 completed translations. The final
report is in progress.[5] The Community Department hosted Fellow Jon
Harald Søby is to wrap up this project and begin planning the next
translation project for 2012.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Fundraiser_2011_Translation_Pro…
The translation project spreadsheet>
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by-1-2.jpg
Fellow Jon Harald Søby working at translation>
Teahouse Project
* Community Department hosted Fellows Jonathan Morgan and Sarah
Stierch were in San Francisco this month to continue planning for
the Teahouse Project, an initiative to reach out and offer help to
promising new editors, particularly women, in a many-to-many peer
support environment.[6]
1. http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/07/open-call-for-community-fellows/
2. http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM
3.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/20/announcing-community-fellow-sarah-stie…
4. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Translation
5.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011/Translation/Project_Report
6. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Teahouse
=== Community Relations ===
* Working with the tech team, we were really pleased to be able to
help get Corensearchbot, which is a heavily used bot on the English
Wikipedia, back up and back to its job detecting copyright
violations. The same work supports other bots on several different
language projects.
* Of the emergency reports, 28 were passed on to law enforcement
(33%). Of these, two are confirmed to have been life saving
telephone calls. While we don't often receive outcome data from
local police, we know that several others resulted in successful
welfare checks.
* Approximately 30% of the cases were either returned to the community
for their handling or rejected as something the Foundation would not
interfere with. 51 are still actively being worked.
== Global Development ==
Department highlights
* The communications team finalized the annual report.
* Successful launch of 2nd Editor Survey.
* Preliminary meetings in Cairo to discuss global education pilot.
* Developed a proposal for unrestricted operating grants for chapters
based on annual plans. Now discussing this with the community at:
Grants:Annual/Draft <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Annual/Draft>
* Hired Lori Byrd Phillips as *US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator*
--
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/07/us-cultural-partnerships-coordinator-l…
=== Grants Program ===
==== Grants Awarded and Executed ====
* *Wikimedia Grants* <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index>
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_KE/Start-up
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WMAR/Programs_2012
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_IN/Kolkata_Book_Fair_2012
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Sudhanwa/CMDA_IT_Expo,_Pune
* Wikimedia *Participation Grants*
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Participation>
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:B1mbo/GLAMcamp_Amsterdam
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:LauraHale/Amsterdam_GLAMCamp
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Nasir8891/WikiConference_India_2011
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:SarahStierch/DISH2011
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:MetalBrasil/Campus_Party_2012
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Solstag/CulturaDigitalBR2011
o http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:R.T.Argenton/CulturaDigitalBR2011
* Proposed revision of the Wikimedia Grants program process and
criteria: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:Annual/Draft
=== Brazil Catalyst <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Brazil_Catalyst_Project> ===
* Education Program: Contractor Everton Z. Alvarenga will lead the
education work for Brazil. He has been working with the community to
restructure the "standard" GEP to fit with Brazil and its needs /
intricacies. The pilot is planned to start this upcoming academic
year, in March 2012.
* WMF branch in Brazil: Contracted with executive search firm Michael
Page to work on hiring a country program director in Brazil.
=== Arabic Language Initiative ===
* Finalizing preparation for *Cairo* Wikipedia Education pilot,
including staff, campus ambassador and on-line ambassador recruitment
* Supported a series of Arabic Wikipedia community events in Cairo,
including celebration the Arabic Language International day in
collaboration with Engineering students of Cairo University, and a
Wikipedia editing session for Cairo geophysics community. WMF staff
gave Wikipedia talks in language schools in Cairo university.
* Currently preparing for community gathering in *Tunis* from January
26 to January 31 to include tabling and sessions at the national
school of engineers (http://www.enit.rnu.tn) and gathering with FOSS
and CC community. (One WMF staff member will be accompanied by three
active Arabic Wikipedia admins.)
* Barry Newstead will visit Cairo and Beirut next February, when he
will participate in public talks and meetings with community folks
and like-minded organizations.
=== Wikimania Scholarships ===
Travel and accommodation scholarship applications open in the beginning
of January 2012. Stay tuned to the mailing lists for more information!
=== Mobile and Business Development ===
* Continued project planning with partner operators in India, Africa,
Middle East and Southeast Asia for Q1 2012 launch of programs
focused on mobile accessibility.
* Worked on implementation plan and testing for Wikipedia Zero (Mobile
Wikipedia access without data charge) to roll out for Q1.
* Began discussions and contract process with new potential partners
in same priority regions with launch potential of Q2 2012 and later.
* Set plans for launching Android app publicly and with partners in
mid-January.
=== Global development research ===
Successfully concluded the second Wikipedia editor survey. (After data
cleaning we have about 7,000 completed responses - a big increase from
the 5000 responses we had last time.) Data analysis is in progress.
=== Wikipedia Education Program ===
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ArabicWikimediansCairo.jpg
Wikipedia Education Program staff meet with Arabic Wikimedians in Cairo,
Egypt, in December 2011.>
* In the first half of December, Frank Schulenburg and Annie Lin
traveled to Cairo, Egypt, and met with professors, students and
local Wikipedians. The trip was part of the preparation for a small
pilot for the Wikipedia Education Program to be conducted during the
spring 2012 semester. Supported by Moushira Elamrawy and Essam
Sharaf, Annie and Frank had a number of in-person meetings with
professors from Cairo University and Ain Shams University. Frank and
Essam also gave Wikipedia presentations at Cairo University and at
the German University in Cairo. As a result, six professors have
been identified as participants of the pilot that will start in
early February 2012. More information about this trip on the
Wikimedia blog:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/31/education-program-gets-ready-for-cairo…
* KALW, a public radio station in San Francisco, California, covered
the Wikipedia Education Program on its "Crosscurrents" show. The
journalist, Nicole Jones, interviewed University of California at
Berkeley Professor Brian Carver, some of his students, and Wikipedia
Education Program Communications Manager LiAnna Davis. The segment
discusses the benefits of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in
higher education classrooms:
http://www.kalwnews.org/audio/2011/11/29/colleges-take-chance-wikipedia_148…
* On December 17 and 18, Frank Schulenburg led the first
train-the-trainer event for the new Wikipedia Education Program in
Germany. Ten longterm Wikipedians were trained as "Referenten", who
will support professors and teaching assistants to integrate
Wikipedia into the classroom at German Universities. The training
slides (in German) are available on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:K%C3%B6ln_Orientierungsworkshop_f%C3…
* On December 20, the third monthly Wikipedia Education Program
Metrics and Activities Meeting took place. Representatives from the
programs in the U.S., Canada, India, Egypt, and Germany all spoke
about their plans for the forthcoming term. The meeting notes are
available on the Foundation's outreach wiki:
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program_Metrics_and_…
* As the U.S. branch of the Education Program wrapped up the fall 2011
semester, LiAnna Davis started to document its success stories. A
blog post published on the Wikimedia Foundation blog
(http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/19/pitt-undergrad-learns-the-ways-of-wiki…)
describes the experiences of undergrad Karl Wahlen, enrolled in a
University of Pittsburgh class called Sociology of Marriage, taught
by longterm Wikipedian Piotr Konieczny. Another blog post tells the
story of Katy Lederer
(http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/30/milwaukee-brise-soleil-video-featured-…),
who is in her final year of school at Alverno College, a women’s
college in Milwaukee. As part of her Advanced Media Studies class,
Katy created a video of the Milwaukee Art Museum's brise soleil,
which appeared as the Wikimedia Commons Media of the Day on November 26.
* Jami Mathewson continued working with Regional Ambassadors in the
U.S. and Canada to organize the in-person training for Campus
Ambassadors in January 2012. This will be the last iteration of
in-person trainings in North America, before the training will be
transitioned to an online training model.
=== India Programs ===
==== Indic Languages ====
Concluded a series of discussions with a host of Indic language
Wikimedians across the India (and indeed the world) to try and
understand, document and share their experiences and thinking and
suggestions for Indic languages in order to cross-pollinate ideas,
encourage greater community conversations, and help identify community
initiatives or community-endorsed pilots for India Programs through a
series of suggestions that have been shared and conversations we are
trying to foster on respective village pumps.
==== India Outreach ====
* Initiated work on supporting general outreach efforts of the
community by documenting and sharing best practices and tips as well
as presentation material and guidelines.
* Planned out outreach efforts across the country to kick-start outreach.
==== India Education Program ====
v 1.0 of the pilot has concluded and we are in the process of analysing
results to determine next steps. This includes internal analysis,
Ayush's data analysis, and Tory Read's evaluative report, which are
likely to be in place after mid-January, after which we will start a
collaborative exercise to determine v 2.0. (We already know of many
problems, such as scale, faculty selection/involvement, Campus
Ambassador/student selection/training, engagement with the global en-WP
community, but we want to make sure we capture everything before we
attempt anything further.)
==== Other ====
* Subhashish Panigrahi was selected for Consultant, Community &
Program Support. Welcome, Subha!
* Provided ad hoc support to number of communities on local
initiatives like the Pune and West Bengal outreach efforts.
* Continuing work on the right legal and regulatory framework /
structure to operate within India.
=== Communications ===
The communications team finalized the Foundation's 2010-11 Annual Report
in December, both the print/PDF version and a wiki version (see general
"Highlights" section above). Communications also provided
major support to the annual fundraising campaign team, though much of
our efforts by mid-December were focussed on press strategy around WMF's
opposition to SOPA in the US, including responses around the Wikipedia
community's discussion of a Wikipedia site block and coordination with
many of the Foundation's NGO and mission-supporting partners.
==== Major announcements ====
(No major press announcements in December)
==== Major Storylines through December ====
===== WMF's 2010-11 Annual Report launched (December 17) =====
(cf. general "Highlights" section above)
===== Wikipedia visual editor (December 13) =====
Following the news (of a demo) of a new visual editor interface for
Wikipedia (see general "Highlights" section above) global
press eagerly reposted and shared the news of what may be the "most
significant change in Wikipedia's short history." Most coverage of the
news was favorable and positive.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2011/12/changes-wikipediahttp://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/246251/help_test_wikipedias_n…
===== WMF opposes SOPA / WP shut down? =====
Global attention was drawn to discussion of the Stop Online Piracy Act
before a congressional committee in Washington in December. WMF opposes
the bill
(http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wi…
), which would hurt the open and free web, and significantly hamper
global projects like Wikipedia. A straw poll on Jimmy Wales' talk page
regarding the possibility of a Wikipedia shutdown in protest of the bill
drew significant international media attention as well. Much of the
coverage (and social media response) has been critical of the bill.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/wikipedia-threatens-blackout-over-privacy-…http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/12/wikipedia-blackout-sopa_n_1144580.…http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70554.html
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16084861 (on Bell Pottinger and PR
editing)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-arms-company-the-oligarch…http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/wikistream-shows-off-the-unbelieve…
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-12-…
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-12-…
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-12-…
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2011-12-…
==== WMF Blog posts ====
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/
==== Media Contact ====
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#December_2011
== Human Resources ==
=== Staff Changes ===
New Contractors
* Everton Zanella Alvarenga
* Erek Dyskant
* Yuvaraj Pandain
* Maxim Semenik
* Lori Byrd Phillips
Contract Extended
* Karen Chelini
* Jeroen De Dauw
* Andrew Garrett
* Roan Kattouw
* Niklas Laxstrom
* Siebrand Mazeland
* Gerard Meijessen
* Neel Punatar
* Angela Robeson
Contract Ended
* Greg DeKoenigsberg
* Christine Moellenberndt
* Rebecca Neumann
* Linda Pennington
* Stark Thom
New Postings
* Interaction Designer
* Office IT Support Specialist
* Summer Community Analytics
RFP
* Executive Dashboard – Analytics
=== Statistics ===
Total Employee Count
December Plan: 109, December Filled: 0, December Attrition: 0,
YTD Filled: 24, YTD Attrition: 8, Actual: 90
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end: 27
=== Department Updates ===
We have a new CTCO (Chief Talent and Culture Officer) - Gayle Karen
Young - and we're in process of hiring a Director of HR and
restructuring roles until the HR director comes on board. We have vision
of an effective, smooth, and supportive department. As Gayle gets her
feet under her, we will be identifying our key priorities and
communicating to the organization about them.
Jeanie Mayall started last September, gracefully taking on a great
number of tasks when Daniel left. She is accepting a position as a
Manager of HR with a start-up down the street. In the last few months,
she has handled open enrollment with great success, immigration issues,
contractors and the contracting process, compliance, and non-California
tax issues. She has agreed to be accessible on an ongoing basis and we
are working to proactively transition open issues.
Real-time feed for HR updates: http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or
http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
Isa will be transitioning, in the month of January, out of her role as
Interim Head of Office Administration. Many thanks to Isa for all of her
good work during her time at WMF.
We are continuing our search for a new Head of Office Administration and
a Senior Accountant.
We completed a review of internal security systems and began
implementing recommendations.
== Legal ==
* The 120+-day comment period for the proposed user agreement
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_use> comes to an end with
strong community
participation (see general "Highlights" section above).
* Continued support of community during its review of SOPA and IP
Protect. For the community discussion page (to which we contribute),
go here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative>.
Geoff's blog post is here
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-web-and-wi…>.
* IRC office hours on legal strategy took place with this summary
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Geoffbrigham/Strategy>.
* Consideration of legal strategy for challenging Loriot decision on
stamps in Germany. For the legal and community discussion, go here
<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Loriot_Signature_Background>
* Ninth Circuit - which decides case law applicable to the Wikimedia
sites - affirms DMCA safe harbor in an excellent decision. You can
find a summary of the decision and a copy of it here
<http://title17.net/2011/12/umg-v-veoh-ninth-circuit-affirms-dmca-safe-harbo…>.
Andrew, our legal intern, prepared for Geoff a summary of the
decision here
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AUMG_v._Veoh_Summary.pdf&…>.
* Note the recent restrictions on Internet access in Belarus that
could affect Wikimedia. See
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120103/07193917260/no-belarus-is-not-cut…
Stats:
* # contracts signed - 11
* # trademark requests - 8
o approved - 3
o denied - 1
o approval not needed - 1
o pending - 5
== Visitors and Guests ==
1. Deborah Bezona (D. Bezona & Company)
2. Valerie Ball (KPMG)
3. Diane Peters (Creative Commons)
4. Hana Yariv (Wikimedia Israel)
5. Jan-Bart de Vreede (WMF Board of Trustees)
6. Kat Walsh (WMF Board of Trustees)
7. Chris Bishko (Omidyar Network, Investment Director)
8. Eric E. Johnson (Affiliate Scholar, Stanford Law School Center for
Internet and Society, Associate Professor of Law, University of
North Dakota School of Law)
9. Carol Reed (National Sales Manager, Travel and Transport)
10. Christie Goodfellow and Denise Truong (Triton Hotel)
11. Lori Byrd Phillips (The Children's Museum of Indianapolis)
--
Tilman Bayer
Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
.png){kind=link}
,sengai_podhuvan_with_victor_grigas3,TN505.jpg){kind=link}
