Hi all,
the new bulletin from Wikimedia Italia (#46) is available.
Members of the association talked a lot in these weeks, and our official
Members' Meeting is due in ten days! We also remember a Wikipedian friend
who passed away.
As usual a link has been added to meta, at
Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Italia ; raw text of the bulletin
follows below.
ciao, .mau.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
== Twice25 ==
We open this newsletter with a sad news. Some days ago Tullio Arecco, known
on Wikipedia with the nickname '''Twice25''', passed away. He joined the
encyclopedia back in 2003.
Twice has never been a member of Wikimedia Italia or sysop of it.wikipedia
(except for a temporary assignment a few years ago to help in the clean-up
of contributions in violation of copyright) because it was not the type who
loved this kind of commitment, but he has always been an expert contributor
and a pillar for the community.
Twice always had in mind that Wikipedia is made up of people before
articles: it was not a chance that the first meeting of Italian Wikipedians
was held in Genoa, where he lived; Twice helped organizing and was the
perfect guest. Our condolences go out to the family and Rina, his partner.
== Recent events ==
In the last few days, Wikimedia Italia took part to several events.
* The International Tourism Exchange (BIT, Borsa Internazionale del
Turismo), held at Fiera Milano from 14 to 17 February 2013, saw two
speeches in which Wikimedia Italia partecipated. Friday 15, at the stand of
Friuli-Venezia Giulia, there was the Show X Conference, with a format
similar to TED that addressed the issues related to new technologies,
especially digital communication and open access, and their application to
tourism. Maurizio Codogno ([[Utente:.mau.|.mau.]]), ''spokesperson for
Wikimedia Italia'', talked about sharing, Wiki world and Open Content, with
particular focus on the newborn project Wikivoyage and on Wiki Loves
Monuments. He also indicated that the work of Wikipedian volunteers would
be facilitated if the local authorities gave permission to take photographs
of the monuments they manage as per Italian law, so that they may be used
in a commercial environment.
* Also at the International Tourism Exchange, on Saturday 16
[[Utente:Frieda|Frieda]] (''chair of Wikimedia Italy'') took part in a
debate on "Reputation Online, Direct and Indirect Network Presence"],
describing the project "Adopt a word" dedicated to Wikipedia and developed
by Emilia Romagna Tourism Office, describing the new opportunities that
start with Wikivoyage and finally signaling Wiki Loves Monuments and their
photos freely reusable also for tourism ventures.
* On February 19, [[Utente:Cotton|Cotton]], board member of Wikimedia
Italy, attended the presentation of [
http://www.veneto.beniculturali.it/gli-studenti-scrivono-wikipedia"Progetto
Veneto in Wikipedia"], which was held in Padua, at the
Einaudi-Gramsci Institute. Also members [[Utente:Conrad|Conrad]] and
[[Utente:LCM|LCM]] took part in the meeting, together with Wikipedia sysop
Aplasia as well as representatives of the regional branch of the Ministry
for Heritage and Culture.
== Wikipedia and women ==
On February 21, initiative [
http://caffeculturale.ch/wikimedia/79-wikipedia-e-le-donne Wikipedia and
women] will be held in Lugano, organized by Wikimedia Switzerland and
Associazione Caffè Culturale Lugano. Frieda (''chair of Wikimedia Italy'')
and Emma Tracanella (''project manager for Wiki Loves Monuments'') are
among the guests for the initiative.
== Members' meeting ==
Saturday, March 2, 2013, in the press room of Telecom Italy (Piazza Affari
2, 20123 Milano) the Ordinary Members' Meeting of Wikimedia Italy will be
held. The meeting is open to everyone, but to participate you must register
for free [http://assembleawmi2013.eventbrite.it on Eventbrite], where you
will also find the program of the day. It takes just a minute!
Wikimedia Nederland's report on activitities in the fourth quarter of 2012
is available:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NL/Annual_Program_Plan_2012/Report…
Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
tel. (+31) (0)6 31786379
*Postadres*: * Bezoekadres:*
Postbus 167 Mariaplaats 3
3500 AD Utrecht Utrecht
*Hi everyone, *
* *
*I’m simply thrilled to welcome Luis Villa to the Foundation as our new
Deputy General Counsel.*
*
Thanks to Kat Walsh, I met Luis during my first months at the Foundation.
Kat loves Luis, and it is no wonder why. In addition to being a superb
lawyer, Luis is an open source developer, has worked with leaders in our
Internet legal circles, and has a great personality that embraces our
culture.*
*
His most recent adventure took place at the Palo Alto office of Greenberg
Traurig, one of the top global law firms. There he worked with well-known
Internet lawyers like Ian Ballon and Heather Meeker. Luis focused on
technology transactions, helping clients create solutions to licensing
problems, with a particular emphasis on open source and software standards.
His clients included Mozilla, the Open Compute Project, and a variety of
clients large and small. Luis successfully defended Google in the
Oracle-Google/Android lawsuit, primarily working on the question of API
copyrightability. I hired Luis as outside counsel to work on a tough legal
matter for us, and his answers were on point, clear, and practical. *
*
Luis’ first contact with free software came was when he was in college at
Duke University. There he studied political science and computer science,
began using Linux, and helped triage Mozilla's bugzilla. A professor paid
him to play with Lego, resulting in brief maintainership of the GPL’d LegOS
operating system and co-authorship of the book "Extreme Mindstorms". *
*
After graduation, Luis worked at Ximian, a Linux desktop startup, doing
quality assurance and eventually managing the desktop team. As part of
that, he got heavily involved in the GNOME desktop project, becoming
bugmaster and then getting elected to the board of directors. After Ximian
was acquired, Luis became "geek in residence" at Harvard Law School's
Berkman Center. At Berkman, he translated from lawyer to geek, and managed,
maintained, and developed several software projects.*
*
After Berkman, Luis started his legal ventures in life at Columbia Law
School, where he was Editor in Chief of the Science and Technology Law
Review, was awarded honors each year, and was co-recipient of the class
prize for excellence in intellectual property scholarship. His thesis dealt
with the use of software standards as part of antitrust enforcement.
Outside of class, he participated in the GPL revision process, worked in
the General Counsel's office at Red Hat, and developed a surprisingly
strong attachment to New York City.*
*
After law school, Luis worked in the legal department at Mozilla, where his
major project was revising the Mozilla Public License. The license got over
a thousand words shorter, and gained stronger patent protections and
compatibility with the Apache and GPL licenses. Luis also worked on
privacy, contracts, standards bodies, and other issues.*
*
Outside of work, Luis is an invited expert to the World Wide Web
Consortium's Patents and Standards Interest Group, and a board member and
chair of the Licensing Committee at the Open Source Initiative. He also
enjoys biking, photography, history, Duke basketball (men's and women's),
and eating.*
*
Luis's first Wikipedia edit under his current user name dates to Feb. 2007.
Like any good pedant, he has also been making minor spelling and grammar
corrections anonymously for many years.*
*
So, as you can tell, we are extremely excited about having Luis on our team
and wish him a warm welcome. *
* *
*Cheers, *
* *
*Geoff*
--
Geoff Brigham
General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
please find below the WMF report for January 2013, in plain text.
As always, the editable and formatted version has been published on Meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_January_2013
and the reports are being posted on the Wikimedia blog, too:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/corporate/wmf-monthly-reports/
As usual, we are 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,_January_2013
Many thanks to those who have translated the December "Highlights"
into Arabic, Bulgarian, Breton, Danish, German, Spanish,
Indonesian, Mongolian, and Simplified Chinese (and partially into
some other languages)!
While still focussing on WMF activities, the "Highlights" include a
small selection of the most noteworthy events from the whole movement.
Suggestions for the January issue are welcome until March 6 at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Highlights .
Regards, Tilman
--
Wikimedia Foundation Report, January 2013
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Monthly_Metrics_Meeting_February_7,…>
Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting
covering the month of January
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-02-07>
(February 7, 2013)
Contents
* 1 Data and Trends
* 2 Financials
* 3 Highlights
o 3.1 New program offers financial support for projects by
individual Wikimedians
o 3.2 Successful migration to new data center
o 3.3 New partnership grows the reach of Wikipedia Zero to 330
million mobile users
o 3.4 Wikivoyage becomes newest Wikimedia project
* 4 Engineering
o 4.1 VisualEditor
o 4.2 Editor engagement
o 4.3 Mobile
* 5 Fundraising
o 5.1 Major Gifts and Foundations
o 5.2 Annual Fundraiser
* 6 Grantmaking and Programs
o 6.1 Grantmaking
o 6.2 Strategic Goals Metrics
+ 6.2.1 Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC)
+ 6.2.2 WMF Grants Program
# 6.2.2.1 Grants approved in January 2013
# 6.2.2.2 Reports accepted in January 2013
+ 6.2.3 Participation Support requests approved in January
2013
+ 6.2.4 Individual Engagement Grants
+ 6.2.5 Fellowships
+ 6.2.6 Wikimania Scholarships
+ 6.2.7 Editor Growth and Contribution Program
o 6.3 Programs
+ 6.3.1 US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator
+ 6.3.2 Brazil
# 6.3.2.1 Catalyst Project development
* 6.3.2.1.1 Team building
* 6.3.2.1.2 Institutional Development
# 6.3.2.2 Outreach
* 6.3.2.2.1 Campus Party
* 6.3.2.2.2 Digitalia
# 6.3.2.3 Education - Brazil
* 6.3.2.3.1 2012 Results Report
* 6.3.2.3.2 Program development
+ 6.3.3 Mobile
+ 6.3.4 Global Education
o 6.4 Learning & Evaluation
* 7 Human Resources
o 7.1 Staff Changes
o 7.2 Statistics
o 7.3 Department Updates
* 8 Finance and Administration
* 9 Legal and Community Advocacy
o 9.1 Contract Metrics
o 9.2 Trademark Metrics
o 9.3 Other Activities
o 9.4 Communications Report, January 2013
+ 9.4.1 Major announcements
+ 9.4.2 Major Storylines through January
+ 9.4.3 Other worthwhile reads
+ 9.4.4 WMF Blog posts
+ 9.4.5 Media Contact
+ 9.4.6 Wikipedia Signpost
* 10 Visitors and Guests
== Data and Trends ==
Global unique visitors for December:
*472.6 million* (-2.46% compared with November; +3.39% compared with
the previous year)
(comScore data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/unique_visitors> for all
Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release January data
later in February)
Page requests for January:
*22.2 billion* (10.3% compared with December; +23.4% compared with
the previous year)
(Server log data
<http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyAllProjects.htm>,
all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for December 2012 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month,
excluding bots):
*78,536* (-1.04% compared with November / +0.09% compared with the
previous year)
(Database data
<http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/graphs/active_editors>, all Wikimedia
Foundation projects. Note: We recently refined this metric
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/31/improving-the-accuracy-of-the-active-…>
to take into account Wikimedia Commons and activity across several
projects.)
*Report Card* (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF
projects) for December 2012:
http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
(Definitions <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Metric_definitions>)
== Financials ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_December_2…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of December 31,
2012
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Expenses_by_Functions_December_…>
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of December 31, 2012
(Financial information is only available for December 2012 at the time
of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and
Year-To-Date December 31, 2012.
Revenue $30,916,665
*Expenses:*
Engineering Group $6,289,609
Fundraising Group $2,039,275
Grantmaking & Programs Group $2,390,621
Governance Group $364,699
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group $1,557,154
Finance/HR/Admin Group $2,820,212
Total Expenses $15,461,570
Total surplus/(loss) $15,455,095
* Revenue for the month of December is $14.30MM vs plan of $14.41MM,
approximately $109K or 1% under plan.
* Year-to-date revenue is $30.92MM vs plan of $29.91MM, approximately
$1.01MM or 3% over plan.
* Expenses for the month of December is $2.70MM vs plan of $3.14MM,
approximately $433K or 14% under plan, primarily due to lower
personnel expenses, capital expenses, and travel expenses partially
offset by higher legal expenses, bank fees, and outside contract
services.
* Year-to-date expenses is $15.46MM vs plan of $17.78MM, approximately
$2.31MM or 13% under plan, primarily due to personnel expenses,
internet hosting, travel expenses, and capital expenses partially
offset by higher legal expenses, bank fees, and awards and grants.
* Cash position is $41.17MM as of December 31, 2012.
== Highlights ==
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IdeaLab_kitten_logo.png>
Logo of the IdeaLab
=== New program offers financial support for projects by individual
Wikimedians ===
The Foundation's Individual Engagement Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG> program
launched on January 15. While most WMF grants have so far gone to
organizations like chapters, the new program will finance initiatives by
individual Wikimedians or small teams to improve Wikimedia projects. The
first application period lasts until February 15. During the first two
weeks, 31 ideas, drafts, and proposals were submitted. An "IdeaLab
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab>" has been set up
where draft proposals can be
discussed, and applicants can get help to turn their ideas into complete
proposals.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Servers-8055_0…>
Wikimedia Foundation servers
=== Successful migration to new data center ===
On January 22, Wikipedia and all other Wikimedia sites were migrated
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/19/wikimedia-sites-move-to-primary-data-…>
to the Foundation's new primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia (US).
The prior data center in Tampa, Florida had been the main hosting site
since 2004; it will remain on standby to take over in case the new data
center experiences an outage. The switch worked nearly without any
problems. The Operations Team attributes
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-sto…>
this success to the careful preparation since 2011. This involved
reviewing, improving and documenting the configuration of the servers
(currently about 885) in a way that has already improved stability
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/05/how-the-technical-operations-team-sto…>
in 2012, and will make it possible to set up new data centers much faster.
=== New partnership grows the reach of Wikipedia Zero to 330 million
mobile users ===
VimpelCom <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VimpelCom>, the sixth largest mobile
network operator in the world, joined the Wikipedia Zero program
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/vimpelcom-partnership-grows-wikipedia…>
in January, raising the number of mobile users who are eligible to
access Wikipedia without data fees by 100 million, to 330 million
worldwide. Among the countries serves by VimpelCom are Russia, Ukraine,
Armenia and other countries of the former USSR.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikivoyage-logo-en-TTO-attempt.svg>
Wikivoyage logo
=== Wikivoyage becomes newest Wikimedia project ===
On January 15, the 12th anniversary of Wikipedia, Wikivoyage
<https://www.wikivoyage.org/> was officially launched
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/15/wikimedia-foundation-launches-wikivoy…>
as the newest project of the Wikimedia Foundation. The free travel guide
that anyone can edit is already available in nine languages - Dutch
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/nl:>, English
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/en:>,
French <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/fr:>, German
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/de:>, Italian
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/it:>,
Russian <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/ru:>, Portuguese
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/pt:>, Spanish
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/es:>
and Swedish <https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/sv:> - with more being added.
There are more than 50,000 articles, which are edited and improved by a
core group of approximately 200 volunteer editors.
== Engineering ==
A detailed report of the Tech Department's activities for January 2013
can be found at:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_engineering_report/2013/January
Major news in January include:
* the successful migration of our main services
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/19/wikimedia-sites-move-to-primary-data-…>
to our data center in Ashburn, Virginia (see general "Highlights"
section)
* new features
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/11/mobile-beta-a-sandbox-for-new-experim…>
available in our mobile beta;
* progress on input methods
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/25/language-engineering-progress-with-in…>
and our upcoming translation interface
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/11/a-more-efficient-translation-interfac…>;
* the announcement of GeoData
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/31/geodata-a-new-age-of-geotagging-on-wi…>,
a feature to attach geo-coordinates to Wikipedia and Wikivoyage
articles;
* a testing event to assess how VisualEditor handles non-Latin
characters
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/28/help-us-test-and-investigate-visualed…>.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Roan Kattouw presenting about VisualEditor and Parsoid (slides
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VisualEditor-Parsoid_-_2013-02_Metr…>)
=== VisualEditor <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor> ===
In January, the VisualEditor team worked primarily on reviewing and
cleaning up the code that was enabled on the English Wikipedia
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/12/try-out-the-alpha-version-of-the-visu…>
in December. They spent time with their colleagues in the Parsoid team
planning the next phase of development, which aims to make the
VisualEditor the default editor for all Wikipedias from July 2013. The
alpha version on mediawiki.org and the English Wikipedia was updated
twice, fixing a number of bugs reported by the community and making some
adjustments based on feedback.
The Parsoid <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid> team (who are creating
the parsing program <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing> that translates
plain wikitext into HTML annotated for easy editing, and /vice-versa/)
also cleaned up their code and fixed bugs. Parsoid's features were
overhauled to be more robust and extend support for wikis in various
configurations (including in languages other than English). The team
also discussed the longer-term strategy in the Parsoid roadmap
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Parsoid/Roadmap>, in which they decided to
focus their efforts on performance improvements and HTML storage for the
existing implementation, instead of the performance-oriented C++ version
of Parsoid.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Terry Chay presenting about editor engagement/features engineering
(slides <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltqNe-ZyANE>)
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Screenshot_of_GettingStarted_guided…>
Demo screenshot of guided tours
=== Editor engagement <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/New_editor_engagement> ===
This month, the Editor engagement team stepped up development on the
Notifications project /Echo/
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo_(Notifications)>, and updated the first
experimental release on mediawiki.org. The user experience for core
features was improved (such as the badge, fly-out, all-notifications
page and email notifications) and development started on new features,
like preferences. The team completed work on HTML emails and started
development of a more robust job queue. A first release on the English
Wikipedia is expected by the end of March; in the meantime, users can
try the current version <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Echo/Testing> on
mediawiki.org.
Flow <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Flow>, a feed-like interface to enable
users to better interact with their projects, entered the product design
phase in early January. It has several "modules", one of which is a
design for a structured user-to-user communication system. User research
began in order to learn how user-to-user talk pages are handled, and how
to improve them. Engineering discussions started about potential
back-end and performance difficulties, the possible use of Wikidata's
ContentHandler <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ContentHandler>, and the
evaluation of Wikia's MessageWall. A consultation with the community is
planned for February, with experienced and newer users alike.
Regarding Article Feedback v5
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Version_5> (a quality
assessment feature), its code was cleaned up in January, and new
features (simpler moderation tools and better filters) were developed.
An internal feedback evaluation study
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Article_feedback/Final_quality_ass…>
suggests that about 39% of the feedback collected can be used to improve
articles. Discussions happened on the English
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Article_feedba…>
and
French
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/fr:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Prise_de_d%C3%A9cision/Mise…>
Wikipedia regarding the future use of the tool, and the German pilot
program <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/de:Wikipedia:Artikel-Feedback> is
expected to continue until May.
The Editor Engagement Experiments team ("E3") launched
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/01/guided-tour-launch/> guided tours
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/guided_tours> on the English Wikipedia, a
feature allowing developers and Wikimedians to build tours to guide
newer users. The team also tested the Getting Started
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GettingStarted> landing page and
task list, measuring the effect it had on driving new contributions.
Analysis showed that the onboarding experience is leading to small but
statistically significant increases in new English Wikipedians
attempting to edit, as well as saving their first edit. In addition to
measuring the effects of the guided tour associated with this project,
immediate plans are to redesign the landing page and add additional task
types, to entice more new contributors. Work also continued on refining
the reliability and precision of the data collected from the
EventLogging extension
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:EventLogging>. In particular, it was
migrated to a dedicated database, and the team began collecting data to
measure, for example, account creations on desktop and mobile.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Maryana Pinchuk demonstrating mobile photo uploading (slides
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1A2URDSkSIa7kBYDHu1DaxZfnR6Wd9z-K0iV…>)
=== Mobile <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Mobile_engineering> ===
After its soft launch in December, GeoData
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/GeoData_Storage_%26_API> was officially
announced
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/31/geodata-a-new-age-of-geotagging-on-wik…>
this month; this functionality, which attaches geo-coordinates to
articles, will be particularly useful for the mobile "Nearby" feature
(enabled on an experimental version of the site), to help contributors
identify articles in need of photos not far from their location.
This month, the mobile web team also finished work on the watchlist
feature, and focused their efforts on photo uploads by first adding
basic uploading functionality: uploading images to Wikimedia Commons. A
workflow was put in place to allow users to add a thumbnail of an image
they just uploaded to the appropriate article on their local Wikipedia
or sister project. These features are currently live on the Beta mobile
site and are set to be released to the full mobile site in February.
Uploading photos was also the focus of the newly created "Apps team",
who started to develop iOS and Android versions of an app to upload
photos to Commons <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Apps/Commons>. The two basic
apps can already upload, share and show the user's contributions.
== Fundraising ==
<Video: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WEB_Clip.webm>
Clip from the upcoming documentary "Web", showing how Wikipedia has
impacted a small village in Peru <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestina,_Peru>
Department highlights
* Sent the Thank You email for donors including a link to the 'The
Impact of Wikipedia' video
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_Of_Wikipedia.webm>
* We reached our $6 million annual goal for Major Gifts!
=== Major Gifts and Foundations ===
* We reached our $6 million annual goal
* Received a $500,000 gift from the Milner Foundation.
=== Annual Fundraiser ===
* The Thank You email to donors included a link to the 'The Impact of
Wikipedia' video
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_Of_Wikipedia.webm>
) on
Youtube, which features Wikipedia editors from around the world, and
a clip from Michael Kleiman
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WEB_Clip.webm> about how
Wikipedia has impacted a small village in Peru, taken from his
upcoming documentary 'Web'. Public responses to the videos on
YouTube have been almost entirely positive. Here is one example:
“Your videos are amazing. Thank you for sending them out. I have
given donations in the past because I appreciate Wikipedia. Now, I
have a much stronger commitment to support you. Thank you for giving
us a fuller picture of the worldwide impact of knowledge made
available through WIkipedia.”
* The fundraising team prepared banners, translations, and donation
pages to begin 2013 testing in various languages and countries that
were not included in the year-end 2012 campaign.
* Reconciliation: The Fundraising and Finance teams are creating tools
and establishing best practices for funds reconciliation.
* The donor services team pulled reporting numbers on top payment
method requests and major issues from the fundraiser. Disseminated
this information to the rest of team to set 2013 implementation
priorities.
* Donor messaging: The team spent time collaboratively editing,
revising, and translating new donor messages based on feedback from
the 2012 fundraiser. The goal is to give donors all the information
they need to make easy, successful online donations.
== Grantmaking and Programs ==
Department Highlights
* Launch of the Individual Engagement Grants
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG>
program, which support Wikimedians to complete projects that benefit
the Wikimedia movement, lead to online impact, or otherwise serve
our mission, community, and strategic priorities.
* Launch of the new Grants Portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start>
* Launch of the 2013 Wikimania Scholarships
<http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships>. Working with
a committee of 8 volunteers to review and select between hundreds of
applicants worldwide.
* Welcoming FDC Senior Program Officer Katy Love and Head of the
Education Program Rod Dunican
=== Grantmaking ===
=== Strategic Goals Metrics ===
Metric Value MoM MoM% Chart
Free Wikipedia Zero Page Requests 3.0m 232k +8.4% Increase [1]
<http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/free_mobile_traffic_by_version_monthly_desc>
Global South Active Editors (5+ edits in main namespace) 15.8k +453
+2.9% Increase [2]
<http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/global_north_south_active_editors>
==== Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) ====
* The FDC proposal form was reviewed and minor edits were made to make
it more user-friendly for applicants and the FDC. These suggested
edits <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposal_form_v2>
came largely from the FDC
members, entities, and FDC staff. All are welcome to continue to
make suggestions about the proposal form on the Talk page.
* In anticipation of the second round of funding, the FDC proposal
creation tool has now been launched on the FDC portal
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee>.
Eligibile entities
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_criteria>
must close their eligibility
gaps <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_status/2012-2013_rou…>
by Feb
15 2013 in order to apply for Round 2 FDC grants. Please contact the
FDC support team with any questions or comments.
* Senior Program Officer Katy Love
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KLove_(WMF)> joined the
Wikimedia Foundation staff last month. Katy's role, specified in the
framework, is to facilitate the FDC process from start to finish,
ensuring a smooth and effective process. Feel free to reach out to
Katy on her talk page.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Siko Bouterse presenting about WMF Grants
==== WMF Grants Program ====
* Improvements to the Grants:Index
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index> include more
detailed pages describing WMF Grants Program policies and procedures
and improved templates to track the status of submissions and
reports. The status of submissions and reports may also be viewed at
Grants:Table <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Table>.
* Policy change: Grant reports will now be due within 60 days of the
project completion date listed on the approved grant submission
(this will apply to grants with agreements signed after 31 January
2013).
===== Grants approved in January 2013 =====
Grants:WM_NO/christmas_seminar_and_wlm_ceremony
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/christmas_seminar_and_wlm_cere…>
The Wikimedia Foundation has funded a meetup and seminar with the
the Arts Council Norway, organized by Wikimedia Norge, where winners
of Wiki Loves Monuments, the worlds largest photo contest, were
celebrated. Wikimedia Norge's collaboration with the Arts Council
has produced over 35 editing events with more than 600 participants.
Grants:Shipmaster - Community of Arabic Wikipedia/Producer Prize-2013
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Shipmaster_-_Community_of_Arabic_Wik…>
Wikimedia Foundation grant for the "Producer Prize" to encourage
quality content creation on Arabic Wikipedia
===== Reports accepted in January 2013 =====
* Grants:WM NO/Nordic Chapter Meeting 2012/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/Nordic_Chapter_Meeting_2012/Re…>
* Grants:Ciphers and Shipmaster - Community of Arabic
Wikipedia/Producer Prize/Report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Ciphers_and_Shipmaster_-_Community_o…>
* Grants:WM NO/Outreach GLAM
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_NO/Outreach_GLAM>
==== Participation Support requests approved in January 2013 ====
* Participation:Nicola/International Cycling History Conference
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Nicola/International_Cycling_…>
* Participation:Eduardofeld/WikiSalvador2.0
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Participation:Eduardofeld/WikiSalvador2.0>
==== Individual Engagement Grants ====
This new program launched <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG>
on January 15 with a
request for grant proposals
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-applying> and
volunteer committee members
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee> to help select
the first round of grantees. We also launched an IdeaLab
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab> to offer help to
potential grantees in turning
ideas into complete proposals. In the first 2 weeks of what will be a
month-long RfP, 31 ideas, drafts, and proposals have been submitted. 15
candidates have signed up for the committee. (see also general
"Highlights" section)
==== Fellowships ====
January was the end of the Fellowships program at WMF. Tanvir Rahman and
Sarah Stierch completed their projects, and all fellows final reports
will be available on Meta
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Fellows>.
==== Wikimania Scholarships ====
We've launched a search for a Conference Coordinator
<http://hire.jobvite.com/Jobvite/Job.aspx?j=o1k2Wfw3&c=qSa9VfwQ/> to act
as point of contact for WMF in supporting the Wikimania teams each year.
Launch of the Wikimania Scholarships Program: These are full
scholarships for anyone to attend Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong. See the
Wikimania Scholarships page
<http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships> and encourage
quality volunteers to apply!
==== Editor Growth and Contribution Program ====
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editor_Growth_and_Contribution_Prog…>
Logo of the Editor Growth and Contribution Program
A new project proposal on Geo-targeted Editors Participation
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Geo-targeted_Editors_Participation>
was posted on English Wikipedia. The new project proposal aims at
experimenting with new ways to increase participation of editors on
English Wikipedia from underrepresented geographies where the most
likely contribution language for editors is English.
=== Programs ===
==== US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator ====
The role of Lori Byrd Phillips as 2012 US Cultural Partnerships
Coordinator has ended on Dec 31st, and a final report about her year as
USCPC is forthcoming.
==== Brazil ====
===== Catalyst Project development =====
====== Team building ======
* Hiring of Data and Experiments consultant
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>:
finalized hiring process in Brazil, still under approval process.
Results to be announced soon.
* Hiring of a short term, part time community member contractor, to
develop data analysis projects in partnership with the community and
the new Data and Experiments consultant
====== Institutional Development ======
* Rental of a co-working space <http://saopaulo.the-hub.net/> for an
experimental three months period in São Paulo, where the team will
be able to work together more often
* Update of the annual planning and budget Learn more
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento…>
===== Outreach =====
====== Campus Party ======
WMF and Wikimedia Brasil promoted activities in Campus Party 2013
<http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party/2013>, an event held in São
Paulo, with the participation of 7 volunteers and 2 WMF staff members.
Two lectures have been presented (one by Mateus Nobre, volunteer from
Mossoró (RN) and one by Everton Alvarenga, coordinator of the Education
Program). Additionally, WMF had the opportunity to contact possible
future partners at this event, such as the Mozilla Foundation which will
launch the new Firefox OS in Brazil including the Wikipedia app by
default. Read more about the Campus Party activities.
<http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party/2013/Relat%C3%B3rio>
====== Digitalia ======
Organization of the Wiki Meet-up at Digitalia, a digital culture event
in Salvador (Bahia). Digitalia brings together academians, artists and
activists to debate and propose projects and research on digital
culture. The event, organized with the support of the Wikimedia Brasil
Community, had 25 attendees on Wikimedia Workshops and 8 new Wikipedia
accounts created as one of its results. More details will be included in
the February report. Wiki Meet up in Salvador
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Encontros/WikiSalvador_2.0>
Check out more information about Digitalia 2013
<http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Digitalia/2013>
===== Education - Brazil =====
====== 2012 Results Report ======
* The 2012 report summarizing the results, achievements, key findings
and activities of the Education Program in Brazil can be accessed at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ezalvarenga/Report#Results
====== Program development ======
* Wikiprojects revamp: Health Wikiproject development with the
participation of experienced Wikipedia editors and medicine
students, professors and researchers. They already started editing
<https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projetos/Medicina>.
* Translation of articles in partnership with Gama Filho University
<http://www.posugf.com.br/cursos/pos-graduacao-ead/50-traducao>
* Interview with Everton by a national radio station: Listen to it (in
Portuguese)
<http://cbn.globoradio.globo.com/programas/revista-cbn/2013/01/06/EDITORES-Q…>
* Article on the Education Program at [3]
<http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?id_news=613443>.
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Kul Wadhwa presenting about Wikipedia Zero (slides
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GYvFMatdD5gG1Kxzy6OHJq93S1QNZ-TGcfc…>)
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Kul Wadhwa explaining Wikipedia via Text
==== Mobile ====
* Launched a new partnership with VimpelCom to provide Wikipedia Zero
to at least 100 million additional customers this year (WMF press
release
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/VimpelCom_partners_with…>)
* In January, the Wikimedia Foundation was awarded a grant
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/17/wikimedia-foundation-winner-of-knight…>
in the Knight News Challenge for our work in expanding Wikimedia
mobile projects. Part of this grant ($600,000 for two years) will be
used for Wikipedia Zero <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero>
and the SMS/USSD
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_over_SMS_%26_USSD> projects to
improve access to knowledge in the developing world. Press releases:
WMF
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Kn…>,
Knight Foundation
<http://www.knightfoundation.org/press-room/press-release/eight-mobile-ventu…>
* Wikipedia Zero was of the 2012 winners of the African News
Innovation Challenge <http://africannewschallenge.org/2012-Winners/>
for making information available free of charge on mobile phones to
Africans in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, and Uganda.
* On other mobile platforms, we've begun to explore ways to reduce the
memory and processor requirements of our J2ME app
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_S40_J2ME_app>, to increase the
number of phones that can use this application; we are also
finishing work on capturing the metrics from the SMS server
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_over_SMS_%26_USSD> to learn
usage numbers and determine how many sessions are completed.
==== Global Education ====
Blog profiles design professor in Brazil
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Professora_Iara_Camargo.jpg>
Professor Iara Camargo
The Wikimedia Foundation blog published a profile of Iara Camargo, a
professor of design in Brazil who participated in the Wikipedia
Education Program last term. She joined students in her Editorial Design
course in improving articles on the Portuguese Wikipedia about subjects
such as designers, design concepts, and publishing houses. Iara wrote an
article on book design as part of her work with her students. Learn more
about her experiences by reading the post.
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/14/iara-camargo-wikipedia-education-progr…>
Brazil program organizes Campus Party activities
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestra_Mateus_Nobre_CPBR6.JPG>
Mateus Nobre presents at Campus Party in Brazil.
Wikimedia Brasil together with the Wikimedia Foundation organized
activities supporting the use of Wikipedia in education in Brazil
through Campus Party. Mateus Nobre, a Wikimedia Brasil volunteer, talked
about Wikipedia and Free Culture, giving a general panorama on the
history of encyclopedias, from the medieval to the information age,
where we have Wikipedia as part of the free culture movement. The
coordinator of the Wikipedia Education Program in Brazil, Everton
Zanella Alvarenga, also talked about Wikipedia and the Future of
Education. Learn more about the Campus Party activities.
<http://br.wikimedia.org/wiki/Campus_Party/2013/Relat%C3%B3rio>
U.S., Canada Thematic Organization proposed
A group of Wikipedia Ambassadors and program instructors known as the
Working Group have developed a plan for supporting the Wikipedia
Education Program in the U.S. and Canada starting in Summer 2013. The
group is in the process of applying for Thematic Organization approval
through the Affiliations Committee. All current instructors and
Ambassadors are encouraged to stay up-to-date on the next few months'
progress. If you plan to continue using Wikipedia in the classroom in
the U.S. and Canada and would like to become a member of the new
organization, please sign up on the interest list linked from the
proposal! To read more about the current plans, see the current proposal
and feel encouraged to provide and feedback or ask questions on the talk
page.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Proposal>
Welcome (back), Rod Dunican!
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RDunican_April_2010_wikimedia_03_10…>
Rod Dunican
Rod Dunican re-joined with Wikimedia Foundation family last month as the
director of the Wikipedia Education Program. Frank Schulenburg, the
former director, had been promoted to Senior Director of Programs in
December 2012. Rod was previously the project manager for the Public
Policy Initiative, the pilot of the Wikipedia Education Program in the
United States, so he is extremely familiar with the program and the
Wikimedia projects. In his new role, Rod is responsible for building
systems that enable quality at scale in different educational
environments. Leave a welcome note for Rod on his talk page.
<http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rdunican>
=== Learning & Evaluation ===
* Migrated the former global development dashboard into a new
Grantmaking & Programs dashboard <http://gp.wmflabs.org/>! Shifting
into the new version of Limn
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Limn> (the visualization
software) now.
* Pull up review of the advancement towards annual goals based on the
board meeting. To summarize:
o Mapped the last 6 months of grantmaking: $8.7M allocated
globally via FDC, grants, and participation support, primarily
to Europe. This includes 18 project based grants, 11 annual
planning grants (via FDC), and 8 participation support grants
(travel)
o During the months of heavy activity of the Cairo Education
Program, contributions from the Education Program comprised 3-4%
of total bytes added to Arabic Wikipedia
<http://gp.wmflabs.org/graphs/ar_bytes_monthly>.
* Migrated team over to Asana for evaluation requests
== Human Resources ==
WMF managers have been conducting their mid-year employee reviews. HR
has been supporting Finance and Administration in preparing staffing
baselines for the WMF annual planning process, and facilitating a senior
management team 2-day meeting to kick-off the annual planning process.
The purpose of the meeting was to coordinate and build alignment on
priorities and interdependencies, so that we work with better
assumptions as we move into the annual planning process. HR also staffed
up our recruiting function.
=== Staff Changes ===
New Requisitions Filled
* Doreen Dunican, Travel Manager (Administration)
* Rod Dunican, Global Education Program Director (Grantmaking and
Programs)
* Yuvi Panda, Software Developer – Mobile (Engineering)
* Ram Ramanath, Senior Software Engineer – Platform (Engineering)
New Legal Interns
* Missy Black
* Megumi Yukie
* Ava Miller
New Contractors
* Emily Blanchard (Human Resources)
* Runa Bhattacharjee (Engineering)
* Heather McAndrew (Human Resources)
* Shankar Narayanan (Engineering)
Contract Extended
* Oliver Keyes (Engineering)
* Siebrand Mazeland (Engineering)
* Robert Miller (Administration)
* Stefan Petrea (Engineering)
Departure
* Sangeeta Prashar
Contract Ended
* Lauren Bocknek
* Desirina Boskovich
* Mimi Li
* Tanvir Rahman
* Sarah Stierch
* Steven Zhang
New Postings
* Conference Coordinator (Contract)
* Site Reliability Engineer
* Tools Lab Operations Engineer (Contract)
* Technical Writer
=== Statistics ===
Total Requisitions Filled
Jan Actual: 131
Jan Total Plan: 172
Jan Filled: 4, Month Attrition: 1,
YTD Filled: 36, YTD Attrition: 17
1 Position canceled for FY
Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end
42 (8 of which are on hold)
=== Department Updates ===
Real-time feed for HR updates
http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork
== Finance and Administration ==
The Wikimedia Foundation has begun its Annual Planning process. We now
have a master calendar which will result in Board review and approval of
the annual plan by June 29 and be released to the community on July 1.
== Legal and Community Advocacy ==
=== Contract Metrics ===
* Submitted : 23
* Completed : 20
=== Trademark Metrics ===
* Submitted : 14
* Approved : 3
* Pending : 10
* Denied : 1
<Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation_Monthly_Metric…>
Philippe Beaudette presenting about Community Advocacy work (slides
<https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1GYvFMatdD5gG1Kxzy6OHJq93S1QNZ-TGcfc…>)
=== Other Activities ===
* Community Advocacy announced the expansion of the ombudsman
commission <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission>
and will be working with the
new team to streamline processes.
* One of our observations: The OTRS team processed more than 50,000
pieces of mail last year! See the full report
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Reports/2012>. OTRS admins
also announced updates to
their recruiting processes.
* We've been taking a close look at staff advanced permissions on wiki
(together with Engineering and HR) and implementing training and
auditing schemes.
* Philippe and Geoff will be joining the election committee
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_committee> (Philippe for
the fourth time!) to
support that team in organizing the Board and FDC election processes.
* Since September 2012, we have worked with Compass Partnership and
WMUK in providing information relevant to the governance report,
which was released February 7, 2013. For details, please see:
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/07/wikimedia-uk-and-wikimedia-foundation-…
* The draft conflict of guidelines discussion is presently scheduled
to close on February 15, 2013 (after international outreach). People
should feel free to provide feedback and suggestions. See
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Guidelines_on_potential_conflicts_of_in…
* Favorable German decision addressing the German right of personality
of a deceased individual was upheld after withdrawal of appeal. See
update at the bottom of the blog here
<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/04/two-german-courts-rule-in-favor-of-fre…>
* Developed grant templates for FDC grants, WMF individual grants, and
WMF individual engagement grants. We are presently updating the WMF
organizational grant template.
* Case summary on Flava Works, Inc. v. Gunter
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikilegal/Flava_Works,_Inc._v._Gunter>
- Missy Black
=== Communications Report, January 2013 ===
January was a busy month for WMF Communications. The follow-up coverage
of the annual campaign, four major announcements (including the launch
of Wikivoyage), and media stories kept the team and communications
contacts around the globe active. January saw our first public promotion
of the Wikimedia Shop as well, which resulted in close to 500 orders
over two days with English-project messages encouraging users to
celebrate Wikipedia day with WP fan gear.
==== Major announcements ====
* *The Wikimedia Foundation launches Wikivoyage, a free, worldwide
travel guide that anyone can edit
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_la…>*
(15 January 2013)
* *Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner named to the
Board of Directors at Global Voices
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Sue_Gardner_joins_Globa…>*
(16 January 2013)
* *Wikimedia Foundation winner of Knight News Challenge
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Kn…>*
(17 January 2013)
* *VimpelCom partners with the Wikimedia Foundation to offer free
mobile Wikipedia access through Wikipedia Zero
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/VimpelCom_partners_with…>*
(25 January 2013)
==== Major Storylines through January ====
‘’Wikipedia losing editors, says another study’’ 4 January
Aaron Halfaker’s University of Minnesota study of declining
participation on Wikipedia gained considerable coverage in early
January, owing largely to a high-profile AFP wire story that carried the
story to dozens of outlets. Mostly negative/neutral tone stories
repeated the main findings in Halfaker’s study, few of which outlined
the Foundation’s ongoing work to tackle editor decline.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hb2pGE23MQU4AoQYjmUhR-7X…http://mashable.com/2013/01/08/wikipedia-losing-editors/http://www.dailydot.com/business/wikipedia-editors-decline-wikimedia-fellow…
‘’WikiVoyage takes flight under the Wikimedia flag’’ 15 January
Considerable media coverage in January of the successful launch of a new
Wikimedia project, Wikivoyage. Mostly positive tone coverage discussed
how the project came into being, and speculated on the opportunities for
the new, non-commercial platform.
http://skift.com/2013/01/15/interview-wikipedias-travel-site-wikivoyage-lau…http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57563426-93/wikimedia-foundation-launches-…http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/0111/With-Wikivoyage-Wikipedia-mak…
‘’Fictional article on Bicholim Conflict makes global headlines’’ early
January
Global media spent time highlighting the story of a high profile
Wikipedia hoax, the long-standing but fictional article about an alleged
Portugal/India war, ‘Bicholim Conflict’
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bicholim_confl…).
The majority of coverage repeated the details from other mainstream
media stories, with some critical stories attacking the credibility of
Wikipedia and its editor community.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257482/The-war-Wikipedia-fooled-ye…http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-06/social-media/3617319…http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/06/an-imaginary-war-a-wikipedia-hoax/
‘’Remembering Aaron Swartz’’ 12 January
The sad news of the passing of Aaron Swartz dominated headlines
throughout the US and around the world through late January. An active
Wikipedian and proud defender of free culture, Aaron’s legacy and impact
on our projects was well known amongst Wikimedians. Media coverage
frequently cited his involvement with the project.
WMF Blog post:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/12/remembering-aaron-swartz-1986-2013/http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/aaron-swartz-a-data-crusa…http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/technology/aaron-swartz-a-data-crusader-a…http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020128045_apusswartzprosec…
==== Other worthwhile reads ====
Sue Gardner op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, 13 January
“Wikipedia, the people's encyclopedia: If anyone can write and edit
Wikipedia, how do we know it's accurate?”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gardner-wikipedia-2013…
Jimmy Wales, featured guest on Colbert Nation, 7 January
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/422660/january-07-20…
Mashable’s top ten most interesting Wikipedia stories of the year, 3 January
http://mashable.com/2013/01/03/most-interesting-wikipedia-stories/
==== WMF Blog posts ====
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/
Forty-five blog posts in January - an active month, with posts
reflecting a high degree of news and announcement activity as well.
Through January 2013 the Communications team and other WMF staff
conducted
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/04/help-us-improve-the-wikimedia-blog-by…>
the first-ever WM blog survey. With around 200 respondents we gathered
first-time input from our readers on views and perceptions of the blog.
A final top-line review will be posted later in February, but we're now
aware that roughly 60% of readers are Wikimedia editors, and lots of
readers arrive via the Planet Wikimedia aggregator or other RSS feeds.
Some highlights from the blog in January:
* *Can beginners write high-quality articles? Czech students prove yes
again!
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/31/wikipedia-education-program-czech-rep…>*
* *Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum announces first
Wikipedian in Residence
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/22/gerald-r-ford-presidential-library-mu…>*
* *Wikimedia Foundation winner of Knight News Challenge
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/17/wikimedia-foundation-winner-of-knight…>*
* *Afripedia project increasing off-line access to Wikipedia in Africa
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/afripedia-project-increasing-off-line…>*
==== Media Contact ====
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#January_2013
==== Wikipedia Signpost ====
For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the
community-edited newsletter “Wikipedia Signpost” for January 2013:
* Volume 9, Issue 1, 7 January 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…>
* Volume 9, Issue 2, 14 January 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…>
* Volume 9, Issue 3, 12 January 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…>
* Volume 9, Issue 4, 28 January 2013
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2013-01…>
== Visitors and Guests ==
Visitors and guests to the WMF office in January 2013:
1. Anya Shyrokova (consultant)
2. Cindy Hawley (Arthur J. Gallagher)
3. Brendan Quinla (Arthur J. Gallagher)
4. Ted Dulittle (Arthur J. Gallagher)
5. Chad Nitschke (Axis)
6. Kerri Malek (Axis)
7. Jim Giles (New Scientist)
8. Denise Larsen (Concern: EAP)
9. Ann Wagner (Concern: EAP)
10. James Raffell (unhosted e.V.)
11. Ellie Young (The Ada Initiative)
12. Cindy Hawley (Arthur J Gallagher)
13. Jon Kate (Wikipedia editor)
14. Jake Orlowitz (Wikipedia editor)
15. James Heilman (Wikipedia editor)
16. Lisa Groesz (Taos)
17. Grant Joung (Thoughtworks)
18. Jaspar Weir (TaskUs)
19. Matt Clark (TaskUs)
20. Koen van Praet (Global Collect)
21. Doug Lambert (Global Collect)
22. Patricia Reed (Global Collect)
23. Valerie Aurora (The Ada Initiative)
24. Shane Quivey (Licom EQIX)
25. Berylnn Bell (Blue Shield)
26. Mandy Lee (SITZMANN MORRIS & LAVIS INSURANCE AGENCY)
27. Sam Harnett (NPR Marketplace)
28. Trevor Bolliger (Wikia)
29. Lisa Groesz (Taos)
30. Mark Oppenheim (m|Oppenheim)
31. Dariusz Jemielniak (FDC Member)
32. Ian Blei (Optimized Results)
33. Kathy Ramsey (The Ada Initiative)
34. Myleen Hollero (photographer)
35. Paul Cardoso (Sequioa)
36. Brendan Corriga (JP Morgan)
37. Ryan McNeil (JP Morgan)
38. Charu Gorrepati (JP Morgan)
39. Rebecca Kankei (JP Morgan)
40. Ian Thatcher (N/A)
41. Ting Chen (WMF Board of Trustees member)
42. Kat Walsh (Chair, WMF Board of Trustees)
43. Jan-Bart de Vreede (Vice Chair, WMF Board of Trustees)
44. Bishakha Datta (WMF Board of Trustees Member)
45. Stu West (WMF Board of Trustees Member)
46. Jimmy Wales (WMF Board of Trustees Member)
47. Samuel Klein (WMF Board of Trustees Member)
48. Alice Wiegand (WMF Board of Trustees Member)
49. Patricio Lorente (WMF Board of Trustees Member)
50. Jove Oliver (Minassian Media)
51. Chris Cavanaugh (CCS Consulting Inc.)
52. Roland Navas, Jr. (Travelers Insurance)
53. Matt Fisher (N/A)
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
We've just published a post by Geoff Brigham outlining the settlement
of litigation between Wikimedia Foundation and Internet Brands, which
is great news indeed.
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/02/15/a-victory-for-wikivoyage-and-free-kno…
Congratulations to everyone who's been working hard on this effort.
---
A victory for Wikivoyage and free knowledge
Posted by Geoff Brigham on February 15th, 2013
Settlement of litigation between Internet Brands and the Wikimedia Foundation
Today we are pleased to announce a settlement in the legal proceedings
between the Wikimedia Foundation and Internet Brands relating to
issues stemming from the creation of Wikivoyage, our community’s
newest free knowledge project. We regard this settlement as a victory
for the Wikimedia movement, and a vindication of our values and
beliefs.
Our community expressed a strong desire to create a new, freely
shareable, non-commercial travel guide. In response, Internet Brands
(owners of a for-profit wiki-based travel project) sued two
Wikimedians visibly involved in supporting the travel guide. Internet
Brands branded the proposed new site an “Infringing Website” and
claimed that the volunteers were acting “for the benefit of the
Wikimedia Foundation” to “usurp” the community of users of Internet
Brands’ site and taking actions that included “deliberately misleading
statements, and Trademark infringement and violation of Internet
Brands’ intellectual property rights.” Internet Brands identified the
“Wikimedia Foundation, members of its Board, and other members of the
Foundation” as potential “co-conspirators” who were “corrupt in this
scheme”.
Unintimidated, the Foundation moved in to defend our volunteers and to
protect our community’s right to an open and meaningful discussion
about the project.
We contacted one of the most respected law firms working in this
field, Cooley LLP, and asked that they represent and defend the two
volunteers facing legal action from Internet Brands. Cooley was
engaged, and with our financial support, the volunteers moved the case
to federal court and also filed an anti-SLAPP motion against Internet
Brands, alleging that their freedom to openly discuss the project was
under threat. Internet Brands responded by abandoning its federal
claim, essentially admitting it had no factual basis. The federal
court then dismissed all of Internet Brands’ remaining claims.
Meanwhile, in September 2012 the Wikimedia Foundation filed its own
lawsuit against Internet Brands seeking a declaration from the court
that Internet Brands had no proper basis to block the wiki travel
project.
The settlement was signed on February 14, 2013, and Internet Brands
has now released the Foundation and Wikivoyage e.V. (the German not
for profit who worked so hard to make the project a success) from any
and all claims related in any manner to the creation and operation of
the wiki travel project. In return, the Foundation will dismiss the
suit.
Wikivoyage is now officially launched and growing, with about 9000 new
entries added in the first month, and new language versions in Polish,
Romanian, Finnish, Hungarian, Chinese and Japanese being opened.
The Wikimedia Foundation believes there is enough room for multiple
travel sites to co-exist, and for community members to contribute to
multiple sites in this area. Our Executive Director, Sue Gardner,
outlined this perspective in a post to the original travel project
discussion. We have stood by this belief from the beginning, and we
believe that a successful, freely-shareable, non-commercial travel
project will help support the overall quantity and quality of travel
information on the web.
We thank and recognize our global community of volunteers,
particularly the pioneers of the Wikivoyage project for their
dedication and focus in making the project possible. I want to thank
my colleagues at the Foundation in many different departments for
their hard work on this case. We are also grateful to our friends at
Cooley LLP for their continuous support, tireless dedication, and
outstanding legal counsel through these challenges.
It’s now possible for the Wikivoyage community to continue their
efforts to build a global free-knowledge travel site unhindered. We
wish them the best of luck and look forward to working closely with
the Wikivoyage community as the project grows and thrives.
Geoff Brigham, General Counsel
--
Jay Walsh
Senior Director, Communications
WikimediaFoundation.orgblog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
