This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/The_Wikimedia_Foundatio…
Wikimedia Foundation hires Damon Sicore as Vice President of Engineering
- *New role strengthens Foundation’s commitment to excellence in
engineering*
The Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to announce that Damon Sicore will be
joining the Foundation in the newly created role of Vice President of
Engineering. Damon brings nearly two decades of engineering and product
experience to Wikimedia, the non-profit organization responsible for
Wikipedia -- the world’s fifth most visited website, serving half a billion
readers every month.
Damon will manage the Foundation’s engineering team dedicated to ensuring
the development, scale, and reliability of Wikimedia’s technical
architecture. Before joining Wikimedia he spent six years at Mozilla
Corporation, three of them as Vice President of Engineering, where he led a
team of more than 600 open source software engineers, technical leads,
managers, and directors in developing Mozilla Firefox, the Mozilla open
source platform, Firefox for Android and Firefox OS. Under his leadership
Mozilla delivered some of their most significant browser releases and
launched Mozilla’s entry into mobile with Firefox OS.
“Damon has extensive experience with high-scale, open source technologies
and an intrinsic understanding of our mission and values,” said Wikimedia
Foundation Executive Director, Lila Tretikov. “He brings organizational and
scaling skills necessary to improve and innovate for our communities of
contributors and the next generation of knowledge seekers.”
Most recently, Damon led engineering at Edmodo, an emerging platform for
sharing educational content for teachers and students, where he oversaw and
grew the company’s web, platform, and mobile engineering, security, IT
operations, support, and QA efforts.
"The Wikimedia projects are front and center in the fight for free
knowledge, and that’s why I am here,” said Damon Sicore. “I'm looking
forward to challenging us to ensure our software is up to the task. We need
to move fast and produce the high quality software and services our users
will love. It's what the world expects and deserves from us.”
Damon joins the Wikimedia Foundation as part of planned growth of the
organization’s technical capacity, first announced in November 2012. Erik
Moeller, who has filled the role of Vice President of Product and
Engineering since 2011, will continue to focus on product in the role of
Vice President of Product and Strategy.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
https://wikimediafoundation.orghttps://blog.wikimedia.org/
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Across its 287 language versions,
Wikipedia contains more than 32 million articles. Every month, roughly
80,000 active volunteers contribute to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia
projects. According to comScore Media Metrix, the projects operated by the
Wikimedia Foundation receive 413 million unique visitors per month on
desktop alone, making them the fifth-most popular web property worldwide
(July 2014). Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation
is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations
and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact:
Katherine Maher
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633katherine[image: @]wikimedia.org
(To be unsubscribed from this press release distribution list, please reply with 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the subject line)
Dear all,
We are excited to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation now has a Vice
President of Engineering. Damon Sicore will be filling this vital role.
Please join us in welcoming him to the team.
The VPE role will be crucial to further developing and maintaining the
technology that supports the very core of the Wikimedia movement, and
ensuring the development, scale, and stability of the MediaWiki
architecture.
Damon joins us as part of planned growth of our product and engineering
teams, first announced in November 2012. As we have grown, we need
dedicated focus on product and engineering as separate departments, to
ensure development of best practices like performance engineering,
continuous delivery, A/B testing, software re-architecture, UI/UX work, and
user research. Erik Moeller, who filled the role of VP for both product and
engineering since 2011, led in the creation of this new role and was
essential to the search process. From today onward, Erik will focus on his
role as VP of Product and Strategy and Deputy Director of the WMF, while
Damon will take over leadership of the Engineering team; both will report
to me as part of the c-level team.
Damon has a unique track record of managing large platform rollouts using
distributed teams like ours, while understanding the essential role of
community contributions and working in a transparent, open source
environment. These skills and experiences will be invaluable in his work
here at the Foundation. It’s unusual to find someone who understands us so
well, and so I want to thank the many people from across the organization,
especially in the engineering, product, and human resources teams, who have
been involved in making this search successful.
We are very happy to have Damon on board. His proven track record of
managing large platform rollouts using distributed teams like ours, while
understanding the essential role of community contributions and working in
a transparent, open source environment, is unique and invaluable as part of
our movement.
We’ll be sending around a copy of the press release shortly. You’ll also be
be able to meet Damon, and ask him questions, this Thursday at our monthly
Metrics Meeting
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings>.
Please join us there!
Please join me in welcoming Damon.
Lila
Hi all!
The new bulletin from Wikimedia Italia (#85) is available. Summary:
- Archeowiki: the big final event
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_news/numero_85/en&acti…>
- Macchianera Awards
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_news/numero_85/en&acti…>
- Events
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_news/numero_85/en&acti…>
- News from OpenStreetMap
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_news/numero_85/en&acti…>
A link has been added to meta, at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Italia…
; more-or-less raw text of the bulletin follows below.
ciao, .mau.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= Wikimedia News n. 85, September 18th 2014 =
<div style="max-width: 800px"> <!-- oppure width: 80% -->
<center>
[[File:loghiOSMit.png|thumb|500px|center| OpenStreetMap Italy Logo, di
Aury88 [CC-BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons]]
<br />
<font size="5">OSMit in Matera</font>
</center>
<p align=justify>The national gathering of OpenStreetMap supporters
(OSMit14) will be held in Matera from ''October the 3rd to the 5th 2014'''-
Mapping places in an open format, allowing the contribution by everyone to
complete the maps is their core goal.
Why having OSMit14 in Matera? Because '''Matera is candidated to European
Capital of Culture''' for 2019. The open mapping was a key element in
involving the city and its citizens in a voluntary mobilization that had a
big impact on the access to candidacy “semi-finals“, in 2013. '''Open
Future''' has become Matera 2019 motto.
80 to 100 mappers and supporters from all over Italy will be in OSMit14, to
share experiences of open mapping in both Italy and Europe. All information
about registration and attendance are available on the website
http://conf.openstreetmap.it</p>
<br />
<br />
<center>
[[File:BEIC.jpg|thumb|400px|center| Logo ''Biblioteca Europea di
Informazione e Cultura'']]
<BR>
<font size="5">Wikipedian in residence at Fondazione BEIC</font>
</center>
<p align=justify>The '''[http://www.beic.it/it Biblioteca Europea di
Informazione e Cultura (BEIC)]''' (European Library of Information and
Culture) was born in Milan with ''the goal of offering to the community a
state of the art structure for universal access to information and
knowledge in all their forms, thanks to an on-line repository of
bibliographic resources and documents from Milan metropolitan area using
the most advanced digital techniques'' (translating from their website).
This statement shows how BEIC and Wikimedia Italia share a purpose that
pushed towards an agreement: our association will be a bridge between the
Library and Wikipedia community. To this goal, the Board identified a
member, known as [[Utente:Nemo|Nemo]], that will act as consultant, as
experienced with the "Wikipedian in residence". In four months (September
15th - January 15th), the wikipedian will teach to and help BEIC employees
in mastering Wikipedia and understanding its philosophy and the inner
working of Wikimedia projects.
Both parties hope that this partnership, even if limited at the beginning,
will strengthen and grow.</p>
<br style="clear: both" />
== Archeowiki: the big final event ==
[[File:AW_logo.jpg|thumb|200px|left| Logo Archeowiki]]
<br>
<p align=justify>After two years of training volunteers, meetings at
schools, senior centres and with disabled youngs, the '''[
http://www.archeowiki.it/ Archeowiki - New ''archaeologists'' in Lombardia.
Real and virtual trails]''' project ends. Wikimedia Italia, along with its
project partners, organizes a closing event aimed to students that in the
past year participated in the ectivities. The event will be held '''Friday
September 26th''', from 10AM to 2PM, at '''La Fabbrica del Vapore''' in
Milano. Thanks to the support of a group of volunteers, the classes will be
involved in a big archaeological and wikipedian game.</p>
<br style="clear: both">
== Macchianera Awards ==
[[File:Macchianera.jpg|thumb|150px|left| Macchianera Award]]
<br>
<br>
<p align=justify>Saturday September 13th the '''Macchianera Italian Awards
2014''', the best in the Web reqards, have been assigned at "Festa della
Rete" ("Net party") in Rimini. Italian Wikipedia received the prize for
'''best educational website'''; the award was collected by two members of
Wikimedia Italia: DracoRoboter and Kaspo, as representatives of all the
contributors. Wikipedia is for everyone and so is the award! In this [
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qZbK1CrknE&t=32m40s video] the award
ceremony, with a funny moment.</p>
<br style="clear: both">
== Events ==
[[File:Il Pertini, Cinisello Balsamo Italia.jpg|thumb|200px|left|"Il
Pertini" library in Cinisello B.mo, by Giulio.fortunio (Own work)
[CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons]]
<br>
* '''September 29-30th and October 1st, Paris''': the board members of
Wikimedia Italy and some volunteers will be at the [
http://www.eagle-network.eu/about/events/eagle2014/ EAGLE 2014
International Conference on Information Technologies for Epigraphy and
Digital Cultural Heritage in the Ancient World]. Specifically, Andrea Zanni
(''President''), Luca Martinelli (''Secretary''), Lorenzo Losa, Pietro
Liuzzo and Pietro De Nicolao for the '''EAGLE MediaWiki''' project; while
Cristian Consonni (''Treasurer'') and some representatives of partner
associations will share the '''Archeowiki''' experience. Attendance is
free, but due to the limited number of seat [
http://www.eagle-network.eu/about/events/eagle2014/registration/
registration] is required.
* '''October 15th and 22th, Cinisello (MI)''': [
http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Utente:Laurentius Laurentius] will host two
meetings at the [
http://www.comune.cinisello-balsamo.mi.it/spip.php?rubrique107 Il Pertini
library], presenting Wikipedia and the projects to the audience, in the
context of a partnership being defined.
* '''WLM events''': an always up-to-date '''calendar'' about all the
photographic tours and the meetings is available on [
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.it/ Wiki Loves Monuments website].
<br style="clear: both">
== News from OpenStreetMap ==
[[File:OSM.png|thumb|250px|left| Visualization fo the first 200 places for
Points of Interest density in Europe (by [
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/baditaflorin/diary/23729 baditaflorin])]]
<br>
* In the past days the transparency portal about the Expo 2015 was
launched, from where it is possible to check the status of contacts and
download their data. The background maps are from one of the OpenStreetMap
renderings (OpenCycleMap).
* OSM is used as background in the webgis of MiBACT: [
http://sitap.beniculturali.it/ the SITAP]
* While wandering for Wiki Loves Monuments, please check if the Wikipedia
article about the monument contains its coordinates: if missing, take them
from OpenStreetMap!
<br style="clear: both">
Dear Wikimedian friends and colleagues,
tl;dr We have just launched our second round of voluntary reporting.
This is the
most epic data collection and analysis of Wikimedia programs we've done so
far as a movement, and all program leaders are invited to take part. :-)
You can do so here:
https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0B3azKpdZ7ggCtD (or get in touch
with the L&E team for support).
As we did in the Fall of 2013, we invite community members leading and
evaluating Wikimedia programs to share their data with the rest of the
movement (i.e., Edit-a-thons, Editing Workshops, On-wiki Writing Contests,
Photo Events, etc.). Last year’s data was collected and analysed in a
series of reports that was the beginning of telling the Wikimedia story of
impact: the incredible work of over 60 program leaders implementing 119
programs or projects in 30 countries across the world. This helped us start
building a set of good and best practices for effective programs across our
movement.[1] This year’s data drive will be critical to help us continue to
do and learn better from each other.
To best prepare, program leaders can review the reporting items [1] and
start gathering that data you have filed away about your programs since the
last reporting round. We are looking for data on programs completed any
time from September 1, 2013 through September 30, 2014. You can ask
questions directly on the reporting form preview [2] or on our portal talk
page [3]. If you are planning to report and may need support from us, do
let us know so that we can help in any way needed.
When ready, you will find the reporting collector at:
https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0B3azKpdZ7ggCtD
We also welcome your data in different formats. For example, if you have
already reported data elsewhere, we are happy to work with you to make the
process as easy as possible. Message eval(a)wikimedia.org and we can work out
the easiest way to include your data.
We are expanding the number of programs covered in the reporting this year,
and extend the reporting window longer for some new programs, GLAM, and
Wiki Loves Monuments. See the schedule below for timelines for reporting for
each program type.
Data submission deadlines by program:
Due by October 20th
-
Edit-a-thons/editing parties
-
Editing Workshops
Due by November 3rd
-
On-wiki Writing Contests
-
Photo Events (Wiki Loves Earth, WikiExpeditions, WikiTakes, etc.)
-
Wikipedia Education Program
Due by November 17th
-
Conferences
-
GLAM Content Donation
-
Hackathons
-
Wiki Loves Monuments (2013 and 2014)
-
Wikimedian in Residence
Remember, reporting is voluntary but the more people do it, the better
representation of programs we can make. This voluntary reporting allows us
to come together and generate a bird’s eye view of programs [4]. We want to
understand the impact of programs across different contexts, to examine
both more broadly, and more deeply, what works best to meet our shared
goals for Wikimedia and to, together, grow the awesome [5] in Wikimedia
programs!
On behalf of the Program Evaluation and Design team, thank you for your
time and support in this initiative.
Warmly,
Anasuya
Resource links:
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Evaluation/Evaluation_reports/2013
[2]
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CG-K8I1d9JPqyRRyHTIQ5x7fASQXcHZsEMKutdA…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:Evaluation
[4]
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evaluation_Report_(beta)_Poster_Wik…
[5] http://www.nbp.org/nbp/images/book_photos/MAG-AWESOME.jpg
--
*Anasuya SenguptaSenior Director of GrantmakingWikimedia Foundation*
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
Support Wikimedia <https://donate.wikimedia.org/>
All,
As you may have heard, Freenode found some compromised servers on their
networks. Network traffic, including SSL traffic, may have been sniffed by
a third party.
This likely affects many Wikimedia IRC users, including users who do not
speak English, so please forward this notice and translate as needed for
the benefit of other Wikimedians.
If you have not changed your nickserv password on September 15 or later,
please do so now.
>From the Freenode blog:
"Before changing your password, please check your email address in /msg
nickserv info and, if needed, update it – see /msg nickserv help set email
(remember to check your new email for the verification key). This will
ensure that we can send you a password reset email should, for whatever
reason, your password change not work properly. If you have no email set on
your account or an email set that you cannot access, we cannot send
password resets to you, so do please keep this up-to-date.
"To change your password use /msg nickserv set password newpasshere
"Since traffic may have been sniffed, you may also wish to consider any
channel keys or similar secret information exchanged over the network."
Please direct questions to Freenode IRC ops. They are voiced in the
#freenode channel.
Pine
The report on Wikimedia Nederland activities over the summer is now
available:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Nederl…
.
It is also included as plain text (no links) below.
*Wikimedia Nederland report over July and August*
*COMMUNITY: supporting and mobilising volunteers and editors*
*Wiki-Saturdays*
Even during the summer holidays there were four Wiki-Saturdays. On July 19,
two visiting Wikipedians from the USA and UK respectively found their way
to the office to join Dutch Wikipedians.
*WIKNIC*
On July 7, members of the community organised a Wiknic in Eindhoven. 16
Wikipedians/Wikimedians attended the event that was supported by WMNL
*WikiSunday: International Wikipedians meetup at Bonnefantenmuseum*
15 Wikipedians from The Netherlands and Germany gathered at the Bonnefanten
Museum in Maastricht This WikiSunday was organized by Wikimedia Netherlands
to get users from Wikipedia become acquainted with the museum as the museum
wants to start a collaboration with Wikipedia.
*Wikimedia Conference Nederland*
A group of volunteers, board-members and staff are working hard to prepare
the annual Wikimedia Nederland Conference. It will take place on November
1, in Utrecht.
*WORK: content, collaboration and activity development*
*World War II*
Our partner NIOD (the Netherlands institute for war research) is going to
release material. They hold the wartime archives of many organisations and
groups. These archives come with a description of the history of these
organisations in the war years, which are of encyclopedic value and could
improve the quality of Wikipedia content on the history of World War II. In
addition, they are planning to release some of their publications under
CC-BY-SA, starting with a monograph on the history of the underground
press. On November 29, NIOD will open its offices on a Saturday to give
Wikipedians access to its library and experts for a writing event.
*Project Nature*
We are preparing for a writing event in cooperation with the natural
history museum Naturalis on October 5, around the theme of nature in the
Netherlands. This event is also the awards ceremony for Wiki Loves Earth NL
2014, where prize-winning pictures will be announced and prizes will be
handed out to the winners of the Dutch competition. We are now also
discussing cooperation with the KNNV (the Netherlands society for natural
history). They have a very active and knowledgeable membership who we would
like to interest in contributing to Wikipedia. Naturalis is also
considering a content donation. Sebastiaan ter Burg gave a presentation at
Naturalis about the possibilities, such as content donation strategies and
promotional events after a donation in July.
*Wiktionary: Hebrew en Yiddish words in use in Dutch*
WMNL is cooperating with the Sofeer Foundation to integrate their
dictionary of Hebrew en Yiddish words in use in the Dutch language into
WikiWoordenboek (Nl Wiktionary). Nearly 3000 words have been uploaded by
volunteer Romaine. The task is not yet finished: a list of names will also
be uploaded, probably to Wikipedia. More information can be found on the
projectpage.
Expedition Wikipedia: two content donations and one university course
Spinster, Wikipedian in Residence (WiR) for almost 10 Dutch universities'
heritage collections, completed tee content donations for the Expedition
Wikipedia project:
-More than 200 illustrations of historical travel books were donated to
Wikimedia Commons by Maastricht University Library.
-More than 400 photographs of the 1899-1900 Siboga Expedition were donated
to Wikimedia Commons by the Special Collections of the University of
Amsterdam.
>From May to early July, a group of 9 students from Maastricht University
have written and improved almost 20 articles about historical travel books
and their authors, on English Wikipedia and in other languages. More
information is available on the course page on English-language Wikipedia.
A similar course is in preparation for September-October at Utrecht
University.
*GLAMwiki Toolset Workshop*
5 GLAMs were trained in using the GLAMwiki Toolset during a workshop on the
28th of July. The workshop started with an introduction by Liam Wyatt, the
GLAMwiki Toolset Coordinator at Europeana. The Amsterdam Museum,
Rijksmuseum, University Museum Utrecht, Netherlands Institute for Sound and
Vision and National Library worked with the toolset. The manual of the GWT
has been improved with the feedback and notes of the participating GLAMs.
*Education*
This year and in 2015 we are going to run three pilot projects to test out
different ways of cooperating with higher education to improve content of
Wikipedia. In the autumn we want to start cooperating with ITV, a college
training translators and interpreters. ITV wants offer their final year
students the option a Wikipedia internship: they will translate Wikipedia
articles. Many ITV students are 'mature students' who have already
completed a bachelor or master degree in a different field. This means that
they have specialised knowledge which would stand them in good use when
translating for Wikipedia.
*Content donation Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision*
The collection of Polygoonjournaals (Dutch newsreels from the 20th century)
on Wikimedia Commons is being expanded using the recently launched GLAMwiki
toolset. Over 1500 new videos were added to the category Media from Open
Beelden. For a list of unused videos in this category see this list (an
always up-to-date list showing those items in a category that haven't been
used yet in articles on Wikipedia, courtesy of Magnus Masnke).
*Virtual Museum Network*
Sebastiaan ter Burg spoke about cooperating with Wikimedia at a meeting of
the Virtual Museum Network in Amsterdam.
*Wiki loves libraries*
The monthly local trainings in the public library of Amersfoort were
continued in July and August by volunteers of WMNL.
*WMNL*
*Newsletter*
The August newsletter was published.
*GLOBAL*
*Wikimania*
Wikimedia Nederland sent a delegation of 17 persons to Wikimania in London
(and 2000 stroopwafels). We have sent a survey to all participants to get
insight into their experiences. Also, reports can be found on the WMNL-wiki.
*GOVERNANCE*
*Development Annual Plan and Budget*
We have started drafting our annual plan and budget, in preparation for the
AGM in September. The Wikimedia community can contribute to the development
of these documents by suggesting activities and discussing proposals on the
WMNL- wiki.
*Q2 report submitted*
Our report to the Wikimedia Foundation on progress in Q2 was submitted on
time.
*Upcoming events*
Writing event on nature at Naturalis, museum of Natural History , Leiden -
October 5
GLAMout Global
GLAMout, the monthly GLAM hangout that started in the US, is expanding to a
global hangout where GLAM projects are presented and discussed. WMNL will
organise/host the first global GLAMout in October.
Wikimedia Nederland Conference, Utrecht, November 1.
Hackathon
Wikimedia Nederland is supporting a group of volunteers who are taking the
lead in organising a Hackathon on November 14 - 16 focussed on GLAMs and
Wikidata. Participants from Europe and the US have been personally invited;
it is expected that 30 people will participate.
Wikidata for GLAMs workshop
A workshop Wikidata for GLAMs will take place on the 14 November, before
the Hackathon kicks off. The goal of the workshop is to improve
understanding of the possibilities of Wikidata and to practice with
different kind of data mutations, queries, etc.
Writing event on World War II at NIOD, Amsterdam, November 29.
GLAMwiki Conference 2015
During a GLAM meetup at Wikimania it was decided that Wikimedia Nederland
will organise the GLAMwiki Conference in 2015. The last time this
conference was organised was in 2013 by WMUK. The preliminary dates of the
conference are April 10-12 2015.
Upcoming content donations: RCE
The Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE) did one of the largest content
donations to date (over 460.000 objects) in 2012. RCE is currently planning
new content donations, they'll start using the GLAMwiki Toolset to do the
uploads
*OTHER EVENTS*
*These events are relevant to the Netherlands and/or Dutch language
Wikimedia-projects but were not organised by WMNL:*
Thanks to the efforts of a group of active volunteers, some 63.000 Dutch
national monuments are now on Wikidata. As yet, only 3800 of these have an
article on Nl Wikipedia.
Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
tel. (+31) (0)30 3200238
mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379
www.wikimedia.nl
*Postadres*: * Bezoekadres:*
Postbus 167 Mariaplaats 3
3500 AD Utrecht Utrecht
On Wed, May 21, 2014 at 7:58 PM, .mau. (maurizio codogno) <
wiki.mau(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all!
New bulletin from Wikimedia Italia (#81) was available. Summary:
- 1.1 ANPI frees all its biographies
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Wikimedia_news/numero_81/en#ANPI_frees_all_it…>
- 1.2 The European Commission endorses Creative Commons licenses
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Wikimedia_news/numero_81/en#The_European_Comm…>
- 1.3 OpenStreetMap
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Wikimedia_news/numero_81/en#OpenStreetMap>
- 1.4 Events and announcments
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Wikimedia_news/numero_81/en#Events_and_announ…>
- 1.5 News from the wiki world
<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Wikimedia_news/numero_81/en#News_from_the_wik…>
A link has been added to meta, at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Italia…
; more-or-less raw text of the bulletin follows below.
ciao, .mau.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= Wikimedia News n. 81, July 24th 2014 =
<div style="max-width: 800px"> <!-- oppure width: 80% -->
<center>
[[File:Parlamento wiki.png|thumb|450px|center| A screenshot of
@Parlamento_wiki Tritter account, source:Twitter]]
<BR>
<font size="5">Wikipedia and Twitter for transparency</font>
</center>
<br style="clear: both">
<p align=justify>Wikipedia and Twitter cooperate in '''forbidding arbitrary
and anonymous edits''' to articles about corridors of power around the
world. Tom Scott, an Englishman, had the idea of creating a series of
Twitter profiles to highlight all the edits to Wikipedia pages about
powerful entities; then on July 9th Ed Summers, an American, created [
https://twitter.com/congressedits congress-edits]: a profile where all
edits to Wikipedia from anonymous users with IP addresses related to the US
Congress can be showed. The goal is to preserve the transparency and
reliability of Wikipedia. A similar account was just created also for
Italy: its name is [https://twitter.com/Parlamento_Wiki
'''@Parlamento_Wiki'''] and its stated goal is to “publish Wikipedia edits
performed anonymously from the Italian Chamber of Deputies or the Senate of
Republic”.</p>
<BR>
<BR>
[[File:Locandina WLM dettaglio.png|thumb|450px|center| A close-up of the
flier about "freed" monuments, by Alessandra Gasparini, [CC-BY-SA 3.0]]]
<br style="clear: both">
<center>
<font size="5">Wiki Loves Monuments becomes big(ger)</font>
</center>
<BR>
<p align=justify>The new edition of Wiki Loves Monuments is growing and it
reaches the large public: with the brand new joining of the [
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.it/2014/07/a-pompei-per-fotografare-la-storia/
'''Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Pompei, Ercolano e
Stabia'''] the contest is now richer in possibilities for people visiting
the archaeological site with their camera. The Soprintendenza has “freed”
all the monuments and the “emergenze” (protrusions) located in one of the
most important sites of the world. Along with that there is a long list of
Municipalities and Institutions, accessible in [
http://www.wikilovesmonuments.it/istituzioni/ the dedicated page] of the
contest website. There are also planned trips in August and September to
take pictures of participating locations: to know where to go, just watch
the [http://www.wikilovesmonuments.it/blog/ blog], updated as soon as a new
trip is planned. You may also suggest a destination, writing at
contatti(a)wikilovesmonuments.it. The only requirement is that it must be one
of the participating Municipalities.</p>
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== ANPI frees all its biographies ==
[[File:ANPI Sesto San Giovanni.jpg|thumb|150px|left| The ANPI plaque in
Sesto San Giovanni (MI) - by Triangle rouge (Own work) [CC-BY-SA 3.0]]]
<p align=justify>The ANPI (Associazione Nazionale Partigiani Italiani -
National Association of Italian Partisans) published all the 3072
biographies of Resistance Women and Men under a CC BY-SA 3.0 IT license:
thanks to the choice of a free license, a [
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Biografie/ANPI project] started on
Wikipedia to facilitate the creation of new articles and the extension of
the existing ones using that material. This effort is part of the bigger [
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Biografie “Biographies project”] of
Italian Wikipedia, that gives guidelines for consistent and easy to
understand biographies published on Wikipedia.</p>
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== The European Commission endorses Creative Commons licenses ==
[[File:European Commission logo.svg|thumb|150px|left| Logo of the European
Commission, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]]
<p align=justify>The '''European Commission''' recently invited Member
States to '''use licenses compliant to “open” standards''' while publishing
their documents. The published [
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-491_en.htm guidelines] aim to
support institutions of different countries in complying to the Directive
in public sector information re-use.
Documents may be licensed, but the Commission urged the Member states to
put them in the public domain (CC0 license) as much as possible.
A list of licenses compliant to Open Source principles can be found here: [
http://opendefinition.org/licenses/ Conformant Licenses]
<br style="clear: both"></p>
== OpenStreetMap ==
[[File:Visualizzazione della densità dei nodi su
OpenStreetMap.png|thumb|150px|left| Density of OpenStreetMap nodes, by
Martin Raifer, [CC-BY-SA 3.0]]]
* [http://opengeofiction.net/#map=5/16.489/77.827 OpenGeoFiction] is a
website based on the same application behind openstreetmap.org (from
database to messaginng) with a difference: the represented world is not the
real one, but a fictional one. Many users are using it to draw a plausible
world set in our time (no orcs or elves: rather power stations, metro lines
and so on).
* Many newspapers reported about the #agenziauscite initiative (for example
on the [
http://corriereinnovazione.corriere.it/societa/2014/12-luglio-2014/strada-d…
Corriere della Sera]). Now that the attribution on the Osservatorio del
Mercato Immobiliare has eventually been added, it is time for [
http://www.chefuturo.it/2014/07/lagenzia-delle-entrate-chiede-scusa-per-le-…
asking about the openness of the Italian land register].
* The new portal [http://cycle.travel/map cycle.travel] is devoted to
bicycle mobility, with a route planner based on modifications to the famous
routing engine OSRM.
* OpenStreetMap Foundation [
http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members announced] the first
corporate members.
<BR>
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== Events and announcments ==
* '''From July 21th to August the first''': during those two weeks,
Wikimedia Italia offices will be open from Monday to Friday from 9.30 to
13.30.
* '''Saturday August 2nd 2014''', Monastero Bormida: Simone Cortesi,
Vice-president of Wikimedia Italia, is going to talk about [
http://www.arteneidintorni.it/incontri-mappe-monferrato/ '''Monferrato
maps: from historic cartography to digital revolution''']. The panel is
part of the exhibit "IL MONFERRATO, 500 ANNI DI ARTE, GRANDI ARTISTI IN UN
PICCOLO STATO": open from July 5th to October 26th. Wikimedia Italia
members can access at a discount rate of 5 euro, by showing the membership
card.
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== News from the wiki world ==
* From the 15th to the 17 of July, Berlin hosted the [
http://2014.okfestival.org/ Open Knowledge Festival], devoted to the Open
Data world. A [http://sched.co/1kuEQ3B workshop] about the development of
OpenStreetMap to support humanitarian issues, followed also by our
treasurer Cristian Consonni. Katie Filbert of Wikimedia Deutschland, active
member of Wikidata, was the chair.
* The Court of Rome, [
http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Comunicati_stampa/Angelucci-WMI acquitted]
Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia Foundation from the charges moved by Antonio
and Giampaolo Angelucci, father and son, businessmen and Italian
politicians. The two verdicts, the first on July 9th for Wikimedia
Foundation and now the second one in favour of Wikimedia Italia, relieved
both the American foundation, as a neutral hosting provider, and the
Italian chapter from any responsibility about content published by
Wikipedia users.
