Dear all,
Wikimedia Deutschland's monthly report for December 2012 comes to you with
warm wishes for the new year.
Highlights this month:
* updates about the *annual fundraising campaign* where we focused on
personal appeals by Wikipedians and donors, as well as a special video
appeal
* WMDE sent out the first *election questionnaire* for 2013. Since there
will be three state elections and a federal election in Germany this year,
this questionnaire is the start of a series.
* a short review of the* OTRS team meeting* which took place in December
You can find the report here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Deutsch…
Best wishes,
Katja
--
Öffentlichkeitsarbeit
-------------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstraße 72 | 10963 Berlin
Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Hello everyone,
I have just published the November 2012 report from Wikimedia UK. This can
be seen at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports/2012/November Many thanks
to everyone who contributed.
For those who prefer not to visit the link, the report content is below in
plain text.
Thanks and regards,
Stevie
Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 30 November
2012. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen,
please subscribe to our blog, join a UK mailing list, and/or follow us on
Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on
this report's talk page.
*Contents*
1 Program activities
1.1 Community
1.1.1 Manchester Girl Geeks
1.1.2 Microgrant outcome
1.2 GLAM activities
1.2.1 "Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind", British Museum exhibition,
7 February – 26 May 2013
1.2.2 Nineteenth Century Books
1.2.3 Independent Wikipedian in Residence
1.3 Technology
1.4 Other activities
1.4.1 Other activities
1.4.2 Microgrants
1.5 UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)
1.6 Upcoming activities in December and January
2 Administrative activities
2.1 Finances
2.2 Board activities
2.3 News from the Chief Exec
2.4 Communications
2.5 Fundraising and Membership
*Program activities*
*Community*
*
*
*Manchester Girl Geeks Editing Day 2012*
*
*
On Sunday 25 November Manchester was the scene of a Girl Geeks training
event. There were 12 attendees were introduced to Wikipedia and began
improving coverage of women in science. The Manchester Girl Geeks have been
getting involved with Wikipedia since 2011, and this event continued the
link. They were keen to get involved in editing at a later date and it is
hoped that more such events can be arranged in the future.
*Microgrant outcome*
November saw Wikipedia's article on Operation Barras under review to become
a Featured Article. The article, which details an operation in 2000 by the
British Army to free five of its soldiers captured in Sierra Leone, was
nominated on 23 October and promoted on 8 December. The work was the
initiative of HJ Mitchell whose endeavour was supported by a WMUK
microgrant which allowed the relevant books to be purchased. The drive saw
the article grow from a few hundred words to its current size of 5,600
words. While Operation Barras is the marque article, there have also been
improvements to other related articles.
*GLAM activities*
*Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind", British Museum exhibition, 7
February – 26 May 2013*
13,000 year old engraved reindeer and ibex, with no article yet. Palart 505
We have been working on this with the BM for a long time. The exhibition
has now been announced -"Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind" BM page.
It will run from 7 February – 26 May 2013. We have been given the list of
BM objects that will be included, and expect the full list of loan objects,
mostly from European museums, shortly, once this is finalized. There are 31
BM objects in the exhibition, of which we have Commons photos of 18, mostly
from the 2011 day at Franks House, and articles on 7. Any additions are
most welcome. All have the key information, and sometimes more, on the BM
collections database. The Commons photos are most easily found at the
Commons page: Objects in Sieveking, Ann "A catalogue of Palaeolithic art in
the British Museum", which uses the same BM Sieveking "Palart" catalogue
references as the BM database.
Please see the project page for more detail. Much of the exhibition will
then travel to Santander in Spain, which gives us an exciting opportunity
to link with Spanish (and of course Catalan) Wikipedians.
*Nineteenth Century Books
*
For more details, see Wikipedia:GLAM/BL/Books
Andrew Gray, the Wikipedian in Residence at the British Library, has been
working with a collection of around 40,000 books made available by the
British Library from a previous digitisation program. These are not yet
widely available online due to their size, but can be uploaded on request
to Commons or to Wikisource. All suggestions for new material are welcome -
the collection appears particularly strong in local histories and
travelogues.
The first fully transcribed book has been completed on Wikisource - A
Journey in Khorassan and Central Asia, an 1890 travelogue by an English
diplomat and his wife in eastern Persia and Russian Central Asia.
*Independent Wikipedian in Residence
*
In related news, Andy Mabbett has secured a role as a Wikipedian in
Residence at Staffordshire Archives and Heritage Service. This is
independent of the Chapter, but very interesting. You can learn more about
Andy's work here.
*Technology*
Emmanuel and Tom were taken on as contractors & the first development
meeting was held in the Wikimedia UK offices. A plan was agreed to migrate
Wikimedia UK websites, email, mailing lists and other services to a
multi-server Rackspace cloud. Initial work was undertaken prior to a major
push in December/January to complete the migration.
Tom and Emmanuel have been documenting their work, and the new
infrastructure, at IT Development.
*Other activities*
5th-9th - Andrew Gray ran a series of four workshops in Edinburgh for the
University of Edinburgh, the National Library of Scotland, and EDINA.
6th - Stevie Benton met with Matt Jukes of the Medical Research Council to
discuss Wikipedians in Residence.
19th - Robin Owain met with Rheinallt Foster-Jones (The People's
Collection) and Tom Pert (Mapping Officer, for the Royal Commission on the
Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales) at Llanberis. Piloting 100
CC-BY-SA images etc.
19th - Andy Mabbett ran a session on Wikipedia and its relevance for local
government at the HyperLocalWM unconference. He also wrote a piece
advocating open licensing, for the unconference's own newspaper!
20th - Stevie visited the town of Stamford, Lincolnshire, to learn more
about their project to improve local content.
20th - Andrew Gray and Richard Symonds met with the Imperial War Museum to
discuss Wikipedians in Residence
21st - Andy Mabbett travelled to High Wycombe to pilot new method of
Wikipedia (and OpenStreetMap) training, Tupperware Party style!
*Microgrants*
Information about microgrants that are currently running, and how to submit
a microgrant application of your own, are at Microgrants/Applications.
*UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)*
See the communications section below.
*Upcoming events in January*
08 - Board meeting - call
12 - Manchester meetup
13 - London meetup
13 - Oxford meetup
14 - AHRC Wikipedia training workshop at the British Library
16 - IRC office hours
20 - Reading Meetup
For events in February 2013 and onwards, please see Events.
Administrative activities
*Finances*
The current state of each of our budgets is outlined in a Google
Spreadsheet. This details spend to date, and a rough estimate of future
spending. This spreadsheet is too complex to be placed directly on a wiki.
Our yearly spend is heavily 'end-loaded', partially due to the rapid growth
of Wikimedia UK.
Q3's Management Accounts (covering August, September, October) are at
File:Wikimedia UK Management Accounts Q3 2012.pdf. These are also available
in spreadsheet format for those interested - contact
richard.symondswikimedia.org.uk
*Board activities*
The Board held a full board meeting on 17-18 November in our London office.
You can see the agenda here, the minutes here and the reports here
*News from the Chief Exec*
For information on Jon's activities this month, see News from the Office.
*Communications*
The key area of importance in communications this month was a series of
articles published in The Times about the influence and activities of some
PR agencies on Wikipedia. The stories were fairly significant in that they
highlighted the widespread manipulation of Wikipedia by agencies on behalf
of their clients. One of the stories even made the front page. Given that
the journalists from The Times were open and transparent about their
research and interviewed Jimmy Wales to present a Wikipedian view, the
story was sympathetic to the Wikimedia movement. The story gained
relatively little traction across other outlets, although The Telegraph and
The Observer both ran online pieces.
Below are links to press coverage related to Wikimedia UK in November.
http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/governance/news/content/13702/independent_con…http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20096274http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/society/9646526/internet-res…http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/news/wikipediains…http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2012/11/02/wikipedia-founder-wades-i…http://rt.com/art-and-culture/news/sexual-intercourse-opera-wikipedia-839/http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/11/most-of-your-hurricane-sandy-knowledge-is-…http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micwright/100008221/wikipedias-hurr…http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-11/07/wikipedia-box-office-predict…http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/nov/08/wikipedia-buzz-blockbuster-mo…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/9666484/Wikipedia-data-can-…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2230406/How-Wikipedia-spot-b…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/…http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/1159206/pr-industry-blames-cumbersome-wikiped…http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/report-usmanov-pr-firm-tweak…http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/censorship-row-russian-internet…http://www.insideworldfootball.biz/premierleague/41-news/11579-arsenal-shar…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232288/David-Petraeus-Paula-Broadw…http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&sub=&cid=31&nid=21280http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/1159715/wikipedia-defends-editing-processes-f…http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/should-faculty-shun-wikipedia/http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/18/alisher-usmanov-spotlight-ne…http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/nov/20/mp-demands-apology-tweets-wo…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/9693478/Wonga-apologises…http://www.thedrum.com/news/2012/11/21/cipr-social-media-panel-criticises-w…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/9699729/Former-Strictly-Come-…http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/11/start/wikipedias-top-20-rel…http://kykernel.com/2012/11/27/bogus-updates-appear-on-macintyres-stoops-wi…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2239625/Jesus-Confucius-Sir-Isaac-N…http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/28/wikipedia-extradiction-law-review-…http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/levesons-wikipedia-moment-how…
*Fundraising and Membership*
*Fundraising*
This month, we received £1,810.87 in one-off donations, with 79 individual
donations. The average donation amount was £22.92 - 74% of these donors
have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If
anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information,
please get in touch with katherine.bavage(a)wikimedia.org.uk and let her know
your requirements.
There were 5,555 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total
of £22,256.49. Further figures are pending the return of one of our staff
members.
*Membership*
Up to 30th November 2012:
141 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current
members - with 8 new join-ups in November.
120 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership
should be renewed)
This adds up to 265 members who are eligible to vote
155 Expired members
The steep change in 'New and Current' to 'Grace' reflects the numbers of
memberships taken out in previous fundraiser periods. A specific chase up
email will go out in January 2013 to all grace members on top of the
automated notice of grace period email.
--
Stevie Benton
Communications Organiser
Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
--
Stevie Benton
Communications Organiser
Wikimedia UK
+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England
and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513.
Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street,
London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a
global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the
Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal
control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
Hello,
See the chapter reports from the Netherlands (November and December 2012) here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Nederla…
Kind regards, and the best wishes for 2013,
Ziko
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/
Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
-----------------------------------------------------------
This is the chapters report for Wikimedia Sverige, November 2012. In all it
has been a very good month, with some interesting new leads and some
contacts that might develop into strong collaborations.
Education ProgrammeLessons to learn
In this, together with the past month, we have gratefully received
information, tips and best practices from Annie Lin at WMF and Cornelia
Trefflich at WMDE. This has furthered our educational program in various
ways but perhaps most importantly helped to minimise aspects which has
already been tried with few results.
SWAMID
This month we have met Leif Johansson at SUNET. They work with SWAMID, an
identity federation for universities and polytechs in Sweden. SWAMID is
though a part of a much greater network of identity federations for
universities and polytechs around the world in the EU, the US and Asia.
They have put together an idea about using that identity when editing
Wikipedia, which would most hopefully engage new contributors as they may
easily show their contributions on WP together with articles they have
published in journals and such, all collected through a single identity. I
have contacted Erik Möller as Leif asked for the possibility to meet in
person in either San Fransisco or Washington.
The academy for principals (Rektorsakademin utveckling)
We have met RAU and they have offered us to participate at their conference
for teachers next year where we may have two seminars, one each day. We are
also discussing the possibility of taking part in a course they're offering
principals during spring where we may be responsible for one or two of the
seminars in that course.
Meetup for volunteers
We have planned a day for volunteers, the 26th of January, here at
Wikimedia Sweden. The idea is to go through ideas about how to present WMSE
and the Wikipedia educational program here in Sweden.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
We have been holding workshop at KTH with engineering students who have the
option to write their assignment on Wikipedia, which should be an article
about a subject in their course of study. This collaboration will evolve
further as the lecturer, Stefan, very much appreciate the idea.
FlexLär and Folkbildningsrådet
We have been present at two conferences, which were organised by and for
the study-circle movement in Sweden. We have found several organisations
who would be interested in holding circles about Wikipedia and Commons. We
are now in the process of taking this further.
KMH Royal College of Music
We have had two workshops with a small course of four students and two
professors. The students study to become teachers in music and music
production. We have set up a Wikipedia project where they will contribute
with their knowledge. In the spring, Wikipedia will in a more structured
and planned way, become a part of this course as the professors have so far
very much enjoyed to work with Wikipedia together with their students.
SLU Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
We are currently supporting SLU in arranging a Wikipedia day the 18th of
January which should be seen as the launch of the project *Knowledge
transfer to Wikipedia from researchers at SLU.* It is a project where
researchers are asked to, by the university, contribute with their
knowledge to Wikipedia. SLU has filed an application as to be able to
employ potentially a Wikipedian for support to the researchers.
Swedish as a second language
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Wikipedia_workshop,_language_course.jpg>
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Wikipedia_workshop,_language_course.jpg>
Wikipedia workshop, students learning Swedish and Wikipedia.
This is a continuation of the courses which are initially offered to
newcomers in Sweden. At this level, students should have quite a good
understanding of Swedish. We have had one workshop, another one is to come
soon, with these students about the basics of Wikipedia. This teacher,
Maria, would want Wikipedia contribution to become an assignment for all
the students to come studying Swedish as a second language. At the moment
there is a project, based on all their nationalities, with focus on culture
and people. There is therefore a list, based on the students origins, with
some painters, musicians, writers etc, which are not written about in
Swedish. After talks with Annie Lin (WMF) though, it would seem as if a
better idea is to have them translate from Swedish to their native language.
Broadcasting for the national radio
We have held a broadcast for the national radio which will be sent mid
December, where we held a workshop together with a teacher about Wikipedia.
Not only the technical basics but also the democratic, gender and societal
aspects.
Dialogue with the Swedish educational broadcasting organisation (UR)
Ur is currently interested in how they can use Wikipedia, and potentially
Wikiversity as a part of their educational mission. The current dialogue is
focused on their material for newcomers in Sweden and how they may use
Wikipedia as a means to develop their knowledge of Swedish.
An online course
An online course is under development and will be launched this spring for
teachers mainly. It will be held online with real-time meetups. The
participants will, if successful, receive a diploma from WMSE, with the
same gradings used at the Swedish Wikipedia for articles, i.e. recommended,
good and excellent.
GLAM
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_Bild_01.JPG>
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012_Bild_01.JPG>
Johan Andersen is awarded first price in the category Buildings and Best
series of images.
Council of the Swedish Central Museums
Our workshops continued, three were held during November and meetings about
collaborations in exhibitions and preparations for batch-uploads were also
on the agenda.
Wikipedian in residence
An ending seminar of the WiR at the Swedish National Heritage Board were
held.
Wiki Loves Monuments
A price ceremony were held at the conference FSCONS (Free Society and
Culture Nordic Summit).
Wiki Skills
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Wiki-skills_broschyrer._3_december_2012..j…>
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Wiki-skills_broschyrer._3_december_2012..j…>
The Wiki Skills brochure.
Leo is back from the partners coordination meeting in Athens. Anna has been
working on the economic reporting. Sophie has been printing the learning
scenario brochures which we will use partly for dissemination of the
project and partly as material for the courses. It will be used as a
complement to the learning scenarios of Wikipedia in
education<http://se.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fil:Wikipedia_i_utbildning_brosch…>
.
We are about to plan the content of the courses in more detail. In
preparation for this we have been giving some feedback to the Definition of
training scenarios and training
curriculum<http://wikiskills.cesga.es/xwiki/bin/view/Wiki-Skills/D3.1+Definition+of+tr…>,
the Guidelines for
Trainers<https://wikiskills.cesga.es/xwiki/bin/view/Wiki-Skills/D3.4+-+Guidelines+fo…>
and
the Evaluation Framework<http://wikiskills.cesga.es/xwiki/bin/view/Wiki-Skills/Deliverable+8.1+-+Eva…>
.
We have been preparing a course
description<http://kreablo.se:8080/x/wiki/kreablo.se/view/Wiki%20skills/Kursen%20WikiSk…>
and
a registration form<http://kreablo.se:8080/x/wiki/kreablo.se/view/Wiki+skills/Anm%C3%A4lningsfo…>
which
has been sent out to invite our target group (which consists of teachers of
trainees and of students in vocational training. Other teachers from
secondary education may be welcome as well).
Europeana Awareness
An event page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_edit-a-thons> was
created on Meta to coordinate an international series of parallel
edit-a-thons with World War I as the theme. The edit-a-thons will take
place in a number of countries in Europe. If everything goes according to
plans, the events will take place at the 29th of June 2013.
Wiki Loves Public Art (WLPA)
Vinnova has given us funds to create a database about public artworks in
Sweden. A database developer will be identified and the work will have to
start as soon as possible. See our blog post in Swedish and
English<http://wikimediasverige.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/vinnova-stodjer-vart-datab…>
.
A new national coordinator in Sweden and a person that will organize a few
supporting events for the photo contest was identified and will start
working with the contest in December 2012.
A new web designer are now working on getting the international website up
and running as soon as possible. We had some initial difficulties but it is
now progressing very well and a first version is up and running on
wikilovespublicart.org.
The organizing team for WLPA in Sweden had a very good meeting with The
National Public Art Council Sweden (Statens konstråd) and they are very
positive to the idea and are looking into how they can be involved in both
the creation of the database and in the Wiki Loves Public Art contest.
Nordic cooperation
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Working_with_the_Wikimedia_Chapters_in_Den…>
<http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Working_with_the_Wikimedia_Chapters_in_Den…>
The yearbook.
Meeting of the Nordic Chapters
The third meeting between the Nordic Chapters was held in connection with
the FSCONS conference in Göteborg, November 10.
It was confirmed that the second phase of the project for the support of
the Sami Wikipedia should be led by Wikimedia Norway and be a
cross-the-border project.
Booklet on the activities by the Nordic chapters
The yearbook project was sucessfully finished with the printing of the
booklet *Working with the Wikimedia Chapters in Denmark, Norway and Sweden* (in
English). A second edition might be produced early 2014. A few copies will
be distributed to all chapters.
PresentationsWorkshop with the *Salemportalen* project
Salemportalen is a Swedish language Wikipedia project driven by the Salem
Municipality Library och the Salem Local Community Association (Salems
Hembygdsförening). Two members of Wikimedia Sverige participated in a
workshop at the Salem Municipality Library and held a training course on
editing and on uploading of pictures to Wikimedia Commons.
InternalBoard meeting
A board meeting was held on November 12 (combined physical meeting/Google
Hangout). Minutes are available in Swedish.
http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6tesprotokoll/Protokoll_2012-11-12 Important
notes on internal character was approval of; a new policy for working hours
of employees, policy for communication and guidelines for Conflicts of
interest.
Recruitment
Recruitment of an CEO was started. The post was announced in i.a. the paper
journal *Platsjournalen*. Applications were accepted until November 30.
Contracts with Sophie Österberg (Education manager) and Axel Pettersson
(GLAM manager) were extended.
Legal advice
We consulted a legal firm to ensure that we use CiviCRM in compliance with
Swedish privacy laws.
*Best wishes,*
*Jan Ainali*
Chairman, Wikimedia Sverige <http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Huvudsida>
076-2122776
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.org
Year: 2012 Week: 53 Number: 133
************************************************************
An independent internal news bulletin
for the members of the Wikimedia community
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
=== Technical news ===
[Wikidata] - the new sister-project Wikidata is growing fast. By year's
end the will get up to 2 million records. In the works is now the
interwiki language information, later on infoboxes and lists will follow.
At present the data of Wikidata is not yet used on any of the projects.
The plans are to switch over the Hungarian language Wikipedia over to
Wikidata for the use of there interwiki language links on January 14th
2013.
What will that actually mean in practice? - When this function is enabled
on a wiki the interwiki language links will be augmented with sitelinks
injected in the Wikipedia article. It is unclear what happen in the
future for sitelinks in non-wikipedia articles. At least if there are
sitelinks available at Wikidata about that topic. The current local
language links must be removed otherwise they will override the Wikidata
sitelinks. You will be able to edit these sitelinks on the local wiki with
JavaScript. Changes made on the Wikidata sitelinks that effect a local
Wikipedia will propagate to them, and also show up in the recent changes
of that wiki. If for some reason a local wiki does not want that the
injected interwiki language links show up on a specific page the parser
function {{noexternallanglinks}} can be used. When this function is active
the net result is that the interwiki links will show up as usual if set,
but the maintenance of sitelinks in the Wikipedia-projects will go away.
http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Introduction -- overview of Wikidata
[Visual Editor (Alpha!)] The wikisoftware that the projects are using
MediaWiki has come far from the basic wiki it started with. But when you
click on the "edit" button is still looks very the same, at least on not
to complicated pages. Since very long there is talk about getting on the
Wiki a so called WYSIWYG editor, like MS Word. Maybe not a function for
everybody but it could get the less technical minded people on the wiki.
At he English language Wikipedia and only there an early version of a
Visual Editor that does that can be switched on in the users preferences.
If you go to your "Preferences" screen and click into the Editing"
section, it will have an option labeled "Enable Visual Editor". Please be
careful, it is still buggy and you are not allowed to use it on the
sandbox page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:VisualEditor
[Mobile WP] the version of the website for use on phones is getting more
functionality. As a logged in user you can edit pages if you enable the
"beta" options. And if you enable the "Here be dragons mode" you can
upload an image if you use a "webkit browser" like Google Chrome.
http://en.m.wikipedia.orghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebKit
[Translate] Translation of MediaWiki and documentation, policies,
newsletters and any sort of page on our multilingual wikis is powered and
made easy for thousands of translators by the Translate extension, born on
translatewiki.net. A translation memory feature was recently enabled on
all Wikimedia wikis after a long work. The translation interface is now
being rebuilt to meet translators' needs: test it and give feedback!
http://laxstrom.name/blag/2012/09/07/translation-memory-all-wikimedia-wikis/https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Translation_UXhttp://translatewiki.net
=== Offer ===
[Wikizine.org] this domain name is available to be used for a new
project. If you have an idea for what this domain name can be useful for
contact [[user:Walter]]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Walter
=== Proposals ===
[Wikimania 2013] The already 9th Wikimania will be in Hong Kong next
year. It will be from 7 to 11 August 2013. The call for participation is
open now! So, if you an idea for doing some sort of presentation at
Wikimania then it is now the time to enter you proposal.
http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions
=== Policy ===
[Uploads] It is proposed to start a new RfC to approve a new Local uploads
policy. Local uploads need a big policy and template infrastructure; most
wikis don't and can't have it, and at least a hundred wikis are currently
breaking the WMF licensing policy. Additionally, only Commons has the
UploadWizard. It's proposed to make uploads more effective and legal by
switching them to Commons-only by default, so that only the wikis which
have an EDP will keep or get local uploads.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Local_uploads_policy
=== Foundation ===
[WikiVoyage] "the free, worldwide travel guide that anyone can edit."
will be joining the Wikimedia Foundation family officially on Wikipedia
Day, January 15th 2013. The have there origin at Wikitravel.org, also a
project with the same mission. The German language Wikitravel split off in
2006 and became Wikivoyage. The Wikimedia Foundation Wikivoyage will be
the "fork" Wikivoyage in German and Italian and the content and most of
the userbase of Wikitravel's remaining language editions. This results in
the following languages that are supported in the new WMF-project;
English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swedish. The
interwiki link to link to Wikivoyage is "voy:". Example; the link for the
page about "Bolivia" on the Dutch language Wikivoyage is
[[voy:nl:Bolivia]]
http://www.wikivoyage.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikivoyage
[WMF annual audit 2011-2012] The annual audit of the Wikimedia
Foundation, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012 and the corresponding
FAQ have been posted on the financial reports page of the Wikimedia
Foundation web site. The report shows that from a financial POV it goes
very well with the WMF. Cash increased from $12 million to $21.8 million.
Investment in technology has gone up by $2.6 million and net assets
increased by $10.7 million. Expenses for the fiscal year increased from
$17.9 million to $29.3 million. The total assets of the WMF are now over
$ 37 million.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports
[Chapters comm. vacancy] The "Affiliations Committee" formerly known
as Chapters Committee is searching for 6 new members. Deadline for
candidacies is January 12th. Inform yourself very well in advance; there
is actual work involved with it.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committeehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Call_for_Candidates_2…
[Fundraiser] The last fundraiser already the 9th was once again a
great success. The Wikimedia Foundation received 25 million US-dollar in
donations from 1,2 million individuals. 25 million dollar is exactly the
goal the WMF did set at the start of the campaign. This campaign did only
run on the flagship wiki, the English language Wikipedia. The other
languages and projects will get a fund drive presented on there wiki in
April 2013.
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/12/27/wikimedia-foundation-raises-25-million…
[WMF annual plan 2012-2013] is published. It is fairly extensive and
summarizing it in 3 sentences does not does it justice. Anyhow; focus will
be in getting more people to edit and to keep the current editors. This by
making it more easy for potential editors to do it, like the VisalEditor.
The WMF also will continue to push to get access to Wikpedia by means of
mobile data networks in developing country's free of charge. That is the
"Wikipedia Zero" program.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reportshttp://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
=== Community ===
[Commons contest] Commons will start again with there yearly "Picture
of the Year" contest, the 7th edition. Round one will start the day
after Wikipedia Day.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Picture_of_the_Year/2012/Introduc…
[Wikipedia almost 12-years old] Currently we are in the middle of the
Christmas & new-year holidays. But once again the most important holiday
of the calender is coming up; Wikipedia Day. On January 15th 2012
Wikipedia turned eleven years old. So it comes at no surprise that
Wikipedia will now turn twelve. And do not forget, at January 25th there
is also of course "Magnus Manske Day". Wikipedia day is the day the first
Wikipedia the English one started. Magnus Manske Day celebrates the
launch of the Phase II wikisoftware; a Wikipedia specific wiki, a very
early version of MediaWiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Dayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Magnus_Manske_Day
[Project proposal] Wikifocus; "to describe everything related to Wiki
technology (wikis and their members, wiki softwares and their
capabilities)." The proposal to add this project to the WMF family is open
for discussion at Meta. Interesting about this is that there is already a
small active Russian group of 20 users running a Russian independent
Wikifocus wiki. Communication between these Russian speakers and English
language users at Meta seems to be problematic.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiFocus -- join in and maybe help out
with the Babel problems
http://wikifocus.org/ -- active wiki in Russian
[Wikizine] At the end of 2005 a news newsletter was started. The
intention with it was to inform the community of all the projects across
all languages about what was going on. To break the language barriers. For
this a network of volunteers across the projects and languages was
envisioned to make of Wikizine an information exchange hub. The years up
to 2008 where the most successful years of Wikizine. There was a weekly
publication rate and frequently extra editions. Wikizine existed also in
German, Spanish and Indonesian.
But it could not truly deliver the universal projects news as was
intended. Wikizine was not able to attract and maintain the necessary
people to make that happen. Due to the staff shortage quality could not be
guaranteed. And from 2009 on also not the publication rate. It became more
monthly then weekly. The other language editions where closed. The
publication of Wikizine became an exception. Since 2010 Wikizine is
virtually a dead newsletter. In August-September 2011 it suddenly came
back to life under the direction of a new editor-in-chief with many
different Wikizine versions. The new editor disappeared and so also the
revival.
And Wikizine continued in zombie mode until now. Wikizine 133, this
edition, will be the final Wikizine. Thank you. [[User:Walter|Walter]]
http://wikizine.blogspot.com -- Notice; new location for the blog, the
domain name "wikizine.org" will not longer be supported
[Wiktionary] is one of these projects of our WMF family that gets less
space in the sun then others, the dictionary project. But it is more then
a dictionary. It is a community building the absolute, the final
dictionary. Offering translations from all languages to all languages is
only a small part of its mission. There are around 150 active Wiktionary
languages editions but the contain words in many more languages.
Wiktionary has at least some words in 1029 different languages out of the
over 6900 that exist.
And Wiktionary has just celebrated its 10th anniversary as a project on
December 12th. The full report and scope of the celebrations can be found
at the link below. Media coverage of these celebrations could not be
found unfortunately.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Wiktionary_Day
[Wiktionary logos] 56 Wiktionaries who never had one got a localised
logo enabled, thanks to the work by Casey Brown, Odder and many
translators. More work is coming for dozens of Wikipedias and other
projects without a localised logo; everyone can help.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2012-December/002193.html
=== Media ===
[Jimmy Wales & Kazahkstan] In August the WMF awarded by means of Jimmy
Wales the first ever "Global Wikipedian of the Year" award to Rauan
Kenzhekhanuly, a Wikipedian from Kazakhstan who founded a non-profit
organization WikiBilim. With help of this organization the Kazakh
Wikipedia grew from 7000 articles to 70,000 in 3 months time. (currently
the are over 200,000 articles). Concerns are now raised that this
Wikipedia of year is actually a government puppet of the dictatorial
government of Kazakhstan. This because of the previous functions in the
government service, especially in the propaganda department. And because
the WikiBilim organization is funded with the money of state oil.
Jimmy Wales responded with; "The Wikimedia Foundation has zero
collaboration with the government of Kazakhstan. Wikibilim is a totally
independent organization. And it is absolutely wrong to say that I am
"helping the Kazakh regime whitewash its image." I am a firm and strong
critic. At the same time, I'm excited by the work of volunteers, and I
believevery stronglythat an open and independent Wikipedia will be the
death knell for tyranny in places like Kazakhstan."
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/07/05/class-assignment-inspired-wikipedian-o…
-- Wikipedian of the Year
http://www.dailydot.com/politics/wikipedia-kazakhstan-dictatorship/ --
WikiBilm, the WP of the year and the Kazakh dictatorship
http://tinyurl.com/cm5pdwm --- talk page of Jimmy Wales about this , it
contains an extensive responds of Jimmy about this
[Why did you donate] the question is raised "Are People Who Donate to
Wikipedia Just Better People in General?"
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/wikipedia-donors-better-people…
[Wikitube] no, there is not (yet) a project Wikitube. But the WMF does
have an account at Youtube. You can find some video's about how to edit.
And also videos of users who explain what Wikipedia mean form them in
there live. Those are interesting to watch because it gives a face behind
the recent changes.
http://www.youtube.com/user/WikimediaFoundation
=== Stats ===
* Wikimedia Commons has reached 15,000,000 files, 73 days after reaching
14,000,000.
* The Low German/Low Saxon Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
* The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 200,000 articles
* The Tamil Wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles.
* The Romanian Wikibooks has reached 500 book modules.
[Wikiquote books and booklovers] - The Italian Wikiquote continues its
expansion on the main booklovers social network of Italy: its group on
aNobii has 1300+ members (one of the biggest groups). ISBNs of quoted
books were extracted from it, en, fr.quote and experimentally added. The
Italian has about 4500 ISBNs and 10 thousands books identified in total,
English and French about 2500 ISBNs. Italian seems to quote all the books
that English does, plus many more; a third of fr.quote's books are quoted
also on en and it.
http://www.anobii.com/groups/0105f4f6d9a205e8a9/ -- IT Wikiquote at a
social network for booklovers
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikiquote-l/2012-December/000146.html
=== Other news ===
[New Gopher server] At this new Gopher-hole you can find a list of
Wikipedia articles created last month/week/day with most users
contributing to article within the same period. Updated hourly.
gopher://gopher.conus.info/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/overbiteff/ -- add support
for Gopher to FireFox
[WMF shop] since a while there is WMF webshop. You can buy a T-shirt and
other clothing, stickers and pins and quality bags. Shipment is from the
US but the are offering a flat fee of $10 for the shipping costs to all
destinations. Nevertheless if you only wanted to buy a key-chain it gets
very expensive. When a local wikimeet is coming up you could do a group
order and divide the costs that way.
http://shop.wikimedia.org/
=== Did you know ... ===
... that the edits of experts make an article harder to read?
"The reason is clear, they say: articles on difficult topics are written
by experts who sacrifice readability for accuracy and that is compounded
as other experts weigh in with further accuracy-obsessed edits that remove
simplifications, generalisations or intuitive explanations that might
have served to aid readability."
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/12/study-the-expert-editors-of-wikipedia-make…
=== Quote ===
"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"
-- Last message of the dolphins to the people of Earth before leaving it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long,_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Editor(s): Walter, Nemo
Corrector(s):
Thanks to: Amgine, Jeblad, hoo
Sources-Attributions:Jeblad,Lydia Pintscher
Support:
Website: http://wikizine.blogspot.com
Gopher: is down and probably will not come back
Contact: [[meta:user:Walter]]
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//// ///
//// Happy new-year, good fortune and health in MMXIII ///
//// ///
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Wikizine.org makes no guarantee of accuracy, validity and
especially but not limited to, correct grammar and spelling.
Satisfaction is not guaranteed. Some content can be highly
inspired or directly copied from other sources.
Those sources are listed above at "Sources-Attributions".
Wikizine.org is published by [[meta:user:Walter]].
Content is available under Creative Commons
Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 4:05 PM, .mau. (maurizio codogno) <
wiki.mau(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
the new bulletin from Wikimedia Italia (#42, the Answer) is available.
This time we write about a petition that Wikimedia Italia signed against
the computer science tests that Italian Ministry for Education prepared,
and that lean heavily towards a proprietary, closed system.
As usual a link has been added to meta, at
Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Italia ; raw text of the bulletin
follows below.
ciao, .mau.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*WikimediaNews* - no. 42 - December 27, 2012
Official bulletin from Wikimedia Italia Association.
Wikimedia Italia signs the petition on the public competition for new
teachers
In the Italian competition for the selection of future teachers, many of
the questions prepared by the Ministry in the field of computer science
refer to a single proprietary operating system and its applications. Other
questions are misleading and incorrect. Wikimedia Italy believes that
teachers should be prepared in an appropriate manner with respect to the
reality of an evolving digital society; for this reason we have signed an
intimation against the Ministry of Education, University and Research. A
total of 45 organizations including Wikimedia Italia, Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE), Association for Free Geographic Information
(GFoss.it), Free Software Users Group Italia (FSUGItalia), Italian Linux
Society (ILS), LibreItalia, Wikimedia Italy, signed the notice, as reported
by our press release<http://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Comunicati_stampa/Concorso_Scuola_2012>.
Read the full text of the
intimation<http://www.softwarelibero.it/lettera-francesco-profumo>(in
Italian).
News in brief
(Note: in this translated version only the news regarding Italy are shown)
- WikiVoyage officially started. The Italian
edition<http://it.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Pagina_principale>contains
already 2,228 voices.
Holiday break
The offices of Wikimedia Italia will be closed until January 7. *Our best
wishes for a happy holiday to all members, donors, friends and volunteers!*
<http://xmau.com/>
