*The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation renews $3 million commitment to Wikimedia
*
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – July 11, 2011 – The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a
philanthropic grantmaking institution that supports science, technology and
economic institutions, announced today that it will award a grant of $3
million (USD) to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates
Wikipedia. This is the second grant of this amount awarded to the Wikimedia
Foundation from the Sloan Foundation’s Universal Access to Knowledge
component of its Digital Information Technology program. The Wikimedia
Foundation is delighted to have received this vote of continued confidence
in its work.
The Sloan Foundation’s first grant of $3 million, awarded from 2008 through
2010, is the largest single grant ever received by the Wikimedia Foundation.
These funds bootstrapped the organization so that it could grow its core
operations to support and sustain Wikipedia as a high-quality free knowledge
resource. The new funds will support Wikimedia's strategic plan that focuses
on increasing Wikipedia’s quality, increasing the number and demographic
diversity of its editors, and reaching more readers, particularly in the
global south.
“Three years ago, at a time when cultural elites were ambivalent about
Wikipedia, the Sloan Foundation took a risk by supporting us. I will always
be grateful to Sloan for its courage in doing that,” said Sue Gardner,
Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. “Today the academic
community in particular has begun to appreciate Wikipedia, and is starting
to work closely with us to make it even better. I’m grateful to Sloan for
sending an important signal that helped make that happen, and I’m thrilled
at this renewed expression of confidence in our work.”
"We are delighted to support Wikimedia in developing and sustaining its
educational mission while continuously improving quality, diversity and
access to knowledge for people everywhere," said Doron Weber, Vice
President, Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "Wikipedia embodies
the ideal values of the world wide web and we are proud to be part of this
bold endeavor to use the wisdom and the altruism of the crowd to create the
biggest, most up-to-date and most open global encyclopedia in human
history."
*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 390 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th
most popular web property world-wide (May, 2011). Available in more than 270
languages, Wikipedia contains more than 18 million articles contributed by a
global volunteer community of more than 100,000 people. Based in San
Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
*About the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
*http://www.sloan.org/
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a New York based philanthropy founded in
1934, makes grants to support research and education in science, technology,
engineering, mathematics and economic performance. Sloan's program in
Digital Information Technology/Universal Access to Knowledge aims to
increase access to human knowledge and the fruits of human culture in an
open, non-exclusive manner for the benefit of all. The program has supported
the Digital Public Library of America, the Library of Congress, the Internet
Archive, Lyrasis, and on-demand books to help achieve the goal of universal
access.
For more information, contact:
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
jwalsh(a)wikimedia.or
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609
*(To be unsubscribed from this list, please reply with 'Unsubscribe' in the
body or subject of the email.)*
Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 30 June 2011. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. You can find this report online at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports/2011/June . If you have any queries, please leave a comment on the talk page.
Board activities
The Board met in person on 11-12 June in Birmingham. The first day was spent on strategy discussions, and included the writing of a vision statement - "free knowledge for all" - and a mission statement. The second day was spent on formal business, particularly our charity status application, our plans for recruitment of full time staff, the upcoming fundraiser and reallocation of budget holders. Key decisions included the decision to proceed with hiring a 'chapter manager' and office manager, and to participate in the fundraiser this Autumn/Winter.
A summary of the meeting was posted on the Wikimedia UK blog.
Education
Mike Peel spoke at the Impact of Social Sciences conference, hosted by the London School of Economics, talking about Wikipedia as an innovative approach to academic impact. A podcast recording of the talk is available.
A call for applicants was put out for a Wikimedia Outreach Ambassador position at the University of Bristol. Samuel Knight from the University of Bristol was selected, and is due to start in July.
Additionally, Campus Ambassador training event took place in London on 18 June, where four people from three different universities were trained to support the use of Wikipedia in higher education.
GLAM
Several GLAM events happened this month, including:
4th, British Library English and Drama behind-the-scenes, which had around 20 attendees, saw the creation of 24 new Wikipedia articles and improvement of various other articles - full details are at Editathon, British Library#Output.
22nd, National Railway Museum Wikimedia workshop - the agenda and participants of which are listed on
24th, GLAMcamp London had a range of Wikimedian and museum representatives meeting to discuss approaches to taking UK Wikimedia-GLAM relations forward in new and innovative ways.
The latter two events were written up in the GLAM newsletter and a Wikimedia UK blog post
Press coverage
1 June, Hundreds of GPs admit to using the website Wikipedia as a medical research tool, BBC News
10 June, Mystery of the Wikifixer: who is the secret image-cleansing agent?, The Independent
For a summary of this story, see the Wikipedia Signpost write-up.
Miscellaneous
There were 4 UK Wikimeets this month: Birmingham (Sun 12 June), Edinburgh (Mon 20 June), London (Sun 12 June) and Manchester (Sat 25 June).
A UK Community IRC meeting was held on the 14th June.
Steve Virgin spoke at the Mashable Social Media Day Bristol - info about which is on facebook and mashable.
Martin Poulter wrote a blog post on "Six unorthodox ways to use Wikipedia".
Upcoming activities in July
2011-07-01 - Medical Research Council Workshop
2011-07-04 - Bristol Wiki Academy 2
2011-07-05 - Fæ in BBC Radio Scotland interview for Culture Cafe
2011-07-06 - 6-8 July, Johnbod part of Wikilounge team for "Communicating the Museum" conference, Dusseldorf
2011-07-07 - 7-9 July, Martin Poulter attending the Wikipedia in Higher Education Summit
2011-07-09 - Executive board meeting
2011-07-10 - London meetup
2011-07-11 - 11-12 July, Wikipedia stand at the CILIP conference, Hatfield
2011-07-16 - V&A Wikilounge
2011-07-21 - Steve Virgin talking about 'What is your Wikipedia Business Strategy', Business West event at Cheltenham Racecourse & Gloucestershire Cricket Club
2011-07-25 - Board meeting
2011-07-26 - Steve Virgin talking about 'What is your Wikipedia Business Strategy', Business West event at Cheltenham Racecourse & Gloucestershire Cricket Club
For events in August and onwards, please see Events.
Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited.
Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom.
Below is the Wikimedia UK report for the period 1 January to 31 May 2011. We will be making future reports available on a monthly basis from now on. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. You can find this report online at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports/2011/May . If you have any queries, please leave a comment on the talk page.
WikiConference UK and AGM
We held the first WikiConference UK, which included our 2011 Annual General Meeting, at the Watershed Media Centre in Bristol. The three main themes of the conference were Wikipedia and GLAM; Wikipedia content; and Wikipedia in Education (including two keynotes). Slides from the presentations are available online.
At the AGM our members elected the Board for the coming year. 8 members stood for the 7 available seats, and it was a very close-run election. The new Board consists of Roger Bamkin (Chair), Andrew Turvey (Treasurer), Michael Peel (Secretary), Chris Keating, Martin Poulter, Ashley Van Haeften and Steve Virgin. The new Board put out a blog post announcing their appointment and the first board meeting.
The AGM also included the formal business of the outgoing Board's report, approval of minutes from the 2009 and 2010 AGMs, and voting on resolutions. 5 resolutions were put to the members. The first was on extending board seats to 2 years, which failed to receive the required 75% support. The other four - on setting membership fees; appointing board members; approving the 2008-2010 annual accounts; and appointing auditors - were unanimously approved. Preliminary minutes for the AGM are online.
GLAM
The event summary below excludes events and new relationships under current negotiation which includes 5 new institutions as well as continuing programmes with at least 4 current institutions.
British Library - As part of our 10th Anniversary activities and partially inspired by our successes with the British Museum collaboration, on 14-15 January 2011 we held a editathon at the British Library. At the event, Wikimedia UK volunteers alongside the employees of the British Library created Wikipedia content related to the British Library - 8 new articles were started and infrastructure on the English Wikipedia related to the new GLAM/BL project was developed. See Editathon, British Library/January 2011 and the event announcement for details.
Derby Museum
Backstage Pass - 9 April, the event established a model for high engagement with smaller museums and included the innovative use of QR codes to enable an multi-language interactive exhibition at almost no cost.
Wright Challenge - April/May - Gaming has been a great success in order for the collaboration to deliver articles in 100 languages. Further press interest should probably be encouraged for this achievement, particularly considering relationship to multi-language use of QR codes. Victuallers leading.
UGC4GLAM Vienna - 16-17 May Victuallers was invited to join this conference and presented on the topics of BM, Derby, QRpedia and the Wright Challenge and gained an insight into the GLAM work and logistics for other Chapters.
GLAMcamp NYC - 20-22 May, the workshops arranged by Liam Wyatt were successful in pushing forward interchapter relationships and advanced a number of international GLAM related projects. This included revising the :outreach website, sharing and publicising the Wikimedian in Residence experience, proposing a GLAM metrics programme and proposing a European GLAMcamp to be hosted in Utrecht late this year. The entire event (with around 30 participants) was funded with $10,000 from the WMF. Travel cost concerns limited UK involvement to Fae and Rock Drum.
In May a GLAM task force was established to help drive the expanding programme forward and establish the UK GLAM network of e-volunteers. The current GLAM task force members active are Fae (director and budget holder), Leutha, WereSpielChequers, Tom Morris, Johnbod and Andrew Davidson.
Education
An Imperial College Wikipedia Society has been officially recognised by Imperial College, the first Wikipedia student organisation to be established in the UK. The society hopes to feed teaching assignments and outreach on campus and hopes to encourage the use of Wikipedia on campus and to seriously question its position in the academic community. It has already run two contribution team events: wikipedia:Wikipedia:CONTRIB/Imperial & wikipedia:Wikipedia:CONTRIB/Imperial2 - as well as the London Wikipedia Academy. It was covered by the BBC, Care2 and Sify News.
The ongoing survey into Expert barriers to Wikipedia caught the attention of the Guardian, who ran an article on Tuesday 29th March. Mike Peel sent the Guardian a variety of suitable contacts, and the paper chose Mike's own photo and interview to lead the article. The article mentioned a number of ways in which Wikimedia is reaching out to academia, including Wikipedians at Imperial College (see above). Wikipedia's detractors piled into the online comments, as did some veteran editors. The article caught the attention of the BBC World Service, who ran an interview with Rod Ward, who lectures at the University of West of England, Bristol. The interviewer seemed taken aback when Rod explained that Wikipedians are not paid for their contributions. The Guardian later ran an editorial column "In praise of academic Wikipedians".
Martin Poulter spoke at the Open Educational Resources 2011 conference at the University of Nottingham on "Wikimedia and Higher Education: Beat them or join them?" This urged the UK's Open Educational Resource community to learn from, and engage with, the Wikimedia projects.
Wikipedia Workshops
Wikimedia UK ran a 'Wikipedia Workshop' at Cancer Research UK's London offices. Cancer Research UK's staff explored how their unique expertise can benefit Wikipedia, improving existing cancer-related pages and sharing new information about cancer and health. The 'Wikipedia Workshop' was split into two sessions. The first took place in early February and consisted of a two hour comprehensive introduction to Wikipedia, including what makes a good Wikipedia article and how to interact with other contributors. The second session, on Monday 28th March 2011, was an all-day 'hands-on' session where the Wikipedians guided attendees through their first edits to Wikipedia. Kate Arnold, director of patient information at Cancer Research UK, said: "Wikipedia is a key source of information for people looking for information about cancer. Either they go to the site directly or they Google a term and Wikipedia links appear high in the search rank. We believe it is vital for the information available on these pages to be accurate and easy to understand." The event received a mention on the BBC web site, as well as extremely favourable coverage in The Times. This included an editorial which praised CRUK's bold step in engaging with Wikipedia, and a double-page spread on the information available to cancer sufferers, mentioning Wikipedia as one of the resources that will save lives by helping people make informed decisions. The event was also covered by New Scientist, AccuraCast and DigitalJournal
As a result of the Cancer Research UK event, the UK's Medical Research Council requested a workshop at its London offices, which is set for July. The Institute of Physics, an educational and scholarly charity, is exploring shared activities with Wikimedia UK. As part of this, the IoP will host a workshop at its London headquarters in September.
Saturday 19th March saw a one-day event at the University of Bristol, jointly branded between Wikimedia UK and the University, and organised by Steve Virgin and Martin Poulter. Attending were representatives from potential partner organisations and the local Somali and Bengali-speaking communities, as well as some students from the city's two universities. After Martin's overview, Alex Stinson explained the Five Pillars, GLAM sector partnerships and the Ambassador programme. Rod Ward spoke about article quality and WikiProjects (see Rod's blog). William Avery demonstrated image uploading. Steve Woods gave a non-technical intro to MediaWiki (see Steve's blog). Roger Bamkin made a very persuasive case for QR codes, placing examples around the room. Jezhotwells was on hand to provide one-to-one help to new users. Martin spoke to BBC local radio in the morning to promote the event. Matt Jukes of the Medical Research Council blogged favourably: "I think if more people were aware of just how tough the Wikipedia peer-review system was then there would be a lot less nay-sayers. The focus not only on getting things factually correct and well cited but also on the quality of the copy (and even layout) was really impressive."
Wikipedia's 10th birthday
Wikimedia UK hosted two events in Bristol in honour of Wikipedia’s 10th Birthday. Wales spoke to an audience of 700 at the University of Bristol's Victoria Rooms, with 3000 more watching the live video stream, and about 25,000 on watching the recorded videos after the event. Local user Jezhotwells had made it his ambition to get the article about the event's venue to Good Article status beforehand, and managed it at 3am on the day of the talk. After an introduction from Guy Orpen, the University's Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, Wales gave a prepared speech and answered selected questions. His comments about Net Neutrality & HP Labs led to a large number of news stories about the event the following morning. The BBC Anchor Project recorded and edited the talk: a six minute video has been uploaded to Commons. Earlier in the day, Wales had spoken at the Bristol Cathedral School, from which a YouTube video is available. Throughout the day, Wales gave interviews to local, national and international media, including a lengthy interview with the New Statesman while en route from Bristol to London.
After the Bristol events, Jimmy threw a celebratory party in London, attended by many Wikimedia contributors and public figures. Jimmy was introduced by Richard Dawkins, who said that if he had been told about Wikipedia at its outset, he would have bet a large sum of money on it failing. Video of the party is available on the Reuters site. See summary of events. The Editathon at the British Library (see above) was also a 10th anniversary celebration event.
Miscellaneous
We put out a blog post on Wikimedia Commons reaching the 10 million multimedia files milestone.
A major media story at the end of April was regarding the disclosure of information subject to UK injunctions, which was covered by the Guardian and Daily Mail, and which Jimmy Wales criticised to the BBC (also covered by The Independent). Additionally, in May The Guardian covered a high court order regarding defamation on Wikipedia.
Back in January, a big news story was about the gender imbalance on Wikipedia, which was covered in the UK by The Telegraph in two articles.
Mike Peel attended the Chapters meeting 2011 in Berlin on behalf of WMUK. Documentation from the meeting is available online, and Manuel Schneider wrote a summary of the conference. WMUK provided sponsorship of €4,000 to hire the facilitators for the event.
Minutes of board meetings are available for 4 January, 5 February, 1 March, 8 April, 16 April (pre-AGM), 16 April (post-AGM), 26 April (full board) and 20 May (Exec).
Wikimeets happened in London on 9 January, 13 February, 13 March, 10 April and 8 May; in Cambridge on 27 February and 21 May; and in Manchester on 24 April.
UK Community IRC meetings were held on 3 May and 17 May.
Upcoming activities in June
4 June - British Library English and Drama behind-the-scenes
11-12 June - Board meeting, Birmingham
12 June - London meetup
22 June - National Railway Museum (provisional date, details under discussion)
24 June - GLAMcamp London
For events in July and onwards, please see Events.
Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited.
Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom.
Dear Wikimedians,
It's with great pleasure that I announce a longtime Wikipedian and
accomplished Wikimedia project supporter, Tilman Bayer (User:HaeB) has
agreed to join the Wikimedia Foundation in support of our movement
communications activities. Pending approval of the U.S. immigration
visa process, we intend to bring Tilman to San Francisco, full-time,
as Manager, Movement Communications in the coming months. Tilman will
augment Wikimedia's communications team (now at three!) and will
report to me.
Tilman will be known to many in the English Wikipedia community as
editor-in-chief of the Wikipedia Signpost, where over the past year
(after picking up the reigns from another current WMF staffer, Sage
Ross) he has led the publication’s dedicated crew of volunteers and
increased the depth and breadth of stories about Wikipedia, our
projects, and the movement as a whole. Tilman has also helped raise
the overall visibility of Signpost beyond the English Wikipedia,
building a significant social media presence (managing and bolstering
its Identi.ca and Twitter feeds), and generally increasing the reach
of the stories about Wikipedia to more editors and readers than ever.
Tilman has been active in both the German and English WP communities
since 2003 (he's been a checkuser on the German Wikipedia since 2006).
He holds degrees in mathematics from the University of Cambridge and
the University of Bonn.
At the Wikimedia Foundation Tilman will be working with all WMF staff,
and the community at large, to help us both build new movement
communications systems, and work with tech and the community
department to produce great specifications for user communication
oriented projects. We’re particularly interested in improving
feedback, discussion, and broadcast channels among and outside of the
projects (including social media, variations on mailing lists etc).
In short, we want to introduce more painless, relevant, and effective
ways to increase the exchange of information within the community -
including information you want to share with everyone, as well as the
stuff from WMF.
Tilman will be visible on the projects and IRC, and you will likely
start to see him posting to the mailing lists, blogs, and on-wiki.
He’s also currently in the process of working on succession for the
editorial leadership with the Signpost.
Please join me in welcoming Tilman!
--
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
WikimediaFoundation.orgblog.wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839 6885 x 6609, @jansonw
Wikimedia Estonia report April-June 2011
==Meetings==
*April 1. Started regular biweekly wiki-meetings in Tartu Public Library.
Following meetings were held on April 15, April 29, May 13, and May 27.
Sadly participation was very low, starting time has to be changed in the
autumn.
*April 9. Board meeting via Skype.
*June 4. Board meeting in Tallinn. There were 9 chapter members present
(incl. 3 board members). (blog post:
http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/juunikuu-juhatuse-koosolek/)
==Other==
*April 10. Started our chapter blog. (in Estonian,
http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/)
*April 20. Wikimedia Estonia and National Heritage Board signed an agreement
concerning cooperation on Wiki Loves Monuments contest in Estonia.
*May 3-7. European Year of Volunteering Tour in Tallinn. Wikipedian Andres
Luure gave a talk on May 3 and chapter members were representing Estonian
Wikipedia and our chapter on May 5-6. (blog post:
http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/vabatahtlike-mess-ja-talgud/)
*May 7. „Let’s do it“-day in Estonia. Chapter members took part in several
events in different locations in Estonia and promoted especially the Wiki
Loves Monuments contest. (see the previous link)
*May 11-12. Teele Vaalma gave two talks on Wikipedia to students of Tartu
Vocational Education Center.
*May 13-15. Raul Kern and Robert Reisman were Estonian representatives at
the Hackathon and Wiki Loves Monuments meeting in Berlin.
*May 20. Award ceremony in Tallinn for the winners of Wikipedia article
contest about Nordic countries cooperation that was held March 23 – April
30. (blog post:
http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/pohjamaade-koostoo-teemalise…
)
*June 8. Ivo Kruusamägi had a meeting with Estonian Institute about possible
cooperation between the Institute and Wikimedia Estonia.
*May 1 – June 10. Translation contest in Estonian Wikipedia. A list was
compiled, that contained most important articles (from 1000 articles that
every Wikipedia should have), which are good or featured in some other
language version. Contestants chosed from that list articles they wanted to
translate. On June 17 winners were announced. (blog post:
http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/vikipeedia-tolketalgud-loppe…
)
==Press==
*May 1. Wikipedian Ave Maria Mõistlik talked about her contributions in a
radio broadcast „Kogu ja tegu“ (literally ’collection and deed’).
*May 2. Press release for Wiki Loves Monuments. (
http://wikimediaeesti.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/pressiteade-fotovoistlus-kul…
)
*May 3. News item about the Translation contest (
http://www.postimees.ee/429055/eestikeelses-vikipeedias-algasid-tolketalgud/
)
*May 5. Longer article about the Translation contest (
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/estonia/rita-niineste-vikipeedia-loob-kohta-selle…
)
*May 27. News item about regular meetings in Tartu. (
http://www.tartupostimees.ee/451044/tartus-peetakse-vikipeedia-taiendamise-…
)
*June 29. Article about Wiki Loves Monuments in Estonia (Russian) (
http://www.gazeta.ee/?p=19816).
--
Teele Vaalma
MTÜ Wikimedia Eesti
teele.vaalma(a)gmail.com
+372 5814 5381
See the wiki version here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Reports/2011-06
This is the the Language Committee report for June 2011. It is the
second monthly report.
=== Committee ===
* The closing projects policy is approved by the Board and will be
implemented during the following weeks.
* A new policy draft is started, which will be updated and changed
gradually before final approval.
* The committee has discussed simple projects. They will likely be
allowed under certain conditions.
=== Approvals ===
* The Mingrelian Wikipedia has been approved and is waiting for creation.
* The Arabic Wikiversity has been approved.
=== Rejections ===
* After some discussion with the community, the Ottoman Turkish
Wikisource has been rejected. Ottoman Turkish texts should be hosted
on the Turkish Wikisource.
* The Warmian Wikipedia has been rejected due to the lack of an ISO
639 language code.