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Wikimedia Foundation Report, September 2010
by Erik Moeller 09 Nov '10

09 Nov '10

Formatted and editable version here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_September_2010 == Highlights == * Videos of Wikimedians released: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/24/four-videos-of-wikipedias-volunte… * Article feedback pilot launches: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/22/article-feedback-pilot-goes-live/ * Public Policy Initiative coursework begins: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/08/19/wikimedia-registers-for-classes/ == Data and Trends == :The monthly report card for September 2010 can be found at: :http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2010_09_detailed.html :Global unique visitors: :398 million (+6.6% compared with previous month / +22.1% compared with previous year) :Page requests: :13.7 billion (+5.4% compared with previous month / +20.2% compared with previous year) :Active Wikipedia Editors (>=5 edits/month): :82,503 active editors (-3.3% compared with previous month / -5.6% compared with previous year) :New Editors (editors who completed their first 10 edits in a given month): :15,805 new editors (-10.5% compared with previous month / -17.4% compared with previous year) == Financials == :Operating revenue for September: $156K vs plan of $233K :Operating expenses for September: $1.1MM vs plan of $1.6MM :Operating revenue year-to-date: $440K vs plan of $631K :Operating expenses year-to-date: $3.2MM vs plan of $4.5MM The MTD and YTD underages are primarily in unrestricted gifts. For both MTD and YTD, more than half of the underspending continues to be in capex and internet hosting primarily due to amounts being budgeted evenly over the year thus not reflecting the ramp up in costs once the Virginia data center is built out and operational. Other underages included personnel (salary, wages and benefits) for several open positions and staff development costs, partially offset by recruiting expenses, and underages in outside contract services, mainly offset by overage in grants and awards and much smaller overages in legal expenses, facilities and travel. Cash as of end of October (latest available) was $11.9MM. == Technology == In September, the Engineering Programs Office started publishing a monthly public update of all projects we are working on. The September report can be viewed at: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/09/wmf-engineering/ The most recent report can be found here: http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/11/november-2010-wmf-engineering-update/ Notable in September, the Wikimedia Foundation published its roadmap for the development of the "Pending Changes" feature, following community discussion and trial of the technology. Pending Changes is used on the English Wikipedia to moderate edits by new users on selected pages. See the roadmap: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Pending_Changes_enwiki_trial/Roadmap Also notable is the work done on CentralNotice in support of improving banners for the Fundraiser. This work will be useful for any and all banners needed in future on any Wikimedia Foundation site, including better Geo-Location to target geographically relevant banners, and much streamlined banner creatiion. Another interesting bit of work in September was a new feature, Article Feedback, which was rolled out as a pilot as part of the Public Policy Initiative. We're watching this feature very closely to see if it gives us plausibly accurate measures of the quality of a given article based on reader feedback. The intention was to be somewhat more sophisticated than a single "how many stars" popularity measure. The team that worked on this pilot worked very quickly in what we hope will be a more normal mode for initial features development (to pilot stage), and are to be commended for getting to an acceptable level of implementation on time. What we learn from this pilot will feed into another iteration of the feature in coming months, and possibly wider deployment. FAQs regarding the feature can be found here: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/FAQs Work by both staff and community members has continued on deploying Selenium, a software testing framework which will serve all MediaWiki development, and should prove beneficial to Wikimedia for a long time to come. Interviews and Hires for this past month: promoted: Mark Bersgma to Operations Engineering Program Manager, hired employee: Carrie Smith, Assistant to the Office of the CTO, conducted interviews for Director of Technical Operations. Conversations: Final meetings with Co-Location providers and key meeting with potential hardware donor for Virginia Data Center, Meetings with Research Firm about project to look at future Mobile trends in the developing world. == Community == '''Fundraising:''' Preparations for the fundraiser continued with short weekly tests. We tested many different banners suggested by community members. Unfortunately, no banner was found that beat last year's best: "Please read: a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales". But it was found that graphical versions of that banner performed almost twice as well as text-only banners. More than $50,000 in revenue was raised in our short hour-long tests in September. Several temporary staff were hired to support the fundraiser, including Wikimedians living in India, Egypt, and a few cities in the US. Several of these employees were discovered through the "open call" posted on the site in July. In September, we received 884 donations totaling $56,713. '''Fellowship Program:''' Also recruited through the "open call" were September's two Community Fellows: Victoria Doronina and Maryana Pinchuk. They are working on a history of the Russian Wikipedia. Victoria is a long time Russian Wikipedian and former Russian Arbcom member. Maryana is a Phd candidate at Harvard's department of Slavic Languages and Literature. Our first fellow, Steven Walling dug into a couple of projects, one supporting the Board in thinking about harassment policies, and another to support organizing around 10th anniversary events. '''Public Policy Initiative:''' :http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy The fall terms at US universities participating in the Public Policy Initiative started in earnest in September. Most of the Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors visited classes, giving students an introduction to Wikipedia and answering their questions; several Ambassadors have also led lab sessions or office hours, where students get a hands-on tutorial of the first steps of becoming an editor. Many classes have become active on Wikipedia, with students creating accounts, testing the wiki in sandbox, choosing Online Ambassadors as mentors, and selecting articles to work on. Annie Lin has also been traveling throughout the eastern part of the country, visiting most of the professors and Campus Ambassadors participating in the fall semester as well as meeting with people interested in coming on board for the spring semester. These face-to-face conversations have served as effective check-ins, allowing different parties to discuss what is working well and what could be improved (and how). Interest in article assessment for the Public Policy Initiative is picking up. Amy Roth ran some preliminary data analysis which indicates that Wikipedians are fairly consistent in their assessment of article quality. A group of public policy expert volunteers has started assessing articles, so there will some comparative results soon. Also, the Article Feedback Tool is piloted on the public policy and readers have started rating public policy articles on Wikipedia (see [4] for first results) '''Wikipedia Ambassadors:''' The outreach team proposed a draft set of Wikipedia Ambassador Principles [5], which we will work with the Ambassadors to refine and hopefully officially adopt in the coming weeks. Frank, Annie and Sage initiated the "Ambassadors Steering Committee" in mid-September, and quickly added four Wikipedia Ambassadors to the committee. This is the beginning of the process of turning control of the Wikipedia Ambassadors program over to volunteers. The committee, chaired by Campus Ambassador PJ Tabit, will be working with all the Ambassadors, as well as the broader community, to chart the course of the Wikipedia Ambassador Program, both in the next academic term as well as subsequent terms after the Public Policy Initiative concludes. The committee has been meeting weekly; meeting notes are available at [6]. '''Public Outreach Resources:''' In September, we created a landing page for the bookshelf materials on the outreach wiki. It contains all finalized materials of the Bookshelf Project as well as other educational materials relevant to our projects. The page can be reached through http://bookshelf.wikimedia.org. Also in September, Pete Forsyth organized and led the "Screensprint meeting" in San Francisco. This screencast initiative is based on the observation that there are some pretty big challenges involved in producing a good screencast, especially if you're on a tight budget and/or want to use free and open source software. Consequently, the goal of the 3-day Screensprint meeting was to create a framework of resources for creating screencasts on the English Wikipedia, intended to serve as a model for other language versions. During the meeting, a group of volunteers from different countries started the WikiProject Screencast [7] and created a number of brief videos that demonstrate how to create screencasts as instructional tools for Wikipedia newcomers. '''Account Creation Research:''' Frank Schulenburg kicked off the new Account Creation Improvement Project [8] on the outreach wiki. The project aims at increasing the number of people who create a user account and actually start editing. It is rooted in the observation that the current process of account creation is not welcoming, it often looks complicated, it is overwhelming, and there is no follow-up. During its 8 month timeframe, the project will aim at improving the overall knowledge about what drives people who create a user account to start editing. For this purpose, it will experiment with different methods of welcoming and supporting new editors. :[1] http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/07/wikipedia :[2] http://www.foxprovidence.com/dpp/rhode_show/wildcard_93/collegebound-fixing… :[3] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative#Media_coverage :[4] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Article_feedback/Public_Policy_Pilot/Early_Da… :[5] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Ambassador_Principles :[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Steering_Committee :[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Screencast :[8] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Account_Creation_Improvement_Project == Global Development == Barry Newstead visited India for introductory conversations with the Wikimedia community in India. The community had the first ever recorded meetups in Mumbai & Delhi. We had a meetup in Bangalore. Barry, board member Bishakha Datta and advisory board member Achal Prabhala met with the Wikimedia India chapter. In addition, Barry held meetings with the Free Software Foundation, Microsoft Research, Google, Omidyar Network, Ajay Sud (attorney), State of Karnatika's Knowledge Commission and Indian Institute for Science & Technology. We had a range of press interviews during the week (http://wikimedia.in/wiki/In_the_news) and have begun to develop key messages about Wikimedia's work in Inda. Barry also met with an initial group of candidates for the National Program Director for India. WMF worked with several chapters on the legalities of our fundraising relationship. WMF hired Jane Peebles as counsel and we have hired counsel to support conversations with chapters in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Switzerland. WMF and Wikimedia Germany came to an agreement on a new arrangement to support our fundraising relationship. Wikimedia Germany began work on a new subsidiary to support the relationship. Kul Wadhwa traveled to Germany, France, Greece and Japan to build relationships to support global work in mobile and offline. He met with our partner Orange, and also attended two technology conferences where Mobile was a major topic of discussion. A key takeaway is that data services are of growing importance for mobile providers in the developing world, despite their immaturity. The challenge for mobile users is that data plans may be expensive and for Wikimedia, we need to figure out how to make access to Wikimedia affordable (ideally free). We had a visit from members of the Wikimania Haifa team as part of their planning work. We also had a visit from Bruno Souza from Brazil. Bruno is a leading innovator within the Java Users Groups within Brazil and he provided us with helpful advice on Brazil. == Communications == The communications team released four videos that highlight the global volunteers of Wikipedia ( http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/24/four-videos-of-wikipedias-volunte… ). These videos feature Wikimedians from around the world. The footage was captured during Wikimania in Poland. Direct links: * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_User_Name_MEDIUM.ogv * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nice_People_MEDIUM.ogv * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edit_Button.ogv * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Feeling.ogv The purpose of these videos is to serve as an instrument for public outreach, helping us to invite more people to contribute to our projects. Beyond online use, they will be used by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia chapters at conferences, in meetings, and at other opportunities. Along with other public outreach resources, the videos (and subtitled versions thereof) can also be found through the Public Outreach Bookshelf: http://bookshelf.wikimedia.org/ The communications team also supported the development of the strategic plan synthesis that was shared with the Wikimedia Board of Trustees in advance of their meeting in October. During September Foundation staff and spokespeople were in contact with the following media outlets - note a particular concentration of interviews in India during high profile visits: New York Times, NPR, CEO Middle East magazine (Dubai), SEmana magazine (Colombia), Heise (Berlin), SiliconFlorist.com (Portland, Oregon), Ars Technica, Software Design Magazine (Tokyo), and Pagina 12 from Buenos Aires. Interviews and coverage from India included Financial Express, Times of India, Silicon India, DNA India, Business Standard (Mumbai), Daily Bhaskar, Indian Express Buzz, and The Hindu. :For a complete listing of media contact through September: :http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_room/Media_Contact#September_2010 :High profile media coverage through September: :"Wikipedia reveals mousetrap finale" :http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/business/media/18spoiler.html :"Wikimedia opening offices in India" :http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article797083.ece :http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/wikipedia-to-open-india-office-soon-54911 :"Wikipedia in the classroom" (coverage related to the Public Policy Initiative) :http://www.sdsucollegian.com/opinion/wikipedia-cuts-through-bureaucracy-gets-down-to-the-meat-1.1654878 :http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/07/wikipedia :http://www.thehoya.com/news/Wikipedia-A-Class-Tool-917104/ :Other worthwhile reads: :http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/42799/ :http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/i-stole-from-wikipedia-but-its-not-plagiarism-says-houellebecq-2073145.html :Blog posts through September, 2010: :http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/ :For lots of detailed coverage and news summaries, see the community-edited Wikipedia Signpost editions for September 2010: :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2010-09-06 :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2010-09-13 :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2010-09-20 :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Archives/2010-09-27 == Human Resources == In September the Wikimedia Foundation added four permanent hires (Cyn Skyberg - Chief Talent and Culture Officer; Melanie Brown - Office Assistant; Dana Isokawa - Assistant to the Office of the Executive and Deputy Directors; and Carrie Smith - Assistant to the CTO) and one fellowship recipient (Steven Walling). The HR/Culture department spent some time this month planning and preparing for the All Staff meeting in the last week of October. The meeting was planned for Half Moon Bay, CA, and was a joint project with the Admin department in terms of operations and logistics. We met with the facilitator we ultimately ended up using for the All Staff, and built a potential agenda and outline for the meeting. The team also met with Phoebe Ayers, current board member, about potentially doing the opening talk for the meeting, which she evetually agreed to do. Additionally, HR/Culture spent time reconciling the hiring plan and creating processes for tracking, managing and planning for staffing changes and development over time. In her new role, Cyn spent several hours getting to know the existing processes and walking through current procedures for hiring and onboarding. She and Daniel created a framework for future development of the department and began a goal setting exercise for the department for the month of October. Further conversation for the month included the potential for an HRM system, which we are just starting to investigate. OrangeHRM (http://www.orangehrm.com/), is a serious candidate. :Total Employee Count: :Plan: 65, Actual: 59 :Remaining Open positions to fiscal year end: 27 Real-time feed for HR updates: http://identi.ca/wikimediaatwork or http://twitter.com/wikimediaatwork == Finance and Administration == General updates from Finance and Administration: * Draft audited financial statements were completed in September (and approved by Audit Committee in October). * Upgraded broadband internet services to improve speed and capacity. * Upgraded phone and voicemail systems to improve capacity and functionality. * Drafted an initial floor plan for the 6th floor office space. The audit committee requested that the finance department prepare some information about chapters, financial controls and movement-wide transparency. This was prompted by a desire to ensure appropriate controls are in place to manage donations flowing into and throughout the Wikimedia movement. In response to this request, the finance department spent much of September pulling together basic information about Wikimedia chapters (e.g., legal status, current fundraising practices, current state of reporting), including an assessment of potential risks associated with current roles-and-responsibilities between chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation. == Office of the Executive Director == Executive Director Sue Gardner spoke at the New York chapter's Wiki-Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wiki-Conference/2009) at the end of August, held at the Tisch School of Arts at New York University. Later in September, Sue returned to New York with Erik, Zack and Sara, to present an update to the Sloan Foundation as we enter the final year of Sloan's three-year three-million-dollar grant to the Wikimedia Foundation. In May, the board had asked Sue to commission a study of what, if anything, should be done about controversial content on the Wikimedia projects. During September, consultants Robert Harris and Dory Carr-Harris continued their work, reviewing applicable research [1], and consulting with community members and external experts. In the final report, which can be read here, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Wikimedia_Study_of_Controversial_Content, Robert and Dory recommend 1) that no changes be made to the way in which text-based controversial material is handled in the Wikimedia projects. They also 2) make a number of recommendations for action that falls within the bailiwick of the Wikimedia community: recommending that Wikimedia consider development of a Wikijunior project and that Commons admins consider how to tighten up some policies and their application, including elevating the 'principle of least surprise' to the level of official policy. And, 3) they recommend that the Wikimedia Foundation develop a feature to allow Wikimedia project users to opt into a system that would allow them to easily hide classes of images from their own view. The controversial content study will be presented to the board at its meeting in San Francisco, in October. [1] This included examination of cultural attitudes, regulation and/or filtering practices in over 70 countries including: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, Syria, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. Throughout September, the Wikimedia Foundation continued the process of distilling the material on the strategy wiki into a high-level document to be shared with Wikimedia partners and supporters. To that end, Sue proposed to the board, and received approval for, five high-level targets for the Wikimedia movement, to be achieved by 2015. Also in September, our external writer developed several further drafts of the strategy document (including the targets), which were reviewed and refined by various parties including senior staff and board members. The near-final text of the strategy document will be presented to the board at its meeting in San Francisco in October. With new board member Phoebe Ayers, Sue went to the the Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, California, attending a workshop called Business Among Friends: Clerking as a Spiritual Discipline, to explore methods of business decision-making used in the Quaker community. See Sue's blog: * http://suegardner.org/2010/09/20/raw-notes-from-the-quaker-clerking-worksho… * http://suegardner.org/2010/09/20/what-wikimedia-can-learn-from-the-quakers-… ==September 2010 Visitors to the San Francisco Office== * Clay Shirky (Wikimedia Foundation- Advisory Board) * Kate Filbert (Screen Sprint) * Quiddity (Screen Sprint) * Another Believer (Screen Sprint) * Peregrine Fisher (Screen Sprint) * John Broughton (Screen Sprint) * Orangemike (Screen Sprint) * Laura Hale (Screen Sprint) * HJ Mitchell (Screen Sprint) * Dave Cummings * Mark Gibson * Daniel Scarpelli * Xochi Birch * Itzik Edri (Wikimedia Israel) * James Forrester * Austin Hair * Timothy Garton Ash * David Munir Nabti * Yasuda Yutaka * Rose Shuman * Special Agents from the San Francisco FBI Field Office, Cybersecurity Division (invited brown bag presentation) * Harel Cain (Wikimania Haifa Planning Team) * Deror Avi (Wikimania Haifa Planning Team) * Shay Yakir (Wikimania Haifa Planning Team) * Amir Aharoni (Wikimania Haifa Planning Team)

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The Signpost – Volume 6 Issue 45 – 8 November 2010
by Wikipedia Signpost 09 Nov '10

09 Nov '10

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Chapters Reoprt for Wikimedia Sverige October 2010
by Jan Ainali 07 Nov '10

07 Nov '10

This is the Chapters Report for Wikimedia Sverige, October 2010. It can also be found on Meta. == Internet dagarna == The Internet days is a conference arranged by the organisation that runs .se, the Swedish top domain.It is the most important internet conference in Sweden. Lars Aronsson, one of our board members, gave a short talk there. == Motion plagiarizing Wikipedia == Four members of the parliament submitted a motion that contained text from Wikipedia without mentioning the source at all. Lennart Guldbrandsson, our chairman, blogged about it in Swedish. [1] == Board meting == We had one board meeting in October. Minutes are available in Swedish. [2] == Numbers == The Northern Sami Wikipedia passed 3000 articles. [3] It is an official minority language in Sweden. == Coming up == * 5 November, Nordic chapter meeting (at Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit). * 25-26 November, Wikipedia Academy == References == * [1] http://wikimediasverige.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/riksdagsmotion-plagierar-w… * [2] http://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6tesprotokoll/Protokoll_2010-10-11 * [3] http://se.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

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[Blog] Illustrated licensing tutorial for Wikimedia Commons
by Guillaume Paumier 05 Nov '10

05 Nov '10

Copied from the associated blog post: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/11/05/illustrated-licensing-tutorial-wi… ------------------------------------------------------------------ Free knowledge is the foundation of all Wikimedia projects: anyone is free to use, modify and redistribute the content for any purpose. But copyright and free licenses are very confusing for new users, especially when they want to contribute pictures and other media files. A new illustrated licensing tutorial will now guide new users through the basics of copyright and free licenses to make their first steps easier. You may remember that the Wikimedia Foundation unveiled a prototype of upload wizard for Wikimedia Commons (the repository of freely reusable media files used in all of our projects) a few months ago. The prototype was developed as part of the Multimedia usability project, a grant-funded, one-year project aiming to increase multimedia participation on Wikimedia websites. One of the main issues identified early on is that the current workflow of the upload process attempts to provide an advanced course in worldwide copyright when the user uploads a file. In reality, our research showed (unsurprisingly) that most users either gave up in front of the overwhelming instructions, or simply ignored them. Our approach was to separate the “educational” part of the upload page from the actual upload form. Copyright has proven to be one of the most unappealing topics to new users, who simply want to share their knowledge and artwork. For that reason, we created an illustrated Licensing tutorial in a comic-strip format. This licensing tutorial was developed with experienced Wikimedians, who had both the expertise on copyright and licenses, and the experience of guiding new users. They collaboratively improved the wording and suggested many changes to the illustrator. You will see that the tutorial features a new character, who was developed specifically for this project. We experimented with several others, but the puzzle-piece character was the one that worked the best. Although developed primarily for Wikimedia Commons, both the tutorial and the character are under a free license; we hope experienced participants will reuse them for similar tutorials and across help pages. The tutorial was created by Michael Bartalos, a freelance illustrator from San Francisco. Michael did an awesome job at illustrating complex topics without sacrificing readability or accuracy. I would like to thank him for putting up with our hands-on approach; it surely wasn’t easy to accommodate our requests and all the little details in wording, typography and graphics that Wikimedians are expert at. The tutorial is now available on Wikimedia Commons as an editable vector graphics file (SVG) to facilitate localization. It will be included in the Upload wizard’s interface when it is released at the end of November. In the meantime, Wikimedia translators are warmly invited to help translate and localize the tutorial. If you don’t feel comfortable creating the localized tutorials yourself, you can focus on the text. We’ll seek help from the Graphic Lab on Commons to create the localized artwork. Main links: * Licensing tutorial: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Licensing_tutorial_en.svg * Translation & localization: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_tutorial -- Guillaume Paumier Product Manager - Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Update on the Public Policy Initiative
by LiAnna Davis 01 Nov '10

01 Nov '10

I've just pushed live a new Wikimedia Foundation blog post that provides an update on where we are with the Public Policy Initiative, the pilot program to bring Wikipedia editing into university classrooms. Please check it out if you're interested, especially if you know a professor who would be a good fit for our remaining few slots for the spring: http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/11/01/the-public-policy-initiative-midt… LiAnna -- LiAnna Davis Communications Associate - Public Policy Wikimedia Foundation ldavis(a)wikimedia.org

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Wikimedia Nederland, september 2010
by Lodewijk 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

Please find below the chapters report for Wikimedia Nederland on September 2010. The report is as usual also posted on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedia_Nederla… If you have any questions, please let me know. Best, Lodewijk Wiki Loves Monuments September was Monument Month for Wikimedia Nederland, with Wiki Loves Monuments as main activity. The photo-contest around rijksmonumenten (Dutch national monuments) yielded more than 12.000 images from over 200 participants from all over the country. You can find more information about the general outlines of the project in this blog post<http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/08/29/a-monument-month-for-wikimedia-ne…>. The biggest win in this project is perhaps not even so much the images themselves but the awareness that has been created with the contestants and the lesson that an extremely simplified upload form on Wikimedia Commons helps a lot to lower the threshold for uploading. The jury is now going through all these images and will announce the winners by November 20. For more information, please take a look at http://www.wikilovesmonuments.nl(in Dutch) Wiki takes Haarlem Haarlem is a province capital near Amsterdam, and a major city when it comes to numbers of rijksmonumenten. The city has 1148 rijksmonumenten, of which many had no photo before September. We organized as part of Wiki Loves Monuments an effort to photograph as many monuments as possible within one day - Wiki takes Haarlem. You can see the results in this google map<http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&om=1&q=http:%2F%2Fwww.nsesoftware.nl%2Fwiki…>- a yellow pin means there is a photo, blue means there isn't. 1064 images have been uploaded thanks to Wiki Loves Haarlem. Wiki Loves Vlissingen The library of Vlissingen (Americans, you might find Flushing a more recognizable pronunciation) has raised the stakes for photographers participating Wiki Loves Monuments within the municipality of Vlissingen even more. Besides the prizes that are already available through the general competition, they put up an iPod Touch and an e-book reader for people taking photos for Wiki Loves Monuments in Vlissingen! They created their own local jury and will also announce the prizes on November 20. Nationaal Archief Nationaal Archief (the Dutch National Archive) and Spaarnestad Photo have released some 1000 very relevant political images under a free license. This release was announced in the international political Press Center Nieuwspoort in The Hague with a panel of former and current politicians present. These politicians shared with us their memories and thoughts with the images, giving a lot of background information on the meaning of the images. You can find more information about this collaboration in this blog post<http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/09/13/dutch-national-archive-joins-wiki…> . Meetings, conferences etc Besides what was already mentioned earlier in this report, there was also a Summer Barbecue on September 4 in the southeast part of the country. Even through the number of participants was moderate, the atmosphere was great. Coming up: - October: Europeana brainstorm meeting & conference - October 9: General Assemblee, Fundraiser meeting - November 20: Wikimedia Conference & Prize ceremony Wiki Loves Monuments - January 15: Wikipedia 10 years anniversary

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Announcement: Mike Godwin leaves the Wikimedia Foundation
by Sue Gardner 19 Oct '10

19 Oct '10

Hi folks, I want to let you know that as of this Friday, October 22, 2010, Mike Godwin will be leaving his role as General Counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation. Mike’s transition out of the role will be a fairly lengthy one: he will continue to be available to the Wikimedia Foundation to provide information and advice for several months to come. The search for his successor will begin immediately. It's being conducted by the recruiting firm m|Oppenheim. There's a detailed Q and A below that I hope will answer any questions you've got. Thanks, Sue Why is Mike leaving the Wikimedia Foundation? Mike leaving the Wikimedia Foundation is a confidential personnel issue, and the Wikimedia Foundation doesn’t talk about confidential personnel issues with anyone except the people directly involved. We want to handle this kind of thing with respect for people’s privacy and dignity, and we are hopeful we can do that in this instance. That means, we’re not going to answer this question, and we hope you will understand why. Is Mike leaving the Wikimedia Foundation because of a change in direction or policy, related to our legal context? No. Is Mike leaving the Wikimedia Foundation over a point of principle? For example, because the Wikimedia Foundation wants to do something that he disagrees with, or because it doesn’t want to do something that he thinks it should do? No. We’re not aware of any significant differences of opinion between Mike and the Wikimedia Foundation, in terms of values, principles, ethics, future plans, or anything like that. Is Mike leaving the Wikimedia Foundation because he did something egregious? Not at all. The Wikimedia Foundation believes Mike has always acted in what he believes to be the Wikimedia Foundation’s best interests. What is Mike going to do next? We don’t know what he’ll end up doing next, but we wish him all the best, and we hope that he will continue to do the same kind of work he’s always done -- helping to advance people’s online freedoms. We think he’s really good at that work, and we hope it’s what he continues to do. I like Mike, and I know that it’s a tough economy. Can I ask what the Wikimedia Foundation is doing to ensure that Mike is okay while he figures out his next steps? Yes. The Wikimedia Foundation and Mike have figured out severance that we all hope will protect Mike and give him time to think about what he wants to do next. The terms of the severance are confidential: we won’t talk about them now, or in the future. But you can rest assured that the Wikimedia Foundation wants to see Mike continue working to advance people’s online freedoms: everybody would like to see him continue making an important contribution. How will a new General Counsel be recruited? The Wikimedia Foundation has hired m|Oppenheim to help us recruit a new General Counsel. m|Oppenheim has done great work for us in the past: they helped us recruit Zack Exley, Barry Newstead and Cyn Skyberg, and they are currently helping us find a Director of Technical Operations. We’ve been happy with them, and we’re confident they’ll be able to help us successfully recruit a new General Counsel. Who will be involved in the hiring process and how will it work? Currently, m|Oppenheim is developing a job description for the role. To that end, they’ve spoken with a number of board members, the Executive Director, and some of the senior staff. At the same time, m|Oppenheim is also developing a list of people to contact who might be interested in the role, or who might know people who would be. (This list includes people at all kinds of ideologically-like-minded organizations, such as the EFF, Berkman, our Advisory Board, and so forth, as well as people at large internet companies such as Google, eBay, etc.) That “connector” list is being developed in consultation with several board members, the ED and senior staff. By October 22nd, m|Oppenheim expects to have the job description posted publicly, and will begin generating a list of potential candidates. Once a candidate pool is developed, interviews will be held. The interviewing process will likely include at a minimum Sue Gardner, Erik Moeller, Cyn Skyberg, Kat Walsh, Arne Klempert, and Barry Newstead. There will probably also be others involved (e.g., possibly additional board members, and possibly additional members of the senior staff), but that’s the skeleton plan we have right now. We will also aim to get a sampling of the legal needs of various stakeholder parties such as chapters, probably by asking m|Oppenheim to interview two or three chapters representatives and other relevant stakeholders. If I am interested in the role, or know someone who might be, what should I do? We welcome applications, and we also welcome ideas about where we might find good candidates. Feel free to get in touch with Lisa Grossman at m|Oppenheim, at lisag(a)moppenheim.com. She’d be glad to hear from you. Will the new General Counsel job description be significantly different from Mike’s? No. m|Oppenheim is having conversations with stakeholders about the General Counsel role, and will update the job description based on those conversations. But we don’t expect the resultant job description to be substantially different from the existing one. What is the gist of the General Counsel job? Our General Counsel role is slightly unusual, in that it has a bit of a double focus. First, the Wikimedia Foundation (and the Wikimedia movement) are ideologically-motivated -- or if you prefer, values-driven/agenda-driven. That means we need a lawyer who shares Wikimedia’s ideological agenda: who, for example, supports people’s right to access information online unimpeded by censorship, and who supports a legal context that enables people to work collaboratively online to develop educational and informational materials for other people to read. And second, the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in the United States that operates international web properties, and interacts with non-American chapter organizations. To that end, we need a lawyer who can be responsible for all the legal terrain implied by that: somebody who understands the legal issues relevant to the operation of a big website, to the operation of a US-based non-profit organization, to the legal transfer of funds among various international entities, and so forth. Clearly no single person can be an expert in all of that. Which tells us that we need a General Counsel who is 1) ideologically-aligned with our work, and 2) capable of effectively outsourcing specialized legal work to others, and ensuring it gets done well, consistent with our vision, values and goals. How long will it take before there is a new General Counsel in place? We’re expecting a new General Counsel would likely start work sometime in January. It’s possible the search would take longer, and we won’t hire anyone until we have a candidate we’re happy with. But past searches suggest to us that we can likely expect the search to wrap up in January, or shortly afterward. Who will look after the Wikimedia Foundation’s legal interests in the interim? We’re currently talking with outside counsel that we’ve worked with in the past to establish an interim presence to help us during the General Counsel search time frame. We should have that in place by the end of this week. If I get a legal complaint or have a question that in the past I would have forwarded to Mike, where should I now be sending it? All legal information should be submitted in the same way that you are doing so now: any changes to the process will be handled further downstream. Is it dangerous, for the Wikimedia Foundation to be legally exposed during this period? Obviously it would be ideal for us to have a General Counsel in place consistently, with no interruption, and we wish that Mike had been able to agree to stay on with us during the recruitment process. Having said that, we’ve taken steps to protect Wikimedia, and we believe we will be well-protected in the interim period. We believe that because 1) the Wikimedia movement in general has developed some pretty solid legal understanding over the years, which includes robust processes for handling legal threats and problems of various kinds. There is a good infrastructure for handling certain types of legal risks, that’s not entirely dependent on a General Counsel for day-to-day operations. 2) Over the past several years, we’ve developed good relationships with a number of lawyers with specific subject-matter expertise that we need. Those relationships will be helpful for us in the interim period until a new GC arrives. 3) For the transition period, we are lining up a good generalist lawyer, who we’ve worked with in the past, and who has agreed to be the Wikimedia Foundation’s single-point-of-contact for support until there’s a new General Counsel in place. And 4) Mike has agreed to be available to the Wikimedia Foundation for advice and support, for many months to come. So all in all, we think the risk has been acceptably mitigated. How was this Q and A document developed? This document was written mostly by Sue Gardner, with some help from Cyn Skyberg. It was reviewed in detail by Mike, and he's agreed to have it published. Why was this Q and A document developed? We know that whenever someone leaves the Wikimedia Foundation, there are always lots of questions. And we know that people have sometimes been dissatisfied with how short and uninformative our answers are. We sympathize with people who want to know what’s going on. This Q and A is an attempt to balance Mike’s right to privacy, against people’s desire to understand what’s going on, particularly because Mike is in a high-profile role, and is well-known inside the Wikimedia community. We wouldn’t have published it without Mike’s permission. In general, when people leave the Wikimedia Foundation, they make the decision about how much to say, when and to whom. So you should assume, whenever anyone leaves, that what’s being said is what they’re comfortable with: no more, no less. If I have additional questions that aren’t answered here, where should I take them? If you have questions about the General Counsel role, please feel free to ask them in any regular forum (e.g., foundation-l, internal-l) and Sue or someone else will get them answered. -- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation 415 839 6885 office 415 816 9967 cell Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Wikimedia Hungary Report - September 2010
by Bence Damokos 18 Oct '10

18 Oct '10

The September edition of Wikimedia Hungary Report is available at: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikim%C3%A9dia_Ma… For your convenience it is copied below: *Wikimedia Hungary Report* *Vol 3 Issue 2* *September 2010* *Prepared by: Bence Damokos* This is an update on Wikimédia Magyarország's activities covering September 2010. Meetings Confucius Institute On 6 September, members of Wikimedia Hungary met with the staff of the Confucius Institute – the Chinese Studies department of Eötvös Lóránd Science University, Budapest – to discuss a possible collaboration on improving articles on Chinese topics in the Hungarian Wikipedia. The discussion was focused on the Chinese related policies and guidelines and related technical questions of the Hungarian Wikipedia community, but the possibility of a future WikiProject-like collaboration was mentioned, as well. Library 2.0 meeting On 29 September we have participated in a meeting organized as part of the European Union funded Library 2.0 programme of the Hungarian National Szécheny Library aimed at involving librarians in editing and improving Wikipedia. The work of the librarians is coordinated by a project manager chosen by the Library Institute, while we have agreed to provide support and training in using Wikipedia, initially by setting up a WikiProject with the list of topics related to libraries and librarianship that they will focus on. As many of the 15-20 librarians (including students of the trade) were new to Wikipedia, we have offered to give a workshop on editing at a upcoming training event of the National Library in October. Book contest On 16 September we closed the nomination phase of our Book creation contest (see previous report<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikim%C3%A9dia_Ma…>). 13 books have been entered on a wide range of topics (from an overview on Hittites, through metal working and the culture of Miskolc, to a book on Formula–1 champions), that demonstrated to us that there are a number of fields where the Hungarian Wikpedia has a very good coverage. Out of the 13 entrants the 5-member jury have chosen the five best (it was a very close call) that will be improved through October and will be printed by PediaPress for a upcoming two-day wikimeetup and Wikimedia Hungary General Meeting in November in Veszprém. Content donation: Dictionary of Hungarian Literature of Romania On 10 September Wikimedia Hungary the Kriteron Publishing House (based in Cluj-Napoca) and the Transylvanian Museum Society have signed an agreement to release the first four volumes of the Dictionary of Hungarian Literature of Romania (Romániai magyar irodalmi lexikon) under the Creative Commons Attribution - Sharealike 3.0 licence so about four thousand entries on Hungarian literature can be added to and improved in the Hungarian Wikipedia. We are very happy about this agreement as the dictionary has been a primary resource for Wikipedia's articles on the Hungarian literature of Romania, and the possibility to build on the resource rather than just cite it will have huge benefits for presenting this field (especially, as there are few online resources available for this topic). Wikipedia 10 conference Organization of the 10 years of Wikipedia <http://konferencia.wikimedia.hu/> conference for 15 January 2010 has been ongoing in September. Our priorities for this month have been inviting and confirming the presenters, keynote speakers and guest of honour of the conference. Szilveszer E. Vizi, former president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has agreed to open the conference as guest of honour. Frank Schulenburg, the Head of Public Outreach of the Wikimedia Foundation will be in Hungary to give a keynote presentation on the WMF Public Policy Initiative. The other presenters of the conference have also accepted our invitation. We are currently looking for one or two more people to participate in a panel discussion on Wikipedia. The priorities for October are promoting the conference among future attendees, finding a suitable venue and setting up a dedicated conference website.

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Public registrations for GLAM-WIKI:Kr are now open!
by Bastien Guerry 16 Oct '10

16 Oct '10

Dear all, on behalf of Wikimédia France, I am very glad to announce the opening of public registrations for the GLAM-WIKI:Fr conference in Paris - December 3rd-4th 2010 : "Cultural heritage and Collaborative Web" Please check the websites : http://rencontres.wikimedia.fr http://fr.amiando.com/rencontres_wikimedia_2010.html The conference is featuring those wikimedians : Adrienne Alix - Alexandre Moatti - Andrea Zanni - Beatriz Busaniche - Benoît Evellin - David Monniaux - Erik Möller - Florence Devouard - Gerard Meijssen - Jean-Frédéric Berthelot - Liam Wyatt - Ludovic Péron - Mathias Schindler - Michael Dale - Michel Briand - Nicolas Vigneron - Osmar Valdebenito - Rémi Mathis ... and +40 other great people from the cultural sector. http://rencontres.wikimedia.fr/index.php?title=Who Please spread the word and feel free to use the annoucement below. Thanks! ======================================================================== Wikimedia France promotes free sharing of knowledge. This year, our association dedicated a lot of our energy to cultural partnerships and so did other Wikimedia associations around the world. Institutions from the cultural sectors, associations, professional and volunteers: we have a lot to learn from each others: let's do it live! The /Rencontres Wikimédia 2010/ conference aims at gathering as many cultural actors as possible to discuss online collaborative practices and new opportunities to take free access to culture a step further. The event takes place at 101 rue de l'Université, Paris (Victor Hugo's conference room) on the *3rd and 4th of December 2010*. Detailed schedule: <http://rencontres.wikimedia.fr/index.php?title=Programme/en> List of speakers: <http://rencontres.wikimedia.fr/index.php?title=Who> Free registration: <http://fr.amiando.com/rencontres_wikimedia_2010.html> The /Rencontres Wikimedia 2010/ are part of the GLAM-WIKI series: Wikimedia UK is organizing the GLAM-WIKI:Uk event at the British Museum in November 26th/27th -- read more: http://glamwiki.org ======================================================================== -- Bastien

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WMF Staff Addition: Mani Pande as Senior Research Analyst, Global Development
by Barry Newstead 15 Oct '10

15 Oct '10

It is my pleasure to welcome Mani Pande to the Wikimedia team. Mani joins as the Senior Research Analyst, Global Development. In this role, Mani will work across the Global Development team and the organization as a whole to design and lead research work that helps us make good strategic decisions and evaluate the results of the work that we do (to make even better decisions). In addition, Mani will help to design and deploy metrics for key Global Development areas so that we can monitor our performance against the strategic plan. A native of New Delhi, Mani brings a global perspective to our work. Her passion lies in understanding how consumers use technology to map opportunity spaces for new product strategies and industry growth. She has a special interest in the transformative technology experiences brought about through the use of mobile devices by emerging market consumers. She has also extensively studied the growth of open source movement. Mani is an accomplished quantitative researcher & has conducted surveys studying technology usage, sustainability and health in US, India and China. Mani is an experienced ethnographer having conducted work in India, Brazil, Russia and China on technology usage and studying women in the software industry. Mani worked for the Institute for the Future, a forecasting research organization based in Palo Alto, for over 5 years. She has a PhD in Sociology from Kansas State University and an MA and MPhil in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Before moving to the US to pursue her PhD, Mani worked as a reporter-cum-sub-editor for The Times of India. Her beats were media (favorite assignments covering a Cindy Crawford press conference & Yanni's show at the Taj Mahal) & crime (no favorites here, just saw a lot of gross stuff). Mani loves to cook. Her specialties, Thai red curry, enchiladas in mole sauce (from scratch) & chicken biryani. She posts pics of food that she cooks on Twitter. You can see some of the pics (@manipande on Twitter). Welcome Mani! -- Barry Newstead Chief Global Development Officer Wikimedia Foundation Tel: +1-415-839-6885 x. 634 Skype: barry.wikimedia Twitter: @bazanews

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