Dear Wikimedians,
Here is the monthly report of Wikimedia Argentina for February 2014. You can read the full report (in Spanish and English) here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Reportes/2014-02 Also, the full reports of past months are available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Reportes
1. New Executive Director 2. New publication: Gender issues in Wikipedia 3. New scanner at our office 4. Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina on the URAA issue
== New Executive Director ==
After a selection process that was held during the first two weeks of February, with several outstanding applicants, the board and staff of Wikimedia Argentina hired Anna Torres Adell to be our new Executive Director since March 1st, 2014.
Anna holds a BA in Political Sciences by the Pompeu Fabra University. She has two postgraduate diplomas from FLACSO: one on International Cooperation, Administration and Monitoring of Public Policy; and another diploma in Local Development and Social Economics. She lived and worked in Guatemala and Mexico, and she set residence in Argentina a couple years ago. Before joining our organization, she worked as a coordinator of PROEM Foundation, an institution that dedicates its efforts to work training and enhancing new businesses.
At Wikimedia Argentina we are very happy with the applications received, as well as hiring Anna, who was very welcomed within our community. We believe her professional profile will allow us to take our organization up great roads.
== New publication: Gender issues in Wikipedia ==
After a couple months of work, we have published the document «Gender issues in the digital world. Wikipedia and other communities» (only available in Spanish), that brings together a selection of presentations held at WikiGénero. This congress was held on May 26, 2012, in Buenos Aires.
The meeting seek to debate the possible reasons of low women engagement in the free encyclopedia, as well as reduced content of important women in the history of Mankind. The presentations and discussions touched on these topics, but also went further: subjects such as communication of science and gender representation (in its wide spectrum) were also addressed.
With this publication, we hope to take back some of the valuable discussions that took place back then, and put it at anyone's service, with an aim to continue the discussion around these issues. Through these actions we seek to improve Wikipedia's content ad expand its community with new collaborators.
The document is available at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_cuesti%C3%B3n_de_g%C3%A9nero_en_el_m...
== New scanner at our office ==
We now have available, at Wikimedia Argentina's headquarters, a DIY scanner to digitalize books. The equipment is similar to those taken on loan by several Argentine cultural institutions during 2013 that have made possible to upload more than 100 books to Wikimedia Commons.
Among the benefits of this scanner are the preservation and care of old books: the manual functioning prevents any binding from being hurt. In the weeks to come, we will enable a schedule for our community to book the scanner and use it for free culture promotion purposes.
== Open letter from Wikimedia Argentina on the URAA issue ==
The board of directors of our organization wrote a letter to give an official answer on behalf of the chapter, regarding the multiple conflicts originated by the application of URAA by the Wikimedia Commons community. The board decided to address the conflict in a more active way when several Argentinean collaborators of Commons received massive notifications that their images were soon to be erased, based on URAA regulations. Among the different exchanges that stem from this conflict, the Wikimedia Foundation also expressed its position in a statement suggesting to stop massive deletions of images. We hope to see an end to this discussion soon, not without finding a solution that mirrors the prevailing rights on every jurisdiction.
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Kind regards,
*Osmar Valdebenito G.* Director Ejecutivo A. C. Wikimedia Argentina