*This is the chapter report for Wikimedia Nederland for September
2011.<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedi…
* Cultural heritage
This was the month of Wiki Loves Monuments, which was conducted in 18
European countries this year, resulting in approximately 175,000
photographs by 5500 users (over 4000 of whom were new users) for Wikimedia
Commons. Of those, 13757 photos were uploaded for the Netherlands by 287
users, of which 203 were new users. Despite the fact that the 2010 WLM
contest was already highly successfull, this years contest did result in
even more photos of Dutch monuments than last year. An evaluation will be
conducted based on a short participant survey.
Meetings etc.
The weekend of September 24th was spent on a two-day strategy session,
devoted to creating a working 2012 plan based on the outcomes of the strategy
weekend in
February<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikim…02>.
The goal is to publish the plan by October 1st, in order to let members
review it before the general assembly. A few ongoing projects did not make
it into our 2012 plan due either to a lack of resources, or simply being
superceded by new developments on MediaWiki software, such as plans to
redesign Wikiportrait for international
use<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikiportrait/v2>
.
A training session for aministrators, scheduled for early October, has been
cancelled for a lack of participants.
Press and outreach
Wiki Loves Monuments was publicized in local and national papers, with
multiple interviews given by Lodewijk Gelauff, the main contact for the
project.
*This is the chapter report for Wikimedia Nederland for October
2011.<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedi…
* Cultural heritage
After ending Wiki Loves Monuments, it was decided to keep the local
campaign upload tools live on Wikimedia Commons for all participating
countries. Hopefully this will lead to more donations of cultural heritage
photos during the rest of the year.
The results of Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 are still being analyzed, but in
early November it was clear that a huge spike in new user edits was visible
on Wikimedia Commons for the month of September, thanks to the Europe-wide
Wiki Loves Monuments contest. For the Netherlands, 60% of the monuments on
the Rijksmonuments lists in the Wikimedia Commons database have now got at
least one photograph on Wikimedia Commons that can be used in Wikipedia
articles. It is not yet known what the actual usage in articles is (number
of links from registered monument photos to Wikipedia articles).
Conferences etc.
At the general assembly of October 22nd, the budget for 2012 has been
accepted by the members. Cyriel came into the board replacing Austin. Three
motions were passed, two of which affect the budget and if the Grant cannot
be changed, then the decision was made to commit funds from the reserves to
cover the difference. The first motion was passed to research the need for
a separate Grant agreement and a Fundraising agreement, whilst researching
the steps needed to become a "payment processor" again. A motion was passed
to allocate 5,000 euro's for consulting a lawyer before signing
international agreements that involve international law (this was regarding
the signing of the previously mentioned agreements in October). A motion
was passed to allocate 10,000 euro for publicity regarding Wikipedia, WMNL
and the possibilities available for donating to Wikimedia Nederland.
Press and outreach
There was a lot of press coverage in the Netherlands about the Wiki Loves
Monuments
results<http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/02/165000-photos-submitted-dur…
.
There was also a lot of press coverage about the Wikistrike in Italy
(Telegraph & NRC among others). Our member Lodewijk Gelauff was interviewed
by BRN radio:
http://www.bnr.nl/programma/bnrdigitaal/246149-1110/wikipedia-itali-plat-ui…
We issued Nieuwsletter #12.
*This is the chapter report for Wikimedia Nederland for November
2011.<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Reports/Wikimedi…
* Cultural heritage
Cultural Heritage was one of the tracks at the Wikimedia Conferentie
Nederland.
Presentations<http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2011/11/08/wikimedia-conference-2011-cultural-heritage-commons-and-lots-of-data-pt-1>were
given which will be available later.
Jill Cousins reported during her keynote speech that one of the biggest
challenges facing Europeana is convincing partners to offer digital content
under a CC-by-SA license. Among common objections such as "fear of loss of
potential income" or "fear of unforeseen undesirable outcomes" is the
largest objection: "fear of loss of atttribution". To illustrate this, she
discussed the case of the "Yellow kitchen maid", a term used to describe en:The
Milkmaid (Vermeer) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milkmaid_%28Vermeer%29>,
in which a maid is wearing a bodice that is not very yellow. The painting
hangs in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, and due to the immense popularity of
various internet images, casual visitors feel cheated that the real
painting does not show "the true color", and complain about this to the
museum.
Interestingly, the most hits from "backlinks" to an actual collection were
from direct references in Wikipedia articles in multiple languages, rather
than from attribution links in media files on Wikimedia Commons, according
to a related presentation on the statistics of Wikimedia contributions from
Open Images, by Martin Zeinstra.
The Tropical Museum presented a plan to work together with Wikipedia to
create a new website with modern "media mashups" that will help visitors
and others understand more about museum material on expeditions. This is
very much in an early stage, but the idea is that Wikipedia may use
Tropical Museum content in articles in the usual way, and then based on
stories locked into 19th and early 20th century expedition diaries, the
website will offer mashups of the Wikipedia media and articles to
illustrate the stories. Hopefully some volunteers will be interested enough
to join their brainstorm sessions and keep us informed on the proceedings.
Conferences etc.
On November 5th the Wikimedia Conferentie
Nederland<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conferentie_Nederland…
place with 120-140 visitors. There were three tracks available and the
morning keynote speech by Jill Cousins of Europeana was given to a full
auditorium, which was just as full at the end of day for the Wiki Loves
Monuments prize ceremony. Some of the presenters have agreed to publish
their presentations in the public domain.
On November 11th, Sue Gardner and some other staff members of WMF visited
Utrecht and had a dinner with board members and some active members. It was
an opportunity to talk face to face about issues on and off the usual
Wikimedia mailing lists.
Press and outreach
On November 10th, the award-ceremony of Wiki Loves Monuments
Belgium/Lŭemburg took place in Brussels. WMNL was represented by Lodewijk
Gelauff, one of our most active volunteers and lead for this Europe-wide
contest.
On November 11th, the cultural heritage association Heemschut had a
symposion on the occasion of its 100th anniversay. WMNL was represented by
Ziko van Dijk in a panel discussion. Wiki Loves Monuments was mentioned
several times at the day.
On November 25th, Ziko van Dijk gave a lecture at the Open Day of the
Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) in Rotterdam. The day after that,
WMNL and UEA had a joint seminar on free knowledge led by Marek Blahus and
Ziko van Dijk.
Newsletter #14 sent out.
Upcoming
- December: GLAMcamp in the
Netherlands<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAMcamp_NL>
Greetings, Cyriel