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.