Wikimediauk-l July 2015

wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org

28 participants
20 discussions

News about the wikis for children
by Mathias Damour 29 Oct '15

29 Oct '15

May I give you some news on the wiki encyclopedias for children: I have let you know nearly one year ago about the launching of Vikidia in English[1]: Vikidia in English now has 1,445 articles and 32 active users. the advantage in English is that we can pick up, choose, adapt and select some existing material, especially from Simple English Wikipedia, and from Wikijunior. Some of the first users on en.vikidia.org also come from other Vikidia language and it even gather some Dutch teenager from Wikikids.nl. Vikidia was first launched in French and there is a similarly developed counterpart in Dutch : http://wikikids.nl/ . these wikis are 8 and 9 years old now. Vikidia in French has now more than one million unique visitors a month, with a yearly growth of audience of nearly 40 %. It's not a Wikimedia project, yet it is supported by Wikimédia France that now funds our hosting costs. Another wiki encyclopedia for children was recently launched in German, and is supported by Wikimedia Germany. See some English explanation on it here: [2]. There is some quite significant differences between the way each wiki's aims, rules and functioning are designed, which we had the opportunity to discuss between one and another teams/founders. The guestbook on fr.vikidia show that this resource is really appreciated by children (and even older peoples), and that there is a need for such a wiki beside Wikipedia ([3] [4]). Yet nothing can be done but with a significant community, that's why your support (as individual people so as an organisation) really matter ! klexikon.de, which claim to be a content - rather than an educational - wiki for children, directs a great part of its efforts (this is most of the Wikimedia Germany support) on organizing meeting and workshop for wannabe editors (teachers or other - mainly - adults). What about Wikimedia UK supporting something similar? Yet it would demand some peoples to undertake it... One can also begin with one (or some) blog post about this project ? [1] http://blog.wikimedia.fr/vikidia-in-english-opens-today-lets-build-a-childr… [2] https://zikoblog.wordpress.com/2014/12/23/a-new-wiki-klexikon-the-free-ency… [3] https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Vikidia:Livre_d%27or [4] see also http://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=wikibooks%2C%20wikiversity%2C%20viki… -- Mathias Damour 49 rue Carnot F-74000 Annecy 00 (33) 4 57 09 10 56 00 (33) 6 27 13 65 51 https://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Astirmays mathias.damour(a)laposte.net

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Wikimeet survey
by Michael Peel 05 Oct '15

05 Oct '15

Hi all, tl;dr summary: I'm planning to run a survey about wikimeets in the near future. Do you have any comments/suggestions on the draft? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey At a recent meetup, a Wikipedian who was new to wikimeets pointed out that the event had the air of a gentleman's club about it. Looking around at the high-back comfy chairs, the Victorian-era interior decorations, the pints of real ale, and the mostly-male (and regular) attendees, I couldn't really disagree with their assessment. This started me thinking: are there better venues and times to hold meetups, or better ways of advertising/inviting people to planned meetups? What would make them more open and inviting to new editors, or the many long-term editors that have never attended a meetup? As an experiment to try to improve the attendance and advertising of wikimeets in the North of England, a few months ago I posted messages on the talk pages of previous wikimeet attendees about the last Leeds and Manchester wikimeets, and the Liverpool wikimeet coming up this weekend. There was, unexpectedly, a pretty good response, with a number of people signing up to attend the wikimeets. I'm not sure whether it was a direct consequence or not, but we had a long-term editor attend the last Manchester wikimeet who hadn't previously attended a wikimeet. I couldn't attend the last Leeds wikimeet: was anyone there and able to say whether it made a difference or not? I'm hoping that the irregular wikimeet attendees who have signed up for the Liverpool meetup will be there! It also started a longer conversation with Iridescent [1], which led to the idea of having some sort of a UK-wide notifications list. During that conversation, I started drafting a survey of past and potential wikimeet attendees with the aim of getting some quantified and actionable answers about how to improve wikimeets, and also improve communication about wikimeets. The latest draft of the survey is at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mike_Peel/Wikimeet_survey Amongst other things, the survey draft asks about how people get to wikimeets; when and where wikimeets should be held; what activities should take place at wikimeets; and how notifications about an upcoming meetup would ideally be circulated. I'm hoping to run this survey soon, so if you are interested in improving the survey questions then please send me an email or post on the talk page before the end of the month! In particular, if you currently organise (or regularly attend) wikimeets, then I'd greatly appreciate your input/feedback about the survey questions before it goes live. Ideally the survey would be run in association with WMUK, but given the recent turmoil I'm not sure if this will be possible, so I'll run it myself unless WMUK expresses an interest in helping out with it! Thanks, Mike [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_17#Next_meetups_…

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visual Editor is now worth using in outreach editathons
by WereSpielChequers 12 Aug '15

12 Aug '15

If anyone is still running outreach editathons to try and recruit new editors, you might want to consider using visual editor. I spoke to some of the WMF people at Wikimania and apparently the issue of it running very very slowly on old kit has recently been largely addressed. I've pointed out in the past that as long as that bug was a "won't fix" you couldn't promote Visual Editor at outreach editathons because even if all the laptops look pretty new, there could well be someone present using a borrowed laptop and intending to use an old PC at home. Since we really can't start an editathon asking the attendees if they all use new computers at home, and then reverting to the classic editor if someone says their machine was bought in 2010 I and several others have been ignoring the Visual Editor for the last couple of years. I have just run a quick test on this myself using a friend's old PC and V/E does now work, though it is still a little slower than the classic editor. Regards Jonathan / WereSpielChequers

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ODNB missing women in focus
by Charles Matthews 08 Aug '15

08 Aug '15

It is a little while ago now that I was asked, by Roberta Wedge, about the "missing women" on the English Wikipedia, who are identified in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB). I'm glad to say that, with a recent technical development I now have a list. (Recent means "since this morning", by the way - thanks as ever to Magnus Manske for his assiduous pushing of the tech support envelope for Wikidata. The new tool PagePile tool at https://tools.wmflabs.org/pagepile/ filled the final gap.) So I can reveal a list of 2,345 women with their Wikidata IDs at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Charles_Matthews/PagePile This comes out as pile 188 for PagePile. If you look at the wikitext on my page, the data is actually in two columns, Wikidata ID followed by name. (This is tabbed data, though the first four or so tabs seemed not to come out straight. Doubtless a teething problem.) It was a question of combining two Wikidata queries with the new tool, which generally speaking handles and combine lists in a clean way that wasn't previously available. So much for the technical advance. A few comments on the content. These are females with an OBIN (Oxford biographical identifier), rather than those with an article to themselves. They are not automatically notable, therefore. "Missing" is relative: Myra Hindley is on the list, but that is because the name is a redirect on enWP. Also, this list is not warranted complete, since we are aware of a couple of percent of OBINs that do not yet have a Wikidata entry. Around 150 or 200 more names may have to be added, in the end. All said, this is the first sight of realistic list, however, of the ODNB missing women. Translation lists, such as those with existing articles on the German or French Wikipedias, can easily be added. Charles

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Fwd: [MCG] The MA is seeking comments on draft Code of Ethics
by Andy Mabbett 03 Aug '15

03 Aug '15

Some of you may wish to comment on this draft, with regard to licensing, copytheft, access for photography, etc. A formal WikimediaUK response may also be advisable. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Rebecca Atkinson" <rebecca.atkinson(a)museumsassociation.org> Date: Jul 28, 2015 10:10 AM Subject: [MCG] The MA is seeking comments on draft Code of Ethics To: <MCG(a)jiscmail.ac.uk> Sent on behalf of Alistair Brown (with apologies for cross-posting): The Museums Association has been working for over a year with museums professionals, sector bodies, volunteers and other interested parties to produce an updated Code of Ethics for the sector. The last full update of the Code took place in 2002, while a partial update on financially motivated disposal took place in 2007. Following a year of consultation activities and events, the MA has recently published a draft Code of Ethics for a further period of consultation with the sector. We welcome any comments on this by Friday 7th August via the MA website: http://www.museumsassociation.org/forms/draft-code-of-ethics-consultation Please do take the time to read the new code and offer constructive feedback. Many thanks, Rebecca Atkinson **************************************************************** website: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/ Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ukmcg Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/museumscomputergroup [un]subscribe: http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/ ****************************************************************

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Deadline for Members' Resolutions
by rexx 28 Jul '15

28 Jul '15

The deadline for members' resolutions for this year's AGM is just a week away on 26 June. See https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/2015_Annual_General_Meeting/planning It's generally a healthy sign when our AGM contains debate on issues of interest and concern to members - and who better to raise those issues than members themselves? Proposing or seconding an ordinary resolution is not a difficult process and I'd expect that the office will be helpful if anyone needs help with the formalities. AGMs can sometimes find themselves devoting sessions to merely fulfilling formalities, and the session reserved for debating members' resolutions has the potential to make the AGM more interesting for many. Looking forward to seeing lots of you on 25 July. -- Rexx

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Wikimedia UK's members elect new trustees
by Michael Maggs 28 Jul '15

28 Jul '15

I am very pleased to announce that at our annual general meeting on Saturday 25 July the members of Wikimedia UK elected three new trustees to the board from a very strong slate of candidates. Please join me in offering a very warm welcome to Doug Taylor, Nick Poole and Josie Fraser. Doug Taylor will be well known to many readers as a long-standing active Wikimedia volunteer and Lead Trainer for WMUK. He previously served on the board during 2012-13. Doug is a retired teacher and IT professional. Nick Poole is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. His previous roles include serving as CEO of the Collections Trust and Chair of the Europeana Network. He brings extensive knowledge of and influence in the international GLAM community, and has strong connections to policymakers and funders in the UK and Europe. Josie Fraser has for the past five years worked in local government as the strategic technology lead of one of the country's largest and most accelerated school building programmes. She is an expert in the relationship between education and technology and a vocal advocate for free and open knowledge. Existing trustees Greyham Dawes (treasurer) and myself (chair) were re-elected. Three trustees have stepped down from the board: Alastair McCapra, Saad Choudri and Joseph Seddon. We thank them for their exceptional expertise, commitment and diligence, and we wish them well for the future. With these changes, the new board is as follows: Michael Maggs (board chair, and chair of governance committee) Simon Knight (vice chair) Greyham Dawes (treasurer, governance committee, audit and risk committee) Chris Keating (audit and risk committee) Carol Campbell (chair of audit and risk committee) Kate West (governance committee, audit and risk committee) Gill Hamilton Doug Taylor Nick Poole Josie Fraser The new board will formally meet for the first time on Saturday 12 Septemberat the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where officer roles will be reviewed. Please join me in welcoming the new board. Michael Maggs Chair, Wikimedia UK

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Blur Content writer needed to create 2 Wikipedia articles
by leutha＠fabiant.eu 26 Jul '15

26 Jul '15

Hi, I have just been contacted on Linked in as regards this project: * Content writer needed to create 2 Wikipedia articles <http://www.blurgroup.com/project-details/?projectId=sdx-NRMFHP> I have mentioned this on the COI Noticeboard <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Bl…> . I hope we can explain to Blur Group what an appropriate would forward would be. all the best Fabian aka Leutha

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Tales of Evaluation
by Martin Poulter 24 Jul '15

24 Jul '15

I won't be able to make the volunteer strategy meeting tomorrow, sadly. In case anyone's interested, I've written another of my reflective essays, this time about evaluation and metrics. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MartinPoulter/Tales_of_Evaluation The questions I would have been taking to the event are: 1) When I want Wikimedia UK to support events like the Wikipedia Science Conference in future, how much advance notice, planning etc. will be needed? 2) We've had situations where a charitable partner has come forward with a hundred pounds, or a thousand pounds, and volunteer support, to make an event happen at quite short notice, but we need a bit of staff time to follow through. Will the project-based way of working present any barriers to taking those opportunities? Hopefully some written guides will come out of the day? -- Dr Martin L Poulter Wikipedia contributor http://enwp.org/User:MartinPoulter Volunteer, Wikimedia UK http://wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MartinPoulter <http://uk.wikimedia.org/> Musician http://soundcloud.com/martin-poulter http://myspace.com/comapilot Person http://infobomb.org/

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Forthcoming editathons
by Andy Mabbett 22 Jul '15

22 Jul '15

I am hosting some editathons: Thurs 28 May, Birmingham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Royal_Society_of_Chemistry/BH-… at Birmingham Museums Collection centre (only rarely open to the public!). We'll enjoy a 'backstage tour and the opportunity to photograph objects, as well,of course, writing articles. Weds 29 July, London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Royal_Society_of_Chemistry/BH-… in the library of the Royal Society of Chemistry. The focus will be on chemistry-related topics; including both scientific and non-scientific content (the latter including biographies, for example). Sat 8 August, North Cheshire Watch this space (and keep the date free)! In each case, lunch and refreshments will be provided; there will be support for new editors (maybe you can help?) and we'll work on sister projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and Wikisource, as well as Wikipedia. -- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Wikimediauk-l July 2015