Hello everyone,

Please find below Wikimedia UK's report for September 2012. The text of the whole report is posted in the email due to numerous requests for this. You can also view the report on the WMUK wiki at https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Reports/2012/September - and this wiki version includes all hyperlinks and images (which aren't included below).

If you have any comments or questions please do let me know. 

Thanks and regards,

Stevie

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 31 September 2012. 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. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Community

Editor decline

Wikipedia reaches a turning point: it's losing administrators faster than it can appoint them, Telegraph Blogs, 5 September

Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales attacks government's 'snooper's charter', Guardian, 5 September

Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia will use encryption to beat snooper's charter, Telegraph, 6 September

Also see WMUK's Submission on Communications Data Bill on the UK wiki.

Philip Roth

Philip Roth 'not a credible source to edit his own novel's Wikipedia page', Telegraph, 7 September

How Philip Roth Outfoxed Wikipedia’s Idiotic Rules, Gizmodo, 8 September

Author Roth rebukes Wikipedia over Human Stain edit, BBC News, 8 September

Boot up: Bezos on profit, Pirates' German problems, Windows Phone's lost SDK and more (includes Roth on Wikipedia), Guardian blog, 10 September

Philip Roth's complaint to Wikipedia, Guardian, 11 September

Philip Roth knows his own book but let's not judge Wikipedia harshly, Independent, 12 September

Political edits

Grant Shapps 'edited Wikipedia page to remove school records', Telegraph, 9 September

Top Tory 'airbrushed his Wikipedia page', new chairman 'deleted political gaffes and altered exam details', Daily Mail, 9 September

Tory MPs fiddling with their Wikipedia entries: Grant Shapps is just the tip of the iceberg, Telegraph blogs, 10 September

Grant Shapps's Wikipedia page was edited to remove byelection gaffe, Guardian, 11 September

Gender bias

Wikipedia editors' gender visualised, Guardian, 11 September

Wikitravel

Wikitravel versus Wikimedia: something is going badly wrong with the free content movement, Telegraph, 11 September

GLAM activities

See also the This Month in GLAM UK report for this month.

Wikipedia Takes Coventry

Wikipedia Takes Coventry was the first Wikipedia Takes... event in the UK

Interview with Erin Hollis and Harry Mitchell on Wikipedia Takes Coventry BBC Coventry and Warwickshire (1 September 2012)

Clock is ticking for scavengers to capture Coventry Leamington Courier (1 September 2012)

Also: Kenilworth Weekly and Warwick Courier

Other activities

Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the library of the Royal Society, BoingBoung, 5 September

Expert outreach

Delete the Wiki worries and get close to the edit Times Higher Education, 20 September

Microgrants approved this month include ...

An extension to the Operation Barras and Operation Flavius microgrant for source material for getting w:en:Operation Flavius and w:en:Operation Barras to featured article status. Operation Barras is now going through A-class review, and is expected to reach FA status without too many problems. Our thanks go to HJ Mitchell for his valuable work putting time into these articles!

UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)

There has been a substantial amount of media coverage during over the last couple of months. The online coverage has been aggregated into a PDF file that includes links to the articles. Topics include Ada Lovelace Day, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia, Mentions of Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia Zero, Jimmy Wales, GLAM Camp London, EduWiki, our relationship with the PR industry and a collaboration with Know How Non-Profit. You can see the full list on the UK wiki.

We also published the following blog posts in September:

Three months as a Wikipedian in Residence, by Andrew Gray

EduWiki kicks off amid great anticipation by Stevie Benton 

Board update (notification that Joscelyn Upendran had stood down from the Board) 

Wikipedia Takes Coventry - the winners! by User:Rock drum 

EduWiki 2012 - a review by Martin Poulter

Wikimedia UK appoints Saad Choudri to its Board by Chris Keating 

Board update (notification that Roger Bamkin had stood down from the Board) 

Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release (with clarifications about the project) 

First ever Wikimedia UK intern waves goodbye by Isabelle Yates 

Joint statement from Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK (announcing the independent review into WMUK governance) 

Activities in October

01 - Wikipedia and images workshop/October 2012

01 - Board meeting (TBC) - call

01 - Conference Committee meeting (postponed from 24 September)

02 - Imperial College Wikipedia Society Freshers' Fair

02 - 03 - Cambridge University Wikipedia Society launch at the Freshers' Fair

04 - Robin Owain meeting Dr. Ted Jones, Digitisation on Demand from the National Library of Wales about work with Wikimedia UK

08 - Wikipedia talk and training workshop at the University of Oxford

08 - JISC Digital Infrastructure Team workshop, London

11 - Parkinson's UK Wikipedia training

12 - AHRC Wikipedia training workshop at the British Library

13 - 14 - Fæ and Andy Mabbett separately addressing the Central and Eastern Europe Wikimedia conference.

14 - London meetup

15 - Roger Bamkin speaking at the Oxford Internet Institute

16 - Roger Bamkin speaking at De Montfort University

19 - Ada Lovelace Day event

21 - Coventry meetup

23-26 - Dunhuang Project editathon, British Library

26 - Black History Month event

26 - Women in Science editathon, Oxford

27 - 28 - Train the trainer workshop, October 2012

28 - Cambridge meetup

For events in November and onwards, please see Events.

Finances

The current state of each of our budgets is outlined in a Google Spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkP38YPQ7Tg3dEQyQnRTMUhDMnV1RHdHekhqSXZvZHc#gid=0. This details spend to date, and a rough estimate of future spending. This spreadsheet is too complex to be placed directly on a wiki. Our yearly spend is heavily 'end-loaded', partially due to the rapid growth of Wikimedia UK.

Although we may underspend in one or two budgets, the next few weeks will see a refocussed effort, led by a committee of editors, to work out how they would best like to spend this underspend.

We also expect to be moving money between some budgets in the not too distant future.

News from the Chief Exec

For information on Jon's activities this month, see News from the Office.

The updates about the Wikimedia UK Interns can be found there too, together with here.

Communications

There were some notable communications successes this month. Both the EduWiki conference and our work around Ada Lovelace Day attracted a good deal of positive media attention. You can see the full breakdown of press coverage in the report linked to in the UK press coverage section above. In other ways this has been a challenging month in terms of communications and it was unfortunate timing that our Communications Organiser was on annual leave for the second half of the month. There have been appointments and departures on our Board of Trustees and the announcement of an independent review into Wikimedia UK's governance. There has been much conflation and presumption at the heart of much of the media coverage, both in terms of Roger's resignation and the announcement of the review, that it has been difficult to be clear and factual about what has actually taken place. In many ways September was something of a gift to our critics because of the perception of events - regardless of what those events actually were. Moving forward, we need to be more secure in making our own voice heard in amongst the media hubbub.

Fundraising and Membership

Fundraising

This month, we received £1,258.35 in one-off donations, with 68 individual donations. The average donation amount was £18.50 - 63% of these donors have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with katherine.bavagewikimedia.org.uk and let her know your requirements.

As for direct debit donations, there were 6026 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £24,765.

Membership

Up to 30th September 2012:

214 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current members

41 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership should be renewed)

This adds up to 255 members who are eligible to vote

152 Expired members

Katherine is developing HTML templates for welcome emails for new and renewing members to sign-post them to resources and information and will be scheduling a regular job to email members who have renewed (monthly) and newly approved (post-board meetings).

Stevie Benton
Communications Organiser
Wikimedia UK
 +44 (0) 20 7065 0993 /  +44 (0) 7803 505 173
@StevieBenton

Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.