On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 3:35 PM, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:

I am keen to move [the World Wars project] further, though I don't have much time spare until the New Year as I'm mainly occupied on the Fundraiser. So at the moment I'm mainly collating interested parties, with a view to getting a core group of Wikimedians together who want to shape what we do with this, and a core group of partner institutions, and putting the two groups together in a room in January or February and seeing what they come up with in terms of inspiration for the period 2012-2014.

Hi Chris,

Thank you for all the information. Well, perhaps you'd like to add me to any list you're keeping of interested parties?

There's a chance I might venture out for a meeting but I do generally find that sort of thing a bit daunting and have health issues making it all rather difficult, so I may just avail myself of any minutes or record of any face-to-face stuff that comes out. I can then respond on-wiki as directed or under my own steam. If you (or anyone) is able and willing to do an audio or video recording of any meetings that would be brilliant for me. Perhaps too much of a faff just to accommodate me and maybe off-putting for some participants but please consider it. On the plus side, a video might serve to recruit people to the project if there is any interesting contributions from institutions and Wikipedians.

Please do get in touch in the new year when you take further action.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that we're approaching the centenary without seeing that on the activity plan today, so thank you for that.

Bodnotbod

Chris,

I assume Fae has mentioned to you that the National Archives of Scotland might be interested in doing something around soldiers' wills?

As-opposed to a more formal "last will and testament", these documents are a final letter to loved once to be delivered if they were killed. Along with each, their CO would have returned personal effects which might include items like ticket stubs for a theatre show seen the night before they went to the front.

How, and where in the family, this could work with Wikimedia projects is what I'm not entirely sure on.

On Mon, 2011-10-17 at 15:35 +0100, Chris Keating wrote:

    I see from the 2012 activity plan that there's a budget for a
    World
    Wars project [1]. Is there a leader for this? An online
    presence?

Hello! :-)

The short answer is Yes, sort of, me. And no, not yet. And I would love to speak to you about it (and to anyone else interested in what we can do with the World War I centenary).

The longer answer is;

There is a really big opportunity both for Wikimedia UK and indeed the whole movement connected to the World War I centenary. For a period of about 4 years there's going to be increased public interest in this area. Around some key dates the number of people researching World War I topics on Wikipedia (everyone from primary-school children to journalists) will be massive. What's more, pretty much every museum and archive in the country which has any relevant collections is going to be doing *something* related to World War I in 2014.

Further - it's not just us - this is a massive global event; 2014 is a major centenary for almost every European nation and lots of non-European ones.

This is something I've long had in mind - a couple of years ago I started the Great War Centennial project on-wiki, which was then incorporated into the Military History Wikiproject. However, it didn't get very far (particularly not compared to the Battleships wikiproject).

Since I've been on the Board, I have been very gradually making contacts both within Wikimedia (including the military history wikiproject) and with potential partner institutions about what Wikimedia UK could do in this regard. I know Milhist is up for doing more outreach, indeed one of the Milhist coordinators is is UK-based and has been contacting the Ministry of Defence about releasing more of their material under the Open Government License, which is great.

The budget we've put in for 2012 could yet be spent in a number of different ways. And I hope this won't just be a 2012 activity - I would like to see us make this an ongoing area of activity, certainly to 2014, quite possibly beyond.

I am keen to move this further, though I don't have much time spare until the New Year as I'm mainly occupied on the Fundraiser. So at the moment I'm mainly collating interested parties, with a view to getting a core group of Wikimedians together who want to shape what we do with this, and a core group of partner institutions, and putting the two groups together in a room in January or February and seeing what they come up with in terms of inspiration for the period 2012-2014. Some (but not all) of the decisions about how the WW1/WW2 allocation in 2012 budget is spent will already have been taken by then, but not all of them, and as I say I think the 2012 budget figure is a beginning not an end.

If anyone's interested in this, please wave :-)

     I can be
    persuaded to invest in and read some books, although if the
    books were
    to come out of the budget and then be placed in Wikimedia UKs
    hands
    afterwards that would be preferable.

We can already handle support investment in books, via the Microgrant scheme: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Microgrants

Thanks,

Chris

---

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Brian McNeil.

I assume Fae has mentioned to you that the National Archives of Scotland

...

might be interested in doing something around soldiers' wills?

Chris and I briefly discussed it. As a project this is unlikely to kick off until next year (well after the fund raiser). However, NAS could be a very interesting early project and of significant public interest. The question is more about finding 3 or 4 volunteers in Scotland interested in helping, possibly with the support of a wider international e-volunteer community (such as me).

Soldiers' wills was not the only idea from the NAS and much as the British Museum and British Library has been working out, such a popular starting project would attract longer term NAS enthusiasts as a core team to self-organize.

The challenge here is not funding from Wikimedia or enthusiasm from the NAS, but attracting Wikimedians in Scotland to have a crack at real life collaboration.

Cheers, Fae

Andy,

For the War Memorials project - is Roll of Honour at http://www.roll-of-honour.com/ what you are thinking of?

Rod

-----Original Message----- From: wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediauk-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Andy Mabbett Sent: 17 October 2011 16:00 To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] World Wars project

On 17 October 2011 13:24, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:

Hello all,

I see from the 2012 activity plan that there's a budget for a World Wars project [1]. Is there a leader for this? An online presence?

Isn't there a wiki-style or open-content project somewhere documenting war memorials and listing the names on them? Maybe we could link up.

If such a project exists, but isn't open-, perhaps we could persuade them to be?