Dear GLAMwikimedians, particularly those involved in the GLAMWiki Toolset,
Europeana has decided not to further invest in a new version of the
GLAM-WIKI toolset (GWT). This includes developing a “version 2” of the
current system as was proposed in the grant application [1], or as a
standalone system using O-Auth as proposed by Erik earlier in this thread.
We have come to this conclusion after a lot of internal discussions, and
talking with key stakeholders, notably by presenting several options at the
European GLAMwiki Coordinators meeting. We have received an overwhelming
consensus that investing our energy in other forms of co-operation was the
best approach.[2] This is not a repudiation of the GWT in theory or in
practice - the GWT is not going away and we are very supportive and proud
of it.
As previously mentioned, it had become clear that the “version 2” grant
request would never be approved on the basis that the WMF would not
allocate code review nor would it support the project once build.[3]
Redeveloping as an independent “stand alone” tool would solve the first
problem, but conversely it would exacerbate the second problem.
It is universally agreed that moving to an independent tool would make for
a more flexible, powerful and faster-to-develop system. However, consistent
feedback from stakeholder consultation was that there is no demonstrable
external investment in supporting a third-party mediawiki development
ecosystem. The primary encouragement we received rebuild using O-Auth and
the API was not for the tool itself, but rather as a test case for those
systems. Europeana has therefore decided that, in the current environment,
this would not be the best use of our resources.
Instead, we intend to focus our GLAMwiki resources in community
event/activity support, rather than into software development. In
particular, we are very interesting in “pivoting” our attentions towards
Wikidata and the potential that holds for supporting digital cultural
heritage.[4]
That said - this does NOT mean that the GWT as it currently stands is going
away. It is, and will remain the most stable and integrated way to provide
mass-uploads to Wikimedia Commons, probably for many years to come. We are
aware that many Wikimedia Chapters have written GWT into their annual
plans, and we intend to continue supporting training and related events.
Also, given that there will not be an “all new” version of the GWT, we are
also investigating asking for funding to close the major bugs that we had
already triaged.[5]
Finally, we also hope to make greater use of the GWT for ourselves. There
is a large and increasing amount of content on Europeana that has an open
license and has quality metadata and image quality for it to be uploaded to
Wikimedia. We hope to start sharing this material directly with Commons
soon. Making the uploads ourselves would have the advantage for our many
partner GLAMs to be able jump straight into the fun part of working with
their local wikimedia community on editathons etc., rather than their time
wrangling metadata.
Liam/Wittylama
In my capacity as Europeana GLAMwiki Coordinator (and the guy who gut
Europeana into this project 4 years ago…)
p.s. In response to Erik’s comparison of the GWT to the WikiEd Foundation
redeveloping the Education Extension as an independent tool [6]. The
significant difference is that the WikiEdu Foundation’s organisational
purpose is to run activities and maintain software for Wikipedia outreach
to the education sector. Therefore the long term ‘ownership’ of software
built for this goal, and of which they will be the primary user, is well
within their mission. Neither was ever intended to be the case case for
Europeana and the GWT.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Europeana/GLAMwiki_Toolset
[2] Minutes of that section of the discussion are here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/2015_European_GLAMwiki_Coordinators_meeting…
[3]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/glamtools/2015-February/000356.html
[4] In particular the “sum of all paintings” project
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_sum_of_all_paintings
[5] Which was ‘item 1’ in the grant application
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Europeana/GLAMwiki_Toolset#Ident…
[6]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/glamtools/2015-March/000365.html