[Wikimedia Announcements] Chapter Report WMDE March 2010

Mon Jun 14 21:27:53 UTC 2010

Hello all,

as most of you know, the Wikimedia Foundation is supported by a
network of 28 international chapter organizations. These are
independent organizations advocating and acting on behalf of the
Wikimedia mission in their respective geographies. See:
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters>. Chapters provide
their own reports about their activities. Our objective is to
consolidate movement-wide news and announcements on this mailing list,
so we'll be sharing English language chapter reports and major
announcements here from now on.

Please see below for the March 2010 report from Wikimedia Germany
provided by its Executive Director, Pavel Richter; April will follow
in a bit.

All best,
Erik

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pavel Richter <pavel.richter at wikimedia.de>
Date: 2010/6/10
Subject: [Wikimedia Chapters Reports] Chapter Report WMDE March 2010
To: chapters-reports at lists.wikimedia.org

Hi all,

for some time now, Wikimedia Germany is publishing a monthly report about
our activities and main projects to the german mailinglist, as well as on
our blog. Starting with the March 2010 report below, we will publish these
reports in english as well, to give our friends outside of Germany the
opportunity to catch up with what we do as well.

I will publish the March and April reports today, and the one for May in the
next couple of days. I aim to publish the report in German on the last day
of the months, and the translation will take usually about a week or so, so
you can expect the new report for June around the 7. July 2010.

If you have any questions regarding of the the projects or topics discussed,
please let me know.

Happy reading!

Dear friends of free knowledge,

Easter is coming, also the beginning of the month is a time to reflect on
the last month.

== Open data ==

There were some great positive advances in the area of open data. The hbz
and for example the university library of Cologne have published their
catalogue data under [1] and [2] respectively (Creative Commons Zero - CC0).
By many journalists Wikipedia/Wikimedia was named as possible consumer and
user. There is a first tentative approach to show the data [3] with the
Apper-Persondata-Tool. Fortunately even political parties showed interest in
the opening [4]. We are hoping for other libraries to follow this example.

== School project ==

Again, this month the school project was a central issue. In the context of
the Initiative D21 some workshops took place and resulted in requests for
participation in further events. Except for one all requests could be
granted, and planning is currently taking place. Immediately after the
Wikimedia Conference (see below) more effort will go towards planning of the
School-project again. We want to significantly increase the workshops for
teachers in the second half. For this we plan to gather and train a pool of
volunteers, develop appropriate teaching material etc. There will be an
in-depth update on this  in the  blog entry in April.

== Wiki4enterprise ==

For a while now we are involved in the project wiki4enterprise [4], a
collection of Businesses, which use MediaWiki in their company. This is a
good opportunity for us to form contacts to businesses which use the
software; together we can talk about further development, exchange
experiences and give tips to one another. Here a meeting occurred in
Frankenthal [5] in which Daniel participated.

==  DPG ==

Wikimedia Germany was approached during partaking of the Springconference of
the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Physical Association) [6],
on 16th Denis Barthel gave a presentation on Wikipedia. There has been broad
interest and again the specific questions and needs of academics became
apparent. Unfortunately not as successful was the booth we were given. It
was only able to work properly for one day and even then the interest was
limited. A special thanks for their help goes to Zipferlak and Raymond.

==  Wikisource ==

We initiated an interesting order: A print of the Schwaebisch Gmuender
Passionsspiel [7], which was already appreciated in 1867.

==  Wikimedia Conference ==

Nicole's first month in the branch office was dominated by the preparations
of the Wikimedia conference [8]. The developer meeting will take place on
the 14. and 15. of April with approximately 80  attendants and from the 16.
until the 18. approx. 80 representatives of the international Wikimedia
Chapter and employees of the Wikimedia foundation as well as the Board of
Trustees will meet. With the Zanox Campus [9] - directly near the
Oberbaumbruecke and with view of the Spree between Kreuzberg and
Friedrichshain- we have found  an excellent venue with sympathetic and open
atmosphere.
Accommodation of attendants is also sorted: One group will stay in the
Cabins of the traditional hotel boat Eastern-Comfort [10], the rest will
stay in a Hotel in  Friedrichshain on the Warschauer Strasse. Attendants
travel from more than 20 different countries to Berlin, so another of our/
Nicole's task was to help with Visa and coordinate the journeys via plane,
train or car. The search for a moderator of the chapter meeting was also
successfully concluded and we are happy to have found two competent forces
with Anja Krieger [11] and Don Dahlman [12]. Applications for both events
are now closed and it was very interesting for Nicole to help Wikipedians
from all over the world with all kinds of questions. Still remaining are
negotiations with the catering firm, the planning of the evening as well as
coordination of the volunteers. Additionally comprehensive information
leaflets are planned for the attendants.

==  Topics in the media ==

The questions from the press in March were not remarkable, only general
questions such as numbers and statistics about access and users etc.
A few contracts to the media were initiated with regard to the planned
Wikimedia Conference, namly: Zeit-online, Brandeins, Spiegel Magazin, rbb,
ZDF, and others. Additionally Catrin helped with the following articles:
* Berliner Morgenpost, Artikel published on the 24.3.10 here [13].
* MDR INFO about Wikis and Wikimedia (Interview on television on the 25.3.
in total four times around midday)
* Westfaelische Rundschau: in the Wiki-World (article is currently in
progress)
* Stuttgarter Zeitung: Wikipedianer Portrait (Editorial journalist will
visit the regular's table on the 1.4.  in Stuttgart, article in progress)
Further the new fundraising employee Till Mletzko became more reknown:
Newsletter of the Fundraisingverband in March and Fundraiser-Magazine /
April issue.

==  Information material, progress report & others ==

The information leaflets for Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and Wikiversity
are in the layout phase. Single community members are currently supporting
Catrin with the development of the layouts and the content. The production
of the progress report (PDF) required a lot of time in March: the tasks
consisted of the structure planning , text development and editing, pictures
and graphics formatting, layout- and text adjustment and production.
Relatively small, but nonetheless appreciable, was the provision of material
for the library congress in Leipzig. Quickly 100 flyers were produced, which
Mathias Schindler and Jakob Voss were able to distribute in libraries, in
order to support the BEACON-Format. The next Wikimedium is planned,  first
structure and content are composed. Editorial deadline is the 9. of April
and everyone who has ideas, topics or suggestions can, as usual, contact us
at redaktion at wikimedium.de.

==  Software projects ==

A status report on the advertised [15] software projects, which as known was
delayed a bit: The "complete support of TIFF files" [16]  is currently in
the final stage, here the code is currently approved by Daniel; the renewal
of CatScan [17] has developed a first prototype, which also is currently
under evaluation; last but not least the analysis of flagged revisions will
now also proceed quickly, for this there will be a blog update in the next
few days.
In parallel a prototype for the multilingual picture search is currently
under development, which should be completed in time for the Wikimedia
Conference. Additionally during the conference the XMLRX-project is planned
to be started and finished.

==  Future events ==

a quick overview of events, in which representatives of WMDE will partake.:
1. re:publica [18], on the 15th of April in Berlin, 14.00 pm; a "Zeit online
track" to the issue Processjournalism is planed.
2. Mitteldeutsche Medientage [19], 4th of May in Leipzig; Coordination and
Preparation of participation  Mathias Schindler.  Theme: Copyrights in a
revolutionised Mediaworld. A short presentation (10 min) followed by
discussions. Guests: Data privacy protection experts, Boersenverein des dt.
Buchhandels, Justitiar DJV, and specialists solicitors Internet
3. Buchtage Berlin [20], 10th/11th June in Berlin Congress Centre;
Discussion round "The markets of tomorrow". The participation of Pavel
Richter is planned.
4. Conference in Limassol on Cypress [21]: Euromed 2010, Digital Cultural
Heritage and Digital Libraries from 8.-13.11.2010; Still a bit time- but the
preparations for the program are already fully running. A keynote speaker is
enquired.

==  Fundraising ==

On the 1. of March Till took the newly created position of fundraiser. With
this Wikimedia concreted the wish to more actively seek donations and care
for donors, as well as position itself as a strong fund raising organisation
in the medium term. Aim of the systematic development of the fundraising for
this year is a stronger autonomy of the autumn campaign. After
familiarisation with the donation administration, the conclusion of numerous
donor enquiries as well as introduction into the current fundraising
activities, new fundraising projects were started. As part of this the
optimisation of current funrdraising methods via inclusion of donor
communication as well as preparation for the introduction of new methods
such as the  monetary fine marketing.  However, the core piece is a
professional database, which is planned to replace the current data base in
the short or middle term. A catalogue of requirements, which covered
content/functioning as well as technical and security relevant aspects, was
produced. The new data base is not only planned to optimise and help with
administration of and communication with new donors, but also to provide the
most important basis for the conduction of systematic fundraising
activities. However, not only the gain of new donors, but also the increase
of commitment of current donors is a central issue. In the next few weeks it
is planned to conceptualise first ideas and execute first activities.

==  Members ==

Some fortunate developments occurred here, between February and March 45 new
members were gained, but only one member quit. This means the current number
of members of Wikimedia in Germany is currently at 564 members. On the 25.
of March, in due time,  we sent all members invitations to the member
conference [22]which is due to take place on the 08/09 May in Berlin; who
didn't supply an email address received the invitation via post.
Here an appeal: You would be helping us a lot with the planning if you, even
provisionally, informed us with a short mail to mv2010 at wikimedia.de about
your attendance, because planning of this is needed: For example the number
of drinks, Tables, chairs or supplies for voting need to be considered.

== Community ==

In March we have supported the following events and workshops of community
members with journey and conference expenses: In Berlin the meeting of the
arbitral court of the German-speaking Wikipedia took place, in Cologne the
since 2006 occurring Wikipedia Workshop [23], in Kaufbeuren the meeting of
the editorial office of film and television. [24] The Chemnitzer Linuxdays,
as it is now tradition, were supported with materials; we want to especially
mention the idea of Kolossus, to use an interactive donor box: Great ideas
and thank you to the local Wikipedians, which faced the discussions and
questions of the audience! Here [25] are a few impressions of the event.

The next office report  will be published on the 4th of May 2010.

Kind regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Pavel Richter
Executive Director
-------------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Eisenacher Straße 2
10777 Berlin

Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de

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Links:

[1] http://www.hbznrw.de/projekte/linked_open_data/
[2] http://opendata.ub.uni-koeln.de/
[3] http://toolserver.org/~apper/pd/person/Konrad_Adenauer
[4] http://www.wiki4enterprise.org/index.php/Hauptseite
[5] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenthal
[6] http://www.dpg-physik.de/
[7]
http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Sitten,_Gebr%C3%A4uche,_Aberglauben,_Sagen_%28
Gm%C3%BCnd%29#Das_Passionsspiel
[8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2010
[9] http://www.zanox.com/us/zanox/campus/berlin/
[10] http://www.eastern-comfort.com/
[11] http://www.anjakrieger.com/
[12] http://www.dondahlmann.de/
[13]
http://www.morgenpost.de/familie/article1280261/Generation-Copy-amp-Paste.ht
ml
[14] http://wikimedia.de/files/Taetigkeitsbericht_2009.pdf
[15] http://blog.wikimedia.de/2009/04/07/softwareprojekte-ausgeschrieben/
[16]
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMDE_contract_offers/Implement_full_support_fo
r_TIFF_files
[17]
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMDE_contract_offers/Evaluate_the_impact_of_us
ing_flagged_revisions
[18] http://re-publica.de/10/
[19] http://www.medientreffpunkt.de/
[20] http://www.boersenverein.de/de/portal/Buchtage_Berlin_2010/310446
[21] http://www.euromed2010.eu/
[22]
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2010/03/23/mitgliederversammlung-2010-informationen
-fur-vorstandskandidaten/
[23] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop_K%C3%B6ln
[24]
http://de.wikipedia.or/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Film_und_Fernsehen/Redaktion
streffen
[25] http://de.wikipedia.org/wi

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Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

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