This Sunday is the regular monthly wikimeet in London (details & directions) and the three final candidates will be there to meet the community. We would be interested to hear your impressions of them so that this can feed into the final decision of who to employ. If you require financial assistance for travel costs to attend please get in touch as we have a small budget that may be able to help.

This has been the result of a lot of hard work. Back in May we visited three recruitment agencies to discuss our staffing needs and how they could help. We selected prospect-us, a recruitment firm that works exclusively in the not-for-profit sector, who we felt would be best suited to provide us with the step by step help we need. They helped us draft the job description and advertised on the Guardian, Charity Jobs, as well as in their own network. We also advertised within the Wikimedia community using the geonotice facility on the english Wikipedia.

Over 100 people requested the application pack and 83 people applied for the post. The trustees worked with prospect-us to longlist 16 candidates who then met our consultant for a one-on-one interview. We then shortlisted six people for interview by a panel. We are very grateful to our partner GLAM institutions who who agreed to sit on the interview panel, bringing much appreciated expertise into the process. We also benefited from the help of Sebastian Molenski, President of Wikimedia Deutschland, who have already been through a similar process. The British Library kindly donated a room for our interviews, further demonstrating the importance of such relationships for the Wikimedia movement.

This appointment is going to be one of the most important decisions Wikimedia UK makes this year. We have designed a thorough process to test candidates on all the different angles. With your help, we can ensure that our new Chief Executive is the right choice for Wikimedia UK.

The post Help us choose our Chief Executive appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

Wikimedia UK’s Annual Conference and AGM is this weekend. This is an opportunity for all Wikimedians in the UK to have their say about the future of their local chapter.

The prospects for next year are looking very promising: we start the year after a very successful fundraiser, with over £600k available to support and promote the Wikimedia projects in the UK. We’re building a track record of successful partnerships with museums and other “GLAM” institutions – including events at the British Museum, the British Library and Derby Museums. We have engaged with researchers at places like Cancer Research UK and the Bristol Wiki Academy.

Press coverage of Wikimedia issues has shown been a remarkable turnaround with a large number of positive articles in the national and local press and TV. This was particularly true of the coverage of the 10th Anniversary of Wikipedia.

This AGM will elect the fourth Board of Trustees of the chapter. We have received a record number of nominations and there are eight candidates contesting seven seats. You can ask a question of the candidates online here and read their candidate statements here.

The members are also being asked to decide whether to extend the term for board members from one to two years, to improve the continuity around the time of the AGM. We are keen to hear members’ views on this proposal.

If you are currently a member, you can vote on the potential board members and the resolutions by emailing tellers@wikimedia.org.uk and following these instructions:

Here to vote on resolutions.

You can also come along to the AGM to hear the candidates set out their plans in person and debate the resolutions.

If you haven’t joined the chapter yet, it’s not too late. You can join online here and then cast your votes straight away. Please note membership is subject to acceptance.

Now’s a great time to get involved!

The post Your Chapter, Your Say! appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

However, a key factor in our success will still be the board, which will continue to lead the chapter and be made up of unpaid volunteers. It will continue to be elected by our members, ordinary Wikimedians who support our mission and want to make Wikipedia and free knowledge even more successful.

Can you help lead the chapter to success in 2011 by standing for election as a board member? If so, you’re warmly invited to join us on Saturday 5th February from 5pm where you can find out more about what is involved in being a board member and have an opportunity to ask any questions and meet other interested people.

This “board interest day” will take place in central London (venue to be confirmed). If you are interested please drop me a line to chair @ wikimedia.org.uk to reserve your place. You can also give me a ring on 07403 216 991 if you would like to discuss further.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Andrew Turvey
Chair, Wikimedia UK

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The post Could you lead Wikimedia UK to success? appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

Wikimedia UK is very pleased to welcome Gemma Griffiths to a new pro-bono position as our Head of Public Relations. Gemma will be working with us to develop a media relations strategy that will raise our profile and encourage people to use and submit content to Wikimedia projects. Priorities for Gemma include strengthen relationships between Wikimedia UK and key journalists, and supporting the promotion of up and coming activities including the Annual Fundraiser, Wikipedia’s tenth anniversary and our Annual Conference & AGM.

The post Wikimedia UK welcomes new Head of Public Relations appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

All this we have managed so far with just volunteers. But now we want to employ a Part Time Office Manager to provide administrative support to our activities. We hope this will improve our capacity to run events and engage our volunteers in the things that interest and inspire them.

The post will pay £10 per hour for 8-12 hours per week and will be for an initial term of six months, starting as soon as possible.  Standard holidays are paid in addition along with the necessary expenses for the role, including internet costs, telephone calls and stationery. The ideal candidate will be IT literate with a number of years of administrative and bookkeeping experience, ideally in a non-profit context.

Full details of the position are on the Wikimedia UK wiki.  If you are interested in applying or would like further details you can email the chair of Wikimedia UK, Andrew Turvey or call him on 07754 881 562.

The deadline for applications has been extended to Saturday 4th September.  To apply please email your CV and covering letter detailing your skills and experience in this area.

Please share these details with anyone else you think may be interested. No agencies please.

The post Job opportunity: support us so we can support Wikipedia appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

What do Howard Carter, discoverer of the famed tomb of King Tutankhamen, novelist Ford Madox Ford, and sexologist Havelock Ellis all share in common? They all died in 1939. On New Year’s Day 2010 all their works enter the public domain in the UK and become free for any use.

Each year the opening of Public Records in Britain is a well-publicised event; the press pore over interesting items replacing decades-old speculation with facts. There is a lesser-known addition to Britain’s cultural commons; all authors and artists who died seventy years ago have their work freed of copyright restrictions. In the digital age, their works can be re-used and adapted in many more ways: paintings can be reproduced and turned into new artwork; novels can be adapted and retold; text can be freely downloaded to e-book readers – a best selling item this Christmas – and anyone can create audio versions.

Creative works in the public domain are the backbone of our rich cultural heritage. Nursery rhymes are adapted for modern themes, fairy tales turned into Hollywood blockbusters and hymns reprinted for church congregations to sing. The addition of new creative works to this heritage renews and reinvigorates our culture.

Wikimedia UK anticipates January 1, “Public Domain Day”, 2010 being a great year for additions to the digital Wikimedia Commons. The poetry of W. B. Yeats, the works of Sigmund Freud, and Arthur Rackham‘s classic children’s book illustrations all enter the public domain. When the complexities of copyright no longer encumber reuse of old works, a work that has been a “sleeper” can become a new classic. Perhaps the definitive example of this is “It’s a Wonderful Life“, the 1946 Frank Capra film that became a Christmas classic in the 1980s.

Wikimedia UK promotes the uploading of copyright-free text to Wikisource, a sister site to Wikipedia, so that it can be widely enjoyed. Audio recordings of public domain works may be added to the Wikimedia Commons site, and Wikimedia UK invites you to join us and help digitise and preserve our common cultural heritage. You can make it available for everyone to share, build on, and simply enjoy.

EDITORS’ NOTES

Copyright law:

Please note that Wikimedia UK does not give legal advice. Information on copyright law and public domain can be found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 as amended by the The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995.

About Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website with 345 million visitors worldwide. Read by around 40% of UK web users, it is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, a US charity. Wikipedia is collaboratively written by over 100,000 active volunteers world wide and all material is published under a free license.

About Wikisource:

Wikisource is a repository of free texts (literary, reference and general), and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. It was started on 24 November 2003, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is another sister project to Wikipedia. It was started on 7 September 2004 and currently hosts more than 5 million images. UK works are accepted if they are released by the copyright owners under an eligible free license or if they are in the public domain under both US and UK law.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Further information:

• Wikisource: http://www.wikisource.org/
• Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/

Contact details:

Michael Peel, Chair, Wikimedia UK

• Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Andrew Turvey, Secretary, Wikimedia UK

• Email: secretary@wikimedia.org.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)7754 881 562

The post Wikipedia celebrates Public Domain Day on 1st January appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

Wikimedia UK have fielded more than half  dozen enquiries, been quoted in four newspapers, had three radio interviews and two television interviews. The media response has been coordinated by Mike Peel, Chair of Wikimedia UK, helped by David Gerard, volunteer press contact for the Wikimedia Foundation and Andrew Turvey, Wikimedia UK’s secretary. The interest all started from an article in the New York Times on Monday headlined “Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People“. When the story crossed the Atlantic, British media companies started contacting Wikimedia UK rather than the Foundation, so they could have someone local to talk to and in the same time zone.

Much of the news reporting has been exaggerated and misleading, typified by “Newsnight”‘s headline “Is the philosophy of Wikipedia dead?“. Throughout our media work we have tried to give a more accurate and balanced view, explaining the background to the trial and the impact this will have on Wikipedia. We have not proactively contacted the media and have only responded to enquiries as they have come in.

Wikimedia UK takes no position on the ongoing discussions within the community about this trial, and are only concerned to make sure that the media represent the changes fairly and accurately and that potential contributors, users and partners leave with a good impression of the project.

The current status quo on the English Wikipedia, which has been in place for many years, is that when an article receives an above-average amount of vandalism, the article would be “protected”. For vandalism conducted by unregistered users, semi protection would result in all unregistered and new users (New being nothing more than a few days old) being unable to edit an article.

The configuration that is currently planned for a trial of 2 months has two parts. The first is “Flagged Protection”, which will be used in place of protection on some articles on living people. This allows everyone to continue editing, but changes by new users have to be checked by users that have been around for longer. The second is passive “patrolling”, which just serves to make identification of vandalism easier. The first part has been the subject of a great deal of confusion amongst the media (and indeed, amongst Wikipedians); it is easy to confuse applying this tool to a few pages with applying it to all Wikipedia pages.

A list of media within the UK that have covered this story is given below, along with the link between the stories and Wikimedia UK. Please note that some of the links are only valid for seven days.

Television

• Newsnight, Tuesday 25th August (link only live for 7 days), 11:20pm – includes interview with David Gerard (Interview only)
• Sky News, Wednesday 26th August – interview with David Gerard

Radio

• 25th: Radio Five Live, 6:40pm – live interview with David Gerard
• 26th: Radio 2, Chris Evans, 5:30pm – live interview with David Gerard
• 26th: 4fm (Ireland), Lunchtime on Four (link only live for 7 days),  2:41pm – live interview with Andrew Turvey

Newspapers / Online

• 25th: BBC – Wikipedia to launch page controls – with quotes from Mike Peel
• 25th: The Times – Wikipedia to end editing free-for-all – with quotes from Mike Peel
• 25th: UKPA – Trial editing of Wikipedia entries – with quotes from Mike Peel
• 26th: Daily Mail – The Wikipedia police: Encyclopedia site recruits 20,000 editors to stop malicious tampering with entries – no contact with WMUK
• 26th: The Telegraph – Wikipedia ends unrestricted editing of articles – no contact with WMUK
• 27th: The Independent – The Big Question: Why has Wikipedia changed editorial policy, and will it improve the website? – quote from Mike Peel

The post British media storm over Wikipedia changes appeared first on Wikimedia UK.

We had over 30 people attend the Victoria and Albert event, and over 460 photographs submitted to Flickr. Globally, more than 50 teams from fourteen museums submitted over 5,000 photographs, with London submitting the second highest number of photographs from any location.

All of these photographs have now been assessed and processed and are now being prepared for upload to Wikimedia Commons and use on Wikipedia. We can now announce the winners from the V&A, as follows:

• First place: vavaval (Val_McG and dj_photo0 with 142 points

• Second place: opalartseekers4 (Forever Wiser) with 88 points

• Third place: ukfgr (the wee pixie and mrsraggle) with 82 points

• Forth place: veronikab with 75 points

Image source: Val_McG

Vavaval win a large print of one of their photos on soft textured fine art paper, courtesy of Robbies Photographics, plus two tickets to a V&A exhibition of their choice.

The four winners also win a pack from moo.com comprising 50 Business Cards and 20 Postcards featuring photographs of their choice.

We are contacting the winners individually with details of how to claim their prizes.

The Digital Team at the V&A and Wikimedia UK really appreciate the effort that all the teams made to photograph so many objects as well as the time they spent uploading their work.

Thank you for your patience with us whilst we have processed these photographs, and we hope you enjoyed participating in this event. If you have any comments about this event or how it could be improved in the future, please let us know.

Our thanks to the Brooklyn Museum, the Digital Team at the V&A, Wikimedia New York, our sponsors, moo.com and Robbies Photographics and all the people who participated in the event.

The post Wikipedia Loves Art – Prizes appeared first on Wikimedia UK.