How Wikimedia UK is working with the music industry to improve Wikipedia

Wednesday Campanella performing at Primavera Sound 2019 – image by Jwslubbock CC BY-SA 4.0

By John Lubbock, Communications Coordinator at Wikimedia UK

Why should the music industry engage with Wikipedia? Firstly, they already do, but often they don’t do it very well, and get content deleted which they add to artists’ pages because they don’t follow the site’s guidelines. Second, a Wikipedia page is important in that it gives legitimacy to especially smaller artists, helps them get booked, and gives their fans a quick way to find out about them. Wikipedia biographies are also used by sites like BBC Music and Spotify, where artists can choose to link their artist page to their Wikipedia page.

Wikipedia pageviews also contribute to some music charts, like the Billboard Social Top 50. I know this because when I search Twitter for people talking about Wikipedia, there’s lots of K-Pop fans encouraging their peers to visit the Wikipedia page of a particular group for 3 minutes in order to add to their Social Top 50 ranking score. All the data about Wikipedia pageviews is open for anybody to see, and I personally like knowing that the Wikipedia page I started on the singer Jorja Smith has now been viewed over 1.8 million times. Wikipedia also constitutes a place where music fans can curate information about the band they like, and encouraging fans to help improve an artist’s Wikipedia page, if done correctly, can get around the conflict of interest of a music label writing about an artist they are promoting.

How not to engage with Wikipedia

‘WP:NOT’ is the abbreviation for the Wikipedia policy that outlines what Wikipedia is not. It’s not an advertising platform, a soapbox or a business directory. For a lot of non-notable businesses, vanity articles on Wikipedia which they ask staff to write will simply be rejected or deleted. However, some industries like the music industry promote artists who often do deserve Wikipedia pages, or may be in a notability grey area where they could potentially deserve a Wikipedia page, if written well and according to the site’s rules. But music companies generally don’t understand how to write Wikipedia pages, and if they do so they often break the site’s rules like WP:NPOV (Neutral Point of View), or simply do not succeed in demonstrating the WP:N (Notability) of an artist when they create a page on them.

It was because I noticed music companies engaging with Wikipedia in the wrong way that I reached out to the Association of Independent Music in 2018. AIM represents independent record labels in the UK, and asked me to come and talk to industry representatives at one of their regular events. I also gave a talk at AIM’s invitation at the Great Escape music festival in Brighton in May, and we have now organised an event for people from independent music labels in London on July 2 to teach label employees how they can engage with Wikimedia projects in a way that avoids conflicts of interest.

One of the best ways that music companies can engage with Wikimedia without violating guidelines on Conflict of Interest is to release content about their artists. Releasing a good Open Licensed photo of an artist is a way that music companies can have some control over the images media use when reporting on their artist. If there is only one CC licensed image of an artist, and it’s used on their Wikipedia page, it will probably appear at the top of the Google image search for that artist and be used by people writing about them.

Give the Wikimedia community access to events

Another way that the music industry can engage with Wikimedia without directly releasing content is by giving Wikimedia charities press passes for events where artists are performing. I went to Primavera Sound festival a few weeks ago, and was given a photography pass by the festival organisers to take a good camera inside. You can see all the photos I took on this Commons category, so feel free to improve the Primavera Sound Wikipedia page by including one or two.

Wikimedia UK members are welcome to ask us to apply for press or photography passes for music or other events where there are opportunities to take photos to illustrate Wikipedia with. Glastonbury gave us access this year, and we welcome community members to ask us to apply for access passes for them at other music festivals. If you’re a Wikimedian who is going to Glastonbury, there’s even a meetup organised there by Wikimedia UK members, so why not go along and say hi to them?

Little Simz performing at Primavera Sound 2019 – image by Jwslubbock CC BY-SA 4.0

One of Wikimedia UK’s priorities is to improve underrepresented content on Wikipedia. There are many artists who could have Wikipedia pages who currently do not, because the people who like their music are not the same demographic as the people who usually edit Wikipedia. So we particularly encourage Wikipedia editors to write about music from underrepresented cultures, about non-European/American artists or about female artists who are less likely to have Wikipedia pages.

Last year, I tried to organise an event with the Black Cultural Archives and Warp Records to improve Wikipedia pages on Soundsystem Culture, as the Warp Records artist GAIKA had just released an album inspired by Soundsystem culture and was interested in doing an event to improve content related to it on Wikipedia. Unfortunately the event didn’t go ahead, but subject areas like the history of Afro-Caribbean music in the UK are particularly rich areas which are underrepresented but could be improved on Wikipedia.

Music history is important, as is representing the richness and cultural diversity of contemporary music in the UK, and artists who have made important contributions to the UK’s world-famous music culture deserve to have Wikipedia pages so people can read about them. Music companies can contribute to surfacing these stories by releasing content which we can use, by giving press passes to our community members, and learning how they should and should not use and engage with Wikipedia.

Signups for our event with AIM in July indicate there is a big appetite from music companies to understand how to engage with Wikipedia, and as the event became fully booked very quickly we will probably organise future events. If you still have any questions, or would like to talk to Wikimedia UK about releasing content on an artist, feel free to contact us directly.

University of Edinburgh win higher education award for innovative use of Wikimedia in the curriculum

Ewan McAndrew (centre) at the University of Edinburgh Spy Week Wikipedia edit-a-thon – image by Mihaela Bodlovic CC BY-SA 4.0

Wikimedia UK is very pleased to announce that our partners at the University of Edinburgh have been awarded the Innovative Use of Technology award for their use of Wikipedia in the Curriculum at the Herald Higher Education Awards 2019.

University of Edinburgh Wikimedian in Residence Ewan McAndrew has been leading on this work in Edinburgh, running dozens of Wikimedia events since he began his residency in January 2016, and developing innovative projects and partnerships across the university

The award is well-deserved recognition for Ewan’s hard work in changing the perception of Wikipedia within academia, and the progress that has been made in the understanding of Wikimedia projects as important teaching tools.

Ewan attended the LILAC information literacy conference at Nottingham University in April, where he saw evidence of the growing recognition of Wikipedia as a learning platform.he University of Edinburgh was also awarded Wikimedia UK’s Partnership of the Year award in 2018.

As of April 2019, Ewan has delivered a total of 156 training sessions, trained 635 students, 419 staff, and 260 members of the public, and helped create 476 Wikipedia articles and improve 1946 articles.

Courses at the University which now include a Wikipedia assignment include: World Christianity MSc, Translation Studies MSc, History MSc (Online), Global Health MSc, Digital Sociology MSc, Data Science for Design MSc, Language Teaching MSc, Psychology in Action MSc, Digital Education MSc, Public Health MSc and Reproductive Biology Honours. Working with the Wikimedia projects not only allows students to improve the skills any university wants to develop (such as critical reading, summarising, paraphrasing, original writing, referencing, citing, publishing, data handling), but allows them to have influence beyond the university, with their work being read and influencing thousands of people reading Wikipedia.

Wikimedia UK hopes that the long term success of Ewan’s residency will encourage other universities to also employ Wikimedians to mainstream the use of Wikimedia projects as teaching and learning tools in UK universities. This trend seems to be taking effect already as Coventry University’s Disruptive Media Learning Lab has recently employed Andy Mabbett as a part time Wikimedian in Residence, and we hope that other universities will follow suit.

We would like to thank Melissa Highton, the Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services at the University, for her vision and support of the residency, and Allison Littlejohn, whose research was crucial in showing that it was a worthwhile endeavour. Dr Martin Poulter’s work as Wikimedian in Residence at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, was also instrumental in demonstrating the worth of a Wikimedian in Residence in a university setting.

We wish Ewan and the rest of the team at the University of Edinburgh all the best, and look forward to their further recognition as trailblazers of learning innovation in the higher education sector.

 

Libraries, Librarians & Wikimedia: a round up of our favourite things for the CILIPS Annual Conference 2019

This is a blog in two parts – the first is some session recommendations for the CILIPS conference, and the second is a list of cool stuff about library engagement with Wikimedia….

Tom Murphy VII, CC-BY-SA 3.0

On 3-4 June, in the fair city of Dundee, it’s the CILIPS Annual Conference 2019, where the great and good of the Library and Information Professionals world in Scotland will come to gather.

We are particularly excited to say that our CEO, Lucy Crompton-Reid, will be keynoting on day 1, and there’ll also be a chance to hear from two other members of the Wikimedia community earlier that day.  If you have even a passing interest in how libraries can – and should – engage with open knowledge in general and Wikimedia in particular, then don’t miss these.

So here’s our Wiki-and-friends top sessions to attend:

  • Monday, 12:25, City Suite – Leveraging libraries: Community, open access and Wikimedia – Jason Evans, National Library of Wales Wikimedian in Residence and Dr Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordination, Wikimedia UK
  • Monday, 15:55, City Suite – Keynote 3 – Creating a more tolerant, informed and democratic society through open knowledge – Lucy Crompton-Reid, Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK
  • Tuesday, 11:40, City Suite – Open Access, Plan S and new models for academic publishing – Dominic Tate, University of Edinburgh
  • Tuesday, 14:15, City Suite – The joy of digital – Exploring digital making and scholarship to enable innovation in research libraries – Kirsty Lingstadt, Head of Digital Library and Deputy Director of Library & University Collections at the University of Edinburgh.

Scotland has hosted three Wikimedians in Residence within the library sector – two at the National Library of Scotland, and one at the Scottish Library and Information Council – and so we’re very happy to be able to continue our relationship with the sector through a presence at the conference.  

Here are a few of our favourite things…

Want to know more about how libraries can engage with Wikimedia?  Here’s some of our favourite library things…. We’d recommend that you bookmark these for later reading….

And finally…

We’re also excited to see the release of the Association of Research Libraries’ White Paper on Wikidata, which makes some excellent – and very practical – suggestions as to how libraries can contribute to Wikidata, and indeed, why Wikidata / Linked Open Data in general, is good for libraries in the first place.  Even if you’re unfamiliar with the ins and outs of linked open data, it’s valuable reading, and well explained. https://www.arl.org/resources/arl-whitepaper-on-wikidata/

If you’re at the CILIPS conference, then we hope you have a great couple of days, please do come and say hi!  If you’re not, but would like to follow along on Twitter, you can do so on #CILIPS19

Conway Hall collections helping to improve Wikipedia

Conway Hall library – image by Jwslubbock CC BY-SA 4.0

Last weekend Conway Hall in central London hosted a Wikipedia editathon to improve pages on Wikipedia about 19th century pamphleteers and the subjects they wrotr about. Hundreds of Victorian-era pamphlets have been digitised and placed on CC0 licenses by Conway Hall library, and these are now being uploaded to Commons at the Category:Conway Hall digital collections.

These pamphlets are still being added, and if you want to help us improve Wikipedia by embedding them in relevant Wikipedia pages, you should also check out the GLAM/Conway Hall page for links to articles and subject areas on Wikipedia that need improving. Many of the pamphleteers who authored the publications have Wikipedia pages, and the pamphlets themselves often show the late 19th century thinking around subjects like religion, secularism, politics and society.

Conway Hall hosts lots of interesting events and talks on politics, music and history, all with a progressive, forwardthinking attitude to improving society. We are very grateful that the library has decided to publish its collection of digitised pamphlets on CC licenses so that they can be used on Wikipedia, and this will hopefully lead to a much wider audience for their collection.

There are lots of interesting pamphlets in the Conway Hall collection, exploring 19th century attitudes to railway nationalisation, Siam (Thailand), secularism, socialism and many other topics. There is still a list of articles in the GLAM page listed above that could be created on particular pamphleteers, and there are articles on pamphleteers like Gustav Zerffi, Charles Voysey and Annie Besant. which could have their newly uploaded pamphlets inserted into the articles from Commons.

We hope to do further editathons with Conway Hall library in future, and Alicia Chilcott from the library says that “we are planning to produce a special issue of our Ethical Record journal, focusing on the project and the various workshops that we have run as a part of it”.

We hope that the pamphlets will continue to be embedded in relevant articles on Wikipedia so they can help readers understand the progress of late 19th century thought on social and religious issues. If you improve an article with a document from Conway Hall’s collection, why not get in touch and tell us about it?

Education in Wales and Wikipedia

By Robin Owain, Wikimedia UK Wales Manager

Wales has always had more than its fair share of ministers of religion, farmers… and educators!

During the Medieval period, the training of a ‘Prifardd’ (a registered Chief Poet), took ten years, but educating ordinary folk was by word of mouth. Around 1402, the last Welsh Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwr, suggested founding a National University of Wales. Education, from the 17th Century onwards became linked to religion, as in many other nations. In 1674, the Welsh Trust (no article on en-wiki!) was formed in order to establish secondary schools throughout Wales and by 1681 there were 300 schools. This work was taken over by S.P.C.K. (Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge) early in the 18c. S.P.C.K. was formed in 1699 in London by a Welshman, Dr Thomas Bray, and 3 of the five main drivers were from Wales.

Many schools in Wales were also set up by charities so that the ordinary working-class person was given the opportunity to learn to read and discuss the Bible. Most teachers were curates, of which Griffith Jones, who taught 158,000 children to read in Welsh, must be one of the most famous today. By 1755 Wales had 3,495 schools, nearly all teaching through the medium of Welsh, as only around 5% of adults at that time could speak English.

At this time, Wales was one of the most literate countries in the world. The importance of education to the ordinary Welsh person during this time can not be over stressed. In England at this time, most ordinary folk were not given the chance to read and write whilst private school education flourished. Only a handful of private schools have existed in Wales, and as a result of this, today we can read what was written by the working-class people of Wales. For example, diaries kept by farmers are today being digitised and studied as they provide a comprehensive record of the weather at that time, information which is very relevant to those studying global warming.

During the 18th Century, the Welsh aspect within schools was lost: the English language was forced down the throats of children and corporal punishment became a daily routine for those who dared speak their mother tongue. My grandmother, who died 6 years ago, remembered it well! This inhumane practice was also used in Ireland, the Basque Country and other countries.

Today, for all children up to 16 years old, both Welsh and English languages are compulsory subjects. The Welsh Government aims to double the number of Welsh speakers by 2050 and ‘Wicipedia’ and ‘Wicidata’ are mentioned in their 2050 development plan, several times.

Wikipedia in Wales

In that context, let’s turn to a few Wikipedia milestones in Wales.

Having been appointed as Wales Manager for Wikimedia UK in July 2013, one of my first tasks was to co-organise the Eduwiki Conference at Cardiff. I invited Gareth Morlais, Digital Media Specialist at the Welsh Government, to open the conference and he spoke about the difficulty of getting minority languages recognised by internet giants such as Google. Gareth delivered his presentation in Welsh with live translation through headsets. The conference, and Gareth’s input, not only placed Wales on a global stage but also laid the foundation for the following work.

I approached the Coleg Cymraeg (the Federal University of Wales), which agreed to appoint a Wikimedian in Residence – the first full time WiR working in an university, worldwide. Mark Haynes was appointed in March 2014 and advised the Coleg on Creative Commons licences, which resulted in policy change. Since then, most of the academic work which goes on the Coleg Portal is on an open (CC-BY-SA) licence. This was a major breakthrough and even today, I’m yet to find a university which has opened their doors quite as wide.

The outcome of this is that when academic work is published, we can use it word for word on Wikipedia.

Edit-a-thon at Swansea University; 28 January 2015 – image by Llywelyn2000 CC BY-SA 4.0

On 28 January 2015, I organised the first ever Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in Wales at Swansea Library, and this was immediately followed by a Swansea University Edit-a-thon titled Women and Justice 1100-1750 in collaboration with Prof Deborah Youngs and Dr Sparky Booker from the Department of History and Classics. More on Swansea, later!

There are 22 ‘Language Ventures’ in Wales, one of which is Menter Iaith Mon (translation: ‘Anglesey language venture’). After a number of meetings with Menter Iaith Mon, in the Summer of 2016 they appointed a full time Wikipedian in Residence with funding from the Welsh Government. Aaron focused on the training of Wikipedia editing skills, and having been employed in the secondary sector for a few years, began training pupils on the island of Anglesey.

Menter Iaith Mon and myself wrote an application to the main examination board of Wales (WJEC) to formalise the training of wiki-skills as part of the Welsh Baccalaureate as one of the ‘Community Challenges’. This was successful and since September 2018 Aaron has worked with 6 schools in Anglesey and Gwynedd. In the next few years, we will encourage other language ventures and schools to follow suit.

Aaron’s work also dovetails with the Digital Competence Framework as well as an input into the GCSE curriculum: more on this in the next few months.

In 2016, Swansea University Senior Lecturer in Law, Dr Pedro Telles, and Richard Leonard-Davies began using the Wikimedia Dashboard; the project is currently in its 3rd year. Post-graduate students are drafting Wikipedia articles as part of their assessment.

In December 2018, the ”Companion to the Music of Wales” was published by Coleg Cymraeg (Federal University) and Bangor University. This is an encyclopedia that covers the history of music in Wales with over 500 articles ranging from early music to contemporary music, from folk singers to orchestras. As a direct result of our WiR at the Coleg, all text is on an open licence and we shall shortly be transfering it to Wikipedia. It is an authoritative encyclopedia and is the result of a collaborative project between the School of Music and Media at Bangor University and the Coleg Cymraeg. Editors: Wyn Thomas, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Bangor University and Dr Pwyll ap Siôn, Professor in Music.

Wicipop Editathon at Bangor University, 2017 – image by Llywelyn2000 CC BY-SA 4.0

Three weeks ago, I delivered a presentation at the first International Eduwiki at Donostia, Basque Country where some of these milestones were shared. I was glad to see that we are not alone in the work we are doing here in Wales. The Basque Country excels in wiki-education work at all levels. It was inspiring to see such wonderful work in many other languages in the field of open education in secondary and tertiary sectors.

The context and groundwork are solid. It is now time to build on this foundation. The Welsh Government are committed to this work in partnership with Wikimedia UK and others.

A new project is about to start shortly: a pilot project on how we can make it easier for children and young people to access Wicipedia Cymraeg.

Watch this space!

Self-harm and the internet

Backlit keyboard – image by Colin CC BY-SA 4.0

Following a recent news report in a tabloid paper, which criticised websites including Wikipedia for not taking seriously enough the effects of online content on self-harm, Wikimedia UK would like to underscore the commitment of the Wikimedia community to addressing this issue.

Wikipedia aims to provide neutral, reliable encyclopedic content to its readers around the world. Wikipedia is written by independent volunteer editors and is open for editing by anyone. Editors use reliable sources to collaboratively write articles about a wide variety of topics, taking extra care to evaluate the information included about sensitive subjects in particular, such as those articles relating to suicide. Editors weigh these issues carefully to ensure information is presented from an educational, neutral viewpoint, and have also developed a guide for writing about suicide on Wikipedia.

The US based Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, has a Trust & Safety team that responds to requests from users that are identified as an imminent threat to life and limb. They have developed these processes in consultation with law enforcement and experts in emergency response. Their systems often function in coordination with other community-developed systems aimed at supporting the safety of all our readers and editors. For example, the Trust & Safety team at the Foundation has developed detailed guidance for editors to respond to threats of harm made on the Wikimedia sites.

A UK government health committee looking at the problem of online self-harm recently held a meeting of technology companies, to which neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor Wikimedia UK received an invitation. The Wikimedia Foundation has been in touch with the UK government to convey the seriousness with which they take the issue of online self-harm, and emphasised that they would welcome the opportunity to join meetings or conversations about this in future.

Wikimedia UK does not set editorial policy on Wikipedia, and does not have legal control of the site or responsibility for its contents. However, we are keen to work with relevant parties, where we can, to help address the complex issues surrounding online content and self-harm. In this context, we have previously offered to put the Samaritans in touch with UK-based editors to discuss these issues and to understand more about how editorial policies are developed on Wikipedia. We have also contacted the Department for Health and Social Care, who organised the recent summit on harmful online content, in case it would be helpful for them to engage with the local Wikimedia chapter on this issue.

If you have been affected by the issues discussed in this blogpost, you can call The Samaritans on 116 123.

New Wikimedian in Residence at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Society of Antiquaries crest above an entrance to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery – image by Brian McNeil CC BY-SA 3.0

By Jeff Sanders, Project Manager for Dig It! based at The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

AN ANCIENT SOCIETY (WITH FRESH IDEAS)

1780: a time before the USA had gained its independence, before the first hot air balloon flights, and before Robert Burns had penned Auld Lang Syne. Also the year in which the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was formed, with a mission to research and promote Scotland’s past.

Today we’re an independent charity with a global membership of over 2,700 members,  (known as Fellows) with offices in the National Museum of Scotland, which was formed from the Society collection in 1851. And we’ve been promoting the discovery of Scotland’s past for the last 239 years by publishing books, journals, and excavation reports, funding research, holding events and lectures and running projects like the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework and Dig It!. All but the latest journals (and many of the sold-out books) are available open access and most events are free to attend (and recorded and uploaded to YouTube).

I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER

In order to take open access at the Society to the next level, we’ve recently appointed a Wikimedian-in-Residence: Dr Doug Rocks-Macqueen. Funded by Wikimedia UK, he works one day a week and we match this with Society staff time to help develop and run events and initiatives.

Doug is seconded to us from Landward Research, and is both a Fellow of the Society and Wiki-experienced, which means that he’s been able to hit the ground running. Key to Doug’s role is reviewing what the Society does and figuring out how we can feed that into the work of the Wikimedia Foundation. Part of this mission means ensuring that the Society team and our (global) Fellowship are Wiki-ready. Our first toe-in-the-water moment for this was hosting an edit-a-thon here in the Society offices, focusing on previous members of the Society (who include Sir Walter Scott don’tcha know).

THANK U, NEXT

After the success of our first edit-a-thon, we’re spreading our wings and holding the next one at Edinburgh Central Library. The Women in Scottish Archaeology | Wikipedia Edit-a-thon aims to address the lack of knowledge about women’s contributions to Scottish archaeology. If you’re in Edinburgh on 9 May, come along and find out more about our plans (and chow down on a free lunch).

Wikimedia UK welcomes three new trustees

We are very pleased to announce the recent appointment of three new trustees to Wikimedia UK’s board. Sangeet Bhullar, Jane Carlin and Marnie Woodward bring a range of skills and experience to the board including financial management, strategic partnerships and digital literacy.

Sangeet Bhullar joined the Wikimedia UK board in January 2019. She is the Founder and Director of WISE KIDS, which focuses on New Media Literacy Education, Digital Citizenship, Online Safety and Digital Well-being. In the last 17 years, Sangeet has worked with thousands of young people, parents and professionals in the UK, Singapore and Malaysia, addressing these themes. She is passionate about amplifying young people’s voices and about rights and agency in addressing risk, harm, opportunity and well-being online. Sangeet is based in Wales and is a member of a number of Welsh government and non-government committees. She will sit on Wikimedia UK’s Partnerships Advisory Board, helping to shape the chapter’s education programme.

Jane Carlin has been a trustee of Wikimedia UK since September 2018. She has served in a wide range of senior finance roles within the publishing and wider media sector, including educational publishing, and brings strong finance and compliance skills to the board. Jane is a chartered management accountant and is Chair of Wikimedia UK’s Audit and Risk Committee.

Marnie Woodward also joined the board in September 2018. She is a chartered management accountant, and has been involved in the charity sector as a finance director for several decades, having worked with the Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Mental Health Foundation, the Musicians Benevolent Fund and RPS Rainer among others. Previously she was a trustee and the chair of the Finance and Administration Committee of the Church Urban fund. She brings knowledge and experience of financial and organisational issues across a range of charitable enterprises. Marnie sits on the Audit and Risk Committee and is Treasurer for Wikimedia UK.

We are delighted to have attracted trustees of this calibre to the Wikimedia UK board, with such an impressive range of skills, knowledge and experience, and are looking forward to the new insights they can offer the charity over the next few years. There will be a number of additional board vacancies at Wikimedia UK this year, and we encourage members of our community to consider whether they could play a role within the governance of the organisation.

AutoWikiBrowser – find out how to automate mass edits on Wikipedia

Screenshot of the AWB software – image by Magioladitis Reedy Rjwilmsi, GNU General Public License

Wikimedia UK has started running events to encourage long-time Wikipedia editors and those interested in becoming technically proficient at more complex tasks to gain skills that will allow them to improve Wikimedia projects.

In November we ran our first event on how to write a Featured Article. On May 7th, we will be running our second SkillShare event, focusing on how to use AutoWikiBrowser. AWB is “a browser that follows a user-generated list of pages to modify, presenting changes to implement within each of those pages, then progressing to the next page in the list once the changes are confirmed or skipped by the user.” It is intended to help editors make tedious and repetitive edits quickly and easily.

To use the software, you have to apply for permission on wiki, at this page. You need at least 250 non-automated edits in mainspace to get permission. I definitely recommend that if you want to come to our skillshare event that you do this in advance. You can then download the software here. Then follow the instructions on getting started.

There’s lots of other sources available online to understand how to use AWB like the video below.

So what can you do? You can auto tag templates, fix common typos, find and replace particular words, or import custom fixes. Once you’ve specified what you want to change, AWB will browse a set of selected pages, or a set of randomly generated ones, and then suggest changes based on your parameters. You can then review the suggested changes and decide to implement them or not.

You might want to check out the User Manual for AWB to get a better understanding about how to use it, but if you are a Wikipedia editor with a reasonable amount of experience who wants to better understand tools like AWB, you should consider coming to our next SkillShare, on Tuesday May 7. It takes place at the Wikimedia UK office in London, near London Bridge, Southwark and Blackfriars stations. Please sign up on the Eventbrite page to let us know you’re coming!

What happened on Wikipedia when Notre-Dame burned?

By Richard Nevell, Wikimedia UK Project Coordinator

Shortly before 7pm on April 15 in Paris a devastating fire broke out in one of France’s most iconic buildings. The fire was extinguished after more than 12 hours, and while the stone walls still stood and movable artwork had been removed, the spire and roof had collapsed, causing extensive damage.

As a medievalist and someone who studies destruction I watched with grim interest, as did much of the world. The cathedral is a masterpiece of medieval art and architecture and welcomed 13 million visitors in 2018.

Within minutes of the first news reports, Wikipedia was being updated. At 7:19pm a short note was added to the article on Notre-Dame de Paris to say that it was on fire, and thirteen minutes later a separate page had been created to document the incident. Soon that page was available in more than 40 languages. At 8:21pm, Wikipedia’s Twitter account asked people to help document the event by taking photographs as it happened.

Lots of social media users commented that Wikipedia was quick to note that the building was on fire.

On 15 and 16 April, 1.2 million people read the page about the fire, and 16 million read the pages about the cathedral across all language versions. They came to Wikipedia to find out what was going on, and what had been lost.

Elite medieval architecture was designed to convey power and inspire awe; in cathedrals it was also intended to demonstrate piety and create something eternal. Cathedrals contain effigies, burials, and monuments to people who have long since passed but who wanted their memory to live on. Over Notre-Dame’s 850-year history it survived wars and revolution and became a symbol of French identity.

The fire has also caused some reflection about the loss of heritage sites elsewhere. For some people, it has brought back memories of fires at York Minster in 1984 and Windsor Castle in 1992. Further afield, the number of people reading the English Wikipedia’s list of destroyed heritage increased 27,000%, and there were more changes to that page in one day than in the past six months put together. This wasn’t just the work of one person either, it was more than 30 people (most of whom hadn’t edited the article before) who wanted to help. The page was of course updated to include Notre-Dame, but it was far more wide ranging. Historic events were documented from a dozen countries including Argentina, Ireland, and Turkey. If there was any doubt this interest in the loss of cultural heritage was triggered by the events unfolding at Notre-Dame de Paris, there was a common theme of destruction by fire in the updated coverage on the page. The entries are a mix of accidental and deliberate loss, and each tells a story which impacts a community. With the events in Paris, that community is international in scale.

The buildings around us are impermanent, and even thick stone walls which have stood for centuries can come under threat without prior notice. In these situations, Wikipedia acts as a form of public documentation. While the news records events as they unfold and the human impact, Wikipedia is there to provide the long view, with a detailed history of the cathedral and more than 7,000 media files with which to explore its fabric.

Wikipedia itself is impermanent, though its contributors try to create something which will endure the test of time. In other parts of the world projects such as New Palmyra aim to catalogue endangered heritage, creating digital models. There is no way to recover what has been lost, and physical recreations must be handled sensitively, but it does at least help document what has been lost.

If you have images of the Notre-Dame, or any other heritage sites, please do consider uploading them to Wikimedia Commons. From there they can potentially reach an audience of millions and the whole world can benefit.