The day we teamed up with Wikipedia

At the editathon

This guest post was written by Stephen McConnachie, Head of Data at the BFI and originally published here

A marathon of Wikipedia editing at the BFI Reuben Library has enriched the online encyclopedia’s records relating to black and Asian British filmmaking.

On 26 January, the BFI and Wikimedia UK held a Wikipedia Editathon in the BFI Reuben Library on London’s South Bank. The focus was British black and Asian films and filmmakers, with a list of key films, filmmakers and writers established in advance. This subject was inspired by the BFI’s new three ticks diversity guidelines for film funding, which are aimed at improving on-screen and off-screen diversity within the film sector, including BAME (Black, Asian, minority ethnic) diversity.

All afternoon the editors used the books, articles and digitised press cuttings in the BFI Reuben Library to create new Wikipedia pages as well as improve existing articles. They had support from three of the major figures in this area of British filmmaking, who very kindly gave their time to support the event: Stephen Bourne (author of a major book on this subject, Black in the British Frame), June Givanni (curator of the Pan African Cinema Archive), Imruh Bakari (filmmaker, writer and academic, co-founder of the Ceddo film and video workshop) and film and theatre writer Suman Bhuchar.

Among the newly created and published Wikipedia articles are one on Imruh Bakari himself (a unique opportunity for article writer and subject to discuss the references available in the Library’s collection), Udayan Prasad (director of My Son the Fanatic, 1997), Lionel Ngakane’s pioneering 1966 film Jemima + Johnny, John Akomfrah’s Handsworth Songs (1986) and Newton Aduaka’s Rage (2000). Other articles are being prepared for publication, including one on tap-dancing duo Scott & Whaley.

Some existing articles were improved during the event, with editors adding links to actors and filmmakers, correcting inaccuracies and generally adding substance. Improved articles include The Proud Valley (starring Paul Robeson, 1940), The Little Ones (1965), Bhaji on the Beach (1993) and John Akomfrah (director of Handsworth Songs and The Stuart Hall Project).

With a similar editathon planned in New York soon, it’s hoped that the momentum generated by the BFI event may continue in the area of black and Asian filmmaking, in particular in cases such as Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston (1989) where it crosses over with the US context.

Links to new or improved Wikipedia pages

John Akomfrah
Imruh Bakari
Udayan Prasad
The Proud Valley (1940)
Jemima + Johnny (1966)
The Little Ones (1965)
Handsworth Songs (1986)
Bhaji on the Beach (1993)
Rage (2000)

Report from the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy

The photo shows the Palace of Westminster seen across the River Thames on a sunny day
The Palace of Westminster, home to Parliament

This post was written by Stevie Benton, Head of External Relations

This morning I attended the launch of Open Up! – Report of the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy. Having been involved in the work of the Commission I was very interested to hear its recommendations.

The report is a substantial document (PDF) which I need to read in more detail, but there are five key targets and recommendations highlighted in the summary (P3 of the report). Some of these appear to be significant wins for the open knowledge movement. These are quoted below:

  • By 2020, the House of Commons should ensure that everyone can understand what it does
  • By 2020, Parliament should be fully interactive and digital
  • The 2015 newly elected House of Commons should create immediately a new forum for public participation in the debating function of the House of Commons
  • By 2020 secure online voting should be an option for all voters
  • By 2016 all published information and broadcast footage produced by Parliament should be freely available online in formats suitable for re-use. Hansard should be available as open data by the end of 2015.

It is the final recommendation that is of most interest here, and I’ll address this first. I very much welcome this step to make more of Parliament’s information freely available, especially as this is already paid for from the public purse, although the choice of open license is crucial to the impact this move will have. I encourage Parliament to use the most open license possible. For example, the use of the Open Government Licence would allow for footage of parliamentary debates to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and inserted into appropriate Wikipedia articles. I find this quite exciting and it would enhance Wikipedia as a learning and teaching tool for those interested in Parliament.

The other key recommendation I find particularly noteworthy is the third, the new forum for debate which is tentatively dubbed the “Cyber Chamber”. This is to be created as soon as the 2015-16 session of Parliament opens and will provide the public with opportunities to digitally participate in debates that take place at Westminster Hall. If this experiment is successful, the scheme will extend to include debates in both Houses. If Parliament can find a way to make this workable, with a high “signal to noise” ratio it could be an effective way of increasing engagement between the electorate and those they elect.

Among the other recommendations from the full report there are proposals to simplify parliamentary language (recommendation 4 in the report) and, to my mind more importantly, an encouragement to the Department of Education to improve the provision of political education within schools using digital means (recommendation 3).

The key test will be to see how these recommendations are implemented but so far, the signs are very promising. The desire of Parliament to move the digital democracy agenda onward is laudable and could lead to great progress.

I would be very interested to know what others think of the report so please do share your thoughts, either as comments here or via email – stevie.benton(at)wikimedia.org.uk

Wikimedia and UNESCO team up to share the world’s culture

By John Cummings, Wikimedia volunteer

I have been working with the Sector for External Relations and Public Information unit at The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to make images from their archive available on Wikimedia Commons, the media site for all Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is the most used educational resource in the world and the Wikimedia projects receive over 21 billion page views per month. This includes users from an amazing project called Wikipedia Zero which provides over 400 million people in 35 countries completely free access with no data charges to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects on their mobile phones.

 

Mobile data costs are a significant barrier to internet usage. We created Wikipedia Zero so that everyone can access all the free knowledge on Wikipedia, even if they can’t afford the mobile data charges.

Wikipedia Zero

 

UNESCO shares many goals with the Wikimedia movement, together we can make available an amazing amount of the world’s significant cultural and educational material available to everyone on the planet – global content for a global audience.

 

UNESCO

In today’s increasingly diverse societies, UNESCO continues to accomplish every day its fundamental humanist mission to support people in understanding each other and working together to build lasting peace.

UNESCO: Learning to Live Together

UNESCO works to create inclusive knowledge societies and empower local communities by increasing access to and preservation and sharing of information and knowledge in all of UNESCO’s domains. Knowledge societies must build on four pillars: freedom of expression; universal access to information and knowledge; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity; and quality education for all.

UNESCO: Building Knowledge Societies

 

Wikimedia

Knowledge should be free: Access to information empowers people to make rational decisions about their lives. We believe the ability to access information freely and without restrictions is a basic human right. Our vision requires that the educational materials we collect and create together be free for others to use and reuse. Our work also depends on free and open formats and technologies.

Share with every human being: The Wikimedia movement strives to include every single human being in our work by making our knowledge resources available and providing the venue for all people to share their knowledge. We prioritize efforts that empower disadvantaged and underrepresented communities, and that help overcome barriers to participation.

 Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan Summary: What We Believe

Open knowledge for all: The vision of Wikimedia UK. We work to make as much open knowledge available as we can and remove barriers to access for as many people as possible. 

Wikimedia UK

  

I am currently applying for a Wikimedia Foundation grant to work as Wikimedian in Residence for UNESCO with the aims of moving further towards making open licensing the standard for scientific, cultural and educational organisations and engagement with Wikimedia common practice. During the residency I will:

  • Train UNESCO and its partner organisations staff to contribute to Wikimedia projects including creating and improving content receiving 100,000,000 views per year on Wikimedia projects.
  • Making 30,000 images, audio files, videos, data and other content files from the archives of UNESCO and its partners available on Wikimedia projects
  • Create a model and resources to encourage other UN organisations and their partner organisations to engage with Wikimedia.

You can read about and support the application here.

A full set of images can be seen on my grant application or at Wikimedia Commons in the category: Images from the archive of UNESCO. These images can be used by by anyone for any purpose using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license.

You are free:

  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

  • attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
  • share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Vote for the Picture of the Year on Wikimedia Commons

The image shows a lightbulb against a red background. The filament within the bulb is burning sue to the presence of oxygen.
The Picture of the Year 2013 by Stefan Krause from Germany. Click to see in full.

This post was written by Wikimedia UK volunteer Livia Morarasu

It’s that time of the year! The voting for the annual Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year Contest is now open and there is plenty to marvel at.

Last year a total of 981 pictures  were promoted to ‘featured picture’ status in categories ranging from plants and fungi, cities and bridges, panoramic views, interiors and details or vehicles and crafts. All Wikimedians with more than 75 live edits before January 1, 2015 are welcomed to select their favourite shots and, thus, recognize the most remarkable contribution made on Commons in 2014.

We know that selecting just one great snap is a difficult task, and so users may vote for as many images as they like in the first round, ending on January 31, 2015, at 23:59 [UTC]. Only the top 30 pictures will be included in the second round, starting on February 14, 2015. Don’t forget that anyone can become a part of the Commons community by uploading  their work and maybe see their name in the Picture of the Year 2015 competition.

Congratulations to the photographers who shared their work as freely licensed content and good luck to all!

The truth gets its shoes on: the Black Death on Wikipedia

This post was written by Richard Nevell

Mark Twain said “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

The same applies to honest mistakes. The ease with which information spreads across the Internet means the stakes are higher when it comes to getting things right. But with a bit of help, it’s possible to get the genie back in the bottle. Mostly at least.

For several years, many sources – including a wide range of academic websites – described the image on the right as depicting people suffering from the Black Death, the pandemic of plague that swept through most of Eurasia in the mid-fourteenth century.  The illustration itself dates from 1360-75 and is from an illuminated manuscript, Omne Bonum by James le Palmer.[ref]Royal 6 E. VI; Page Folio Number: f. 301rb[/ref] In fact, the image shows clerics with leprosy being instructed by a bishop. It’s easy to see how the mistake happened: the Black Death affected a huge number of people across Europe, caused visible physical symptoms, and coincided roughly with when the illustration was produced. But the text itself is about leprosy, and that disease was commonly depicted in the medieval period with red spots like those shown in the image.

The misinterpretation had become so prevalent the issue became the topic of an article in a new academic journal: ‘Diagnosis of a “Plague” Image: A Digital Cautionary Tale’ in The Medieval Globe. Published just a couple of months ago, it didn’t take long before the paper started to have an effect. This is due in no small part to the fact that the article is freely available – in fact the entire volume of The Medieval Globe is open access. The authors approached the British Library to update its Images Online website and its Illuminated MSS Online Catalogue.

When used in print, there’s often not much which can be done until a new edition is printed, but online there’s the chance that a correction can spread just as the original error did. A reverse Google image search means that it’s possible to find out how this image is being used, and even approach those websites to get the image replaced. This has already started, and there have been some positive responses.

The article specifically mentioned Wikipedia’s use of the Omne Bonum image. It was used on 44 pages across 23 different languages, with another two uses on Wikibooks and Wikiquote. This shows how widely and easily Wikipedia can be used to spread information. In March 2014, the English Wikipedia’s page on the Black Death was one of the 400 most-visited pages on Wikipedia; over the course of a year, that page alone managed 4.3 million views.

The English pages were fixed very quickly once the issue was pointed out. On 4th December an anonymous editor mentioned the issue on the discussion page for the Black Death article. The following day another editor replaced the image in the article, and anywhere else on the English Wikipedia if it was being used to illustrated the plague. I chipped in with more edits myself in my free time, however, the further you move from the source language, the more persistent a mistake can be; the image still appears with the incorrect description on at least 28 pages and, with so many languages to take into account, it helps to have as many people joining in as possible.

If you speak and write in a language other than English, please take a look at the pages here (look for the image labelled “Leprosy victims taught by bishop”) and check that the image from Omne Bonum isn’t being used to depict the Black Death. If it is, please replace it! I emailed one of the authors of the paper which brought this issue out into the open, and was told that this image is a good alternative.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

National Library of Wales with a birthday gift to Wikipedia

Photo is a portrait of Jason Evans, a young man who appears to be in his late twenties.
Jason Evans, newly appointed Wikimedian in Residence at National Library of Wales

Wikimedia UK is proud to announce that the National Library of Wales has appointed a full time Wikipedian in Residence; this follows a 6-month appointment by the federal Welsh language university ‘Coleg’. The announcement comes on the day that Wikipedia celebrates its 14th birthday.

Wicipedia Cymraeg and the National Library have had a good working partnership since 2008 when they started to pilot the uploading of around 20 images of Wales’ finest photographer of his time – John Thomas. The world didn’t come to an end, and since then nearly 5,000 images have been uploaded.

The Library is one of only six legal deposit libraries in the UK and Ireland and have more than 5 million books, a million maps, 800,000 photographs and 50,000 works of art. In April 2012, the Library made a policy decision not to claim ownership of copyright in digital reproductions. This meant that the rights information attached to digital representations of works would reflect the copyright status of the original. In 2013, the Library was the winner of the Wikimedia UK ‘GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) of the Year Award’, as being ‘a reliable supporter of the Wikimedia movement aims.’

Both the Library and the Wikimedia movement have many things in common including to enrich the sum of shared knowledge available about Wales online, with a specific interest on the Welsh language Wicipedia.

Robin Owain, Wikimedia UK Manager in Wales said, ‘The Library has opened their doors, and have proven that improving access to their rich resources will benefit not only Wales but the wider world. They have been cutting edge in many ways and I look forward in consolidating our partnership in the coming months. What a great way of celebrating the 14th birthday of Wikipedia!’

Jason Evans has been appointed to the residency and he begins work on 19 January.

_____________________________________________________________

Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru’n Penodi Wicipediwr Preswyl llawn amser

Mae Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru wedi penodi Wicipediwr Preswyl ar eu staff, yn llawn amser am gyfnod o flwyddyn. Mae hyn yn dilyn penodi Marc Haynes fel Wicipediwr Preswyl ychydig yn ôl yn y Coleg Cymraeg.

Ers Awst 2008, cafwyd partneriaeth anffurfiol rhwng Wicipedia a Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, a thros y blynyddoedd sylweddolwyd mai’r un oedd eu nod: rhoi lluniau, sgans o lawysgrifau, fideos a gwybodaeth eraill am Gymru a’i diwylliant ar drwydded agored fel eu bont i’w cael ledled y byd h.y. ehangu’r mynediad i drysorau’r Llyfrgell. Yn y flwyddyn diwethaf mae’r Llyfrgell wedi rhoi tua 5,000 o hen ffotograffau ar drwydded agored Comin creu (Creative Commons).

Mae’r Wicipedia gwreiddiol yn 14 oed heddiw (15 Ionawr) ac yn mynd o nerth i nerth. Wicipedia Cymraeg (sydd bron yn 12 oed!) yw’r wefan Gymraeg fwyaf poblogaidd gyda chyfartaledd o 2.4 miliwn o dudalennau’n cael eu hagor yn fisol. Ceir dros 280 o wicis mewn ieithoedd eraill a bydd y bartneriaeth hon rhwng y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol a Wici Cymru yn cynnig llwyfan arall i drysorau’r genedl.

Dywedodd Elfed Williams, Cadeirydd Wici Cymru, ‘Rydym yn ymfalchio yn y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol am y modd mae wedi cofleidio’r byd digidol a gwybodaeth agored. Ymfalchiwn hefyd yng ngwaith mae Wikimedia UK yn ei wneud yng Nghymru.’ Yn ôl Robin Llwyd ab Owain, Rheolwr Wikimedia yng Nghymru, ‘Mae llawer o lyfrgelloedd yn wynebu problemau enbyd ledled y byd, ond yng Nghatalonia, mae’r genedl gyfan wedi sylweddoli grym Wicipedia ac yn ei defnyddio fel cefnfor fawr o wybodaeth – a llwyfan i’r wybodaeth honno. Braf ydy gweld Cymru hefyd ar flaen y gad – yn datblygu yn hytrach nac yn ffosileiddio – ac mae llawer o’r diolch i weledigaeth pobl fel yr Athro Aled Gruffydd Jones a’r Dr Dafydd Tudur.’

Bydd y Wicipediwr Preswyl, Jason Evans o Aberystwyth, sy’n llyfrgellydd yn y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol yn dechrau yn ei waith ar 17 Ionawr.

Bodleian Library seeks a Wikimedian in Residence

Image shows the facade of the historic Bodleian Library on a sunny day.
The Bodleian Library, Oxford

The Bodleian Libraries and Wikimedia UK have joined forces to support a year-long Wikimedian in Residence in Oxford. The post provides the opportunity to work with some of the world’s richest library collections to improve content on Wikipedia and its sister projects and to share with the world the resources held in the Bodleian Libraries.

As Wikimedian in Residence you will engage with staff, the public and researchers to encourage contributions to the development of content on Wikipedia and to make the Libraries’ digitised collections more accessible, with a particular focus on areas currently under-represented on Wikipedia, from women to non-Western collections. You will also undertake academic and public outreach work to encourage understanding and development of Wikimedia projects and improve access to the Libraries’ collections, including events such as editathons and workshops.

This exciting position is ideal for someone with an understanding of Wikimedia’s mission to preserve open knowledge as well as experience of delivering training. You will be an experienced Wikimedian with excellent verbal and written communication skills and an ability to teach and support other users.

The position is part-time (18.75 hours per week/0.5FTE) for a fixed-term of 12 months. The Wikimedian in Residence will work with both the Communications Team and the Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services team.

Applications close at 12pm on Monday 19 January, and interviews are expected to take place on 4 or 5 February. For more information, please visit their website.

Anyone wishing to speak more informally about the position or ask questions is welcome to contact Liz McCarthy by emailing elizabeth.mccarthy(at)bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Wellcome Library grateful for Wikimedia UK support

Wikimedia UK received a very encouraging email this morning which highlights the nature of the work of our movement.

In a collaboration between the Wellcome Library, Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia volunteers, around 100,000 images from their collection have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

The message, from Phoebe Harkins of the Wellcome Trust, said: “The Wellcome Library is thrilled with the mass upload of the historical Wellcome Images to Wiki commons, and would like to thank the staff and volunteers of Wikimedia UK who have assisted in getting Wellcome Images into Wiki commons, in particular Fae, who has worked on the mass upload over the past few months. We are delighted that 100k images from our extraordinarily diverse collection are now visible through the most consulted information resource on the planet.”

Projects of this nature highlight all that is best about our movement – the collaboration between chapter, volunteers and collections holders to share this knowledge with everyone, for free, is exactly the kind of work we will be focusing on in 2015. We look forward to you being an important part of it.

Royal Society of Chemistry grants journals access to Wikipedia Editors

Image shows the logo of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a yellow, blue and beige device which looks like the letter C
Logo of the Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced that it is donating 100 “RSC Gold” accounts – the complete portfolio of their journals and databases – to be used by Wikipedia editors who write about chemistry. The partnership is part of a wider collaboration between the Society’s members and staff, Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia community. The collaboration is working to improve the coverage of chemistry-related topics on Wikipedia and its sister projects.

The project recently saw the appointment of Andy Mabbett as the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Wikimedian in Residence. Andy said: “Royal Society of Chemistry journals are the first port of call for many scientists and Wikipedia is the first port of call for both students and lay people. It absolutely makes sense for the two to work together to share knowledge, freely, for the benefit of everyone”.

Stephen Hawthorne, Deputy CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry, explains that this sort of partnership is part of their vision for the future. He said: “By granting access to our journal content, we are looking to forge stronger links with the volunteers who build those projects and to encourage more chemists to edit Wikipedia.

“Around the world, we invest in educating future generations of scientists, partner with industry and academia and promote collaboration and innovation. And we promote the talent, information and ideas that lead to great advances in science”.

The Wikipedia Library will arrange for donated subscription accounts to journals and online archives to be allocated to Wikipedia editors who have demonstrated a commitment to working on the projects, in relevant topic areas.

Understanding Sustainable Agriculture Through Wikipedia

By John Cummings, Wikimedia volunteer

Wikimedia volunteer John Cummings has worked to make available on Wikipedia 2400 images of tropic agriculture research from the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and 4000 new images of vegan food, all the images were originally posted on Flickr by people who share their content under a Creative Commons license.

“I want to give people a greater understanding of agriculture’s impact on the environment and of alternative diets that have a much smaller environmental footprint.”

Understanding the impacts of agriculture

The Priority Products and Materials: Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production report by the United Nations Environment Programme found that “Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.”

“Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels.”

Edgar Hertwich, lead author of the report

 

Greenhouse gas emissions

A Worldwatch Institute study found that 51% of greenhouse gas emissions were produced by the livestock industry, more than the combined impact of industry and energy. Each year 58 billion animals are killed for food, the impacts of a diet that includes animal products will increase as the population grows, the UN predicts the world population will grow to 9.1 billion people by 2050“

Species loss

New research by scientists at the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Zoological Society of London shows that populations of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species have decreased by 50% since 1970. The study identifies food production as a major cause.

“We have missed the ultimate indicator, the falling trend of species and ecosystems in the world, if we get [our response] right, we will have a safe and sustainable way of life for the future,”.

Professor Jonathan Baillie, Director of Conservation, Zoological Society of London

The rate of species extinction is 1,000 to 10,000 higher than the natural state and the recent Global Biodiversity Outlook 4 shows “The average risk of extinction for birds, mammals, amphibians and corals shows no sign of decreasing.”

All images are available on Wikimedia Commons under the categories Vegan food and International Center for Tropical Agriculture.