Today the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK are announcing the release of the final report and recommendations regarding the governance of the Wikimedia UK chapter. The report was completed by Compass Partnership, consultants in non-profit management based in the UK. The report was commissioned jointly by the Foundation and Wikimedia UK in October 2012 following important Wikimedia community discussions about potential conflicts of interest arising from a series of wiki outreach projects.
The Foundation and Wikimedia UK saw the potentially damaging effect of these matters and we ordered this review and report. We both expect the highest standards of governance, and this report is an effort to chart a strong course for Wikimedia UK and also thoughtful and valuable counsel for any organization in our movement to consider.
The report discusses important conclusions based on discussions with and materials provided by all of the major stakeholders. The aim of the report is not to lay blame, rather it seeks to determine if pre-existing policies and practices around conflicts of interest and governance were sufficient. Through this report we also aim to lay the groundwork for better and stronger governance for Wikimedia UK in the future and for its development as a chapter in our movement. We also believe the report may benefit the wider community of Wikimedia affiliated organizations by providing an example of best practices around governance and decision-making as applied to a chapter.
With a clear list of recommendations and timeline for their implementation, Wikimedia UK is now in a position to improve and expand its policies and procedures, related not just to the management of conflict of interest but also its management structure. The chapter will be discussing the findings with the community and begin their implementation at their forthcoming Trustee meeting in February.
We would like to thank everyone who has supported this process over the past three months, including the authors of the report, Compass Partnership, the staff and trustees of WMUK and the Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikimedia community members who shared their insights and feedback about the whole process.
Q: How did this report come about? Who originated the suggestion for the report?
The report was commissioned jointly by Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) in October 2012 following community discussions about conflicts of interest concerning Wikimedia UK, specifically relating to the management of wiki-based outreach initiatives, including QRpedia, Monmouthpedia, and Gibraltarpedia.
The report looks at how pre-existing policies and procedures were managed in light of conflict situations. The report also provides insight and advice on how to address any deficiencies in Wikimedia UK’s policies and practices. The report makes those recommendations and also provides a timeline for implementation.
The report was not intended to lay blame or identify any individuals nor actions who may have been at fault. The focus was on policies and how decisions and actions were carried out. Through this report we also aim to build a better future for Wikimedia UK, and lay the groundwork for stronger governance. We also believe the report may benefit the wider community of Wikimedia affiliated organizations by providing an example of best practices around governance and decision-making as applied to a chapter.
Q: Who conducted the report and how was it carried out?
The report was conducted by Compass Partnership, a UK-based management consultancy with experience conducting reviews of this kind, and advising non-profits on issues related to compliance with UK charity laws. Compass Partnerships was chosen from a list of candidates developed by both Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK.
The report involved collection of records (primarily minutes from meetings, emails and correspondence), interviews with officers and others involved in the projects (from Wikimedia UK, WMF, and other organizations), review of on-wiki and publicly available materials, and other fact-gathering.
WMF and Wikimedia UK jointly commissioned this report to gain an objective view into the activities that took place and the decisions made by Wikimedia UK, and to produce suggestions that address any observed issues in governance – particularly as they relate to the management of conflict of interest matters in the UK context.
We also believe the report may benefit the wider community of Wikimedia affiliated organizations by providing an example of best practices around governance and decision-making as applied to a chapter.
Q: Who paid for the report and the review?
The report was commissioned jointly. WMF covered the costs of hiring the consultancy firm; however both WMF and Wikimedia UK contributed considerable time and effort into the collection of information and in assisting with the report authors.
Q: What is the Foundation’s view on the findings of this report? What is Wikimedia UK’s view on the findings of this report?
Q: What are the immediate outcomes of the review? Are any actions being undertaken immediately by Wikimedia UK or the Wikimedia Foundation?
WMF and Wikimedia UK jointly undertook this review and the creation of the report with the shared understanding that the recommendations would be reviewed and adopted immediately where appropriate. The Wikimedia UK board will be reviewing the report, and the timeline for implementation of the changes proposed, at their Board meeting on Saturday 9 February. Some of the proposals will need to be discussed by the whole Wikimedia UK membership before they can take effect.”
Q: What is the status of the QRpedia project – and the other community ‘pedia’ projects
The report outlines clear recommendations for clarifying the ownership and operation of the QRpedia project. The other community projects are still active, although neither WMF nor Wikimedia UK are planning to support new projects of this nature at least until that question is resolved. Updated, 11 February: Wikimedia UK, Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden have reached an agreement about the future ownership of QRpedia. Full details of this agreement will be shared in due course.
Q: Will there be more community ‘pedia’ type projects and use of QR codes?
There are no current plans from Wikimedia Foundation to expand the number of the community projects. The Wikimedia Foundation is not planning to review nor approve any licensed uses of the Wikipedia trademarks for the purposes of community projects at this time.
The report makes recommendations about clarifying the ownership and operation of the QRpedia project. Wikimedia UK is currently in negotiations about the possible transfer of ownership and operation of the QRpedia project. Updated, 11 February: Wikimedia UK, Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden have reached an agreement about the future ownership of QRpedia. Full details of this agreement will be shared in due course.
Q: Will Wikimedia UK now be permitted to take part in the Wikimedia fundraiser?
This report was not commissioned to examine Wikimedia UK’s fundraising activities and its conclusions and recommendations are focused more broadly on governance and operational details. We expect Wikimedia UK will revisit the topic of the Wikimedia fundraiser when the time is right.
Q: Did the governance review cover any issues related to financial matters?
The focus of the review was to examine the decisions made by Wikimedia UK, as well as pre-existing policies and procedures. The report does make specific recommendations relating to the disclosure of financial information as it relates to transparency and accountability. Wikimedia UK’s finances were audited by UHY in 2012.
John Byrne has decided to stand down as the Treasurer and a trustee of Wikimedia UK. His resignation coincides with the end of our financial year.
John said: “Today I’m announcing, with regret, my resignation from the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia UK. I hope to pursue Wikimedia-related employment opportunities in the near future, and it is clear that in order to do so I should step down from the Board sooner rather than later.
“It has been a challenging and fascinating period for Wikimedia UK, and I have greatly enjoyed working with the staff, trustees and volunteers. I’m glad to be able to say that financial procedures and reporting are already vastly improved since I took over as (initially) Acting Treasurer last April.
“Wikimedia UK is poised to take things to a new level in the new financial year beginning on 1st February when we will introduce a new chart of accounts that will give us much better analysis and reporting, and a new version of the Sage accounting software. Of course I will continue to be involved as a volunteer in the UK Wikimedia community, and in particular with our GLAM outreach programme.”
The Wikimedia UK Board thanks John for all of his hard work as our Treasurer and we wish him well. We look forward to his continued involvement as a volunteer.
This message was initially circulated by the organising team of Wikimania 2013.
Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong are now being accepted. The application window is open until 22 February.
A Wikimania 2013 scholarship is an award given to an individual to enable them to attend Wikimania in Hong Kong from 7-11 August, 2013.
Two types of scholarship will be available this year. Partial scholarships will cover travel expenses to Wikimania, capped at 50% of the estimated air fare from your nearest international airport according to this page. Full scholarships will cover round-trip travel, dormitory accommodation as arranged by the Wikimania Team, and registration for Wikimania 2013.
Applicants will be rated on the following four dimensions:
1. Activity within Wikimedia (on-wiki and off-wiki) – 50%
2. Activity outside of Wikimedia and other free knowledge/software projects – 15%
3. Interest in Wikimania and the Wikimedia movement – 25%
4. Fluency of English language – 10%
If you have any question, email the team at wikimania-scholarship@wikimedia.org
Please note that Wikimedia UK will also be offering four full scholarships and two partial scholarships to attend Wikimania 2013. The application process is exactly the same and all applications should be made in the same way as that described above.
The Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, working with Wikimedia UK, have today announced they are seeking to appoint a Wikimedian in Residence.
This is a ground-breaking partnership between two of the UK’s most prestigious cultural institutions and the charity that promotes and supports Wikipedia, the world’s 5th most popular website.
As the official Wikimedian in Residence the successful applicant will be expected to make an impactful contribution to the public’s knowledge of the work of both institutions and their important and unique collections.
Jon Davies, Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK, said: “Wikimedia UK is really excited by this partnership. The Natural History Museum and the Science Museum are known worldwide for their excellence and their extensive archives. The Wikipedian in Residence will make a valuable contribution to making the museums’ materials accessible to people around the world, for free.”
Scouts from Portugal at the opening of the 21st World Scout Jamboree
This is a guest post from Maurizio Codogno, Wikimedia Italia, and was initially posted on the Wikimedia Foundation blog where you can also see the post in Italian and Spanish
On 9 September 2005, the article Choisy-le-Roi, a French town near Paris, was created on the Italian Wikipedia. On 3 October 2008, the article Placca indiana, one of the tectonic plates in the lithosphere of the Earth, was also created. What can these articles ever have in common? Simple. they are, respectively, the 100,000th and the 500,000th article on it.wikipedia.org.
On January 22, at 4:50 am (Rome and Zurich timezone), the millionth article was created! Given the creation and deletion of articles that routinely happens on Wikipedia, it is not exactly clear which one is the actual millionth article. The two most likely candidates are 8mm (a California-based band) and Scautismo e guidismo in Portogallo (Scouting and Guiding in Portugal).The Italian edition of Wikipedia is the fifth to have reached this milestone. In addition to the English language edition, which had its millionth article on March 1st, 2006 and now has well over four million entries, the “millionaire club” currently includes the Wikipedias in German (since 27 December 2009), French (since 21 September 2010) and Dutch (since 17 December 2011). The editions in Spanish, Russian and Polish are also approaching the milestone.
Surely, in August 2001, when the first Italian article was created, no one would even have dreamed of witnessing the millionth one. In the discussion about the creation of article number 100,000, some people jokingly wrote that they were getting ready for when the half a million goal was reached, a figure which seemed unattainable.
To tell the truth, the first two articles mentioned at the beginning of this post have something else in common. The links above show how the items appeared at their creation, but if you consult them today (respectively here and here), we can see that in these years the content of both articles has been greatly expanded. This is probably the best answer to those who believe that having too many articles is useless, if not harmful, for the encyclopedia: The structure of Wikipedia allows and even encourages the growth of knowledge, because even a slight improvement, when added to many others, can make a difference.
In fact, on the Italian Wikipedia, relative to other editions, the automated creation of pages is strictly limited to the cases where it’s tightly checked by humans and it encourages editor engagement, and has been almost non-existing in last years. Even more noteworthy is the fact that the 500,000th article was created by an unregistered user (a permission removed on the English Wikipedia in 2005), another confirmation of the practical philosophy of Wikipedia, which prefers authority of the text to authority of the writer.
The article Scautismo e guidismo in Portogallo is a product of Progetto:Scout, the combined effort of Wikipedia editors interested in developing and maintaining articles about scouting. The article itself, while entered by User:Lou_Crazy, is the result of a combined effort, in pure wiki style. Its contents come from the article Scouting and guiding in Portugal in the English language Wikipedia, which received contributions from at least ten different users since it was created in 2007. On the English Wikipedia there is WikiProject Scouting, which is analogous to Progetto:Scout. The text was translated by Lou Crazy, and it was adapted using templates written by members of Progetto:Scout to help in this effort. So, despite being only 2175 bytes long at its creation, this article already has a long history behind it, and it has already grown almost twice in size, including the addition of a photo.
Lou Crazy, who volunteers most of his free time as a scout leader, says that he started working on this article a few days ago, because it was missing, and he wants Wikipedia to be a great resource for scouts and guides who want to know more about their brother scouts and guides across the world. He had also prepared an article about Federação Escotista de Portugal, one of the scout associations in Portugal. So, when the counter was close to 1 million, he sent both articles and crossed his fingers.
The second candidate article, 8mm, was written by Nungalpiriggal, a fairly novice Wikipedian, who was awake and online that night, looking at the page counter with the mouse ready to press the Save Page button for the historical moment.
Why that article? First of all, Nungalpiriggal is a fan of that band and that page was missing. Second, he felt the millionth article should have respected Wikilove, thus, no controversial topics or discussed personalities, no football players or politicians, nothing that may cause any disagreement and confusion. So, the choice went to an international band that most people in Italy did not even know about (maybe, now that this article has been published, somebody else in Italy will listen to their music). And, last but not least, as a cameo in this page there is a link to Grey’s Anatomy, the article mostly viewed on the Italian Wiki in 2012.
Of course, no one plans to rest on our laurels and there are at least two new challenges for the encyclopedia. We need to increase the number of active contributors on Italian Wikipedia, which has stayed more or less constant for many months at around 8,000 people. Anyone can lend a hand, even just correcting a typo.
Of course we then have to improve the quality of individual items too. Today there are only 800 entries which are stated Featured or Good: it is true that the criteria for inclusion in those lists are very strict, but it is certainly possible to do much more. Finally, for those who feared that we are running out of items to be created, no worry! There is a page dedicated precisely to the requests for creating articles on topics not yet covered. Collaboration means that too!
This image of Lake Bondhus in Norway was Picture of the Year in 2011. But what will it be 2012’s winner? Photo byCommons User:Alchemist-hp
The below message was originally shared via email by the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year Committee. We’re happy to share it here.
Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2012 Picture of the Year competition is now open. We’re interested in your opinion as to which images qualify to be the Picture of the Year for 2012. Voting is open to established Wikimedia users who meet the following criteria:
1. Users must have an account, at any Wikimedia project, which was registered before Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000*[UTC]
2. This user account must have more than 75 edits on any single Wikimedia project before Tue, 01 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000 [UTC]. Please check your account eligibility using the POTY 2012 Contest Eligibility tool
3. Users must vote with an account meeting the above requirements either on Commons or another SUL-related Wikimedia project (for other Wikimedia projects, the account must be attached to the user’s Commons account
through SUL ).
Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are all entered in this competition. From professional animal and plant shots to breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historically relevant images, images portraying the world’s best architecture, maps, emblems, diagrams created with the most modern technology, and impressive human portraits, Commons features pictures of all flavours.
For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topic categories. Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you can vote for as many images as you like. The first round category winners and the top ten overall will then make it to the final. In the final round, when a limited number of images are left, you must decide on the one image that you want to become the Picture of the Year.
As trailed on this blog last week, Wikimedia UK held an IRC office hours chat last Wednesday.
The office found the exercise really useful as another way to actively communicate with volunteers and the Wikimedia community. We hope those who dropped in found it helpful too.
Given the success of the event we’re committing to making this a regular occurrence. To this end, we’ll be hosting a monthly IRC chat on the third Wednesday of every month at 5.30pm UK time. The next one will take place on Wednesday 20 February. We’ll share reminders closer to the time.
Gallwch ddarllen y blog yma yn Gymraeg, isod. This blog post is also published in Welsh below.
There’s been some interesting work taking place in Wales recently, especially in relation to the Welsh language. There are a number of projects that are particularly notable, involving Robin Owain of Wicipedia Cymru, a well-known Wicipedian.
The first relates to a group called Hacio’r Iaith (lit translated as Hacking the Language). Hacio’r Iaith are holding their annual conference on Saturday 19 January at the National Library of Wales, Abersytwyth, Ceredigion. The event offers an opportunity for people who make web and technology projects in Welsh to present their experiences and learn from each other in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. As a part of the day’s programme Robin will be offering Wicipedia training sessions. The conference is free, but registration is required and can be taken care of here
The second project is an agreement between Wikimedia UK, Wicipedia Cymraeg and the People’s Collection of Wales (PCW) to run a pilot project to share PCW content on Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons-Share Alike licenses. The pilot will involve an initial set of around 100 images and may lead to content being shared from other partners such as the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales and the National Museum of Wales about further opportunities.
Lastly, high level talks have also been held between WMUK and the editors of Encyclopaedia Wales, Literature Wales and the University of Wales Press. We’ll keep you up to date with this and the other projects in Wales and if you’d like to get involved please do send an email to stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk in the first instance.
Gwaith Ardderchog gan Wicipedia Cymraeg
Mae ‘na waith diddolrol yn digwydd yng Nghymru’n ddiweddar, yn enwedig drwy’r Gymraeg. Ceir sawl prosiect nodedig iawn, ac maent yn ymwneud â Robin Owain o Wicipedia Cymraeg, Wicipediwr adnabyddus iawn.
Mae’r prosiect cynta’n ymwneud â grŵp o’r enw Hacio’r Iaith sy’n cynnal eu sesiwn flynyddol ar ddydd Sadwrn y 19eg o Ionawr yn y Llyfrgell Genedlaethol yn Aberystwyth. Mae’r digwyddiad hwn yn cynnig cyfleon i bobl sy’n ymddiddori mewn blogiau a gwefannau Cymraeg – a hynny mewn awyrgylch ymlaciol a chartrefol. Fel rhan o’r digwyddiad bydd Robin yn cynnal sesiynau hyfforddi ar olygu Wicipedia. Mae’r digwyddiad am ddim, ond bydd angen cofrestru ar wefan
Mae’r ail brosiect yn ymwneud â chytundeb rhwng Wikimedia UK, Wicipedia Cymraeg a Chasgliad y Werin (CyW) sy’n ein galluogi i dreialu prosiect peilot er mwyn rhannu cynnwys gwefan CyW ar Wikimedia Commons dan drwydded Creative Commons-Share Alike. Bydd 100 o ddelweddau cychwynol yn cael eu cynnwys gyda’r gobaith y bydd ychwaneg yn dod o stabl Comisiwn Brenhinol Henebion Cymru, yr Amgueddfa Genedlaethol a chyrff eraill.
I goroni hyn i gyd, cafwyd trafodaethau’n ddiweddar rhwng prif olygyddion Gwyddoniadur Cymru, Llenyddiaeth Cymru, Gwasg Prifysgol Cymru a WMUK. Fe adawn i chi wybod o unrhyw gamau breision am y prosiect hwn a’r gweddill fel y dont i’r fei, ac os carwch fod yn rhan o’r uchod yna rhowch wybod i stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk.
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