Page 57 – WMUK

A happy New Year to everyone from Wikimedia UK

This is a message in two parts. Take a look at the video made by Wikimedia UK’s staff, then read the text from Jon Davies, Wikimedia UK Chief Executive.

2013 is set to be an important year for Wikimedia UK. Having opened our office we are maturing into a leading chapter in the global Wikimedia family.

Thanks to our amazing community we have greatly expanded our range of activities, including Train the Trainers courses, themed editathons, a major education conference and an inspiring Glamcamp at the British Library. Our plans for this year are equally ambitious and include:

Developing even more partnerships with galleries, libraries, archives and museums,
Delivering two conferences, one for GLAM topics and one addressing the use of our work at schools and further education.
Training more volunteers to become trainers themselves
Supporting a range of Wikipedians in residence developing wiki content in association with a broad range of UK institutions
…and most of all inspiring people to become editors for the first time.

Our principal aim must be to support and grow our volunteer community – only in that way can we carry out all the work we need to do.

There will be challenges ahead. Delivering our ambitious programme will take a lot of energy.

We also await the report of the independent governance review we commissioned with the Foundation, which is likely to recommend changes to the way we operate.

It is important that we learn from this, but also vital that we do not throw away our commitment to openness and transparency.

And in 2013 we must become direct fundraisers again, so that we can effectively participate in the annual fundraiser appeal. This is vital if we are to take advantage of the gift aid we can gain from donations and build close contacts with our donor community.

If you are in London you will always find a welcome in our offices and staff look forward to attending events all over the country.

In the meantime on behalf of everyone at Wikimedia UK have a prosperous and peaceful new year.

New editor training in “the finest stone town in England”

The training event in Stamford, Lincolnshire

That’s how poet Sir John Betjeman once famously described the picturesque town of Stamford, Lincolnshire. Wikimedians recently had the chance to put that claim to the test.

Wikimedia UK received an email a short while ago from Dave Sones of the Stamford Civic Society expressing an interest in learning how to edit Wikipedia. Dave’s idea, along with the Civic Society, was to get together to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of Stamford while creating a digital archive of notable encyclopaedic resources, such as historical documents and images. This drive was given impetus by the recent closure of the local museum and there was a real sense of enthusiasm around the town to share the wonderful resources on their doorstep.

That’s how on Monday 17 December some staff and volunteers from Wikimedia UK arrived at the local college to train a diverse group of local residents, including a sizeable contingent from the Civic Society, on the finer points of what it takes to create and edit content for the largest reference work ever created.

After a light lunch, trainers Katie, Edward and Tom took the group through topics including a background to Wikipedia and its sister projects, how to write and edit content, how to include references, creating user accounts, talk pages and how to add images.

The training was well received and there was a definite determination to put some energy into the freshly-updated project, which you can see here. WMUK will continue working with the Stamford team into the new year. We’re looking forward to seeing the content evolve over the coming months.

And as for Betjeman’s claims? Perhaps you should pay Stamford a visit and judge for yourself!

Wikimedia Commons reaches 15 million files!

You may have heard that Wikimedia Commons, the media file repository which makes available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content, recently reached the landmark of 15 million files donated. To celebrate this achievement, we asked Commons contributor Deryck Chan to write a guest blog about his experiences of using the site. This is below.

I grew up in a densely populated residential district in eastern Hong Kong. When I first stumbled upon Wikipedia in 2004, coverage about my own district was almost non-existent.

So I started writing about my home district. I found that I could also contribute pictures, so I strolled around, took some pictures, and uploaded them too. Other editors then moved them to Wikimedia Commons and told me Commons is the correct place to upload original pictures which I want to contribute to Wikipedia. That’s how I started contributing to Commons.

Over the next two years or so, I filled many more gaps on Wikipedia by uploading my own photographs and drawings onto Commons. Wikipedia was also becoming saturated, and some of my pictures are gradually replaced by higher quality pictures by others, so my contribution tailed off.

Then in 2009 I had the privilege to begin my undergraduate studies at Cambridge University. It soon occurred to me that many people I meet in real life there have Wikipedia articles which lack pictures. So, I started taking pictures of them at whatever social occasion I get to see one of them. The list grew and grew: Duncan Robinson, Lulu Popplewell, Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward, Sir Fred Catherwood… and most recently, 2012 Nobel Laureate John Gurdon. When I tell them I hope to put the picture onto Wikipedia, some of them even told me about mistakes in their articles, which I would promptly amend.

I’m not a Commoner in the sense of making lots of edits to help curate Wikimedia Commons. I simply drop by to contribute the occasional picture. Nevertheless, it is the casual many and the confluence between Wikimedians of different backgrounds that makes Wikimedia Commons so successful as the universal repository of freely licensed media for educational use. I’ve contributed my part to it, and I think you should too.

Wikipedia’s Visual Editor comes one step nearer

The VisualEditor logo

James Forrester of the Wikimedia Foundation made the below announcement about the first stage implementation of a visual editor for the English language Wikipedia. We’re happy to share this announcement with you.

Today we are launching an alpha, opt-in version of the VisualEditor to the English Wikipedia. This will let editors create and modify real articles visually, using a new system where the articles they edit will look the same as when you read them, and their changes show up as they type enter them — like writing a document in a word processor. Please let us know what you think.

Why launch now?

We want our community of existing editors to get an idea of what the VisualEditor will look like in the “real world” and start to give us feedback about how well it integrates with how they edit right now, and their thoughts on what aspects are the priorities in the coming months.

The editor is at an early stage and is still missing significant functions, which we will address in the coming months. Because of this, we are mostly looking for feedback from experienced editors at this point, because the editor is insufficient to really give them a proper experience of editing. We don’t want to promise an easier editing experience to new editors before it is ready.

As we develop improvements, they will be pushed every fortnight to the wikis, allowing you to give us feedback as we go and tell us what next you want us to work on.

How can I try it out?

The VisualEditor is now available to all logged-in accounts on the English Wikipedia as a new preference, switched off by default. If you go to your “Preferences” screen and click into the “Editing” section, it will have as an option labelled “Enable VisualEditor”). Once enabled, for each article you can edit, you will get a second editor tab labelled “VisualEditor” next to the “Edit” tab. If you click this, after a little pause you will enter the VisualEditor. From here, you can play around, edit and save real articles and get an idea of what it will be like when complete.

At this early stage in our development, we recommend that after saving any edits, you check whether they broke anything. All edits made with the VisualEditor will show up in articles’ history tabs with a “VisualEditor” tag next to them, so you can track what is happening.

Things to note

Slow to load – It will take some time for long complex pages to load into the VisualEditor, and particularly big ones may timeout after 60 seconds. This is because pages have to be loaded through Parsoid which is also in its early stages, and is not yet optimised for deployment and is currently uncached. In the future (a) Parsoid itself will be much faster, (b) Parsoid will not depend on as many slow API calls, and (c) it will be cached.

Odd-looking – we currently struggle with making the HTML we produce look like you are used to seeing, so styling and so on may look a little (or even very) odd. This hasn’t been our priority to date, as our focus has been on making sure we don’t disrupt articles with the VisualEditor by altering the wikitext (correct “round-tripping”).

No editing references or templates – Blocks of content that we cannot yet handle are uneditable; this is mostly references and templates like infoboxes. Instead, when you mouse over them, they will be hatched out and a tooltip will inform you that they have to be edited via wikitext for now. You can select these items and delete them entirely, however there is not yet a way to add ones in or edit them currently (this will be a core piece of work post-December).

Incomplete editing – Some elements of “complex” formatting will display and let you edit their contents, but not let users edit their structure or add new entries – such as tables or definition lists. This area of work will also be one of our priorities post-December.

No categories – Articles’ “meta” items will not appear at all – categories, langlinks, magic words etc.; these are preserved (so editing won’t disrupt them), but they not yet editable. Another area for work post-December – our current plan is that they will be edited through a “metadata flyout”, with auto-suggestions and so on.

Poor browser support – Right now, we have only got VisualEditor to work in the most modern versions of Firefox, Chrome and Safari. We will find a way to support (at least) Internet Explorer post-December, but it’s going to be a significant piece of work and we have failed to get it ready for now.

Articles and User pages only – The VisualEditor will only be enabled for the article and user namespaces (so you can make changes in a personal sandbox), and will not work with talk pages, templates, categories, etc.. In time, we will build out the kinds of specialised editing tools needed for non-articles, but our focus has been on articles.

Final point

This is not the final form of the VisualEditor in lots of different ways. We know of a number of bugs, and we expect you to find more. We do not recommend people trying to use the VisualEditor for their regular editing yet. We would love your feedback on what we have done so far – whether it’s a problem you discovered, an aspect that you find confusing, what area you think we should work on next, or anything else, please do let us know.

Communications Data Bill under threat

Wikimedia UK notes that Nick Clegg MP, Deputy Prime Minister, has today spoken out against the draft Communications Data Bill. Mr Clegg has said that the plans need a “fundamental rethink” and that he would block the Bill and pursue plans that ensure “the balance between security and liberty”.

Wikimedia UK, as part of a coalition of groups interested in open access and open source, and backed by Jimmy Wales, called for a review of the Bill. You can read our submission to the public consultation on the Bill here.

It seems that parliament has listened. The committee investigating the Bill has stated that it showed “insufficient attention to the duty to respect the right to privacy” and went “much further than it need or should for the purpose of providing necessary and justifiable official access to communications data”.

But the Home office remains unconvinced of these arguments. We’ll be watching for further developments on the Bill with interest.

Manchester Girl Geeks help to share the world’s knowledge

This post was written by Daria Cybulska, Wikimedia UK’s Events Organiser

“It’s easier than you think!” “We can do it!” It’s self regulating and doesn’t need interventions from a site owner.”

Those are just a few comments from a Manchester Girl Geeks Wikipedia training event held on Sunday 25 November, very kindly hosted by MadLabs. The event brought together experienced Wikipedia editors and 12 Girl Geeks with two aims: to learn how to edit Wikipedia and to improve articles about female scientists, building on the progress made during our Ada Lovelace Day event.

Over the course of the afternoon, many articles were improved and lots of tea enjoyed. There was a really exciting feeling that everyone in the room was learning something new, trainers included. We’re confident that many of the people who attended will continue editing Wikipedia and make valuable contributions to the encyclopaedia. A lot of the participants were also keen to look at future opportunities to work with us, so I am sure we will be taking some exciting co-operations further.

If you’re interested in hosting a Wikipedia training and editing session, or want to help at any future events, please email Daria Cybulska – daria.cybulska-at-wikimedia.org.uk

Thank you to our supporters – an an exclusive event for donors

This post was written by Katherine Bavage, Wikimedia UK’s Fundraising Organiser

As the Fundraising Organiser for Wikimedia UK there is nothing nicer than opening an envelope like I did last week that contained not only a donation, but a brief note. It simply read “Thank you for exisiting!’ The donation was without address, which was a shame, as it would have been nice to write a quick reply along the lines of ‘Same to you too!’

As the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2012 fundraiser kicks off for readers in the UK, it seems a good moment to highlight the vast and generous donor community that has supported Wikimedia UK’s work. 2012 has been a year of highlights for the Wikimedia mission, reaching over 4 million articles in English Language wikipedia, and the launching of Wikidata – the bare bones of stats and structured data that will underpin and strengthen encyclopaedic articles.

Much of this is down to the dedication of the volunteer community, who work so hard to edit, create and safeguard the content of the world’s 6th most read website. However, it is timely to recall the donors, who have helped grow the staff teams that coordinate and support this work, the servers and tech teams that develop site improvements, and who have have funded projects like Wikidata from ‘acorn-to-flourishing-oaks’ stage.

Believe me, as donor and new editor, the feel good factor from seeing your pictures used in a Signpost article or your creating your first article (how ever tiny!) is easily as powerful as donating to support a project you care about. For any Wikimedia UK donors who’ve wanted to take their first steps into the wiki-world, I’d recommend signing up for our donor exclusive editing workshop next week; failing that, keeping your eyes peeled for upcoming events for donors. One of the ways Wikimedia UK will be thanking our donors for existing more in 2013, is by offering them more personal and direct access to involvement in the encyclopaedia and sister projects.

If you have any useful suggestions for how we might do this please do get in touch.

Wikimedia Foundation begins its annual Wikipedia banner fundraiser

UK-based users of Wikipedia will notice fundraising banners across the site for the next few weeks as the Wikimedia Foundation begins its annual fundraising appeal.

The annual fundraiser brings in the resources needed to keep the Wikimedia projects freely available to everyone around the world in their own language, and guarantees that Wikipedia will never have to rely on advertising. Donations help to maintain server infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number of editors, improve and simplify the software that supports our projects, and make Wikipedia accessible globally to billions of people who are just beginning to access the internet.

Please do note that Gift Aid in the United Kingdom is not applicable to donations processed by the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status in the United States, but can be reclaimed on gifts made directly to Wikimedia UK as a registered charity in the UK. If you wish to do so please visit our donation page.

To find out more about the fundraising appeal please visit the Wikimedia Foundation website

Lincoln to host Wikimedia UK AGM and WikiConference 2013

After much review it has been decided that Wikimedia UK’s Annual General Meeting and our WikiConference will take place at Lincoln College Deans Sport and Leisure Centre in Lincoln on Saturday 8 June 2013.

WikiConference UK is Wikimedia UK’s annual conference for volunteers and members. It incorporates talks of interest to the community and the Annual General Meeting of the charity. In 2013 it is being organised by the conference committee, a volunteer committee tasked with working on both WikiConference UK and the Wikimania 2014 bid.

This year we want to build on the success of last year’s conference, to provide a fun and interesting event for UK Wikimedians. The current, draft, programme includes:

A one day conference, including the AGM
Potentially a second day of activities such as a photography contest, editathon, tours etc
Building links with cultural institutions & similar entities
A social event on the Saturday evening for Wikimedians to get to know each other and learn about each other’s projects.

As a host city, Lincoln has plenty to offer, such as its historic cathedral and castle. It also has good transport links, with around half of our members being within two hours’ travel time.

The event is free to attend. A registration page will be created soon but in the meantime if you’d like to express your interest in attending please email Daria Cybulska, Events Organiser, at daria.cybulska-at-wikimedia.org.uk

We’re looking forward to seeing you in Lincoln!

Introducing Richard Nevell, our latest Wikimedia UK staff member!

We’re really happy to be able to welcome Richard Nevell to our team. Richard has joined us to provide valuable admin support. Below, he introduces himself in his own words.

“Hi, I’m Richard Nevell, the new guy at Wikimedia UK. I’ve been involved with the English language Wikipedia since 2006 and was made an admin in 2008. My main focus has been on Wikipedia, but I’ve also edited Wikimedia Commons. On rare occasion I may be seen on other language Wikipedias, but as I’m hopeless with other languages it is usually a case of adding or replacing images on the counterparts of articles I’m working on.

“Outside Wikipedia, I have a BA in Ancient History and Archaeology and an MA in History. In my free time I’m also doing a PhD in Archaeology. I say “outside Wikipedia”, but I often edit in areas related to archaeology and history as I’ve found that putting together an article on a particular subject helps me to wrap my head around it.

“When I saw that Wikimedia UK was looking for help at the office I was eager to help. I’m excited to be involved with the organisation and helping out how I can. So far a power struggle is emerging between myself and Richard Symonds over who gets to be called Richard, and I think I’m losing that battle.”