Event attendees will learn how to add images like this one to Wikimedia Commons
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.
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.
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 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.”
This post was written by Keith Smith from Compass Partnership
As indicated in a previous Wikimedia UK blog post we as Compass Partnership have been invited by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK to review Wikimedia UK governance, and in particular the management by the board of any potential conflicts of interest. We have been asked to make recommendations setting out any practical steps which we think should be taken to strengthen the governance of Wikimedia UK to ensure it conforms with good practice. As part of this review we would be pleased to have community views. If you wish to respond, please would you email your response to the five questions below to us at Compass Partnership at wiki@compassnet.co.uk by Wednesday 28th November 2012.
Wikimedia UK is a charity and company. It is governed by a board of trustee/directors. There are currently six trustees. They are not paid for their work as trustees. The organisation is subject to English charity law and the trustees have established governance codes of conduct. The role of the trustees has been described as planning, setting high level policy, and monitoring performance. The Wikimedia UK Chief Executive reports to them.
In your response, could you indicate to which numbered questions your replies relate.
1. What key things do you think have gone well with the organisational governance of the charity Wikimedia UK?
2. What has not gone so well with its governance?
3. The Charity Commission for England and Wales acknowledge that potential conflicts of interest or loyalty may well arise on a charity trustee board. When they do it is required that they be declared to the board and then appropriately managed by the board. Do you have any comments on how the Wikimedia UK board of trustees appears to have managed any such potential conflicts of interest or loyalty to date?
4. Over the year changes have been made to the Wikimedia UK board and its practices in part to develop the management of any potential conflicts of interest or loyalty on the board and between Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation. In your view are any further changes in this regard to Wikimedia UK governance required, and if so what?
5. Do you have any other comments to offer to aid the future development of the organisational governance of Wikimedia UK as a charity?
If you wish to respond please email your response to wiki@compassnet.co.uk. Your response will be used by Compass Partnership to carry out its independent review of Wikimedia UK’s governance on behalf of Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Parts of your response may be quoted by Compass Partnership in its report to the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK but would not be attributed to you as an individual. The details you provide will not be used by Compass Partnership for marketing purposes or be shared with any other third party.
Wikimedia UK is pleased to announce that we have appointed two contractors to take over the running of our technical resources: Emmanuel Engelhart (User:Kelson) and Tom Morton (User:ErrantX).
Tom and Emmanuel bring a well-balanced mix of technical experience and expertise to Wikimedia UK, including software development, project management and system administrator experience. They are already familiar with developing and maintaining the open-source tools that Wikimedia UK uses on a daily basis, and they also both bring valuable experience of the global Wikimedia movement.
Following the first discussion meeting on Friday, Tom and Emmanuel will first be focusing on transferring the Wikimedia UK websites from the space we currently use on a donated Virtual Private Server to a cloud-based system. They will then be working to improve our systems, including a new email ticketing system and migrating our fundraising systems to Drupal/CiviCRM. You can see their to-do list here.
Their work will be line managed by Jon Davies, with Katherine Bavage acting as their first point of contact on a day-to-day basis. A Wikimedia UK Technology Committeeis being established to provide Jon and Katherine with guidance on Tom and Emmanuel’s contract work, as well as to help define the long-term strategy for increasing our technology infrastructure and development work. If you are interested in being on this committee, please get in touch via the committee’s talk page.
We’re all looking forward to seeing their work at first hand.
This morning The Times ran a story about how staff at the public relations firm RLM Finsbury edited the Wikipedia article on Alisher Usmanov, including removing negative material. The Daily Telegraph also ran with the story online.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and as such its articles should be written with a neutral point of view. To maintain this neutrality we recommend that anyone with a conflict of interest, such as PR professionals, follows the guidelines we created with the CIPR. When PR professionals engage with the volunteer community via talk pages, we almost always see good results. If you need to seek an urgent correction, you can email info-at-wikimedia.org for assistance – there is a volunteer team on hand 24/7 to help.
We are pleased The Times notes that, while it took more than a month for the Wikipedia community to initially spot the changes and undo them, once they were changed again it only took seconds for this to be picked up on and undone once more. This shows that the Wikipedia community is active and that protecting articles from this kind of editing is taken seriously. This is important for Wikipedia’s credibility and for its readers and editors.
We also welcome the CIPR response to these reports. It is clear that the majority of PR professionals are willing to work with the Wikipedia community and to follow the community’s guidelines. Problems arise when PR professionals try to “fix” articles by directly editing them, as this story shows.
Wikimedia UK is always happy to engage with anyone, including PR professionals, about how Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects work. You can contact us by emailing info-at-wikimedia.org.uk or by calling our office on 020 7065 0993.
It’s four years to the day since Wikimedia UK was incorporated. In that time, we’ve achieved many great things. We’ve become a registered charity. We’ve made significant contributions to the global movement. A great many people have become engaged with our projects due to Wikimedia UK initiatives.
All of this is possible because of the hard work and dedication of our volunteers, so today is the perfect time to say a big, heartfelt thank you to everyone who has made a contribution to Wikimedia UK. There will be a celebration at the London Meetup on Sunday 11 November. We hope we to see you there!
The Wikimedia UK GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) working group is now ready to find UK institutions willing to work with us by creating Wikipedian in Residence posts.
Our budget is limited but there is enormous scope to be flexible. These posts could be for one day a week, they could limited term posts, based at home – or full time positions at an institution, like the British Library post. We will of course be pleased to see applications from institutions with whom we have already begun a positive relationship – but please do note that the applications have to be from the institutions, rather than individual volunteers.
Time is very short so we need bids to be received by 5pm on November 15th. Please send your completed form to daria.cybulska – at – wikimedia.org.uk Daria will be convening a panel to make the decisions that will be recommended to the board, hopefully at the meeting of November 17/18. Please also feel free to contact us for more information by emailing Daria or calling our office on 020 7065 0990. If you are having trouble accessing the form please email stevie.benton -at- wikimedia.org.uk
The imagination of the Wikimedia UK community was first ignited by the idea of the Ada Lovelace Day in May 2012. When we found out about it, we immediately decided we had to get involved. Ada Lovelace Day is about sharing stories about women in science that inspired you. However, if a female scientist does not have an article on Wikipedia often it’s difficult to learn about her – hence she cannot serve as a role model for others. So, the idea is to spread the stories about them, and at the same time inspire more women to get involved, not only with Wikipedia, but in maths, science, technology and engineering.
This is one of the issues we wanted to approach with this event – the other is the fact that, proportionally, there aren’t many female editors on Wikipedia. For more background on this you can read a blog from Sue Gardner, Executive Director. By promoting the idea of the Ada Lovelace Day we wanted to take a step in changing this situation. We were able to share that inspiration with the Royal Society in London, who agreed to partner with us for an event on 19 October. This was an ideal match as not only does the Royal Society have a wonderful library, but is also maintaining a network of ‘women in science’. The Society’s library holds a rich collection of printed works about women in science, including biographies and works authored by scientists, which we made great use of during the event.
I was aware that a lot is being done within the movement to increase female participation, but during the course of working on the event I have realised quite how much enthusiasm and collaboration there is to get women editing. Linking up with the Finding Ada movement has been very inspiring too, and we are now connected to many more women that want to support Wikipedia.
The main effort of the event was to run the editing session focused on creating articles about women in science, particularly Royal Society Fellows. We then arranged an evening panel discussion about women in science to give more context to the issues of women’s participation.
Andrew Gray helping during the editathon
To say the event was popular is something of an understatement – we ran out of tickets within a few hours of announcing the event! The amount of participants and their curiosity and willingness to contribute to Wikipedia was extremely encouraging.
It was even more inspiring to see how communities from around the world believed in the importance of what we were doing, so much as to organise their parallel events and link with us online. There were groups in India (led by Netha Hussain), Russia (led by Lvova Anastasia), and the United States (led by Audrey Murray).
During the editathon at the Royal Society, we have created or significantly expanded 20 articles, including Mary Edwards (human computer) and Emily Williamson. This adds to 14 articles that were created even before the event started, thanks to the promotion of the editathon. Many of these are now the first results in the search engines. There were 20 editors present at the Royal Society, most of whom new to Wikipedia. Judging from their tweets throughout the day, they enjoyed the editing and excitement of creating articles immensely. The online participants (of which there were about 25, from UK and abroad), added even further to the pool of created articles. All the information can be found here.
Participants of the editathon
The media seems to have understood the importance of what we are doing, and I have counted 27 pieces of coverage so far (listed here), all stressing both the importance of women engagement and coverage of female related topics on Wikipedia. The articles included pieces in ”Scientific American”, the ”Independent”, the ”Telegraph”, the ”Guardian”, the ”Huffington Post”, BBC (online and on radio with editathon participant Dr Nathalie Pettorelli) and the “Signpost“.
The volunteers who were involved in the editathon made it the unique event that it was. Special thanks to Andrew Gray, Katie Chan, Tom Morris, anyone who joined us online. Also thank you to anyone who had their first go at editing! It all made it a pleasure for me to work on organising the event.
While working on the event, we have been approached by many other groups and individuals really keen to make their contribution to Wikipedia, like the Women’s Library. We hope to get back to all of them – if you are thinking of doing a similar event please get in touch too. There is more work to be done!
