Call for Proposals – Wikimedia track at the Open Knowledge Conference 2010

This year Wikimedia UK is partnering with the Open Knowledge Foundation in the organisation of the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference (“OKCon”), an interdisciplinary conference that brings together individuals from across the open knowledge spectrum for a day of presentations and workshops.

At this year’s conference, Wikimedia UK will be supporting and organising a track dedicated to the projects and communities central to Wikimedia.

We need your help to create an exciting and interesting track that will inspire and challenge Wikimedians and others alike. Could you give a presentation or host a discussion on a Wikimedia theme? Any subject relevant to the Wikimedia communities, free content or Wikimedia UK are welcome.

Timeline

  • February 25 (Thursday): Submissions will open
  • March 28 (Sunday) 23:59 UTC: Closure of submission dates
  • April 7 (Wednesday): Notification of acceptance of submission
  • April 24 (Saturday): Open Knowledge Conference 2010

If you wish to participate but with good reason cannot meet one of the above deadlines please email conferencesatwikimedia.org.uk before the deadline as it may be possible to accomodate late submissions

Themes

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

  • Wikimedia Communities – Interesting projects and characteristics within the communities; policy creation; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and identity; multilingualism, languages and cultures; the development of Wikimedia UK.
  • Free Content – Open access to information; ways to gather and distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in education, journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and usability; copyright laws and their interaction with Wikimedia projects.
  • Culture and Heritage – Ideas for potential partnerships, building on previous partnerships and the legal, technical and resource issues that are barriers to such partnerships.
  • Technical infrastructure – Issues related to MediaWiki development and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; the Toolserver; the Usability Project; new ideas for development (including Usability case studies from other wikis or similar projects).

Submission Guidelines

Please email submissions to conferencesatwikimedia.org.uk.

Please email the following details, all in English:

  • Title:
  • Theme: Closest category from above for your submission.
  • Abstract: 50-100 words summarising the topic
  • Summary: Detailed description of the topic – 300 words or more. May contain a link to a more details.
  • Contact information: Email/Telephone and whether we may publish these details
  • Additional Information:
  • 1-3 sentence biography of the author(s).
  • any special requirements (e.g. flipchart; OHP. A digital presentation will be assumed as standard)
  • whether you will attend the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference (a) definitely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted.

Call for proposals for Wikimedia UK initiatives

The Wikimedia UK board has been putting together a budget for the next year (You can see this, and help with its development, here) and we have some money left over. We are looking for proposals for projects/iniatives with budget requirements in the range of £100-£3000 (GBP). These projects can be either online or offline, but they should be primarily focused on the UK and they must further the objects of Wikimedia UK (broadly, to collate/develop/spread freely licensed material).

The deadline for proposals is the end of this month (i.e. 0:00 UTC on 1 March 2010). You can submit proposals on our wiki.

The information we need to know is:
– What the project would be, in a paragraph of two
– What the benefits would be, again in a paragraph or two
– What requirements it has, in terms of a financial budget and any other resources. The budget should give a rough breakdown of what the money would be spent on.
– What volunteer time it requires, and how much time you can spend on the project. You would be expected to take an active role in implementing the project.
– Contact details – you should have a registered account on our wiki that we can send emails to (note that single-user login is enabled, so your wikipedia account will work).

You do not have to be a member of Wikimedia UK to submit a proposal, although that would be preferable (membership is open to all, so you can always join – particularly if your proposal goes forward. 😉 ). Preference will also be given to active Wikimedians, although that is not a requirement.

We plan to set aside a budget for smaller grants (<£100), which we will be calling for proposals for later this year.

Please get in touch if you have any questions, and please share this with anyone else that you think might be interested.

Wikimedia Commons reaches 6 million files with the upload of 250,000 Geograph images


Sailing on Ullswater—the six millionth file on Wikimedia Commons. Credit: James Hearton.

Around 250,000 images from the Geograph British Isles Project have recently been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. One of these is a picture of a beautiful landscape setting, featuring sailing on Ullswater in the Lake District—which has become the six millionth file on Wikimedia Commons. This comes less than five months since Wikimedia Commons reached 5 million images.

Wikimedia Commons is now one of the fastest growing and most popular Wikimedia projects. Mass uploads such as the images from the Geograph project have been happening in increasing numbers recently, including material from museums and archives, photographs released by US government departments and images from competitions like Britain Loves Wikipedia. In anticipation of further growth of the project, the Wikimedia Foundation have recently trebled the disk space available.

All Geograph images are available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license, which means that they can be uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons and reused freely by everyone. These 250,000 files are only the start—Geograph has over 1.6 million freely licensed images from across the UK available. See the Geograph category on Wikimedia Commons for all of the images uploaded so far.

Britain Loves Wikipedia

Join Wikipedia in photographing and celebrating Britain’s cultural heritage in museums, galleries and archives nationwide

29 January 2010, UK: ‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’ is a month-long competition and series of events to be held in participating museums nationwide from 31 January 2010. People from all ages, backgrounds and communities can take part in the competition, which encourages the public to photograph the treasures of our nation’s museums and galleries, actively involving them in digitally recording the collections. All of the photos entered into the ‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’ competition will be made available under a free license on Wikimedia Commons, and can then be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles.

Museums, Libraries and Archives Council Chief Executive Roy Clare said, “‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’ provides a stimulating opportunity for museums and Wikipedia to work more closely together for the benefit of the public. This new collaboration enables museums to bring their collections, scholarship and expertise even closer to audiences in digital environments. Wikipedia provides a vivid forum for engaging public interest in the stories within collections held in museums across the country. MLA is very pleased to support this initiative and welcomes the development of partnerships between museums and Wikimedia.”

Chair of Wikimedia UK, Michael Peel, said, “Museum collections hold a vast range of objects that have great cultural significance and enhance our knowledge of our origins but are not as well covered on Wikipedia as they deserve to be. With ‘Britain Loves Wikipedia’, we hope to increase the number of photographs on Wikipedia for the world to share, enjoy and learn from.”

The celebration begins at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on Sunday 31st January from 11.00 am to 4.00 pm in the Sackler Centre; everyone is welcome to come along and take part. Short talks from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Wikimedia UK and the Collections Trust will take place at 11.30 am, accompanied by free tea, coffee, and refreshments, with plenty of time in the afternoon to explore the museum and photograph its collections!

Gail Durbin, Head of Online Museum at the Victoria and Albert Museum, said, “Britain Loves Wikipedia is an innovative way for amateur (or professional) photographers to make things in museums accessible to more people. We are delighted to be hosting Britain’s photography community at the kickoff event and look forward to seeing creative new images of our objects.”

Britain Loves Wikipedia then continues with:

  • On the 6th/7th February, the Museum of Army Flying in Hampshire will be offering free entry to photographers as well as free tea or coffee, and will be allowing flash and tripod photography.
  • Nottingham Natural History Museum is hosting a “Britain Loves Wikipedia Day” on 11 February, where they will be bringing out a selection of biological and geological objects from their stores and making them available for photography in the museum’s Great Hall (situated in the main Wollaton Hall building.) Objects will include examples of taxidermy (reptiles, birds, mammals) skeletal material, and invertebrates from the biology collections, and various rocks, minerals and fossils from the geology collections. Booking is essential.
  • The Manchester Museum is running “Darwin’s 201st Birthday Bash Big Saturday” on 13 February (book ahead or on the day); as part of this they will be making objects from their zoology, palaeontology, entomology, botany and geology collections available for photography in the Museum’s Resource Centre on the 3rd floor gallery.
  • John Muir’s Birthplace and Preston Grange Museum will strike a romantic note for Valentines Day, hosting “East Lothian Photographers LOVE Wikipedia!” These host museums are opening up specially for photographers, and are providing a warm Scottish welcome with free tea and coffee to all participants, as well as tours and guides around the museums.
  • Mill Green Museum will be running “Mill Green Loves Wikipedia” on the afternoon of 16 February – come along to explore the range of, and changes in, the working days of local people.
  • Bedford Museum will be giving photographers the opportunity to see behind the scenes at thir stores on the 18 February, including a sneak preview their upcoming exhibition ‘Clocking-In’, an exhibition of the working day. Places are limited; booking is essential.
  • On the 20th February, The British Postal Museum & Archive will open the doors of its Museum Store in Debden, Essex to photographers. The British Postal Museum Store houses a variety of objects including letterboxes, telephone kiosks, postal vehicles, sorting machinery and the desk of Sir Rowland Hill (founder of the penny post). Refreshments will be available to participants and flash photography and tripods are welcome.

Throughout February, you can visit the following museums to take part in the Britain Loves Wikipedia competition:

Prizes include a WikiReader – a copy of the entire English Wikipedia in your pocket. The best photograph from each RAF Museum site will receive £100 worth of goods from the Museum’s shop. The best photograph taken at The British Postal Museum & Archive’s Museum Store will receive a trio of DVD box sets celebrating the work of the acclaimed GPO Film Unit, valued at £75. More prizes will be announced at the launch event on the 31st January.

Britain Loves Wikipedia is organized by Wikimedia UK in collaboration with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Collections Trust, Culture 24 and Museums Galleries Scotland. Full information is available at http://www.britainloveswikipedia.org/. An initial event in February 2009 at the Victoria and Albert created over 300 photographs now available on Wikipedia. In June 2009, Wiki Loves Art in The Netherlands created over 10,000 photographs taken at 46 Dutch museums.

EDITORS’ NOTES

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting the projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It was started on 7 September 2004, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It currently contains over 5.5 million freely licensed images and media files.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia, one of the world’s 10 most-visited websites, and Wikimedia Commons.

Further information:
Contact details:

Michael Peel, Chair, Wikimedia UK

  • Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
  • Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Mary Rose Trust releases photographs onto Wikipedia

The final stages of the salvage of the sixteenth-century carrack Mary Rose on 11 October 1982. Image released onto Wikipedia by the Mary Rose Trust, and restored by a Wikimedia volunteer.

3 January 2010, UK: The Portsmouth-based Mary Rose Trust have released a number of photographs relating to the salvaged sixteenth-century warship Mary Rose onto Wikipedia. This is the first such image donation by a UK-based organisation.

“Making content available on Wikimedia is a fantastic way to increase the visibility of our cultural heritage,” Mike Peel, Chair of Wikimedia UK, says. “These images can now be seen by the millions of people around the world that regularly read and edit Wikipedia and its sister projects.”

The donation consists of 57 high resolution, previously unpublished photographs, some of which were taken specially for Wikipedia. It complements a substantial rewrite and expansion of the Wikipedia article on the Mary Rose, driven by the work of a Wikimedia volunteer from Sweden, Peter Isotalo. Two photographs are of the final stages of the salvage operation on 11 October 1982; the first time the Mary Rose had been above water since it sank on 19 July 1545. The remainder show sixteenth-century artefacts, including weapons, tools and personal items, recovered from the Mary Rose during its salvage.

After its recent expansion, the article on the Mary Rose will be prominently linked from the Did you know… section of the front page of Wikipedia on 4 January; this page routinely receives over four million visits each day. In addition, it is on course to become a “Featured Article”, one of the best on Wikipedia, and thus eligible to be the main featured article on Wikipedia’s front page.

Wikimedia UK is currently organising Britain Loves Wikipedia, a free photography contest to be held in participating museums across the UK throughout February, with the resulting images being used to illustrate Wikipedia articles. Previous content partnerships with Wikimedia in other countries have included the Bundesarchiv and Deutsche Fotothek in Germany, the Tropenmuseum in The Netherlands, Regionarkivet in Sweden and Queensland Museum, Australia. Wikimedia UK encourages more cultural organisations to make their images, audio recordings or videos freely available to the public on Wikimedia Commons.

EDITORS’ NOTES

About the Mary Rose:

The Mary Rose, once the pride of King Henry VIII‘s navy, was raised by the the Mary Rose Trust from the bottom of the Solent just off Portsmouth in 1982, 437 years after it accidentally foundered while engaging a French fleet. The project of salvaging the ship was a major undertaking and proved to be a milestone within the field of maritime archaeology. When the Mary Rose sunk, the ship and its contents were sealed off by layers of clay and sediment thereby becoming a time capsule of sixteenth-century Tudor England. The thousands of artefacts found when the ship was excavated and raised have provided important clues to the life of the men of all classes that served on her during the 1540s, about shipbuilding, naval warfare and countless other fields.

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It was started on 7 September 2004, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It currently contains over 5.5 million freely licensed images and media files.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting the projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia, one of the world’s ten most-visited websites, and Wikimedia Commons.

Further information:

Contact details:

Michael Peel, Chair, Wikimedia UK

  • Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
  • Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Charles Barker, Managing Director of the Archaeological Services, Mary Rose Trust

  • Email: c.barker@maryrose.org

Wikipedia celebrates Public Domain Day on 1st January

31 December 2009, UK

What do Howard Carter, discoverer of the famed tomb of King Tutankhamen, novelist Ford Madox Ford, and sexologist Havelock Ellis all share in common? They all died in 1939. On New Year’s Day 2010 all their works enter the public domain in the UK and become free for any use.

Each year the opening of Public Records in Britain is a well-publicised event; the press pore over interesting items replacing decades-old speculation with facts. There is a lesser-known addition to Britain’s cultural commons; all authors and artists who died seventy years ago have their work freed of copyright restrictions. In the digital age, their works can be re-used and adapted in many more ways: paintings can be reproduced and turned into new artwork; novels can be adapted and retold; text can be freely downloaded to e-book readers – a best selling item this Christmas – and anyone can create audio versions.

Creative works in the public domain are the backbone of our rich cultural heritage. Nursery rhymes are adapted for modern themes, fairy tales turned into Hollywood blockbusters and hymns reprinted for church congregations to sing. The addition of new creative works to this heritage renews and reinvigorates our culture.

Wikimedia UK anticipates January 1, “Public Domain Day”, 2010 being a great year for additions to the digital Wikimedia Commons. The poetry of W. B. Yeats, the works of Sigmund Freud, and Arthur Rackham‘s classic children’s book illustrations all enter the public domain. When the complexities of copyright no longer encumber reuse of old works, a work that has been a “sleeper” can become a new classic. Perhaps the definitive example of this is “It’s a Wonderful Life“, the 1946 Frank Capra film that became a Christmas classic in the 1980s.

Wikimedia UK promotes the uploading of copyright-free text to Wikisource, a sister site to Wikipedia, so that it can be widely enjoyed. Audio recordings of public domain works may be added to the Wikimedia Commons site, and Wikimedia UK invites you to join us and help digitise and preserve our common cultural heritage. You can make it available for everyone to share, build on, and simply enjoy.

EDITORS’ NOTES

Copyright law:

Please note that Wikimedia UK does not give legal advice. Information on copyright law and public domain can be found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 as amended by the The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995.

About Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website with 345 million visitors worldwide. Read by around 40% of UK web users, it is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, a US charity. Wikipedia is collaboratively written by over 100,000 active volunteers world wide and all material is published under a free license.

About Wikisource:

Wikisource is a repository of free texts (literary, reference and general), and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. It was started on 24 November 2003, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is another sister project to Wikipedia. It was started on 7 September 2004 and currently hosts more than 5 million images. UK works are accepted if they are released by the copyright owners under an eligible free license or if they are in the public domain under both US and UK law.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Further information:
Contact details:

Michael Peel, Chair, Wikimedia UK

  • Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
  • Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Andrew Turvey, Secretary, Wikimedia UK

  • Email: secretary@wikimedia.org.uk
  • Phone: +44 (0)7754 881 562

Support Wikimedia UK – Donate now!

The Wikimedia Projects
The Wikimedia Projects

Wikimedia UK, in conjunction with the Wikimedia Foundation, recently started its first fundraiser. So far we have raised over £9,000 and hope to raise several times that much before the fundraiser ends in January. That money will enable us to run various initiatives to improve Wikipedia and its sister projects and increase access to them. One of the initiatives we have planned is to go into British schools to teach pupils and teachers how to make the most of Wikipedia and to encourage them to contribute to the project. Wikipedia needs constant work to keep it up-to-date and growing and introducing a new generation to the project will enable it to keep going for years to come.

Another initiative the money we are now raising will enable us to run is “Britain Loves Wikipedia“. We will be working with museums all over the country to help and encourage volunteers to photograph exhibits and make those photographs available for use via Wikimedia Commons in Wikipedia articles and elsewhere. We will also be co-hosting a conference with the Open Knowledge Foundation where people interested in making knowledge available to everyone will come from all over the country and the world to discuss and spread the word about free and open knowledge projects like Wikipedia.

If you would like to support these initiatives and help us make Wikipedia as great as we know it can be, please donate by going to http://donate.wikimedia.org.uk. Thank you!

Wikipedia Loves Art at the V&A – Photos on Commons

Facade
Image via Wikipedia (PD)

Earlier this year, a Wikipedia Loves Art event – a free content photography contest – was held at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Over 30 people attended the event at the Victoria and Albert, which generated 326 photographs.

These photographs are now available on Wikimedia Commons, ready for use in Wikipedia articles. Please help categorize them on Commons so that they can easily be found, and also add them to appropriate Wikipedia articles!

We’re currently organizing next February’s event. Britain Loves Wikipedia will be a nation-wide event held in a number of museums, again in the popular photography contest style. Please help develop the event online, and spread the word!

Open Knowledge Conference & WMUK AGM

okconpng

Wikimedia UK and the Open Knowledge Foundation are partnering to run the 2010 Open Knowledge Conference, planned to be held next April. The Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) is a not-for-profit organization aiming to promote open content and open data, founded in 2004. In conjunction with this event, Wikimedia UK will also be holding our AGM.

As part of this partnership, we are looking for volunteers who would be interested in the organisation of the conference. The two committees that have been formed to organise the conference so far are as follows:
  • Organising commitee – This committee will be responsible for organising the venue, materials, call for participation, seeking sponsors etc. No prior experience is need in conference organising, just the ability to have some good ideas and to work in a team.
  • Research track committee – This committee will be responsible for selecting research papers about “open knowledge” for the conference research track. Reasearch experience is recommended, although not required and it does not have to be in open knowledge.
You can be a member of more than one committee so if you are interested in helping out, please email conferences@wikimedia.org.uk. If your not a member of Wikimedia UK but would like to help out, please read http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Membership with regards to joining the chapter.

Joseph Seddon
Conference Director
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Milestone: 5 Years, 5 Million Media Files on Wikimedia Commons

A mosaic of 1,200 of the 5 million media files, forming the Wikimedia logo

2 September 2009, The Internet: Wikimedia Commons, one of the largest free media repositories on the Internet, reached the 5 million media files milestone today. Created just five years ago as a common repository of images for the different language versions of Wikipedia, it has grown to include video, animation, sound, and graphics files. Today, it is used by Wikipedias in over 270 languages as well as Wiktionaries (dictionaries), Wikibooks (textbooks), and other projects in multiple languages. With all content freely licensed, media from Commons are used by other individuals and groups including bloggers and news, education, and commercial organisations. The repository is the product of an international collaboration of over 800,000 volunteers, 20,000 of whom are currently active.

The media files come from a wide range of sources, from personal photography by Wikimedia Commons users to images from public archives. Everyone from every path of life can contribute to the repository, increasing the amount of public domain and freely-licensed educational media content available to the world.

One of over 1,700 featured pictures, and the winner of the “Commons Picture of the Year” competition in 2008

Wikimedia Commons started 5 years ago this month. It reached 4 million media files a mere 6 months ago, on 4 March 2009, after taking 8 months to go from 3 to 4 million files. Amongst the 5 million files are 1,700 “featured” pictures — the very finest on Wikimedia Commons.

In the last year, Wikimedia Commons has seen several substantial donations of media files. In December 2008, Bundesarchiv (the German Federal Archive) donated nearly 100,000 images. In March 2009, the State and University Library Dresden announced that they will donate nearly 250,000 images, which are in the process of being uploaded. These donations have been mutually beneficial: the archives have benefited from the work of Wikimedia volunteers in categorising these images, checking their descriptions, linking them with appropriate metadata and adding the images to Wikipedia articles. This has led to increased visibility of their works, and a substantial increase in visitors to their websites and the archives’ sales of prints.

An image of the excavation at Uriconium, Shropshire, taken by Francis Bedford, donated by Regionarkivet and digitally restored by a Wikimedia volunteer

In August 2009, Regionarkivet (Sweden) donated high-resolutions scans of 27 images by important 19th century photographers to Wikimedia Sverige and Wikimedia Commons. These included works by the British photographers Francis Bedford and Roger Fenton.

Wikimedia Commons is also currently receiving influxes of nearly 10,000 media files from two recent free photography competitions of public domain works held by museums: Wikipedia Loves Art was held in museums world-wide, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Wiki Loves Art was held in museums across the Netherlands. Wikimedia UK is currently planning Britain Loves Wikipedia, a similar event to take place in museums across the UK, aimed at making Britain’s cultural heritage more visible, available freely across the world via the internet.

EDITORS’ NOTES

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It was started on 7 September 2004, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is the local Wikimedia chapter covering the United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting the projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia, one of the world’s 10 most-visited websites, and Wikimedia Commons.

Further information:

Contact details:

Andrew Turvey, Secretary, Wikimedia UK

  • Email: secretary@wikimedia.org.uk
  • Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Paul Williams, Volunteers Director, Wikimedia UK

  • Phone: +44 (0)7979 804 715