Page 69 – WMUK

Regionarkivet makes images by Francis Bedford and Roger Fenton available on Wikimedia Commons

Excavation at Uriconium by Francis Bedford. Public domain.

On 19 August 2009, Regionarkivet (a municipal archive institution based in Gothenburg, Sweden) and Wikimedia Sverige announced the release of 28 high-quality and high-resolution images onto Wikimedia Commons.

These photographs, all of which are in the public domain due to their age, were taken by some of the most influential photographers of the 19th century.

Amongst the pictures are some taken within the UK by the British architect and photographer Francis Bedford:

A photograph of the northwest tower of Exeter Cathedral
Photographs of the south Nave Aisle, a sculpture on the North West angel and the chantry in the nave of Wells Cathedral
A photograph of the excavation of Viroconium Cornoviorum – a Roman town in Shropshire that was once the 4th largest in Britain (picture right)

Another photograph is of the River Braan in Dunkeld, Scotland, by the pioneering British photographer Roger Fenton.

The Wikimedia Commons page describing the partnership gives the history of the images. “The images were brought to Sweden by architect Victor von Gegerfelt, probably during his visit to France during the 1850s. Among the photographers were Gustave Le Gray, Francis Bedford and Roger Fenton. The originals then hung on the walls of the Gegerfelt villa, where they were largely forgotten, until they were donated to Regionarkivet with other documents and pictures. The photographs were later rediscovered by an employee at the archive, put on display at the Hasselblad centre in Gothenburg.”

Having these images freely available on the internet means that they can be easily viewed by anyone in the UK for the first time. They were previously stored in special, climate-controlled storage vaults in Sweden.

This is a great example of the kind of partnerships that Wikimedia chapters can have with cultural institutions benefitting both sides. Wikimedia UK are keen to engage with institutions in Britain in projects like this – please get in touch if you would like to discuss this further.

British media storm over Wikipedia changes

In the past week we have seen considerable interest from British newspapers, radio and television in the forthcoming trial of Flagged Protection on the English Wikipedia.

Wikipedia logo (Copyright Wikimedia Foundation - Fair use)

Wikimedia UK have fielded more than half dozen enquiries, been quoted in four newspapers, had three radio interviews and two television interviews. The media response has been coordinated by Mike Peel, Chair of Wikimedia UK, helped by David Gerard, volunteer press contact for the Wikimedia Foundation and Andrew Turvey, Wikimedia UK’s secretary. The interest all started from an article in the New York Times on Monday headlined “Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People“. When the story crossed the Atlantic, British media companies started contacting Wikimedia UK rather than the Foundation, so they could have someone local to talk to and in the same time zone.

Much of the news reporting has been exaggerated and misleading, typified by “Newsnight”‘s headline “Is the philosophy of Wikipedia dead?“. Throughout our media work we have tried to give a more accurate and balanced view, explaining the background to the trial and the impact this will have on Wikipedia. We have not proactively contacted the media and have only responded to enquiries as they have come in.

Wikimedia UK takes no position on the ongoing discussions within the community about this trial, and are only concerned to make sure that the media represent the changes fairly and accurately and that potential contributors, users and partners leave with a good impression of the project.

The current status quo on the English Wikipedia, which has been in place for many years, is that when an article receives an above-average amount of vandalism, the article would be “protected”. For vandalism conducted by unregistered users, semi protection would result in all unregistered and new users (New being nothing more than a few days old) being unable to edit an article.

The configuration that is currently planned for a trial of 2 months has two parts. The first is “Flagged Protection”, which will be used in place of protection on some articles on living people. This allows everyone to continue editing, but changes by new users have to be checked by users that have been around for longer. The second is passive “patrolling”, which just serves to make identification of vandalism easier. The first part has been the subject of a great deal of confusion amongst the media (and indeed, amongst Wikipedians); it is easy to confuse applying this tool to a few pages with applying it to all Wikipedia pages.

A list of media within the UK that have covered this story is given below, along with the link between the stories and Wikimedia UK. Please note that some of the links are only valid for seven days.

Television

Newsnight, Tuesday 25th August (link only live for 7 days), 11:20pm – includes interview with David Gerard (Interview only)
Sky News, Wednesday 26th August – interview with David Gerard

Radio

25th: Radio Five Live, 6:40pm – live interview with David Gerard
26th: Radio 2, Chris Evans, 5:30pm – live interview with David Gerard
26th: 4fm (Ireland), Lunchtime on Four (link only live for 7 days), 2:41pm – live interview with Andrew Turvey

Newspapers / Online

25th: BBC – Wikipedia to launch page controls – with quotes from Mike Peel
25th: The Times – Wikipedia to end editing free-for-all – with quotes from Mike Peel
25th: UKPA – Trial editing of Wikipedia entries – with quotes from Mike Peel
26th: Daily Mail – The Wikipedia police: Encyclopedia site recruits 20,000 editors to stop malicious tampering with entries – no contact with WMUK
26th: The Telegraph – Wikipedia ends unrestricted editing of articles – no contact with WMUK
27th: The Independent – The Big Question: Why has Wikipedia changed editorial policy, and will it improve the website? – quote from Mike Peel

Wikipedia Loves Art – Prizes

Earlier this year, the Victoria & Albert Museum and Wikimedia UK took part in “Wikipedia Loves Art”, a free content photography contest.

: V&A Museum – Image via Wikipedia (PD)

We had over 30 people attend the Victoria and Albert event, and over 460 photographs submitted to Flickr. Globally, more than 50 teams from fourteen museums submitted over 5,000 photographs, with London submitting the second highest number of photographs from any location.

All of these photographs have now been assessed and processed and are now being prepared for upload to Wikimedia Commons and use on Wikipedia. We can now announce the winners from the V&A, as follows:

First place: vavaval (Val_McG and dj_photo0 with 142 points

Second place: opalartseekers4 (Forever Wiser) with 88 points

Third place: ukfgr (the wee pixie and mrsraggle) with 82 points

Forth place: veronikab with 75 points

An image from the winning team (CC-BY-SA) — image from the winning team (CC-BY-SA)

Vavaval win a large print of one of their photos on soft textured fine art paper, courtesy of Robbies Photographics, plus two tickets to a V&A exhibition of their choice.

The four winners also win a pack from moo.com comprising 50 Business Cards and 20 Postcards featuring photographs of their choice.

We are contacting the winners individually with details of how to claim their prizes.

The Digital Team at the V&A and Wikimedia UK really appreciate the effort that all the teams made to photograph so many objects as well as the time they spent uploading their work.

Thank you for your patience with us whilst we have processed these photographs, and we hope you enjoyed participating in this event. If you have any comments about this event or how it could be improved in the future, please let us know.

Our thanks to the Brooklyn Museum, the Digital Team at the V&A, Wikimedia New York, our sponsors, moo.com and Robbies Photographics and all the people who participated in the event.

Welcome to the Wikimedia UK blog!

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Welcome to the blog of Wikimedia UK, the chapter of the Wikimedia projects covering the United Kingdom. We’ll be using this blog to bring you news and information both about Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia projects within the UK in general.

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