Friends' Newsletter/2022/Issue 02
Welcome to the Friends' Newsletter, 2022/Issue 02
The Wikimedia UK team is feeling the festival theme of Wikimania this month, as we’re working with so many fantastic people and projects, some of which are featured in this newsletter. Have a look at the stunning results of the Wiki Loves Earth photography competition, which ran across Ireland and Wales. Watch the Celtic Knot videos on building communities around indigenous and minority languages. Meet our new trustees, who were elected to the board at our AGM in July. Join us in congratulating the Wikimedian of the Year, Partner of the Year, and Up and Coming Wikimedian of the Year. And find out more about the fantastic projects run by our community.
We're also delighted to announce that Jimmy Wales presented Wikimedia UK with the Affiliate Spotlight Award at the global Wikimedian of the Year Awards, announced at Wikimania 2022. We are all very proud of this award, which recognised our work to diversify the charity's leadership and governance, as an integral part of our commitment to knowledge equity.
Summer events round up
Wikimania
We took part in Wikimania 2022 as one of the satellite events. Over the 12th and 13th August we met at Newspeak House in London to listen to a number of talks from our community, run wiki-clinics, training, editing events and other workshops, and celebrate the UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards. It was such a treat to see many of our community members in person, and a great chance to reconnect. See the list of talks and watch some of them on the meta page here. The UK's 2022 Award Winners were as follows:
2022 Wikimedian of the Year
Lucy Moore
Last year's Up and Coming Wikimedian of the Year, Lucy Moore is a skilled Wikipedian and outstanding advocate for the Wikimedia movement. As an editor she works with WikiProject Women in Red, supporting their initiatives, and works to improve Wikipedia's diversity and inclusion as a platform, across class, gender, disability and race. As well as contributing to Wikimedia projects directly, Lucy engages with Wikimedia in professional and academic contexts, organising events, advocating for engagement with Wikimedia, and supporting others in their efforts. She has shared her insight and knowledge with Wikimedia UK staff in support of our work with the heritage sector, which is very much appreciated.
Honourable Mention - James Boyes
James Boyes is a photographer who donates his work to the commons by openly licensing his photographs. James' photographs often document the matches of Lewes FC - first and only gender-equal club in the world - and the teams they play against. His photographs have made a substantive change to improving the visibility of women footballers on Wikipedia and helping grow women's football.
2022 Partnership of the Year
WCCwiki
For six years, the Women's Classical Committee have been working to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women in the classics. They created the #WCCwiki initiative, with classicists meeting regularly to close Wikipedia's gender gap in their field. The group have organised training events, have widely shared their work to encourage other to participate, and shared their experience with their peers. Collectively, they have transformed Wikipedia's coverage of classicists and are an outstanding example of how sustained work with a community can create change on Wikipedia.
Honourable Mention - National Galleries of Scotland and the Fruitmarket Gallery
The National Galleries of Scotland and the Fruitmarket Gallery are a joint Honourable Mention this year. Their work has been responsive to the challenges of 2022 and aligned with Wikimedia UK's aims. NGS experimented with virtual volunteering, a project which has been extended as a result of its success, while the Fruitmarket Gallery's focus on improving articles about artists of colour is an important expression of knowledge equity.
2022 Up and Coming Wikimedian
Kirsty Ross
Kirsty Ross's efforts in the Wikimedia movement are geared towards helping others and bringing people together. She has trained people, had excellent ideas for events and has established the IDEA Network (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in Open Knowledge Network) at the University of St Andrews. The principles behind the IDEA Network especially resonate with Wikimedia UK's work, and Kirsty's efforts as a community activator are invaluable.
Honourable Mention - Karen Bowman
Karen Bowman is an enthusiastic Wikipedia editor, who first became involved in editing through an event at the University of Edinburgh. Since then, Karen has been involved in events for Women in Red, the Devil’s Porridge Museum, and the Scots Wikipedia amongst others. We are grateful to Karen and those who donate their time to edit Wikipedia and its sister sites.
Annual General Meeting
At our virtual AGM on Saturday 9th July, all three candidates who stood for election received support from the majority of voting members, and will be joining the Board of Trustees for Wikimedia UK. These are:
- Adrian Beidas (currently member of the Audit and Risk Committee)
- Sangeet Bhullar (Trustee since 2019, standing for re-election as per our Articles)
- Vivian Wineman
All the ordinary resolutions proposed by the board were supported. There were no special resolutions.
Four new Honorary Memberships were awarded to the following recipients, for their significant contribution to the work of the charity:
- Josie Fraser
- Melissa Highton
- Magnus Manske
- Nick Poole
Celtic Knot
The Celtic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference aims to bring people together to share their experiences of working on sharing information in minority and minoritised languages on the Wikimedia projects. Our aim is to help people learn how to direct the flow of information across language barriers and support their communities. As in previous years we had a strong focus on Wikidata and its potential to support languages.
The people working on growing and maintaining their communities (on Wikipedia, but also Wikisource or Wikidata) met to learn from and support each other on topics like community growth, technical tools, or collaboration with partners.
Driven by the vision of Wikimedia UK, and supported by local partners and fellow Wikimedia chapters, Celtic Knot conference has now taken place for six years running, including two online events. In each of the first five years, the conference spotlighted a language or language family, with participants learning more about the cultural context as well as the state of the Wikimedia projects in these languages. The 2022 edition - led by Wikimedia UK with support from Wikimedia Deutschland - introduced a broader approach, with an emphasis on skills development for a diverse group of participants. You can watch the video pool on Meta.
Climate and environment
Wiki Loves Earth
Wales and Ireland took part in the Wiki Loves Earth photography competition in 2022. The aim of the event is to highlight the conservation areas of the participating countries, with the goal to encourage people to photograph these sights, and to put them under a free licence which can then be re-used not only on Wikipedia but everywhere by everyone.
- Partners: The Welsh Government, all three National Parks: Eryri (Snowdonia), Pembrokeshire and the Brecon Beacons, Ramblers (Cymru), Natural Resource Wales, Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd and Llên Natur.
- 5,040 photos taken of Welsh nature
- 528 photos of Irish nature
COP27
Building on the Wikimedia events delivered around COP26, we are now planning activities for COP27 in November. We will be collaborating with The International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC) on an online editathon, following the event led by Richard Nevell and Ian Watt for COP26.
DecarboN8
The challenge of reaching net zero carbon by 2050 requires decarbonising transport with systems-level solutions. DecarboN8 brings together researchers, policymakers, innovators and communities to collaborate on rapidly implementing these solutions. They work across four themes to produce high-quality evidence in the form of case studies, policy briefs and academic publications. We are providing support to a network of universities, local authorities, and companies to get this information on the Wikimedia projects. So far 1.47K words have been added to Wikipedia articles.
Climatepolicyradar
A not-for-profit holding the largest database of climate policies, Climatepolicyradar act as a resource for policy makers who are looking for information on a wide range of environmental policies. We are in discussions with them to contribute their data to expand Wikidata with detailed climate policy information, and also find ways Wikidata can feed back into their own work of influencing policy.
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum’s Data Portal has 5,181,555 photographs of their collection of 80 million specimens. The photos are openly licensed, and we’ve been working with the museum to upload the collection to Wikimedia Commons. Almost every plant and animal type is represented, showing the history of 4.5 billion years of life on earth, and our solar system.
Knowledge equity
Decolonising Wikipedia Network
Since November 2020, the Decolonising Wikipedia Network has been supporting students and staff to play an active role in the decolonisation of knowledge, and editing Wikipedia as a form of knowledge activism. The network's website contains examples of Wikipedia editing done by students and staff, and resources for editors who would like to try decolonising Wikipedia sessions. It also includes videos of discussions about London's colonial history, with a number of guest speakers from organisations with knowledge that's not yet represented on Wikipedia, for example the National Archives, the London Metropolitan Archives, and UCL's project on British slavery. The Data Science students have also contributed a video on how to look into the topic with a data science lens.
Vocal Eyes
A member of our Programmes Team has joined a crowdsourcing project to collect information on how accessible heritage sites are for the blind and partially sighted. The group is collecting data at present, and when they have completed their research it will be shared on Wikidata.
Manar al-Athar photo archive internship
The Manar al-Athar photo archive contains images from archaeological sites in the Middle East and North Africa. For a one week period at the end of June, two student interns added links to the archive to Wikipedia. This had the benefit of directing readers to a valuable online resource. The archive is interested in repeating the activity in the future.
Science Museum Group (SMG) Wikimedian in Residence
With the project winding up we are looking at final reporting and a sense of what’s been achieved, changed and the challenges we’ve faced. This report will produce a set of recommendations for the Science Museum Group for changes after the project. In this quarter we’ve succeeded in having more image collections released on open licences compatible with Wikimedia projects.
We’ve been working with Dr Alice White of the Wellcome Trust on uploading images from the Medicine Galleries which are the property of the Wellcome but on long term loan to SMG. This represents the difficult challenge of expressing ownership and copyright status clearly. But also, ensuring the metadata and descriptions are appropriate, considering the religious or sacred nature of some of the objects photographed.
Connected Heritage
The Connected Heritage team continues to deliver an outstanding series of webinars and editathons.
Leah delivered a workshop for the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) as part of their Routes of Social Change project, which highlights the social history of North East England. The WEA were one of the earliest organisations to become involved with Connected Heritage, and the aim of the workshop was to repurpose some of the research conducted through the project. The team is also planning a workshop for Wheal Martyn Clay Works. During this month we had conversations with the Mixed Museum about building on our successful collaborations. We will be proceeding with a mini-Wikimedian in Residence project with the Mixed Museum, picking up in the second half of 2022.
There were interesting conversations with librarians at King’s College London and University College London. King’s College is especially interested in sharing images on Wikimedia Commons, and we will provide support including instructional information we have prepared for partners, and tools to measure impact. If a strong under-represented heritage angle emerges, especially with a focus on gender, we may provide further active support. The UCL librarians are interested in wide-ranging work including Wikidata activities.
Leah and Lucy represented the Connected Heritage project at the Museum Tech conference hosted at the Museum of London on 30th June. With support from the comms team, Leah and Lucy developed a leaflet to use at the event and had useful conversations about the project. Two project partners - the Mixed Museum and Queer Britain - were represented amongst speakers at the conference. The CH team also delivered a workshop as part of DCDC 2022 in July building on the template used at previous events, with a new focus on Wikimedia Commons information.
British Library Wikimedian in Residence
Lotus Sutras
Lucy Hinnie, Wikimedian in Residence at the British Library, and Stella Wisdom, Digital Curator at the Library, have been working with staff to upload images of the Lotus Sutra to Wikimedia Commons. The project had an intern from UCL relabelling images, Xiaoyan Yang, whose blog you can read here.
Bookbindings
Library staff are pursuing copyright permissions from the Library to get more images up onto Commons. Lucy has suggested that the Lotus Sutras project style could be replicated to get the bindings on Wikidata. Both projects are ongoing.
Scotland
Virtual volunteering with the National Galleries of Scotland
In collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland, we have launched a new virtual volunteering project. The five volunteers we’ve recruited will create and improve articles about women connected to the Scottish Collection at the galleries. Artists such as Susan Fletcher, featured here.
Scots Wikipedia
Writing Drives for the Scots Wikipedia took place in May and July. In collaboration with the Scots Language Centre, we focused on Scottish inventions and notable buildings, and the Scots articles related to them. Since August 2020 we've run 11 editathons, engaging 115 editors, and editing over 3200 articles.
#ChangeTheStory
We partnered with Care International UK and Women In Red to highlight the gender gap on Wikipedia. As the Lionesses won the UEFA cup, we were spreading the word that only 6% of Wikipedia’s biographies on footballers were about women. As part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we are focusing our effort on female stand up comedians and performers.
Global movement
UK government to protect internet access in Russia
On the 30th May, the UK government made a major decision to protect access to the free and open internet within Russia. The government exempted transactions that enable civilian telecommunications and news media services from sanctions against Russia. The decision comes off the heels of an open letter that we signed alongside allies like AccessNow, Article 19, Open Rights Group, among others, urging the UK government to protect access to the global, open internet for the Russian people.
United Nations Economic and Social Council access
The Wikimedia Foundation gained accreditation to UN ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council), which will allow the Wikimedia movement to more closely contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Wiki Loves Monuments
We will again be taking part in Wiki Loves Monuments from 1st-30th September. This is the biggest photography competition in the world and we hope to be able to count on massive participation again this year. The aim of the contest is to ask the general public—readers and users of Wikipedia, photographers, hobbyists, etc.—to take pictures of cultural heritage monuments and upload them to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
Join us
We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a member or donate to us online. We have a new volunteering form on our website, which you can fill out to get involved in some of the projects we do.
We’re also on social media if you prefer to chat there, we always appreciate new followers and sharers of our news; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also follow our blog, which has more details on some of the activities mentioned in the newsletter.