Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia France/May-Sept 2008

Ok, it's our turn to make a quick report of our past few month activities.

First a quick note about the past few months. Due to different reasons (PhD, moving, illness etc.) most of the board members were unable to really work for the association during the last few months. But eventually we all came back around the same time, and we're now back to activity. In fact, I think we've never been so active.

http://wikipedia.fr

In April, on request of the board, one of our most active member started to work on the creation of a portal like the german one ( http://wikipedia.de ). It was fully operational by mid-May. We have some stats, and we have around 14 000 unique visitors per day.

Communication

In terms of promotion, several leaflets (about Wikimedia projects and the chapter) and donation buttons were produced. Three members of the board wrote a short beginner's guide to Wikipedia, which will be published in january 09 under the GFDL. Four press releases were issued since early January.

Workgroup Video

In May, some Wikimedians worked together to issued a video tutorial "How to edit Wikipedia". The result can be found there http://www.dailymotion.com/Wikimedia_France

Assises du Numériques

Eric Besson, State Secretary for Prospectives and Evaluation of Public Policies and Internet, organised an online "debate" in order to create a report about the "Digital world" in 2012. Wikimedia France submitted a proposition about the authors and related rights.

Texts submitted are available there : http://wiki.assisesdunumerique.fr/xwiki/bin/view/Assises/Diffusiondereproductionsdoeuvrespubliquessousdeslicencesdutilisationlibres http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statut_des_œuvres_publiques_en_France

Online Payment

For few month we wanted to implement an online payment solution. Due to some bank problems this has been postponed to late september. However things seems to move on now, and we hope to have every thing ready really soon.

Wikiconcours

For two years french wikipedia organise a writing contest twice a year. For the one on-going, Wikimedia France decided to grant up to 600€ for this contest. The prize will be given to the team who will have enhanced articles on Wikipedia but also helped to enhance two other projects on the topic they've picked. We hope, doing this, to attract more contributors to the other projects.

Photos

14th July is the french national day. We succeeded in having a press accreditation to take photos of the military parade. Photos can be found http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:July_14,_2008_military_parade_on_the_Champs_Élysées

We also covered the French local elections of spring 08, les Fêtes maritimes de Brest and Douarnenez, as well as a Movie Festival. All pictures were uploaded on Commons.

Wikipedia takes a city

Early July, Wikimedians from the western part of France gathered and took Rennes... in photos. Photos can be found http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_takes_Rennes

WM-FR evolution

We worked on changing how the association works. The board decisions/discussions used to be totally private. Now, all the decisions are taken on the members-only wiki, members have to discuss the matters with the board before voting. In fact, apart from the confidential things, everything is now done with the member.

In september we also started to work on a survey for our members to get a better idea of what they think WMFR is, should do and should be in the future. This will eventually lead us to write a document about the strategy and the future of the association.

Conferences

Wikimedia France was present at a dozen of local conferences thanks to our members all around France. We also were present at most of the national conferences important for the Free Culture or for our outreach. Among all of them there was

• Participation aux Nouvelles Frontières de l'économie de la culture,

Paris, octobre 08 (organized by the French Government)

• Fête de l'Humanité/2008 (3rd year of presence). It is a huge event

organized by, don't laugh, the french communist party. There's debates, conferences, music show and a zone dedicated to FLOSS. We took the opportunity to take pictures of some politicians.

• Paris Capitale du libre, septembre 08
• Assises du numérique, juin 08
• Wikimedia France, was present at LSF 2008 (Libre Software Meeting).

This meeting is the biggest FLOSS event in France and took place early july.

Digitization and museum partnerships

• documents from the Ville de Gray
• ongoing discussions with Port Royal Library, RMN (national museums

in France), and BNF (Great Library in France)

Here is what we have done the past few month. But we currently are preparing many different projects and have some almost over. We'll inform you about all of this once it's done.

Cheers :)

-- Christophe Henner Membre du Conseil d'Administration de Wikimedia France http://wikimedia.fr