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Wikimedia CH/Annual report 2013

< Wikimedia CH
Closer to the Wikimedians, closer to the Wikimedia Projects


This slogan has been invented around the end of September as part of the application process for the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) in view of the fundraising and the activities of the following year. Looking at the detailed activity report, you will notice that it can also stand for the sum of activities of Wikimedia CH in the year 2013. In the 8th year of its existence, our chapter has made a great step forward in terms of professionalization. In 2012, the administration has been transferred from the Board to a staff member together with the first office rental. In 2013, the same has been the case for the management of projects. At about the same time, community support has been a made a priority of the chapter. Meanwhile, costs have increased, but even so has the overall output regarding the involvement of volunteers and the creation of free knowledge. It was a successful year for GLAM partnerships as well as for efforts to distribute Wikipedia offline. In some ways, 2013 was also groundbreaking for education initiatives - a development worth a consideration in the future. On top of that, a picture from Switzerland has been selected as winner of the 1st prize of the international Wiki Loves Monuments contest on Wikimedia Commons.

While the association has been active through its volunteers and its employees in many different parts of the country (with an exception notably of the small Romansh-speaking areas), the most stunning progress has been made in German-speaking Switzerland (Deutschschweiz). The main activities of the association have been steadily moving away from the region where it has initially been founded. This trend has come to a close thanks to a dedicated new staff person. Muriel has been praised by some members with whom she has been most involved with for her great deal of social competence and for being communicative and helpful. It seems that Wikimedia CH has come closer to German-speakers within a few months.

Recently, a German blog has dealt with the question if there's a widening gap between those frequently editing Wikipedia and the people actively involved in Wikimedia organizations. It stated that parallel structures are a nuisance for the projects and that they contribute in parts to a decrease in participation. Unlike the author of said blog post, I don't think we're going to see a move to the administration of content being carried out by dedicated staff paid on donations. We should rather extend our new model with community liaisons supporting the volunteer community and the development of the Wikimedia movement wherever they can.

-- Patrick Kenel, President ad interim

Facts and Figures

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As of 31 December 2013, Wikimedia CH has 387 members, which is an increase of about 66% compared to one year before. Thereof, 115 are supportive members and 19 members represent legal entities. 272 are primarily German-speakers, 105 French-speakers, 22 Italian-speakers and 1 Romansh-speakers. The gender distribution is as follows: 328 male, 59 female.

From 27 April 2013 until 1 September the Board of Wikimedia CH consisted of:

  • Charles Andrès, President
  • Bagawathram Maheswaran, Treasurer
  • Patrick Kenel, Secretary, Press speaker for German language
  • Frédéric Schütz, Press speaker for French language
  • Gabriel Thullen
  • Mauro Cassina
  • Matina Hämmerli

The new Board, elected by the General Assembly 2013, has formally taken up its work on 27 June 2013, 60 days after the General Assembly.

Since 1 September the Board of Wikimedia CH consists of:

  • Patrick Kenel, President ad interim, Press speaker for German language
  • Frédéric Schütz, Vice President, Press speaker for French language
  • Bagawathram Maheswaran, Treasurer
  • Gabriel Thullen
  • Mauro Cassina
  • Matina Hammerli

In the same time period, auditors of Wikimedia CH have been:

Zutter Treuhand AG
Höheweg 2
Postfach 687
CH-3053 Münchenbuchsee (BE)

In 2013, the staff team consisted of:

  • Chief Administrative Officer was Chantal Ebongué until 15 July, and Anh Chung since 1 November, 80% FTE
  • Chief Science Officer is Charles Andrès since 1 September, 100% FTE
  • German Community liaison is Muriel Staub since 1 May, 50% FTE (temporarily 70% FTE to take over admin work while there was no CAO from July to November)
  • Italian Community liaison is Ilario Valdelli since 1 May, 50% FTE
    • Contractor: Chief Information Officer is Manuel Schneider from MastersSystems since 1 January.

Fundings

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FDC

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In 2013, the FDC recommended to the WMF board an allocation of 362'000 CHF (400'000 $) for Wikimedia CH in 2014.

It was exactly the amount WMCH received the previous year and 72% of what we were asking. Considering the force and weakness of our chapter and the requests of the other chapters, this recommandation was a fair recommendation.

Wikimedia CH was the chapter requesting the third biggest amount after WMDE and WMUK. We were asking far more than WMSE and WMNL and it wasn’t a good message to the FDC. WMSE and WMNL are two chapters similar to WMCH in the eyes of the whole movement. Looking at the recommendation, WMNL received 410'000 $ and WMSE 390'000 $.

If we consider the overall allocation, it’s clear that WMCH cannot ask more funds. We are in a global movement and the funds have to be distributed as much as possible:

«The overall funds available for movement entities through the FDC process in 2013-2014 is $ 6,000,000, some of which will be recommended to be allocated during Round 2 of this year. This round, $4,432,000 has been allocated, leaving $1,568,000 for Round 2. The Letters of Intent estimating the requested amounts for Round 2 total $1,400,000.»

The comments made by the FDC led us to review our annual plan and the associated budget with the following priorities:

  • Priority to the projects dedicated to support the Swiss editors community, by helping the actual editors and recruiting new ones
  • Wikipedia Offline and the Alps project
  • Each FDC funded project should have a clear impact on a Wikimedia project
  • Improvement of the coordination with the neighboring chapters
  • Improvement of our reporting and the evaluation of our activities (improving our metrics definition and reporting)

A global interpretation of the FDC recommandation may be that the movement is sending a message to invite the chapter to re-focus on the very identity of a Wikimedia chapter, i.e. the distribution of free knowledge through the Wikimedia projects.

Revenues

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Following the resolution of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Wikimedia CH signed a new fundraising agreement for the period 2012-2013, reconducted for 2013-2014. For the period covering July to December 2013, Wikimedia CH raised 454'107.54 CHF through Wikimedia sites and 131'150.76 CHF by direct fundraising through Wikimedia CH, for a total of 585'258.30 CHF.

For the second time, banners targeting the Swiss audience have been used during the main fundraising. Like the previous year, we had a significant amount of direct donations to the association as well as an important increase of new members. The 2013 fundraising has been the second edition using a system to limit the number of impression of the banners per user. In Wikimedia CH we introduced a new workflow to improve our banner designs, and in 2014 we aim to set up a fundraising team that will start to work during the second quarter to prepare the next fundraising.

Wikimedia CH also received a donation of 30'000 CHF by the Loterie Romande to finance the second phase of digitization at the herbarium in Neuchâtel.

In 2013, the total amount of membership fees was 15'181.20 CHF.

Life of the association

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Board

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Between the GA 2013 and the end of the year, Board members met on three occasions to have a live meeting: 22 May, 30 September and 17 December. Frequent topics of these meetings were governance (including a move to the creation of departments), bylaw modifications, policies and decisions regarding the staff organization. The second meeting was primarily dedicated to the FDC application elaborated by Charles. After these live meetings, the Board voted on resolutions online in a spirit of full transparency. Moreover, urgent resolutions or other proposals by members have been discussed and voted uniquely on the Members wiki.

A process to have periodical Board meetings in Bern is slowely taking shape compared to longer periods without any live meetings in the past. The importance of long-term strategic questions is hopefully going to increase this process. The fact that not all Board members are able to attend each meeting due to job or family obligations has been felt as an impediment, not as a serious threat.

Staff

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Community support

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During the past year, we started to publish a regular newsletter to inform our members and the Wikimedia Community about our activities.

With the hiring of two community liaisons, 2013 has been a year of setup of the strategy for community involvement.

For the Italian-speaking area the main goals have been
a) Association members support: setup a CRM to have a profile of members of Wikimedia CH in order to help and to improve the communication using newsletters and short messages
b) Editors retention plan: check of editors living in Ticino or close to the border and analysis of their leave in order to analyze the possibility to recruit them back
c) Editors recruiting: analysis of potential partners in order to have projects together in order to recruit more editors
d) Collaboration with neighboring chapters: communication and meetings with Wikimedia Italia to have projects together
e) Photography: communication and relation with the participants of photo contest in Commons
f) Support to the project managers: periodical meetings with the project managers in order to plan actions and strategies together
g) Communication: improving the communication in Wikipedia and in sister projects about the community support offered by Wikimedia CH and by Wikimedia in general (MicroGLAM or scholarships for instance)
h) Collaboration with WM IT
i) Check if Italians living near the border are interested in Swiss activities
The point c) is more focused to work with small GLAMs or with other associations to widespread the use of Wikipedia. Basically the small GLAMs have a good connections with local associations and schools, the GLAM projects done with them in a specific field (like the local traditions) may help a lot.
For the German-speaking area the main goals have been

a) Get to know the community

In the first months of my work, the community liaison focused on meetings with active Swiss-German Wikim/pedians and met them to talk about their experiences, their involvement in the community, their activities and their needs, their wishes and their visions. This allowed her to have an overview over the German-speaking community by the end of summer 2013. The most important target of her first three month as community liaison was: to make sure that the German-speaking community knows that about her and that they know that we, as WMCH, are happy to support the community, that they are invited to bring up their ideas & inputs as well as realizing their own projects.
In terms of the worldwide movement, Muriel was lucky to attend Wikimania in August 2013 in order to connect with other community liaisons and community members from other countries: She could profit a lot from their experiences.

b) Reach - and communicate with the community

  • In order to communicate with the community in their mother tongue, Muriel started to translate the newsletters into German. This move was especially appreciated by elderly Swiss-German people who are not fluent in English.
  • On one hand she started to interact with the community on Swiss-specific platforms on Wikipedia in order to make sure to communicate important news on platforms where our community is interacting every day.
  • On the other hand she also was in contact with a lot of members individually via email or phone or in personal meetings and used social media channels like Twitter and Facebook.
  • Another way to interact with the international community was to set up a booth in the chapters village during Wikimania. This booth allowed us (WMCH) to get in touch with the international Wikimedia-Community and to inform about our volunteer's projects. Some of our scholarship recipients who co-hosted this booth, were able to establish important international contacts for the future existence of their projects (f.ex. Public Domain Project, KIWIX).

c) Support the existing community

We tried different ways to support the community:
  • Support for Individuals (Scholarships):
In 2013, we awarded scholarships for Wikip/medians to attend several events like Wikimania in Hong Kong, OKCon in Geneva, the Diversity Conference in Berlin & the WikiCon in Karlsruhe. We are especially happy about the fact that we could provide some scholarships to Wikipedians that are active on the German-speaking Wikipedia for a long time. On the other hand, we're satisfied to have new members of the association that are starting to get involved with certain activities and could benefit from a scholarship too.
In the future this will be an even bigger focus: To support the existing community and make sure they get the backing from WMCH.
  • Support for Groups (Reunions):
Wikipedian meetups have been taking place for years in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, mainly in Zurich. Rather new was the planning of a framework activity to most of these reunions. Together with the orgainzers of these Wikipedia meetups, we found a model where WMCH financially supports the visit of cultural institutions as framework program for these Wikipedia meetups. Therefore WMCH supported the visit of the museum at "Theater Stok" in Zurich - and the Wikipedians who attended created an article about this museum, as it didn't yet exist. WMCH is happy to support such visit also in the future.
  • Support of projects: A major part of Muriel's work is spent for the support of projects that members of the association want to implement. Here you go with a short overview of projects from the community that the community liaison supported during 2013:
    • WLM: Muriel supported the organization of the exhibition and closing ceremony of the photo contest Wiki Loves Monument.
    • KIWIX: She supported the creation of communication material for Wikipedia offline (flyer, brochure, banner) in order to be able to communicate about WP offline at certain events. In November she went to Great Britain to present the Wikipedia Offline project both at the EduWiki Conference and at Internews. More on this in the Wikipedia offline section of this annual report.
  • Support for like-minded organizations:
    • Swiss Public Domain Foundation/Public Domain Project (http://de.publicdomainproject.org): Granting scholarships to a volunteer and a board member involved in the Public Domain Project enabled them to build a network worldwide with people being active in the field of digitizing old music records. Furthermore, we worked on a concept for 2014 in order to carry on the support of WMCH for the Public Domain Foundation. By the end of the year 2013, Muriel also supported the Public Domain Project in their crowd-funding-activitiy on wemakeit.ch.
    • Re:public Domain/Dock 18: During the OKCon in Geneva, she supported Dock 18 in their community activities in Geneva.

d) Attract new members to the community

In order to attract new community members, the community liaison organizied a workshop with Wikip/medians who have held workshops about Wikimedia projects in the past. It was a kick-off meeting among peers, where different possibilities on how to approach potential new contributors to Wikipedia or Commons have been discussed. This meeting allowed us to set up a working group which collaborates and exchanges ideas on how to hold workshops and attract potential new members in the future.
Furthermore, as a student at the University of St. Gallen, Muriel approached the Oikos Student Club there in order to present the Wikimedia projects to a broad audience of students. More on this in the Education section of the annual report.

e) Collaborate with neighboring chapters WMDE and WMAT

In order to commonly approach the German-speaking community, Muriel was in regular contact and exchange with WMDE and WMAT.

f) Learnings

  • Support the community where there is already a lot of enthusiasm, support them in projects THEY want to do.
  • Involve the community at the earliest point possible if you have your own plans.

Working groups

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In 2012, we launched 6 different working groups: swissGLAMour - Lobbying/press/FR campaign - Communication tools & materials - Education - International projects - Strategic plan/annual budget

The most active working group in 2013 has been the newly created group to organize the Wiki Loves Monuments contest as this one-month event required coordination for a given date. The other working groups have active to a lesser extent or even dormant due to a lack of interaction.

IT

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Since 1 January 2013 Wikimedia CH has been outsourcing the management of the information technology to MastersSystems, a German company run by Manuel Schneider, a founding member of WMCH, who has previously been in charge of hosting wikis on a volunteer basis.

A list of things that have been done in the last year:

  • Setting-up a videoconference platform available for the whole movement (http://videoconf.wikimedia.ch/)
  • CiviCRM
    • import of all members, new process to register and welcome members
    • language-based sending of newsletters
  • Tine 2.0 - common groupware with shared calendars and address books, ActiveSync synchronisation with mobile phones etc.

Activities

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Community support

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Support for the Zurich Stammtisch

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Wikimedia CH is very happy that it could support the frame-program of the summer version of the Zurich Stammtisch: WMCH financed the visit of the "theater museum Stok" in Zurich as part of the reunion of German-speaking Wikipedians in Zurich in September. WMCH is happy to support future events of the Zurich meetup.

Scholarships for events

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Scholarships of WMCH were provided to the community to attend the Wikimania in Hong Kong in August 2013, for the OKCon in Geneva, for the WikiCon in Karlsruhe and for the Diversity Conference in Berlin.

Micro-Grants Committee

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In October, the Micro-Grants Committee was established in order to have a process for community members to ask for small grants up to 500 CHF to support their projects. Read more in detail further below.

Individual support

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A lot of support that the community liaisons provided is linked to certain members of the community or to certain projects as well as other activities of the association. Furthermore, a lot of individual contact took place with community members: Answering eMails, putting people in contact, making sure the interests of the community is well heard and represented in the association etc.

press acreditation

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In 2013, we established the offer to support members of the Wikipedia/Wikimedia community regarding press accreditation on the germanspeaking Wikipedia Page "Foto-, Film- und Pressetermine".

eMail adresses and business cards for members

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Also in 2013, we started to offer to Wikipedians and Wikimedians in Switzerland to setup an eMail-adress as follows: name@wikimedian(s).ch or name@wikipedian(s).ch. On the top of that, WMCH also offered to create business cards for community members that are f.ex. actively doing workshops or holding presentations.

Photography

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On 31 December 2013, there were 11'453 pictures supported by Wikimedia CH on Wikimedia Commons, of which 437 were quality images and 22 featured pictures.

Photographic coverage

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For many years Wikimedia CH members Fanny Schertzer and Ludovic Péron are well-knowm Wikimedia photographers, with a large number of quality images on their record. In 2013, Clément Bucco-Lechat joined the team, and brought in new ideas in terms of events and the way to document these events. One of the main outcomes was the increase of official accreditations obtained and the diversity of events covered.

Main events

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  • 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • 2013 Longines Global Champions Tour Lausanne - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • CHI de Genève 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • Croatia - Portugal football match, 10 June 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • Motorshow Geneva 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • Rink-Hockey Euroleague 2012-2013 - Genève vs Hockey Valdagno - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • Spain - Chile football match, 10 Sep 2013 - Geneva - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • Swisscurling League 2012/2013 - Round 2 - Geneva - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • US Oyonnax - Aviron Bayonnais, 21th December 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • US Oyonnax - CA Brive, 30th November 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • US Oyonnax - RC Toulonnais, 29th September 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH
  • US Oyonnax - Sale Sharks, 5th December 2013 - Supported by Wikimedia CH

Wiki Loves Monuments contest

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From September 1 to September 30, 2013, Wikimedia CH organized, in cooperation with Seniorweb, a national photography contest of historical monuments. It was part of the international Wiki Loves Monuments contest, covering more than 50 countries across the world. The aim of this contest was to create a database of free pictures of all cultural goods of national importance, available from the media library Wikimedia Commons.

During the contest, volunteer photographers took pictures of items listed in the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National significance, uploaded these pictures on the Wikimedia Commons repository and announced them on the contest website. In one month, more than 3987 pictures have been uploaded by 192 people and about 43 % of all the Swiss cultural goods have now at least one free picture available.

At the end of the successful contest, a jury of five – Maura Cassina (Wikimedia CH), Nicolas Ray (first organizer of WLM in Switzerland), Micha L. Rieser (WiR at the Federal Archives), Davide Fornari (architect, researcher in graphic design), Andreas Münch (art historian) – selected the 10 best pictures. Authors of these pictures were invited to a ceremony that took place on 30 November 2013 at the Swiss National Library, Bern. The winners have been awarded with vouchers of a photo store of their choice.

Offline - Kiwix/openZIM

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Kiwix for Android was released in 2013

In 2013, Kiwix was again well supported by WMCH. Here is a small list of what have been done:

Communication:

  • Creation of communication material in order to make KIWIX more known: flyers, brochures, banner-up, other documents
  • Full revamping of the Kiwix and openZIM web sites
  • Integration of tech. activities in the official Wikimedia monthly engineering report
  • Massive development of our communication on social medias (Twitter and Facebook)

Events:

  • Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong: Kiwix was present at the Wikimedia CH booth and got a big audience thanks to the nice location in the chapter village.
  • Education conference in Cardiff: Muriel presented "Kiwix in Jail" at in order to inform inform Wikimedia Chapters about this new project we lead in prisons.
  • Internews Europe: Emmanuel & Muriel presented the "Kiwix - your offline Wikipedia" to Internews employees. Internews is a partner of particular importance because Internews Europe is an international development organization specialised in supporting independent media, freedom of information and free expression around the globe. Wikipedia offline fits perfectly in this environment. WMCH would like to continue and expand the current cooperation with Internews.

Projects/Partnerships:

  • Launch of the "Wikipedia in Jail" project with the prison of Gorgiers
  • Conception of the Offline Dissemination Program with WMCH for 2014
  • Continuing the partnership with Afripedia: two new big deployments in DRC and Cameroon, kiwix-plug ported to Tonido plug, big press coverage

Tech/Hard-&Software Development:

  • One week long hackathon in Paris with 3 developers
  • One week long hackathon in HK with 2 developers (before Wikimania)
  • Wikimedia hackathon in Amsterdam
  • Launch of Kiwix for Android (and 5 new releases)
  • Management of two students within the "Google summer of code" and Google Code-in programs (5 months long work)
  • Continuing the implementation of the two years long "ZIM Autobuild" project, number of ZIM files available x3.
  • ~ 700.000 downloads of the software (this does not include the content downloads).
  • Take the leadership of the openZIM project after abandon of the founding team (revamping web site, use WMF infrastructure, release of zimlib 1.0)
  • Creation of the zimwriterfs program, to transform random HTML directory in ZIM file
  • Creation of the mwoffliner to efficiently dump Mediawikis
  • Continuous improvement of Kiwix and kiwix-serve
  • Delayed: Linux packaging project, PHPzim project, Kiwix 0.9rc3 release

Kiwix in Jail

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Since March 2013, prisoners who request can have an access to Wikipedia offline. The idea is to stimulate or to support the interest for education of prisoners who were, for a large majority, condemned to long-time sentences. After three months of pilot phasis, the project is successful: Among the 36 prisoners of the Bellevue’s prison in Gorgier, 18 possess or rent a computer. All of them requested the upload of Wikipedia offline on their PC. For security reasons, swiss prisoners have a very restricted access to internet. The feed-backs are unanimously positive: they reveal that Wikipedia is seen as an improvement of the education and/or information activities in jail. The follow-up of the project aims to use Wikipedia in the training program of the prisoners: use of Wikipedia in the classes, organization of general culture contests, even train new Wikipedia editors. The goal is also to extend the project to other swiss prisons and to detention centers for minors. The partnership between Wikimedia CH and the direction of the prison aims to be durable: Wikimedia CH installed the Kiwix files and trained the IT team of the prison, who can now upload the software for every new prisoner who requests.

Microgrant

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Creation of the Microgrant committee to allow members of Wikimedia CH to ask for financial support - from 1 to 500 CHF - for their micro-projects or activities, that have an impact on Wikimedia projects.

The committee is composed of:

  • Yann Heurtaux aka Shalf (French-speaking member of WMCH)
  • Mauro Cassina (Italian-speaking board member of WMCH)
  • Jana Gallus (German-speaking member of WMCH)
  • Ilario Valdelli (Italian-speaking staff member of WMCH)
  • Muriel Staub aka MurielDamiana (German-speaking staff member of WMCH)

Delivery of two microgrants in 2013 with an approval of 100% of all requests.

Education

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Members actions

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Several active members of Wikimedia CH are active in the education field, here a non exhaustive list of activities conducted by our members

user:Hadi

Presentation and training on Wikipedia for librarians at the BFH in Bern and for lecturers at the Fachhochschule Luzern (University of Applied Sciences in Lucerne).

Emmanuel Engelhart

Initiation lesson at the University of Applied Sciences in Yverdon

Gabriel Thullen

Since 2006, Gabriel run a project in the Collège des Colombières. In 2013 his work has been rewarded by an article in National Geographic. Project page on Wikipedia

Charles Andrès

Before becoming CSO of Wikimedia CH, Charles was teaching at the University of Neuchâtel. During one of the project, Unine students realized movies to illustrate the growth of peas plants. The movie has been realized with the camera of the digitization device of the herbarium project. [[ File:Pea de-etiolation.ogv|thumb|Pea de-etiolation]] In Collaboration with Seniorweb.ch, he run an Initiation conference for Senior & Junior: An afternoon of presentation of the wikimedia world to 6 seniors helped by 8 juniors (14-16).

Frédéric Schutz

One Day Workshop at the Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne: should open the way for regular workshop during the academic year

Wikimedia CH actions

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In 2013 Wikimedia CH initiate an Education program aiming to promote that students can contribute to Wikipedia as part of class assignments. The association is building a structure that can support wikipedians/professor in their own initiative, and help professors without Wikipedia background to build in-class project.

The first collaboration of the program is conducted with the "Semestre de motivation du canton de Neuchâtel (SEMO)". Students are trained to edit Wikipédia to improve or create articles about local interest. Project page on wikipedia

 

The Education program is also intended to answer to the always increasing request from schools or universities for introduction courses or participation to conferences. In November, Muriel and Charles participated to the Oikos conference «How sustainable can the Web-based business be», host by the University of St-Gallen. Charles gave a 45min conference about the Wikipedia business model, and Muriel conducted a 90- minutes workshop. Full report. In November too, Wikimedia CH conducted its first for-fee intervention in a school with three conferences and two workshops proposed during the New technologies day at the ECG Martigny.

Ilario Valdelli conducted several lessons at the University of Milan and a presentation of Wikimedia/Wikipedia at a high school in Caserta for a total of 400 students.

Furthermore, in November 2013 a kick-off meeting was organized for Wikipedians & Wikimedians who do Wikipedia-Workshops. The target was to have a group of peers that work on a best-practice workshop-concept and support each other for future workshops. The detailed report about this meeting - as well as documented results - can be found here: https://members.wikimedia.ch/Workshop_Introducing_Wikipedia/de

Wikimini

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In 2013, 3000 new articles have been added to Wikimini, leading the encyclopedia to reach 10'000 articles in March 2013! Wikimini received 2' 255'000 unique visitors in 2013, an increase of 119% compared to 2012. The financial support of Wikimedia CH in 2012 allowed Wikimini to support this massive increase of visitors without any problem. 2013 has been an important year with the launch of the second linguistic version in Swedish with the support of Wikimedia Sverige.

More specifically, Wikimedia CH supported the hosting and the domain registration of Wikimini. In 2013, financial support by Wikimedia CH helped Wikimini to launch a "Meta-Wikimini", sv.wikiini.org, the global homepage and to start the updating of the Mediawiki used to run the site.

In 2014, Wikimedia CH will again support Wikimini, especially by supporting the promotion of the site in Swiss schools.

GLAM

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2013 has been an important year for Wikimedia CH in terms of GLAM activities. Some initiatives already running in 2012 were continued, like the Herbarium project and Storia delle Alpi. 2013 started off with a pilot project with the Zentralbibliothek Zürich pioneering the upload of high quality images to Wikimedia Commons. The infrastructure was tested and parameters ajdusted where not sufficient. Since the middle of 2013 the chunked upload feature allows uploads of 1GB files. Also different models of community integration were tested. The cooperation talks started before the first WLM in Switzerland 2011 beared fruit and Swiss first WIR was at the Federal Archives. resulting in a 5.000 high quality image donation as a first result. "Overloading" the originally scanned huge tif pictures with a ready to use much smaller one was introduced on commons. At approximately the same time an upload was done by the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, donating more than 1000 files. For the following year, a cooparation for a WiR at the Swiss National Library could be negotiated.

Wikipedian in Residence at the Federal Archives

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The cooperation talks started before the first WLM in Switzerland 2011 and beared fruit: In 2013, the first WIR in Switzerland stated to work in the Swiss Federal Archives. Micha Rieser, an active Wikipedian since 2005, started his work as Wikipedia in Residence at the beginning of July 2013 and, during a period of 6 month, assisted the Federal Archives in publishing selected documents as part of Wikimedia projects and advised the Federal Archives staff on how to contribute to the Wikimedia projects. He was intermediating between the Wikimedia universe and the universe of the Swiss Federal Archive. Furthermore, the Wikipedian in Residence also presented the Swiss Federal Archives to the Wikipedian community, enabled certain insights into the world of archives and depicted how Wikipedians can do his/her research at the Federal Archives. It was the aim to motivate the Wikipedia community to advance certain Wikimedia- or Wikipedia-projects thanks to the newly discovered research possibilities and the availability of archived documents within the Federal Archives. In order to reach this target, Micha Rieser organized a well-attended community event in November.

One specific outcome of this partnership of WMCH with the Federal Archives was the upload of 5000 photographs from the First World War. The resulting upload highlights the period of the first global war. Even though Switzerland did not participate, it suffered economic hardship and by the end of the war, it was split into a workers' block and a middle-class block (liberal, Catholic-conservatives and farmers).

To see the full collection of uploaded pictures by the Swiss Federal Archives, please have a look at the following link:

Furthermore, the following links lead you to press coverage and give you further insights:


The libraries

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Zentralbibliothek Zürich (ZBZ)
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Vallée de Chamonix. Traversée de la Mer de Glace

The ZBZ is the main library of both the city and the University of Zurich. It currently houses around 5.1 million items, among these 3.9 million printed volumes, 124'000 manuscripts, 243'000 maps and 560'000 microfiches.

At the end of 2012, a cooperation for a first pilot project of WMCH with the ZBZ was signed in order to upload high quality images. For further details, please see here.

Then in May 2013:

  • 96 images were uploaded in jpg and original tiff quality
  • http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickiana got translated into 25 languages/dialects
  • 51 images used in 43 language versions of wikipedia and wikimedia projects

pictures from the partnership

The pilot project with the ZBZ will not continue for the next time. The main reasons are that, before uploading, the material needs to be prepared: digitize, enter in the catalogue, select. The time estimate is in hours per single image. ZBZ got a 10 MIO CHF funding from the ZH Lottery funds to digitize some of their assets. This, together with the preparations of the 100 years of existence celebrations 2017, take up all resources.

Outcomes

Pilot project at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Central library of Solothurn
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Wide view from Hospital-courtyard over the landscape of the city of Solothurn, in the foreground depicting shepherds and cows as staffage. View from S (point Hospital-courtyard) of the town Solothurn and the surrounding landscape with the cave of Jura. Depiction extremely rich in detail with recognizably of all houses and localities, in the foreground depicting agriculture and vegetable gardening as well as shepherds staffage. Surrounding landscape. In the foreground depicting fields and shepherd staffage

The Zentralbibliothek Solothurn (ZBS, Solothurn Central Library - article in German Wikipedia) is a public library with notable historical collections in Solothurn. The ZBS possesses a prints and drawings collection started in 1941. The focus is on subjects from the canton of Solothurn and on Solothurn artists including Ludwig Midart (1733-1800), Martin Disteli (1802-1844) or Heinrich Jenny (1824-1891). There are also views of the canton of Solothurn by well-known artists from other regions such as the Zurich engraver David Herrliberger (1697-1777) or the Toggenburg landscape painter and engraver Johann Baptist Isenring (1796-1860).

The collaboration of WMCH and the ZBS was kicked off with a press release in November in order to communicate the partnership. Also in November, the ZBS uploaded - with the great support of Wikimedia CH's volunteers - over 1159 Public Domain files from the collection of the ZBS to Wikimedia Commons. Thereby the focus lied on the collections that already existed in digitized formats. The ZBS appreciates the reach of Wikimedia projects and wanted to make its contents accessible where the users are. Furthermore, Patrick Borer from the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn picked out some highlights from their collection of 18th century prints and looked at what they tell us about life in a Swiss city state. Read the whole article at https://publicdomainreview.org/2014/02/04/ambassadors-milkmaids-and-hot-air-balloons

Outcomes

The full collection of uploads can be found on commons.

Swiss National Library
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Cooperation talks of WMCH with the Swiss National Library already started in early 2013 and a proper process was set up in order to recruit Wikipedians in Residence (WIRs) for 2014 in the National Library. The collaboration of WMCH with the National Library was announced in the press in autumn 2013.

GLAMWikiToolset (GWToolset)

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The GWToolset is a software project aimed to provide an easy way to GLAM partners to realize batch upload in Commons.

The toolset was granted by WMCH in 2013 and other Wikimedia chapters under the leadership of Europeana. Although many features of the original roadmap were abandoned, the project has achieved to implement the most important one: a Mediawiki extension allowing mass-uploads. On the operation side the project is a success too, the extension is online on http://commons.wikimedia.org. This project, which was experimental in many ways, was very rich in learnings for our movement. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GWToolset

In 2013, Wikimedia CH support the GLAMWikiToolset with 30'000 CHF.

Swiss Herbarium Project

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Neuchâtel

The partnership between Wikimedia CH and the University of Neuchâtel was signed on June 11th, 2012. The digitalization of the first part of the Swiss Herbarium of Neuchâtel’s University was achieved in December 2012. The partnership is not limited to the production of pictures as it also implies the training of university members to produce new pictures and add them on Wikimedia Commons. In 2013, the project has been run with the financial support of the Loterie Romande. Wikimedia CH buy a new "reprostation" to the BJ Institute and hired 3 civil servants to work as photographer. The candidates for the position have been selected according to the added value they can bring to the project, the first one created an infographic to explain the digitization process, the second one improved the ergonomy of the work station and the last one improved the software solution by replacing the proprietary software by an open source software. Since autumn 2012, students participate to the digitization of the Herbarium, in 2013 5 students digitized 1881 pictures. In 2013, 34712 pictures have been produced, for a total of 77620 but remain to be upload on Commons. Commons Project

Lausanne

Since July 2013, the Botanical Museum of Lausanne is digitizing its herbarium with the support of Wikimedia CH. More than 30 000 sheets have been digitized but remain to be uploaded.

outcomes

The herbarium project are successful in producing pictures, but are project with a really high workload in term of uploading, because this upload phase is relying only on volunteers work, it has been postponed until the GWToolset is available and allow the institution to do the upload by themselves.

The Pénard collection

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The Pénard collection
 
Amoeba from the Collection Pénard MHNG

Template:Project participants The partnership with the Invertebrate department of the Geneva Natural History Museum for the digitalization of the Pénard collection of amibes produced 8166 pictures, but need to be curated before upload on Commons. The Pénard project will start again with the deployment of the GWToolset.

History of Alps and Alpine Space

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Template:Project participants

In October 2012 Wikimedia CH has started a collaboration with the International Association for Alpine History (IAAH) and with the Laboratorio di Storia delle Alpi (LabiSAlp), a research institute of the University of Italian Switzerland.

The aim of the project is the creation of a portal in Italian Wikipedia, to be afterwards replicated in all Swiss national languages, using the parameters of high quality and specialization in order to make available in Internet what the researchers have in their own closed circles.

 
Villa Bernasconi in Cernobbio, owned by the research center Raul Merzario

The project had several deliveries like:

  • A list of important bibliographies used by researchers in the fields of the history of Alps
  • A list of important web site of history of Alps
  • A list of important books before 17th century of History of Alps
  • 4 numbers of the scientific bulletin of the IAAH uploaded in Wikisource
  • 10 volunteers working around the project (8 in it.wikipedia and 4 in wikisource)
  • A list of articles to be checked and controlled

All those lists have been checked and controlled by IAAH and LabiSAlp.

In the last months there is an outreach of small museums and libraries to address them in the portal in order to contribute and to increase this material.

There were meeting with several small GLAMs in Italy like:

  • the Research Center Raul Merzario of Cernobbio
  • the civic Library of Tolmezzo
  • the Photo Library of Tolmezzo
  • the Library of the Abbey of Moggio Udinese
  • the Museum of Popular Arts of Carnia
  • the civic Library of Sauris di Sotto

To invite them to extend and to improve this material with their own material.

International

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Ghana

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Support of the community is ongoing, mainly through the wikimedia-gh mailing list. The two original drivers of the group are now abroad. Both of them received this offer in a big part because of their work done for Wikipedia:

  • Sandister Tei received a £40'000 grant from Tullip group tu pursue a masters in journalism at Cardiff university, Wales. 50 got it out of more than 1000 in Ghana.
  • Rexford Nkansah got hired as Wikipedian in residence by the Africa Center in Cape Town, South Africa.

While this disrupted the Ghana based group, the gap got filled by new persons found. While the Wikipedia contribution is much stronger than before, the outreach activities are not yet organised and financed as before. One notable event the group was involved in, was when the Ghana government actively discouraged the use of Wikipedia, as the Ghana article on en:wp is "vandalized".

Mali

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WMCH has sponsored a digital camera in Bamako, Mali, to help people make and publish free licensed medias. This camera is freely borrowable at Jokkolabs Bamako. This initiative helps to get new pictures from Mali and to empower local Wikimedians. category on Commons

South Africa

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The aim of Joburg'pedia is to increase Wikipedia coverage of iconic buildings around Johannesburg with historic and heritage importance. The project is inspired by Monmouthpedia, the first Wikipedia project to embrace a whole town, specifically the Welsh town of Monmouth. This was done through installing Cream plaques containing QRCodes next to buildings and other objects and linking these to Wikipedia articles. A QR Code (it stands for "Quick Response") is a cell phone readable bar code that can store website URL's, when scanned by a smart phone, it will direct the browser of the smart phone to the url. This project brings together the success of cream plaques with the intrinsic historical value of blue plaques. Blue plaques are used to commemorate significant sites (sites can be significant to a community for a whole host of reasons). It is an invitation to people to discover more about a site and its history. The iconic look is the circular shape with white writing on a blue background. It is currently estimated that there are about 150 to 200 blue plaques in and around Johannesburg. QR codes will be installed next to blue plaques in Johannesburg city in a bid to create the first MetropediA in Africa between the years 2013 through to 2015. Wikimedia CH sponsored the production of the QR plaques.

Wikimedia Movement

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Chapter Association

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After the creation of the Wikimedia Chapter Association in 2012, former Wikimedia CH CAO Chantal Ebongué, Gabriel Thullen and Charles Andrès have been active in helping to prepare bylaws in order to prepare the incorporation of the association. During the first trimester of 2013, the never-ending discussion about the "organizational" aspect of the WCA led Wikimedia to step back from the "organizational" discussion about the WCA. We moved our strategy to realize actions useful for the chapters and the movement. The first visible action was the setting up of a videoconference tool for the movement. During Wikimania 2013, it was decided to let the WCA become dormant.

Events

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Wikimania 2013

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WMCH was represented by several members and staff and hosted a booth at Wikimania in the Chapters Village to present Swiss-specific activities & projects to the community present in Hong Kong to inspire other chapters and share experiences. The main projects that were presented at the WMCH booth were: KIWIX, Public Domain Project, Edelweiss-Auszeichnung.

Chapter's Village
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Based on an original idea by Nicole Ebber (WMDE) and Charles Andrès, Wikimania 2013 hosted for the first time a Chapter's Village. The idea was to have a place where all chapters can expose their activities and being present to meet other actors of the movement. The success of the chapter's Village is such that the Chapter's Village will become part of the official program of next Wikimania in London. A survey has been done by WMDE about the Chapter's Village, and can be summarized like this:

"Generally, the idea of having a Chapters' Village as a central point to meet/contact/exchange information (e.g. on chapters' work) and chat was liked by the majority of people participating in the survey. The location chosen seemed perfect in the sense that it was centrally located, but almost everyone noted that the heat and climate was hard to bear. Additionally, the lack of tables/space for eating and taking in meals was criticised. Quite a few people were bothered by the overlap between the session schedules and attending the Chapters' Village/Meet-Up sessions during the breaks. Smaller chapters with fewer staff could not attend to their tables at all times. It was suggested that the Chapters' Village and the Meet-Ups should be included in the general Wikimania programme and be promoted more actively in advance. Except two people, everyone agreed that the Chapters' Village should continue at future Wikimanias: More participating chapters and affiliates were wished for as well as more activities in the Chapters' Village. We will take all this feedback into account when talking to the Wikimania 2014 organising team. We'd love to take the Chapters' Village to the next level in London and are already in touch with Ed and James about it." --Nicole Ebber (WMDE)

Education Pre-Conference at Wikimania
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Charles & Muriel attended the Education Pre-Conference at the day before Wikimania officially started. People from the Wikimedia Movement with an interest in education from all over the World joined. The education team of the Wikimedia Foundation presented their Education program for USA and Canada - and people from other countries presented their educational activities.

We learned about how cooperations with universities in general look like in other countries, how professors are being approached by Wikipedians, how ambassador programs work in other countries. Everybody agreed that Wikipedians are born and not made, and that education programs are about retention - retention focused on ambassadors and tutors as well as professors, but not retention of the students.

Scholarships
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Wikimedia CH award 9 scholarships through the global attribution system to people around the world to attend Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong. The list of recipient is:

  • Luca Martinelli
  • Benoît Evellin
  • Marios Magioladitis
  • Iolanda Pensa
  • Hugo Lopez
  • Jean-Philippe Beland
  • Benoit Rochon
  • Jean-Frederic Berthelot
  • Maarten D.

Additionaly, two full scholarships and a partial one were attributed to Wikimedia CH members promoting a project of special interest:

  • Jana Gallus
  • Carl Flisch
  • Christoph Zimmermann

We're happy to share a cutout of reports from scholarship recipients with you:

Report from scholarship recipent 1
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1)What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
This Wikimania was well organized. They were a lot of volunteers in order to help the team and help us too. The venue was great, :with a fantastic chapters village.
About the presentations, a cool thing was the track with scientific studies about Wikimedia projects, and the numerous tracks :from the Foundation about the new features or the new projects.
2)Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
Many tracks were too "light" : their content was not organized, and not deep enough.
And sometimes there were not enough food.
3) In what way contrbuted the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
As a member of new users engagement on French Wikipedia, Wikimania is THE week in the year in order to talk with others Wikimedians involved in the same project. It was a great occasion to discover new features or projects from other users or the Foundation, and have enough information and contacts in order to prepare the French community for new features which will permit to make the contributions easier.
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
See point 3. :)
I'm more like an ambassador for the community than just a wikimaniac for my own concern.
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
A small preparation makes the Wikimania experience better: see the Wikimedia Foundation team photographs and their role in the :movement, talk before the travel with other attendees, propose a talk and get involved.
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • instructive
  • friendly
  • chaotic
report from scholarship recipent 2
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1) What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
This was my first Wikimania. I particularly liked the informal discussions with highly motivated individuals––Wikipedians, Wikimedia Foundation or Chapter members, and researchers. The topics of the presentations were very well chosen. They covered a variety of subjects, ranging from very techy issues to the social structure undergirding Wikipedia. The discussions after the presentations were interesting and often continued into the break. During those informal encounters ideas could be discussed in-depth and at times new ones emerged.
Besides the breadth of subjects, the diversity of people giving presentations was impressive. Not only did they have very different ways in which they were contributing to the common project(s), they also came from all over the world. It is difficult to really grasp what it means that, for instance, Wikipedia exists in 287 language versions. But seeing and talking to all those conference attendants made me realize just how encompassing and wide-ranging the movement truly is!
Last but not least, the conference venue was very well organized. It was a true pleasure to encounter and observe the many volunteers who helped make the event as successful as it was. Accommodation, transportation, lunch and coffee breaks, the opening and closing ceremonies––one over the roofs of HK, the other on the outskirts of the metropolis at a popular beach––all was well-coordinated and made for unforgettable, pleasant memories!
2) Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
The only aspect I can think of is the fact that food at the opening and closing ceremonies was depleted before everyone could have a serve. Instead of offering self-service, future events might have a couple of people serving the food and making sure to fill the plates foremost with inexpensive noodles or rice––serving treats like seafood and meat in limited quantity only on top ;-)
3) In what way contributed the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
Attending Wikimania helped me spread the word about our project and highlight the motivational power of providing recognition to Wikipedians. It also allowed me to get in contact with other researchers who are working on related issues. We were talking about new ideas and some computer scientists offered me help with programming issues.
Unfortunately, I was not (yet) able to get access to a tool similar to WikiTrust, which would tremendously help us in the selection process of our award. In fact, the month after Wikimania, the hosts of WikiTrust even announced that they would now also have to discontinue their service on the English Wikipedia. I sincerely hope that researchers at the Wikimedia Foundation or its Chapters will be able to develop similar tools and––very importantly––make them publicly accessible. The UserMetrics API sounds promising! :)
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
Firstly, attending Wikimania is not only interesting; it is also highly motivating since you get to see so many persons from all around the world who all contribute in many different forms, and with a high degree of enthusiasm, to the common project.
Secondly, many projects were presented which I hadn't heard of before. One interesting example is Wiki Loves Public Art (http://wikilovespublicart.org/). A whole list of projects can be found at:
https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_coolest_projects_of_Wikimedia_Chapters_-_be_inspired/Longlist.
As concerns the challenge of onboarding and retaining new Wikipedians, a topic that highly interests me, I attended some talks of which I would like to share my main takeaways. For more information, see notably the presentation given by Fabrice Florin on :"Engaging users on Wikipedia": http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Engaging_users_on_Wikipedia.
Some of the projects presented that are worth looking into and learning from are: Wikipedia:Teahouse (https://en.wikipedia.org:/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse), Wiki Loves Monuments (offering "creative freedom", no reverts), as well as Aide et accueil and GetStarted. The latter two might be less well-known. They aim at providing simple tips of how to contribute productively. Projects tried out at the Wikimedia Foundation include the Visual Editor, Notifications and Article Feedback.
Fabrice also highlighted what all the projects have in common and what seems to be working. All of them make the user feel welcome, offer a clean design, provide helpful tips, focus on the user's needs and make it easy to find things to do. What seemed to be most important is that they are manned by friendly groups of hosts with active leaders that keep motivating the others. The human element was stressed as being very important in all the projects.
For those Wikipedians who are mentors, Aaron Halfaker has developed a tool called Snuggle that you might want to have a look at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Snuggle; https://snuggle.grouplens.org/).
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
Primarily: do apply for attending Wikimania in the first place! Once on site, spend time with many different attendants (not only the ones one might already know).
Lastly, what might sound a bit counterintuitive: do not go to presentations during all the slots; take some time for informal discussions with others; pick out some talks, and drop in on others that might make you discover new and unexpected(!) things.
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • stimulating
  • exciting
  • motivating
report from scholarship recipent 3
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1) What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
That we met a guy from Uruguay who is also involved in a music digitazition project in his home country.
Meeting so many motivated and friendly people.
2) Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
The room where I had my talk was a normal school room with a very noisy air conditioning.
There was a fixed microphone on the desk and you had to be at most 3 cm in front of it, else the audience wouldn't understand you.
I tried my best but it was hard to give a good presentation under this circumstances.
3) In what way contrbuted the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
Pictures of me are now on commons ;-) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:GLAM_II_-_Europe,_Wikimania_2013
We, from the Public Domain Project, are now more confident then ever that we are on the right way.
Our relationship with WMCH, WMDE is even better than before and new we also have contacts in the WMF board. This will help us a lot in future.
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
Sometimes you think, nobody cares about what you are doing and that you are wasting your freetime. That is absolutely not true, you have not met the right people!
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
try, try, try.
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • Tropic
  • motivating
  • global
report from scholarship recipent 4
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1) What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
Of course, the fact of being able to meet face to face with wikipedians, to have the possibility of discussing with them about the projects' needs, and most importantly to have fun with them. :)
2) Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
It was awfully hot and humid in there. It is not something that could be blamed on the organizing committee, of course, still it's something to be considered when organizing a Wikimania during summer.
3) In what way contrbuted the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
Well, on my very first panel, I got involved into a meta-project of an Austrian user of the German Wikipedia, about creating the biographies of several hundreds of MPs of the Austrian imperial council. :) And then I got in touch with several other people, whose projects can be put in contact with Wikidata... I think I have work to do until next Wikimania. :)
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
I didn't learn what I actually would like to share: I mean that what I really want to share is the enthusiasm I felt there. There is plenty of things to do every year, and Wikimania is the right place to "recharge your batteries" and move on for another wiki-year.
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
Just remember to have fun, between the panels. :)
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • Third
  • Beautiful
  • Interesting
report from scholarship recipent 5
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1) What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
The meetings are extraordinary. I really enjoy the humanity which attends Wikimania, it is extremely committed and diverse. It is a beautiful chance to get to know people in person and to better work on free knowledge and the Wikimedia projects after you get home.
2) Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
I notice that thought time I tend to focus on the people I know, rather than on the people I don't know. I think the conference format doesn't really help to take full advantage of the all the different issues that are on strike. The parallel sessions tend to reinforce separation rather than chances to simply cross the unexpected.
And sorry to be really trivial, but the August weather in Hong Kong was quite challenging.
3) In what way contributed the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
In particular the event was a great occasion to create a stronger link with the people linked to Africa. I also specifically enjoy seeing in person the people I cross online many times: it is a good change to solve problems rapidly, ask questions and get quickly an idea of what people think about issues. It is really essential to meet in person to work efficiently also online. I am also really happy Benoit Rochon is coordinating the francophone group; he is a really nice person and I think he can facilitate more bridges among initiatives and people.
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
I really liked
Also the session Activating Africa was really useful for me to get a sense of what is going on related to Africa.
  • Activating Africa, Isla Haddow-Flood actually did the work (I mainly - and badly - kept the time in the presentation).
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
I think meetups are a nice format to enjoy at Wikimania. The official and organized ones, and the informal ones. I think next time i'll also make sure i attend sessions that i don't plan to attend, just for the pleasure of being surprised by people and initiatives i don't already know. I didn't do it this time, and i regret it. So maybe it is a suggestion others might also use.
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • Suitcase
  • Link
  • Warm
report from scholarship recipent 5
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1) What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
I liked the Hackathon the most. I had the chance to meet people in person that I cooperate via Wikipedia pages and by email.
2) Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
The last day the food finished too early :)
3) In what way contrbuted the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
As a programmer, I did a lot of bug fixing at my program. I had the chance to meet the Wikimedia Foundation Lab guys. I had the chance to see what are Wikipedia's new projects and aims.
As a member, of a Wikipedia user group I had the chance to discuss the future of my user group with some very interesting guys.
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
I learned a lot of how to handle Freedom of Panorama in Greece using the experience of the Italian guys.
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
Meeting other wikipedians in person is very important. It can really motivate your work and make you better.
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • Amazing
  • Awesome
  • Looking-forward-for-next-year-wikimania
report from scholarship recipent 6
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1) What did you like/enjoy most about Wikimania?
The Hongkong Wikimania was really well organized. The Hongkongese volunteers made an extraordinary work. The buffets were fresh, local, tasty, while both the venue, and the hotels/dorms were clean, safe and spacious. We quickly felt really comfortable surrounded by other friendly geeks.
2) Was there something you did not like? If yes, what was it?
I was fun but not fair that the WM pays for *tourism activities* such as a buffet at the last floor of the highest Hongkong skyscraper (Sky100), the last day private beach party. This was not luxury (not hyper expensive), the volunteers were managing most of the services, but knowing the hard time some great editors have writing for wikipedia or that we declined to buy them helpful books, i felt shame to be lead into such tourist activities and couldn't enjoy. Even understanding the need for simple fun and outdoor context for socialization of WM attendees, I'am still quite divided face to this.
Note: if this is the only thing after being asked to name the worse, then it's amazing to have all the rest so work-focused, money saving, and honestly fair.
3) In what way contrbuted the attendance of Wikimania to your activities as a Wikip/median?
Wikimania gave us -isolated wikipedia contributors- the opportunity to meet face to face with other key players within our field of action. There, we can talk directly, play hard, go to work, raise up motivation, and push forward a good project. I used the Dev Camp / Hackathon (H) and Wikimania (WM) days to:
  • H: **lauch project** Data Driven Maps[1].
  • WM: **networking** by identifying relevant human resources, mutual introduction, contact information exchange
  • WM: **discussion** with dynamic brainstorming and exchange of informations on common/connected projects, go/kill decisions for micro-projects of larger projects, project reorientation.
  • WM: **fundraising** relate discussions, critical for long term sustainability. Cf IEG Grant request[3] to come.
  • WM: **cooperation and alignment** with the raising Wikimaps Project, which aims to collect GIS data for Encyclopedic purposes.
  • As a specific case, the recurrent enthusiasm for our first Data Driven Maps[2] encouraged me to push this project forward. After 10 days of coding, we now have 2 more Data Driven Maps approaches (location_maps, relief_maps). These 2 coming delivery will make mention of the WMF-CH support. This development also allowed me to clarify the needs for a WMF IEG Grant[3] request.
4) What did you learn and would you like to share with the ones who stayed at home?
These days have been busy like crazy. I didn't got much know-how from the conferences, I mainly got a cleaner view of my surrounding ecosystem, talking with nearby influencial actors, and brainstorming to get the state of art of nearby projects. A critical information was a one hour tutoring by Siko Bouterse (user:SBouterse), WMF responsible for the WMF scholarships. She gave me a quick overview of the WMF schorlarship project and its resources, how it process and how applicants should process, where to apply, and who to contact for pre-application preview.
5) Any suggestions for future attendants/scholars of Wikimania?
Keep the WMF-CH address under hands to send them a postcard !
Propose an alternative Couch-surfing system so we may make friend with local wikipedians. This was missing a lot. We were so busy talking with other attendees that we just forgot/neglected to spend time with local volunteers.
6) And last but not least: Describe your Wikimania2013-adventure in three words :-)
  • bee-busy
  • creative
  • face-to-face
It was great to push these projects forward !
Thanks you and each person who donated for our travel scholarships and work,
7) References:

German-speaking Conference WikiCon 2013

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The German-speaking convention WikiCon took place on 1 and 2 November 2013 in Karlsruhe. A great number of Swiss Wikipedians participated at the event. Wikimedia CH not only supported the organization of the WikiCon with 2000 Euros but also rewarded scholarships to active Wikipedians to participate at WikiCon in Karlsruhe.

To get more information about the WikiCon 2013, we share two reports of our scholarship-recipents with you: https://members.wikimedia.ch/Wikicon_2013

We would like to congratulate again the Swiss Edelweiss Team for winning the 2nd place among the motivation projects - it's certainly an acknowledgement for the important and great work you do on the German Wikipedia.

Diversity Conference

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A small delegation of three people from the Swiss Community - Andreas (member), Patrick (board) & Muriel (staff) - was present in order to work out a concept on how to approach diversity challenges in Switzerland in the future and to get familiar with Diversity challenges. Thereby the focus of the conference lied mostly on gender - but also on linguistic minorities and diversity in terms of age. To approach these challenges, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Österreich and Wikimedia CH will join forces and collaborate on several activities for 2014 together. Therefore, the attendance of this Diversity Conference can be seen as "Kick Off" for Diversity Activities for 2014. The Conference was fully documented. To see all details, please visit the Meta wiki: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference/Documentation

Wikimedia Conference

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Wikimedia Conference 2013 group photograph 01

Like every year Wikimedia CH was represented and took an active part in the Wikimedia Conference (aka Chapter's meeting). Gabriel and Charles were representing the board, Manuel, Ilario and Patrick were present as volunteers. During the state of the chapters session Charles presented the highlights of our association.

Support to like-minded groups

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Public Domain Project

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Re:Public Domain

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In the autumn of 2013, Dock18 arranged, with partners like Wikimedia CH and Migros Kulturprozent, four events across Switzerland under the title of Re:Public Domain. 20 artists have put forward live music and film soundtracks, interactive installations, performances, screenings, pictures and reinterpretations of historic works in the Public Domain. The focus was on works entering the Public Domain in 2013 including artists like Robert Musil, Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Germaine Dulac or Robert Kratschmer. Each of the four events was different: In Zurich, a whole Public Domain night has been organized at the Rote Fabrik. In Aarau, a matinée with brunch at Forum Schlossplatz Aarau. In Geneva, during the OKCon, a hike in the woods of the Salève mountain (where Robert Musil’s ashes were scattered by his wife in 1942). In Bern we concluded with a show at the Grand Palais, where this year’s Swiss Re:Public Domain Remix Award was awarded to a song built on Public Domain material. All events were curated by Mario Purkathofer and Daniel Boos.

Some facts and background information

- 16 different artistic & technical appropriations of Public Domain material were shown. Some examples: a 3D print of the sculpture “Die Badende” by Hans Hippele, an audio app based upon the song “Madonna du bist schöner als der Sonnenschein” by Robert Katscher, music remixes by Rolly Morton, film scorings of “Titanic” by Hans Selpin and several films of Germaine Dulac, a book publication “Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften” by the original of Robert Musil and much more.

- Following artists & creatives participated with their interpretations: Bit-tuner, IOKOI, Eisentanz, Oliver Walkoff, Bruno Schlatter, Feldermelder, Erwin Posarnig, Claudio Zopfi, Christoph Stähli, Anna Cholinska, Marc Lee, Vadim Levin, Mario Purkathofer, Daniel Boos, Manuel Schmalstieg, So:ren Berner, Emanuel Frey, Marc Evertz, Remo Girard, Hartwig Thomas.

- Overall 230 persons visited the four events. The event in Zurich was the most visited.

- Publication of images and movies at http://republicdomain.ch

- Organised by Dock18, Mario Purkathofer, Daniel Boos and Bruno Schlatter

- Supported by and in collaboration with Wikimedia CH, Migros Kulturprozent, Publicdomainproject.org, OKFN, Ableton User Group, Fablab Zurich, IOIC, Digitale Allmend, Wuala.com, Kunstverkauf.ch, Konzeptbüro Rote Fabrik

Creative Commons

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Communications

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Swiss media coverage

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December
  • (de) 14 December 2013. Aargauer Zeitung. Wikipedia mit Autorenschwund: Das freie Wissen ist gefährdet.
  • (de) 14 December 2013. Blick. Schweizer gewinnt Wettbewerb mit Foto der RhB auf Wiesener Viadukt.
  • (de) 14 December 2013. Neue Luzerner Zeitung. Erfolg für Schweizer Fotograf.
  • (fr) 11 December 2013. Tribune de Genève. Un monument suisse est le chouchou de Wikipédia.
  • (fr) 11 December 2013. Le Matin. Un monument suisse est le chouchou de Wikipédia.
  • (fr) 11 December 2013. Le Temps. Le viaduc de Wiesen: plus beau monument du monde selon Wikipédia.
  • (it) 11 December 2013. Ticinonline. Lo svizzero David Gubler vince il concorso Wiki Loves Monuments.
November
October
  • (de) 18 October 2013. netzwoche. Nationalbibliothek sucht Wikipedianer.
  • (de) 17 October 2013. HappyTimes. Stelle ausgeschrieben: Schweizer Nationalbibliothek will Teile ihrer Sammlung Wikimedia zur Verfügung stellen.
  • (de) 10 October 2013. Computerworld. Nationalbibliothek will auf Wikimedia.
  • (en) 1 October 2013. National Geographic Education. Web Work: Swiss 7th graders edit the world's largest encyclopedia.
August
July
  • (fr) 8 July 2013. Le Matin. Les Archives fédérales suisses passent au numérique.
June
  • (fr) 18 June 2013. Tribune de Genève. Wikipédia fait de la prison en Suisse.
  • (fr) 18 June 2013. 24heures. Wikipédia fait de la prison en Suisse.
  • (fr) 18 June 2013. Le Matin. Wikipédia fait de la prison en Suisse.
  • (fr) 17 June 2013. 20 minutes. Wikipédia dans les cellules
  • (fr) 17 June 2013. RTN. Surfer sur Wikipédia en prison
  • (fr) 17 June 2013. ARCINFO. Wikipédia "offline" pour les détenus de Bellevue, à Gorgier.
  • (fr) 17 June 2013. NewsBBC. Surfer sur Wikipédia en prison.
April
  • (de) 15 April 2013. netzwoche. Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv goes Wikimedia.
  • (de) 13 April 2013. Blick. Bundesarchiv will 5000 Fotografien zum Ersten Weltkrieg freigeben.
  • (fr) 9 April 2013. Le Matin. Une Suissesse empêche la censure de Wikipédia.

Press Releases

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