Wikimedia Highlights, April 2013
Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for April 2013, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
Wikimedia Foundation highlights
New notifications system launches on the English Wikipedia
On April 30, the Foundation's Editor Engagement Team activated the Notifications system (also known as Echo) on the English Wikipedia. It informs editors about new activity on the wiki that affects them, for example when they receive a message on their user talk page, or when one of their edits is reverted, or when another user thanks them for an edit. The Notifications system is still being tested and modified based on community feedback. Later, it will be made available on other language versions of Wikipedia, and on other Wikimedia projects.
Wikidata's content can now be used on all Wikipedias
Wikidata has now begun to serve all language versions of Wikipedia as a common source of structured data that can be used in any Wikipedia article, e.g. in infoboxes. Wikidata's machine-readable knowledge database already contains over 11 million items. They can also be queried, evaluated and edited with the help of a growing collection of tools.
Wikimedia Commons app announced for iOS and Android
The Wikimedia Commons mobile app was officially announced in April, allowing quick and easy image uploads directly from mobile devices. It is available for both iOS and Android devices. Mobile users who don't have the app installed can still upload images from the mobile web version of all Wikimedia projects.
Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) publishes its recommendations about $1.2 million
Launched in 2012, the Funds Dissemination Committee is a group of Wikimedia volunteers tasked with helping to decide about the use of movement funds. On April 28, after a period of evaluation by supporting staff and public review by the community, it published its recommendations to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees about the second round of funding requests, by four organizations: Wikimedia Czech Republic (requested: $14,084.50, recommended: $0), Wikimedia Hong Kong (requested: $211,660.26, recommended: $0), Wikimedia Norway (requested: $235,715, recommended: $140,000), and Wikimedia France (requested: $747,259, recommended: $525,000).
New conflict of interest guidelines
With an immediate effective date, the Board of Trustees approved Wikimedia guidelines on the disclosure of potential and actual conflicts of interest in requesting and allocating movement resources (such as financial grants). Input provided by the community during a six-week consultation period greatly improved the original version.
Data and Trends
Global unique visitors for March:
- 517 million (+7.17% compared with February; +5.76% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release April data later in May)
Page requests for April:
- 20.8 billion (-3.4% compared with March; +20.1% compared with the previous year)
- (Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for March 2013 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots):
- 82,105 (+5.67% compared with February / +2.15% compared with the previous year)
- (Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects.)
Report Card (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects) for March 2013:
Financials
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(Financial information is only available through March 2013 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date March 31, 2013.
| Revenue | $41,573,672 |
|---|---|
| Expenses: | |
| Engineering Group | $10,569,516 |
| Fundraising Group | $2,915,969 |
| Grantmaking & Programs Group | $4,565,386 |
| Governance Group | $555,937 |
| Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group | $2,263,477 |
| Finance/HR/Admin Group | $4,187,115 |
| Total Expenses | $25,057,400 |
| Total surplus | $16,516,272 |
- Revenue for the month of March is $5.92MM versus plan of $5.28MM, approximately $647K or 12% over plan.
- Year-to-date revenue is $41.57MM versus plan of $35.74MM, approximately $5.83MM or 16% over plan.
- Expenses for the month of March is $3.09MM versus plan of $4.04MM, approximately $943K or 23% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, and grant expenses offset by higher bank fees.
- Year-to-date expenses is $25.06MM versus plan of $29.97MM, approximately $4.92MM or 16% under plan, primarily due to personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, FDC grants executed, WMF project grants, and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal expenses and bank fees.
- Cash position is $41.02MM as of March 31, 2013.
Other movement highlights
Chapters conference and GLAM-Wiki events
From April 18 to April 21, the annual conference of Wikimedia chapters took place in Milan, Italy, with more than 100 participants. Chapter representatives were joined by the Board of Trustees, the Funds Dissemination Committee and various employees of the Wikimedia Foundation. Chapters and other movement organizations gave short presentations about their most important activities.
On the preceding weekend, more than 150 people attended GLAM-Wiki 2013 at the British Library in London, an event devoted to the exchange between Wikimedians and cultural institutions (GLAMs). At the end of the month, the first ever GLAM Boot Camp took place at the US National Archives in Washington D.C., a three-day workshop for Wikipedians interested in assisting collaborations with GLAMs.
Students create the first online Arabic-Serbian dictionary
On the Serbian Wiktionary, a group of six students of Oriental studies have been working on creating the first online Arabic-Serbian dictionary. The project is symbolically named “1001 words”. It was initiated by Wikimedia Serbia and is supported by a local cultural centre in Belgrade.
"Wiki Loves Sound" enriches Wikipedia with audio recordings
"Wiki Loves Sound" is a new initiative to promote the use of sound on Wikimedia projects, supported by Wikimedia Netherlands. In April, 1838 audio files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, out of more than 2300 sound recordings donated by the Netherlands Institute For Sound and Vision.
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Electric coffee grinder
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Runners training in a park
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A column of Sherman tanks
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Disk drive and printer of a UNIVAC 9480 (1970s mainframe computer)
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Bells of the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam