Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Deutschland/April 2012

Politics and Society

Wikipedian in Residence

A Wikipedian in Residence is a link between Wikipedia and cultural institutions. In April Wikimedia Deutschland and the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin officially announced a Wikipedian in Residence to be hired by the Berlin-based foundation. Find the (German) job description here. The cooperation is partly owed to a current exhibition about famous Berliners. Background information can be found here.

Cultural Partnerships

In April Barbara Fischer joined Wikimedia Deutschland as a curator for cultural partnerships. She will support the German-speaking GLAM community. Among many other things Barbara will play an active role in preparing the 2012 international photo contest Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM). Wikimedia Deutschland's recent general assembly in Berlin provided a good opportunity for a warm-up meeting of WLM's volunteer organizers and Barbara. Read her personal introduction on Wikimedia Deutschland's Blog (again, in German).

Knowledge and Education

Hochschulprogramm (academic program)

Wikimedia Deutschland's academic program started in March 2012. In April all lecturers attended Wikipedia tutorials to prepare themselves for including the free encyclopedia in their upcoming lectures. All in all, six German universities participate in the pilot program. You can follow the respective classes' progress by adding the program's German Wikipedia page to your watchlist. Contact our Knowledge and Education department at campus@wikimedia.de, if you have any questions.

Wikipedia macht Schule (school program)

Wikimedia's Elly Köpf attended a conference for IT teachers in Northern Germany's Rostock. Besides many questions regarding Wikidata, the teachers made it very clear that educational material about Wikipedia is desperately needed. That's all the more reason for getting the collaboratively edited teacher's Wikipedia textbook finished. It's being composed at the German Wikibooks site and it's still open to suggestions and helpful comments.

Silberwissen (senior citizen program)

The Silberwissen program featured five workshops in April, including a two-day follow-up event at the Museum für Kommunikation Berlin. Find a German report at Wikimedia Deutschland's Forum wiki.

The Knowledge and Education staff are happy to receive any kind of requests for editing workshops. Our support is not limited to the three programs mentioned above. You don't need to feel part of any of these particular groups, in order to find help. In fact, please feel free to contact us at bildung@wikimedia.de, any time!

Volunteer support

Wikimedia Conference 2012

From 30 March to 1 April 2012 Wikimedia Deutschland hosted the annual Wikimedia Conference in Berlin. In April the event was wrapped-up from an organizational point of view. A retrospective report on the event itself was published on Wikimedia Deutschland's blog.

General assembly and more

On 21 April 2012 Wikimedia Deutschland's tenth general assembly took place in Berlin. The Wikimedia office organized the assembly as well as some additional events around the date of the event. On the day before the assembly guests were invited to an open house in Wikimedia Deutschland's new office. Many people used the opportunity and asked staff members questions about their work. It's noteworthy that a number of people with no obvious connection to the Wikimedia movement were present among the guests. Moreover, it seemed that in many cases staff members were specifically approached about questions regarding their respective departments.

On the day after the general assembly there was an open discussion with German-speaking members of and candidates for the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. Additionally, the Wikidata team held a workshop and the international volunteer organizers of Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 met for the first time.

Community-Projektbudget (CPB)

The CPB is designed to fund community projects regarding free knowledge. In April, CPB members for the 2012 term were elected. Wikimedia Deutschland supported the election on an organizational level. The election itself was strictly community-based. Find out about the election results here. The CPB is worth 200,000 €. Applications are awaited per e-mail to cpb@wikimedia.de (deadline yet undetermined). Each project amounts to a minimum of 5,000 €.

Research and Development

RENDER

In March a set of analytical tools (Toolkit) for the RENDER project was published. In April some bugs were fixed and the overall performance was improved. the Toolkit is designed to make Wikipedia's diverse information analyzable. In April a new feedback tool was implemented, allowing for direct emailing to the RENDER team. Opinions and further suggestions are highly appreciated! Apart form the feedback tool you can also contact the RENDER team at render@wikimedia.de.

The RENDER team is still looking to hire a web developer and software developer. Spread the word!

Wikidata

The Wikidata team was able to begin working on their project as planned. They joined the new office at the beginning of April and started developing a Wikidata demo system. Development of the demo will be finished soon. The team is most happy to answer your questions about Wikidata. In April two office hours were held, one in German, one in English. Please find the chat logs and upcoming office hours here. Feel free to also join the public Wikidata mailing list.

Public relations

press work

In April Wikimedia Deutschland initiated substantial media coverage of Wikidata on a national level. During the Wikimedia Conference, for example, a TV team from Germany's number one news show (Tagesschau) filmed an 80 second piece. Find more information and links in Wikimedia Deutschland's press review.

Wikimedium

The first 2012 issue of Wikimedia Deutschland's quarterly free newspaper was published in April. The newpaper went through a structural make-over for this issue. More on this in a related blog posting. This time 7,500 piece were printed, as opposed to 5,000 pieces before. Of these 7,500 pieces 3,000 are distibuted among regular subscribers. The summer issue of our Wikimedium will be published in June. Guest writers are welcome. There is an open editorial page in the German Wikipedia.

Informational material

Wikimedia Deutschland's stock of informational material was raised significantly after the new office was opened in April. With the re:publica web conference in Berlin coming up bilingual Wikidata flyers were designed and produced, as well as a basic introduction to free licensing. Find an overview of all these products at Wikimedia Deutschland's website. Regarding the re:publica conference a whole string of Wikimedia sessions was organized and scheduled. It was part of our media outreach to contact journalists and to organize press talks at the conference venue. Further information here.

Fundraising

In April the last donation receipts for donations from members of Wikimedia Deutschland were delivered. Additionally, member data of all 1,600 chapter members was moved to Wikimedia Deutschland's new database. Now data of all our organization's supporters can be maintained in one place.

Now that all donation receipts for last years fundraising campaign have been delivered, Wikimedia Deutschland is happy to announce that the delivery process resulted in more than 700 new membership applications, which equals an almost 50 percent rise in chapter members.

Wikimedia Deutschland's Till Mletzko attended Germany's most important fundraising event in April, in order to present the results of our recent fundraiser. Find his presentation slides here. His main goal at the conference was to share knowledge about storytelling as a successful means to fundraising. In the near future Wikimedia Deutschland staff will be interviewed about their motivation to be part of the Wikimedia movement. More importantly, the fundraising team is keen on portraying some of Wikipedia's volunteer editors for the next fundraiser. Find out more about it by contacting Till Mletzko at till.mletzko@wikimedia.de.

Organizational development

The new Wikimedia Deutschland office was opened at the beginning of April. Our new address is Obentrautstraße 72, in 10963 Berlin. There were no bigger problems or delays of any kind. In fact, the co-working concept that is at the heart of Wikimedia Deutschland's moving plans was already tested in April, as the Open Knowledge Foundation joined the Wikimedia office for a couple of days. Furthermore, Wikimedia Deutschland's open house on 20 April 2012 was a huge success.