Projects & Activities of Wikimedia Germany in February 2011

Wikimedium

The club newspaper Wikimedium gets published in mid-March. Reviews and pictures were collected and currently we are in the layout phase. Our renewed call for collaboration has made significant success and we could win some external writers (Wikipedians and readers). In order to compile as many, varied and interesting contributions from the Wikipedia-/Wikimedia universe for the club paper, we are depending on external help and support. Please register and send us your suggestions to <catrin.schoneville at wikimedia.de> or <redaktion at wikimedium.de.> We are happy about every distribution. The newspaper is available for free at Wikimedia Germany. In February over 100 new subscribers were added. Altogether more than 700 new subscribers received the newspaper, plus events, informal meetings and other meetings where the newspaper was designed. Wikipedia-round table or Friends of the Free Knowledge can order higher-volumes from us to distribute the newspaper.

Press Releases

Since 01 February 2011 Podcast term explanations is being offered as a glossary of terms of Internet glossary Twick.it as an audio clip. The project of Wikipedia author prompter-Tabitha Hammer is one of the eight-winning proposals from the opening lap of the idea competition "worth knowing", which supports Wikimedia Germany financially. Internet users can invoke the Podcast under the address http://podcast.twick.it and listen to the declaration of the day for free. The service is primarily aimed at visually impaired people or people with reading disabilities. All declarations are under a free Creative Commons License and can be used with the corresponding source call. At this point we praise and recognize the 22-year-old initiator of the project, who achieved in a small period of time, to impress numerous established speakers and moderators for the project. It is a great joy for us to support such projects. We have created a press release in the beginning of February with the title ‘Barrierfree Podcast from the Competition of Wikimedia Germany goes live' and sent it out. The press response was unfortunately very quiet and vanished because other press topics:

Women quota in the Wikipedia
Gorch Fock (e.g. Edit - War on Wikipedia - The pilots remain on board, in FAZ, February 1, 2011
Media competency

Read more under the Wikipedia Press review or Wikimedia

Media inquiries and other press

After the great wave of media in January, it became very quiet in February. Unfortunately Guttenberg had not copied out of Wikipedia – this would have certainly changed something for us.... However, there were a few inquiries about the women's quota in the Commons and we referred to the importance of recruiting new authors (senior project) and noted journalists with statistics. Again, the issue of press credentials / accreditation templates for Wikipedia authors and photographers was discussed and a request was sent to the German Press Association. We are still checking whether we shall receive official press credentials for Wikipedians for this we will also take up the costs. Parallel to this we have successfully processed various accreditation inquiries from Wikipedians.

Information material

In context of the school project we have created a flyer, which has already been put to use by several head teachers and teachers' meetings and didacta. View and download here. Other information material in support of the school project is being planned. Even the senior project has implemented the first Wikipedia Workshops and currently we are creating informatial materials (leaflets) for the same. The Wikimedia Commons brochure is in the process of completion and proofreaders or co-authors can contact Catrin.

Activity Report

The activity report was created in February 2010 and sent to all members in printed form in the beginning of March. Furthermore mailings to donors have been planned and are already available online.

Wikimedia book

Last month was the official closing date for sending entries to the Wikipedia book. Unfortunately till this time all content could not be gathered, so that a substantial part of the work consisted of replacing intended articles, to issue new ones and to accordingly adjust the structure of the book. This process is almost complete and so now a draft version of the manuscript is ready. In the next step all text will be revised orthographically in-content, whereby this shall take place as a rule in cooperation with the respective author. In ordert to enrich the book with "outside voters", now various researchers, journalists and other people were addressed with regard to Wikipedia and invited to participate. Parallel to this the contractual basic conditions for the cooperation will be negotiated with a publisher - a task which in the light of the publication of the book is work intensive under free license.

Open Data

On 18 February in Berlin a conference on Open Data or PSI - Public Sector Information took place, where Mathias spoke on the topic cooperation with public institutions and the choice of free licenses. In the workshop many reasons came to the table, why a release of raw data is not as widespread as it was technically possible by the management and politics. Most characteristic was a story of the operating company of a major European port, why the measurements of the fairways in Port were not published: The fairways are generally lower, as it includes the contractual agreements and the statements, which actually use the place, are quickly removed. A release of data would publush this breach of contract and till now everything went well.

Internet freedom of speech

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, held mid-February a speech for internet freedom. Two days after that, invited by the American Embassy, a background discussion took place with representatives of the embassy and net politically active bloggers and others, Matthias was also included in them, whereby the topic Wikileaks was a major part of the discussion.

German Digital Library

Wikimedia Germany has expressed critically-constructively in the past about the concept of German Digital Library, thus in the IAIS-study about requirements for such a platform. We will continue with these talks. At present esecially critical is the the attempt of DDB representative, to create business models for the evaluation of content. For this it is currently being tried to prohibit the free use of digitalized works with legally doubtful arguments in order to keep control over value-added services. We see this not just an attack on the commons, but also believe that it will massively suffer the attractiveness of the platform DDB.

Wikimedia Conference

On 25-27th March we are expecting almost 100 Wikimedians for the Chapters' Meeting in Berlin. In the first floor of the Heinrich Boell Foundation representatives from 34 chapters, the Board of Trustees, the Movement Roles Project and also employees of the Wikimedia Foundation will meet. Wikimedia Germany as the host makes sure that travel, accommodation, meals and facilities of the venue are organized BenceDamokos will take care of the program. Some of the Chapter representatives are travelling abroad for the first time, others are experienced and been around a lot. We will try to respond to your wishes so that they can be in Berlin to concentrate fully on the event. In the meanwhile flights from around the world have been booked for Berlin, all participants requiring a visa should be granted entry and everyone will be taken care of. A first version of the program is online and we have planned a few surprises for recreation. On Friday the 25th March a public get-together for the subscriber has been planned, to which Wikipedians and other friends of free knowledge have been cordially invited. The exact coordinates will be announced later. We have found two presenters with Anja Krieger and Sabria David, who will escort the conference and the discussions result-oriented. In order to record the results for future work, we are in conversation with Anna Lena Schiller for the graphic documentation and are still looking for volunteers for the (English speaking) transcripts. More information can be found on the blog post on the subject: Preview: Wikimedia Conference 2011 in Berlin

Developers' Meeting - Hackathon 2011 in Berlin

This year we will break with tradition to organize the developer workshop in context of the Wikimedia Conference. Instead there is a hackathon in Berlin from 13th to 15 th May for MediaWiki developers. We are currently in negotiations with a location in Kreuzberg and in the next few days will open the application. Users on one hand, the developers of the Wikimedia Foundation, likewise MediaWiki developers, Tool Server users, Gadget hackers and interested from around the world have been invited to discuss the technical aspects of the Wikimedia projects. The registration is now open.

Wiki loves Monuments

As a continuation of the highly successful action "Wiki loves Monuments" in the Netherlands last year, the project in 2011 should be raised to the European level. By the end of January the first meeting of Wikipedians took place in Cologne, Nicole was there as a representative of Wikimedia Germany here. Wiki loves monuments in 2011 is a photo contest, where the Wikipedians and other dedicated hobby and professional photographers take pictures of monuments and upload images in Flickr or Commons. In the Dutch competition 12,500 photos have been submitted. The prerequisite is a uniform list of monuments across the country, a task which is even more difficult due to the Federal structure in Germany than in the Netherlands. Currently there are dedicated community members very busy with various officials to collect information, to request lists or gain potential supporters. In context of the "Open Space" at the general assembly on Sunday 19th March there is an opportunity to introduce the topic and discuss it. In May a larger meeting has been arranged, which has been integrated in the Berlin Hackathon in order to bring together Monument-friends with the tech-savvy supporters. The competition itself will be held between 1st and 30th September 2011.

"From the engine room"

In the technical area Daniel made a trip to two events in the USA in February. The meeting on 7th February 2011 in San Francisco with Danese Cooper and Erik Möller was in regard to coordinate in the field of technology between the Foundation and Wikimedia Germany. Among many other topics, the Tool Server, CiviCRM and WikiTrust CatScan were also discussed. The Wikimedia Data Summit 2011 took place on 4th February in Sebastopol. This meeting in O'Reilly HQ concerned the topic Wikidata / DataWiki. Detailed reports will be available here in the blog.

Editorial meeting

A little later than originally planned (plans of the Wikipedia meeting of 2011) but certainly just in time: on 1st March 2011 the support program editorial meeting will start. Wikimedia Germany widened its portfolio of measures to support the Wikipedia departments. Logistics, equipment and financial support - thus (and on demand even more) Wikimedia Germany will support the departments. In order to support the work done by them and to promote the quality of Wikipedia, to which the department decisively contribute.

School Project

In February the school project could continue its progress with further events in the year 2011. The focus this month was the response of other schools and co-operation partners. For this we were in Mainz together with an instructor at the Teachers' Conference (see blog post). Here we could make contacts with universities and schools from the Rhine-Main region. We were also on the Didacta 2011 in Stuttgart on site in order to carry out discussions with foundations and parent representations. Both events were very successful for the school project and provided space for cooperation and events on a personal level for more discussions. Recently we have a new flyer for the school project that will soon be available on our homepage. We could also make direct contact this month with other events this year, from which already first dates resulted. Apart from that we are also busy preparing for the SchulCamp3 in April and need to resolve the logistical and content of the conditions.

Silver Knowledge / TAO

Chronicler of the Association of Potsdam-Mittelmark was approached with the request to hold an information presentation on Wikipedia and the possibilities for cooperation in their annual meeting in March. They are planning around an hour for that. The event will take place in Bad Belzig in the district office. If there is an interest to support the workshops, steps could follow in the next months. Dates have already been agreed upon with two adult education centers in Western Germany in September and October of 2011 for the fall semester. We are also in conversation with other educational institutions. In addition, in February, the first interim report for TAO was delivered.

Literature Scholarship

With seven requirements within 30 days the literature scholarship has laid down a class start in the new year – the spectrum ranged from the fundamentals of the botany of the organ history of the Middle Rhine to the range of Theodor Fontane's "Walks in the Mark Brandenburg." We are happy about the opportunity to contribute to the diversity and quality of Wikipedia. Initiated and driven largely by an initiative from the community, we can also report good news from the field eLitstip (= electronic literature databases). On the initiative of the user: Codc and other employees of the editorial team of Chemistry, Wikimedia Germany has concluded a contract for eight additions for the German speaking Standard works along with the Georg Thieme Publishers in the chemical literature “RÖMPP Online“. The smooth cooperation of faculty, publishers and associations was remarkable that led within weeks to success. Publishers do not always react so positively to the issue of “access for Wikipedians "as the Thieme Publishers did in this case. We unfortunately had to determine this in recent weeks in discussions with other major e-publishers in Germany.

Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Deutschland/February 2011