Reports/2011/August

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 31 August 2011. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. If you have any queries, please ask them to us on this report's talk page.

Education projects

Fiona Apps had meetings with staff at the University of Liverpool and University of Manchester about possible collaborations.

Sam Knight, the University of Bristol Outreach Ambassador, has been meeting with various student and staff groups within the University. He also helped to organise the Bristol Girl Geek Dinner (see below).

GLAM activities

• 8 August, British Museum makes the Wikipedia connection, The Guardian - based on an interview with Matthew Cock - covering the museum's viewpoint of Liam's Wikipedian in Residence, creating content vs. uploading photographs, QR codes and more.

• The ARKive project - a collaboration to improve Wikipedia articles on threatened species - has continued through the month, led by Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing). Four articles related to the project have been appeared on English Wikipedia's Did You Know? Full information is available at Wikipedia:GLAM/ARKive. The project will conclude with a public event in Bristol on 15th September.

• National Archive, as reported in the August GLAM report

Wikimania

Roger Bamkin attended Wikimania on behalf of the chapter on 4-7 August. (Key points to follow.)

WMUK also provided scholarships to Isaac Kosgei from Kenya and ??? from Hungary. Isaac Kosgei was particularly successful as a proposal to improve health related issues in sub-Saharan Africa was created around him. In September, he will meet Michelle Obama to discuss his work.

UK presenters included Christopher Cooper, Roger Bamkin, Ironholds and WereSpielChequers.

WereSpielChequers was interviewed by the local press [1] (google translate)

Wikipedia Workshops

The Girl Geeks had a Wikipedia globe-shaped cake...

...but it didn't last very long.

"On 15th July Simon Smith Tagishsimon ran a Wikipedia workshop for post-graduate students of Archaeology, Cultural Heritage Management, Medieval Studies and Eighteenth Century Studies as part of the King's Manor Interdisciplinary Conference at the University of York. Feedback from the 15 participants was very positive and Simon stayed on for a workshop on interdisciplinary studies of the past and the conference's wine reception. "

Forty people attended an evening event at the University of Bristol, jointly organised by Wikimedia UK and Bristol Girl Geek Dinners. The theme was Women in Wikipedia and the evening was led by Fiona Apps (User:Panyd). The mostly-female audience had one-to-one help from experienced Wikipedians including Jezhotwells, MartinPoulter and Bs5er. Fiona followed up with a post on the chapter's blog and an interview in the Signpost.

Board activities

• Executive board meeting, 9 August
• In-person board meeting, 27-28 August

Charitable status

As mentioned in last month's report post-publication, a revised submission has now been sent to the Charities Commission; we expect their reply by mid-August.

Fundraising

This month, we received £XX in donations from NN donors; for more information please see our monthly fundraising report at Fundraising Report - Monthly Totals 2011.

(Ideally could also provide amount spent this month and year to date.)

Our annual accounts for the period 1 February 2010 until 31 January 2011 are now available at File:Wikimedia UK accounts 31 January 2011.pdf (note that they are pending the correction of one minor error, after which they will be signed and filed.)

We provided an additional £4,037.04 (6,598 USD) to the Wikimedia Foundation via an extension of the previous grant we gave them earlier this year, representing 50% of the donations received by WMUK in the months following the end of the annual fundraiser.

UK press coverage

Press coverage of Wikipedia in UK publications this month included:

• 2 August, London plods raid Wikipedia in counter-anarchist operation, Register - covering the reuse of Wikipedia content by the Metropolitan Police without attribution.
• 5 August, "The US should let its credit rating be downgraded – and shrug" mentions "You may have never heard of David Beers but every finance minister in the world knows of him," noted Reuters in a recent – and rare – profile of the analyst, who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page."
• 8 August, S&P's powerful chief steps out of the shadows - "Some time last Friday night, someone created a Wikipedia page for David T Beers. Overdue, you might think."
• 8 August, British Museum makes the Wikipedia connection, The Guardian (see #GLAM activities)
• 8 August, Wikipedia wants more contributors, MacWorld UK; also Wikipedia targets addition of many more contributors in ComputerWorldUK
• 8 August, Women! Wikipedia needs you, Guardian blogs
• 10 August, The end of Wikipedia as we know it?, Irish Times
• 19 August, Wikipedia founder to lead Radio 3 Festival, also covered by NewsOnNews and Cambridge technology news
• 22 August, The Spark (a free magazine distributed in South-West England) did a profile of WMUK trustee Martin Poulter, discussing reasons for contributing to the chapter and to Wikipedia.

Miscellaneous

• UK Wikimeets this month: London (Sun 14 Aug)
• UK Community IRC meetings

Upcoming activities in September

We have quite a number of events planned for September, including:

• 1st - Institute of Physics Workshop
• 2nd to 3rd - Science Online London - "How are wikis being used to carry out and communicate science?" session
• 2nd-4th - RegioWikiCamp Brest (France) - Unconference on regional wiki projects
• 7th - Mayor of Derby on Webstream to give prizes to Russia, France and Indonesia for Multilingual challenge
• 8th - British Museum internal workshop
• 8th - Steve Virgin and Roger Bamkin talking at TEDx Bristol
• 11th - London meetup with Chief Exec short list
• 14th - Workshop for GLAMs at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum
• 15th - Wiki Wildlife Bristol
• 17th - Manchester meetup
• 18th - In-person executive board meeting - Derby
• 27th - Manchester Girl Geek Dinner at B-Hive, Manchester. Fiona Apps (User:Panyd) speaking about Women and Wikipedia.
• 27th - Presentation for all staff at the British Library

For events in October and onwards, please see Events.