Reports/2012/September

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 30 September 2012. 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 questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Program activities

Community

Editor decline

• Wikipedia reaches a turning point: it's losing administrators faster than it can appoint them, Telegraph Blogs, 5 September

Jimmy Wales

• Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales attacks government's 'snooper's charter', Guardian, 5 September
• Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia will use encryption to beat snooper's charter, Telegraph, 6 September

  Also see WMUK's Submission on Communications Data Bill

Philip Roth

• Philip Roth 'not a credible source to edit his own novel's Wikipedia page', Telegraph, 7 September
• How Philip Roth Outfoxed Wikipedia’s Idiotic Rules, Gizmodo, 8 September
• Author Roth rebukes Wikipedia over Human Stain edit, BBC News, 8 September
• Boot up: Bezos on profit, Pirates' German problems, Windows Phone's lost SDK and more (includes Roth on Wikipedia), Guardian blog, 10 September
• Philip Roth's complaint to Wikipedia, Guardian, 11 September
• Philip Roth knows his own book but let's not judge Wikipedia harshly, Independent, 12 September

Political edits

• Grant Shapps 'edited Wikipedia page to remove school records', Telegraph, 9 September
• Top Tory 'airbrushed his Wikipedia page', new chairman 'deleted political gaffes and altered exam details', Daily Mail, 9 September
• Tory MPs fiddling with their Wikipedia entries: Grant Shapps is just the tip of the iceberg, Telegraph blogs, 10 September
• Grant Shapps's Wikipedia page was edited to remove byelection gaffe, Guardian, 11 September

Gender bias

• Wikipedia editors' gender visualised, Guardian, 11 September

Wikitravel

• Wikitravel versus Wikimedia: something is going badly wrong with the free content movement, Telegraph, 11 September

GLAM activities

See also the This Month in GLAM UK report for this month.

Wikipedia Takes Coventry

Wikipedia Takes Coventry was the first Wikipedia Takes... event in the UK

Coverage

• Interview with Erin Hollis and Harry Mitchell on Wikipedia Takes Coventry BBC Coventry and Warwickshire (1 September 2012)
• Clock is ticking for scavengers to capture Coventry Leamington Courier (1 September 2012)
  • Also: Kenilworth Weekly and Warwick Courier

Other activities

• Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the library of the Royal Society, BoingBoing, 5 September

Expert outreach

• Delete the Wiki worries and get close to the edit Times Higher Education, 20 September

Other activities

• Microgrants approved this month include ...
  • An extension to the Operation Barras and Operation Flavius microgrant for source material for getting w:en:Operation Flavius and w:en:Operation Barras to featured article status. Operation Barras is now going through A-class review, and is expected to reach FA status without too many problems. Our thanks go to HJ Mitchell for his valuable work putting time into these articles!

UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)

There has been a substantial amount of media coverage during over the last couple of months. The online coverage has been aggregated into a PDF file that includes links to the articles. Topics include Ada Lovelace Day, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia, Mentions of Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia Zero, Jimmy Wales, GLAM Camp London, EduWiki, our relationship with the PR industry and a collaboration with Know How Non-Profit. You can see the full list here

We also published the following blog posts in September:

• Three months as a Wikipedian in Residence, by Andrew Gray - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/three-months-as-a-wikipedian-in-residence-at-the-british-library/
• EduWiki kicks off amid great anticipation by Stevie Benton - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/eduwiki-kicks-off-amid-great-anticipation/
• Board update (notification that Joscelyn Upendran had stood down from the Board) - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/board-update/
• Wikipedia Takes Coventry - the winners! by User:Rock drum - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/wikipedia-takes-coventry-the-winners/
• EduWiki 2012 - a review by Martin Poulter - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/eduwiki-2012-a-review/
• Wikimedia UK appoints Saad Choudri to its Board by Chris Keating - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/wikimedia-uk-appoints-saad-choudri-to-its-board/
• Board update (notification that Roger Bamkin had stood down from the Board) - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/board-update-2/
• Gibraltarpedia: WMUK press release (with clarifications about the project) - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/gibraltarpedia-the-facts/
• First ever Wikimedia UK intern waves goodbye by Isabelle Yates - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/intern/
• Joint statement from Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK (announcing the independent review into WMUK governance) - http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/09/joint-statement-from-wikimedia-foundation-and-wikimedia-uk/

Upcoming activities in October

• 01 - Wikipedia and images workshop/October 2012
• 01 - Board meeting (TBC) - call
• 01 - Conference Committee meeting (postponed from 24 September)
• 02 - Imperial College Wikipedia Society Freshers' Fair
• 02 - 03 - Cambridge University Wikipedia Society launch at the Freshers' Fair
• 04 - Robin Owain meeting Dr. Ted Jones, Digitisation on Demand from the National Library of Wales about work with Wikimedia UK
• 08 - Wikipedia talk and training workshop at the University of Oxford
• 08 - JISC Digital Infrastructure Team workshop, London
• 11 - Parkinson's UK Wikipedia training
• 12 - AHRC Wikipedia training workshop at the British Library
• 13 - 14 - Fæ and Andy Mabbett separately addressing the Central and Eastern Europe Wikimedia conference.
• 14 - London meetup
• 15 - Roger Bamkin speaking at the Oxford Internet Institute
• 16 - Roger Bamkin speaking at De Montfort University
• 19 - Ada Lovelace Day event
• 21 - Coventry meetup
• 23-26 - Dunhuang Project editathon, British Library
• 26 - Black History Month event
• 26 - Women in Science editathon, Oxford
• 27 - 28 - Train the trainer workshop, October 2012
• 28 - Cambridge meetup

For events in November and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Finances

• The current state of each of our budgets is outlined in a Google Spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkP38YPQ7Tg3dEQyQnRTMUhDMnV1RHdHekhqSXZvZHc#gid=0. This details spend to date, and a rough estimate of future spending. This spreadsheet is too complex to be placed directly on a wiki. Our yearly spend is heavily 'end-loaded', partially due to the rapid growth of Wikimedia UK.
• Although we may underspend in one or two budgets, the next few weeks will see a refocussed effort, led by a committee of editors, to work out how they would best like to spend this underspend.
• We also expect to be moving money between some budgets in the not too distant future.

News from the Chief Exec

For information on Jon's activities this month, see News from the Office.

The updates about the Wikimedia UK Interns can be found there too, together with here.

Communications

There were some notable communications successes this month. Both the EduWiki conference and our work around Ada Lovelace Day attracted a good deal of positive media attention. You can see the full breakdown of press coverage in the report linked to in the UK press coverage section above. In other ways this has been a challenging month in terms of communications and it was unfortunate timing that our Communications Organiser was on annual leave for the second half of the month. There have been appointments and departures on our Board of Trustees and the announcement of an independent review into Wikimedia UK's governance. There has been much conflation and presumption at the heart of much of the media coverage, both in terms of Roger's resignation and the announcement of the review, that it has been difficult to be clear and factual about what has actually taken place. In many ways September was something of a gift to our critics because of the perception of events - regardless of what those events actually were. Moving forward, we need to be more secure in making our own voice heard in amongst the media hubbub.

Fundraising and Membership

Fundraising

This month, we received £1,258.35 in one-off donations, with 68 individual donations. The average donation amount was £18.50 - 63% of these donors have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with katherine.bavagewikimedia.org.uk and let her know your requirements.

As for direct debit donations, there were 6026 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £24,765.

Membership

Up to 30th September 2012:

• 214 new (membership commenced in preceding three months) and current members
• 41 'grace' members (membership within six months after date membership should be renewed)

• This adds up to 255 members who are eligible to vote

• 152 Expired members

Katherine is developing HTML templates for welcome emails for new and renewing members to sign-post them to resources and information and will be scheduling a regular job to email members who have renewed (monthly) and newly approved (post-board meetings).