Water cooler/2014

Invitation to Chapters and Photographers for the European Parliament Project 2014

Photographers needed

Hello everyone, please see the below information regarding a new project on Commons that's looking to help photograph and record members of the European Parliament. The group working on the project are looking for volunteers to help out with this piece of work and Wikimedia UK will consider providing funding for someone to go and help out. I've copied the below directly from the message originally circulated about the project so that those interested can get full details and context. Wikimedia UK also has equipment that we can loan for use on the project, including camera, lights, lenses and a sound recorder. Please comment below if you're interested, or feel free to email me directly. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:56, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Preamble

Some might have heard about the State Parliament Projects done in Germany and Austria since 2009: A bunch of Wikipedians and photographers meet politicians in the parliament, shoot professional photos, discuss their Wikipedia articles etc. This way hundreds of free licensed, high quality images have been made, Wikipedia articles have been improved. In the latest project at Schwerin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) we added videos, politicians give a short introduction about themselves, their position and political focus in German and in their mother tongue if different from German. About 20 photographers were able to participate and processes how to work with the parliament's administration, how to interact with the politicians, how to efficiently take a lot of photos in a short time and with good quality have been established.

Next Level: European Parliament

Now we would like to take this to next level: After contacting the European Parliament I was able to get their approval, the support by the parties and a date! Unfortunately the date is already in February, 3rd to 7th, as we have to use the short time gap between budget deliberations and elections. MEPs only travel to the EP when deliberations are ongoing but then they are also busy with meetings, as soon as the election preperation starts there won't be any time for our project within the next 6 months. Anyway I am sure we can do that - the elections are also a great opportunity to raise awareness on our material we have in Wikipedia and on Commons. It is also an excellent opportunity to bring together volunteers in doing our core work together, maybe we can transfer the idea of Parliament Projects to other countries. Volunteers get the opportunity to learn from each other - the EP is a very challenging project, having more than 700 MEPs to be handled within a few days. And Wikipedia may improve its articles, also by bringing together volunteers from different EU countries. Many MEPs have their articles only in a few of the European languages, some not even in their native language!

Your Chapter Involved

We are looking forward to get volunteers from as many countries as possible involved in this project. In order to be handle it we need approx. 35 people to help. Obviously the german and austrian photographers are already waiting for it, from past projects they already know what will go on. But there is much more to it: We want your volunteers! Imagine a project where we could bring together volunteers from all 24 language communities in the EU - that is what we are trying!

Therefore we ask you for a favour:

• please forward this invitation to your local community - you can point them to our project page on Wikimedia Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliament

• does your chapter provide travel support for those volunteers in your country who want to participate? Please do so. Your chapter pays for the transportation to / from Strasbourg and the accommodation (around 300 EUR per person for all 6 nights), we take care of the rest (transportation hotel - EP, catering etc.)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliament/Participation

• does your chapter have photographic equipment we might need? We could use DSLRs, flash units, background systems, lenses...

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliament/Equipment

• we would like to supply the volunteers with t-shirts or hoodies with Wikipedia logo or similar - for a unified appearance and to make them visible as volunteers and Wikimedians. Is your chapter (or the WMF?)

interested in providing 90 shirts / hoodies? (We planned 2 pc. per person as they will be worn almost one week.)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikipedians_in_European_Parliament/Marketing

• everyone who likes this project: state your support on the talk page of our grant request to the WMF which should cover the general costs of the project. By this grant request we make sure that each chapter only has to handle local support and can stay within it's budgeted limits and area of operation.
  • https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Olaf_Kosinsky/Wikipedians_in_European_Parliament

Existing online resources

Could we encourage volunteers to first think of uploading public domain/copyright free available media published by institutions such as the European Parliament Information Office in the United Kingdom, and to check if there are other media packs available to release on request from their off-line archives, before making plans to create amateur new media? My experience with uploading over 5,000 photographs relating to politicians from the Nordic Region was that this provided a plentiful supply of top quality photographs to illustrate Wikipedias in several languages. These photographs cost nothing in travel or equipment and so initial projects of this type are likely to be of incredibly high "bang for the buck" in terms of using the charity's funds.

If anyone finds such an archive with several hundred or more media files, and would like my help in a month or two with a mass upload, I would be happy to help out by making this part of my 2014 Faebot batch upload projects as well as claiming this as a success under the European Parliament Project umbrella. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 17:58, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Scholarship to attend Learning Day and EduWiki Conference 2014 in Serbia

To keep the conversation together and make it easier to link to the call and discussion in the future, use the Talk:Wikimedia Serbia EduWiki Conference 2014 Scholarship page there. Call content transcluded:

Wikimedia Serbia EduWiki Conference 2014

Wikimedia Serbia is organising an event called EduWiki Conference 2014 on Monday 24 March at the Belgrade Youth Center (Belgrade Serbia); this will be mostly in Serbian. Learning Day, an internal meeting between members of the WMRS education project and Wikimedians from other chapters takes place on Sunday 23 March, the day before the conference; this will be in English. This meeting will take place in Wikimedia Serbia Office. For more information please check the web page for this event from WMRS (in English).

WMUK is offering one scholarship (i.e. covering travel and accommodation expenses) to an active volunteer from the Wikimedia UK community willing to give a 15-minute presentation at the Learning Day. This scholarship is to cover a proposal made directly by the chapter in relation to its main Education-related activities for the Learning Day. We therefore need a volunteer to present the main Education-related work of the chapter at this event. Ideally, the presentation should be about at least three of the following topics:

• WMUK's EduWiki conferences
• WMUK-supported activities in Higher Education
• WMUK's partnership with JISC
• The Future of Education theme at Wikimania 2014

The call for applications for this scholarship is now closed.

The successful scholarship applicant will be required to write reports about the Learning Day for the Wikimedia UK wiki and/or blog before and after traveling to Belgrade.

PLEASE NOTE: This scholarship offer does not exclude us from considering a separate request for support from any other individual interested in presenting their Education-related work, should their proposal be accepted for this conference in Serbia. Wikimedia Serbia is accepting individual proposals for presentations until Monday 6 January, as per the email circulated by WMRS on the Education mailing list.

Looking for a Wikimedia Training Coordinator

Wici Cymru and Wikimedia UK are looking for a Wales Coordinator to develop the Wicipedia Cymraeg and English Wikipedia in Wales through encouraging and training new editors via our Llwybrau Byw - Living Paths Project.

The Coordinator must have experience of editing Wikimedia projects (both English and Welsh) and supporting volunteers and training on a professional level. The work will involve organising and delivering training sessions throughout Wales.

Fluency in both the Welsh and English language is essential.

The post is for 6 months and the successful applicant will be seconded to Wici Cymru who will oversee the work, jointly with WMUK, the employer, and the Welsh Government as financial partner.

The post is subject to Wikimedia UK's guidelines and contracts and is for 3 days per week. Further information can be found here and application forms are available from: Jon Davies at jon.davieswikimedia.org.uk

Applications are welcome. The closing date is 10am on the 22nd of January 2013. Applications cannot be accepted after that date. Interviews are planned for the morning of 28th January in Wrexham. Candidates need to be available for this.

The successful candidate's salary will be paid for by the Welsh Government. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 16:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikis for all - how to improve accessibility.

https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Accessibility_of_the_Wikimedia_UK_website

This paper has been written by Carol Campbell a trustee of Wikimedia UK. She is very interested in 'getting the ball rolling' on issues around accessibility on Wikipedia and all other wikis. She is fairly certain that this is not the first time these issues have been raised but would like to commit to bringing together people interested in finding answers to some of the challenges she is raising. Please add your names below and offer any background or insights you may have. Thanks. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 15:45, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Please assure Carol that many people have already done a great deal of work on this area over several years. I suggest we are careful not to duplicate existing work or fail to take into account previous research. As a starting point I suggest contacting those leading Wikipedia:WikiProject_Accessibility, those behind the developments at mw:Accessibility and forming a library of existing research to reference and review against such as MediaWiki – Accessibility Enhancements. --Fæ (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi Fae, I agree we should build on existing work and communities. Some of this is also about style guide stuff (which is a point you've raised elsewhere). I started to collect together mediawiki accessibility resources on my blog, it's interesting to see where some projects seem to have stalled, and where there may be gaps in attention (see Carol's comment). If we can support existing work that'd be great, if we can continue development then that's positive too! Sjgknight (talk) 16:48, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

1st June is Global Sharing Day

Hello everyone. I had a really interesting conversation with some people who are developing Global Sharing Day (link is to old website, new one coming soon). Essentially, it is a global celebration of sharing and the "sharing economy". This year I think it would be great for Wikimedia UK to take part in this celebration as sharing is at the very heart of what we do. Some of the ideas I've had so far include an open day on 1st June where we all bring along some food, share lunch together and then teach each other new skills. We could also have an editathon on the topic. I also think it would be worthwhile delivering a training and editing session to some of the groups taking part in the event. I'd love to hear any suggestions you may have on how we can mark Global Sharing Day as a celebration of what we all do. Thoughts please! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 18:20, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Sharing is great, we all agree, but please read the discussion first at the Engine Room as the company behind this appears to be a commercial venture and so we need to give it more thought before endorsing this day. Perhaps we could have a sharing day without aligning ourselves with this particular effort? Of course you could argue that every day is a sharing day for us already. Philafrenzy (talk) 14:30, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

The company behind Global Sharing Day have now confirmed they are a for-profit commercial venture. --Fæ (talk) 12:10, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about this day is also happening at: Engine room#1st June is Global Sharing Day

The third human editor to exceed a million edits on the English language Wikipedia

In the last few days User:Waacstats has become the third editor other than bots ever to contribute over one million edits on a single project. Immediately afterwards he overtook Rich Farmbrough, and he now has the second highest edit count on the English language Wikipedia.

Apparently Waacstats is in Wales, so I would like to suggest that we invite him to our next AGM and present him with an award for being the third editor ever to achieve this milestone. Perhaps Rich would be willing to make the presentation? Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 09:03, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Note that there is no authoritative list for edit counts. Other lists exist on projects other than the English Wikipedia, such as this Commons list of active contributors. I would be cautious about making general claims about all projects. --Fæ (talk) 10:02, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry Fae, I didn't notice that you had also made the million on Commons. Very happy to broaden my proposal to mark your milestone as well. That means that other than Koavf, three of the four highest edit counts that I'm aware of are from people in the UK! It is certainly possible that people on some of the other major versions of wikipedia have also passed this milestone, but I'd be surprised if they were in the remit of the UK chapter. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 11:16, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, passed the million a while back; nobody noticed. I celebrated by having a tea break. With bot edits I have more than 3.5m edits, you should imagine there are "bot" writers who have made around 10m. --Fæ (talk) 11:37, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Open Coalition Project Co-ordinator

Hello everyone. As you may be aware, for some time Wikimedia UK has been working with organisations such as Creative Commons and Open Knowledge Foundation to build closer working relationships across the open sector. We're now looking for a project co-ordinator to help take this work forward. It's a six month, part-time role and you can find all of the details here. Please do get in touch if you'd like more information. The closing date is Monday 3 February. Thank you! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 17:07, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Discussion about this post is at Engine_room#Recruitment_-_Discussion_removed_from_Water_cooler#Open_Coalition_Project_Co-ordinator --Fæ (talk) 19:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Going somewhere? Check for 'missing' images

Mount Melleray Abbey (geograph 3381465)

Having a play with some tools, I've just come across Wiki ShootMe! which allows you to search (coordinates or placename) geographic areas for articles associated with those areas that have no images e.g. http://toolserver.org/~magnus/wikishootme/index.html?autorun=1&language=en&lat=52.15&lng=-7.85&distance=10&art=Cappoquin Mostly I just wanted to share (there's so much going on it's hard to keep track of)! Also,

1. if anyone else has cool tools it'd be great to hear about them,
2. if people have ideas about how we could use, promote, and support tools that'd be good too,
3. I was wondering how easy it'd be to play with e.g. Open Street Maps to map these articles & browse that way (or if that exists?).

On '2' obviously there's scope for WLM/WikiTakes, but maybe we could also drop links like this onto event pages as a simple activity to engage people and remind people of the tools. (Incidentally the photo is from geograph.ie cross-loaded semi-automatically into Commons. I probably have one myself somewhere (grandmother from the area)) Sjgknight (talk) 16:47, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

A slight tangent of background and history that some may find interesting

Though Simon used a tool to do a one-off transfer of the example image, 4 years ago the vast majority of nearly 2 million UK Geograph images were transferred by Multichill's clever GeographBot as a large project, which become controversial and has yet to be re-run due to the difficulties of categorization of the resulting backlog. One of the projects that WMUK is now supporting is adding sensible location categories to all Geograph images (such as a County name) and we'll be looking again at an exercise Multichill experimented with a couple of years back to take this down to, say, the UK "village" level, something that my work with the Ordnance Survey open data makes far more accurate since the earlier experiments (in a way that does not exist for most other countries!). Multichill approached me recently about running GeographBot again for a refresh, and I hope in a few months time to make a joined up smart workflow so that the images can appear with more helpful categories than the last time.

Being millions of images, rather than thousands or even a hundred thousand, it's the sort of extremely large project that seems daunting and can burn out volunteers (it has taken me more than a full year of helping Faebot plod away mostly unnoticed to add categories across the whole of the UK). I think it's also the sort of thing that WMUK should be seen to find ways of encouraging or funding local projects, competitions and "gamification" (as well as wikishootme, have a look at Facebook Funfair which makes a game out of an otherwise dull maintenance job). --Fæ (talk) 17:46, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks for the additional info Fae Sjgknight (talk) 17:59, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

On '1', there's also Unvisited, an Android app. I've not used it myself as it doenst seem to support older Android versions, but looks good.--Rhyswynne (talk) 15:15, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Training the Trainers Cardiff

Hi all, we've had a last minute drop out for Training the Trainers/February 2014 event in Cardiff this weekend. If anyone reading this are interested in the open spot, please let me know by calling 07885980534. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 17:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Initiatives for 2014

I had some ideas for significant initiatives that would be interesting to do this year, that WMUK might be able to support. I could amplify their effect significantly with Wikimania, which I am organising. I'd be interested in comments or, better yet, co-conspirators - please feel free to weigh in on the talk page: 2014 Initiatives.

EdSaperia (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Unconference as part of Wikimania 2014

An open way to plan sessions, using unconference ideas at Wikiconf NYC 2010

Does anyone know if there is any plan to have an unconference as part of Wikimania 2014? I have been to an unconference that was part of a wider conference and found it was a great way to find people of a common interest and get them talking to each other. I am planning to run a small unconference as part of a larger conference in March so will have experience of that in time for Wikimania. I could organise the unconference for Wikimania 2014 if people would like me to do that. If someone is already planning to run one, I would be happy to help out. Yaris678 (talk) 10:27, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey! Yes, we hope to have a lot of unconference, or maybe open space type activity, and it would be great to have volunteers to facilitate. Email me: ed@wikimanialondon.org EdSaperia (talk) 19:55, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Cool! Email sent. Yaris678 (talk) 09:43, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Community consultation - WMUK response to European Commission copyright consultation

WMUK intends to lodge a response to a review by the European Commission of EU copyright rules. Community feedback is invited on the draft document indicated below.

• File:EU copyright consultation - WMUK response.pdf

(I apologise that the draft response has so far been uploaded to the wiki only in pdf format. If anyone has the time and expertise to create an easier-to-manage series of wiki pages, that would be much appreciated. I have not so far been able to get the OpenOffice export to wiki functionality to work, perhaps because there are so many footnotes in the document. In the meantime, I can email an editable OpenOffice document to anyone who would like a copy).

Please make comments on the text not here but on the main wiki page Talk:WMUK response to European Commission copyright consultation.

This consultation will close at midnight on Saturday 8th February 2014.

--MichaelMaggs (talk) 07:47, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The consultation is now closed, and the charity's response will be sent to the Commission shortly. Thank you to all who responded, both online and off. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 04:44, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Drafting a digital literacy strategy

Hello everyone. Wikimedia UK's education committee has often spoken about the need for us to have a digital literacy strategy. I've made a start on a draft here and would welcome some constructive input in developing the document. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 12:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

International Women's Day 2014

International Women's Day

As you may have noted from the events page, WMUK is in the process of supporting a number of events in London around International Women's Day 2014. Trainers will be needed for some of these events, so if you're a trainer, please take a closer look at the planning pages and let us know whether you're interested and available in helping out as a trainer.

Planned events on or near 8 March include:

• 4/3: Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at the Royal Society [1], Wiki page tbc
• 8/3: Women's Art Library at Goldsmiths editing event
• 8/3: Women Archaeologists editing event at the Petrie Museum

Please use the talk pages for the individual events to discuss availability, needs, etc. Many thanks! --Toni Sant (WMUK) (talk) 13:47, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Some support needed

We really need you!

We have been approached by a wikimedian who has been affected by a medical problem and can't edit easily any more. He wants to finish a couple of pages that are important to him (adding links I think) and I wonder if there is a kind person out there I could put him in contact with. An interest in military history would be an advantage. Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 10:30, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

What's the area of military history? I'm a coordinator of the Military History Project on enwiki, so I might be able to take it on, or I could find someone who knows the topic area. Harry Mitchell (talk) 21:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

20th Century I think. Can put him in touch with you? Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 10:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't promise I won't pass him to someone else, but sure. Harry Mitchell (talk) 15:57, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Great man! Thanks Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 08:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia UK is hiring: Web

Dear all -

I would like to announce Wikimedia UK is hiring for a fixed term contract position for 6 months for a Technical Programme Manager

We will be promoting the post via Government Gateway, the Wikimedia-l and Wikimediauk-l lists, and the 3 beards and Tech City jobs boards. If you can think of any other suitable places do drop a line here, and of course, please forward the link to those you think should be applying!

Thanks Katherine Bavage (WMUK) (talk)

Zürich Hackathon scholarships

Opening of the 2013 Hackathon in Amsterdam.

Wikimedia UK will be offering two to three scholarships to the international Wikimedia Hackathon in Zürich this year. Application will be taken through the registration page for the Hackathon. The deadline for application is 16 March. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. -- Katie Chan (WMUK) (talk) 18:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)