Reports/2011/November

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

Program activities

This has been a remarkable month for WMUK. Our new office opened; the UK fundraiser started and we webstreamed our board meeting. We have many education events and GLAM activities with our first hackathon in Brighton. We were involved in activities in India, England, Wales, Norway and the USA, with WMUK giving evidence in the Houses of Parliament. Our budget next year is about 50% bigger than last year. This was our first fundraiser as a registered charity and we are performing to plan. Each of these items is notable and there are others below. A year ago we had an event most weekends. We now have several activities happening on the same day and sometimes in several different countries.

Education projects

Harry Mitchell helping new editors during the Manchester Girl Geeks Editing Day.

• 3rd - Steve Virgin met with Heads at Bristol Metropolitan Academy, there is now interest on building a project promoting Wikis at the school (which has a language specialism) - with a promise to discuss more details in the new year
• 4th - Martin Poulter met with a researcher for a University of Bristol/ University of Cardiff project on crowdsourcing to explain how Wikimedia projects can benefit arts and humanities researchers
• 7th - Jon Davies (Chief Executive) came to Bristol, meeting with Bristol-resident trustees Martin Poulter & Steve Virgin. They held discussions with a number of local contacts, including the City Council Cabinet member for digital initiatives, a representative of the Somali language community and the Dean of Engineering & Computer Sciences at the University of Bristol.
• 8th - Fiona Apps and Roger Bamkin met with John Rylands University Library in Manchester
• 12th - Manchester Girl Geeks Editing Day; Harry Mitchell, Rexxs, and Julia W led girl geeks through the beginnings of their Wikipedia careers. Several interesting stumbling blocks were discovered, one of which has been passed onto the Foundation, but the attendees all enjoyed themselves and several draft articles were created, one of which (Cold Specks) was moved to mainspace on the day.
• 13th - Sue Gardner spoke at Imperial College on "Women in Wikipedia"
• 18th - Martin Poulter presented on "Sausages and Scholarship: the Role of Openness in Digital Literacy" at an ESRC Research Seminar on "Digital Policy: Connectivity, Creativity and Rights" in Leicester University. One of the outcomes was an invitation to speak at a research seminar in the media department in the Spring.
• 22nd - Liverpool Wiki Lounge; staff and students at the University of Liverpool dropped in to discuss Wikipedia with Harry Mitchell, RexxS, Phil Knight and Marek69.
• 24th - Martin posted a blog post on Sausages and Scholarship: Wikipedia and Digital Literacy.
• Wikisym scholarships: Mark Graham's presentation at the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikisym 2011 Report are now available.
• Two case-studies put together by the Wikipedia Ambassador at Bristol over the summer: Case study: Wikipedia as an assessment and learning tool and Case study: Group learning through Wikipedia

GLAM activities

See also the This Month in GLAM UK report for November.

Behind the scenes at the National Archives.

• 10th - Association of Science & Discovery Centres AGM for marketeers & PR teams at National Space Centre in Leicester (Steve Virgin spoke about Derby Museum and QRCodes work) - already two centres have stepped forward keen to discuss further collaboration - entitled 'Word of Mouth'
• 14th - John Cummings and Roger Bamkin discuss QRpedia project with Monmouth County Council
• 16th - Roger Bamkin speaking at Lillehammer
• 17th - Roger Bamkin on Special Libraries Assoc panel
• 18th - Sue Gardner, Geoff Brigham, Maryana Pinchuk, Jo Pugh, Roger Bamkin and Fæ at National Archives
• 24th - Fæ presenting at Open Data in Cultural Heritage workshop hosted by Wellcome Trust & Open Knowledge Foundation
• 30th - Roger Bamkin visited Indanapolis Childrens Museum to see QRpedia codes and the new US GLAM co-ordinaror Lori Phillips.

Technology

Attendees came from different demographics: different genders and ages were all represented.

The weekend of the 19th-20th saw the UK's first ever Hackathon, in Brighton. The two-day event brought together Wikimedia Foundation developers as well as other new and experienced coders. Over 25 bugs were squashed, including a complex one involving GeSHi.

Further reading

• Signpost coverage,
• Etherpads: Saturday, Sunday
• Tweets
• Photos: On Commons
• Blog posts: Post by Tom Morris

Other activities

• UK Wikimeets this month: London (13th), Liverpool (22nd)
• 1st - Fæ at PICTFOR meeting on Hargreaves' report on UK copyright changes, blog post
• 28th - Fæ gave evidence at the Privacy and Injunctions committee. (Video)
• Microgrants approved this month include Shore Establishments of the Royal Navy and Brighton Hackathon 2011
• We provided four scholarships to attend WikiConference India.

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

Press coverage of Wikipedia in UK publications this month included:

• Jimmy Wales on the future of the internet at the Cyberspace conference:
  • Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales on the internet's future, BBC News
  • Jimmy Wales: 'Wikipedia can topple tyrants', Telegraph
  • Injunctions are 'bad law', says Wikipedia founder, Independent
• 1st - Why Wikipedia Is as Important as the Pyramids, Wired
• 3rd - Wikipedia Loves Monuments in St Petersburg on Russian TV. QRpedia labels in Russian, English, Catalan, Finnish
• 3rd, Martin Poulter, 25 minute interview on BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio Somerset on Wikimedia and other topics
• 5th - Wikipedia founder predicts a 'Chinese spring', Guardian blogs
• Charity status
  • Wikimedia UK granted charity status, Third Sector
  • Charity Commission approves promoting Wikipedia as a charitable purpose, Civil Society
  • Wikimedia UK gets charitable status, The H
  • Bristol trustee’s delight at charity status for Wikimedia UK, Bristol 24/7
• Sue Gardner visit:
  • The World at One, BBC Radio 4 (at 0:30:40)
• Jon Davies appointment:
  • Wiki & History, History Association
• WikiConference India
  • Wikipedia hosts India conference amid expansion push, BBC News
• Jimmy Wales was on BBC's Question Time
• Mapping geotagged Wikipedia articles, Dr Mark Graham from Oxford Internet Institute:
  • The world of Wikipedia's languages mapped, Guardian
  • Wikipedia mapping by OII, Cherwell
• QRpedia - still
  • SMART UK article
• Brin Wojcicki Foundation donation to the Wikimedia Foundation
  • Google's Brin and wife plop half-million into Wikipedia's hat, Register, 18 Nov
  • Sergey Brin opens his wallet for Wikipedia, V3, 19 Nov
• 18 Nov, Narcissistic, greedy: What Wikipedia says about its appeal

Upcoming activities in December

• 1st - Darren Logan speaking at the Uniprot consortium meeting on Wikipedia annotation and integration, Cambridge
• 2nd to 4th - GLAMcamp Amsterdam, list of UK attendees
• 3rd - Cambridge meetup
• 5th - Martin Poulter speaking at Social Media Lunch for scholarly societies, the Institute of Physics, London
• 10th - Manchester meetup
• 11th - London meetup
• 14th - Exec board meeting
• 15th - Andy Mabbett talking at CentralTAG on 'Wikipedia, its GLAM collaborations, & how archaeologists can use it to disseminate their work to both specialist & popular audiences'

For events in January and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Board activities

Sue Gardner talking about editor retention during the full-board meeting.

• 1st - Exec board meeting
• 19-20th - In-person board meeting

Charitable status

• This month we were officially recognised as a UK charity - media reporting as above.

Fundraising

Number of donations received in November by donation mechanism (excluding direct debits)

For more information about our participation in this year's fundraiser, see 2011 Fundraiser.

We received £310,000 in donations from 19,000 donors via paypal this month, and expect to receive £206,000 from 19,000 donors via direct debit over the coming year. We have also received donations by cheque, postal order, Charities Aid Foundation, bank transfer and cash this month. For more information please see the daily Wikimedia fundraising statistics and our monthly fundraising report at Fundraising Report - Monthly Totals 2011.

This month we also began to allow donations via text.

Staff

Office

Clocks showing the time in London and San Francisco, in our new offices.

On November 14, we moved into our new office, in the Old Street area of London. We are currently in the process of equipping it and welcome any donations. Currently only Chief Executive Jon Davies is in the office full time although visitors are welcome and one of our first was a visiting WMDE board member.

Chief Exec

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

• Report of Visit to Foundation November 2011

Office and Development Manager

Interviews for the Office & Development Manager were held at the the end of November with the recruitment agency ProspectUs. Six candidates were interviewed by our Chief Executive and one of the trustees - applicants were questioned not only on their financial and administrative knowledge, but also their knowledge of Wikimedia UK, the Wikimedia movement, and the ethos and goals of the individual projects.

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