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[[File:Friend's Newsletter winter 2023.png|alt=Text reading: Wikimedia UK, winter 2023 newsletter, thank you for your support this year on a green, red, and orange background featuring flora and fauna illustrations from Wikimedia Commons|center|frame|Collage of images from Wikimedia Commons, filenames in the description of this page - [[:File:Giving Tuesday 2023.png]]]]
[[File:Friend's Newsletter winter 2023.png|alt=Text reading: Wikimedia UK, winter 2023 newsletter, thank you for your support this year on a green, red, and orange background featuring flora and fauna illustrations from Wikimedia Commons|center|frame|Collage of images from Wikimedia Commons, filenames in the description of this page - [[:File:Giving Tuesday 2023.png]]]]


== Welcome to the winter 2023 newsletter ==
== Welcome to the winter 2024 newsletter ==
I’m delighted to welcome you to the winter edition of our newsletter. This contains lots of news and information about Wikimedia UK’s activities and partnerships over the past few months, including our recent Community Meeting and Train the Trainer course for volunteers; the conclusion of our two and a half year Connected Heritage programme, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund; and our ongoing climate-focused residency at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute.
Season's Greetings and welcome to the last newsletter of 2024! As I'm wrapped up in the festivities of the season I'm once again impressed by the incredible portfolio of work from our volunteers and staff this year.


As the year draws to a close, many of us will be reflecting on events in the wider world, and deeply concerned about the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Israel. In this blog post (link), I talk about the work of Wikimedia staff and volunteers to address the increasing threat of disinformation, in relation to the war and other crises.  
In September we moved into our new office at the British Library. The vibrant environment of the Library has already fostered our staff's creativity and innovation, while being a strategic location to enable better connection with partners, volunteers, and the public.


The end of the year is also a time to reflect on the events, achievements and challenges of our own lives and work. I’m very proud of what the Wikimedia UK staff team, trustees, community leaders, partners, volunteer contributors and participants have delivered together during 2023, and the difference we have made to the online information environment.
Earlier in the autumn we were delighted to welcome two new trustees to our board, following the election at our 2024 AGM. Andrew Russell brings substantial experience in public affairs while Monica Westin is a keen Wikimedian with a professional background in knowledge information.  


Thank you to everyone who supported our Giving Tuesday campaign. Our work to empower people to learn, share, and create knowledge relies on the generosity of donors like you. Thank you for helping to ensure that we can continue our programmes in 2024 and beyond.
Congratulations to Fran Allfrey, Wikimedia UK’s Wikimedian of the Year for 2024, along with GLAM-E Lab who received the Partnership of the Year award, and Perigrinate Avellana, our Up and Coming Wikimedian of the Year. You can read more about the awards and the nominees [[UK Wikimedian of the Year 2024|here]].  


Lucy Crompton-Reid
Finally, you may have seen our ''[https://wikimedia.org.uk/home/education/ Education through Wikimedia]'' campaign to boost our work in secondary schools. Education is at the heart of our work as the national charity for open knowledge, and we believe that equipping the next generation with essential information literacy and digital skills is crucial for their success in an increasingly complex digital world. This is why we are launching a dedicated campaign aimed at secondary school students, focusing on developing these fundamental abilities.
[[File:Community Celebration 2024.png|thumb|Wikimedia UK community celebration]]


Chief Executive
== Community Celebration 2024 ==
[[File:Community meeting 2023 videos and opportunities.png|alt=Banner for the community meeting, featuring a photo of last year's meeting by Tammy Gede and a collage created with images from Wikimedia Commons.|thumb|Banner for the community meeting, featuring a photo of last year's meeting by Tammy Gede and a collage created with images from Wikimedia Commons. File:WMUK Get Involved Header.png]]
In November we hosted our 2024 Community Celebration. It was a chance for our community to gather online, share and celebrate the work that’s taken place over the last year and recognise that work through the UK Wikimedian of the Year awards and celebrate the winners of the Wiki Loves Earth competition.


== 2023 UK Community Meeting - videos and opportunities ==
It was heartening seeing so many of our community at the celebration. There were around 40 community members, attending from all over the UK. With the event being online in the midst of Storm Bert raging, it meant that people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend were able to do so.
On Sunday 26th November we hosted a thoroughly enjoyable Community Meeting. It was a chance for our community to gather online, share the work that’s taken place over the last year, recognise that work through the UK Wikimedian of the Year awards, and find out more ways to get involved. The meeting was only two hours long, but managed to show a truly impressive portfolio of wiki work from our volunteers and partners. Thank you to everyone who contributed and came along!


For anyone who missed it, you can find recordings of the talks, the opportunities fair, and awards over on this [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2023/12/wmuk-2023-community-meeting-videos-and-opportunities/ blog.]
We had a series of short talks which can be watched in this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hf31R8QPKQ&list=PL66MRMNlLyR694Vod7X2MWHCZhb-WSG-m&index=1 playlist].


== The 2023 Wikimedian of the Year Awards ==
Jason Evans, Open Data Manager and National Wikimedian at the National Library of Wales told us about AI, Placenames and Time Machine experiments at the National Library of Wales.


==== Partnership of the Year ====
Dr Kirsty Ross from the University of St Andrews, who is also one of the co-founders of the IDEA network told us about how Scottish Brick History (SBH), Wikimedia UK, and researchers from the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews collaborated to get a unique dataset about Scotland’s brickworks onto Wikidata, and built web visualisations to showcase the work.
This prize was won by the Royal College of Nursing’s History of Nursing Forum (HONF) “Nurses in Red”. The forum established an editing group to improve and create content relating to the history of nursing on Wikipedia. So far they have improved more than 200 articles which have been viewed nearly 4.5 million times. The group’s focus is explicitly diversity focused too: nurses have often been from under-represented groups and making their lives and careers more visible on Wikipedia is so important.


Our Honourable Mention was awarded to the Khalili Collections and Glaire Anderson of the University of Edinburgh. Glaire has supported two classroom projects in which her History of Art students evaluated articles about Islamic Art and Science on Wikipedia, and then improved them. Many of the pages are now illustrated with beautiful 10th/11th century Caliphate images from the Khalilli Collections, which were released on Wikimedia Commons. Prior to this project, the Khalili images were not viewed by as many people, but are now reaching a wider audience on pages with high engagement.
Lucy Moore, a Wikimedian based in Leeds, and who won UK Wikimedian of the year 2022 told us about her Wiki Year!


==== Up and Coming Wikimedian ====
Nick Sheppard, Open Research Adviser based at the University of Leeds Libraries told us about his journey from his first tentative edit in 2017 (flagged as spam) to becoming a committed advocate for Wikimedia in Universities.
This prize was won by Heidi Berg, a prolific editor who has updated or created over 300 articles, vastly improving coverage of the Norwegian women’s football team. She also undertook Train the Trainer courses and helped other newbie editors on a regular basis. At monthly Women in Red editathons, she helps others and even lent her own laptop to one forgetful participant!


Our Honourable Mention was awarded to Sophie Whitfield, one of Wikimedia UK’s trainers who has shown incredible dedication over the last year in attending, designing, and delivering open knowledge workshops and projects. Sophie has supported projects at Durham University and Newcastle University, helping Wikimedia UK’s collaborations with higher education.
Jonathan Deamer from Liverpool, who describes himself as a Wikimedia hobbyist, told us about attending his first Wikimania in Katowice in Poland this year. He shared with us his highlights from the event and how these have had a tangible impact on his daily editing.


==== UK Wikimedian of the Year ====
Joanne Forster-Martin, a student at the University of Oxford, and who we met at our recent Train the Trainer weekend told us about the Wiki Women in Red project to uncover the hidden female figures of Jesus College, Oxford.  
This prize was won by Nick Sheppard, a Wikimedia volunteer and Open Research Advisor at the University of Leeds. Nick has advocated for Wikimedia projects within Leeds and in the university sector like few people ever have, and he’s really taken on the values of the Wikimedia movement, not just in his professional life. Nick has also been pushing for the UK Reproducibility Network to include guidance on Wikimedia in its advice to researchers. The Wikimedia Champions project they ran at Leeds has been an unusually successful student project, getting PhD students to contribute to Wikimedia in a variety of ways.


Our Honourable Mention was awarded to Ian Pigott. Ian has been the engine that keeps Women in Red going. He has organised an astonishing 270 editathons over the last eight years. His efforts have inspired others and he has been tireless in helping the Women in Red project, addressing Wikipedia’s gender gap.
Adam Harangzo, Wikipedian in Residence at the National Institute for Health and Care Research talked to us about his experience of working with researchers in an impactful way where they contribute to Wikipedia without directly editing it.
[[File:The Crazy Fighting Goats of the Ogwen Valley.jpg|alt=Two billy goats locking horns on a grassy hill|thumb|Winning photograph for Wiki Loves Earth in the Welsh category, taken by Rufus Davies]]
[[File:View of the Kings Library, British Library.jpg|thumb|View of the Kings Library, British Library, by Mike Peel]]


== Wiki Loves Earth winners in Wales and Northern Ireland ==
== Wikimedia UK moves into new offices at the British Library ==
In an effort to document the beauty of our natural world on the Wikimedia projects, photographers took part in the international Wiki Loves Earth competition. For the second year running, Wales had the second highest number of photos submitted to the Wiki Loves Earth competition, with over 5000 images. Northern Ireland took part in the competition for the fourth year running, submitting an impressive 363 photos. Ultimately, the aim of adding photographs to Wikimedia Commons is so they are used and seen. Be it on Wikipedia articles or in another medium entirely, openly licensing images helps the Internet be more informative and useful for all of us. Images from WLE in Wales are among the most frequently added to Wikipedia articles, with 51% of this year’s photos added to relevant pages. All of the photographs from this year’s competition can be found [[commons:Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Earth_2023|here.]]
Wikimedia UK is excited to announce our relocation to new offices at the prestigious British Library. The new office space will provide a vibrant environment that fosters creativity and innovation, allowing our team to work flexibly and collaboratively with a wealth of resources and opportunities available at one of the world’s largest libraries. This strategic location will enable us to better connect with partners, volunteers, and the public. Staff will continue to work remotely and occasionally come into the office, ensuring we adapt to the evolving needs of our team and the communities we serve.
[[File:Anglia Atlas.jpg|alt=Atlas created by cartographer Christopher Saxton in 1579 as part of his ‘Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales’.|thumb|Atlas created by cartographer Christopher Saxton in 1579 as part of his ‘Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales’. University of Exeter Special Collections]]


== Connected Heritage ==
Wikimedia UK Chief Executive Lucy Crompton-Reid, says: ''“We are looking forward to our new office space within the British Library after a year of being fully remote.”'' As the national charity for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement, there are lots of areas of shared interest with the Library. Director of Science and Innovation, Maja Maricevic, adds ''“We are delighted to welcome Wikimedia UK. Over years we have regularly collaborated with Wikimedia UK and hosted Wikimedians-in-Residence, so are delighted with an opportunity with an even closer proximity to an organisation that we have the existing close links with and share the common vision to open access to knowledge.”''
The [https://wikimedia.org.uk/connected-heritage/ Connected Heritage] project has come to an end, with so many brilliant outcomes including residencies at cultural institutions and a whole toolkit to learn from. From 2021 to 2023 we worked with partner organisations across the four nations to deliver digital skills training for volunteers, staff and local communities. The project aimed to raise digital skills and confidence across the heritage sector through Wiki training.


One of the most transformative ways in which we worked with partner organisations was through mini Wikimedian residencies. From 2022 to 2023 we worked with both the [https://rammuseum.org.uk/ Royal Albert Memorial Museum] (RAMM), and [https://mixedmuseum.org.uk/ The Mixed Museum,] enriching collections data on Wiki platforms. In this work we highlighted the ways in which a step-by-step approach to this kind of change can open up knowledge to the wider community, and bring audiences back to the source institution.
== New trustees at the Wikimedia UK AGM ==
Following a successful AGM we’re very pleased to share that '''Andrew Russell''' and '''Monica Westin''' have joined Wikimedia UK's board of trustees. We’re also delighted that '''Caroline Ball''' was re-elected for a second three year term. You can read their candidate statements [https://eu-west-1.protection.sophos.com/?d=wikimedia.org.uk&u=aHR0cHM6Ly93aWtpbWVkaWEub3JnLnVrL3dpa2kvMjAyNF9Bbm51YWxfR2VuZXJhbF9NZWV0aW5nL0NhbmRpZGF0ZV9TdGF0ZW1lbnRz&i=NjVhZmE0ZjY3MDExZmY1Y2Q3NDE3Yjc3&t=elRCdDZpbjBKZERlRXJtcmdSNEdYais5SDVWTWluOE9HV0pXV3lyYndMTT0=&h=2661eaa127054042af9ffe8ba157c4b0&s=AVNPUEhUT0NFTkNSWVBUSVZaFAaacHBa1XXlgRscq_crzoGlUi68xQtfbYwMm-_cdbNaheb163x6NaWPPdLeY2s here] if you’d like to find out more about them.


In March 2023, Chamion Caballero, director of The Mixed Museum, Jane Secker and Victoria Araj participated in a roundtable discussion moderated by the Connected Heritage team, as part of the [https://heritagedot.org/ Heritage Dot 2.0] conference hosted by the University of Lincoln. You can view the video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wei750SrHyY&ab_channel=HeritageDot here.]
On Saturday we also said thank you, but hopefully not goodbye, to outgoing trustees '''Julian Manieson''' and '''Rod Ward'''.


The discussion touched on how engagement with Wiki-based projects enabled cultural heritage organisations to improve the accessibility of their collections, while simultaneously empowering volunteers and members through embedded digital upskilling. The Mixed Museum’s Wikipedia edits were discussed as an example of ways that open knowledge can place overlooked cultural histories into the dominant narrative.
Many thanks to all those who attended the AGM, or who submitted a proxy vote.
[[File:Brixton Library Black History Month editathon presentation.jpg|alt=A photograph of Stuart Prior delivering a presentation to a room of volunteer editors at Brixton Library|thumb|Programme Coordinator, Stuart Prior, delivering Wiki editing training at the Brixton Library Black History Month meetup]]


To see more of the project’s achievements, you can see Lucy Hinnie’s [https://collectionstrust.org.uk/blog/connecting-heritage-through-wikimedia/ blog.]
== Brixton Library Black History Month editathon ==
Brixton Library’s monthly Wikipedia meetups show participants how to contribute to the encyclopaedia. For the October meetup, the event focused on learning about and contributing to the recording of Black history. We wrote about and enhanced articles about Black people, history and society. Participants used the session to explore Brixton Library’s Black Interest book collections, the library service’s online subscriptions to packages like the British Newspaper Archive and Who’s Who and much more. We also looked at Wikimedia Commons and how you can use photographs and images.


== Celtic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference 2024 ==
== 100 Days 100 Edits for climate (GSI) ==
We are very happy to announce that the conference dedicated to minoritized languages on the Wikimedia projects will be back for its 7th edition, to be held in Waterford City, Ireland, in September 2024. The exact date will be announced as soon as possible.
The University of Exeter’s resident for climate and the environment, Tatjana Baleta, recruited 31 researchers from 11 different institutions to cumulatively propose 100 edits to 35 articles over 100 days. As of the 10th of November 2024, these articles have been viewed over ~662,000 times.


Getting back to its roots in the Celtic languages and nations, the event gathers people from communities and languages that are underrepresented on the Wikimedia projects. It is a place where people working on growing and maintaining their communities can meet, learn from each other, and support each other on topics like community growth, technical tools, or collaboration with partners.
''"Through this 100-day campaign, I upped my normal Wikipedia editing, highlighted how unprecedented CO₂ levels are over millions of years, and dispelled two common myths about global warming: that humans are only "mainly" responsible, and that further warming stops when emissions stabilize, rather than when they reach net zero.”''


[[m:Celtic_Knot_Conference_2024|Celtic Knot 2024,]] will be an in-person event, held in Waterford, Ireland's oldest city which has an abundance of cultural heritage and history. We are exploring options to make conference resources (talks, panels, etc.) available to those who are unable to attend in person.
– Dr Femke Njisse, University of Exeter (edited Grid storage and Climate change)


We are currently gathering input from the community to build a conference tailored to your needs: whether you attended a previous edition of the Celtic Knot or not, if you are involved in underrepresented languages on the Wikimedia Projects, please take a few minutes to fill in the [https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_erCHFhEJyzrO46i community survey] (available in English, Irish and Welsh), and make sure to share the information with your local group. The survey is open until January 21st.
''“Promoting widespread scientific literacy is a key issue in addressing anthropogenic climate change, environmental degradation and injustice. Platforms like Wikipedia provide an excellent opportunity to disseminate scientific information to an extended audience, where this information is otherwise often only accessible by academics in the global north. I hope that my contribution to the campaign can help bring greater clarity to a topic (i.e. biochar) that is often discussed in the context of climate change mitigation.”''


As we are starting to build the concept and the program, we will regularly improve the existing event pages on Meta and post updates on the [[m:Talk:Celtic_Knot_Conference_2024|talk page]] of the event.
– Dr Oscar Kennedy-Blundell, University of Exeter (edited Biochar)
[[File:The Devils Pulpit.tif|thumb|The Devils Pulpit in Scotland, by Gaverlaa, This image won the 2<sup>nd</sup> prize in the national contest of '''Scotland''' in '''[[commons:Wiki Loves Earth 2024|Wiki Loves Earth 2024]]''']]


The core organising team is composed of Amy O’Riordan (WCI), Sophie Fitzpatrick (WCI), Daria Cybulska (WMUK), Richard Nevell (WMUK), supported by Léa Lacroix (community engagement consultant).
== Wiki Loves Earth winners ==
[[File:WikiProject Flyer.jpg|alt=Edit for Climate Change flyer|thumb|Edit for Climate Change flyer]]
Wiki Loves Earth is an annual photography competition themed around the natural world. This year Ireland, Scotland and Wales took part in the competition. Over 5000 photos were submitted of nature from across these three countries, helping to illustrate Wikimedia with the flora and fauna that is so at risk from climate change and human development. The winners have now been announced, see them for [[commons:Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2024_in_Scotland/Winners|Scotland]], [[commons:Commons:Wiki_Loves_Earth_2024/Winners#Wales|Wales]], and [https://wikimedia.ie/2024/09/13/announcing-the-winners-of-wiki-loves-earth-2024/ Ireland.] The natural world changes from season to season, but climate change poses a threat to our environment and its durability. Extreme temperatures, drought, or rainfall all disturb the balance that has cultivated these environments and biodiversity. The photos submitted to the competition capture the state of our natural world at a point in time, and remind us what we stand to lose.


== Climate residency at the Global Systems Institute ==
== Climate Change & Health Wikipedia Workshop ==
With over 324 million annual page views across more than 25,000 climate change-related articles, Wikipedia is one of the largest information sources on climate change in the world. Our resident at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute (GSI), Tatjana Baleta, has spent significant time facilitating researchers and students to improve climate change content on Wikipedia.
In November two of our Wikimedians in Residence held joint workshops between the University of Exeter and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Tatjana Baleta is the resident for climate at the GSI hub at Exeter University, and the health effects of climate change overlap significantly with Adam Harangozo’s residency on medical research at the NIHR.


To date, the project has trained more than 90 editors in 10 editathons, and articles from Effects of climate change on human health to Tipping Points in the climate system have also undergone review by subject matter experts.
Wikipedia is often the first and only place where most people go for health information. What readers find there matters. Contributing to Wikipedia offers a great opportunity to use an effective platform to mobilise evidence-based information, research and expert knowledge in an accessible way for a wider audience all around the world.


Tatjana has also been engaging lecturers about using Wikimedia platforms as a teaching tool. One MSc Sustainable Solutions student, two undergraduate Biosciences students and one PhD student in Environmental Intelligence are undertaking projects involving Wikipedia.
Researchers with expertise in climate change and health were invited to attend one of the three workshops in November. The workshops drafted an article – titled Climate change and health in the UK – on this important topic at the intersection of the climate crisis and health research.


After a successful first year, the project has secured funding to continue for a second. Find out more about the project [[:en:Wikipedia:WiR/Global_Systems_Institute|here.]]
== Wiki Loves Monuments 2024 ==
Over 5000 photos of monuments, architecture and protected buildings were submitted to the 2024 Wiki Loves Monuments from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Wiki Loves Monuments is best known for being the world’s largest photo contest. It highlights humanity’s cultural heritage through the buildings, structures, and other assets that have gained importance due to their artistic, historic, political, technical, or architectural significance. You can see the entries for [[commons:Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2024_in_Scotland|Scotland]], [[commons:Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2024_in_Wales|Wales]] and [[commons:Category:Images_from_Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2024_in_Northern_Ireland|Northern Ireland]].
[[File:The discovery of witches, Matthew Hopkins.jpg|thumb|Matthew Hopkins’ Discovery of Witches (1647), Held by The British Library]]


== Coda article on the impact of OSB on Welsh Wikipedia ==
== The history of witch trials in Newcastle and Scotland ==
The Online Safety Bill passed into law in October, marking the end of our efforts to ensure public interest projects are not damaged by the legislation, and the start of a long process of understanding what compliance will mean in practice for Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. Robin Owain, our Programme Manager for Wales, and Jason Evans, the Open Data Manager for the National Library of Wales, were interviewed by [https://www.codastory.com/newsletters/better-internet-wikipedia/ Coda] about how the bill could affect their volunteer Wiki work in Wales.
In 2023, one of our volunteers, Sophie Whitfield, led a Wikipedia workshop for students on  the Digital Cultures and Media course at Newcastle University. This year, WMUK again collaborated with the course leaders to give the students an opportunity to learn about Wikipedia.


== Palestinian history and culture ==
The plan was to have the class of twenty students collaboratively write a Wikipedia page about an overlooked part of Newcastle’s history: the 1650 witch trials. Overlooked for Wikipedia at least, [https://twmuseumsandarchives.medium.com/the-newcastle-witch-trials-62fc652cdef Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums] have excellent resources on the trials and the events were the subject of a [https://candleandbell.com/newcastle-witches-podcast podcast.] But there are no local memorials to the accused, and Wikipedia hardly mentions events in Newcastle.
We spoke to Lucy Moore, winner of the 2022 UK Wikimedian of Year Award, about the editing she’s been doing on the cultural heritage of Palestine. Lucy kept seeing calls from Palestinians on social media for their culture to be shared online as a way for it to be preserved. As a museum professional, Lucy thought the best approach would be to start with Palestinian museums. She started an article for the [[:en:Palestine_Museum_of_Natural_History|Palestine Museum of Natural History,]] which was nominated for the Did You Know section of Wikipedia and received 7889 views on the 1st December. From what Lucy could find online, [[:en:Al_Qarara_Cultural_Museum|The Al Qarara Museum]] has been destroyed. She started an article for it, and in researching for that page she found UNESCO’s listing for Palestine’s intangible heritage. From there Lucy’s created a number of pages on Palestinian culture, but is aware that there are people based abroad who are experts in the field and can advise on Arab names/places. For this reason, Lucy joined an editathon in early December with a group of [https://www.instagram.com/freeknowledgepal Wikimedians based in Jordan.] The event itself was not only trained editors, but provided important historical and political context to ensure that the edits attendees might contribute took this context into account. It also brought editors together from a range of countries who worked across Wikipedias in different languages. Lucy commented that ''“digital content can be so fragile, so aggregating sources for others to use on Wikipedia almost feels like a form of digital salvage. For the Al Qarara Cultural Museum, to my knowledge it's not there anymore, with collections largely destroyed, so in some ways it feels like you're writing an epitaph.”''


The organisers of the Palestine editathon have created a [https://docs.google.com/document/d/17301-ugUCIoupvcJBDLKneh-Dgfngp_-Ai9NUIsLANg/edit landing page] for those who missed the launch but still want to participate.
The trials took place in 1649 and 1650, and resulted in the execution of sixteen people. As with many other similar persecutions, the majority were women.


== Queer Britain ==
The Digital Cultures and Media course introduces students to a range of different platforms and media: social sites, mapping, video creation, and of course Wikipedia. They are taught to be adaptive and explore. With a class of this size, we organised them into groups so that they could work on different elements of the article. Some worked on the imagery, others on the list of the accused and what happened to them, while another group detailed the context within which the trials took place.
This autumn, Queer Britain collaborated with Wikimedia UK to host a Wikimedian in Residence project. From August to November, Evie Moore worked on improving content on Wikipedia and related websites, with a focus on topics relevant to Queer Britain.


One of Evie’s primary tasks during the residency was enhancing the [[:en:LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom#Advocacy_organisations|'LGBT rights in the UK']] Wikipedia page, expanding sections on Advocacy Organisations, LGBT representation in politics, Pride Parades, and Rights for Asylum. The comprehensive 1500+ words added aim to provide a well-rounded view of the current landscape of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK. The page is read on average [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2022-11&end=2023-10&pages=LGBT_rights_in_the_United_Kingdom 12,000 times a month] so is an important source of information.
Two hours raced by, and in the final thirty minutes there was an avalanche of writing. As students saved their edits the skeletal page suddenly took shape - populated by the names of people who had lived and died in Newcastle more than 370 years ago.


You can read Evie’s full blog on the residency [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2023/12/queer-britains-wikimedian-in-residence/ here.]
The history of witch trials has also been a project at the University of Edinburgh, with version 2 of the ''[https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk/ Map of Accused Witches in Scotland]'' – created using Wikidata – launching at the Edinburgh Futures Institute on 23rd October 2024. E. Whitehead has completed an expanded Glossary of terms to help explain and contextualise the Scottish witch trials. R. Imrie has completed the Nuxt.js upgrade and added filters for the accusations (demonic pacts, property damage, ritual objects used, meeting places etc.) the accused were subjected to along with all the temporal data so the Scottish witch hunts can now be explored in place and time through Wikidata.
[[File:"Islamic miniature painting in medical manuscripts" Wellcome L0016718.jpg|alt=Arabic manuscript describing and illustrating the treatment of tarantula bite with pomegranate.|thumb|Arabic manuscript describing and illustrating the treatment of tarantula bite with pomegranate.]]


== Khalili Collections residency ==
== IDEA network ==
Openly sharing content to the Wikimedia projects is our bread and butter, but it's important to involve native language speakers where possible. With the help of the [[m:Wikimedians_of_the_Islamic_Civilization_User_Group|Islamic Civilization User Group,]] our resident at the Khalili Collections, Martin Poulter, discovered that an Arabic manuscript had been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons backwards. The manuscript detailed how to treat a tarantula bite with a pomegranate, but the Arabic was impossible to read. The [[commons:File:"Islamic_miniature_painting_in_medical_manuscripts"_Wellcome_L0016718.jpg|Commons]] file was quickly reversed and the Wellcome Collection – from where the image was sourced – has updated its own database with the fix.
The University of St Andrew’s [https://theideanetwork.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ IDEA network] (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in Open Knowledge Network) was launched during lockdown. We’ve been working with them for years to make the Wikimedia projects more inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible locations for open knowledge.


Volunteers are adding data and links from [https://artuk.org/about/about ArtUK] to Wikidata. [https://query.wikidata.org/embed.html#%23title%3AObjects%20in%20the%20Khalili%20Collections%20with%20an%20ArtUK%20ID%0ASELECT%20%3Fitem%20%3FitemLabel%20%3FcollectionLabel%20(URI(CONCAT(%22https%3A%2F%2Fartuk.org%2Fdiscover%2Fartworks%2F%22%2C%3Fid))%20as%20%3Fartuk)%20%3Fkhalili%20WHERE%20%7B%0A%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP195%20%3Fcollection.%20%3Fcollection%20wdt%3AP361%20wd%3AQ63160499.%0A%20%20OPTIONAL%20%7B%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP973%20%3Fkhalili%7D%0A%20%20%3Fitem%20wdt%3AP1679%20%3Fid%0A%20%20SERVICE%20wikibase%3Alabel%20%7B%20bd%3AserviceParam%20wikibase%3Alanguage%20%22%5BAUTO_LANGUAGE%5D%2Cen%22%20%7D%0A%7D This query] brings up Khalili Collections objects whose ArtUK link has been added to Wikidata. Martin wrote a short briefing for ArtUK on how they can use Wikidata to populate their tags database, and how they can use a bulk data dump to add a lot of their links to Wikidata.
Some recent highlights include:


In another example of extended reach, a [https://medium.com/@infobomb/manuscripts-on-wikidata-the-state-of-the-art-7aeab63e0d56 blog post] written by Martin a few years ago has seen a resurgence of interest thanks to the Digital Scriptorium. The Digital Scriptorium is a consortium of researchers from institutions including the University of Oxford and University of Pennsylvania, and they recommended the blog as a starting point for their own work describing pre-modern manuscripts on Wikidata. Further, Toby Burrows of the Bodleian Library wrote an [https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/ijhac.2022.0277 academic paper] citing the blog post and arguing that Wikidata could be used to create links between many different catalogues of manuscripts. Wikidata has a new [[d:Wikidata_talk:WikiProject_Manuscripts|Wikiproject]] to organise data on manuscripts. As part of this, Martin created a [[d:Wikidata:WikiProject_Manuscripts/Dashboard|dashboard]] which shows the number of manuscripts from each collection that Wikidata knows about, with indicators of the data completeness for each collection. The Khalili Collection of Islamic Art presently has 132 manuscripts in this database, putting it ahead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
* [https://eu-west-1.protection.sophos.com/?d=st-andrews.ac.uk&u=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVpZGVhbmV0d29yay53cC5zdC1hbmRyZXdzLmFjLnVrLzIwMjQvMTAvMTIvZGlnaXRhbC1pbmNsdXNpb24td2lraWNvbm5lY3QtMm5kLWludGFrZS1hbm5vdW5jZW1lbnQtJWYwJTlmJTkzJWEyLw==&i=NjVhZmE0ZjY3MDExZmY1Y2Q3NDE3YmE2&t=WkVQNTQxL0lkRXBVbi9CZFhFbTVLUGtoakxNd3g5QTdXOU1zMGZzb2JMaz0=&h=d7f9b3811681459ca66d519430646d0a&s=AVNPUEhUT0NFTkNSWVBUSVbHWJeG47eUEa4cyL61CbXm66L8ziY8ITXWL9dY4Kpf7Q Digital Inclusion WikiConnect] – staff and students are working on content relating to digital literacy and digital poverty.
* [https://eu-west-1.protection.sophos.com/?d=st-andrews.ac.uk&u=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVpZGVhbmV0d29yay53cC5zdC1hbmRyZXdzLmFjLnVrLzIwMjQvMDkvMTYvaWRlYS1uZXR3b3JrLWxhdW5jaGVzLXRoZS1yb2xlLW9mLXVuaXZlcnNpdGllcy1pbi10aGUtZXRoaWNhbC1kaWdpdGFsLW5hdGlvbi1wcm9qZWN0Lw==&i=NjVhZmE0ZjY3MDExZmY1Y2Q3NDE3YmE2&t=bncweEg5dUFSUFcyTEZGQ25ISW11T1NpYU9MbXY1V0k5UHZUL1N4Q0tURT0=&h=d7f9b3811681459ca66d519430646d0a&s=AVNPUEhUT0NFTkNSWVBUSVbHWJeG47eUEa4cyL61CbXm66L8ziY8ITXWL9dY4Kpf7Q Ethical Digital Nation event series] – exploring how universities can play a pivotal role in addressing digital challenges through collaborative research, training programs, and the development of socio-technical solutions.


== ‘Doing History in Public’ with Cambridge University Library ==
== Wikimedia in Interfaith Education ==
In November, Doing History in Public hosted their second editathon in collaboration with Wikimedia UK, Cambridge University Library and Cambridge Department of Digital Humanities. After the successful May editathon, they were excited to build on their skills and introduce new students and staff to Wikipedia editing.
Interfaith Explorers is a set of resources to support primary and secondary education about religions. As well as classroom resources, it has guidance for teachers on encouraging respectful discussions about faiths and cultures. It is listed by the UK Government's "Educate Against Hate" portal.


The theme was ‘Out of the Shadows’, bringing underrepresented historical knowledge into the light of Wikipedia. This month’s event had a particularly French and feminist flavour, but also spanned to seventeenth century travel in Peru and Romanian films. For more info and links to the pages created/added to, have a read of Zara Kesterton’s [https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2023/11/30/november-2023-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-here-we-go-again/ blog.]
The site recently completed a major update in which Wikimedia content played a crucial part. Short text extracts adapted from Simple English Wikipedia and English Wikipedia were combined with colourful, diverse images from Wikimedia Commons to add nearly 200 pages of new content about religions and how they are practised. The result is an [https://www.interfaithexplorers.com/resources/ interconnected web] of child-safe educational material, with automated translation into a dozen other languages.
[[File:WMUK Train the Trainer 2023 cohort.jpg|alt=Photograph of the trainees who attended the on-line and in-person training|thumb|The 2023 cohort of trainers]]


== Train the Trainer ==
Dr Martin Poulter is Wikimedian In Residence at the Khalili Foundation, which maintains Interfaith Explorers. He adapted the wiki content with the help of expert reviewers. Interfaith Explorers are looking for teachers, religious institutions, and educational charities to join the community that will further develop the resource further, including covering non-Abrahamic religions. [https://www.interfaithexplorers.com/contact-us/ Get in touch.]
Train the Trainer is a course for volunteers who are keen to deliver Wikipedia editing events. Our recent London weekend with our newest cohort of trainee trainers was a great closing to 2023’s iteration of Train the Trainer. This year we used WikiLearn for the first time as part of the training programme, with a four week course in the run up to the weekend, covering subjects such as off-wiki tools, event management and supporting new editors. On the Saturday we bought a hybrid cohort together to cement that learning, and we'll be taking the next steps with the cohort in the new year. On Sunday we held a session for both the new trainers and our existing trainers on how to lead hybrid sessions, led by our training partner Bhav Patel.


We had the following feedback from some of our trainers:
== Memory of the World ==
Dr Martin Poulter is now focusing increasingly on the [https://www.unesco.org/en/memory-world Memory of the World] project. The Khalili Foundation is supporting and fully funding work to improve the visibility of UNESCO Memory of the World inscriptions on the Wikimedia platforms, in parallel with UNESCO's database which is being re-developed. This will bring some of the world's most precious documentary heritage to the widest possible audience. We will be coordinating with the team at UNESCO to improve Wikimedia as they improve the official online database.


''“At first, I supported other trainers until I was eventually confident enough to lead my own sessions on how to contribute to Wikipedia. They were for professional astronomers and science educators in South Africa - and I was helped online by a couple of other trainers - part of a great community of trained volunteers that Wikimedia UK has built up. It's given me a new way to enjoy sharing knowledge with people and communities in the UK and around the world. And they, in turn, can then use their new skills to share knowledge with others.”'' – Nick Moyes, Train the Trainer participant
Within the project, Indonesian Wikipedia has given a Featured Article award to [[:en:id:Hajj:_Journey_to_the_Heart_of_Islam|their translation]] of the Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam article. This resulted from a long review process involving four users, and is a rare honour; Indonesian Wikipedia only has 394 Featured Articles out of 700,000 total articles. This is the fourth Featured Article award achieved by this project: two in English, one in Urdu and now one in Indonesian.
[[File:Celtic Knot 2024 Reginold Tower.png|thumb]]


''"The best part of volunteering with WMUK is definitely the community. In 2022, I founded the Wikimedia volunteering project at Durham University with the goal of promoting high quality open knowledge about North East England. We succeeded with that goal but what I didn’t expect was the strong sense of community that emerged as students engaged with local history. They really came together to make significant contributions to open knowledge, creating connections with each other and the local community!"'' – Sophie Whitfield, Train the Trainer participant
== Celtic Knot 2024 ==
In late September, Wikimedians from as far away as Malaysia gathered in Waterford in Ireland to share stories of success, challenges, and to learn from others, all with a focus on minoritised languages. WMUK collaborated with Wikimedia Community Ireland (WCI) to organise and run the event. The Celtic Knot Conference is a space for different communities to connect and support each other in their efforts to improve their languages’ representation online, and WMUK have been involved in the conference since its inception in 2017. 2024 was the first in-person Celtic Knot since 2019, and across the three-day conference, 150 people attended in-person or online, with 35 different language communities represented. Each of the three days had a different theme in the programme: the past, the present, and the future of language communities. The programme was topical, with the launch of WCI’s WikiWomen Erasmus+ Project and talks on translation tools and the impact of large language models. Large language models present challenges and opportunities to Wikipedia, especially smaller language communities, so it was an important topic to discuss. The conference enthused those present, sharing stories of success that inspired others, from editing campaigns such as #wici365 on the Welsh Wicipedia and using digital TV channels to recruit editors.


''“I've been giving Wikipedia trainings in Finland for over a decade now. Last year I joined Wikimedia UK's new team for Wikipedia trainers. I still deliver training in Finland, and I’ve also helped editors from across the world get their start on Wikipedia, such as a university class who were creating and editing articles for local female artists. We’ve worked on inserting citations, and ensuring that the article was easy to read for foreign language speakers who could potentially translate the article for a broader audience.”'' – Johanna Janhonen, Train the Trainer participant
== University of Edinburgh ==
[[File:Carpenter portrait of Ada Lovelace - detail.png|thumb|Detail of Margaret Sarah Carpenter's portrait of Ada Lovelace]]


== VocalEyes ==
==== Women in Red workshops ====
We’ve been working with VocalEyes since 2022. They play a vital role in making arts and heritage accessible for blind and visually impaired, D/deaf, hard of hearing, and neurodivergent visitors. They do this in a range of ways, including training and collaborating directly with arts and heritage organisations. They also conduct research on how various sectors are making their venues accessible.
A number of  'Women in Red' workshops took place at the University - in September, to coincide with WIki Loves Monuments, the event was themed as [[:en:Wikipedia:University_of_Edinburgh/Events_and_Workshops/Scottish_Castles_and_Witchcraft|Scottish Castles and Witch Lore.]] New wiki pages were created about Scottish castles and heritage locations were created. These include [[:en:Bass_Castle|Bass Castle]], [[:en:Logie_House_Garden|Logie House Garden]], and [[:en:Poldrate_Mill|Poldrate Mill.]] As part of this event, the University also hosted an exhibition of material about Scottish castles and witchcraft that the university's special collections hold. Read the [https://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/wir/witch-lore-and-scottish-castles-september-editathon/ blog article] by Ellie Whitehead. In October the workshop was tied with [[:en:Wikipedia:University_of_Edinburgh/Events_and_Workshops/Ada_Lovelace_Day_2024|Ada Lovelace Day event]] celebrating Women in STEM (with a Robotics/AI theme).


In November, our Programme Manager, Richard Nevell, spoke at their virtual Digital Volunteering Forum. There were also speakers from the Smithsonian Transcription Centre (USA), York Archaeology, Wild Museum, DLNET (Digital Learning Network for the cultural heritage sector), and The British Library. Together we explored impact evaluation, student volunteering and the seamless integration of digital projects into existing volunteer programs.
==== History of Witchcraft in Edinburgh walking tour ====
[[File:National Trust chairs - geograph.org.uk - 4616507.jpg|alt=Photograph of blue chairs with the national trust logo in white, in front of a brick wall with plants growing up it.|thumb|National Trust chairs in Oxborough.]]
E. McAndrew and E. Whitehead made use of Wikipedia and Wikidata to develop an [http://curiousedinburgh.org/history-of-witchcraft-in-edinburgh/ 18 Stop walking tour] of locations in central Edinburgh related to the Scottish witch hunts and recorded 18 short Youtube clips presented by Prof. Julian Goodare and BBC broadcaster Louise Yeoman to accompany each stop.


== Exploring Wikimedia and the National Trust ==
==== Edinburgh Award 2024/2025 – Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia ====
The National Trust is the largest conservation charity in Europe. They care for hundreds of historic sites, including buildings and their collections, gardens, and landscapes. Last year, they began a pilot project exploring how the National Trust’s knowledge can be shared through Wikipedia. There are now almost 800 pages relating to the National Trust, which received nearly [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&source=category&range=this-year&subjectpage=0&subcategories=1&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&target=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:National%20Trust 13 million views in 2023.] Evidently, a lot of people learn about the Trust and the histories they curate via Wikipedia.
29 students have registered for the 4th iteration of the extracurricular Edinburgh Award for academic year 2024/2025. Each student is to choose 3 graduate attributes to develop over the 55-80 hours from mid October 2024 to end of March 2025 and a topic area of Wikipedia to significantly improve topic coverage in.


Lucy Moore worked for the Trust as a Wikimedian in Residence, and we’re excited to announce that Lucy is reprising the role in a new project in collaboration with Wikimedia UK. Starting in September and running until the end of February, the second project will explore the potential of sharing a selection of images on Wikimedia Commons and will create resources for staff who want to learn to edit Wikipedia. The Trust has a wealth of [https://nt.iro.bl.uk/ research] and knowledge to tap into, and we are looking forward to learning more about their work.
==== Global Health Challenges Programme Online ====
Masters students working online from geographically remote locations all over the world have been trained how to edit Wikipedia. The students are working in groups to significantly improve topic coverage of natural and manmade disasters in short stub articles as part of a 5-6 week assignment. So far they’ve added almost 40k words to Wikipedia.


You can follow the project’s work on [[:en:Wikipedia:GLAM/National_Trust/Pilot_2|Wikipedia.]]
== Finding sources through Wikipedia’s citations ==
We had an online Wikipedia workshop focused on adding Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to Wikipedia. Those DOIs point towards publications in the Archaeology Data Service. It helps Wikipedia's readers and editors as it makes the sources used in articles easier to find, and it helps the ADS because more people are visiting their site.


== Sankofa London Schools project ==
As it was a very specific kind of editing, the how-to element of the event was short, but because it involved changing references which aren't standardised there were a few tricky cases (especially if incorrect dates were used).
We have been supporting the Sankofa London Schools project since early 2022. Nadege Forde-Vidal is a historian and archeologist. Nadege launched the project and got in touch with us to help the year 9 cohort of students share their work with the unlimited global audience of Wikimedia projects. It’s essentially a local history project with a London focus to explore the lives of men, women and children who escaped enslavement over 300 years ago. The adverts listing rewards for the return of these freedom seekers – available in a database created by the University of Glasgow – allow students to piece together life stories with the help of Nadege and a team of historians, curators and archivists. The Wikimedia projects allow the students to share their work with a global audience, learn to edit, and produce text appropriate for a public platform. The project was featured in a stall at Hounslow council’s celebration for Black History Month in October.


While A-level history students currently volunteer their time to assist the year 9s’ work, the project is expanding in the new year with classes exclusively for A-level students.
At the start there was something like 2,000 articles on the English Wikipedia. In three hours, we made a good dent in the [https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Archaeology_Data_Service/Help_the_ADS_improve_DOIs_on_Wikipedia/home worklist] with more than 140 articles edited.
 
Nadege delivered a talk on the project at our Community Meeting, which you can watch [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2023/12/wmuk-2023-community-meeting-videos-and-opportunities/ here.]


== Join us ==
== Join us ==
We launched two new social media accounts in October, [https://www.tiktok.com/@wikimediauk Tiktok] and [https://wikis.world/@wikimediauk Mastodon,] but you can still find us on [https://twitter.com/wikimediauk Twitter,] [https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaUK Facebook,] [https://www.instagram.com/wikimediauk/ Instagram] and [https://www.linkedin.com/company/496119/admin/feed/posts/ LinkedIn.] We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a [[Membership|member]], which will allow you to vote on our board elections at the 2024 AGM on the 21st September. You can also support our projects through a [[Donate|donation]], or [https://wikimedia.org.uk/get-involved/ volunteer] on some of the projects above. Our blog has more details on some of the activities mentioned in the newsletter.
Come give us a follow on social media, we just launched our [https://bsky.app/profile/wikimediauk.bsky.social Bluesky] account, and we're also on [https://wikis.world/@wikimediauk Mastodon,] [https://twitter.com/wikimediauk Twitter,] [https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaUK Facebook,] [https://www.instagram.com/wikimediauk/ Instagram] and [https://www.linkedin.com/company/496119/admin/feed/posts/ LinkedIn.] We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a [[Membership|member]], which will allow you to vote on our board elections at the 2024 AGM on the 21st September. You can also support our projects through a [https://wikimedia.access.charity/donate/donate donation,] or [https://wikimedia.org.uk/get-involved/ volunteer] on some of the projects above. Our blog has more details on some of the activities mentioned in the newsletter.


<nowiki>[[ Category:Friends' Newsletter ]]</nowiki>
<nowiki>[[ Category:Friends' Newsletter ]]</nowiki>

Latest revision as of 13:08, 19 December 2024

Text reading: Wikimedia UK, winter 2023 newsletter, thank you for your support this year on a green, red, and orange background featuring flora and fauna illustrations from Wikimedia Commons
Collage of images from Wikimedia Commons, filenames in the description of this page - File:Giving Tuesday 2023.png

Welcome to the winter 2024 newsletter

Season's Greetings and welcome to the last newsletter of 2024! As I'm wrapped up in the festivities of the season I'm once again impressed by the incredible portfolio of work from our volunteers and staff this year.

In September we moved into our new office at the British Library. The vibrant environment of the Library has already fostered our staff's creativity and innovation, while being a strategic location to enable better connection with partners, volunteers, and the public.

Earlier in the autumn we were delighted to welcome two new trustees to our board, following the election at our 2024 AGM. Andrew Russell brings substantial experience in public affairs while Monica Westin is a keen Wikimedian with a professional background in knowledge information.

Congratulations to Fran Allfrey, Wikimedia UK’s Wikimedian of the Year for 2024, along with GLAM-E Lab who received the Partnership of the Year award, and Perigrinate Avellana, our Up and Coming Wikimedian of the Year. You can read more about the awards and the nominees here.

Finally, you may have seen our Education through Wikimedia campaign to boost our work in secondary schools. Education is at the heart of our work as the national charity for open knowledge, and we believe that equipping the next generation with essential information literacy and digital skills is crucial for their success in an increasingly complex digital world. This is why we are launching a dedicated campaign aimed at secondary school students, focusing on developing these fundamental abilities.

Wikimedia UK community celebration

Community Celebration 2024

In November we hosted our 2024 Community Celebration. It was a chance for our community to gather online, share and celebrate the work that’s taken place over the last year and recognise that work through the UK Wikimedian of the Year awards and celebrate the winners of the Wiki Loves Earth competition.

It was heartening seeing so many of our community at the celebration. There were around 40 community members, attending from all over the UK. With the event being online in the midst of Storm Bert raging, it meant that people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend were able to do so.

We had a series of short talks which can be watched in this playlist.

Jason Evans, Open Data Manager and National Wikimedian at the National Library of Wales told us about AI, Placenames and Time Machine experiments at the National Library of Wales.

Dr Kirsty Ross from the University of St Andrews, who is also one of the co-founders of the IDEA network told us about how Scottish Brick History (SBH), Wikimedia UK, and researchers from the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews collaborated to get a unique dataset about Scotland’s brickworks onto Wikidata, and built web visualisations to showcase the work.

Lucy Moore, a Wikimedian based in Leeds, and who won UK Wikimedian of the year 2022 told us about her Wiki Year!

Nick Sheppard, Open Research Adviser based at the University of Leeds Libraries told us about his journey from his first tentative edit in 2017 (flagged as spam) to becoming a committed advocate for Wikimedia in Universities.

Jonathan Deamer from Liverpool, who describes himself as a Wikimedia hobbyist, told us about attending his first Wikimania in Katowice in Poland this year. He shared with us his highlights from the event and how these have had a tangible impact on his daily editing.

Joanne Forster-Martin, a student at the University of Oxford, and who we met at our recent Train the Trainer weekend told us about the Wiki Women in Red project to uncover the hidden female figures of Jesus College, Oxford.

Adam Harangzo, Wikipedian in Residence at the National Institute for Health and Care Research talked to us about his experience of working with researchers in an impactful way where they contribute to Wikipedia without directly editing it.

View of the Kings Library, British Library, by Mike Peel

Wikimedia UK moves into new offices at the British Library

Wikimedia UK is excited to announce our relocation to new offices at the prestigious British Library. The new office space will provide a vibrant environment that fosters creativity and innovation, allowing our team to work flexibly and collaboratively with a wealth of resources and opportunities available at one of the world’s largest libraries. This strategic location will enable us to better connect with partners, volunteers, and the public. Staff will continue to work remotely and occasionally come into the office, ensuring we adapt to the evolving needs of our team and the communities we serve.

Wikimedia UK Chief Executive Lucy Crompton-Reid, says: “We are looking forward to our new office space within the British Library after a year of being fully remote.” As the national charity for the global Wikimedia open knowledge movement, there are lots of areas of shared interest with the Library. Director of Science and Innovation, Maja Maricevic, adds “We are delighted to welcome Wikimedia UK. Over years we have regularly collaborated with Wikimedia UK and hosted Wikimedians-in-Residence, so are delighted with an opportunity with an even closer proximity to an organisation that we have the existing close links with and share the common vision to open access to knowledge.”

New trustees at the Wikimedia UK AGM

Following a successful AGM we’re very pleased to share that Andrew Russell and Monica Westin have joined Wikimedia UK's board of trustees. We’re also delighted that Caroline Ball was re-elected for a second three year term. You can read their candidate statements here if you’d like to find out more about them.

On Saturday we also said thank you, but hopefully not goodbye, to outgoing trustees Julian Manieson and Rod Ward.

Many thanks to all those who attended the AGM, or who submitted a proxy vote.

A photograph of Stuart Prior delivering a presentation to a room of volunteer editors at Brixton Library
Programme Coordinator, Stuart Prior, delivering Wiki editing training at the Brixton Library Black History Month meetup

Brixton Library Black History Month editathon

Brixton Library’s monthly Wikipedia meetups show participants how to contribute to the encyclopaedia. For the October meetup, the event focused on learning about and contributing to the recording of Black history. We wrote about and enhanced articles about Black people, history and society. Participants used the session to explore Brixton Library’s Black Interest book collections, the library service’s online subscriptions to packages like the British Newspaper Archive and Who’s Who and much more. We also looked at Wikimedia Commons and how you can use photographs and images.

100 Days 100 Edits for climate (GSI)

The University of Exeter’s resident for climate and the environment, Tatjana Baleta, recruited 31 researchers from 11 different institutions to cumulatively propose 100 edits to 35 articles over 100 days. As of the 10th of November 2024, these articles have been viewed over ~662,000 times.

"Through this 100-day campaign, I upped my normal Wikipedia editing, highlighted how unprecedented CO₂ levels are over millions of years, and dispelled two common myths about global warming: that humans are only "mainly" responsible, and that further warming stops when emissions stabilize, rather than when they reach net zero.”

– Dr Femke Njisse, University of Exeter (edited Grid storage and Climate change)

“Promoting widespread scientific literacy is a key issue in addressing anthropogenic climate change, environmental degradation and injustice. Platforms like Wikipedia provide an excellent opportunity to disseminate scientific information to an extended audience, where this information is otherwise often only accessible by academics in the global north. I hope that my contribution to the campaign can help bring greater clarity to a topic (i.e. biochar) that is often discussed in the context of climate change mitigation.”

– Dr Oscar Kennedy-Blundell, University of Exeter (edited Biochar)

The Devils Pulpit in Scotland, by Gaverlaa, This image won the 2nd prize in the national contest of Scotland in Wiki Loves Earth 2024

Wiki Loves Earth winners

Wiki Loves Earth is an annual photography competition themed around the natural world. This year Ireland, Scotland and Wales took part in the competition. Over 5000 photos were submitted of nature from across these three countries, helping to illustrate Wikimedia with the flora and fauna that is so at risk from climate change and human development. The winners have now been announced, see them for Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The natural world changes from season to season, but climate change poses a threat to our environment and its durability. Extreme temperatures, drought, or rainfall all disturb the balance that has cultivated these environments and biodiversity. The photos submitted to the competition capture the state of our natural world at a point in time, and remind us what we stand to lose.

Climate Change & Health Wikipedia Workshop

In November two of our Wikimedians in Residence held joint workshops between the University of Exeter and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Tatjana Baleta is the resident for climate at the GSI hub at Exeter University, and the health effects of climate change overlap significantly with Adam Harangozo’s residency on medical research at the NIHR.

Wikipedia is often the first and only place where most people go for health information. What readers find there matters. Contributing to Wikipedia offers a great opportunity to use an effective platform to mobilise evidence-based information, research and expert knowledge in an accessible way for a wider audience all around the world.

Researchers with expertise in climate change and health were invited to attend one of the three workshops in November. The workshops drafted an article – titled Climate change and health in the UK – on this important topic at the intersection of the climate crisis and health research.

Wiki Loves Monuments 2024

Over 5000 photos of monuments, architecture and protected buildings were submitted to the 2024 Wiki Loves Monuments from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Wiki Loves Monuments is best known for being the world’s largest photo contest. It highlights humanity’s cultural heritage through the buildings, structures, and other assets that have gained importance due to their artistic, historic, political, technical, or architectural significance. You can see the entries for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Matthew Hopkins’ Discovery of Witches (1647), Held by The British Library

The history of witch trials in Newcastle and Scotland

In 2023, one of our volunteers, Sophie Whitfield, led a Wikipedia workshop for students on  the Digital Cultures and Media course at Newcastle University. This year, WMUK again collaborated with the course leaders to give the students an opportunity to learn about Wikipedia.

The plan was to have the class of twenty students collaboratively write a Wikipedia page about an overlooked part of Newcastle’s history: the 1650 witch trials. Overlooked for Wikipedia at least, Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums have excellent resources on the trials and the events were the subject of a podcast. But there are no local memorials to the accused, and Wikipedia hardly mentions events in Newcastle.

The trials took place in 1649 and 1650, and resulted in the execution of sixteen people. As with many other similar persecutions, the majority were women.

The Digital Cultures and Media course introduces students to a range of different platforms and media: social sites, mapping, video creation, and of course Wikipedia. They are taught to be adaptive and explore. With a class of this size, we organised them into groups so that they could work on different elements of the article. Some worked on the imagery, others on the list of the accused and what happened to them, while another group detailed the context within which the trials took place.

Two hours raced by, and in the final thirty minutes there was an avalanche of writing. As students saved their edits the skeletal page suddenly took shape - populated by the names of people who had lived and died in Newcastle more than 370 years ago.

The history of witch trials has also been a project at the University of Edinburgh, with version 2 of the Map of Accused Witches in Scotland – created using Wikidata – launching at the Edinburgh Futures Institute on 23rd October 2024. E. Whitehead has completed an expanded Glossary of terms to help explain and contextualise the Scottish witch trials. R. Imrie has completed the Nuxt.js upgrade and added filters for the accusations (demonic pacts, property damage, ritual objects used, meeting places etc.) the accused were subjected to along with all the temporal data so the Scottish witch hunts can now be explored in place and time through Wikidata.

IDEA network

The University of St Andrew’s IDEA network (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in Open Knowledge Network) was launched during lockdown. We’ve been working with them for years to make the Wikimedia projects more inclusive, diverse, equitable and accessible locations for open knowledge.

Some recent highlights include:

  • Digital Inclusion WikiConnect – staff and students are working on content relating to digital literacy and digital poverty.
  • Ethical Digital Nation event series – exploring how universities can play a pivotal role in addressing digital challenges through collaborative research, training programs, and the development of socio-technical solutions.

Wikimedia in Interfaith Education

Interfaith Explorers is a set of resources to support primary and secondary education about religions. As well as classroom resources, it has guidance for teachers on encouraging respectful discussions about faiths and cultures. It is listed by the UK Government's "Educate Against Hate" portal.

The site recently completed a major update in which Wikimedia content played a crucial part. Short text extracts adapted from Simple English Wikipedia and English Wikipedia were combined with colourful, diverse images from Wikimedia Commons to add nearly 200 pages of new content about religions and how they are practised. The result is an interconnected web of child-safe educational material, with automated translation into a dozen other languages.

Dr Martin Poulter is Wikimedian In Residence at the Khalili Foundation, which maintains Interfaith Explorers. He adapted the wiki content with the help of expert reviewers. Interfaith Explorers are looking for teachers, religious institutions, and educational charities to join the community that will further develop the resource further, including covering non-Abrahamic religions. Get in touch.

Memory of the World

Dr Martin Poulter is now focusing increasingly on the Memory of the World project. The Khalili Foundation is supporting and fully funding work to improve the visibility of UNESCO Memory of the World inscriptions on the Wikimedia platforms, in parallel with UNESCO's database which is being re-developed. This will bring some of the world's most precious documentary heritage to the widest possible audience. We will be coordinating with the team at UNESCO to improve Wikimedia as they improve the official online database.

Within the project, Indonesian Wikipedia has given a Featured Article award to their translation of the Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam article. This resulted from a long review process involving four users, and is a rare honour; Indonesian Wikipedia only has 394 Featured Articles out of 700,000 total articles. This is the fourth Featured Article award achieved by this project: two in English, one in Urdu and now one in Indonesian.

Celtic Knot 2024 Reginold Tower.png

Celtic Knot 2024

In late September, Wikimedians from as far away as Malaysia gathered in Waterford in Ireland to share stories of success, challenges, and to learn from others, all with a focus on minoritised languages. WMUK collaborated with Wikimedia Community Ireland (WCI) to organise and run the event. The Celtic Knot Conference is a space for different communities to connect and support each other in their efforts to improve their languages’ representation online, and WMUK have been involved in the conference since its inception in 2017. 2024 was the first in-person Celtic Knot since 2019, and across the three-day conference, 150 people attended in-person or online, with 35 different language communities represented. Each of the three days had a different theme in the programme: the past, the present, and the future of language communities. The programme was topical, with the launch of WCI’s WikiWomen Erasmus+ Project and talks on translation tools and the impact of large language models. Large language models present challenges and opportunities to Wikipedia, especially smaller language communities, so it was an important topic to discuss. The conference enthused those present, sharing stories of success that inspired others, from editing campaigns such as #wici365 on the Welsh Wicipedia and using digital TV channels to recruit editors.

University of Edinburgh

Detail of Margaret Sarah Carpenter's portrait of Ada Lovelace

Women in Red workshops

A number of  'Women in Red' workshops took place at the University - in September, to coincide with WIki Loves Monuments, the event was themed as Scottish Castles and Witch Lore. New wiki pages were created about Scottish castles and heritage locations were created. These include Bass Castle, Logie House Garden, and Poldrate Mill. As part of this event, the University also hosted an exhibition of material about Scottish castles and witchcraft that the university's special collections hold. Read the blog article by Ellie Whitehead. In October the workshop was tied with Ada Lovelace Day event celebrating Women in STEM (with a Robotics/AI theme).

History of Witchcraft in Edinburgh walking tour

E. McAndrew and E. Whitehead made use of Wikipedia and Wikidata to develop an 18 Stop walking tour of locations in central Edinburgh related to the Scottish witch hunts and recorded 18 short Youtube clips presented by Prof. Julian Goodare and BBC broadcaster Louise Yeoman to accompany each stop.

Edinburgh Award 2024/2025 – Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia

29 students have registered for the 4th iteration of the extracurricular Edinburgh Award for academic year 2024/2025. Each student is to choose 3 graduate attributes to develop over the 55-80 hours from mid October 2024 to end of March 2025 and a topic area of Wikipedia to significantly improve topic coverage in.

Global Health Challenges Programme Online

Masters students working online from geographically remote locations all over the world have been trained how to edit Wikipedia. The students are working in groups to significantly improve topic coverage of natural and manmade disasters in short stub articles as part of a 5-6 week assignment. So far they’ve added almost 40k words to Wikipedia.

Finding sources through Wikipedia’s citations

We had an online Wikipedia workshop focused on adding Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to Wikipedia. Those DOIs point towards publications in the Archaeology Data Service. It helps Wikipedia's readers and editors as it makes the sources used in articles easier to find, and it helps the ADS because more people are visiting their site.

As it was a very specific kind of editing, the how-to element of the event was short, but because it involved changing references which aren't standardised there were a few tricky cases (especially if incorrect dates were used).

At the start there was something like 2,000 articles on the English Wikipedia. In three hours, we made a good dent in the worklist with more than 140 articles edited.

Join us

Come give us a follow on social media, we just launched our Bluesky account, and we're also on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a member, which will allow you to vote on our board elections at the 2024 AGM on the 21st September. You can also support our projects through a donation, or volunteer on some of the projects above. Our blog has more details on some of the activities mentioned in the newsletter.

[[ Category:Friends' Newsletter ]]

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