Reports/2012/July

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 31 July 2012. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Program activities

Wikimania

• Wikipedia: Meet the men and women who write the articles, BBC News, 14 July

Community

4 million articles in English

The English Wikipedia reached the 4 million milestone article with the creation of an article on Izbat Al Burj by User:Mono25. We publicised this milestone via a blog post.

Admin numbers

• Will Wikipedia edit itself out of existence? 50 volunteer 'admins' used to join site each month ... but last month there was just one, Daily Mail, 17 July
• Jimmy Wales denies Wikipedia admin recruitment crisis, BBC, 18 July
• Wikipedia might be running out of administrators, figures show, Wired, 19 July

Kate Middleton's wedding dress

• "Trivial And Irrelevant", Vogue, 16 July
• Does Kate Middleton's wedding gown deserve its own Wikipedia page? Website editors bicker over 'frankly trivial' entry, Daily Mail, 17 July
• Kate Middleton royal wedding dress Wikipedia entry sparks row, London24, 19 July

Education and Research

• We offered two full scholarships to enable UK researchers to attend WikiSym, a Wiki research conference that will take place in Linz, Austria, at the end of August.
• A microgrant request to bid and set up a stall at the Cambridge University freshers' fair was approved.
• Harry Mitchell delivered a presentation to the Physiological Society at their conference in Edinburgh (full report).
• Ariadne: the web magazine for information professionals published an article by Prof. Brian Whalley of the University of Sheffield "Wikipedia: Reflections on Use and Acceptance in Academic Environments". Whalley comments approvingly on the Geological Society event and suggests that Wikipedia's struggle for neutrality is a useful thing to show to students.

GLAM activities

A participant in the Edinburgh photography workshop.

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

QRpedia

• World first for St Paul’s Church, Birmingham

GibraltarpediA

• Blog post
• Gib to be the world’s first Wikipedia city, Gibraltar Chronicle, 14 July
• הוירטואליות מתפשטת – גיברלטרפדיה רוצה לגשר בין יבשות
• Gibraltar, la première « Wikipedia City, Digital Hunter, 17 July 2012
• GIBRALTARPEDIA ON THE ROAD TO SUCCESS, Vox, 18 July 2012
• Gibraltarpedia: a new way to market the Rock, Gibraltar Chronicle, 19 July 2012
• [1] Your Gibraltar - Wikimedia directors (sic) host workshops on GibraltarpediA - 23 July 2012

MonmouthpediA

• Monmouthpedia could bring Wikipedia effect to Chepstow, South Wales Argus, 23 July
• Monmouth Wikipedia project inspires Gibraltar - could New York be next?, Wales Online, 23 July
• [2] Monmouth Today - MonmouthpediA to go county-wide 25 July 2012

Edinburgh Photography Workshop 2012

Peter Weis organised the first-ever UK Wikimedia photography workshop in Edinburgh this month. He has blogged about it in German (see the English translation).

Technology

Advertising for our first developer position continued throughout this month.

Miscellaneous

• We are seeking feedback on our Annual Report
• Survey reveals financial media reliance on Wikipedia, PR Week, 19 July
• University’s Wikipedia work wins inaugural award, Bristol University, 26 July

Upcoming activities in August

• 31 - WikiProject Medicine editor outreach, Coventry
• 29 - Society of Biology Wikipedia workshop
• 26 - Conference Committee/Planning meeting 5
• 25 - Manchester meetup
• 25 or 26 - (Wikinews) London reporters' workshop
• 23 - Andy Mabbett speaking about 'Volunteering for Wikimedia: Why work for free?' at Kultwerwest, Hamburg
• 19 - Wikimania 2014/Meeting 6
• 18 - Mozilla Editathon
• 14 - University of Hertfordshire Wikipedia workshop
• 12 - London meetup
• 05 - Coventry meetup (postponed from 1 July)

For events in September and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Board activities

A two-day board meeting took place on the weekend of 30 June-1 July. The minutes of the meeting are at Minutes 30Jun12. Highlights included the induction of the new Board on the Saturday, successful proposals to start establishing GLAM and Education sub-committees, adopt the Conference Committee as a formal committee, approving various alterations to our 2012 Activity Plan to expand our office space and equipment, and the start of the process of setting out our Draft 2013 Activity Plan.

Five trustees attended Wikimania, with Fæ, Mike, Joscelyn and Doug attending on behalf of the chapter, and John attending via a Wikimedia UK scholarship to attend the conference (which was given to him prior to his appointment to the Board). The Trustees were involved in a large number of conversations at the conference, including the establishment of the Wikimedia Chapters Association (with Fæ being elected Chair of the WCA), discussions about the future Funds Dissemination Committee, future Wikimania Scholarships, and general networking with volunteers from a wide variety of countries, other chapters, and the Wikimedia Foundation.

News from the Chief Exec

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

Communications

Booklet called "How to make a Wikipedia Town" about Monmouthpedia project was printed and delivered to the Wikimania organisers. 1,000 copies were printed and delivered to the venue. They were placed in the delegate packs for Wikimania.

The Russian language Wikipedia was blacked out on 10 July in protest at a piece of legislation making its way through the Russian Duma. Stevie wrote a blog post, and arranged for a Russian Wikipedian to appear on a news bulletin on BBC World News. (Video not available as show not broadcast in the UK). UK media coverage of this event includes:

• Russian Wikipedia in shutdown protest over internet censorship, Guardian, 10 July
• Russian Wikipedia goes dark in protest at censor law, BBC News, 10 July
• Russian Wikipedia shuts in protest, Belfast Telegraph, 10 July
• Wikipedia goes dark to protest web censorship in Russia, TechRadar, 10 July
• Wikipedia closes its doors in Russia for 24 hours in protest at country's attempts to censor the internet, Daily Mail, 10 July
• Russian Wikipedia Shut Down Over Gagging Law, Sky News, 11 July

Some international coverage:

• Russian Wikipedia goes on strike over censorship plans, RIA Novosti 10 July
• Russian Wikipedia goes on strike, The Moscow News, 10 July
• Bill to restrict web content is assailed in Russia, New York Times, 10 July

Miscellaneous coverage:

• Meet the bots that edit Wikipedia BBC website 25 July 2012
• Swedish translation of the above BBC article dn.se 25 July 2012

On 31 July The Daily Telegraph ran a report (online only) about Fae being banned from editing the English language Wikipedia, which was also reported in the Irish Independent, Gizmodo UK and Civil Society. More details of this will follow in the August 2012 report.

Stevie had a successful meeting with Digital Disruption and Demos to discuss opportunities for working together in areas of shared interest. A wider meeting with potential partners has been arranged for 10 September. You can see the notes for the meeting here

Fundraising and Budgeting

Fundraiser position

Our new Fundraiser, Katherine Bavage, started work this month. She was welcomed with a blog post, and her appointment was mentioned in an article in the Third Sector this week.

Fundraising

This month, we received £1,209.77 in one-off donations, with 51 individual donations. The average donation amount was £23.72. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with katherine.bavagewikimedia.org.uk and let her know your requirements.

As for direct debit donations, there were 5,562 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £21,961.

Office

Work on our audit continues, and is nearing a conclusion - hopefully this will be out by 1 September. The process of fully archiving or destroying (as necessary) paperwork from the 2011/12 fundraiser - to make room for the paperwork generated for the coming fundraiser - is underway. We also officially changed our name to 'Wikimedia UK', from 'Wiki UK Ltd', as decided by the members at our AGM. Finally, the office has expanded from six to eight desks.