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Communications and Governance Coordinator at Wikimedia UK since October 2017.
[[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]]]]


Draft autumn newsletter:
== 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.


'''Friends' Newsletter/2021/Issue 02'''
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.


== '''Welcome''' ==
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.  
Welcome to Wikimedia UK’s autumn newsletter, and we hope that you will enjoy the new format. We have split the newsletter into four sections, featuring projects you can get involved in, an update on Wikimedia UK’s partnerships, recent highlights from our blog, and a UK chapter focus.


Over the summer we welcomed three new trustees to the Wikimedia UK board. Caroline Ball and Julian Manieson were elected at our AGM in July. [[Board#Monisha Shah|Monisha Shah]] was co-opted in July following an external recruitment process and will be taking up the Chair role in October. Monisha has a professional background in media and intellectual property and brings to the board extensive experience of charity governance.
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]].  


We’d like to offer the opportunity to meet Monisha, and contribute to the development of our strategy for the next three years, '''in an online community meeting to be held on x.''' Please sign up for this event here. We’re still confirming a date, but please check this meta page for more information.
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]]


We are proud to have launched our [https://wikimedia.org.uk/ new website] and are very grateful to all the staff and volunteers who worked on it directly or gave feedback on the beta version. There will be further opportunities for feedback when we review the site next year.
== 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.


== '''Events and projects you can join''' ==
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.
The projects featured here have events that you can sign up for, or editing activities that you can get involved in.


=== '''Connected Heritage with the National Lottery Heritage Fund''' ===
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].
As part of the National Lottery funded Digital Skills for Heritage initiative, Wikimedia UK is running webinars to showcase what Wiki-based platforms and digital skills can offer organisations in a GLAM heritage context.


Our webinars will cover open knowledge, the digital skills gap, digital preservation and how WMUK is addressing those issues through this project. Participants will be provided with access to resources and materials to take back to their organisations, and the opportunity to follow up with the project and engage in partnership.
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.  


You need only attend one webinar: sessions are free, open and no prior Wiki experience is required. We hope to see you there!
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.
* Friday 8 October at 10am; [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/connected-heritage-webinar-sharing-cultural-heritage-online-tickets-170463831910 Eventbrite]
* Thursday 14 October at 2pm; [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/connected-heritage-webinar-sharing-cultural-heritage-online-tickets-170468792748 Eventbrite]
* Friday 15 October at 10am; [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/connected-heritage-webinar-sharing-cultural-heritage-online-tickets-170467665376 Eventbrite]
* Thursday 21 October at 2pm; [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/connected-heritage-webinar-sharing-cultural-heritage-online-tickets-170468977300 Eventbrite]


=== '''Afghanistan cultural heritage at risk''' ===
Lucy Moore, a Wikimedian based in Leeds, and who won UK Wikimedian of the year 2022 told us about her Wiki Year!
In the past weeks, the Wikimedia community has watched with great concern the events unfolding across Afghanistan. The country and its rich and diverse cultural heritage is once again facing the threat of looting and illegal traffic. To protect it, we need to work together. In 2006, ICOM published a Red List of Afghan cultural objects and art pieces that are particularly vulnerable, from Buddhist statues and paintings to Islamic manuscripts. They are used by the police, customs officers, auction houses, museums, and citizens to identify these objects & prevent their commercialisation in the black market. In particular, the Red List for Afghanistan helped identify, recover, & return 1,500 pieces to the National Museum in Kabul. The current situation in Afghanistan might undo all this work and further threaten the cultural heritage of the country. But there are ways to help. Please have a look at this '''[[m:Wikimedia_CH/Afghanistan_Antiquities_at_Risk|meta page]] to help us protect Afghanistan heritage''' from illicit traffic.


=== '''The Devil's Porridge Museum''' ===
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.
The Devil's Porridge Museum are hosting three wikithons this Autumn (in Sept, Oct and Nov) that aim to put the research done into the workers of HM Factory Gretna in World War 1 onto Wikipedia, teaching people the valuable digital skill of wiki editing and sharing previously unknown historical research. They hosted their first editathon last week, but there’s still time to sign up for the October and November events:


The Miracle Workers Wikithon #2 Tickets, Wed 20 Oct at 5pm [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-miracle-workers-wikithon-2-tickets-163518477167?aff=ebdssbeac Eventbrite]
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.


The Miracle Workers Wikithon #3 Tickets, Wed 17 Nov at 5pm [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-miracle-workers-wikithon-3-tickets-163519430017?aff=ebdssbeac Eventbrite]
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.  


=== '''Scottish Artists of Colour editathon with Fruitmarket''' ===
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.
The Fruitmarket gallery are hosting a series of upcoming editathon, which continue the work on articles relating to Scottish artists of colour. The editathons are open to all levels of Wiki editing experience, and will be hosted online so easily accessible for those not in Scotland. The first event is on the 6th October, sign up on [https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wikipedia-editathon-scottish-artists-of-colour-tickets-164819737271?aff=ebdsoporgprofile Eventbrite].
[[File:View of the Kings Library, British Library.jpg|thumb|View of the Kings Library, British Library, by Mike Peel]]


=== '''Scots Wikipedia''' ===
== Wikimedia UK moves into new offices at the British Library ==
In collaboration with Wikimedia UK, The Scots Language Centre has held a series of editathons to grow and support the Scots Wikipedia editing community. They provided support to attendees for writing in Scots, while Wikimedia UK trained new and returning Wikipedia editors. We’re proud of the community of editors we helped foster on the Scots Wiki, and we’re keen to recruit more Scots speakers. There will be more Scots editathons in October, you can join the [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSctpnDjO_PHZeOTrA0yjtVLqE4oDfjLtYhWzQVTwk712BSJJQ/viewform Wikimedia in Scotland mailing list] for more information on upcoming dates.
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.


=== '''Ada Lovelace Day 24-hour global editathon''' ===
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.”''
An opportunity to join in person or online and make a difference. Emmeline Pankhurst’s old home in Manchester will be the UK hub for the 24-hour worldwide Wikipedia editathon to showcase women in the sciences.


On October 12th, an international 24-hour editing marathon to improve the coverage of women in Wikipedia will start across the globe in Aotearoa New Zealand. The relay of volunteer editing starts midday in Aotearoa and as October 12th continues Australians will join in, passing the baton from timezone to timezone. The event in the UK starts at 2pm UK time finishing back in Aotearoa New Zealand 10 hours later.
== 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.


You can contact us for more information on how to get involved, or Roger Bampkin at roger@bamk.in
On Saturday we also said thank you, but hopefully not goodbye, to outgoing trustees '''Julian Manieson''' and '''Rod Ward'''.


=== '''Recruiting a Wikimedian in Residence at the National Institute for Health Research''' ===
Many thanks to all those who attended the AGM, or who submitted a proxy vote.
In April last year, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) created a new Centre for Engagement and Dissemination. Inspired by our Wikimedian in Residence at the Wellcome Collection, NIHR got in touch with us last month to discuss their own Wikimedian in Residence project, for which they have funding for a six month trial residency.
[[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]]


We're currently working on a job description and a memorandum of understanding with the NIHR, who are keen to move quickly on recruiting for the role. We hope to start advertising for the position of Wikimedian in Residence at the NIHR within the next couple of weeks.
== 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.


== '''Our work in partnership''' ==
== 100 Days 100 Edits for climate (GSI) ==
A look at what’s been happening with our new and existing partners since the last newsletter. Our partners range from long-standing and far-reaching organisations, to small yet mighty initiatives.
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.


=== '''Black History Month''' ===
''"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.”''
* We’re organising an editathon with the Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS), with a focus on referencing the work of African scholars.
* London College of Communication is launching a Decolonising Wikipedia Network – aiming to recruit an army of staff and student 'knowledge activists' who will work to increase the visibility of under-represented artists, creatives and thinkers. Students and staff who join the LCC Decolonising Wikipedia Network will learn to edit Wikipedia through a decolonial lens and will work with fellow knowledge activists to make Wikipedia a more inclusive and diverse space, one article at a time. More info from the manager of the LCC Changemakers Group can be found [https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/stories/lcc-decolonising-wikipedia-network-is-open-for-registration here].


=== '''The Khalili Collections''' ===
– Dr Femke Njisse, University of Exeter (edited Grid storage and Climate change)
In August, the Khalili Collections hit a milestone of uploading 1000 images to Wikimedia Commons. The Khalili Collections are an array of eight privately owned collections, each the largest of its kind in the world. With the help of our Wikimedian in Residence, they have been able to digitise and make public these incredible works. It’s through this partnership that our Resident, Martin Poulter, was able to meet the Artistic Director of the Khalili Collections Waqas Ahmed. The two have since taken on their own research project into  the representation of non-western art on Wikipedia and its sister projects. This research gives us an essential baseline to start measuring change in equalising the balance between western and non-western art on the Wikimedia projects – more on this [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/05/non-western-art-and-artists-heavily-under-represented-on-wikipedia/ here].


=== '''Science Museum''' ===
''“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.”''
In August the Science Museum and the Wellcome Collection started a collaboration to upload up to 5000+ images onto Wikimedia commons. Using Wellcome’s metadata and the Science Museum’s images the project will expand over three months. This allows each organisation to collect the correct information to upload everything successfully. If all goes well the images will be able to be used alongside the volunteering project.


The volunteering project was started 4 months ago. The aim of the project was to teach 10 volunteers digital museums skills in order to make them feel part of the Museum and to get as much content onto Wikipedia as possible.
– 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]]''']]


With the image upload and the volunteering project working in conjunction, 5000 images could be embedded into multiple articles/pages. Help enhancing the metadata and information gathered about the subject of the image was gathered and uploaded during editathons.
== 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 [[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.


=== '''British Library''' ===
== Climate Change & Health Wikipedia Workshop ==
The Lord Chamberlain's [https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/lord-chamberlains-plays plays] are 'the scripts of all new plays performed in Britain from 1824 to 1968 as submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for licensing', and one of the largest parts of the British Library's holdings. The Wikimedian in Resident at the library is looking at potentially digitising index cards to enable easier discovery of these items, with a particular focus on Black playwrights from 1900-1940. Our Resident will be working with Professor Kate Dossett of Leeds University on this.
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.


The British Library has also recently finished the pilot India Office Records project, further details [[outreach:GLAM/Newsletter/August_2021/Contents/UK_report|here]].
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.


=== '''Wikimedia in Universities''' ===
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.
We're working with a group of over 40 further education students at '''Edinburgh College''', as part of an Art & Ethics course. We've been talking about representation in art, whose work we see, and how artists are represented online. The students have been working together to produce articles about underrepresented artists.


In partnership with the IDEA network at the '''University of St Andrews''', we supported 5 editing training sessions in advance of a 72 hour editathon for EXPLORATHON, Scotland's contribution to European Researchers' Night.
== 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]]


Ewan McAndrew continues to support courses at the '''University of Edinburgh'''. The Translation Studies MSc will start a new year in October and students will be translating Wikipedia articles. There are also plans to include a wiki-element in the Digital Education MSc.
== 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.


Three universities beyond Edinburgh have modules on Wikipedia starting in October; '''the University of Sussex, the University of Middlesex, and the University of Sheffield'''. Stefan Lutschinger is reprising his course on Digital Cultureat Middlesex University. Dr Nimi Hoffman is running the first course involving wiki engagement at the University of Sussex; she lectures on education and development. We have workshops planned to support both courses in October. At the University of Sheffield, Dr. Sihong Lin will be filling in for Dr Charles West and leading the postgraduate module on Wikipedia and Medieval History and WMUK will be providing support. - Image
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.


'''The University of Glasgow''' will be hosting two guest lectures from our Scotland Programme Coordinator, Dr Sara Thomas.
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.


=== '''Wikiproject Palestine-Wales''' ===
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.
The Wikiproject Palestine-Wales was a month-long editathon, which took place in August 2021 between Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Levant. Wikipedians from both communities listed the most important articles from their respective languages and translated them as a token of friendship. The wikiproject contributed in reducing the cultural as well as content gap on Wikipedia. The subjects were mostly cultural: food, culture, places of interest, women of note, education and COVID-19. The editathon generated a total of 242 new articles in June.


=== '''Play Like a Lassie''' ===
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 West Boathouse ran a series of three editathons aimed at training new women editors and contributing at least ten new Wikipedia entries relating to women's sport in Scotland. Out Scotland Programme Coordinator showed participants how to edit bios, groups and organisations, and significant places or events associated with sport.


== '''Blog highlights''' ==
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.
If we do say so ourselves, we’ve had a lot of great blog posts since our last newsletter. Our projects and collaborations are many, so while there’s not a post for every activity, [https://wikimedia.org.uk/news/ Our news] is the perfect home for a more in-depth look at the great Wiki initiatives happening in the UK. If you’re part of our community and need to amplify a Wikimedia activity, please get in touch with Katie at katie.crampton@wikimedia.org.uk to see if our blog is the right platform for promotion.


==== [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/06/thank-you-amazing-volunteer/ Thank you to each and every amazing volunteer!] ====
== IDEA network ==
We ended Small Charity Week in June with great appreciation of every one of our volunteers. Watch the video for a few familiar faces giving their thanks in this video.
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.


==== [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/07/2021-agm-community-day/ Our 2021 AGM and Community Day] ====
Some recent highlights include:
We had a wonderful Annual General Meeting and Community Day in July. Get the rundown of the day, the results of the elections, and the winners of this year’s Wikimedian and Partnership of the Year awards.


==== [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/07/virtual-volunteering-national-galleries-of-scotland/ Virtual volunteering with the National Galleries of Scotland] ====
* [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.
At the National Library of Scotland, staff uploaded and transcribed the Scottish Chapbook collection to Wikisource. Student internships moved online, and Wikimedia UK rolled out training for online trainers so that we could better respond to demand. Over the winter/spring period, we worked with the National Galleries of Scotland to roll out a Virtual Volunteering Programme.
* [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.


==== [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/09/competition-winners-wiki-loves-earth-wales/ Competition winners for Wiki Loves Earth in Wales] ====
== Wikimedia in Interfaith Education ==
This year Wales took part in the international photography competition ‘Wiki Loves Earth’ organised by the Wikimedia movement. Have a look at the winning entries, including some lovely wildlife photos.
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.


==== [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/09/toward-a-national-collection/ Towards a National Collection] ====
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.
In order to connect the UK’s cultural artefacts and historical archives in new and transformative ways, The Arts and Humanities Research Council has awarded £14.5m to the research and development of emerging technologies, including machine learning and citizen-led archiving. Wikimedia UK is collaborating on two of the five projects awarded grants, with the Science Museum and the University of Glasgow.


==== [https://wikimedia.org.uk/2021/09/celebrating-wccwiki-at-50/ Celebrating #WCCWiki at 50!] ====
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.]
In July 2021, #WCCWiki marked an important milestone. The initiative, designed to improve the online representation of those who identify as women and non-binary, held its fiftieth Wikipedia editathon.


== '''UK chapter focus''' ==
== Memory of the World ==
Our work goes beyond partnerships with organisations, as we advocate for open knowledge in government policy, contribute to the global Wikimedia movement, and provide grants to the UK community. Here are some of the recent activities we’ve worked on, and some upcoming opportunities you can get involved in.
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.


=== '''Draft Online Safety Bill''' ===
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.
We responded to the UK Government’s '''call for evidence''' about the Draft Online Safety Bill. Designed to combat online harms, the Bill as it currently stands could have significant implications for Wikipedia.
[[File:Celtic Knot 2024 Reginold Tower.png|thumb]]


=== Wikimedia UK strategy day ===
== Celtic Knot 2024 ==
[edit] Call from Lucy to Strategy event in October - Lucy will set up a date and meta page this week to share. Combine with an intro to Monisha.
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.


=== '''Wikimania and Wiknics''' ===
== University of Edinburgh ==
This year, we offered several of our members the chance to receive a grant to support their access to and participation in Wikimania 2021. As the conference was viral, grants were offered to help with childcare, tech, and other support needed. We’d love to hear your experiences, whether you were attending or actively contributing to Wikimania.
[[File:Carpenter portrait of Ada Lovelace - detail.png|thumb|Detail of Margaret Sarah Carpenter's portrait of Ada Lovelace]]


As part of the Wikimania festivities and to celebrate Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary year, we organised a series of picnics - or Wiknics - around the UK. Staff and volunteers hosted Wiknics in London, Cambridge, Kent, and Scotland. It was our first time since the start of the pandemic that we were able to organise in-person events, helped along by the nature of a picnic being outside! We were so pleased to see some familiar faces and grateful to our volunteer hosts. If you have any photos we’d love to see them!
==== 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 [[: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).


== '''Support us''' ==
==== History of Witchcraft in Edinburgh walking tour ====
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.


=== '''Every donation doubled in the Big Give Christmas Challenge 2021''' ===
==== Edinburgh Award 2024/2025 – Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia ====
For the first time, Wikimedia UK is taking part in the '''Big Give Christmas Challenge'''. As the largest match funded campaign in the UK, the Christmas Challenge has raised over £20 million for participating charities over the years, enabling all donations made during the campaign period to be '''doubled'''.
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.


Our campaign, '''Developing Digital Literacy''', ​​is focused on enabling individuals to become more resilient to propaganda, politically motivated information and fake news, teaching people to evaluate, analyse and scrutinise information that they come across.  
==== 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.


Funding that we raise through this campaign will support our numerous digital literacy projects including workshops, events and collaborations with partner organisations. The projects are designed to develop skills needed for the digital world, so that individuals can learn, flourish and develop a more considered view of the world around them.
== 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.


The Christmas Challenge is a match funding campaign, meaning that pledged donations and support from the Big Give allow donations from our online supporters to be matched.  The Christmas Challenge is providing us with a fantastic opportunity to raise significant funding to grow and expand these ambitious projects with the help of our supporters, who will see their donations doubled if they give during the first week of December.
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).


For members, supporters and those in the WIkimedia community who are considering making a donation this year, we highly recommend donating through our Christmas Challenge campaign portal from the '''30th November - 7th December''', where your donation will have twice the impact. Information and guidance on how to donate to our Digital Literacy campaign will be available on our website and social media channels, so please follow our activity on these platforms to learn more about how to get involved.
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.


=== '''Join us''' ===
== Join us ==
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]], [[donate]] to us online, or volunteer on some of the projects above.
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.


We’re also on social media if you prefer to chat there, we always appreciate new followers and sharers of our news; [https://twitter.com/wikimediauk Twitter], [https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaUK Facebook], [https://www.instagram.com/wikimediauk/ Instagram] and [https://www.linkedin.com/company/wikimedia-uk LinkedIn].
<nowiki>[[ Category:Friends' Newsletter ]]</nowiki>

Latest revision as of 14:08, 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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