Water cooler

Welcome to the water cooler This is a place to find out what is happening and to discuss our external projects and activities. Feel free to suggest ideas that could help our charitable mission or ask questions about how you can help. To discuss the inner workings of the charity, head over to the engine room.

WMUK Grants programme - a piece of cake?

Applying for a grant is easy.

If Wikimedia UK can help you improve Wikimedia projects, check out our grants page.

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

British cartoons 1780—1830 available in very high resolution

Example parody of George IV and his desire for divorce, 1820.
7,068 × 4,638px, 93MB

There may be some UK Wikipedians interested in helping with 18th/19th century articles on British society, so I thought it worth highlighting my upload of over 700 new high resolution scans to Wikimedia Commons of the Library of Congress British Cartoon Prints Collection (for usability, both large tiff and more modest jpeg files are available). Many of these are notable political parodies that are either worth including on Wikipedia articles of the artists, their unfortunate subjects, or some may be notable enough for their own article. Alternatively, you may find some of the recently uploaded (complete) books, manuscripts and maps at World Digital Library an untapped resource for an article or a new Wikisource project.

The Library of Congress has other collections with a connection to UK history or there may be different on-line public domain collections that you would like to see uploaded. Drop me a note on Commons if you have an idea for future batch upload projects. --Fæ (talk) 08:40, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

William Henry Pyne cartoon deriding the Spanish during the Anglo-Spanish war, 1796-1808. 11,817 × 3,120 pixels, 105MB.

As an exemplar of the Library of Congress's work in digitizing this collection, I have put the above cartoon up as a Featured Picture Candidate. Old etchings tend to be difficult to get through on technical grounds, though historical significance should be taken into account. --Fæ (talk) 17:00, 15 April 2014 (BST)

If they prove difficult to get promoted on Commons, it may be worth going through the Featured Picture process on Wikipedia as encyclopedic value ("EV") is explicitly one of the criteria (#5). Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 11:51, 22 April 2014 (BST)

VLE released for beta testing

Hello everyone, I'm very happy to report that the Wikimedia UK virtual learning environment has been released to a small group, including those who have been through the Train the Trainers programme, for beta testing. I'm pretty excited by the potential the VLE has for supporting trainers and those who wish to learn about Wikipedia independently. Following this round of testing, a wider test period will begin in which the system will be shared with anyone within the movement who would like access before a final rollout of the system later in the year. Many thanks to Charles Matthews who has put an enormous amount of work into writing the course content and quizzes, as well as putting the thing together. Big thanks also to Doug Taylor and Tom Morton for their technical support, without which we would not have made it to this point. If you have any comments or questions please do let me know. Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 14:54, 2 April 2014 (BST)

That's good to hear, thanks. And congratulations to all who have made this happen. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2014 (BST)

Looking for a Research Volunteer to help us with the Wikimedian in Residence survey - interesting opportunity!

Hi All,

Over the last two years, Wikimedia UK has worked towards creating a firmer structure supporting our Wikimedian in Residence project. ‪This started with, in November 2012, running a call for applications to attract institutions wanting to engage with such a project (background for that is [1] and [2]). ‬Some of the organisations we have worked with since can be found here.

Towards the end of 2013, we have agreed to reflect on the programme’s successes and challenges through a review. With significant learning for any organisation or institution wanting to be involved with the Wikimedian in Residence project, it's important that Wikimedia UK gathers the results of the surveys and creates a clear report summarising the results and producing recommendations for the future. We are now looking for a volunteer to deliver this report.

Please have a look here for more details. Looking forward to hearing from people who are interested in working on this.

Many thanks, Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 11:31, 3 April 2014 (BST)

Is too much stuff ending up in the engine room?

I am of the opinion that too much stuff is ending up in the engine room. Discussions like Engine room#Mini pop up banners and Engine room#Museum photography could definitely be had here, at the water cooler.

My impression, when the engine room started, was that we wanted to separate off the discussions that could get too noodly or too self-flaggelting for most people to be interested in. Am I right? At the moment, it is difficult to tell which venue is for what.

Yaris678 (talk) 22:57, 7 April 2014 (BST)

I agree that both of those topics could and should be on the WC. The distinction is set out in the headings of the two pages. Essentially, the WC for Open Knowledge projects and outwardly-directed stuff and the ER for inwardly-focused discussions eg policy, how we measure ourselves etc. (ps if anyone wants to start a discussion thread on this, the proper place - as an inwardly-focused topic - would the the ER rather than here)--MichaelMaggs (talk) 23:19, 7 April 2014 (BST)

I just did start a discussion thread on this and it is here.

I'm glad you agree with me on those two topics. I think they are the ones that most obviously should be here. But I think other things could be here too, like the one on affiliate-selected seats on the WMF board.

Personally, I think the outwardly/inwardly divide means that too many things will end up in the engine room. Anything could be construed as inwardly focused. Look at this discussion, it is about how we organize the wiki... of course it is inwardly focused... except that it effects how much stuff gets discussed here, in this nominally more public location... so its all about communication with the wider public really so it should be here. See? This is the problem with outwardly/inwardly.

I got the impression at the time that the engine room was created that the idea was that it was for stuff that was too noodly or too self-flaggelting for most people to be interested in. It's just that we couldn't think of any more precise language to express it in.

Look at it another way. Do we want the water cooler to be a place where announcements about banners and photos are made, or does it have a wider scope? A lot of the threads on here have 0 to 2 replies. Is that what we want it to be about?

Yaris678 (talk) 18:40, 8 April 2014 (BST)

Perhaps (and I hate to say it) we, as Wikimedians, are too inwardly-focussed? Or perhaps we need to have more open-ended discussions on here (and thus more opportunity for replies?) Richard Symonds (WMUK) (talk) 23:47, 8 April 2014 (BST)

Wikimania support contractors

Wikimedia UK are looking for two people to act as Wikimania support contractors. Check out the page for details of what the post involves and how to apply. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:38, 9 April 2014 (BST)

Report: Supported work by Faebot

WMUK supported world map of trade winds
c.1711 by Herman Moll of London
6,021 × 2,562 pixels, 44MB

Commons:User:Faebot/WMUK report

This is a running report on activities using the Chapter supplied Macmini. The report is intended as a quarterly report so that the board can have oversight and ensure transparency for the positive outcomes of this funded project, however other volunteers and members might find it of interest. At the moment around 80% of all media identified as supported by chapter funding is a result of this project.

There are other, mostly one-off, things that I automate, along with odd WMFlabs hosted stuff such as the TARDIS and the Facebook Funfair. Requests from fellow volunteers are welcome, and have (quietly) resulted in some interesting uploads and mass improvements. Though with a large backlog of stuff, I cannot promise to do everything, nor to do it quickly :-) --Fæ (talk) 12:03, 12 April 2014 (BST)

Interesting report. Thank you. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:27, 14 April 2014 (BST)

Great video from Wikimedia Armenia

This is a lovely video from Armenia touching on their work in schools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSbrivrpzmw

Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 09:15, 15 April 2014 (BST)

To see the English text, make sure you have the captions option switched on. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:44, 16 April 2014 (BST)

WikiCon Berlin 2014

Attendees at the Wikimedia Conference

For those interested in what went on over the long weekend our report is now up on the wiki.

• WIKICON_BERLIN 2014 report

Jon Davies (WMUK) (talk) 09:43, 16 April 2014 (BST)

Photography at the Tank Museum

Dear all, Wikimedia UK has been given some complementary off peak tickets by en:the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset so that our photographers can improve our coverage of their tanks and other vehicles. Interested photographers can apply for a ticket by emailing me with their snail mail address. Regards Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 12:43, 23 April 2014 (BST)

Contractor Scoping brief

In order to further the charity's goal of encouraging and supporting technological innovation, Wikimedia UK are looking for a contractor to undertake a scoping exercise to report to the charity's Board with proposals for how best we can achieve our mission in this respect. Details of the tender can be found here. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 12:58, 24 April 2014 (BST)

Upcoming volunteer opportunities to speak about Wikipedia

Dear All,

There are two exciting volunteer opportunities within expert outreach and Wikipedia that I wanted to flag up.

• Science Communications and Public Engagement workshop on 19 June, London, run by Society for Applied Microbiology, but open to a wider audience from other science organisations. See a draft agenda below. This is a really good opportunity to talk about using Wikipedia in Science communication to the right audience. Some details remain to be pinned down, so whoever is keen to deliver this can adapt the programme.

• A talk about Wikipedia and how a learned society can engage with it at Physiology 2014, London, which takes place over 30 June - 2 July. Probably a brief presentation (or a workshop, depending on your preference) to function as a part of the conference, to lead to a full training workshop in October in the office of the Physiology Society. The details are up for discussion and so we would arrange a meeting with the conference organiser to pin it all down.

Do get in touch if you are interested in getting involved! Daria Cybulska (WMUK) (talk) 10:15, 28 April 2014 (BST)