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 2015

Pelican Books donates reference E-books for Wikipedians

We are delighted to announce that Pelican has given us 50 free Ebooks for Wikimedians to use. Applications are open now, details are on a page on the Wikipedia Library. Giving reference books to Wikipedians is one of the most practical ways to improve Wikipedia, and we are delighted to have Pelican's support in this. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 15:01, 26 November 2014 (GMT)

Looking for feedback on my funding proposal to work with UNESCO

Hi all

I’m looking for feedback and endorsement for my Wikimedia Foundation PEG grant to be Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO. I’d very much appreciate if you would have a look, the most relevant objectives to Wikimedia UK are:

1. Train UNESCO and its partner organisations to contribute to Wikimedia projects: Provide UNESCO and its partners with the skills, tools, resources and connections to contribute to Wikimedia projects in a meaningful, measurable and sustainable way. To integrate into the Wikimedia community both online and by matching them with local Wikimedia organisations and volunteers for in person support and collaboration. The project will create and improve content receiving 100,000,000 views per year on Wikimedia projects, educate 1000 people in over 200 organisations to learn more about Wikimedia projects. This will include 500 newly registered users trained to contribute to Wikimedia projects and 500 articles formally reviewed by experts.

2. Make content from the archives of UNESCO and its partners available on Wikimedia projects: This project will facilitate the upload of 30,000 images, audio files, videos, data and other content to Wikimedia projects from UNESCO archives (24,000 images), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and other sources including 10 organisations changing their content license to be Wikimedia compatible, a completed pilot project is outlined in the Goal section.

I ran a pilot project that resulted in the images found in the Wikimedia Commons category Images from the archive of UNESCO, here are a few examples:

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  The Soda volcano, Oromia, Ethiopia.

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  Rubble of the cathedral after the earthquake that hit the Capital Port au Prince just before 5 pm on 12 January 2010.

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  Young monk, wearing a special costume, July-August 1991, Sikkim, India.

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  Sabha, 6, getting ready to walk to school from her house on the borders eastern Gaza strip, where she and her family are still living in tents.

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  Not far from Mohenjo-Daro (or Mohenjodaro) - These Mohana fishermen/hunters use lures from real birds to catch more birds. They will either eat them or sell them. Mohenjodaro, Pakistan.

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  Priest of rock-Hewn Churches of Lalibela, a high place of Ethiopian Christianity, still today a place of pilgrimage and devotion.

If you think this is a worthwhile project please click this link and then click the endorse button.

Many thanks

Mrjohncummings (talk) 22:06, 25 January 2015 (GMT)

From Vietnam to Aberystwyth

(Edit-a-thon at the National Library of Wales)

Just a heads-up please to all admires of the Magnum Photographer Philip Jones Griffiths' work, one of the few Welsh Internationals in this field. Jason Evans, the new Wikipedian in Resident at the National Library, will host an edit-a-thon of Welsh photographers whose work are held at the Library; this includes Philip Jones Griffiths and John Thomas. More details can be found here. Images unavailable to the public will be available for Wikipedians. Can anyone suggest a way to bring Griffiths' worldwide admirers into the fold, maybe using video conferencing on the day? Other suggestions would be appreciated. Robin Owain (WMUK) (talk) 21:08, 14 February 2015 (GMT)

St Paul's Cathedral

Photography is normally restricted inside St Paul's but, on 8th April 2015, they have a special event which, for a small fee, relaxes this rule. Even if you don't win their competition, this is a good chance to load images into Commons. Andrew D. (talk) 15:42, 9 March 2015 (GMT)

Women's Boat Race

There's some buzz about this at the UK Wikipedians' notice board. I've made a start on the main topic at Women's Boat Race and there seem to be other related topics in need of development such as Amy Gentry - the "founder of British Women's Rowing". Perhaps we could organise an event on April 11th - coordinating to have photographic coverage of the length of the course, with a rendezvous to compare notes afterwards. Andrew D. (talk) 13:15, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

I think that's a really nice idea, and a good chance to watch a piece of history taking place. One for the programme team to think about. Perhaps Wikinews might be interested as well? The course is 4 miles long, so I don't know how many people you'd need to get good coverage, and checking Google maps I don't think you can get from one side of the loop to the other on foot before the boats make it round. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 14:03, 13 March 2015 (GMT)

Might the article need to be merged with en:Henley Boat Races? I guess that depends on whether you think it's a new thing, or a change of site for an existing race. Jarry1250 (talk) 22:18, 14 March 2015 (GMT)

Thank feature broken here

I noticed that thanks have been broken for some time now. While I initially got a rather cryptic error code (that I did not record, assuming it was a temporary glitch), the behaviour has changed in recent days to "Thank action failed. Please try again." Since no thanks have been recorded for more than a month, the problem is perhaps less temporary than I had initially thought. Any pointers/ fixes? Thanks. --Daniel Mietchen (talk) 13:36, 9 May 2015 (BST)

Hi Daniel, thanks for pointing that out. I experienced the same problem myself and raised a bug in Bugzilla at the start of the month so our developers can take a look at the issue. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:12, 11 May 2015 (BST)

New MPs

Is there any coordination happening that anyone knows about to get Free photos of all the newly elected MPs? If not, is there capacity at WMUK to help facilitate doing so? Thryduulf (talk: local | en.wp | en.wikt) 15:58, 9 May 2015 (BST)

Hello Thryduulf. This is something I was discussing with Richard Nevell today. Most, if not all, newly elected MPs will have photos that they use for publicity purposes. Perhaps the easiest way to ask to obtain these for the public domain is to write to the Parliamentary offices of the main parties and make an offer to upload them to Wikipedia in exchange for release of good quality images. I would be happy to write on behalf of the charity if you think that would help. An alternative would be to write directly to Parliament, rather than party offices, to ask for permission to set up a photo booth similar to that arranged by the folks who went to the European Parliament. However, there are rules about photography in Parliament so that would be trickier to arrange. Hope this helps. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 17:44, 11 May 2015 (BST)

Digital Humanities Conference

Hi all, a proposal here last year for a science conference has, with great luck and the efforts of a lot of different people, become an actual thing with a venue, speakers, sponsorship and wine. Our intention has never been to focus on just the sciences, and I hope we'll eventually have a parallel conference about the humanities, although there are fewer obvious champions and so there will be less involvement at first. The contacts I make during my placement at the Bodleian Libraries will help bring this about, as will the past contacts from my stint at Jisc. I've set down some initial ideas, mainly so I can forget about the issue while organising the science conference, but additional suggestions are welcome. Edit suggestions into the page itself or create discussion threads on the Talk page. MartinPoulter (talk) 15:46, 16 May 2015 (BST)
@Richard Nevell (WMUK): since the "thank" feature is broken, I'll thank you here for adding a suggestion to the page. Cheers, MartinPoulter (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2015 (BST)

Wikipedia information literacy resources for schools

Hello everyone. There's a really interesting invitation to tender that's just recently been posted by Leicester City Council. They are looking to develop Wikipedia information literacy resources for schools. LCC have a long history of interest in OERs and the open sector generally and are very forward thinking. Could be a really good project if anyone is interested. You can see the call here. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2015 (BST)

‎UK Wikimedian of the Year 2015

The UK Wikimedian of the Year Awards celebrate volunteers and institutions in the UK or abroad who have particularly contributed to Wikimedia in the UK.

Nominations for this year are now open, and will close on Tuesday 12 July, so please add your nominations here. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 16:32, 29 June 2015 (BST)