Reports/2012/May

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1 to 31 May 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

Community

The 2nd Coventry meetup

2nd Coventry meetup - 6th May 2012

WikiConference UK 2012

Jon Davies speaks at WikiConference UK 2012.

May 12th saw the 2nd annual "WikiConference UK", which was combined with the charity's AGM. The day was made up of talks and panels, and the elections of the new board of trustees. Presentations ranged wildly in subject from ideas for new tools, to copyright to outreach initiatives.

Education

• 29 May - Robin Owain, John Cummings and Roger Bamkin attend meeting with Welsh Ministries to discuss Google phone support and collaboaration with the cy and en wikipedia's

GLAM activities

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

Monmouthpedia launch

Wikimedians help new editors get to grips in Monmouth Library, during Monmouthpedia launch day.

Below is an abridged list of coverage for the Monmouthpedia launch story so far. Given that there are 277 pieces of online coverage from 36 countries, the whole document has not been recreated on wiki. A full list in PDF form can be found here. Please also note that these are simply the most notable publications and the list doesn't include small scale blogs, tweets or Facebook comments.

• 10 May 2012 – The Calcalist (Israel, in Hebrew)
• 16 May 2012 - Monmouthpedia: The world's first Wikipedia town is set to go live The Next Web
• 16 May 2012 – Monmouthpedia: world's first Wikipedia town (Milenio.com, in Spanish):
• 16 May 2012 - Caribe Noticias (Caribbean, in Spanish)
• 16 May 2012 - Forever Dope website (US)
• 17 May 2012 – nlyten.com location unknown
• 16 May 2012 - Monmouthshire CC blog
• 17 May 2012 - Monmouthshire CC blog on local business
• 17 May 2012 – Dailystuff.org (India)
• 17 May 2012 - Wall Street Journal (US) blog
• 17 May 2012 - Monmouth is first 'Wikipedia town', UK Press Association
• 17 May 2012 - The Verge (US)
• 17 May 2012 - Geek Journal (France, in French)
• 17 May 2012 - Donanim Haber (Turkey, in Turkish)
• 17 May 2012 - Ros Invest (Russia, in Russian)
• 17 May 2012 - Wales.com
• 17 May 2012 - Komputerswiat.pl (Poland, in Polish)
• 17 May 2012 - acikkod.org (Turkey, in Turkish)
• 17 May 2012 - Gigaom.com
• 17 May 2012 - 20minutos.com (Spain, in Spanish)
• 17 May 2012 - phphocam.com (Turkey, in Turkish)
• 17 May 2012 - Gizmodo (Poland, in Polish)
• 18 May 2012 - Monmouth to become UK's first 'Wikipedia town', Independent
• 18 May 2012 - [多图全球首个“Wikipedia”小镇落户英国], Sohu (Chinese)
• 18 May 2012 - Coming soon: 'Wikipedia' Town, Hindustan Times
• 18 May - Welsh town Monmouth to be world’s first ‘Wikipedia town’, Silicon Republic
• 18 May - Welcome to Wiki-ville: Monmouth becomes first Wikipedia town with barcodes at landmarks that link to smartphones guides, Daily Mail
• 18 May - Tourism boost for Wales as Britain’s first ‘Wiki-town’ is launched in historic Monmouth, Daily Mail
• 18 May - Monmouth to be world's first ‘Wikipedia town’, Telegraph
• 18 May - Monmouth Transformed Into ‘Wikipedia Town’, TechWeek Europe]
• 18 MayMonmouth, Wales world's first Wikipedia town, covered in QR codes, NMA World Edition (Japanese)
• 18 May - Welsh village becomes world’s first Wikipedia town, Fox News
• 18 May - First 'Wikipedia Town' Going Live in Wales, PC Mag
• 18 May - World's first Wikipedia town to launch in Wales, CBS News
• 19 May - Monmouth becomes the world's first 'Wikipedia town', ITV News
• 21 May - World's first 'Wikipedia town' covered in QR codes, CNet
• 21 May - Tiny Welsh Burg Paints the Town Wiki, TechNewsWorld
• 22 May - Monmouth is first Wikipedia town, News Wales
• 22 May - Welcome To The World's First Wikipedia Town, Tom's Guide
• 23 May - Monmouth is the world's first Wikipedia town, Monmouth Today
• 23 May - And now, a Wikipedia town!, MSN India
• 31 May - World’s First Wikipedia Town Won’t Be The Last, Singularity Hub

Videos from the launch day

• Signing of the Memorandum of Understanding

• Project lead John Cummings shares his thoughts on the project

• Mike Booth of Shire Hall, talks about the project

• Roisin Curran, Monmouth Museum Wikipedian in Residence, speaks about the project

• Giles Howard, of Monmouth County Council, discusses Monmouthpedia

• Sam Downie speaks about the launch of Monmouthpedia

• Monmouth residents Phil and Katerina who attended the "learn to edit" sessions, talk about the event

Miscellaneous

• Thanks to User:Pigsonthewing's blog post, Monmouthshire County Council have open-licensed portrait photos of all their councillors (post the recent election), plus their Chief Officer, via Flickr. Some of these have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons

Miscellaneous

Jimmy Wales

• Willetts turns to Wikipedia founder for advice on open access, Times Higher Education, 2 May
• U.K. Seeks Wikipedia's Help to Post Research Online, New York Times, 6 May
• Jimmy Wales: charging to access publicly-funded research makes 'no sense', Wired, 8 May

Public relations

• How many company mistakes are there on Wikipedia, and how easy is it to fix them?, PR Moment, 8 May
• PR: If You Want to Understand Wikipedia, Become a Wikipedian, Huffington Post, 15 May
• CIPR calls for feedback on PR guidelines about Wikipedia use, PR Week, 16 May
• Feedback sought on Wikipedia draft guidelines, CorpComms Magazine, 16 May
• CIPR calls on PR industry to engage with Wikipedia guidance, PR Week, 24 May
• Public relations institute backs guidance for members' use of Wikipedia, Lakestar Media, 25 May
• Draft PR industry Wikipedia guidelines spark complaints, The Drum, 25 May

Upcoming activities in June

• (To be copied here from Events at the end of this month)

For events in July and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

News from the Chief Exec

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

Fundraising and Budgeting

Fundraising

This month, we received £1,054.22 in one-off donations, with 49 individual donations. The average donation amount was £21.51. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with richard.symondswikimedia.org.uk and let him know your requirements.

As for direct debit donations, there were 6,129 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £24,572.99.

Office and Staff

Communications (Stevie Benton)

May has been a busy month for comms within Wikimedia UK. The obvious main piece of work was garnering publicity for the celebration day of Monmouthpedia. Full details are available higher up in this report but the event was a success, widespread international coverage was achieved and many positive relationships were built with volunteers, local people, media, communications agencies and many other lovely people.

Another highlight was the publication of our 2012 Annual Report - Shaping, Sharing, Growing. High and low resolution versions can be found on this page.

A challenge this month was the publication of a somewhat controversial study released by the PRSA in the US. Responding to this in the UK media (especially seeking corrections where required) took quite a lot of time. It also served to highlight the need to improve relationships with the PR industry - which, luckily enough, was already under way. This will culminate in the publication of the CIPR's guidelines for PR best practice on Wikipedia, facilitated by WMUK and created with lots of input from Wikipedians.

The other major piece of work this month was the creation of a Wikimedia UK communications strategy. . It's currently with the board for approval. The document was formed with input from the community here. If you'd prefer to see an abridged version of the strategy which contains only the recommendations you can find one here.