Reports/2012/July

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

Program activities

Community

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

Education and Research

We offered two full scholarships to enable UK researchers to attend WikiSym, a Wiki research conference that will take place in Linz, Austria, at the end of August.

GLAM activities

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

QRpedia

• World first for St Paul’s Church, Birmingham

GibraltarpediA

• Blog post
• Gib to be the world’s first Wikipedia city, Gibraltar Chronicle, 14 July

Technology

Advertising for our first developer position continued throughout this month.

Miscellaneous

• A microgrant request to bid and set up a stall at the Cambridge University freshers' fair was approved.
• We are seeking feedback on our Annual Report

Upcoming activities in August

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

For events in August and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Board activities

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

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

News from the Chief Exec

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

Communications

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

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

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

Some international coverage:

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

Stevie had a successful meeting with Bold Creative and Demos to discuss opportunities for working together in areas of shared interest. More to follow soon.

Fundraising and Budgeting

Fundraiser position

Our new Fundraiser, Katherine Bavage, started work this month. She was welcomed with a blog post, and her appointment was http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1139029/Neil-Henderson-joins-Barnardos/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH mentioned in an article in the Third Sector] this week.

Fundraising

This month, we received £X in one-off donations, with X individual donations. The average donation amount was £X. X of these donors have had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. 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 N successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £X.