Newsletter/February2009

Wikimedia UK Newsletter

February 2009 Issue

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Summary: The chapter is now up and running, and we are about to complete the process of opening a bank account. We have a new website, and are putting plans in place for the first Annual General Meeting. Meanwhile, February has seen the successful Wikipedia Loves Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, bidding to host Wikimania 2010 has opened, and the Government's Intellectual Property consultation has closed. We also bring the regular news of meet-ups, and a new feature highlighting press coverage of Wikimedia in the UK.

In this month's newsletter:

1. Chapter formation process
2. Website
3. Annual General Meeting
4. Wikipedia Loves Art
5. Oxford Wikimania bid
6. IP consultation
7. Meet-ups
8. News coverage

Wikipedia Loves Art

The Wikipedia Loves Art photography contest has been running all this month at fifteen museums globally, including at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The launch event on Sunday 1st February saw at least 30 people come along to the museum, who laid out refreshments, cameras to lend, computers for uploading photos and staff on hand to help. The following Sunday saw the regular "second Sunday" London meet-up relocate to the museum, and half a dozen more people showed up then. So far over 3,000 images have been uploaded to the flickr group, including over 200 from the V&A. You only have a few days left until the end of February to take pictures and upload them - so keep snapping to be in with a chance of winning one of the prizes on offer!

Meet-ups

The London February meet-up relocated to the Victoria & Albert museum to take part in the Wikipedia Loves Art photography contest (see above). We will return to the Penderel's Oak on 8th March. Meetups are also planned over on 28th February in Cambridge and in the next couple of months in Manchester and Birmingham.

News coverage

The possible implementation of flagged revisions on the English language Wikipedia has been in the news in the UK, and we've been providing accurate information. Mike Peel was interviewed by BBC Radio Wales' "mousemat", who put together an informative feature. Meanwhile, David Gerard spoke to the Daily Mail about some vandalism to the article on Alan Titchmarsh.

Other stories this month have included a piece in the Sunday Times based on an interview with Jimmy Wales, in which Giles Hattersley claimed that his Wikipedia article had contained several errors - but the Daily Telegraph noted that Hattersley has no Wikipedia article. Reuters reported on a Conservative Party official altering a Wikipedia article in an attempt to support a claim made by David Cameron. The Independent published a article critical of Wikipedia, but David Mitchell, writing in The Observer, thinks that Wikipedia is "brilliant".