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The monthly Wikimedia Highlights combine the most notable aspects of the Wikimedia Foundation report and the Wikimedia engineering report (including basic financial and traffic data) with a brief selection of other important events in the Wikimedia movement during that month. The intention is to provide value for those readers who might find the full reports too long to read, and to facilitate translations.
Each new issue is posted on the movement-wide announcement list WikimediaAnnounce-l and on the blog of the Wikimedia Foundation (RSS). You can also subscribe here to get a summary message delivered to your user talk page on any Wikimedia project right after each issue is published.
Suggestions for the movement news part of the upcoming Highlights issue are welcome on the talk page. As in the part about the Foundation, the intention is to keep this short and concise, usually limited to the three or four most notable news items from that month, about Wikimedia chapters and projects or covering other Wikimedia related events.
Contents |
Previous issues
- April 2012 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- March 2012 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- February 2012 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- January 2012 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- December 2011 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- November 2011 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- October 2011 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
- September 2011 Highlights: wiki version, blog version
Current issue
Read the highlights in your own language (if available) or translate it.
Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for April 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
Wikimedia Foundation highlights
Expanding fundraising and affiliation models
After the resolutions of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees at its meeting in Berlin, work is ongoing to implement a new model for distributing the money raised via Wikimedia project sites. Except the costs for the core operations and operating reserves of the WMF, all of it (including funds for chapters and non-core operations of the WMF) will be distributed based on the recommendations of the new volunteer-driven Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC). Another resolution of the Board recognizes new models of affiliation with the Wikimedia movement: "Movement Partners" (like-minded organizations that actively support the movement's work), "National or Sub-national Chapters" (which includes the existing chapter model), "Thematic Organizations" (non-profits representing the movement and using the Wikimedia trademarks, which are supporting work focused on a specific topic), and "User Groups" (open membership groups which may or may not choose to incorporate).
Indic language outreach
Chief Global Development Officer Barry Newstead visited India meeting Wikimedians in Bangalore and attending Wikisangamotsavam, the Malayalam community conference, as part of work to support Indic language projects. The India team is working actively with seven Indic language communities on outreach, social media strategy and initiatives to build community momentum.
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Mobile pageviews target reached
At the end of April, the Wikipedia mobile site reached the milestone of 2 billion monthly page views - one of the goals for the 2011/12 WMF annual plan.
Towards a rapid software deployment cycle
Wikimedia engineers have begun switching to a more rapid deployment cycle, starting to deploy the latest MediaWiki software to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites every two weeks.
Data and Trends
Global unique visitors for March:
- 489 million (+2.7% compared with February; +22.3% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release April data later in May)
Page requests for April:
- 17.3 billion (+0.4% compared with March; +18.2% compared with the previous year)
- (Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for March 2012 (>= 5 edits/month):
- 85.09K (+0.2% compared with February / -4.5% compared with the previous year)
- (Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects except for Wikimedia Commons)
Report Card for March 2012: http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/
Financials
(Financial information is only available for March 2012 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the period of July 1, 2011 - March 31, 2012.
| Revenue | $ 32,054,861 |
|---|---|
| Expenses: | |
| Technology Group | $ 7,788,192 |
| Community/Fundraiser Group | $ 3,212,763 |
| Global Development Group | $ 2,984,100 |
| Governance Group | $ 718,116 |
| Finance/Legal/HR/Admin Group | $ 4,607,656 |
| Total Expenses | $ 19,310,826 |
| Total surplus/(loss) | $ 12,744,035 |
- Revenue for the month is $ 1.9MM vs plan of $ 3.9MM, approximately $ 2MM or 53% under plan.
- Year-to-date is $ 32.1MM vs plan of $ 28.6MM, approximately $ 3.5MM or 12% over plan.
- Expenses for the month is $ 2.3MM vs plan of $ 2.2MM, approximately $ 112K or 5% higher than plan.
- Year-to-date is $ 19.3MM vs plan of $ 21.1MM, approximately $ 1.8MM or 8% lower than plan.
- Cash position is $ 30.6MM as of March 31, 2012 - approximately 13 months of expenses.
Other movement highlights
"Wikipedian in Residence" model comes of age
The British Library recently became the latest cultural institution to announce (together with Wikimedia UK) a Wikipedian in Residence, supporting connections between the British Library's staff and the Wikimedia community. At the prestigious 2012 American Association of Museums conference, five Wikipedians in Residence from around the world presented this collaboration model. The April issue of the "This Month in GLAM" newsletter reports open Wikipedian in Residence positions at state institutions in Israel, Germany and Sweden.
Wikidata starts working on interwiki links
During its first month, the Wikidata team has started coding for the first phase of the project, which will allow the central storage of interwiki links. Two MediaWiki extensions are being developed as the base for Wikidata: Wikibase Client and Wikibase core. A demo version will be available soon.
Multilanguage contest from Monmouthpedia project
As part of Monmouthpedia - "the first Wikipedia project to cover a whole town" - the Charles Rolls Challenge awarded prizes to Wikimedians who had written, improved or uploaded content about Monmouth in multiple languages. Also, the town saw the first ever Welsh meetup in April.
Tamil media contest
The Tamil Wikimedia community completed its "Tamil Wiki Media Contest", which led to 15,000 media contributions from 307 individuals.
Database company donates free access to Wikimedians
Over 600 Wikimedians have received free access to the HighBeam Research database for one year, to support their work on Wikipedia and its sister projects. Active editors can still apply at the project's application page.
