Chapters meeting 2009/Preparation/Wikimedia CH

Facts and Figures

Wikimedia CH has been created in Olten the 14 May 2006.

The 28 March 2009 the General Assembly has nominated the new board.

Between 14.05.2008 and 27.05.2009, the board of Wikimedia CH has been composed by :

• Michael Bimmler, President
• Frédéric Schütz, Press speaker Romandie
• Robin Schwab, Treasurer
• Nando Stöcklin, Press speaker Deutschschweiz
• Rupert Thurner, Treasurer
• Ilario Valdelli, Press speaker Ticino

The new board, elected by the General Assembly 2009, will formally take up its work on 27.05.2009, 60 days after the General Assembly. It’s composed by :

• Mourad Ben Abdallah, President (French)
• Frédéric Schütz, Press speaker Romandie (French)
• Ludovic Péron (French)
• Bagawathram Maheswaran, Treasurer (German and Tamil)
• Gion Hosang, (Rhaeto-Romanic)
• Ilario Valdelli, Press speaker Ticino (Italian)

Press speaker Deutschschweiz : Nando Stöcklin, Chief Information Officer of Wikimedia CH is Manuel Schneider

The association

As of 22.03.2009, Wikimedia CH has 80 members, which is an increase of about 30% compared to one year before.

Success history - 2008

Cooperation with Zentralbibliothek Zürich

The Zentralbibliothek Zürich (Zurich Central and University Library) has joined Wikimedia CH as supporting member and now officially adds content to the German Wikipedia under their own user account, focusing on people with a Zurich background or with connections to the Zentralbibliothek.

Moreover, together with the Zentralbibliothek, Nando Stöcklin has organised an event about Wikipedia for the public as well as a colloquium for the Zurich scientific community in autumn 2008. We would like to thank Head Librarian Oliver Thiele and the two interns Magnus Wieland and Oliver Schihin for their enthusiasm and cooperation!

SATW workshop

Wikimedia CH has been represented at a workshop of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences on November 6th and 7th. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the topic of electronic governance and to formulate recommendations for the federal administration. Wikimedia CH proposed that works which have been created or are preserved by the government should be made available in the Public Domain or under a free license, if possible this should also apply to all works where the majority of financial support comes from the government (e.g. the movie “Mais im Bundeshuus”).

Free content

We have launched a coordinated effort in order to “liberate” images in Switzerland, particularly in cantonal administrations, following the good cooperation with the Federal Chancellery and the Swiss Parliament. Different cantons, both in the Romandie and in German-speaking Switzerland have been contacted and requested to provide images of politicians. This is an ongoing action but all responses so far have been positive.

Wikipedia Offline / openZIM

Wikimedia CH encourages the development of a free standard for Wikipedia offline content as well as all necessary tools to create and read such data. We support these efforts by providing the project team around Tommi Mäkitalo and Manuel Schneider with a server and a budget for developer meetings. A first meeting has been held on 21 February 2009 and initial results have been announced for the “LinuxTag 2009” conference in June.

Chapters workspace

As many chapters requested to be able to use a ‘workspace’ independently from the Wikimedia Foundation’s server, Wikimedia CH sponsored a mailinglist and a wiki to which all chapters board members have access.

E-bills

On the initiative of our treasurer, Wikimedia CH was one of the first associations in Switzerland to participate in a system of electronic bills set up by the Swiss banks and PostFinance. This will significantly decrease the administrative effort of Wikimedia CH to levy its membership fees as well as of the individual member to pay them. The service will be more broadly publicised in 2009 after a successful pilot phase with board members.

Headaches

• Different languages
• Different wikipedian communities (mainly de.wikipedia.org, fr.wikipedia.org, it.wikipedia.org, rm.wikipedia.org, als.wikipedia.org)
• In general the main problem is a problem of verbal communication

Plans for the future

Wikimedia Ch has got three main areas of intervention for long term plans:

• Support (also financial) for international projects, possibly in collaboration with other chapters
• Support for local communities and local projects to spread Wikipedia philosophy
• Improved relations with local cultural environments

Like short term plans we have planned to continue with the Free Content project in collaboration with local administrations.

Other priorities for the 2009-2010 will be decided in the meeting of the new board which has been elected the 28th March.

Additional informations

Any additional information can be found at this address:

http://www.wikimedia.ch

The web site is in five languages:

• English
• German
• French
• Italian
• Romansh

The 3 national languages, one regional language and the “lingua franca”