Wikimedia Polska/Reports/2014

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This is a Wikimedia Polska report for 2014

Summary[edit]

According to our plans for 2014 from January 2014 till December 2014[1], we managed to:

In terms of our support for content creation
  • Complete our contest for the "Free E-textbooks project" and Wikigrants as planned.
  • Expand Wikigrants which flourished this year, exceeding the number of successful microgrants by over 200% in comparison to 2013.
  • Continue the traditional Wikiexpeditions: only 1 of 3 planned was conducted, due to lack of volunteers, however Railway Wikiexpedition was quite a success with 7 participants and some substantial support from Polish State Railways.
  • Successfully Asad Shaukat Ali Malta repeat the Wiki Loves Monuments competition. After a successful 2013 WLM campaign, we have decided to follow it up, once again hitting great scores: over 600 participants and more than 50,000 pictures uploaded. Having considered Wiki Loves Earth participation, we needed to skip it due to unsuitable timing.
  • Additionally, 3 new projects were successfully set up: "Kolędy Polske II" (Polish Carols), "Voice Intro Project" and "Industriada 2014".
In terms of GLAM cooperation
As planned, we have hired a GLAM coordinator, who started her work on October 1st. Two GLAM projects were continued (cooperation with Central Archives of Historical Records and the Senate of Poland) and two new were started: one was with the State Archives in Poznań and the other was the "Wiki Loves Wilda" project.
In terms of outreach/promotion
POTY/WLM exhibitions and wikiworkshops were delivered as planned. Expenses on promotional materials were far lower than planned, as we had quite a plenty of them on stock from the previous year. 7 members of Wikimedia Polska participated in external conferences, roughly the number which was expected. We have hired professional PR and press officers as planned, they started their work on October 1st. Several novel initiatives and projects were maintained: “Bocianie gniazda 2014″ (Stork Nests) contest, Radio spots for the Polish Radio, Polish booth on Wikimania and the "Thematic Weeks" Wikiproject.
In terms of meetings/conferences/scholarships

Wikimania Scholarships and scholarships to attend Wikimedia Polska Conference and Wikimedia Conference in Berlin were delivered as planned. Wikimedia Polska Conference and Public Domain Day were organized as planned. "Other Wikimedian workshops" were not organized mainly due to lack of interest among Polish Wikimedians. However, to some extent their role was fulfilled by "Warszawskie Otwarte Wikispotkania" (Warsaw Open Wiki-Meetings); organised 8 times in 2014, as they were usually devoted to specific topics. 5 other local Wikimedian meetings were organized, roughly the expected number.

In terms of overal budget
The income was 26% down comparing to 2013 mainly due to the fact of late banner 1% tax campaign, however the overall expenditures were 33% lower than 2013 as compared for the same period of time and 58% lower than planned.

Detailed report[edit]

Financial Report[edit]

The figures in the financial report are based on bank account data as of the end of November 2014. Many projects described in the report are currently in progress. The data should be considered as a rough estimate of the current financial situation of Wikimedia Polska.

Structure of income[edit]

The main source of income for Wikimedia Polska are 1% tax donations made by individuals. According to Polish law, physical persons can choose one NGO with a state-recognized tax deductible status to donate 1% of their income tax to. It is made via the state tax form, which taxpayers have to fill each year between January 15 and April 30.

Income from this main source was 27% down comparing to 2013 mainly due to the fact of late banner campaign. Overall income was 26% down.:

Source Amount (PLN) Amount (USD) %
1% tax deductible 427,325 126,847 96.0
other donations 6,968 2,065 1.6
membership fees 2,328 691 0.5
other 8,312 2,467 1,9
Total 444,924 132,072 100

Structure of expenses[edit]

As of the end of November, general structure of expenses was as follows:

Name Amount (PLN) Amount (USD) %
International support 12,054 3,578 4.2%
GLAM 21,634 6,421 7.5%
Local conferences & meetings 57,033 16,930 19.8%
International confereces & meetings 10,053 2,984 3.5%
Projects 27,370 8,125 9.5%
Promotion/outreach 18,953 5,626 6,6%
Scholarships local 50,891 15,107 17.7%
Operational 62,747 18,626 21.8%
Taxes 26,917 7,990 9.4%
Sum 287,652 85.387 100.0

The overall expenditures were 33% lower than 2013[2] and 58% lower then planned[3] assuming that the income will be lower. Especially, operational expenses (office, staff) were lower then planned by 64% despite hiring GLAM coordinator and 2 press officers. However - many expenditures are due to be paid before the end of the year, as many projects are in their final stages. We expect that the final expenditures for 2014 might be in the range of 350 000 PLN. Anyway it is still below our income and around 50% of planned ones.

General / Infrastructure[edit]

Wikimedia Polska is a registered association run under Polish law and having a legal personality. It was established on November 15, 2005 in Łódź and obtained its tax deductible status on March 28, 2007.

Number of members: 119 (? spr) (as of November 30, 2014)

  • Number of regular employees: 2 (secretary running an office, accountant)
  • Number of irregular paid staff: 4 time-contractors (Wiki Loves Monuments coordinator, Head of Press Office, Press Officer, GLAM Coordinator)

Structure and governance[edit]

  • The Executive Board consists of seven active Members: the President, Vice-president, Treasurer, Secretary and three regular Members.
  • The Audit Committee consists of three active Members including its Head.
  • The Arbitration Committee consists of three active Members including its Head.

Present members of the Executive Board, Audit and Arbitration Committees were elected in May 2014 for a period of two years. See: Władze

Office and maintained infrastructure[edit]

Wikimedia Polska runs one physical office. The headquarters is located in Łódź, 15 Tuwima Street. Rented facitility of approx. 20 m² is equipped with 3 computers and an MFP.

The Chapter has been maintaining one dedicated server and one virtual:

Dedicated server rented from OVH ([1])
The server is being used by 40 people (40 shell accounts), mainly for the operation of bots and for holding source photographs and scans. The server holds 3 wikis (Polish Wikipedia ArbCom wiki, internal wiki of WMPL Board and an open test wiki for checking if Polish Wikipedia templates and scripts are compatible with new versions of MediaWiki), 1 Wordpress-based service: the main blog of Wikimedia Polska, and 4 static html-5 based pages: official page of Wiki Loves Monuments [2], official page of E-textbooks contest [3], landing page for wikipedia.pl domain [4] and landing page for our 1% action [5]. The server also holds a dozen of mailing lists [6] (see also: Listy dyskusyjne).
Virtual server on az.pl
which is mainly used as a mailbox for holding official E-mail accounts of WMPL (for employees, members of the Board, press officer and leaders of WMPL projects). See: Adresy e-mail.

Operated Internet domains[edit]

WMPL pays for holding 16 domains - (see UZ 2014-11). Most of the domains are simply redirected to the relevant Wikimedia projects and are mainly held in order to avoid squatting. http://www.wikipedia.pl points to the search engine in order to avoid direct legal responsibility for Polish Wikipedia content. http://wikizabytki.pl is used for the official blog of Wiki Loves Monuments contest in Poland. http://www.koed.org.pl points to the official page of Coalition for Open Education.

See detailed list of domains: Domeny

Activities[edit]

Content creation[edit]

Wikimedia Polska continues to support several endeavors aiming to enrich wikis with difficult-to-obtain content.

Wikigrants[edit]

Budget - 10. Edition - 10 000 PLN

This local micro-grant system is administered by a special committee, supervised and supported by Wikimedia Polska. Its aim is to support Wikimedians by covering the costs of books and other source materials necessary for editing Wikipedia and the sister projects, some equipment (scanners, cheap cameras), as well as travel, museum tickets and copying costs. The system has been maintained since 2006 and proves to be effective and relatively cheap. Following the success of the previous editions of Wikigrants, this year we decided to substantially increase the overal amount of money and also the maximum amount for a single project in order to let people apply for bigger grants. The system was also efectively advertised via social media and local project village pumps. In effect, there were 68 projects filled, of which only 9 were rejected, and 28 finished; the rest still in progress. (spr czy liczba do grudnia nie wzrośnie), In comparision in 2013, when 27 projects were funded, this means an increase of 250%.

Further reading: Wikigranty on Polish Chapter wiki

Wikiexpedition(s) 2014[edit]

Part of the Railways Expedition team in the PESA factory in Bydgoszcz
Budget - 12,000 PLN for the traditional expeditions and 9000 PLN for the Railway Expeditions.

Wikiexpedition is a trip through a selected region of Poland in order to gather documentation concerning that region (especially photographic). The first Wikiexpedition took place in 2008. Since then, Wikimedia Polska has been supporting these expeditions every year.

In 2014, comparatively to 2013 and the previous years, traditional wikiexpedition program has been decreased, mainly due to lack of enough volunteers willing to participate. Out of the 3 planned groups, only one finally managed to organize their journey. The group of 4 people traveled using a car and bicycles in the Lublin voivodship for 10 days, visiting around 200 small towns and villages. They have uploaded over 2500 unique pictures to Wikimedia Commons. See: [7]

On the contrary, the Railway Wikiexpedition was expanded in comparison with 2013. Its been maintaned with closer cooperation with Polish State Rayliways which supported it both financially and organisationally. The system was changed from a team-based to the more individual, i.e. the main organizer was traveling around the country for 20 days, while the other participants were joining him for 2-10 days. Finally, 7 people participated in the project (including one disabled, using a wheelchair), who uploaded 995 files to Wikimedia Commons (spr. liczbę pod koniec listopada), of which many could not have been taken otherwise, as they got access to places normally not available to travelers.

Wiki Loves Monuments 2014[edit]

Winning picture of WLM 2014 Poland: auth:Piotrekok 1602
Budget - 30,000 PLN (not yet fully calculated, see UZ 2014-37)

Wiki Loves Monuments (in Polish called Wiki Lubi Zabytki) was organized in Poland for the forth time.

In 2014, the lists of monuments were updated using source data from the National Heritage Institute, which was our official partner. Several regional events were organized with our other partners. The awards were increased from 9,500 PLN to 14,000 PLN total, while other costs were substantially lowered, mainly by decreasing the number of paid staff (only one coordinator instead of 2).

In result, in September 2014, 587 participants uploaded 45,257 photos to Commons (600 less that in 2013). Although the record from the previous year was not beaten, Polish participants secured the second place in terms of number of pictures. On November 28th a final social event with awarding the winners was held in Warsaw.

The side-effect of the contest is keeping cooperation with several local heritage institutions with which we also worked in previous years as well as attracting new Wikimedians.

Poish Carols II / Kolędy Polskie II[edit]

"Gore gwiazda Jezusowie, see authors
Budget 12,550 PLN

This is the continuation of last year's project. The aim of the project is to obtain quality examples of traditional Polish music, recording eleven Polish Christmas carols in a semi-traditional arrangement. Songs are about to be performed by young artists, students of Music Academy from Warsaw performing solo and in ensembles, with instrumental tracks prepared for these sessions. The recordings are to be made by Studio Accantus from Warsaw.

The last year's project resultet in recording carols as high-quality *.ogg files - with and without vocals + background midi files and uploading these to Wikimedia Commons under a proper license. See: category on Commons and[8]. This year's project is to record 7 additional carols in the same way. [aktualizacja, gdy zostaną nagrane]

Voice Intro Project[edit]

A project to make audio recordings in which Wikipedia subjects say their name and introduce themselves. The Polish part of the project is maintained by Borys Kozielski in his recording studio in Warsaw. Till now, 8 voices have been recorded. See: [9]

Artur Oppman fairly tales na CD[edit]

Budget - 2000 PLN, UZ 2014-27

The Artur Oppman fairly tales were recorded in Acantus Studio and 400 CD's with them were produced in order to use as a promotional gadget.

Industriada 2014[edit]

Budget - 10,136 PLN

Industriada 2014 is the main annual event promoting Industrial Monument Route of the Silesian Voivodeship, the biggest one-day festival of industrial culture in Central and Eastern Europe. The goal of the project was to make photo documentation of selected museums and other objects made available for visits during the 2014 edition of Industriada. 449 pictures [10] were taken by 5 wikipedians from Poland, 3 from Germany, 2 from Czech Republic and one from Slovakia. See more details: [11].

Wiki Lubi e-podręczniki[edit]

Budget - 4000 PLN
Wikimedia Polska, together with Centre for Education Development, (a subsidiary of Polish Ministry of Education) organized the "Wiki loves E-textbooks" contest in Polish Wikipedia. The Centre for Education Development coordinates the governmental project of "e-podręczniki" (e-textbooks) for creating officially approved textbooks for primary and secondary schools in Poland. The textbooks are about to be released under the CC-BY license and made available for free on the special webpage [12], in effect to replace existing, very expensive paper textbooks printed by commercial publishers. The idea of the "Wiki loves E-textbooks" contest was to encourage Polish Wikipedians to adopt existing media or create original ones for the needs of the textbooks. The contest was organized in a bit similar way to “Wiki Loves Monuments”, however with other targets and a different system of prizes. Teams of experts created tables with description of the required media, which were published on Wikipedia and participants of the contest could upload them to Wikimedia Commons using a simplified upload wizard. Then, the experts selected really useful files and gave "score points" to the uploaders. The winner was the person who receiveed the highest score. The contest was financially supported by the "Human Capital” program maintained by the European Social Fund and Polish government [13]. The contest started on April 7th and lasted until the end of September. 27 particpants uploaded or found around 2000 pictures which covered around 85% of the topics proposed by the experts. See more information: Offical webpage of the contest, Wikipedia page about the contest.

GLAM initiatives[edit]

Cooperation with AGAD[edit]

On June 28, 2012, Polish Central Archives of Historical Records (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych, AGAD) in cooperation with the "Archivum Patriae" Association and Wikimedia Polska started releasing scans of old historical documents and manuscripts. On May 2013 a formal agreement between Wikimedia Polska and AGAD was signed. In 2014 the cooperation was continued. So far, 1305 scans have been uploaded to Commons.

More details: on Wikimedia Commons.

Cooperation with the Senate of Poland[edit]

On May 17, 2013, the Chancellery of the Senate of the Republic of Poland and Wikimedia Polska Association established a cooperation, permitting to share the pictures taken by the official Chancellery photographers. The current agreement allows us to upload pictures, provided by the Chancellery in batches, after their sources have been carefully scrutinized. Photographs are provided in maximum resolution, as originally shot by professional photographers, to ensure higher quality than that of photos available directly on the Senate's website. The Chancellery has opted for the CC-BY-SA 3.0 PL license. So far, 1325 files have been obtained. The files are mainly portraits of Polish and foreign politicians visiting the Senate.

See more details: on Wikimedia Commons

Cooperation with the State Archive in Poznań[edit]

On July 10, 2014, The State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu) in cooperation with Wikimedia Polska started releasing scans of old historical documents, photos, maps and manuscripts. At present, the scans are provided by the employees of the Archive and uploaded manually by User:Kustoszka and User:Crashzeroo from The State Archive in Poznań. The scans are of high technical quality (proper color adjustment, no geometrical distortion, neutral white lighting) and have relatively high resolution. The scans definitely do not need any additional technical corrections. The State Archive in Poznań has opted for the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 license. So far, 383 files have been uploaded. See: [14] and [15].

Wiki Loves Wilda[edit]

Poster advertising Wiki Lubi Wildę
Budget - 4000 PLN

Wiki Loves Wilda is a local initiative organised in cooperation with the local authorities of Wilda district in Poznan, the Associaton of Local Wilda Activites and "SPOT" Foundation. It has both outreach and GLAM cooperation aspects. In terms of outreach there was organised a set of wikiworkshops of editing Wikipedia and photohunts (394 files uploaded and 6 articles written or substantially improved). In terms of GLAM cooperation - there was a session of collecting, scanning and uploading archive pictures and putting QR-coded plates on selected monuments in Wilda. See more: [16], [17], [18], [19].

GLAM Coordinator[edit]

Budget - 16,000 PLN

On October 1 2014 a new GLAM coordinator was hired in order to professionally organize Wikimedia GLAM cooperation which was scattered around several independent projects. The coordinator created the Wikiproject:GLAM on Polish Wikipedia which is going to be the main hub of GLAM-related issues [20] and started organizing a team of volunteers as well as maintaining existing GLAM projects and establishing new ones. Among others - new cooperation with Zachęta Art Gallery and Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw were set up. [uzup, jak coś się do grudnia wyklaruje].

Outreach and promotion[edit]

Workshops[edit]

Wikimedia Polska organizes regular Wikiworkshops for various groups of potential editors. In 2014, 16 workshops took place all over the country. Among the most prominent ones:

  • Workshop for autistic teenagers in Opole, together with "Fundation Prodeste" (13 participants)
  • Workshop for scientists from the Technical Univeristy of Łódź (6 participants)
  • Workshop for scientists from the Technical University of Warsaw (? participants)
  • Two-day workshop for the members of the governmental program "Latarnicy cyfrowi" (Digital Lighthouse keepers) which is devoted to solving digital exclusion problems of people aged 50+. (30 participants)
  • Weekly, sequential workshops for teenagers in cooperation with WikiRadio in Youth Cultural Center in Warsaw (? participants)

See more information [21].

POTY and Wiki Loves Monuments Exhibitions[edit]

WLM exhibition in Warsaw, auth. Masti
POTY exhibition, Budget - 5000 PLN (still in progress)
Starting in 2011, Wikimedia Polska has been supporting a mobile exhibition of the best pictures awarded in the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition. The printed reproductions (26 of A0 size, 1 of A1) of winning pictures from the years 2006-2013 are presented in publicly accessible places across Poland in order to promote Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia /Wikipedia, Free culture and free licenses. In 2014, thanks to our volunteers, the exhibition was presented in 6 Polish cities: Dąbrowa Górnicza, Sędziejeowice, Gliwice, Zduńska Wola, Sieradz and Piotrków Trybunalski. Wikimedia Polska provides its patronage and covers the costs of printing, framing and transportation. We plan to continue the endeavour in the future on an ongoing basis. Further details: POTY on Wikimedia Polska wiki
Wiki Loves Monuments exhibitions, Budget - 5000 PLN (still in progress)
The same idea was applied to Wiki Loves Monuments - a mobile exhibition of the 2012-2014 winners of the Polish edition of WLM (36 A1 size reproductions) are presented in publicly accessible places across Poland. So far, the collection has been was presented in 7 cities across Poland (Wola Krzysztoporska, Biłgoraj, Zduńska Wola, Sieradz, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Piotrków Trybunalski and Warsaw). We plan to continue the endeavour in the future on an ongoing basis. Further details: WLM exhibition on Wikimedia Polska wiki

2014 Stork Nest contest[edit]

Budget - 450 PLN

Poland is famous for having a large number of stork nests together with a sizeable stork population. The contest was co-organized with OpenStreetMap Polska. The idea was to add as many POI's for used and abandoned stork nests in OpenStreetMap as possible and simultaneusly document them by uploading their photographs to Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Polska funded the 2nd and 3rd prizes. Around: 2000 pictures were uploaded to Commons. See more information: Offical contest page, Map of nests.

Promotional materials[edit]

  • 260 T-shirts with the Wikipedia logo and 2000 bookmarks with the basic guide on how to edit wikis have been ordered.
  • 50 T-shirts with the Wiki Loves Monuments logo and 2000 postcards with the winning pictures from the contest were printed.

Mass-printed materials were handed out to targeted event attendees (guides for wikiediting workshop attendees, t-shirts as gifts for Wikimedians and prizes in small competitions etc.).

Radio spots for the Polish Radio[edit]

Tax-deducible organizations are allowed to have free airtime for advertising in public, state-owned media. We used this opportunity to record and broadcast short spots about the most successful projects. Six spots were recorded and broadcast in nation-wide Program 1 of the Polish Radio. See more information: [22].

Thematic Weeks WIkiproject[edit]

Budget - 3000 PLN

The "Thematic Weeks" Wikiproject in Polish Wikipedia has been maintained by volunteers for a few years. The idea is to announce this in the Wikipedia Pub and to work together for one week on a specfic set of topics - for example: Armenia, historic naval ships, video games, etc. Wikimedia Polska decided to organize a contest around the Wikiproject, by donating books for the authors who contribute most to the Thematic Weeks. The contest started on November 11th, and it is going to be continued in 2015. See more information: [23]

Polish booth on Wikimania[edit]

Polish booth on Chapters Village, auth. Adrian Grycuk

During Wikimania 2014 in London we organized and maintained the booth in the "chapters' village". Our booth was one of the most popular, due to our button machine, some free gadgets and constant on-duty system. Except visits of Wikimedians who participated in Wikimania it was also attended by around 20 Polish people just passing by Barbican Centre. See: [24]

New Press officer and head of press office[edit]

Budget - 21,600 PLN

On October 1 2014 the head of the press office and press officer were appointed for 6 months in order to professionally organize our relations with the media and effectively maintain all our PR issues. They report in a monthly manner and stay in regular contact with the Board. See the reports of: press office and press officer.

Conferences and meetings[edit]

Wikimedia Polska International Conference 2014[edit]

Wikimedia Polska International Conference - group photo, auth. Robert Drózd

Budget - 59,000 PLN (limit) On May 9-11 2014 the tenth annual meeting of Polish Wikimedians took place in Poznań. Wikimedia Polska Conference is a meeting aimed at exchanging of experience between users taking part in the development of Wikimedia projects, as well as people interested in the fields of free software, access to knowledge in the developing information-based society and creators of free culture. The program included 11 presentations and discussions of which 2 were provided by guests from abroad. There were 84 registered participants of which 5 were from abroad (Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic) + around 15 unregistered as the access to the venue was free to all interested. During the Conference the General Assembly of Wikimedia Polska took place. Wikimedia Polska acted as the sponsor of the event, additionally providing scholarships for participants from Poland and abroad. Furhter details [25]

Wikimania scholarships[edit]

Budget - 48,000 PLN

Wikimedia Polska funded 12 scholarships for Polish Wikimedians and 4 for foreign ones (from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Serbia) for Wikimania 2014 in London. All of them attended Wikimania and participated actively in various activities there. See more information: [26].

WOWs[edit]

Budget - 3000 PLN

Wikimedia Poland continued to sponsor WOWs - Warszawskie Otwarte Wikispotkania (Warsaw Open Wikimeetings), which are regularly organized roughly one time a month (except summer). This is a kind of mini-conference with 2-3 lectures/discussions panels during each meeting, which are attended mainly by Wikimedians from the Warsaw area, but also by guests from other cities and non-wikimedians. In 2014, 9 such meetings took place which were attended by anywhere between 10 an 50 people each. More information: [27].

Wikipedia Day meetings[edit]

Budget - 1000 PLN

Several meetings celebrating the 2014 Wikipedia Day were organized and financialy supported by Wikimedia Polska. Such meetings took place in: Poznań (2 times), Katowice and Warsaw gathering 12-20 Wikipedians in each city.

2014 Public Domain Day[edit]

Wikimedia Polska co-sponsored the meeting on the Public Domain Day (PDD) when we celebrate the entrance of new works into the Public Domain. In 2014 PDD took place in the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw and was mainly focused on copyright issues regarding old films. The event was run by the Koalicja Otwartej Edukacji, of which WMPL is a founding member and WMPL financed snacks and soft drinks, as the venue and other costs were donated by Zachęta. Around 100 people participated in the event. More information [28].

Conferences attended by our members[edit]

Wikimedia Polska members participated (and were financially supported) in the following conferences:

  • Michał Buczyński and Dariusz Jemielniak participated in the WMF workshop for chapter boards members in London, (March 1-2)
  • Tomasz Ganicz and Marek Stelmasik participated in the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin (April 11-13); Marek Stelmasik provided a lecture about our micro-grant system.
  • Juliusz Zieliński attended the Wikimedia Ukraine Conference in Kiev (July 26-27), where he gave a lecture.
  • Janusz Dorożyński visted the Wiki-conference in Moscow (September 13-14), where he gave 2 lectures.
  • User:KuboF participated in the "Arkones 2014" conference in Poznań (September 26-28), where he gave a lecture about Esperanto. Czech and Polish Wikipedia.
  • Marek Stelmasik participated in the "International Wikinomics Conference" in Warsaw (October 17), where he gave a lecture about the Wikimedia projects.
  • Szymon Grabarczuk and Wojciech Pędzich attended the "Law and Economy" conference in Grudziądz (October 24-25), where they gave a lecture about NGO financing in the context of Wikimedia Polska.

References[edit]