Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Deutschland/March 2010

Hi all,

for some time now, Wikimedia Germany is publishing a monthly report about our activities and main projects to the german mailinglist, as well as on our blog. Starting with the March 2010 report below, we will publish these reports in english as well, to give our friends outside of Germany the opportunity to catch up with what we do as well.

I will publish the March and April reports today, and the one for May in the next couple of days. I aim to publish the report in German on the last day of the months, and the translation will take usually about a week or so, so you can expect the new report for June around the 7. July 2010.

If you have any questions regarding of the the projects or topics discussed, please let me know.

Happy reading!

Dear friends of free knowledge,

Easter is coming, also the beginning of the month is a time to reflect on the last month.

Open data

There were some great positive advances in the area of open data. The hbz and for example the university library of Cologne have published their catalogue data under [1] and [2] respectively (Creative Commons Zero - CC0). By many journalists Wikipedia/Wikimedia was named as possible consumer and user. There is a first tentative approach to show the data [3] with the Apper-Persondata-Tool. Fortunately even political parties showed interest in the opening [4]. We are hoping for other libraries to follow this example.

School project

Again, this month the school project was a central issue. In the context of the Initiative D21 some workshops took place and resulted in requests for participation in further events. Except for one all requests could be granted, and planning is currently taking place. Immediately after the Wikimedia Conference (see below) more effort will go towards planning of the School-project again. We want to significantly increase the workshops for teachers in the second half. For this we plan to gather and train a pool of volunteers, develop appropriate teaching material etc. There will be an in-depth update on this in the blog entry in April.

Wiki4enterprise

For a while now we are involved in the project wiki4enterprise [4], a collection of Businesses, which use MediaWiki in their company. This is a good opportunity for us to form contacts to businesses which use the software; together we can talk about further development, exchange experiences and give tips to one another. Here a meeting occurred in Frankenthal [5] in which Daniel participated.

DPG

Wikimedia Germany was approached during partaking of the Springconference of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Physical Association) [6], on 16th Denis Barthel gave a presentation on Wikipedia. There has been broad interest and again the specific questions and needs of academics became apparent. Unfortunately not as successful was the booth we were given. It was only able to work properly for one day and even then the interest was limited. A special thanks for their help goes to Zipferlak and Raymond.

Wikisource

We initiated an interesting order: A print of the Schwaebisch Gmuender Passionsspiel [7], which was already appreciated in 1867.

Wikimedia Conference

Nicole's first month in the branch office was dominated by the preparations of the Wikimedia conference [8]. The developer meeting will take place on the 14. and 15. of April with approximately 80 attendants and from the 16. until the 18. approx. 80 representatives of the international Wikimedia Chapter and employees of the Wikimedia foundation as well as the Board of Trustees will meet. With the Zanox Campus [9] - directly near the Oberbaumbruecke and with view of the Spree between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain- we have found an excellent venue with sympathetic and open atmosphere. Accommodation of attendants is also sorted: One group will stay in the Cabins of the traditional hotel boat Eastern-Comfort [10], the rest will stay in a Hotel in Friedrichshain on the Warschauer Strasse. Attendants travel from more than 20 different countries to Berlin, so another of our/ Nicole's task was to help with Visa and coordinate the journeys via plane, train or car. The search for a moderator of the chapter meeting was also successfully concluded and we are happy to have found two competent forces with Anja Krieger [11] and Don Dahlman [12]. Applications for both events are now closed and it was very interesting for Nicole to help Wikipedians from all over the world with all kinds of questions. Still remaining are negotiations with the catering firm, the planning of the evening as well as coordination of the volunteers. Additionally comprehensive information leaflets are planned for the attendants.

Topics in the media

The questions from the press in March were not remarkable, only general questions such as numbers and statistics about access and users etc. A few contracts to the media were initiated with regard to the planned Wikimedia Conference, namly: Zeit-online, Brandeins, Spiegel Magazin, rbb, ZDF, and others. Additionally Catrin helped with the following articles:

• Berliner Morgenpost, Artikel published on the 24.3.10 here [13].
• MDR INFO about Wikis and Wikimedia (Interview on television on the 25.3. in total four times around midday)
• Westfaelische Rundschau: in the Wiki-World (article is currently in progress)
• Stuttgarter Zeitung: Wikipedianer Portrait (Editorial journalist will visit the regular's table on the 1.4. in Stuttgart, article in progress)

Further the new fundraising employee Till Mletzko became more reknown: Newsletter of the Fundraisingverband in March and Fundraiser-Magazine / April issue.

Information material, progress report & others

The information leaflets for Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and Wikiversity are in the layout phase. Single community members are currently supporting Catrin with the development of the layouts and the content. The production of the progress report (PDF) required a lot of time in March: the tasks consisted of the structure planning , text development and editing, pictures and graphics formatting, layout- and text adjustment and production. Relatively small, but nonetheless appreciable, was the provision of material for the library congress in Leipzig. Quickly 100 flyers were produced, which Mathias Schindler and Jakob Voss were able to distribute in libraries, in order to support the BEACON-Format. The next Wikimedium is planned, first structure and content are composed. Editorial deadline is the 9. of April and everyone who has ideas, topics or suggestions can, as usual, contact us at redaktion@wikimedium.de.

Software projects

A status report on the advertised [15] software projects, which as known was delayed a bit: The "complete support of TIFF files" [16] is currently in the final stage, here the code is currently approved by Daniel; the renewal of CatScan has developed a first prototype, which also is currently under evaluation; last but not least the analysis of flagged revisions[17] will now also proceed quickly, for this there will be a blog update in the next few days. In parallel a prototype for the multilingual picture search is currently under development, which should be completed in time for the Wikimedia Conference. Additionally during the conference the XMLRX-project is planned to be started and finished.

Future events

a quick overview of events, in which representatives of WMDE will partake.: 1. re:publica [18], on the 15th of April in Berlin, 14.00 pm; a "Zeit online track" to the issue Processjournalism is planed. 2. Mitteldeutsche Medientage [19], 4th of May in Leipzig; Coordination and Preparation of participation Mathias Schindler. Theme: Copyrights in a revolutionised Mediaworld. A short presentation (10 min) followed by discussions. Guests: Data privacy protection experts, Boersenverein des dt. Buchhandels, Justitiar DJV, and specialists solicitors Internet 3. Buchtage Berlin [20], 10th/11th June in Berlin Congress Centre; Discussion round "The markets of tomorrow". The participation of Pavel Richter is planned. 4. Conference in Limassol on Cypress [21]: Euromed 2010, Digital Cultural Heritage and Digital Libraries from 8.-13.11.2010; Still a bit time- but the preparations for the program are already fully running. A keynote speaker is enquired.

Fundraising

On the 1. of March Till took the newly created position of fundraiser. With this Wikimedia concreted the wish to more actively seek donations and care for donors, as well as position itself as a strong fund raising organisation in the medium term. Aim of the systematic development of the fundraising for this year is a stronger autonomy of the autumn campaign. After familiarisation with the donation administration, the conclusion of numerous donor enquiries as well as introduction into the current fundraising activities, new fundraising projects were started. As part of this the optimisation of current funrdraising methods via inclusion of donor communication as well as preparation for the introduction of new methods such as the monetary fine marketing. However, the core piece is a professional database, which is planned to replace the current data base in the short or middle term. A catalogue of requirements, which covered content/functioning as well as technical and security relevant aspects, was produced. The new data base is not only planned to optimise and help with administration of and communication with new donors, but also to provide the most important basis for the conduction of systematic fundraising activities. However, not only the gain of new donors, but also the increase of commitment of current donors is a central issue. In the next few weeks it is planned to conceptualise first ideas and execute first activities.

Members

Some fortunate developments occurred here, between February and March 45 new members were gained, but only one member quit. This means the current number of members of Wikimedia in Germany is currently at 564 members. On the 25. of March, in due time, we sent all members invitations to the member conference [22]which is due to take place on the 08/09 May in Berlin; who didn't supply an email address received the invitation via post. Here an appeal: You would be helping us a lot with the planning if you, even provisionally, informed us with a short mail to mv2010@wikimedia.de about your attendance, because planning of this is needed: For example the number of drinks, Tables, chairs or supplies for voting need to be considered.

Community

In March we have supported the following events and workshops of community members with journey and conference expenses: In Berlin the meeting of the arbitral court of the German-speaking Wikipedia took place, in Cologne the since 2006 occurring Wikipedia Workshop [23], in Kaufbeuren the meeting of the editorial office of film and television. [24] The Chemnitzer Linuxdays, as it is now tradition, were supported with materials; we want to especially mention the idea of Kolossus, to use an interactive donor box: Great ideas and thank you to the local Wikipedians, which faced the discussions and questions of the audience! Here [25] are a few impressions of the event.

The next office report will be published on the 4th of May 2010.

Kind regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Pavel Richter Executive Director

---

Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. Eisenacher Straße 2 10777 Berlin

Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0 www.wikimedia.de

Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei! http://spenden.wikimedia.de/

• • • • Unterstützen Sie Freies Wissen mit einer SMS. Senden Sie einfach WIKI

an 81190. Mit 5 Euro sichern Sie so die Verfügbarkeit und Weiterentwicklung der Wikipedia. ****

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

Links:

[1] http://www.hbznrw.de/projekte/linked_open_data/
[2] http://opendata.ub.uni-koeln.de/
[3] http://toolserver.org/~apper/pd/person/Konrad_Adenauer
[4] http://www.wiki4enterprise.org/index.php/Hauptseite
[5] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenthal
[6] http://www.dpg-physik.de/
[7] http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Sitten,_Gebr%C3%A4uche,_Aberglauben,_Sagen_%28Gm%C3%BCnd%29#Das_Passionsspiel
[8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Conference_2010
[9] http://www.zanox.com/us/zanox/campus/berlin/
[10] http://www.eastern-comfort.com/
[11] http://www.anjakrieger.com/
[12] http://www.dondahlmann.de/
[13] http://www.morgenpost.de/familie/article1280261/Generation-Copy-amp-Paste.html
[14] http://wikimedia.de/files/Taetigkeitsbericht_2009.pdf
[15] http://blog.wikimedia.de/2009/04/07/softwareprojekte-ausgeschrieben/
[16] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMDE_contract_offers/Implement_full_support_for_TIFF_files
[17] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMDE_contract_offers/Evaluate_the_impact_of_using_flagged_revisions
[18] http://re-publica.de/10/
[19] http://www.medientreffpunkt.de/
[20] http://www.boersenverein.de/de/portal/Buchtage_Berlin_2010/310446
[21] http://www.euromed2010.eu/
[22] http://blog.wikimedia.de/2010/03/23/mitgliederversammlung-2010-informationen-fur-vorstandskandidaten/
[23] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop_K%C3%B6ln
[24] http://de.wikipedia.or/wiki/Wikipedia:Redaktion_Film_und_Fernsehen/Redaktionstreffen
[25] http://de.wikipedia.org/wi