As Wikimedia and the community embark on campaigns and programs to increase video contribution and usage on the site, we are starting to see video usage on Wikimedia sites grow and we hope for it to grow a great deal more. One potential problem with increased video usage on the Wikimedia sites is that video is many times more costly to distribute than text and images that make up Wikipedia articles today. Eventually bandwidth costs could saturate the foundation budget or leave less resources for other projects and programs. For this reason it is important to start exploring and experimenting with future content distribution platforms and partnerships.

The P2P-Next consortium is an EU-funded project exploring the future of Internet video distribution. Their aims are to dramatically reduce the costs of video distribution through community CDNs and P2P technology. They recently presented at Gdansk Wikimania 2010, and today I am happy to invite the Wikimedia community to try out their latest experimental efforts to greatly reduce video distribution costs. Swarmplayer V2.0 is being released today for Firefox (an Internet Explorer plugin is in testing). The Swamplayer enables visitors to easily share their upload bandwidth to help distribute video. The add-on works with the Kaltura HTML5 library ( aka mwEmbed ) and url2torrent.net, to enable visitors to help offset distribute costs of any Ogg Theora video embed in any web page.

Swarmplayer next design overview, learn more on swarmplayer.p2p-next.org

We have enabled this for Wikimedia video via the multimedia beta. Once you installed the add-on any video you view on Wikimedia sites with the multimedia beta enabled will be transparently streamed via bittorrent. The add-on includes simple tools to configure how much bandwidth you use to upload. Even if you upload nothing, using the add-on helps distribute load by playing the video from the P2P network and the local cache on subsequent views. The Swarmplayer has clever performance tuning which downloads high priority pieces over http while getting low priority bits of the video from the bittorrent swarm. This ensures a smooth playback experience while maximizing use of the P2P network. You can learn more about the technology on the Swam player add-on site

The P2P Next Team from Delft University of Technology will be presenting the P2P-Next project at the Open Video Conference on October 2nd.

Michael Dale, Open Source Video Collaboration Technology

Earlier this week we announced the first of four videos featuring Wikipedia’s volunteer editors, Wikipedia: Username. Today we released the fourth and final video in the series, Wikipedia: Great feeling.

All four of the videos have now been posted – both on the Wikimedia Commons and also on YouTube. The videos are all available under CC-BY-SA. For the YouTube version, consider opting into YouTube’s HTML5 beta, to support the open web. We strongly believe in the importance of open video formats for an open web, and most modern browsers can now play either the open WebM or OGV format.  The videos on Wikimedia Commons will automatically playback with an open-source HTML5 player in Firefox.

The full list of videos now available:

Wikipedia: Username (OGV|YouTube)

Wikipedia: Nice people (OGV|YouTube)

Wikipedia: Edit button (OGV|YouTube)

Wikipedia: Great feeling (OGV|YouTube)

The videos will also be available for download in HD versions on Vimeo.

Lots of people have reposted the videos on facebook (via the Wikipedia fan page), Twitter, and identi.ca.  Please watch and share the stories of Wikipedia editors.

We hope you’ll agree that the values, passion, energy and authenticity of Wikimedia’s volunteer community come through in full force. Wikimedia is a very special community, and we hope that we’ll be able to inspire many more to join it.

Thanks for watching, and thanks for sharing!

Jay Walsh, Communications

Screenshot showing a search for cats and drag an image into the sequence

I am happy to invite the Wikimedia community to try out the latest Kaltura HTML5 video sequencer as part of a Wikimedia/Kaltura Video Labs project that can now be used on Wikimedia Commons with resulting sequences visible on any Wikimedia project. For those that have been following the efforts, it has been a long road to  deliver this sequence editing experience within the open web platform and within the MediaWiki platform. This blog post will highlight the foundational technologies in use by the sequencer in its present state and outline some of the upcoming features in Firefox 4, and enhancements to the sequencer itself that are set to improve the editing experience.

If you want to just jump into editing, please check out the commons documentation page and play around with the editor and let us know what you think. This project is early on in its development. Your bug reports,  ideas, feedback and participation will help drive future features and how these tools are used within Wikimedia projects.

If you’re interested in Video on Wikipedia in general, please consider joining the Wikivideo mailing list which will cover a wide range topics, including the sequencer, collaborative subtitles, timed text, video uploading, video distribution, format guidelines, and campaigns to increase video contributions to the site.

And finally, if you are in the New York area consider checking out the Open Video Conference coming up October 1st to the 3nd, which will be a great space to hack on open video and work on ideas for the future of video on Wikimedia projects.

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As recently announced on the tech blog and in the Signpost, we’re launching an experimental new tool today to capture article feedback from readers as part of the Public Policy Initiative. We’re also inviting the user community to help determine its future by joining a workgroup tasked with evaluating it.

The “Article Feedback Tool” allows any reader to quickly and easily assess the sourcing, completeness, neutrality, and readability of a Wikipedia article on a five-point scale. It will be one of several tools used by the Public Policy Initiative to assess the quality of articles. We also hope it will be a way to increase reader engagement by seeking feedback from them on how they view the article, and where it needs improvement.

The tool is currently enabled on about 400 articles related to US public policy. You can see it in action at the bottom of articles such as United States Constitution, Don’t ask, don’t tell or Brown v. Board of Education.

Another goal of this pilot is to try and find a way to collaborate with the community to build tools and features. As main users of the software, Wikimedians are in a unique position to evaluate how a feature performs, and what its strengths and limitations are. The Article Feedback Tool is still very much in a prototype state; we’re hoping the user community can help us determine whether resources should be allocated to improve it (and if so, how), or if it doesn’t meet the users’ needs and should be shelved or completely rethought.

More information about the tool is available on our Questions & Answers page.

If you want to try the tool to assess an article, pick a subject you’re familiar with from the full list and rate it! If you’d like to participate in the evaluation of the tool itself and what becomes of it, please join the workgroup. If you’re interested in article assessment in general, please also join the Public Policy Initiative’s Assessment Team.

Thank you,

Guillaume Paumier,
on behalf of the Features Engineering team

Each year, the Wikimedia Foundation conducts a grant making process to support the work of chapters around the world. We are happy to announce that 15 grants for ten different chapters have been awarded for the 2010-2011 fiscal year thus far. The Wikimedia Foundation is excited to help launch all of these great projects and we encourage other chapters (and organized groups of volunteers) to consider grant request as we have additional funds available.

We’d like to spotlight a grant from 2009/10 as an example of the work that chapters are doing. The Indonesian chapter ran a project Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2010 (Free Your Knowledge 2010) during 2009/10. The grant aimed to enrich the informational content of the Bahasa Indonesian language Wikipedia with the goal of increasing active contributions.

The highly anticipated competition included 10 universities on the island of Java, each appointing nine students to compete and one professor to evaluate the writing results for the largest quantity and highest quality of articles produced in the Bahasa Indonesian language. The top-five student winners received a laptop computer and free operating system. The grand-prize winner was awarded a trip to the 2010 Wikimania in Gdansk, Poland this past July.

While it is hard to directly attribute the impact of the project to the overall project growth, it is worth noting that the Bahasa Indonesia Wikipedia article count grew by over 20% to 130,000 articles between August 2009 and July 2010. In addition, page views on Indonesian Wikipedia grew by 100% in that time period – the fastest growing Wikipedia in the world.

The 2010/11 grants have been provided by the Wikimedia Foundation to further the growth of new chapters in the areas of Organizational Development, Digital Technology and Outreach Activities. This year will see chapter start-ups and kick-offs in Hong Kong, Estonia, Ukraine, the Philippines and in New York City. As a result of these grants, chapters will be able to register and host their own websites, secure government permits and non-profit status as well as pay necessary legal fees.

Organizational development is an important aspect in expanding individual chapters. Several Foundation grants have been given for materials such as laptop computers, projectors, and video equipment. This year, the Netherlands have been granted a forgiveness grant from their participation in 2009/10 fundraiser revenue sharing. These funds will be allocated towards sustainable organizational development and outreach activities.

Digital technology grants have been given to the Hungary chapter for a Free License Photo Competition, encouraging the photographer community to place their work under Free License for the Wikimedia Commons project. The Czech Republic followed up their successful photo project in 2009/10 and will continue their efforts to expand the site’s documentation of regional costumes and traditions and vernacular architectural landmarks project.

Outreach activities are an integral part of chapter work on behalf of the movement. Internship programs, Wikimedia conferences and academies, and educational programs in schools and universities are all a part of this program. New York City is setting a worldwide precedent by holding the first annual Wikipedia Day NYC 2011. In conjunction with several 10th Anniversary celebrations to commemorate a decade of Wikipedia, funds will go to logistics preparation and conference supplies for participants.

Sharing in Outreach Activities, Wikimedia Switzerland will be embarking on a three-year project to invite senior citizens into the world of Wikipedia editing. By fostering the life experience and collective knowledge of seniors, the Third Age Online (TAO) program will be used to bridge age and cultural gaps in the community. Likewise, our Hong Kong chapter will be working with a new mandatory liberal studies program in high schools, encouraging students to use and contribute to Wikipedia Hong Kong.

The grant process is open to all chapters and volunteer groups officially recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation. Proposals must be aligned with the Foundation’s shared mission statement and the core values that drive the Wikimedia project. Each of these project grants has been assessed by the Foundation for relevance based on the needs of individual chapters and the diffusion of Wikimedia language sites and Wikimedia projects worldwide. Once grants are approved, chapters are subject to reporting requirements that are then made available to the general public to enable knowledge sharing.

This year alone, the Wikimedia Foundation has awarded $82,000 in grants to international chapters and $115,000 in forgiveness funding for fundraiser revenue sharing. The Foundation is pleased to announce the availability of additional funds for the 2010/2011 fiscal year. We encourage all chapters to apply. For more information on our grant process please visit: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index

Barry Newstead

Chief Global Development Officer

This week the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to introduce a series of short videos that were produced in Summer of 2010 that highlight our users: the volunteer contributors from around the world who help make projects like Wikipedia a reality.

(The clips will be posted on this YouTube channel, and also as CCBYSA files on the Wikimedia Commons)

These videos were produced with two key outcomes in mind: to inform the general public about the people and inspiration behind our movement, and also to energize and inspire new Wikipedia editors to engage bravely in contributing to Wikipedia.  The latter focus is particularly important for the Foundation’s current Public Policy initiative outreach, but we’re hopeful they will inspire other new editors around the world.

Altogether we will be launching four videos, and today’s video ‘Username’ is a short clip that introduces some of the 35 Wikipedia editors that were interviewed during the annual Wikimania conference last summer in Gdansk Poland.  We’ll launch the rest of the clips through this week, hosting them on video sharing sites and of course on the Wikimedia Commons.  The clips are all CCBYSA 3.0, including the great background music by Matthew Carey.

The clips were created for the Wikimedia Foundation by a team that’s been working with the Foundation over the past year. They were directed by Jelly Helm, produced by Noah Stanik, shot by DP Reed Harkness, and edited by Sarah Marcus. The Germany-based film production crew Living Colour was an essential partner in bringing everything together at the shoot in Gdansk, Poland, and Fenton Communications, who have been supporting the Foundation over the past year, were our agency partners in pulling this project together. We also owe the organizers of 2010′s Wikimania conference a great deal of thanks for helping us sort out the production on the ground and for letting us borrow participants for short interviews.

And of course our great thanks go to each of the 35 Wikipedins who took the time to open up and share their views and philosophies about our movement. The Foundation is incredibly fortunate to be able to meet so many Wikimedia volunteers, and it’s a great pleasure to be able to share some of the passion and energy we see every day.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for more!

Jay & Frank / Communications & Public Outreach

As part of the Public Policy Initiative, we are collecting stories about how Wikipedia has been used in university classrooms. The following is an excerpt from Reid Parham’s blog post, “Wikipedia in higher education? it’s legitimate, and I proved it long ago.” Reid’s undergraduate thesis set out to prove that Wikipedia has a place in the classroom.

The Wikimedia Foundation announced in May 2010 that it had received a grant to facilitate involvement of American universities in the goal of improving public policy articles. Throughout the summer, they obtained the support of nine professors from five universities and have hired staff, held trainings and connected with students and professionals at each school—they’re ready to make this pilot program a reality.

I’ve heard the same issues about Wikipedia that everybody seems familiar with (“not a valid source,” etc.), but, in 2007, I conducted a project very similar to the current program and proved the skeptics wrong.

Background
I attended Oregon State University from 2003 to 2008 and wrote my undergraduate thesis under guidance of Associate Professor Andrea Marks. It was an amazing adventure. My written thesis demonstrated three key points…

1. The common American public education model had grown from several cultural and technological revolutions^[6][7]
2. The effectiveness and equality of American public education has suffered during the cultural and technological progress of the 1980s and 1990s^{[figure 1][18][19]}
3. The shift in cultural norms that have come with the Millennial Generation and the advancement of technology that has related to the Web 2.0 movement should be embraced and integrated into instructional models to improve education (but be bold and do it correctly)^{[28][32][34][37]}

My favorite part of the thesis was an adventure in which I expressed my frustrations and then showed the legitimacy of our new techno-cultural frontier. I cited Wikipedia (using the proper URLs), YouTube^[40], television news^[35] and dramas^[14], a public email list^[34] and various lectures from distinguished academics^[27][39][41]. It felt good to supplant the cultural symbols of my contemporaries into the academic rigor of an accredited, four-year professional degree program; it felt good to write out my thoughts; and it felt great to get full credit for my thesis and graduate with cum laude honors.

Read the full post at Reid’s blog.

Have more stories of how you’ve used Wikipedia in the classroom? Leave a note in the comments.

LiAnna Davis
Public Policy Initiative

Next Sunday, 20 Israeli students will leave for humanitarian work in Africa, equipped with portable offline Wikipedia thanks to a coordinated effort between Wikimedias from Israel, Switzerland and France.

Every year, the Africa Center at BGU, headed by Dr. Tamar Golan, sends a group of students on a three-month humanitarian expedition to developing countries in Africa. This year’s group is going to the Republic of Benin and the Republic of Cameroon.

To help, Wikimedia Israel decided to equip the students with computers running free software and containing an offline (static) version of the French Wikipedia, so that the students can bring free knowledge to Africans without access to the Internet. The students also have portable installations of the offline Wikipedia, so that they may install it on any other computers they may run across in Africa

We reached out to Hamakor, the Israeli Free and Open Source Software NGO, and Hamakor helped obtain computer donations, refurbished them and installed the Linux operating system on them.

Wikimedia Israel collaborated with members of Wikimedia Switzerland and Wikimedia France to produce an up-to-date static version of the French Wikipedia (numbering about 1 million entries, and including images), French being a major language of reading and writing in Cameroon and Benin.

Incidentally, the Linux version installed on those computers is called Ubuntu Linux, ‘Ubuntu’ being an African word (in the Zulu language) roughly translated as “unity of mankind” or “mutual reliance”.

We are very excited about this project that continues the Wikimedia Movement mission of supporting and promoting the distribution of free knowledge to everyone in the world.  We can’t wait to hear an update from the students next month.

Itzik Edri

Spokesman, Wikimedia Israel

Greetings MediaWiki hackers!

I am pleased to announce the upcoming MediaWiki Hack-A-Ton in Washington, DC.

As you are all aware, every year in April our good friends at Wikimedia Deutschland host the annual “MediaWiki Developers Meetup” in Berlin. At that event, the program is focused on demonstrations, workshops and small group discussions. To complement this, we’re planning the DC meetup to be focused solely on hacking, bugfixing and getting down and dirty with the
code.

We’re scheduling this for October 22nd-24th in Washington, DC. Some of the details haven’t been ironed out yet, but will be announced over the coming days as it is. So clear your calendars, and keep your eyes on MediaWiki.org and the mailing lists for more information.

Some travel assistance may be available for those coming a long way. I’ve also been told there will be swag of some sort for attendees :)

Chad Horohoe
Contractor, Wikimedia Foundation

And one more thing: I forgot to mention Bugzilla. To help track the event, we’ve added a new keyword, “bugsmash.” Prior to the Hack-A-Ton, we’d like people to start tagging bugs that should be tackled during the event. It will help the participants get started finding bugs, as well as bump the priority on a bug you’ve been wanting to see fixed.