Wikipedian Nadine Stark and master brewer Bernd Kirsch tapping the keg. (Photo: Martina Nolte, CCBYSA from the Wikimedia Commons)

Germany’s first Open-Source-Beer received its premiere last weekend in Hannover. During CeBIT, the world’s largest computer expo, around 30 Wikipedians from all parts of the country met at the “HBX” brewery and tasted the new composition, called “HannoverWikiRed” after its red color.

In the run-up to the event at the brewery, the Wikipedians went on a guided tour through Hannover and shot hundreds of photos to illustrate articles on Wikipedia’s German language version. “The meetup has been a big success,” Wikipedian Nadine Stark, the organizer of the event stated. “We not only had a lot of fun at the brewery, but also improved Wikipedia’s content.”

At Stark’s suggestion, the HBX brewery published HannoverWikiRed under the Creative-Commons-by-SA licence 3.0. This allows anyone to brew the dark malty beer on their own, provided that the original author is given credit and –if altered– the result is distributed under the same, similar or a compatible license. The recipe of HannoverWikiRed can be found on the brewery’s homepage.

Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach

I’m delighted to tell you that John Broughton’s book “Wikipedia: The Missing Manual” has been made available for free on the English language Wikipedia. O’Reilly Media announced this the other day. This is terrific news and will not only enable Wikipedia users around the world to read John’s book but also to edit it.

John first contributed to Wikipedia in August 2005 and his biggest accomplishment so far was the writing of the Editor’s index to Wikipedia, a comprehensive list of reference pages and links to useful information and tools for Wikipedia editors.

“Wikipedia: The Missing Manual” teaches new users how to contribute to Wikipedia and gives practical advice on how to collaborate with others to improve the free encyclopedia’s content. The book has first been published at O’Reilly’s in January 2008 and can now be found on Wikipedia’s help pages.

Please join me in thanking John for this great gift!

Frank Schulenburg
Head of Public Outreach

Video tutorials are often more beginner-friendly than text based online help pages. Wikimedia is therefore producing a number of videos demonstrating the basics of Wikipedia editing and increasing the public understanding of Wikipedia and Wikimedia.

On 19 November 2008 the shooting of the very first Wikipedia video tutorials took place. They will deal with two very basic questions:

* How do I edit Wikipedia?
* Why does Wikipedia work even though anyone can edit it?

To give you a look behind the scenes we produced a short 3 minute making-of video that can be watched online:

* on Wikimedia Commons (11.7 MB, better quality)
* on Wikimedia Commons (6.2 MB, lower quality)

and also

* on Vimeo
* on blip.tv
* on YouTube

Currently, the two video tutorials are in the process of post-production (assembling the film, adding visual effects etc.) and we hope that they will be online soon.  We’re also working on a portal space where the tutorials will be hosted for the long-term, and of course you’ll be able to find them here on the Wikimedia blog.

Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach

This week, the German language version of Wikisource started the transcription of a precious manuscript with the title “Bemerkungen über den Feldzug gegen Rußland in den Jahren 1812 und 1813” (Remarks on the campaign against Russia in the years 1812 and 1813).

The manuscript from the early nineteenth century was written by an eye witness of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Contrary to other accounts of the march of the Grande Armée on Russia it is focussing on the landscape, places and inhabitants along the itinerary.

The precious and up to now not entirely published manuscript had been digitized by the State and University Library of Göttingen, Germany, and then uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The travelogue gives new and invaluable insights in the daily life of a Saxon Hussar Regiment on his way to Russia in the years 1812/1813.

Wikisource is a free library of source texts which are in the public domain or legally available for free redistribution. Wikisource is an official project of the Wikimedia Foundation and a sister project of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach

German Wikipedians discovered a road sign citing Wikipedia. The road sign is located at Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. It denotes the “Erika-Mann-Bogen”, a street named in 2006 after Erika Mann (1905–1969) (article in English), the eldest daughter of Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann.

Members of the German Wikipedia community assume that the Hamburg municipality, by explicitly citing Wikipedia, wanted to express its esteem for the Wikimedia project, which is in Germany comparably high. Others raised the question if the usage of the text complies the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). One participant of the discussion joked that the GFDL had perhaps been printed on the backside of the sign which can not be seen on the photo.

Frank Schulenburg, Head of Public Outreach

On Monday the Wikimedia Foundation started a qualification program to train senior citizens of the 50-plus age group as “Wikipedia trainers”. The future Wikipedia trainers shall be enabled to run their own Wikipedia workshops in internet cafés for older people. The long-term goal is to raise contributions from older people, who are still underrepresented in the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects.

The course will last six weeks. During the first weeks the participants will learn the basics of how to edit Wikipedia articles. In a second phase the participants will collaboratively develop a concept for Wikipedia courses for senior citizens. Subsequently, the participants should be able to act as Wikipedia evangelists and motivate other people of their age to contribute to Wikipedia.

The qualification program is part of the Foundation’s attempt to encourage contributions from targeted underrepresented groups.

Frank Schulenburg

Public outreach coordinator

UPDATE: Frank has written up some additional information about this program here.

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