One of the finalist photos from Wiki Loves Monuments 2011

Only days after Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 wrapped up this September, organizers got the word that Guinness World Records had officially certified last year’s 2011 contest as the largest photo competition in the world.

Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 attracted over 5,000 participants from 18 countries, who uploaded 168,208 photos under a free license for use on Wikipedia and other freely licensed projects. The 2011 contest surpassed the previous Guinness record of just over 120,000 photos.

“The Guinness World Record for largest photography competition is a recognition of the effort of the hundreds of volunteers that have helped pull off this contest in the past years” said Lodewijk Gelauff, one of the international coordinators of Wiki Loves Monuments.

Of course, those of you following the current contest know that Wiki Loves Monuments 2012 was an even bigger success. It was expanded to 35 countries, including first-time participants such as the United States, Argentina, South Africa and India. While the 2012 competition is still ongoing in Israel, and the results are not yet final, it’s safe to say the Wikimedia community is about to break its own new world record.

More than 15,000 photographers have already submitted more than 350,000 photos in 2012, doubling the total certified by Guinness World Records for 2011. The most photos came from Poland, with over 50,000 uploads by nearly 700 participants. India had the greatest number of participants, with over 2,200 photographers submitting more than 16,000 photos. And amazingly, Catalan user Pere prlpz uploaded nearly 9,000 photos individually!

For many of the organizers of the contest, the most gratifying number is the following: of the uploaders, more than 11,000 had never contributed to Wikimedia projects before.

(more…)

This post is available in 2 languages:

Español  • English

In English

Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes

On Saturday, September 22, Wikimedia Mexico co-hosted a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in the Hall of Murals of the Palace at the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes (MPBA). The edit-a-thon–co-sponsored by MPBA and Wikipedia student clubs at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM)– was conducted to create and improve information available in Spanish Wikipedia about works preserved at the museum. The Wikipedia Student Club at UNAM also invited Sandra Zetina Ocaña, restorer and art historian, to discuss the works, provide updated bibliographies to wikipedians, and to talk about the context and meaning of the murals.

The Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City is one of the major cultural venues in the country, and a majestic and endearing landmark in the capital. It was designed by Italian architect Adamo Boari in 1904 and completed in 1934 by Federico Mariscal before the Mexican revolution, which explains the multiplicity of styles in its exterior and interior. Inside, the walls are covered in a collection of large-format oil paintings made by the great Mexican muralists, expressly for the palace.

Mexican muralism was an artistic movement developed in the first half of the 20th century, with the participation of legendary Mexican artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, José Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo, among others. The creative, transformative and educational activities of the movement left a deep mark on the subsequent pictorial discourse, which is studied today by many specialists in the history of art in Mexico. As noted by Raquel Tibol, contemporary Mexican artists should learn from the “lack of inhibition in Rivera, the expressionist temperament of Clemente Orozco, the profound experimental feeling of Siqueiros and the avant-garde creative capacity of Rufino Tamayo.” ^[1]

The Hall of Murals is a beautiful space, visited by hundreds of thousands of people in a year, part of one of the most visited museums in Mexico. For eight hours, we created twelve new articles about the murals. It was very interesting to see twenty people typing on their laptops, reviewing the available references, and working together right in the middle of an Art Deco venue. Hundreds of people visiting the murals while we edited came to ask that why we were there, and some of them decided to participate the next time we hold an event.

“I will never forget the edit-a-thon at the Palace of Fine Arts,” said Sandra Zetina Ocaña, who wrote the Wikipedia article for Murales del Palacio de Bellas Artes (in spanish) during the event. “Usually I write alone or in a group of a few specialists (rarely more than two). I like the idea of overcoming singular authorship to write collectively, and to experiment with the flexibility of knowledge. I’m excited by the way Wikipedia is written, based on the sum of contributions that achieve a polished article, interwoven relationships, images, text, video — the text as a dynamic object.”

MPBA authorities have recently worked on digital projects that enrich online content related to Mexican art, including on Wikipedia, and because of this we were able to use these amazing facilities for our successful edit-a-thon. In recognition of the Wikipedia gender gap, where as few as 9 percent of contributors are female, the event was coordinated and organized by women, who made up the majority of the participants.

“We formed a tangible network, an enthusiastic marathon, mixing various interests, small epiphanies and a group who was surprised by its own power,” said Zetina Ocaña. “We created a community that included spectators, museum managers, anyone sensitive to the power of knowledge”

Click here to view a video interview about the edit-a-thon.

Ivan Martínez, Wikimedia México

(more…)

On September 20, tucked away in a computer lab in the engineering building at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, twelve new Wikipedians learned how to edit Wikipedia. The new editors participated in the Carleton University Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Edit-a-thon, with the goal of adding more content about female scientists on Wikipedia.

Participants at the Carleton University edit-a-thon

Were there not more exciting things to be doing on a Thursday evening in Ottawa? Sure, there were a lot of other fun events that night, but we were doing it because we had heard about the gender gap in Wikipedia, where approximately 9 percent of editors are female. We were doing it because we knew that the women we were writing about were brave trail-blazers who are frequently written out of history, and this was our chance to write these women in to history. We were doing it because we knew that the only way to change the statistics was to become Wikipedia editors ourselves and to encourage our friends to do the same.

The host for the night was the Carleton University branch of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) group, and I volunteered as the primary organizer. There was one small glitch: I had never edited Wikipedia before and didn’t know anyone who had. In fact, none of the participants had ever edited Wikipedia before, proof, perhaps, that there were not enough women editing Wikipedia?

I centered the edit-a-thon on a strong belief that we can all participate if we help each other, which is also how I feel about WISE, which focuses on encouraging and supporting women in engineering. We believed the event could also help foster a local community with the goal of encouraging more women to edit Wikipedia. As an inclusive group, however, we also encouraged men to attend, assuming they might also help us write articles about female scientists (one quarter of the attendees were male).

We created 12 new accounts and, after a brief introduction, started to work creating and improving articles. Because none of us was an experienced editor, everyone got into helping each other. There were a lot of exclamations of “oh, how did you do that?” and “why doesn’t this work?” Instead of having one teacher, we were all teachers. We started nine articles and improved two others.

One of the trail-blazing scientists we wrote about was Pearl Kendrick. She helped to bring the vaccine for whooping cough from lab-scale to full-scale production by 1940. Later, upon finding that the version of the vaccine in England was not as effective as the one available in the United States, she worked with the Medical Research Council of Great Britain to help them develop a more successful vaccine.

After a few hours, we all decided to continue working on the articles at home and fell into a discussion around tea and cookies of what we wanted to do in the future. Everyone agreed that we need to have more edit-a-thons. Some felt up to the task of hosting their own, centered on themes that interested them personally. Most of us were excited to show our friends what we had learned and to extend our new found role as teachers beyond our group. I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s articles improve and I’m extremely proud of everyone’s efforts.

Many thanks to everyone who came out for the event, as well as to Carleton University WISE and to Wikimedia Foundation Community Fellow Sarah Stierch for her encouragement.

–Audrey Murray, Carleton University WISE

Are you a woman who edits or is active in the Wikimedia community? Or do you want to contribute to Wikipedia, but you just aren’t sure how to get started? WikiWomen from around the world have come together to form the WikiWomen’s Collaborative to support you and to support each other as we edit Wikipedia and her sister projects.

The WikiWomen’s Collaborative is a social media initiative, led by Wikipedia volunteers in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation, which seeks to engage and inspire women to edit Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Commons media repository, and related projects. This initiative was inspired by the realization that in order to impact Wikipedia’s gender gap we must build strong networks of women who are motivated to take action. We want to find and connect more women around the world and encourage them to contribute to the sum of all human knowledge by editing Wikimedia projects.

Here’s how you can get involved:

WikiWomen’s Luncheon at Wikimania 2012

• Like the WikiWomen’s Collaborative on Facebook and visit our page to share resources, tips on contributing and connect with other WikiWomen
• Join the conversation on our WikiWomen’s Twitter feed
• Read and write for the WikiWomen blog channel. Share your editing experiences, what inspires you to be involved in the Wikimedia movement and what you’re doing about it. Sign up to contribute to the blog here

We’re so excited to have WikiWomen around the world involved in this project: to share with you why we love editing, why it’s important that women contribute and some of the easy and fun ways to get involved in the movement.

Sarah Stierch, Community Fellow

Sculpture of Sahasra Devata, image taken at the Crafts Museum

Imagine talking about the world’s largest free encyclopedia on a rainy weekend with a bunch of weavers, artists, potters and curators – all experts and practitioners of Indian craft traditions. Imagine hearing them talk about intricate silk embroidery, metal casting, sari motifs, Internet and their edit counts – all in one breath! This is India’s first GLAM initiative running in collaboration between the staff members at the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum in New Delhi, India (also known as the Crafts Museum) and the Hindi Wikipedia community. (Hindi is the language of choice for most of the staff members.)  We now have five new editors editing Hindi articles related to crafts like Bidriware, Madhubani paintings and Brocade.

It was particularly moving to see people from all walks of life, who have computer and internet access only at work, navigate the Indic keyboard layout to collaboratively improve these articles. As Krishan, a young stenographer at the museum said: “It’s not that beautiful craft traditions and objects don’t exist in India. In fact, they can be found in every house and village, but it is time to show the whole world what a rich culture we have. And, I am ready to contribute to Wikipedia so that millions of Hindi speakers are able read about them.”

(more…)

Opening knowledge and sharing information are among the principles of the Wikimedia projects. Wikipedia’s spirit is that if you open knowledge, you can build a better encyclopedia and help more people in the world.

For many years, we didn’t see Wikipedia especially as a way of development, but people outside the Wikimedia movement see our experience and work more and more as such a model.

The Wikimedia Foundation and some Wikimedia chapters are involved in projects to use Wikipedia as a way to help development and education, by sharing Wikipedia content, supporting communities of wikimedians, and building educational resources.

The World Bank opened its data and resources and released them under a free license some months ago. The goal is to allow reuse and work with this open content.

During Wikimania 2012, the World Bank and Wikimédia France have organized an event to hear from organizations that are creating online and offline open source solutions to close this digital divide.

Participants at the event include:

• Cyril Muller and Michael Trucano from the World Bank, which is involved in a policy to be more transparent and give access to its data to improve research and control.
• Asaf Bartov, Head of Global South Relationships, Wikimedia Foundation, to speak about the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects in the Global South.
• James BonTempo, Thought Leader, ICT4D, Jhpiego, about development projects in impoverished countries
• Adrienne Alix, Director of Programs, Wikimedia France, about Afripedia, the initiative by Wikimedia France to make Wikipedia content in French more widely available offline.

Follow this link for more information about the event, taking place Wednesday morning, and to participate online.

Adrienne Alix, Director of Programs, Wikimédia France

This post is available in 2 languages:

français  • English

In English

Signing the partnership agreement for Afripedia

In mid June, Rémi Mathis, chairman of Wikimédia France, signed a partnership with the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (Association of Universities of the Francophonie – AUF) and the Institut Français (IF) to support a project called Afripedia. This initiative supports the development of Internet access in countries where, for now, the network is not stable and affordable enough. In French-speaking Africa, where most people have limited, expensive and poor quality access to the Internet, the goal is to encourage contribution and access to free knowledge. Wikimédia France intends to support future local contributor communities to move Wikipedia forward in French and in local languages.

The partnership is facilitated by the work of Kiwix developers, who for several years have been facilitating offline versions of Wikipedia in various languages. Utilizing the Kiwix platform, content from Wikipedias in different languages can be downloaded and shared all over the world to be used in diverse ways.

For Afripedia, Wikimédia France –working with Kiwix, the AUF and IF — will establish offline WiFi systems in areas where internet is not prevalent. The system essentially works like an Intranet. We will install small computers (Plug Computers) without screens or keyboards, which are very energy-efficient. Then we will connect a flash drive with the content of Wikipedia (and maybe other Wikimedia projects, like Wiktionary, etc.) and all the content will be shared by WiFi with all the computers that receive the WiFi network. To update content, you just have to update the original flash drive and every computer will receive the new information. We think that this system is better than the traditional sharing of content with flash drives or DVD, because it allows for easier and more accessible updates.

In a lot of countries, the AUF has a network of digital campuses near universities. We are in partnership with the AUF in order to benefit from that network and logistical help. We will start by setting up the project in about 20 universities in 15 countries in West-Africa and by training the staff to use Wikipedia, especially for educational use.

But we also want to encourage contribution by African people on African topics, given that there is too little coverage of those on Wikipedia. For this purpose, while we develop the offline dissemination of Wikipedia, we will organize tutorials and workshops to make it easier to contribute and collaborate with the Wikipedia community. With this training, we’re hopeful users will be able to contribute more easily when their internet connection allows them to do so.

If the project goes well, we intend to develop it further in 2013 with help from the AUF and IF. We’re starting with universities, but we can consider sharing Wikipedia content this way in schools, cultural centers and even (with wireless repeaters) in residential areas and villages.

This is a particular and unique experience for us to take part to this kind of project. It is very interesting to work with institutions with extensive experience in educationnal and cultural development. Since we have announced this partnership, and based on coverage in African media outlets, we have received several contacts from associations or people involved in cultural development. This should allow us to support new communities of contributors (and maybe future wikimedia chapters?) in these countries.

We look forward to updating you on our progress as the initiative proceeds.

Adrienne Alix, Director of programs, Wikimédia France

(more…)

The Wikipedia Education Program is taking off in Brazil! As we’re entering the final month of the semester, I had the opportunity to visit the different professors of the courses, and work with the Wikimedia Foundation’s Brazilian team to see how we can close the semester well and prepare well for the upcoming semester of classes. I obviously already knew we had a great team on the ground – Oona and Tom – but this time I had the opportunity to meet with even more of the enthusiastic volunteers who are involved.

Take Mariana Jo. She is a campus ambassador in São Paulo who decided, after hearing Kul Wadhwa speak at Campus Party, that she wanted to be more involved with the Wikimedia movement and spreading free knowledge. As the first member of her family to go to a public university (typically they are top universities in Brazil), she has a passion for creating broadly available resources and teaching her peers about the importance of sharing their information. She is starting off her involvement by helping with a Physics course at the University of São Paulo as a student in the department herself, where she trains other students how to contribute their course assignments to Wikipedia.

Or take Professor Pablo Ortellado, also at the University of São Paulo. His students are spending the whole semester working on encyclopedic articles about Brazilian cultural policy, which do not yet exist on the Portuguese Wikipedia. The semester-long class brings in experts in the field to discuss different aspects of cultural policy and provide information for references for the student groups. He is already known across Brazil for his passion for open access, and he is excited to expose his students to these concepts in conjunction with the course topics of cultural policy.

All the courses are just getting into the full swing of editing, so we are excited to watch the continuing contributions of additional knowledge to the Portuguese Wikipedia!

Jessie Wild, Special Projects Manager, Global Development

Wikimedia Commons is an important resource for photos and media used on Wikipedia and various sister projects. But it is also an amazing store of images that can be freely used in so many other applications, personal or professional, provided you adhere to the prescriptions in the free licenses used on the media.

We thought it would be a useful exercise to pick a theme and see how many interesting images we could find that fit the theme. We chose to center this photo essay on “greetings.” We were delighted to find with the initial search queries of “welcome” and “greeting,” that the subject yielded such a diverse range of images. We sought to expand the search by thinking more broadly about the myriad types of greetings around the world. After reading the article on Wikipedia, a greeting is an act of communication in which human beings (as well as members of the animal kingdom) intentionally make their presence known to each other.

After searching for “greeting” we tried “waving,” “hug,” “kiss,” “haka,” peace sign” and several other search terms. Photos on Commons are sorted into many different categories. So if you already found an image related to the theme you are interested in, it can be useful to click on the categories which appear at the bottom of the image page, below the metadata, to find other images on the same topic. As an example for our search, here is the category for hand waving. If you know a useful category that is missing in the image, you can help Commons by adding it yourself – click “edit” and follow these instructions.

The following gallery shows some of our favorite results, which we’ve selected for the array of greetings they illustrate.

Jordon Hu, Communications Intern
With assistance from Matthew Roth, Global Communications Manager, and Commons contributor InverseHypercube

A Nepalese man demonstrating the "hand wave"

Wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling; Cortège at Slottsbacken

Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945

Tennis player Simone Bolelli waves to the audience at the 2012 French Open

(more…)

This post is available in 2 languages:

Español  • English

Click on the image above to watch the video

In English

Wikimedia Chapters conduct outreach activities across the world to attract readers, photographers, free knowledge advocates and many others to participate on Wikipedia and its sister projects. Sometimes they find that simply explaining how Wikipedia works is an important first step to recruiting new collaborators.

In 2011, several members of the Wikimedia Argentina board were discussing new strategies to explain their work when they hit upon an important idea. Inspired in part by instructional and outreach videos produced by Wikimedia Italia, Wikimedia Germany, and the Wikimedia Foundation, they decided to produce a video that explained the central tenets of Wikipedia and the community that supports it.

“In outreach activities, we find that most people think they know what Wikipedia is about, when they really don’t,” said Patricio Lorente, President of Wikimedia Argentina. Lorente said they hoped the video would correct general misconceptions about Wikipedia and would be useful for screening at outreach events, during workshops and potentially for air on Radio y Televisión Argentina (RTA), a public broadcasting network.

Patricio Molina, who was in charge of the project, wanted to create the video with a clean background to prevent anything from distracting the viewer. Molina also suggested that the video include floating words and images around the presenter to reinforce certain concepts that chapter members deemed most important to convey. Through Molina’s contacts, Wikimedia Argentina was able to a find and hire a production team that could handle these requirements.

The production team recommended singer and actress Mariana Esnoz, who was found through a public casting, to star in the video. The chapter members, along with collaboratively writing the script, chose to have an actress instead of an actor handle the dialogue. It was important “to deconstruct the idea that Wikipedia projects —or anything Internet-based— has to do with computer ‘geeks’, but also because it was useful and in line with [Wikimedia’s] gender policy,” said Galileo Vidoni, Vice President of Wikimedia Argentina.

The production took five months, with three different “final versions” of the video under consideration just days before project completion. The three final versions had different instances of the Jorge Luis Borges article animation at the end of the video, “the hardest part of the editing process,” according to Molina. In the animation, viewers can see the development of the Borges article over time as it was edited, with its significant growth and depth depicted graphically.

“We saw that kind of animation in a video about the London Bombings in 2005, so we wanted to make something quite similar in order to show how an article is created,” said Molina. “It was really hard: we exported, vectorized and modified each HTML, handling them with Adobe After Effects.”

The finished product is excellent and hopefully proves very helpful in recruiting new editors to Wikipedia, and new chapter members to Wikimedia Argentina.

Matthew Roth, Global Communications Manager

En Español

Los capítulos de Wikimedia realizan distintas actividades de extensión alrededor del mundo para atraer lectores, fotógrafos, defensores de la cultura libre y otros a participar en Wikipedia y sus proyectos hermanos. En ocasiones descubren que simplemente explicar cómo funciona Wikipedia es un primer paso fundamental para reclutar nuevos colaboradores. (more…)