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Wikimedia Highlights, January 2012

Information You are more than welcome to edit the wiki version of this report for the purposes of usefulness, presentation, etc., and to add translations.

Wikimedia Foundation Highlights

WMF staff preparing for the anti-SOPA blackout

Foundation supports historic anti-SOPA Wikipedia blackout

On January 18, the community of the English Wikipedia made history with its decision to black out its entire project for 24 hours in protest of two proposed US laws — SOPA and PIPA — that would have seriously damaged the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia. The communities of over 30 other Wikimedia projects supported the protest. Many Foundation staff assisted in the effort, handling the technical side of the blackout as requested by the community, providing code and design, facilitating discussions, contributing legal analysis and handling an unprecedented amount of press coverage.

During the blackout, more than eight million US-based readers used the CongressLookup tool to find their political representatives. A blog post by Sue Gardner received more than 13,000 comments, with the overwhelming majority supporting the blackout. Google News listed over 11,000 media stories about the Wikipedia blackout and the other Internet protests of January 18, and #wikipediablackout was tweeted almost 1 million times. Support for both SOPA and PIPA has since dwindled. Observers expect that they will not become law in their proposed form.

Participants at the San Francisco Hackathon

San Francisco Hackathon

The first San Francisco Hackathon was attended by 92 participants, many of them complete newcomers. They attended training sessions about Wikimedia technology, followed by team work on demo projects which were then presented in a showcase session and judged by a jury. The first prize went to “SMSpedia”, which allows the user to text a page title to a phone number; the user is then called back by the service and can listen to the Wikipedia entry read aloud.

Mobile announcements: Official Android app, and Orange partnership for free Wikipedia access in Africa/Middle East

In the first partnership of its kind, mobile operator Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation will provide more than 70 million Orange customers from 20 countries in Africa and the Middle East (AMEA) with mobile access to Wikipedia — without incurring data usage charges. Also in January, the official Wikipedia Android app was announced. It was installed more than half a million times within the first two weeks.

Monthly Metrics Meeting February 2, 2012.theora.ogv

Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting covering the month of January (February 2, 2012)

Global unique visitors for December:

457 million (-3.7 percent compared with November; +15.6 percent compared with the previous year)
(comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release January data later in February)

Page requests for January:

18.0 billion (+10.4 percent compared with December; 16.4 percent compared with the previous year)
(Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)

Active Registered Editors for December 2011 (>= 5 edits/month):

83,293 (+0.1 percent compared with November; +1.6 percent compared with the previous year)

(Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects except for Wikimedia Commons) Report Card for December 2011: http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2011_12_detailed.html

The report card is currently undergoing a redesign as a more fully-featured dashboard (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects).

Financials

(Financial information is only available for December 2011 at the time of this report.)

All financial information presented is for the period of July 1, 2011 – December 31, 2011

Revenue: $25.6 million

Expenses:

  • Technology Group: $4,801,082
  • Community/Fundraiser Group: $2,501,444
  • Global Development Group: $2,154,912
  • Governance Group: $464,533
  • Finance/Legal/HR/Admin Group: $2,916,686

Total Expenses: $12,838,657

Total surplus/(loss): $12,784,247

Revenue was ahead of plan due to grants of $2.8 million and additional donations ahead of plan of $2 million.

Expenses for the month is $2.9MM vs plan of $2.6MM, approximately 11% higher than plan. Year-to-date is $12.8MM vs plan of $14.2MM, approximately 10% lower than plan.

Underspending YTD is due to timing of capital expenditures ($989K – budget was spread evenly over 12 months), internet hosting ($64K), volunteer development ($142K), travel and conference expenses ($233K), personnel expenses ($584K), recruiting expenses ($124K), and IT desk equipment ($77K) offset by higher awards and grants ($261K) budget was spread evenly over 12 months), legal and accounting fees ($81K), professional services ($293K), and bank fees ($248K).

Cash of $30.6 million, which is thirteen months of cash reserves at current spending levels and fourteen months of cash per the annual plan.

 

Other movement highlights

Animated group photograph from RecentChangesCamp2012

RecentChangesCamp2012

RecentChangesCamp2012, an OpenSpace unconference focused on wikis and online collaborative practices first held in 2006, took place at the University of Canberra from January 20 to January 22. It was attended by numerous Wikimedians from Australia and abroad.

The Netherlands’ oldest museum starts editing challenge

The “Oval Room” of Teylers Museum (1784)

Wikimedia Netherlands and the Teylers Museum (the oldest museum in the Netherlands) have startedThe Teylers Challenge” where participants collaborate on multilingual content related to the museum and its collection.

Zagreb trip explores future Croatian chapter

From January 20 to January 22, Ting Chen — Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation — and Chapters Committee members Miloš Rancic (Wikimedia Serbia) and Bence Damokos (Wikimedia Hungary) visited Zagreb to meet with local community members and discuss the future of Wikimedia Croatia (a chapter to be approved).

Australian Paralympic Committee and Wikimedia chapter send “Wikimedians to the Games”

The logo of “Wikimedians to the Games”

The Australian Paralympic Committee and Wikimedia Australia launched “Wikimedians to the Games“, a contest for Australian Wikimedians to improve content related to the history of the Paralympic Movement in Australia. The two winners will have the opportunity to fly to London and cover the 2012 Summer Paralympics for Wikinews, Commons and Wikipedia.

First “Public Domain Day” celebration in France

On January 26, the French Wikimedia chapter, together with Creative Commons France, Communia and people from the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) organized a celebration of “Public Domain Day”, accompanied by the creation of a website. “Public Domain Day” events highlight the entrance of copyrighted works into the public domain at the beginning of each year, and this was the first such event in France.

2 Responses to “Wikimedia Highlights, January 2012”

  1. Filceolaire says:

    I’m not sure “made history” is correct. Italian Wikipedia was the first to have a blackout day in protest and was the first to influence legislation by this means.

  2. Walter D. Wright says:

    Dear Wikimedia Staff,

    Thank you for over the years of delivering to the public many well-written and research articles of historicity. Your scholarship is admired by myself, as I am sure by millions who use Wikipedia as reference. I have been on and helped to raise funds for ‘non-profit’ organizations. So, therefore, the phrase, non-profit, does not mean salary, nice offices, travel expenses, and the like. It is used for bylaws and governmental protection, or I should rephrase, stay the Government.

    If I may offer one suggestion, your writers are in more than a few cases bias. I which not to refer to any one specific article, for there were many in the area of my research. Allow me to give a few examples, not quotes; however generalized tones to address, what I believe is an issue.

    Recently I did hundreds of hours reading books and relying upon your staff’s writings to present a brief on the History of the Goths and the Franks.

    In exclusively all articles from this organization, from ‘King Gundioc of the Burgundians’ to ‘Cassander King of Sicambri,’ did I find anything in any of your informative scholarly articles by slanderous and either not research thoroughly, or extremely dislike the the Sicambrian and the Germatic Empires, as if they wore only loin cloths and were ax-wielding brainless killers. While yet in the similar articles, the Romans, who historically can be shown had miles of suffering individuals crucified on roadways from town to town. I am a scholar as well, and a Scientific, Religious Philosopher. The fact that the Roman Emperors and Senators and Council wore silk attire, did make them more civil. There were political killing on thrones, as there were in the “Tribes.”

    I will assist to bring you forward in time. I am sure that over 2 million Armenians marched themselves in the mountains and killed themselves, while the women cut off their own breasts.

    Hitler, (not the German race), declared the Nazi Empire as the Greatest in the World, which would shine, showing the World how pure a race could be. I am sure the 4.5 million Jews took their own gas filled showers, or liked to bake themselves in ovens, starving themselves in death camps. Have I have made my point rather transparent?

    In on specific article, the reference to the Sicambrian Empire was ‘tribes,’ giving the reader of non-Royal Society. I also have done research. Had it not been for this type; ie, King Walter with William the Conquer, according to a very notable historian, the ‘tribes’ in the Germanic,Frankish Tribes,screaming as they were killing the poor Romans, who also instigated more wars for the sake of bringing learning and nobility to the other nations, if it were not for King Walter de Lacy – the Spanish, French German,and especially the British Empires would have not reached the heights of Royalty which they do enjoy today. The de Lacy blood runs through all Royalty. Or did you not know that?

    What is your thinking? That Alfred the Great King of England had modern weaponry to kill his enemy? No, we, as a civilized world do that today with our missiles and guns.

    The most blatant remark in one of the articles in Wikipedia, was a byline on a picture of a coin of that era, showing the figure wearing a mustache as facial hair. The caption indicated,’Here is a coin of the early Franks, depicting a man wearing the “barbarian” mustache.’ Well, by that classification of appearance, I would state that one half of the male population working as executive, are Barbarians. Many of your writing staff may be as well.

    I do not appreciate your extreme bias in your written word. The Romans were not civil. Neither are we. Think it over.

    Respectfully
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