Wikimedia Polska/Reports/2015

This is a Wikimedia Polska report for 2015

Summary

According to our plans for 2015 from December 2014 till December 2015, we managed to:

In terms of our support for content creation

• Wikiexpeditions were carried out as planned. Although the traditional expedition was organized on a smaller scale and only in Poland, the expedition to East Asia and the Railway expedition produced better results than expected.
• We organized a Polish edition of Wiki Loves Earth instead of Wiki Loves Monuments – the competition achieved moderate success. We were also partially resposible for organizing WLE on the international level.
• Wikigrants were organized as planned, and once again proved to be successful.
• A very new idea – a project to create open-licensed recordings of poetry by Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński – has been started and is at the moment in progress.

In terms of GLAM cooperation

• The work of the GLAM coordinator hired in late 2014 successfully continued. She was coordinating close to 20 – new and preexisting – cooperations with GLAM institutions, of which 7 resulted in mass uploads to Wikimedia Commons and 3 were continued, among others:
• The 'Ritual Year with Wikipedia' was a project organized with the National Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw, which resulted in over 1000 photographs and 7 films uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and over 30 articles written or expanded.
• The first Polish Wikipedian-in-Residence has been placed at the National Museum in Warsaw. The WiR is training new Wikipedia editors, coordinates writing new articles and uploads the Museum collection to Commons; her work began recently and is in progress.
• The Józef Burszta Digital Archive donated 7800 unique pictures to Commons.
• The Senate of Poland donated new 500 pictures to Commons.
• The Central Archives of Historical Records and State Archive in Poznań donated 300 images each. The European Solidarity Centre, State Archive in Łódź, Museum of Art in Łódź and Zachęta National Gallery of Art donated several dozens of images each.
• Around 11000 images originating from GLAM collaborations were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
• New GLAM collaborations of WMPL enjoyed some general attention of the GLAM community in Poland and new contributions or projects are expected, including the Museum of Polish History and the Silesian Museum, among other interested GLAMs.

In terms of outreach/promotion

• We organized around 20 workshops for diverse groups of potential editors – from GLAM employees and University staff members to secondary school students with disabilities.
• Thematic Weeks, CEE and "Batuta" constests were successfully carried out, leading to creation and expansions of around 1000 articles in Polish Wikipedia.
• The team of professional PR/Press Officer was successfully continued, leading to better external and internal communication of our activities, successes and ideas. They also were active in Freedom of Panorama campaign and organized "ProWikimedia 2015" prize celebration.
• We printed/created a selection of new promotional materials as planned. The were used in our other activities as needed.
• POTY/WLM exhibitions were shown only in 2 places in 2015, due to lack of interest. Wiki Loves Wilda project was closed due to lack of activity.
• After on-line research, Wikipedia R&D volunteer team organized a meeting in February during which a roadmap for Polish Wikipedia meta/help pages was created but since then the progress of work stalled in endless discussions.

In terms of meetings and conferences

• As planned, we've organized the Annual Polish Wikimedia Conference 2015. It took place in Gdańsk on 12-14 June 2015, featuring 78 participants, 19 lectures and workshops.
• We granted 8 scholarships for Wikimedians from Poland and 2 for Wikipedians from abroad for Wikimania 2015 in Mexico.
• 5 local meetings of Polish Wikipedians were organized and supported financially: 4 in Poznań and one in Warsaw.
• Public Domain Day was organized at the Museum of Warsaw Uprising – in collaboration with other members of Coalition for Open Education.
• We attended and supported CEE Meeting in Estonia.
• 11 WMPL members and employees participated in 8 external conferences.

In terms of overal budget and operational costs

• As in previous years the main source of income was 1% tax donations made by individuals which was down -57 744,51 PLN (-13,5%) comparing to 2014. The new source of income were 2 grants from Wikimedia Foundation for which we were only "payment processor" for Wikimedia Ukraine. Overall income was down by 15 499,20 PLN (-3,48%).
• The structure of spending was as predicted, although it was 15% lower than planned.

Detailed report

Financial Report

The figures in the financial report are based on bank account data as of the end of November 2015. The data should be considered as a rough estimate of the current financial situation of Wikimedia Polska.

Structure of income

The main source of income for Wikimedia Polska are 1% tax donations made by individuals. According to Polish law, physical persons can choose one NGO with a state-recognized tax deductible status to donate 1% of their income tax to. It is made via the state tax form, which taxpayers have to fill each year between January 15 and April 30.

Income from this main source was down -57 744,51 zł (-13,5%) comparing to 2014. Overall income was down by 15 499,20 zł (-3,48%).

The new source of income were 2 grants from Wikimedia Foundation for which we were only "payment processor" for Wikimedia Ukraine.

Wikimedia Polska income structure 2015

Source	Amount (PLN)	Amount (USD)	%
1% tax deductible	369 580,86	95 600,21	86,06
other donations	21 072,45	5 450,85	4,91
WMF grants	30 647,55	7 934,65	7,41
membership fees	3 469,69	897,51	0,81
other	4 627,62	1 197,04	1,08
Total	427 469,20	110 574,30

Structure of expenses

As of the end of end of 2015, general structure of expenses was as follows:

Wikimedia Polska spending structure 2015

	PLANED			SPENT
Name	Amount (PLN)	Amount (USD)	%	Amount (PLN)	Amount (USD)	%
Projects	200 000	60 000	32,68	95 725,91	24 761,61	18,53
Promotion/outreach	117 000	34,800	19.12	95 872,89	24 799,63	18,56
Conferences/meetings	80 000	23,800	13.07	150 595,46	38 954,83	29,15
International support	115 000	34,200	18.79	35 677,92	9 228,88	6.91
Operational	100 000	30 000	16,34	138 763,46	35 894,22	26,86
Total	612 000	182 800	100	516 635,64	133 639,16	100

Spending are 15% lower than planned. Some spendings for which Wikimedia Polska is a payment processor on behalf of Wikimedia Ukraine will be postponed to 2016 due to WM UA timelines. This has affected International support part of the budget. Higher operational costs are result of extensions of paid staff based on success of this model of operations.

Financial Audits

During 2015 Wikimedia Polska has been subject to official Audit by Ministry of Labour and Social Policy of financials and spendings beeing in line with limitations coming out of Public benefit organization status. Second Audit was performed by Independent Auditor on behalf of Wikimedia Polska Revision Committee verifying bookeeping practices. Both Audits were completed successfully only with minor suggestions for improvements, which are about to be implemented in 2016.

General / Infrastructure

Wikimedia Polska is a registered association run under Polish law and having a legal personality. It was established on November 15, 2005 in Łódź and obtained its tax deductible status on March 28, 2007.

Number of members: 127 (as of November 30, 2014)

• Number of regular employees: 5 (secretary running an office, accountant, GLAM coordinator, Head of Press Office, Press Officer)
• Number of irregular paid staff: 2 time-contractors (Wiki Loves Earth coordinator, Railways Wikiexpedition coordinator)

Structure and governance

• The Executive Board consists of seven active Members: the President, Vice-president, Treasurer, Secretary and three regular Members.
• The Audit Committee consists of three active Members including its Head.
• The Arbitration Committee consists of three active Members including its Head.

Present members of the Executive Board, Audit and Arbitration Committees were elected in May 2014 for a period of two years. See: Władze

Office and maintained infrastructure

Wikimedia Polska runs one physical office. The headquarters is located in Łódź, 15 Tuwima Street. Rented facitility of approx. 20 m² is equipped with 3 computers and an MFP.

The Chapter has been maintaining one dedicated server and 2 virtual:

Dedicated server rented from OVH ([1])

The server is being used by 40 people (40 shell accounts), mainly for the operation of bots and for holding source photographs and scans. The server holds 3 wikis (Polish Wikipedia ArbCom wiki, internal wiki of WMPL Board and an open test wiki for checking if Polish Wikipedia templates and scripts are compatible with new versions of MediaWiki), 1 Wordpress-based service: the main blog of Wikimedia Polska, and 5 static html-5 based pages: official page of Wiki Loves Monuments [2], official page of Wiki Loves Earth [3], official page of E-textbooks contest [4], landing page for wikipedia.pl domain [5] and landing page for our 1% action [6]. The server also holds a dozen of mailing lists [7] (see also: Listy dyskusyjne). Due to technical problems, the old server is currenty closed and the content was trasfered to a new one.

Temporary virtual server was hired in OVH for 2 months in order to organize transfer of services to a new dedicated server. The operation was finished a November 30.

Virtual server on az.pl

which is mainly used as a mailbox for holding official E-mail accounts of WMPL (for employees, members of the Board, press officer and leaders of WMPL projects). See: Adresy e-mail.

Operated Internet domains

WMPL pays for holding 20 domains - (see UZ 2014-11). Most of the domains are simply redirected to the relevant Wikimedia projects and are mainly held in order to avoid squatting. http://www.wikipedia.pl points to the search engine in order to avoid direct legal responsibility for Polish Wikipedia content. http://wikizabytki.pl is used for the official blog of Wiki Loves Monuments contest in Poland. http://wikiprzyroda.pl/ is used for the official page of Polish edition of Wiki Loves Earth. http://www.koed.org.pl points to the official page of Coalition for Open Education.

See detailed list of domains: Domeny

Activities

Content creation

Wikimedia Polska continues to support several endeavors aiming to enrich wikis with difficult-to-obtain content.

Wikigrants

Budget - 11. Edition - 25 000 PLN

As in previous years we continued our micro-grant project with similar success as during 2014. There were 54 applications in 2015 till 7 December of which 9 were rejected and 4 are under investigation. Out of 41 accepted 24 are already successfully finished, the others are in progress. Most of the application are for buing books needed as a sources for Wikipedia articles and for travel reimbursement for small journeys resulting new pictures and sometimes stories in Wikivoayage or Wikinews.

Further reading: Wikigranty on Polish Chapter wiki

Wikiexpedition(s) 2015

2 members of Railways Expedition

Budget - 4,500 PLN for the traditional expeditions, 10,00 PLN for the Railway Expeditions and 40 000 for Wikiwyprawa 2015.

Wikiexpedition is a trip through a selected region of Poland in order to gather documentation concerning that region (especially photographic). The first Wikiexpedition took place in 2008. Since then, Wikimedia Polska has been supporting these expeditions every year.

In 2015, one traditional expedition took place, during which 4 wikipedians traveled across świętokrzyskie voivodeship by car and bicycles for 10 days. They uploaded 890 pictures to Wikimedia Commons. See: [8]

The Railway Wikiexpedition 2015 consisted of extended traveling by train all over Poland during August and September by main organizer: Travelarz togehter with 5 other people who joined him for various amount of time. They took 3747 pictures - mainly railway infrastructure and stations. The Expedition was co-organized toghether with Polish Railways Foundation which partially contributed financially. See: [9]

Wikiwyprawa 2015 was a travel of 5 people by hired bus from China, through Middle East to Poland. 2,257 unique pictures were uploaded to Commons by participants including several hundred of aerial pictures of historical monuments in China, Uzbekistan, Kirigzstan Turkmenistan and Georgia taken by drone. The travel was partially supported by Kopex company, which donated 40% of funds. See: [10].

Wiki Loves Earth

Breakwaters in Sarbinowo by the Bay of Pomerania, by Łukasz Śmigasiewicz, one of the winning photos

Budget - 30,000 PLN

Polish edition of "Wiki Loves Art" (Wiki Lubi Przyrodę) had a moderate results, especially in comparison with Wiki Loves Monuments. 3959 files were (8th place globally) uploaded by 372 users of which 48 achieved "quality images" level on Commons. One of the pictures from Polish edition (File:Tatry i Spisz1.jpg was awarded (one of 12 additional awards) on international level.

See: [11] and [12].

Baczynski's poetry recordings

Budget - 3600 + 6000 PLN

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, one of the most famous Polish 20th century poets, perished in 1944, which means that in 2015 the copyright on his works has expired. We created a project to record his selected poems with the help of professional and semi-professional actors in a professional studio. In the first batch of 22 poems about World War II were recorded, and then 21 of his love poems, less known to the public, will be added. The first batch is already uploaded to Commons [13], the second set is about to be recorded at the end of December 2015.

See: [14] and [15]

GLAM initiatives

Ritual Year with Wikipedia

Budget - 4700 PLN

Smiergust in Wilamowice - one of 6 films created during the project

The Ritual Year with Wikipedia project was run as a partnership with the National Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw, from February to November 2015. This joint project aimed to fill a gap on Polish Wikipedia related to articles and media about Polish folklore customs and traditions, particularly ones that are unique or observed nowadays only in some locations. Teams consisting of Wikipedians, Museum staff and volunteers (university students) visited 7 locations across Poland, recorded interviews with the residents, photographed and filmed the rituals. The Museum staff helped all participants to find appropriate sources – books and publications on Polish ethnography and customs, and to verify the new articles. The Museum side of the project was endorsed and subsidised by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The outcomes of the project are:

• Nearly 1000 media – mainly photographs – documenting rituals uploaded to Wikimedia Commons;
• 7 professionally recorded and edited films (featuring interviews) released by the Museum on BY-SA licenses, also on Wikimedia Commons;
• More than 30 articles created or substantially expanded, inncluding 10 on English Wikipedia;
• A total of 20 people (students, Museum staff, and local residents) received basic Wikipedia training during the project;
• The Ethnowiki book publication – partly in English – BY-SA licensed – print (500 booklets) + PDF.

National Museum in Warsaw Wikipedian-in-Residence

Budget - 2400 PLN

Jewish woman selling oranges by Aleksander Gierymski - one of the pictures uploaded by National Museum in Warsaw

The National Museum in Warsaw began working with Wikimedia Polska in July 2015. Initially the collaboration relied on the Museum donating high-resolution reproductions of PD paintings (masters of Polish and international fine arts) to Wikimedia Commons. The scans originate from the Museum's own digitisation department. In many cases the quality of these surpasses pre-existing versions existing on Wikimedia Commons and have been replaced in many entries. The initial batch was a collection of 100 reproductions of the classics of Polish art.

Next, we created a dedicated uploader which enables Wikipedians to preview images from the Museum's digital database, correct mistakes in the generated metadata, choose the best-quality file from the set of images stored on the database and upload the best image to Wikimedia Commons. 150 artworks have been uploaded so far; the uploads continue with a high rate of reuse across many Wikimedia projects.

Wikimedia Polska is funding a pilot Wikipedian-in-Residence program at the National Museum, which is running from October 2015 to January 2016. The program is related to the temporary exhibition 'Masters of Pastel'; delicate pastel drawings are not normally on view, hence the benfit of acquiring those images for Wikimedia Commons. The Wikipedian-in-Residence coordinates a group of 10 volunteers (students learning to edit Wikipedia) and several experienced Wikipedians who are together editing articles related to the artists and pastel artworks.

The Józef Burszta Digital Archive

Budget - 0 PLN

Wikimedia Polska began a collaboration with the Institute of Ethnology at Adam Mickiewicz University in January 2015, aiming to help popularise the images from the Józef Burszta Digital Archives – an archive of open-licensed ethnographic material run by the Adam Mickiewicz University. The University went through a process of acquiring BY-SA license permissions from authors of all photographs. Images in the archive document regional customs and dress, folklore festivals and events, everyday objects, artifacts, symbolic objects, crafts and architecture of rural areas. The University signed OTRS permissions allowing the upload of photographs by all creators in the JBDA database to Wikimedia Commons. Upload was performed using BursztaBot created by Yarl. Volunteers are currently working on categorising the files.

• 7830 images from the Józef Burszta Archive had been added to Wikimedia Commons.

The 'Dust off a document!' (Odkurz dokument!) competition

Budget - 2000 PLN

The "Odkurz dokument!" competition ran from 15th Oct to 15th Dec 2015. The aim was to boost the reuse of media from a GLAM partner, the State Archive in Poznań, in Wikipedia articles. Initial usage statistics have shown an increase from 10% to over 38% of all 660 images from this category as a result of the competition. Over 120 Wikipedia entries were illustrated by PD images from the Archive.

Zachęta National Gallery of Art

Budget - 0 PLN

In 2015, this contemporary art gallery contributed 100 CC BY-SA media to Wikimedia Commons: 50 artworks and over 50 photographs of artists and exhibitions. In January 2015 Zachęta enabled Wikipedians to organise a local photo workshop, resulting in over 150 photographs of the Gallery building and interior. Zachęta also hosts meetups of Wikimedians and related events; further uploads of audiovisual BY-SA content is planned for 2016.

Other new content donations and collaborations

Among the new institutions that began donating their holdings to Wikimedia Commons in 2015 are:

• The State Archive in Łódź – after a workshop with WMPL, employees of the Archive have begun gradually uploading selected photographs of the city, historical documents and material relevant to biographical articles to Wikimedia Commons. This is done manually by employees at the Archive. So far, 130 images were uploaded.
• The European Solidarity Centre began to cooperate with WMPL in July 2015. The Centre began the process of releasing some of the historical photographs in its Archives on Creative Commons BY-SA licenses. An initial batch of 35 photographs of the Gdańsk Shipyard Strike featuring images of Anna Walentynowicz, Lech Wałęsa and other people participating in this historical event was donated to Wikimedia Commons and reused in Wikipedia articles. The ESC hosted a Coalition for Open Education event (described here) during which 44 recordings were made of quotes from world writers and philosophers on freedom and open society. Also, 2 Wikipedia workshops were being conducted by experienced Wikipedians at the ESC library, and at least 3 more are planned for 2016, in view to train the Library employees to use Wikipedia and Commons in daily work.
• The Małopolska Institute of Culture is donating images of Małopolska landmarks, artifacts and art to Wikimedia Commons via uploading sets of BY-SA licensed images to Flickr. Over 1500 images were uploaded so far. The Institute is preparing its 'Virtual Museums of Małopolska' collection of historical objects to be mass uploaded directly to Commons in early 2016.
• The Museum of Art in Łódź donated over 50 images of early 20th century art and is in the process of releasing some of its modern art collection on BY-SA licenses to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Continuing projects

• Collaboration with the Senate of Poland continues: the Chancellery of the Senate of Poland contributes CC BY-SA-licensed photographs, which are then selected and uploaded to the Senate category by a volunteer Wikimedian. In 2015, 500 new images were uploaded and are widely used across many Wikimedia projects.

• The State Archive in Poznań is continuing to donate selected images to Wikimedia Commons. The number of archival documents in the State Archive in Poznań category increased from 350 to 660 – 300 new images. The Archive regularly engages in promoting Wikimedia projects: Archive staff participated in the Public Domain Day 2015, ProWikimedia awards and hosted a GLAM lecture for local institutions in Poznań in April 2015. WMPL funded the 'Odkurz dokument!' competition described above to increase the reuse of Archive media and popularise its resources available on Wikimedia Commons with a near 30% increase in reuse over a 2-month period.

• The Central Archives of Historical Records collaboration is based on uploads of historical manuscripts to Wikimedia Commons by Archive staff. 350 new images have been uploaded to the Central Archives category.

Outreach and promotion

Workshops

In 2015 Wikimedia Polska either directly organised or supported no less than 23 WikiWorkshops, in which roughly 300 people took part (the list is by no means complete yet). Most were typical workshops teaching the basics of Wikipedia and her sister projects to our partner institutions, their workers and supporters. Some however were targeted at specific audience, for instance a workshop for students of Medical University of Warsaw (with focus on medical topics), or for volunteers supporting our Wikipedian-in-residence in the National Museum in Warsaw (focusing on art and historical topics).

We also organised workshops aimed at migrants and minority groups, such as Wikipedia training for Lane Kirkland Scholarship members from Central and Easter European countries, or the Day of Belarusian Wikipedia organised in Poznań.

A separate category were workshops for teenagers and young adults aimed both at teaching them important skills through Wikimedia (citing sources, copyright, NPOV etc. Highlights include a set of workshops for Special School students of Zagórze near Warsaw, a workshop for young adults with autism-spectrum disorders in Warsaw and a set of workshops organised as part of Project WikiWarszawa (the latter was organised by a fellow NGO and financed by the city of Warsaw through its education grants programme, but was carried out entirely by the members of WMPL and its' staff).

POTY and Wiki Loves Monuments Exhibitions

POTY exhibition, Budget - 5000 PLN (still in progress)

Starting in 2011, Wikimedia Polska has been supporting a mobile exhibition of the best pictures awarded in the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition. The printed reproductions (26 of A0 size, 1 of A1) of winning pictures from the years 2006-2013 are presented in publicly accessible places across Poland in order to promote Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia /Wikipedia, Free culture and free licenses. In 2015, the popularity of this exhibition droped anourmosly, as it was presented in 2 places only: Piotrków Trybunalski and Łomża (mid-size Polish cities). Further details: POTY on Wikimedia Polska wiki

Wiki Loves Monuments exhibitions, Budget - 5000 PLN (still in progress)

The same idea was applied to Wiki Loves Monuments - a mobile exhibition of the 2012-2014 winners of the Polish edition of WLM (36 A1 size reproductions) are presented in publicly accessible places across Poland. In 2015, the popularity of this exhibition droped as well, as it was also presented in 2 cities only: Kolno and Łomża. Further details: WLM exhibition on Wikimedia Polska wiki

Promotional materials

Budget - 9200 PLN

In 2015 the following promotional materials were produced:

• A general leaflet about Wikimedia Polska and Polish Wikimedia [16] was created and printed in 5000 copies;
• 300 T-shirts with Wikipedia logo
• 1000 lanyards with Wikipedia name and logo
• 2000 bookmarks with Wikipedia logo
• 1000 eco-pens with Wikimedia logo
• around 200 buttons with Wikimedia project's logos (printed in small quantities, as needed)
• specialized GLAM leaflets in Polish and English were created and printed in small quantities (around 100-200 copies) as needed by GLAM coordinator and the press office.

All gadgets were used during various promotional occasions such as wikiworkshops, meetings in GLAM institutions, meetings with journalists, during conferences etc.

Thematic Weeks and Batuta Wikiprojects

Budget - 6000 PLN

The "Thematic Weeks" Wikiproject in Polish Wikipedia has been maintained by volunteers for a few years. The idea is to announce this in the Wikipedia Pub and to work together for one week on a specfic set of topics - for example: Armenia, historic naval ships, video games, etc. Wikimedia Polska decided to organize a contest around the Wikiproject, by donating books for the authors who contribute most to the Thematic Weeks. Around 40 participants joined the project of which 22 won one or more prizes. The contest started on November 11th 2014, and was continued for all 2015. See more information: [17]

Budget - 850 PLN

"Batuta" is another wikiproject maintained in Polish Wikipedia for several year. It is been inspired by unfamous story of hoax biography of Henryk Batuta. The idea of the contest is to add sources to biographical articles in Wikipedia and deleting found false information, especially hoaxes. Wikimedia Polska donated book prizes for most devoted editors who added the ighest number of sources and found and fixed the highest number of hoax and false information. Around 25 people participated in contest of which 6 won prizes. See more: [18]

CEE Spring 2015

Budget 12,000 PLN

Polish edition of CEE Spring 2015 contest was a moderate success. It was organised in similar way as our own Thematic Weeks i.e. every week people wrote articles about selected countries from CEE region. Around 20 people wrote 693 articles and expanded 47 existing ones. 8 people won weekly prizes, two won main prizes which was scholarship for CEE Summer Camp in Macedonia. More information: [19] and [20].

Polish booth on Wikimania

During Wikimania 2015 in Mexico CIty we organized and maintained the booth in the "chapters' village". During the Wikimania we organize several small contests with prizes of our local gadgets.

Prowikimedia 2015

Budget - 8000 PLN

An award for the projects and volunteers of Wikimedia Polska. The aim of the award was to keep our volunteers inspired and to encourage them to start new initiatives. Also by creating a jury of non-wikimedians we wanted to see how our projects and actions are seen by people outside the movement. The jury consisted of people from cultural instiutions, NGO's and the media. They reviewed our projects for the past 4 years, choosed the best and most interesting ones and shared their opinions and ideas about our actions.

The award was given in 4 categories (Free content ambassador, Efficient content acquisition, Innovation in acquiring free content, Volunteer of the year). We held an award ceremony in the library of the European Solidarity Center - an institution with a mission of sharing the achievements of justice, democracy and human rights.

See: [21]

Press officer and head of press office

The head of press office and the press officer are responsible for promoting our projects and activities in the media and social media and our blog. In 2015 they also managed some media and social media crises (regarding global block of Orange network and a hoax in popular journalist's article) and informational campaigns (including such topics as freedom of panorama, tax donations for Wikimedia Polska, GLAM and sister projects). They addressed interview and information inquires. They are also working on promoting Wikipedia's 15th birthday and organizing birthday events and some outreach programs. Head of press office is also managing internal communication, keeping the volunteers up to date with our actions (including writing a weekly e-mail report).

In 2015 our press office raised the number of followers of our social media profiles from about 13% to 30 % (depending on the profile). The profiles are managed in strict cooperation with a group of volunteers interested in communication and outreach.

You can read more on reports of press officer and reports of press office

R&D group

In January, research on Polish Wikipedia help pages was finished. Traffic and card sorting method were used, a gadget similar to Article feedback was written as well. The results with a comment are here. We aimed to perceive the pattern of use, whether there's one system of help pages or a few (partially, who are our personae) which consist of the pages located in 12 namespace, and therefore, how to maintain such pages optimally usable. In February, there was a summarizing meeting, where the next steps were discussed. The process stalled at broad community consultations. Since then, members of R&D group have continued performing their regular voluntary contributions to meta-namespaces of Polish Wikipedia.

See: R&D page on WMPL wiki

Conferences and meetings

Wikimedia Polska Conference 2015

Budget - 80.000 PLN (limit)

WMPL Conference 2015 group photo

Our annual conference took place 12-14 June 2015 in Gdańsk. There were 78 participants, of which 6 were from abroad (3 from Ukraine, 1 from Belarus, 1 from Germany and 1 from the UK). The conference lasted 3 days, it included 19 lectures as well as the general assembly of Wikimedia Polska and a ceremony of awarding the ProWikimedia Awards. The audio recordings made by WikiRadio of all lectures and the general assembly were published on Commons [22]. Further details: [23]

Wikimania scholarships

Budget - 70,000 PLN

Wikimedia Polska funded 8 scholarhips for Polish Wikimedians and 2 for foreign ones for Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City. Thanks to this our delegation was one of the largest among other EU countries. The extended report from our activities during the conference has been published on our wiki: [24].

CEE Meeting 2015

Budget - 12 338 PLN

Polish delegation on CEE Meeting 2015 in Estonia consisted of 6 people, of which all provided 1 or 2 lectures. Polimerek was a member of program team and also printed paper materials and gadgets for the conference. Polish team published extended report from the meeting: [25].

Local meetings

Budget - 3000 PLN

4 meetings - 14 annversary of Wikipedia and 2 "wikigrils" were organized in Poznań. A special meeting in Warsaw was organized in June due to visit of Lila Treptkov in Poland.

Conferences attended by our members

Wikimedia Polska members participated (and were financially supported) in the following conferences:

• Marta Moraczewska in Inaugural GLAMwiki Coordinators Meeting, 7-8 March, Paris, lecture about GLAM cooperation in Poland.
• Marta Moraczewska in GLAM-Wiki conference in Hague, 10-12 April, lecture about "Rok Obrzędowy z Wikipedią"
• Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska, Krzysztof Machocki, Marek Stelmasik, Tomasz Ganicz, Wojciech Pędzich in Wikimedia Conference in Berlin, 15-17 May - various activities.
• Janusz Dorożyński, Bashkir Wikipedia Conference in Ufa (Russian Federation), 24-26 April, lecture about Silesian, Wilamowian and Kashubian Wikipedias.
• Tomasz Ganicz, Marta Moraczewska, Szymona Grabarczuk, Coalition for Open Education meeting 2015, Gdańsk, 29 May - 1 June, various activities.
• Magalia, Aegisa Maelstrom, Polimerek, Wpedzich, Masti, Halibutt, CEE Meeting, Tartu, Estonia, 10-13 September, various activities.
• Janusz Dorożyński, Wikimedia RU 2015, 4-5 October, lecture about Polish Wikipedia and Wikimedia Polska.
• Tomasz Ganicz, Single EU digital market, govermental meeting. Panelist during "who rules Internet" session: [26], 30.09.2015, Warszawa, BUW, (Polimerek).

5 Forum: Internet in GLAM institutions, lecture about GLAM cooperation. [27], 26.02.2015, Warszawa.

Advocacy

Coalition for Open Eduaction

Wikimedia Polska continued its activity within Coalition for Open Education - a semi formal platform for cooperation and advocacy of NGO and educational organizations interested in creation and promotion of open licensed educational materials. Among others it organized wikiworkshop during annual meeting in Gdańsk, participated in copyright law working group in Ministry of Culture, screened the school e-text govermental project, participated in creation of central govermental on-line service of public data and informationa and GLAM coordination works. We also coorganized Public Domain Day in Poland, which took place in Museum of Warsaw Uprising in Warsaw on January 2015.

Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (FKAGEU)

Two members of Wikimedia Polska (Tomasz Ganicz, Szymon Grabarczuk) are active in FKAGEU mainly by contacting local EU MP's if needed, but also by participating in FKAGEU meetings. Wikimedia Polska donated also 2000 EUR for FKAGEU coordinator office in Brussel.

Under FKAGEU umbrella we were active in Freedom of Panorama action. Tomasz Ganicz and Szymon Grabarczuk were actively contacting Polish EU MP's as 2 of them are key members of copyright subcomission in EU Parliament. Our press office coordinated media coverage of the issue in mainstream media.