Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Österreich/September 2015

September 2015
Report

Community Support

Wiki Loves Monuments 2015

Selected images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 in Austria

Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 in Austria had 122 participants. 42 (34 %) of them were new editors. In comparison: Wiki Loves Earth 2015 in Austria attracted 153 new editors. Their share was 74 % of all participants. Both competitions have a noteworthy impact when it comes to reach new editors. WLE was stronger in this regard because it was easier to involve multipliers. There are more organizations in Austria that deal with “nature“ in the broadest sense than with the preservation of sites of historic interest. The strength of WLM lies in the quality of the cooperation with external partners: the Federal Monuments Office is a strong and reliable partner for many years. However, WLM/Wikipedia helps the Federal Monuments Office more to create outreach concerning the topic than it is the other way round as it is the case with the partners of WLE. The main reason for that in our perspecitve is, that our they often come with large existing communities (e.g. the Austrian Alpine Society) that we can reach out to, whereas monument preservation organizations are rather public administration institutions, who deal with a more diffuse general public instead of defined communities.

WLM in Austria, now in its fifth year, has reached its prime as a vehicle for the photographic documentation of the 37,000 cultural heritage monuments in Austria (see table below). The continuous decline in content usage over the years is a direct result of the success of the project regarding the supply of free images of the monuments. About 95 % of the Austrian cultural heritage monuments have images on Wikimedia Commons now. In order to get hold of the missing ones, WMAT supported two “Wiki Takes ...“ projects this year. Their restricted focus on small geographical areas and experienced Wikimedians was different from WLM’s approach to reach the general public in the whole of Austria. From the 7757 images submitted to WLM this year, 1013 (13 %) were made during Wiki Takes Nordtiroler Oberland and 320 (4 %) during Wiki Takes Innviertel.

	WLM-AT 2011	WLM-AT 2012	WLM-AT 2013	WLM-AT 2014	WLM-AT 2015	All years
Total number of images	11768	10821	11180	8825	7757	50351
Distinct images used in all projects, main namespace only (Date: 2015-11-06)	6037	2708	1393	1217	714	12069

The outcome concerning new editors in terms of number of files and file usage is significantly lower than the outcome by existing editors. 34 % of all participants were new editors, but new editors uploaded only 6 % (457 of 7757) of the images. The same applies to distinct images used in the main namespace of the Wikimedia projects: 6 % (41 of 714) came from new editors (date: 2015-11-06). Whereas photo contests like WLM and WLE definitely attract new editors, they rely heavily on the work and passion of the existing community content-wise.

Individuals involved: 126 (active editors: 81, new editors: 42, WMAT staff: 2, contractor: 1). – WMAT support: organization, promotion.

→ wikilovesmonuments.at (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

→ Wiki Loves Monuments (international) in Members Wiki (in German)

→ Wiki Loves Monuments (Austria) in Members Wiki (in German)

WikiCon 2015 in Dresden

The WikiCon, the yearly conference of the German-speaking Wikimedia communities, took place in the German city of Dresden this year. From the 186 conference participants 9 active editors (5 %) came from Austria, including 7 volunteers with WMAT travel grants and 1 WMAT staff member. Considering the share of editors from Austria – which is about 9 % in the German-language Wikipedia – the number of 9 from 186 is rather low. However, this was counterbalanced by the above-average contributions of Austrians to the conference program. 8 of the 64 conference slots (12.5 %) came from Austrian editors.

Their chosen topics reflect some of the expertise Austrian Wikimedians can contribute (all links to German descriptions):

Individuals involved: 186 (active editors: about 180, WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: financial support for the conference organization, travel grants for participants from Austria.

→ WikiCon 2015 in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Reports in Members Wiki (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

WMAT PlanningLab 2015

Like last year, WMAT organized a PlanningLab to discuss the budget and program planning for the upcoming year with the community. This year, we invited Alice Wiegand from the WMF Board to our meeting. The aim was to take advantage of the fact that we have a German-speaking board member in a neighbouring country, who can share first hand information with the Austrian community on current issues from the international Wikiverse. Alice's presence not only provided a useful international context for the discussion of our local activities but also an interesting and sometimes challenging outsider's perspective for our internal discourse.

Individuals involved: 11 (active editors: 8, WMAT staff: 2). - WMAT support: organization, venue, food.

→ WMAT PlanningLab 2015 in Members Wiki (in German)

Wikipedia Science Conference in London

WMAT supported its community member Stefan Kasberger's attendance at the Wikipedia Science Conference in London from 2nd to 5th September at the Wellcome Trust, the biggest private funder of basic research in the world. Stefan presented about his first experiences with an open scientific workflow during his research about territoriality of Wikipedia editors, done at the GESIS Computational Social Science department. Stefan presented how he applied openness along the whole scientific process in this project: from how he managed his literature, to his open data pipeline, how he wrote code in Python and at the end how to write collaboratively in Latex. He also showed how he organizes his files and folders and knowledge on his laptop and in the web together with others. His approach attracted quite some interest on the side of the audience and got a lot of positive response during and after the talk. In addition, Stefan and Daniel Mietchen organized a Hackathon on Saturday at the Wikimedia UK office. It was mostly about integration of scientific data into Wikidata, making open scientific knowledge visible and more used and having fun together while hacking on different stuff.

Individuals involved: 100 (plus active editors at the Hackathon: 10). Active volunteers involved: 1. - WMAT support: travel grant.

→ Wikipedia Science Conference Wikipedia Science Conference on the WMUK website

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

→ Announcement in Members Wiki (in German)

→ Report in Members Wiki (in German)

WikiDienstag

The WikiDienstag (“WikiTuesday“) is a weekly meet-up in the WMAT office. Volunteers share their knowledge and work together on improving the content of Wikimedia projects.

Topics in September:

September 1st: All about moderation, mediation and supervision
September 9th: Preparation for Open House Vienna and WikiCon
September 15th: Preparation for Monuments Day
September 22nd: Wikisource Conference helpers meeting
September 29th: How to keep Wikimedia newbies

Individuals involved: 31 (active editors: 29, WMAT staff: 2). - WMAT support: infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion.

→ WikiDienstag in the German-language Wikipedia

Free Content Generation

Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb Summer 2015

The "Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb" is a contest for removing cleanup templates in the German-language Wikipedia. It is held four times a year. WMAT supports the contest by donating prizes: "Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb" shirts designed especially for the competition. The Summer 2015 edition resulted in 2245 improved articles. It was the 30th edition of the contest. The number of 36 participants was above average compared to the last editions.

Individuals involved: 37 (active editors: 36, WMAT staff: 1). – WMAT support: prizes.

→ Wartungsbausteinwettbewerb Summer 2015 in the German-language Wikipedia

Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness

Monuments Day

WMAT booth at the Federal Monuments Office

During the annual monument day, monuments across Austria open their doors for visitors and provide access to areas which are usually closed for the general public. The monuments day is organized by our partner the Federal Monuments Office, which also hosts an open house in their offices in the Hofburg palace in Vienna in the context of this event. WMAT volunteers were invited to host an information booth about Wikimedia, Wikipedia and Wiki Loves Monuments. The open house attracted around 1000 visitors - thanks to the prominent location of the booth at the entry, many of them stopped to get more information about our activities and we could recruit quite a few contributors for the our photo contest.

Individuals involved: 1000 (active editors: 4, WMAT staff: 0). - WMAT support: information material.

→ Monuments Day 2015 in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Monuments Day info booth coordination in the German language Wikipedia

→ Report in Members Wiki (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

→ Tag des Denkmals @ wikilovesmonuments.at (in German)

→ Wiki Loves Monuments @ tagdesdenkmals.at (in German)

ABC der Offenheit

WMAT is part of a loosely organized Austrian think tank, consisting of individuals and organizations who want to promote free culture in Austria. The first strategic meeting took place in November 2014, in the context of a Vienna Open event. As a result of this meeting, WMAT's ED Claudia Garád and Michael Bauer, a member of Open Knowledge Austria and the School of Data, shared a workpackage to create a hands-on manual to Open Culture, which covers the various relevant topics in the field (Open Knowledge, Open Data, Open Science, Open Design, Open Innovation, Open GLAM and Open Government) together with best practices and relevant projects and organizations in Austria. The result is the ABC der Offenheit ("ABC of Openness") brochure which was written wiki-style by experts of the various fields in Austria. It was presented in early September at this year's Vienna Open. The brochure is available printed and online under CC_BY_SA 3.0 and shall be turned into a wiki so that it can further grow in future. The design and printing of the brochure was completely financed by sponsors. For WMAT the brochure will also always be a cherished shared legacy with Michael Bauer, who passed away shortly after the release.

Individuals involved: 11 (WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: concept and coordination of content generation.

→ ABC der Offenheit (online version) (in German)

Upper Austrian Townscape Fair

At the Upper Austrian Townscape Fair (Ortsbildmesse in German), communes, communal associations and other exhibitors present their projects on innovative improvements of Upper Austria. It also serves as an annual meeting of the Upper Austrian Wikipedia community. This year the Townscape Fair took place in the city of Gmunden on September 6th. WMAT was present with a fair stand for the fourth time. The Wikimedia volunteers talked to about 250 visitors and exhibitors about Wikimedia, the Wikimedia projects and free knowledge in general. Among them were the makers of the AtterWiki, a regional wiki about the Attersee region. Talking to representatives of the Austrian Pilgrimage Network resulted in the foundation of the WikiProject St. James's Ways in Austria in the German-language Wikipedia.

Individuals involved: 260 (active editors: 9 (engaging 1 active editor who has formerly not or very rarely been an active WMAT volunteer into the planning and/or executing), WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: travel grants, equipment, information material.

→ Upper Austrian Townscape Fair in the German-language Wikipedia

→ Report in Members Wiki (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

SOIMA 2015

SOIMA is an international conference aimed at ensuring a safe and creative future for sound and image heritage and took place in Brussels in early September this year. Wikimedia Austria financially supported the Wikimedians in Brussels and their contribution to the conference. In the context of the opening of the conference on Wednesday 2 September, the project Wiki Loves Art was launched. As a symbolic gesture, the director of KIK-IRPA, the local organising organisation of SOIMA 2015, handed the first photo as a start of the new collaboration between the two organisations to Wikimedia. In addition, two booklets were presented and officially published during the conference. An English version of both booklets was added to the conference bags. It explains how to collaborate with Wikipedia/Wikimedia and the disadvantages of non-commercial licenses. Wikimedia also had a booth at the conference and the director of ICCROM, the organisation that is the organiser of the conference, is interested in talking about future collaborations with Wikipedia/Wikimedia, as they consider working with Wikipedia as a valuable way of working.

Individuals involved: 200 (active editors: 4). - WMAT support: Financial contribution to support Wikimedia presence on site.

→ Website of SOIMA 2015

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

Movement Sustainability

Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015

For the first time two representatives of WMAT (Ailura form the Board and our ED Claudia) attended the annual CEE meeting. The aim was to strengthen the ties with Wikimedia organizations in the region, share our experiences and to get inspiration for joint projects and activities. As WMAT is one of the few APG chapters in the region with staff, many participants expressed the wish that we share our learnings concerning grant making and capacity building. Hence, we contributed three presentations on storytelling, organizational development and we introduced our collaboration with the Service Civil International around "Wikipedia for Peace", which could be an interesting concept for other CEE organizations.

But WMAT also benefited from the event in multiple ways: Firstly, the CEE meeting proved to be an excellent Wikimedia event with a perfect mixture of sharing experiences, networking and hands-on online work on site. Also, the way the meeting was organized as a joint effort of voluneers and organizations from various countires was very inspiring. Secondly, we could gather valuable ideas for future on- and offline collaboration: This year we will join the international contest on science photography organized by Estonian volunteers, next year we plan a cooperation with Wikimedia Serbia on diaspora editing and a participation in the CEE spring.

Individuals involved: 60 (active WMAT editors: 1, WMAT staff: 1). - WMAT support: travel support, presentations on chapter management.

→ Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 on Meta

→ Report in Members Wiki (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

Learning Pattern

In addition to our other activities in September, we also prepared our FDC grant proposal for the upcoming year. In this context we analysed the way we acquire and value in-kind donations and created a learning pattern about the most important insights.

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