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Wikimedia chapters/Summaries

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Chapters (37)
Thematic organizations (2)
Wikimedia user groups (153)
Outdated! These reports come mostly from May 2008 :)

More updated (but less synthetic) infos at Wikimedia chapters/Reports.

Wikimedia Argentina

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Short presentation of the chapter

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  • Founded in September 2007 (officially recognized as chapter in December 2007)
  • Has 70 members
  • Is the first chapter of the Spanish-speaking world and also the first of the Southern Hemisphere.

What has been done so far

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Plans for the future

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  • Stimulate the development of native languages Wikipedias (we are signed a cooperation treaty with INADI)
  • Develop a Spanish-language version of Wikipedia offline
  • Giving support to teachers and educational institutions on the Wikipedia usage in the class
  • Create a book on Social Memory focused on Argetina's last military government, the return to democracy, and the implicances in human rights in Argentina.

Best success

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  • Wikimania 2009
  • Workshops with school teachers and students
  • Relation with mass media local press

Worst headache

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  • Local bureaucracy
  • Inadequate budget

Wikimedia CH

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Short presentation of the chapter

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  • Founded 2006
  • 65 members
  • our third general assembly took place March 15, 2008 where our present board of six was elected
  • our budget balance for 2007 is around 37k euro

What has been done so far

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  • workshops together with government agencies (Zurich department of education)
  • political lobbying
  • lobbying for the release of official pictures.

Plans for the future

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  • Some projects with Library of University of Zürich
  • Wm CH Board and association retreat for setting up a strategy for the next years.

Best success

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  • Organization of three Wikipedia days with a lot of media interest and speakers of high quality
  • Coverage of all four national/regional languages with a press speaker also in Rumantsch Grischun
  • Small ERP system to manage finance and invoices

Worst headache

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  • Difference of languages and difficulties to have a well defined community
  • Slow Communication (our web sites are translated in 5 languages)
  • Regional and local strong presence but limited presence in other cantons

Wikimedia Czech Republic

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Short presentation of the chapter

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Wikimedia Czech Republic was founded in March 2008 and had its first general assembly in May 2008. As of February 2009 it has 32 members, its income in 2008 was 1100 €. Budget for 2009 is about 23 000 € of which 7700 € are sponsored services (legal aid, domains, webhosting) and over 12 300 € are planned WMF grants.

What has been done so far

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  • Couple presentations about Wikipedia
  • Press releases, answering press requests
  • Found sponsorship for 14 .cz domains registration/prolonging and web hosting
  • Established partnership with a legal aid bureau
  • Cooperating on CZ localization of Creative Commons licenses
  • Sent input on EU's Green Paper: Copyright in the Knowledge Economy

Plans for the future

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  • Advertising of WMF projects on exhibitions
  • Workshops and conferences
  • Improving Wikimedia projects using WMF grants
  • Services for Wikimedia projects users (e.g. legal aid)

Best success

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  • To be done

Worst headache

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  • Communication with Wikimedia Foundation on operating the wikimedia.cz domain.

Wikimedia Deutschland

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Presentation of the chapter

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Wikimedia Deutschland, founded in June 2004, was the first Wikimedia chapter. It has more than 550 members, an office with 5 full time employees, and an annual budget of ~900k EUR.

What has been done so far

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  • Infrastructure: 30 Squids (110k EUR), Toolserver cluster (30k EUR)
  • Outreach: Wikipedia Academy (since 2005), Brochures (Wikipedia 1x1, Wikipedia and Wkisource flyers), Zedler Medal, Wikipedia exhibition, Media literacy at schools
  • Community support: Travel grants (writing contest), Workshops (OTRS team), Digitisation of old books (Wikisource), Legal support (expert opinion on legal issues), Stable versions
  • Business development: DirectMedia (Wikipedia DVD), Spiegel Wissen (knowledge portal of major German news magazine), Bertelsmann (one volume print edition of Wikipedia)
  • Press relations: Reactive and proactive on German and international issues
  • Legal affairs: 5 lawsuits against WM-DE (4 failed, 1 pending), one lawsuit against WMF (failed)

Worst headache

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  • Human resources: Professional Support, Volunteer Development
  • Predictability: Strategy, Plan of Action, Involvement
  • Security: Financial Sustainability, Internal Obstacles, Legal Risks

Wikimedia France

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Presentation of the chapter

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Wikimedia France was created late October 2004. In 2010, we have around 200 members. In 2007 our budget was 40 000€. 10 000 € are fully dedicated to technical support to Wikimedia Foundation. In 2010, our budget is over 350 000 euros. Among the founders of the association we can find Sam Hocevar who was the Debian Project Leader (DPL) of the Debian project (2007-2008), and of course Florence Devouard, the former chair of Wikimedia Foundation.

What has been done so far

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Wikimedia France is use to participate to local and national conferences about knowledge, culture and freeness. Wikimedia France also organised a two-day conference in Paris about spreading free knowledge. This conference welcomed more than 300 participants, and this was a lot as there was public transportation strikes during this weekend.

Wikimedia France is also handling all the french press queries (newspaper / radio / TV).

We also spend time to get to know the impotant persons for free knowledge. We met the persons in charge of the technological issues of the main french political partie. We met the minister of culture. We met many other association involved in the free culture promotion. And we also met an association protecting the "familly".

Plans for the future

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Since 2007 Wikimedia France is trying to get more organized. We used to work all separately on different things. Now we've created workgroups to gather and coordinate the volunteers. We are also thinking on long-terms perspective and wills.

In the coming month Wikimedia France will handle an old book digitisation project. We're also about to get the digitisation of hundreds of veterinary Phd's essays done.

We're also willing to organise a second conference, as the 2007 ones, in late 2008. Main topic has not been picked yet (probably about History and Wikipedia)

We also want to improve our public outreach and revenues. In France when you have a budget higher than 45 000€ and more than 200 members you get the status of "association of public usefulness". This would extend the kind of donations we could get but it would also give us a mark of seriousness.

Best success

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  1. Participate to a lot of local and national events
  2. Good financial situation
  3. Wikimedia France is well known in France (libraries, people involved in ICT and free movement, press)

Worst headache

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  1. Lack of active members causing a lack of human resources and an overwhelming of the very few active members
  2. Difficulties to develop long-term projects
  3. Lack of outreach towards Wikimedia communities

Wikimedia Israel

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Introduction

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Wikimedia Israel was officially established on 26 June 2007, after about 6 months of discussions and preparations. It was registered in Israel as an amuta, which is the Israeli law equivalent to a Verein in the German law. The Hebrew Wikipedia, since its inauguration, has been a loadstone to many Israeli contributors, who were organized spontaneously and unofficially for "real life" projects, such as meetups, conferences and field trips. Wikipedia was always the center of these activities. For example, the goal of the field trips was to take pictures of sites in Israel, and publish them under free license. In Wikimania 2006, the Foundation suggested the creating of new local chapters, among them an Israeli chapter. This suggestion was received with a lot of scepticism, the main argument against it being: why get into legal issues and bureaucracy when we manage to organize projects unofficially. In December 2006, the idea was brought before the Wikipedian community during a Wikipedian conference which gathered about 100 Israeli Wikipedians. The Decision was to form an organizing committee which will discuss the issue and decide if an how an Israeli chapter should be created. The organizing committee held several meetings and eventually registered as an amuta.

One of the most significant advantages of the chapter format, is the ability to cooperate with other organizations. We have an intense and very fruitful cooperation with the Israeli Internet Association (ISOC-IL [1]).

General facts

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  • WM-IL currently has 10 members. We expect 2-3 new members to join in shortly.
  • The board consists of 5 members.
  • Other departments within the chapter: auditing committee (2 members), a secretary (also serve as a pro-bono legal advisor), an ombudsman, a press contact
  • The chapter's budget currently relies on membership fee. The Israeli law does not permit tax deduction privileges for new associations, and no donations were collected during the first year of activity. Most projects were financed using budgets allocated by other cooperative associations.
  • Member fee collected reached ILS 2,000 (~ EUR 370). Overall budgets allocated to WM-IL projects by other associations reached ILS 206,000 (~ EUR 38,500).

Projects and activities

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  • Stable version of the Hebrew Wikipedia for the Computer to Every Child government project [2] (currently inactive, may be resumed)
  • Wikimedia Israel free image collection project - in cooperation with ISOC-IL ([3] and the Center for Educational Technology [4] (ongoing)
  • Lobbying in the Israeli parliament:
    • Israeli new copyright law - preventing further aggravations in the new law (completed)
    • Advocating for the release of state owned material to the public domain (ongoing)
    • Advocating for the inclusion of free content issues in the agenda of the parliamentary committee for science (ongoing)
  • The Hebrew Wikipedia mobile poster exhibition (mostly completed, still receiving requests)
  • Participating in local events related to education, the Internet and the "digital culture"
    • The EVA/MINERVA Jerusalem 2007 Conference on Digitisation of Culture[5]
    • The National Science Day at the Knesset (the Israeli parliament)
    • ISOC-IL conference 2008 [6]
  • Issuing press releases about Wikimedia projects and free content projects in general, and organizing interviews with local Wikimedians (all examples are in Hebrew)
  • Informing Israeli authorities and bodies about the proper way of quoting from Wikipedia
  • Helping in organizing the Wikipedian meet-ups
  • Contacting the press about events, projects and other issues related to Wikimedia projects
  • Contacting between the Foundation and Israeli commercial companies that wish to engage in business relations with the Foundation (ongoing)
  • Creating a professional team that will help Israeli organizations in embeddig the media-wiki system (in discussions)

Best success

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The Hebrew Wikipedia mobile poster exhibition is definitely the best success of Wikimedia Israel so far. The exhibition was presented so far in 9 places all over Israel, and there are several pending requests. There were several reports about the exhibition in the Israeli press. This project demonstrates an efficient process of learning from the experience of other chapters, cooperation between the local Wikimedian community and the local chapter, cooperation between WM-IL and other local associations and grabbing the public attention by using tangible material.

  • The project was modeled after a similar successful project of Wikimedia Deutschland [7]
  • The content writing, design and logistic planning were done in special community page of the Hebrew Wikipedia, involving the entire he-wp community w:he:ויקיפדיה:תערוכה.
  • Wikimedia Israel used its relations with ISOC-IL, and convinced them to finance the project
  • Wikimedia Israel took care of contacting the press and coordinating logistic issues.
  • The exhibition was placed in the campuses of the major universities and the Israeli parliament building.

Wikimedia Italia

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It has been founded on June 17th, 2005 by 18 founder associates.


As of December 2023, the association counts 354 members. The 2023 budget comprised around 740,000 €, raised from donations, "Cinque per mille" tax donations and contributions to institutional activities.

What has been done so far (most links in Italian, sorry)
  • we participate round-the-year in local and national events and fairs, seminars, lectures in classrooms, etc. for promoting WMF projects in Italy (logbook)
  • we support and collaborate in nationwide petitions and campaigns
  • we organized some online and offline initiatives (Wiki@home (English), WikiAfrica, BWM, Biblioteca, Musica)
  • 3rd part publishers released a DVD-version of it:wp (more than 20,000 copies sold) and a handbook about Wikipedia and the Wikis
  • we have obtained the status of "associazione di promozione sociale" (social promotion association, a "charity" status in Italy); this grants tax deductibility on donations for the donors and other facilitations: we have also joined the WMF 2009 fundraising and 2010 "cinque per mille" campaign (sort of en:Eight per thousand for charities)
  • we have an office in Milan.
Best successes
Worst headache
  • the squatted domains www.wiki***.it
  • some legal complaints about the content of some Wikipedia articles (mainly bios of politicians), passed through to the VRT, as WMI is not the proper recipient, except one which went through a 5-years trial before WMI won in the Court.

Wikimedia Nederland

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May 2008

Short presentation of the chapter (relevant figures, facts etc.)

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Wikimedia Nederland is the Dutch Wikimedia chapter with a member-based organization (association), founded in the spring of 2006. Currently we have around 90 members. The highest authority is the General Assembly,the board is elected annually by the Assembly. During the 2007 conference the number of members roughly doubled from ~35 to ~75. Wikimedia Nederland supports a few active working groups / committees, which are mainly working on the annual conference, outreach, workshops and free media. The turnover of 2007 was € ~17k.

What has been done so far

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See for more information: 2006 and 2007 (Dutch)
  • In 2006 and 2007 the Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland was organized
  • Wikimedia has been represented in the Dutch press several times
  • Presentations have been given to various companies and institutions
  • Contacts have been made with various institutions
  • A set of photographs of the current Dutch cabinet has been released under GFDL by the government on the request of Wikimedia Nederlands
  • The Wikiportret campaign has been launched
  • Workshops have been organized for the community
  • A 'vision meeting' has been organized to get input from our members on what our main goals and vision should be

Plans for the future

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See for more information: This Dutch page.
  • Political lobbying during the revision of Dutch copyright laws.
  • Continuation with attempts to make collections of useful media free.
  • Continuation with PR activities such as Wikiportret.
  • A search for potential like minded partners in the Netherlands who want to help work on the same mission.
  • The organisation of more trainings for the Wikimedia communities.
  • Improving and professionalizing the annual conference.
  • Making a successful bid for Wikimania 2010.

Best success

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The success of the Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland in 2007, with an increased audience of 115 (2006: 45) and a good rating amongst the visitors ( 7.6/10 ). This was also financially a success.

Worst headache

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Recruiting active volunteers proves to be very difficult. There are few (very) active members, and the initiatives for new projects usually have to come from the Wikimedia Nederland board while we, as the board, would very much like to see initiatives initiated or organized by our members.

Another problem is the attitude of the Dutch (Wikipedia) community against some of our activities, mainly details. For example, there was some disagreement over the placement and design of a template on biographies on Wikipedia NL linking to the Wikiportret project. A similiar problem occured With the 2007 conference when there was a disagreement about sponsors being mentioned on the conference website. The relation, although improving steadily, between the community and the association could be called the worst headache. This might also have an impact on the number of active volunteers that arise directly from the WP community.

Wikimedia Polska

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May 2008

Wikimedia Polska Association (WmP) was established in 2005, it is now 3 years old. The association operates within Poland and takes care of projects in three languages: Polish, Kashubian and Silesian. WmP has 80 members, most of them listed on the WmP site (more than 50% are active). All members can on request receive a WmP ID-card.

WmP is active on many fronts:

  • technical: toolserver hosting internal wikis, mailing lists, media repository, technical stuff; 7 Polish wiki-domains;
  • system of internal grants for Wikimedians + helping Polish Wikimedians acquire materials (helping them get access to press conferences, permissions to photograph objects/events, etc)
  • political: lobbying for free access to culture (museums),
  • mission: released a Wikipedia DVD (another one is on its way);
  • promotional: bookmarks, charity auctions
  • cooperation with several other organisations and businesses:
    • acquiring financial support
    • working towards similar goals (free knowledge resources)
  • the WmP members give numerous lectures and organise workshops all over the country; annual conferences
  • press/media: presence in the Polish media (interviews, press bureau as a contact point for journalists interested in matters of WmP/WF/Wikipedia + 4 local information contacts for press)

Communication with members: weekly open board meetings on irc, two mailing lists, website, meetings.

WmP has a status of a Public Benefit Organisation in Poland – taxpayers can give 1% of their tax to WmP. The income of WmP comes from donations (individuals and businesses), tax deductible deductions, membership fees. The budget is public: in may 2008 WmP has around €5000 in reserves.

Plans for the future

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  • Continuation and development of the current activity:
    • Wikikonkurs (wikigrants),
    • Press office,
    • Help with access to archives, museums
    • Startup of new toolserver (already obtained as a gift from computer company)
    • Winter Wikimedia Meeting - December 2008
    • Participation in scientific conferences, lectures, workshops, project popularisation
  • New activites:
    • Wikimedia Academy in Wrocław on 2009
    • Educonf - A coaltion of Open Access Education Organisations with CC Poland, Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska (Wolne Podręczniki = Free handbooks project), Polish Association of Librarians and others - a lobby group which is planned to be organised officially - grant application (200 000 EUR to be divided between the 3 organisations) for organising office of the coalition and Open Access Education conference in Polish Parliament on September/November 2008 is just in preparation.

Clarifying certain issues (trademarks, possibility of organising public fundraising). Closer cooperation with other chapters/WF. Possibly extending the promotional activities (films, concerts). Activating more members (not only from pl.wikipedia). No clear development strategy has been defined yet, but the need of such strategy is recognised (eg. we held a meeting “where are we? where do we go to? how?”).

Best successes

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  • continued growth on all fronts
  • acquiring the status of Public Benefit Organisation
  • releasing of the Wikipedia DVD

Worst 3 headaches

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  • access to many public resources (museums, materials produces by state-run entities) is “unjustifiably” restricted – we actively work on these issues
  • unclear trademark situation


Wikimedia RU (Russia)

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The Non-Commercial Partnership of promotion of distribution of encyclopedic knowledge Wikimedia RU (in Russian: Некоммерческое партнерство содействия распространению энциклопедических знаний «Викимедиа РУ») was approved by the WMF on 2008-05-24, and registered by the state on 2008-11-21. The Partnership operates within the Russian Federation. It supports and promotes Wikimedia projects in all languages; however, most efforts are put into projects in Russian and in other languages of the Russian Federation. There are currently 15 members of the Partnership, about 11 of whom are active.

The main actual activities of the Partnership are:

  • Organisation of Wiki-Conferences (something like local Wikimanias).
  • Lobbying for free licenses, freedom of panorama, and similar changes in legislation.
  • Providing grants and other support to participants of Wikimania.
  • Participation in global fundraising.

...and more.

Reports till 2021.


Wikimedia Suomi

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May 2010

Wikimedia Sverige status

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May 2010
 Denna sida hålls inte längre uppdaterad, och behålls främst av historiska skäl.

Short presentation of the chapter

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  • Founded October 2007 (after 2,5 months of preparation)
  • 214 members - member fee : 10 euro
  • our second general assembly took place March 14, 2008 where our present board of seven were elected
  • our budget balance for 2010 is around 40k euro, where some income are still to be confirmed

What has been done so far

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  • Getting established
  • Prepared basic marketing material and gaining experience from participating in marketing events
  • established contacts with key persons for future projects
  • getting some picture donations
  • had two Wikipedia Academies
  • set up wiki, blog, twitter and facebook

Plans for the future

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  • our third Wikipedia Academy in Nov (Royal Library)

Best success

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  • The vision for our quality initiative on Wikipedia Lennarts 10 thoughts and the invigourous response it generated from the user community.
  • The speed and success of our establishment

Worst headache

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  • The need to quickly learn the more advanced bussiness of a Local Chapter - need to learn from others!
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