The Election Committee has announced the results of the 2011 Board Elections (determining three of the ten Trustees, see also the recent Signpost op-ed). In the Schulze method voting, the three incumbents came out on top of the 19 candidates, meaning that the Board remains unchanged:
These results were certified by the Board of Trustees, and the positions will be effective until the middle of 2013. A total of 3495 votes were cast, of which 71 were struck. A post mortem, including feedback from committee members and others, covers matters such as communication, candidate requirements, suffrage, and the electoral process.
A team from the Wikimedia Foundation ( Frank Schulenburg and Annie Lin), two Foundation Fellows (PJ Tabit & Srikeit Tadepalli), an advisory board member of the US Public Policy Initiative (Professor Bob Cummings), and India National Programs' Hisham Mundol visited Pune, the eighth-largest metropolis in India, for three weeks to roll out the Wikipedia India Education Program. A full two-day workshop was conducted for 14 of the 22 campus ambassadors selected in India. An important aspect of the training ( see photographs) was the involvement of the local Wikimedian community in specific sessions, and the inclusion of open-house discussions on Wikimedia and Wikipedia, led by User:AshLin, Mandar Kulkarni and Sudhanwa Jogalekar from Pune, Pradeep Mohandas from Mumbai, and Tinu Cherian from Bangalore.
There was debate on how rapid integration into the community can be catalysed by inviting campus ambassadors to join community meet-ups as well as mailing lists, Facebook pages, and twitter feeds. The importance of the local press was stressed in getting local coverage in Indian languages. Given the media consumption habits of students, ambassadors were invited to think about how to forge links with radio and television stations, and of organising photo opportunities. Several newspapers reported very positively on the program – The Hindu, Sakal, Indian Express Times of India and once more in The Hindu. The new Wikipedia campus ambassadors were invited to attend the 14th Pune Wikimeetup to interact with the Pune Wikipedian community.
In a two-day face-to-face weekend meeting on 11 and 12 June (Shaping the future of Wikimedia UK), Wikimedia UK board members made strategic decisions about the future of the chapter. As reported in the chapter's blog, the Board decided to go ahead with plans to recruit full-time staff. Currently, it is looking for a Chapter Manager to lead the organisation and work with the board of directors on strategy, partnerships, and fundraising; and an office manager, who will deal with membership, finance, and other administrative tasks (a part-time Office Manager had already been hired on an interim basis last year, as the chapter's first paid employee, see Signpost coverage: " Wikimedia UK appoints 'Office Manager'"). A professional recruitment agency has been engaged to select from a wide field of qualified candidates ( job descriptions and budget).
In related news, Wikimedia UK and ARKive will collaborate on a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of threatened species. ARKive is an initiative of the charity Wildscreen that aims to promote the protection of threatened species using the emotive power of wildlife films and photographs. The "Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador", yet to be recruited, will involve a fixed-period in-residence role for a volunteer who will use deskspace at ARKive's offices in Bristol, with travel and subsistence supported by the chapter. The ambassador's role will require both onwiki activity and involvement in the wider community through online and offline events.
As already mentioned in last week's "News and notes", the Malayalam Wikimedia community released a Malayalam Wikisource CD with a selection of books from Malayalam Wikisource and art from Wikimedia Commons. This is the second Wiki offline edition from the Malayalam community after last year's Malayalam Wikipedia CD. At the 4th annual Malayalam Wikimedia Meetup in Kannur, Kerala, Hisham Mundol, India National Programs, released the Wikisource CD by presenting it to the youngest Malayalam Wiki contributor (seven-year-old Shanmugham Sai). The project co-ordinators, Shiju Alex wrote about the overall process and release and Santosh Thottingal shared a detailed description of the technical steps in the making of the CD. The CD can also be downloaded as an .iso image, torrent or even browsed online. The project considered as the largest digital archive in Malayalam language, the iso image download witnessed over 46,000 hits in just over a week of the release.
The Election Committee has announced the results of the 2011 Board Elections (determining three of the ten Trustees, see also the recent Signpost op-ed). In the Schulze method voting, the three incumbents came out on top of the 19 candidates, meaning that the Board remains unchanged:
These results were certified by the Board of Trustees, and the positions will be effective until the middle of 2013. A total of 3495 votes were cast, of which 71 were struck. A post mortem, including feedback from committee members and others, covers matters such as communication, candidate requirements, suffrage, and the electoral process.
A team from the Wikimedia Foundation ( Frank Schulenburg and Annie Lin), two Foundation Fellows (PJ Tabit & Srikeit Tadepalli), an advisory board member of the US Public Policy Initiative (Professor Bob Cummings), and India National Programs' Hisham Mundol visited Pune, the eighth-largest metropolis in India, for three weeks to roll out the Wikipedia India Education Program. A full two-day workshop was conducted for 14 of the 22 campus ambassadors selected in India. An important aspect of the training ( see photographs) was the involvement of the local Wikimedian community in specific sessions, and the inclusion of open-house discussions on Wikimedia and Wikipedia, led by User:AshLin, Mandar Kulkarni and Sudhanwa Jogalekar from Pune, Pradeep Mohandas from Mumbai, and Tinu Cherian from Bangalore.
There was debate on how rapid integration into the community can be catalysed by inviting campus ambassadors to join community meet-ups as well as mailing lists, Facebook pages, and twitter feeds. The importance of the local press was stressed in getting local coverage in Indian languages. Given the media consumption habits of students, ambassadors were invited to think about how to forge links with radio and television stations, and of organising photo opportunities. Several newspapers reported very positively on the program – The Hindu, Sakal, Indian Express Times of India and once more in The Hindu. The new Wikipedia campus ambassadors were invited to attend the 14th Pune Wikimeetup to interact with the Pune Wikipedian community.
In a two-day face-to-face weekend meeting on 11 and 12 June (Shaping the future of Wikimedia UK), Wikimedia UK board members made strategic decisions about the future of the chapter. As reported in the chapter's blog, the Board decided to go ahead with plans to recruit full-time staff. Currently, it is looking for a Chapter Manager to lead the organisation and work with the board of directors on strategy, partnerships, and fundraising; and an office manager, who will deal with membership, finance, and other administrative tasks (a part-time Office Manager had already been hired on an interim basis last year, as the chapter's first paid employee, see Signpost coverage: " Wikimedia UK appoints 'Office Manager'"). A professional recruitment agency has been engaged to select from a wide field of qualified candidates ( job descriptions and budget).
In related news, Wikimedia UK and ARKive will collaborate on a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of threatened species. ARKive is an initiative of the charity Wildscreen that aims to promote the protection of threatened species using the emotive power of wildlife films and photographs. The "Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador", yet to be recruited, will involve a fixed-period in-residence role for a volunteer who will use deskspace at ARKive's offices in Bristol, with travel and subsistence supported by the chapter. The ambassador's role will require both onwiki activity and involvement in the wider community through online and offline events.
As already mentioned in last week's "News and notes", the Malayalam Wikimedia community released a Malayalam Wikisource CD with a selection of books from Malayalam Wikisource and art from Wikimedia Commons. This is the second Wiki offline edition from the Malayalam community after last year's Malayalam Wikipedia CD. At the 4th annual Malayalam Wikimedia Meetup in Kannur, Kerala, Hisham Mundol, India National Programs, released the Wikisource CD by presenting it to the youngest Malayalam Wiki contributor (seven-year-old Shanmugham Sai). The project co-ordinators, Shiju Alex wrote about the overall process and release and Santosh Thottingal shared a detailed description of the technical steps in the making of the CD. The CD can also be downloaded as an .iso image, torrent or even browsed online. The project considered as the largest digital archive in Malayalam language, the iso image download witnessed over 46,000 hits in just over a week of the release.
Discuss this story
The crucial task, it seems to me, in regard to both ambassadors and new university editors is that they are rapidly integrated into the wider wikipedia community, and that their editing and involvement extends beyond the compulsory engagements of their courses. Given the expansion of the program despite the dubious achievements of the first trial, I worry as to what the success rate will be. Ajbpearce ( talk) 22:09, 21 June 2011 (UTC) reply
Good news about the 'Simple' language Wikipedias. Encyclopedias have existed at two levels , adult and children , for over a century and there is no reason on line encyclopedias should be any different. I've always found print children's encyclopedias a good way to engage with a new subject, even as an adult. Lumos3 ( talk) 09:41, 26 July 2011 (UTC) reply