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Archiv/2012-Annual-Report

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Internal Affairs

Membership

  • 26 November 2010: 58 members
  • 10 Dezember 2011: 81 members
  • 28 November 2012: 105 members

10 members have left since 2010.

Strategy

On the 20 and 21 April the board Wikimedia Austria met in Graz in order to consult about the future of the society, its strategic goals, annual aims and work out a structure and its realisation. We were resolved to set the framework for the next three years (2012-2015).

After gathering tasks and activities, we set up the following portofolios:

*Society - Infrastructure / Organisaiton (Operational processes and activities)
*International work - Conference scholarships / Chapters cooperation aid / Project coordiation
*Community work - Content: promotion of content production for Wikimedia projects / Community building: trust etc.
*External - Cooperation with like-minded organisations / Lobbying / Scientific work / Educaitonal work / GLAM etc.

The discussion showed rather clearly that:

  • Community work is of pivotal importance for us and already a very successful part of the society's work. This is our main goal (50% weighting).
  • External affairs were barely a part of our work while they support the main goal in many ways. We would like to expand this important area and therefore make it an auxiliary goal (30% weighting).
  • International work is also an auxiliary goal, since it supports the main goal in various areas (Wikimania scholarships, Wiki Loves Monuments) and we're part of an international movement (20% weighting).
  • The society needs to be sized and positioned according to these aims and is therefore an infrastructural goal.

In order to do justice to our current size and organisational level, we're focusing on one central goal, namely community work. This main goal is being aided by two auxiliary goals, external and international work. These two areas have to be seen as additional aims that support and complement our main goal. Coming from this we have defined yearly goals including measures for the different areas, which we want to achieve. This last part was the most time and effort consuming during the discussions.

Afterwards we took up discussion on the shape and form of our organisational structure that would be necessary to achieve the above mentioned goals and to run the society. This culminated in a first job description for a secretery. The plan is to initially distribute the workload to this position and part time manpower or further positions developed by the secretary. This way the society's work can be stabilised and set on an ongoing, continuous basis. This is intended to develop the foundation for the work of the coming years.

The details can be found in a somewhat rudimental form at http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Projekte/Zukunft. The raw material for this document can be sighted at http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Projekte/Zukunft/Protokoll as a protocol.

Based on a report by Denis Barthel

Staff

After a job advertisement in the newspapers "Standard", "Presse" and "Kleinen Zeitung" there was a several stages long selection process for the selection of a secretary. Finally Claudia Garad from Stuttgart was awarded the position. She moved to Vienna and dedictes herself from 1 October 2012 to the buliding up of our office there. Ruben Demus continued to work on a service contract, supporting several projects, including Wiki Loves Monuments 2012, the Ortsbildmesse, assisting municipalities, Photography workshops and school projects. The development of our staff was welcomed by the Wikimedia Foundation, the FDC however mentioned that our staff needs to gather more experience and should be expanded further. Wikimedia Sweden, for instance, has three permanent positions in the WLM/GLAM/Outreach sphere and hires additional support on service contracts. At Wikimedia Austria we are aiming at developing our backoffice capabilities in our office in Vienna as a first phase.

Fundraising Certificate

The Fundraising Certificate (Spendengütesiegel) is a quality seal for organisation collecting donations in Austria and guarantees quality standards, transparency and control. Its aim is to improve the security and trustworthiness of fundraising campaigns. In order to be allowed to use the seal, WMAT has to be audited yearly by an independent chartered accountant. There are seven auditing areas including the "correctness of financial accounting", the "integrity of the fundraising promotion and the responsibility for its regulation" as well as the the "statutable and designated use of donations", i.e. according to what was annouced during the funraising process. In total the organisaiton applying has to fulfill 35 criteria checked by a list of more than 300 quesitons in order to receive the „Spendengarantie-Ausweis“ badge of the Austrian chamber of chartered public accountants and tax consultants (Kammer der Wirtschaftstreuhänder - KWT). WMAT has submitted the necessary documentation which is currently being checked.

Regulation on Travel Expenses

Never before since the founding of our society in Austria have so many people participated in activities relating to Free Knowledge as in 2012. This doesn't always take place in the place thy live, oftentime volunteers were travelling across Austria and beyond. As part of their engagement they sacrifice their time and energy for the common cause. Having this in mind it is more than appropriate if the society supports them when it comes to travel expenses, which are sometimes a considerable part of the total cost of participation.

Travel expenses financing requests were already on the increas in 2011. In order to be predictable and fair vis-à-vis the volunteers and to be able to repsonsibly handle funds, the board adopted a travel expenses by-law in January 2012. Some details were improved in the course of the year, overall the expectations were confirmed and we now have a more simple and more balanced way to distribute the funds in this crucial area for the success of our society.

Fundraising Congress

 
Photo: Michael Kranewitter, cc-by-sa 3.0

Even if Wikimedia Austria can't itself become active in the yearly Wikimedia fundraising campaign, there are numerous other possiblities and situations to bid for support. In order to use these potentials in the best possible way, Wikimedia Austria is as of this year member of the Funraising Association of Austria (Fundraising Verband Austria - FVA). The FVA is an information and networking platform for non-profit organisaitons. Especially the annual Fundraising Congress is an excellent opportunity to to keep up with latest developments and trends, get inspiried and gather contacts in this sector. This year our secretary Claudia Garád was able to attend this event for WMAT. As part of our membership we are granted access to important basic knowledge and information about strategic financial planning.

Projects

ICANN

Wikimedia Austria became member of the ICANN in 2012 and was therefor accredited as a "At-large Structure" what made them a member of the "At-large Community".

The ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is an international organisation primarily dealing with the granting of names (Domains) and addresses (IP-Adresses) on the internet. While the ICANN is not doing this by itself it delegates the tasks to regional and national registrars. Therefor ICANN is mainly monitoring and setting up requirements for them, what makes ICANN one of the leading authorities of the internet and its regulation. This sets ICNAN partially in direct competition to other authorities such as IETF, IEEE (technological standards) and ITU (conventional telecommunication infrastructure).

Since the ICANN became independent from the United States Department of Commerce it has got a so-called "multiple stakeholder"-structure, which means, that it is holded and controlled by various pressure groups, such as governments, the economy and the society (where the "At-large structure" is situated).

As a member of the ICANN Wikimedia Austria now has full access to the work of the ICANN, is able to participate there and is via the internal mailinglists informed about recent discussions regarding the "internet government". The main reason for WMAT to become a member of the ICANN was our interest in topics regarding neutrality and open accessibility to the internet, which is important to ensure that the society is still able to influence the development of the internet, because the society still runs the Wikimedia projects. Until now WMAT is not taking an aktive part in the ICANN because the organisation is larger and more complex than the Wikimedia-movement, additionally there is a lack of time for the participation on larger events such as WSIS, IGF and EuroDIG. WMATs commitment at the ICANN is free of costs and in the long term. The main task is at the moment to monitor processes and discussions and give notice, if any interesting topics are coming up.

WMAT is represented at the ICANN by Manuel Schneider and Kurt Kulac. Manuel is already active at the ICANN for WMCH and since 2010 board member of the EURALO (European Regional At-Large Organisation).

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Wiki Women Camp

 
Photo: Nkoepff, CC0 1.0 Universal

Regarding to a study of the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010 one of the main problems of the Wikimedia-movement at the moment is a lack of female editors. Therefor various concepts have been elaborated and activities have been set up to change this fact.

One of these activities was the WikiWomenCamp in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 23rd to 25th of May 2012, which should take influence on the direct activities of the women as well as beeing a strategy meeting for further thoughts. Some involved female Wikimedians organised this conference especially for women. As a part of this organisation they had a look at all countries examining the situation for women there:

Wikimedia Austria was supporting this conference with an ammount of 5.000 EUR to enable female Wikimedians from Austria to participate in the conference. Unfortunately despite various announcements and invitations at the public mailinglists, the website and WMATs internal Wiki there was no interested participant from Austria. In addition WMAT hold an ammount of 2.000 EUR for the conference, which was given to WMDE by the organisers to support additional participants by an international scholarship.

In the end 23 participants met for three days at Buenos Aires and disussed in 16 Workshops and meetings about the lack of female editors in the Wikimedia-projects and how to solve this problem.

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Photography Project

 
Miha Vodicar and Nadiya Bychkova dancing a Cha-Cha-Cha
Photo: Ailura, cc-by-sa 3.0

What began last year with an expensive equipment acquisition and the setting of ambitious objectives turned out to be a major project for Wikimedia Austria. There is hardly a week without a request for an accreditation and a transport of WMATs noticeable camera equipment somewhere.

WMAT still uses its existing contacts to football-clubs and the -league as well as responding to individual wishes of Wikipedians. But especially these wishes are what makes this project this notable. Because at first the wishes and requirements of the Community are making the results of the project so diverese.

Not only sports and nature-photographs but also pictures of celebrities such as politicians, actors and rock musicians are now categorised at the project-category with nearly 7000 pictures on Wikimedia Commons. Not only the doubtlessness of the photographers which handle the equipment but also WMATs self-confidence has raised in the last year, so that we also ask at large and important events for an accreditation for our photographers. Let's see, where we are going next in the name of Wikimedia-projects. Evereything's possible!

Photography Workshop Nuremberg

In March 2012 I participated as the only Austrian participant at the Wikipedia photography workshop in Nuremberg. Besides the exchange of experiences with numerous other Wikimedia-photographers the topics of the workshop were the "Landtagsprojekte" (Projects to photograph the memebers of the regional assemblies in Germany and Austria), Focus Stacking, problems with owners of national heritage monuments and neutrality in photographing of modern buildings. I did'nt participate at the main topic, nude photography but was still able to gain experience at handling the flash-module.

In October I was participating a second time at the photography workshop in Nuremberg. There have been talks about a potentially upcomming "cultureclash" between authors and photographers, Hugin, Divas in front of the camera and the operation of flash. Additionally there has been an excursion through Nuremberg and a tampon and a model railway have been photographed.

Based on a report by Ailura

Photography Workshop Vienna

In spring, there was a own photography workshop held in Vienna especially for Austrian photographers. The workshop took place at the "Wiener Medienzentrum", a premises of the city of Vienna, where the participants brought their individual camera-equipment with them and were coached by the lecturer. It has been a personal gain for every single participant – for the beginners as well as for the professionals. Everyone was surprised by the quality of pictures which can be made with very low-budget-cameras. At the end of the day there were some exercises done and the lecturer showed some tricks at dealing with various lighting conditions.

On the eve of the previous day Olaf Kosinsky from WMDE met the photographers in Vienna to tell them about his "Landtagsprojekt" at which the objective is to photograph the memebers of the regional assemblies in Germany and Austria. This meeting led to an intensive cooperation with photographers of Austria which were especially involved in the shootings at the Bavarian regional assembly (Bayrischer Landtag) and the Regional assembly of Salzburg (Salzburger Landtag). Detailled information about this project are available in section Landtag Project in this Annual Report.

Wikipedia Get-together of the Biology Editorial Team

Like in the last years Wikimedia Austria supported the meeting of the Biology Editorial Team of the german-language Wikipedia by compensating for travelcosts of participants. This years get-together took place at Podgorje in Slowenia. A car was rented with wich the participants traveled to expeditions in several areas around Podgorje, including the 1014 meters high mountain Slavnik. Not only four Austrian Wikimedians, but also members of the communities of Germany and Slowenia took part in the get-together.

Furthermore the Wikipedians gained insight into the fieldwork of an entomologist, access to nature protection areas and markable biotopes. Througout the numerous expeditions they were able to take pictures of unique animals of the karst, which were uploaded at the Wikimedia Commons. The identification of these animals was no problem with the help of some scientists and their books. The cooperation with the Slowenian Wikipedians is going to be continued next year.

Hackathon Berlin

With the support of Wikimedia Austria I was able to participate in the "Berlin Hackathon 2012" at the begin of June this year. About 100 technically interested Wikipedians, Wikimedians and Mediawikians got there together to work on projects collaborative, share news and for socializing. Additionally to the work on my tools I was able to have some good conversations and listen to some speeches.

A speech by Tim Starling about next years plan to introduce a real programming language for the creation of templates gave us a first insight into the Scribunto-extension of MediaWiki. Although it is supporting all popular programming languages, in the Wikimedia-projects preliminarily only the language Lua is going to be established. Further speeches were about the usage of the new revision-management for MediaWiki under Git&Gerrit by Patrick Reilly and about tipps for the improvement of MySQL-Statements by Roan Kattouw.

Solanaceaen Congress

From the 26 to the 30th of August the SOL2012 took place in the swiss town of Neuchâtel [1] - a conference abou the nightshade family plants. For the first time such a scientific congress was supported and sponsored by a Wikimedia chapter (in this case CH). By taking care of the travel expenses Wikimedia Austria allowed Cartse Stiller [2] - the most active contributor on the German Wikipedia when it comes to nightshade family plants - to visit this event. On location he was able - together with Charles Andrès (board member Wikimedia CH) and Daniel Mietchen (Wikimedia DE) - to contact and interact with the people whose work he ususally covers and explains while editing articles.

The present scientists were given an understanding of Wikipedia and the wider work of Wikimedia. This happened during the Wikipedia workshop [3], which was part of the conference schedule, as well as in plenty conversations. The main conservation topics were how Wikipedia works, how the scientists can help improve the articles in their field of expertise and how crucial Open Access is in the diffusion of research results outside of the science community.

Currently the contacts gained during the conference are being maintained with the idea to foster new cooperations and to build up further exchanges between the science world and Wikipedia. A first, direct success can already be reported. The article Nicotiana attenuata [4] created by Carstor for demonstration purposes during the workshop was further improved after the conference for a writing contest where it won the 5th place.

  1. http://www.sol2012.ch/
  2. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Carstor
  3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Mietchen/Talks/SOL_2012
  4. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotiana_attenuata

Based on a report by Carstor

WikiCup and Writing Contest

The WikiCup and the Wikipedia Writing Contest were supported by Wikimedia Austria by providing prizes. The main prize was each time a weekend in Vienna (including invitation to the regulars' table). Im the WikiCup contest, which takes place during the course the year, all particianpts of every round received a specially designed t-shirt. These t-shirts were ordered in very limited quantities and soon become popular souvenirs and thereby fulfilled their purpose, to motivate the participants to take part in the next round.

Wiki TV

 
WikiTV presentation at Wikimania 2012
Foto: Dyolf77, cc-by-sa 3.0

WikiTV is a community-project that traces its roots back tot he Wikipedia anniversry celebrations in 2011. Then, a first TV show was produced online in cooperation with the ORF (Austrian Public Broadcaster). Over the following months other video projects were added to that cooperation so that by the end of the year funds from the Community project budget were requested.

In March 2012 the WikiTV project received a 36.000 Euro budget from Wikimedia Deutschland. With these funds a camera was acquired, a large amount of the money remains unspent. Due to the amount of work required by the WikiCon the project developped only slowly until now, still several kilometer stones were reached:

  • The camera was used for the first time at the Wikipedia Academy (29-30 June). Marco Fleckinger spontaneously found enough free time to go to Berlin to attend the event. The goal here was to gather experiences with the new device.
  • A un unexpected collaboration with the German TV station NRW.TV took place during the LinuxDay 2012. The ComputerClub2, a very successful TV show in Germany which ran for decades on WDR (West German Public Broadcaster), wanted to question the organisers of the event. WikiTV and ORF established a connection from Berlin via Vienna to Düsseldorf, which allowed for an interview in the highest possible TV quality. We were also able to present WikiTv during the show, whose recording we keep, but still haven't secured a release under a free license.
  • At the Wikimania the technology was presented in front of a full room and the idea of WikiTv was spread internationally. In Sweden a similar project is already taking place, in the Czech Republic it is in the workings.
  • During the Wikimania we spontaneously visited the ORF-Centre in Washington D.C. After a very interesting tour with the correspondent Wolfgang Geier the local team shot a short interview. Well packaged this appeared about one week later as a short film in the Austrian news broadcast "Zeit im Bild 2".
  • At the WikiCon 2012 the project was presented in a short session. The following workshop attracted new interested participants and answered detailled questions.
  • We were further able to gather experiences at the open SUSECon in Prague. At the event in October we helped the filming crew in several rooms simultaneously. The know-how and contacts gained during this event can be subsequently used to tape-record and cut various presentations at OpenSource events.

Book Scanner Project

  • Budget: 5000,00 EUR
  • Expenses: 3441.86 EUR
  • Responsible person: Heinz Egger

LinuxTag

The Linuxday in Berlin is by the description of its organisers Europes leading Open-Source-Event. Manuel Schneider has been there for a couple of years frequently as a exhibitor. In the last years he represented OpenZIM in combination with tntnet because the developer of both projects is Tommi Mäkitalo.

This year Manuel was planning to do something different there. After the positiv experiences at the Linuxday in Dornbirn he organised a Wikimedia stand at the Linuxday in Berlin as well, where the first official public collaboration of the three german-language Wikimedia-Chapters (WMDE, WMAT and WMCH) took place. Additionally some other projects of the Wikimedia-movement were represented at this stand. Of course also OpenZIM and tntnet were at the Linuxday, supplemented by Emmanuel Engelhart with Kiwix, which bases on both of them.

Lydia and Angelika from WMDE further represented the projects Wikidata and RENDER. They alternated with Catrin Schoneville, Johannes Rohr, Kai Nissen, Katja Ullrich, Michael Jahn, Nils Brenner, Phillip Wilke und Silke Meyer from WMDE as well as with Marco Fleckinger, who was the Austrian representative in the Wikidata-project.

A special highlight was the live videoconference connection betwenn Vienna, Düsseldorf and Berlin. Wolfgang and Wolfgang from ComputerClub 2 wanted to take an interview with Nils Magnus from LinuxTag e.V., but were not able to be in place. With the help of the ORF they were able to set up a conference connection between Vienna and the two outposts. Organised by Manuel Wikimedia was together with the ORF the broadcaster of this event.

Additionally this year the soft drinks were sponsored by all of the three represented chapters. The costs of 900 EUR were solidarily splitted between them.

Wikimania Scholarships

In interesting report by one of our scholars can be found in German here.

Ortsbildmesse

 
Landesrat Viktor Sigl and WMAT secretary Claudia Garad
Photo: Ailura, cc-by-sa 3.0

Austrian Wikipedians and Wikimedia Austria for the first time organised together a bigger event at the „Ortsbildmesse“ (townscape fair) in Perg, Upper Austria. Furthermore it was an outstanding introduction and starting event for 2012s Wiki loves Monuments. One of the first prominent participants was Upper Austrias vice-governor, Franz Hiesl, who took a picture of the parish curch of Perg. This picture also participated in 2012s Wiki loves Monuments contest in Austria. The politician further openend togehter with Kurt Kulac, chairman of WMAT, the photoexhibition in the gallery in the „Zeughaus“ (armory) with all of last years national and international WLM winner-picuters.

The Wikipedians at the fair distributed over 10,000 pieces of information-material and took the advantage to talk directly with the representatives of Upper Austrias municipalities at the other stands of the fair. In the afternoons interested visitors were able to take part in Wikipedia-Workshops of the „Katholisches Bildungswerk Perg“ and get information about how to participate in Wikipedia.

Landesrat Victor Siegl, another member of Upper Austrias government, was welcomed at WMATs stand by the designated secretary of WMAT, Claudia Garád, who leads the administration of WMAT since October 2012. The presentations at the Ortsbildmesse Perg were a great success and all participants had a lot of fun at this day.

Based on a report by Franz Pfeiffer

WikiCon

 
Photo: Manuel Schneider, cc-by-sa 3.0
 
Photo: Mr N, cc-by-sa 3.0

The WikiCon is a german-language Wikimedia-conference organised by the Wikimedia-community. After Skillshare 2010 in Lüneburg and the WikiCon 2011 in Nuremberg the WikiCon 2012 took place at the university of applied sciences Vorarlberg (Fachhochschule Vorarlberg) in Dornbirn, Austria. The conference was funded by WMAT (10,000 EUR), WMDE (10,000 EUR), WMF (10,000 EUR), WMCH (5,000 EUR) and the government of Vorarlberg (1,560 EUR + free usage of the university-buildings and their staff). Of this budget about one quarter was saved, which made us able to refund this amount proportionately to the Wikimedia organisations.

There were 212 participants at this years WikiCon, who came from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Italy (South Tyrol), Luxembourg (sorted by nuber of participants). At three days 57 presentations (including keynotes, panel discussions, speeches, workshops and open space sessions) of 45 speakers took place. Also the organisation team was consisting of members of all three major german-language countries. Its main target was to give room to all Wikimedia projects and to also invite external participants - meaning external projects as well as the public.

The nuber of participants as well as the attendants survey showed that the efforts were successfull. Not only were there more participants from different countries - including Liechtenstein and South Tyrol with no attendants in former WikiCons - but also were they widly spread by their home-projects and age. With some rentirees and 18 % women at the event the WikiCon 2012 was very different in a positive way from the projects reality.

In the end after loads of discussions and talks the participants decided to work out a final declaration to take the positive effect of the WikiCon 2012 also into the projects.

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Wiki Loves Monuments

 
Winning picture: Castle ruine Pottendorf with chapel. Photo: Becky85, cc-by-sa 3.0

At this years Wiki Loves Monuments contest, organised by the Wikipedia-community and Wikimedia Austria, in September 2012 nearly 15,000 photographers from 36 countries submitted more than 360,000 photos.

In Austria the contest took place for the second time in 2012 resulting in 10,800 pictures of palaces, castles, churches, industrial buildings, residential houses and much more. There are about 360,000 cultural heritage monuments in Austria. The year before about 12,000 pictures were submitted to fill the lists of cultural heritage monuments existing for every Austrian municipality in the german-language Wikipedia.

This year more photographers from the public participated in Wiki Loves monuments. They submitted a surprisingly wide variety of views on Austrias cultural heritage. There were panoramic photographs of monuments as well as details of frescos and sculptures.

At first a pre-jury built of dedicated Wikipedians, photographers and Editors selected a preselection. The final selection of the winning pictures was done by a jury consisting of representatives of the Bundesdenkmalamt (Federal Agency for cultural heritage), of the Bundeskanzleramt (Federal agency of the chancellor) and Wikimedia Austria. The ten best pictures were the awarded and sent to the international Jury for the international contest.

The price for the best picture in Austria – a camera equipment from Canon – went to Becky85 for a photo of the Castle ruine Pottendorf with chapel. The following awarded persons got a balloon travel across the alps, vouchers for hotels and valuable illustrated books from the Bundesdenkmalamt.

Wiki takes Oberes Murtal

 
Picture: cc-by-sa 3.0

In the context of the Denkmallistenprojekt Peter Lauppert and I organised a weekend event to improve the grade of pictured monuments in Styria. Unfortunately the "Kleine Zeitung", a daily newspaper in Austria, was just reporting about it after the end of the event. So we were a small group consisting of only five participants. The grade of pictured cultural heritage monuments in the district Murau raised sind the begin of September from 24 % to 55 % (from 78 to 177 pictured monuments) and in the district Murtal in the same time from 27 % to 59 % (from 87 to 129 pictured monuments).

Based on a report by Ailura

Zedlerpreis

In 2012 the Austrian Denkmallistenprojekt was awarded the "Zedlerpreis für freies Wissen" (Zedler-award for free knowledge). The project was featured in the Category Community-project of the year for helping to encourage the people to create content for the Wikimedia projects directly or indirectly, as the jury said. Wikimedia Austria together with Wikimedia Germany financed the journey of community-representatives to the award-ceremonial in Berlin and helped the project indirectly to win the award by advertising for WLM.

Wiki Loves Memories

Wikimedia Austria supports the idea of Wikipedia-User Robert Schediwy, who plans to transform the goal of the Photography projects - to get new mediafiles for Wikipedia and its sisterprojects - to existing old slide-collections. The objective is to get very useful and non reproducible historical snap-shots with upright copyrights. The digitalisation of a collection of pictures from the 1990s in the middle east is actually sceduled. Therefor a Reflecta DigitDia 6000 including the Silverfast Ai Studio 8-Software and a slim, small laptop have been acquired. While the projects still at it's beginning the equipment is now beeing tested in cooperation with the organisers of the german project "Silberwissen".

Support Slovakia

Wikimedia Austria has participated in an elementary way in the founding of Wikimedia Slovakia. Not only with the experiences of WMATs members but also in a physical way by providing webspace for the www.wikimedia.sk-website the founding was strongly supported by Wikimedia Austria. In addition the founding was also supported financially with Austrian cooperation.

The communication-level between WMAT and WMSK can be described as very casual and comfortable. Members of both associations developed a common awareness in corporate projects such as Wiki loves Monuments. Some members of WMAT participated at meet-ups in Slovakia while also some Slovakian members were welcomed at Austrian meet-ups. From our point of view with this cooperation we are able to look forward for a active and fruitful future.

Based on a report by Rudolf Smehly

Open Week Graz

From 23rd to 27th of July in the "Spektrum" in Graz the Open Week was held up, organised by Stefan Kasberger. It was basically a workshop regarding the topics Open Data, Open Science, Open Access, Open Source and copyrights. Topics, which are interesting for us as Wikipedians as well. Overlappings between the Open Science movement and our community are distinguishable and were shown in various conversations. Through the exchange of information material the contact between our movements was increased. A common event was planed but not implemented yet.

Wikimeet Lower Austria

Soon after the first Wikipedia meet-up in Lower Austria, in Sankt Pölten at 11th of August 2011 it was clear, that the meet-ups should also be held at other places in Lower Austria to enable other Wikipedians, for which the journey to Sankt Pölten would be too far, to participate at the meet-ups. This was the birth of the "Niederösterreichischer Wanderzirkus" (Travelling circus of Lower Austria).

As the participating Wikipedians liked to do something else than just sitting in a tavern for two or three hours they organised for their second meeting at the 19th of November 2011 a guided tour through Stift Göttweig (Göttweig monastery) with the secretary of the abbot and a following regulars' table in a Heurigen-tavern. This brought me to the idea to link the travelling circus not only with cultural focuses but also to bring interested people together with the Wikipedians.

After another meet-up at Sankt Pölten at the 3rd of March 2012 I organised a meet-up for the 28th of April in my hometown Sitzendorf an der Schmida. The participants could take part in a welcome with the mayor and a guided tour across the historical main square and the parish church, showing them the most interesting cultural highlights of Sitzendorf.

Afterwards there was a course of lectures for interested people at a local winegrowers cellar which was exclusively opened for us. The participants got to know about the foundation, the national chapters, the funding, the Wikis and Commons as well as about the importance of the german-language Wikipedia in comparison with the international movement. Additionally it was exemplified how to become an editor, wich kind of functions there are (admins, ...), how the relevance criterias work, whats to consider at loading up a file and which licences there are. Concludingly I was giving an insight into some example works in Wikipedia about the municipality of Sitzendorf. Afterwards the casual part of the day was following which was supported by Wikimedia Austria.

At the 21st of July 2012 I further organised a special guided tour with the prior of Lilienfeld monastery through the monastery. During this tour we got insights into rooms as the sacristy, which are normally not shown in guided tours. Also this time we used the afternoon for the casual time of our meet-up.

Various other ideas for the travelling circus of Lower Austrias Wikipedians are under way.

Based on a report by Manfred Kuzel

Wikimeet Innsbruck

In the eastern part of Austria there are some meetups existing since a time. In Germany they are nearly uncountable. The Munich meetup even claims to be the oldest meetup of german-language Wikipedians. Until now it also was the nearest meetup for Wikipedians from the Tyrol. It's a long but quite simple journey to Munich for tyrolean Wikipedians even though the last train in the evening back to Innsbruck is departuring quite early.

Now the time has come for the Tyrol to get an own regularly meeting meetup. It's a major goal of the meetup to get not only Wikipedians from Innsbruck but also such from the rest of the Tyrol - including Eastern and South Tyrol - as participants. Everybody is welcome.

The meetup is in a manner of speaking a result of the WikiCon 2012 in Dornbirn. Wikipedia-Users Elisabeth Kugler, Thorsten Schwerte, Stefan Stolz, Yung and Marco74 met each other there for the first time and decided to found a meetup in Innsbruck with monthly meetings. This should help building up a strong community of Wikipedia-editors in the Tyrol. Since the every month in the Stiftskeller in Innsbrucks historic centre more than seven Wikipedians meet each other - and the number of participants is still increasing.

Based on a report by Marco Fleckinger

Linux Day

The LinuxDay is a annually held event in Dornbirn, Austria regarding the topic free software and organised by the Linux Usergroup Vorarlberg. One Saturday long at the schooldbuilding of the HTL Dornbirn various projects of this topic are presented at fair-stands and by lecutres. The visitors of the LinuxDay are as well as the exhibitors because of Dornbirns border-near location very international. They are comming from Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

As we reported in our last years annual report WMAT was already once represented at the LinuxDay 2011 with an own stand. The idea to organise the very successfull WikiCon 2012 (see above) in Dornbirn came up at last years LinuxDay.

So we decided to participate in this years LinuxDay again. Indeed Wikimedia fits very well in this event as the largest provider of free content, there is still the problem, that the visitors of the LinuxDay are already aware of the topic and would not need to be informed about the need of a free access to knowledge worldwide. Nonetheless we used the opportunity to strengthen our publicity in the community. Therefore Manuel Schneider held a short speech about the Wikimedia organisation, its projects and goals.

So the most important message to give was, that Wikimedia is more than just Wikipedia. Although most of the visitors knew the "product" Wikipedia, the vast majority didn't know anything about the project itself or its organisation. Also the Wikipedia-users Michael Karolzak and Marco Fleckinger had some interesting conversations with visitors about these important facts.

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider and Marco Fleckinger

QRpedia

 
A QR-Code

German-language Wikipedia's definition of a QR-Code: "Der QR-Code besteht aus einer quadratischen Matrix aus schwarzen und weißen Punkten, die die kodierten Daten binär darstellen." (The QR-Code consists of a quadratically matrix of black and white points which binary constitute the encoded data.) QR-Codes are used with mobilephones to get to sites of the Internet. So it suggests itself to link QR-Codes to Wikipedia-articles when it's most intersting, like in museums, at monuments or in botanical gardens.

This idea is now being implemented in Graz. After a conversation with Prof. Berg, director of the botanical garden in Graz, a list of species was transferred, which should get a QR-Code-link to its Wikipedia-article. Members of Wikipedias Wikiproject biology are at the moment writing the last missing articles. Also the exact design and content of the plates showing the QR-Code is being developed now. We are looking forward for the first QR-Code plates at the botanical garden in Graz.

Landtag Project

 
Chiemseehof in Salzburg (Kaiviertel), seat of the Salzburg regional assebly and the government of Salzburg
Photo: Andreas Praefcke, cc-by-sa 3.0

Although every member of all Austrian regional assemblies (Landtage) has its own de.Wikipedia-article, only very vew of them include a picture of the person described. Even less of them have a portrait photo. This is not because the politicians are shy or there are no photographers. It's because of the licence. We are only allowed to use pictures under a free licence. To take photos which can be published under a free licence, such as CC-by-sa, WMAT organised in cooperation with the existing German "Landtagsprojekt" a meeting between the politicians of regional assemblies and Wikimedia-photographers.

At the 31st of August 2012 the regional assembly of Salzburg was the fifth regional assembly to be photographed in the project. After the plenary session each politician was asked to pose for the photographers of Wikipedia. Afterwhats nearly all of the 36 memebers of the regional assembly have been photographed. Their Wikipedia-articles are now supplemented with a portrait picture under a free licence.

The project compares of varios goals:

  • the creation of free licenced pictures for the usage in Wikimedia-projects and beyond
  • the revision of mistakes and the extension of articles about the politicians
  • enable the discussion between politicians and Wikimedians
  • direct attention to the goals of the Wikimedia-movement and showing chances and risks
  • claer topics like personality rights and copyright for the created images
  • beeing open for questions, wishes and ideas of the politicians

University and School Projects

UIBK Biology Project

Universität Innsbruck logo

The third edition of the Wikipedia project of the institute of zoology of the University of Innsbruck is about to begin. After 2010 and 2011, biology students in Innsbruck will once again have the opportunity to edit Wikipedia articles as part of the coursework. A project page has been added this year to serve as a gathering and informaiton point for students, wikipedians and project coordinators. This portal page enables participants to keep an overview of the project. But how did we get this far?

Everything started in 2010 with the Hungarian meadow viper. Thorsten Schwerte, assistant professor at the University of Innsbruck and responsible for introduction to scientific working had the idea to communicate scientific standards to his students by working on Wikipedia articles. The articles created as part of the university course ended up on Wikipedia the following spring, seriously baffling biology project members, who in turn immediately started wikifying and cirtically analysing the articles. Who wrote the articles? Were they being maintained or simply "uploaded"? Did the students have the necessary tools and motivation to edit an encyclopedia? Who is responsible for all of this? And above all: Can this proejct have a happy ending?

 
First milestone: Hungarian meadow viper
Photo: Pellinger Attila, cc-by-sa 3.0

After an intensive discussion with Thorsten Schwerte and his coworkers Stefan Stolz and Elisabeth Kugler and a real-life meeting at the WikiCon 2012 in Dornbirn the conclusion was that a there could be a happy ending! During the talks between wikipedians and the UIBK-Bio team common interests were defined and goals set: Wikipedia and the students were to profit equally from the project. Besided following up on maintenance work it was agreed that the communications between the biology portal project and the university and its students was to be improved. It was also thematised where to best invest resources - in know-how in reworking literature or in tutorials for Wikipedia newbies.

WMAT was to patronage the cooperation and if necessary help with logistics and finances. In order to give freshman students an insight into Wikipedia work, User Toter Alter Mann, sponsored by WMAT, travelled to Innsbruck in October to present the encyclopedia and answer questions. This gave the UIBK-Bio project considerable momentum for the new semester and the first articles started appearing. Anyone who wishes to help polishing Babesia bigemina or feel like giving advice the authors of Petaurus is more than welcome! An overview of the new articles in the project can be found on its portal page. The current editors are looking forward to each and every helper.

PS: The Hungarian meadow viper has grown to be a showcase article in this subject on the German language Wikipeida. User Regiomontanus originally started working on the article and improved it together with the project coordinators and other authors.

Based on a report by Toter Alter Mann

FH Vorarlberg

The cooperation between the University of Applied Sciences in Dornbirn and WM Austria exsists since 2010. Initially the focus was set on integrating economic sciencies coursework into Wikipedia articles. The collaboration was agreed upon together with the rector of the time, Prof. Dr. Feuerstein. Finally courses were held as part of the project wiwiwiki (economics wiki), which also exists in several German universities.

Further contacts led to a cooperation while organising the WikiCon 2012 in Dornbirn. The university of applied sciences made all the rooms, auditoriums and canteen available. Several professors participated by submitting presentations and workshops. Thematically these were positioned to interest both univeristy staff and wikimedians, i.e. creative commons licenses or the the possibility to publish a "wikibook".

Wikipedia School Projects

In the course of the year several workshops were held in schools. Wikipedia and Wikimedia were presented to pupuils, which made the creation of a methods and script database necessary. During the workshops students were encouraged to consider strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. They were motivated to think about and start estimating the reliability of informaiton and sources. The offered workshops lasted two, three and four hours and were offered to different hight school ages (grades 5-8).

It was the wish of the educators to broach the issue of Wikipedia's usability in school. They argued that WP is not citable in pre-scientific wokrs and that the risk of copy and paste works increases. At one school it was agreed between teachers and studends that WP wouldn't be excluded as a source of information for presentations and homework as long as it is quoted just like any other source (WP offers a tool to make correct citations particularly user fiendly). Further, museum school trips and visits of other institutions were taken as an opportunity to create or edit encyclopedia articles.

Literary Scholarships

  • Budget: 1.500,00 EUR
  • Expenditures: 1.972,88 EUR
  • Responsible: Heinz Egger

Business Cards and E-Mail

Numerous domain names with Wikimedia brands were secured, some of them were taken away from domain squatters with the help of lawyers. After analysing the legislative basis and writing a licensing and user agreement, the usage of Wikimedia brands by external people was made safe enough to be offered to interested, external people. People can ask for mail Wikimedia brand mailing addresses (access offered with Wikimedia groupware). Business cards can also be requested.

In order to avoid mistakes and confusions, wikimedia.at mail addresses and buisness cards with Wikimedia corporate design are only available to staff and board members. WMAT is allowed to use the Wikimedia trademarks on a license agreement which can be recalled at any time. Since the names and logos are the most valuable items of the Wikimedia Foundation, the granting of usage rights is a particularly delicate matter.

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Presentations

  • Austrian Society for Geography
The Austrian Society for Geography is a national association with approximately 1200 members. Wikimedia Austria was invited to give a presentation on Geography in Wikipedia in the context of the association's regular series of lectures at the university in Vienna. Kurt Kulac accepted the invitation and utilized his presentation to eliminate numerous prejudices of the small audience and even impress them with the many overlaps between the two organizations and Wikipedias capability concerning geographical topics. Possibilities for cooperation will be evaluated with due regard to necessary resources (time and manpower).
  • Pioneers' Festival
The Pioneers' Festival in Vienna is a three-day technology event in October where 2500 start-ups, bloggers, investors and people from all over Europe come together to discuss the most recent technology trends — web, mobile, and IT-scenes. The "HUB Vienna", at that time the office of WMAT's managing director Claudia Garad, was partner of the festival and hosted a side event - the start-up brunch "Technology for Social Innovation" with about 30 attendees. This provided a very good opportunity for the new managing director to give a talk and present the various Wikimedia Austria activities and projects to an interested audience.
http://pioneersfestival.com/agenda/

GLAM

German-language Wikipedia's definition of a QR-Code: "GLAMs sind oft vom Staat geförderte, öffentlich verantwortliche Institutionen, welche Kulturerbe sammeln." (GLAMs are public institutions which are collecting cultural heritage and are often sponsored by the government). Even though the article could be developed, it describes, that this institutions have to reconsider their missions in a world of Web 2.0 (and the upcoming semantic Web 3.0). Therefor they get supported by the national governments as well as the European Union for increasing their public relations, digitalisation and publication of their catalogues on the Internet.

Partially these interests of the museums and archives are corresponding with those of Wikimedia. Wikimedia also wants to spread knowledge, and espacially the goal of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia Chapters is the encouragement of spreading free knowledge. So at the GLAM-congress at 22nd and 23rd of October 2012 in Berlin, where WMDE was a part of the organisation-team the following questions came up:

"Does 'free access' also mean 'access free of charge'?", "How are the requirements and self-conceptions of 'memory-institutions' changing in the information age?", "Which role do participative initiatives like Wikipedia play and what about the impact of private economy?", "Why is there a difference in accessing cultural heritage by 'commercial' and 'non-commercial use'?" "Is this differentation legitimated?", "Does the responsibility increase with the mass of cultural heritage?", "Which kind of responsibility is linked with an easier access to cultural heritage?"

Activities so far

In Austria so far there have been contacts with the 'Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften' (Austrian academy of sciences), the 'Bundesdenkmalamt' (Federal agency of cultural heritage), the MUSIS (Museums and collections of Styria), the Austrian representatives of Europeana and Europa Nostra, various monasteries (including the Admont monastery) and cultural institutions on varied levels. Some congresses like the Europeana-meeting with the topic "user generated content" in Vienna or the expert conference "Wikipedia trifft Altertum" (Wikipedia meets antiquity) in Göttingen have been visited by Austrian Wikipedians (see also the GLAM-chapter in 2011s annual report). In 2012s budget the means for travel costs are very shortly allocated. Nevertheless the GLAM-activities were developed in 2012.

In preparation for the GLAM-Wiki-Congress 2013 at 14th until 16th of September 2012 a GLAM-Wiki-Camp took place in London, where Ruben Demus from Austria was participating. He was able to meet members of WM-UK as well as visiting QRpedia-projects in Derby-museum and in London.

GLAM Wiki Camp, London, September 2012

Thanks to the support of Wikimedia Austria I was able to participate in the GLAM Wiki Camp in London in the middle of September ( https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAMcamp_London/September_2012). The main focus of the meeting was the exchange of experiences in cooperations with GLAM-institutions. Active cooperations can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Projects. About 30 Wikipedians and Wikimedians, among them also some Wikipedians in Residence participated in the two-day event at the British Library Conference Centre. The planning of the GLAM WIKI 2013 conference which was also planned for this meeting was reduced to a minimum and delegated to a smaller group as it was not kind of an international interest.

Various topics have been discussed in the following two days of the meeting, including

  • the selection of GLAM-partners for cooperation
  • problems regarding contemporary art because of copyright problems
  • possible conflicts of interests with the cooperation-partners
  • the risk to become a payed editor of the institution via Wikipedian in Residence
  • the need to find volunteers and motivate them
  • the risks of a growing bureaucracy
  • the challenge to handle the emblem of the Wikipedia and the Foundation responsibly in cooperations
  • the challenge to keep transparency for outstanding persons
  • the risk of conflicts between voluntary and payed contributors
  • the different strategies for and at cooperations, editathons, workshops, conferences, ... (http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Concepts)
  • possibilities of which we can make a benefit
  • the question of motivating our cooperation-partners
  • material has to be transfered in an expedient way
  • the wish for analysis-tools for the outreach of actions
  • support for multi-lingual articles
  • problems regarding the toolserver.org
  • questions of uploading the data

In addition to this discussions the experiences and plans for concrete projects have been exchanged. The GLAM WIKI 2013 conference was as well topic of discussions as Wiki Loves Monuments (http://www.wikilovesmonuments.org/), QRpedia (http://qrpedia.org) and a bootcamp for the development of tools for GLAM-projects.

Based on a report by Ruben Demus

Task Force

In the context of a Wiki Loves Monuments meeting in Oktober 2012 in Vienna, the constitution of a task force for GLAM activities was decided. The aim is to exchange information on GLAM projects, to assign priorities and to identify conflict of interests at an early stage. In order to enable interested community members from other federal states to participate in this process, the exchange will take place via e-mail, skype and the like.

International Cooperation

Finance Meeting, Paris

Manuel Schneider and Reiner Strubert took part at the Finance Meeting in Paris in the name of WMAT. The meeting was thematically dedicated to the future organisation and allocation of competences of the fundraising. The option to have independently organised fundraiser was favoured, especially on the German side. The Foundation, however, clearly took the stance that cetralised responsibility and realisaiton is the more effective way to gain donations.

Therefore the discussion turned to how to organise the dissemination of the centrally gathered donation to the country organisations. Our position, that fundraisers are better organised by people and chapters who have knowledge of the regional specifics was politely acknowledged, but finally it became clear that a centralisation and therefore increased importance of the Foundaiton will be impossible to avoid.

Only WMDE was allowed - duo to the exsisting peculiarities - to keep an independent organisation. It became also clear, that this was is also a way to bring through the request for detailed and transparent budgets of the national organisations. The funds allocaiton was to become more project based. In this context the idea was born to create a body of members of the national organisations that would strengthen their position vis-à-vis the Foundaiton.

Apart from these dominating issues, the meeting gave us a good opportunity to branstorm and exchange ideas with other participants, to discuss overregional projects and to talk to the younger and smaller chapters about the support we could offer when it comes to using and disseminating Wikipeida content.

Reiner Strubert

Wikimedia Conference, Berlin

Participating from Wikimedia Austria: Kurc Kulac (chairman of the board), Manuel Schneider (advisory board), Ruben Demus (project coordiation)

State of the Chapters

Three minute presentations of all Wikimedia chapters.

Manuel presented Wikimedia Austria using the data published on the member wiki in March 2012. There one can find an overview of our year 2011, written as an activity report. New projects for 2012 were discussed on the basis of the published budget plan.

Wikimedia Chapters Association

The Wikimedia Chapters Association, WCA for short, is supposed to unite the Wikimedia organisations. Each chapter will be represented in the Chapters Council by one representative. This council will work out guidelines and agree on common positions, which will be taken by the WCA outwards. It will decide about the distribution of funds, which the members have allocated to the WCA. These funds are intended to help chapters develop according to the set WCA criteria regarding transparency, responsibility, reliability. In order to achieve this the WCA will be made up of a secretariat and a general secretary. Further staff and work groups will possibly supplement and support this secretariat.

In preparation to the Wikimedia Conference, a charta was edited on meta-wiki: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_Council/Draft_charter_of_the_Wikimedia_Chapters_Association

Knowledge Sharing Among Chapters

 
Photo: Manuel Schneider CC-by-sa 3.0

In a smaller discussion forum possibilities how the knowledge sharing between the chapters should work were discussed.

It was made a note that two sorts of knowledge can be differed:

  • materials
  • Know-how, methods, Hands-on
  • contacts (to external partners and internal persons with certain skills)
Collection of materials
  • at outreach-wiki there's the Bookshelf Project
  • there is a FAQ for new Chapters and a Creation Guide; additionally there should be a Chapters-guide (which could not be found)
  • A problem: The information is very wide spread and not accessible by not experienced persons
    • Therefor setup of a portal-site on Meta-wiki where the chapter-relevant material is linked
  • Another problem: There is no motivation to share material because of lacking feedback wether the material is considered and used
„neighbourly help“
  • Example: Iberocoop
    • common language (Spanish/Portuguese)
    • common platforms (Wiki, Mailinglist, Conferences)
Keep the eyes peeled

CiviCRM

At sunday morning there was a Barcamp-session with the topic CiviCRM held by Holger Motzkau (Wikimedia Sweden) and Manuel Schneider (Wikimedia Austria).

Holger showed the CiviCRM-applications of Wikimedia Sweden, Manuel was explaining the functions and told about the development of Wikimedia Austria. Various members of other Chapters were present and appeared impressed despite all the problems CiviCRM still has.

In an next step WM-CH together with Manuel Schneider is going to update their Website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 in order to install CiviCRM there. Additionally the "WMSE Base"-modul, which contains the payment-moduls, has to be supplemented by a payment-modul for PostFinance.

Complementary the website of Wikimedia India, which is hosted on a Server of Manuel, is getting a CiviCRM-installation to test the practicability. Instruction courses and modifications are getting done as soon as the system is running in switzerland.

Chapter-selected Board Seats

At sunday afternoon some chapters-representatives met each other to discuss the candidates for those WMF-board-seats which are held by the chapters. Therefor an informal survey was started, which showed that two candidates would get a majority (~ 14 votes) in front of the other candidates (max. 5 votes). The final selection should be done until May, 5th in consensus. As not all chapter-representatives attended the meeting and some of the attendees had no official mandate, the result is going to be discussed on the Chapters-wiki.

If until May, 5th there is no consensus a voting will be held, where each Chapter will be able to give a list of candidates.

Austrian-Swiss Cooperation

There are various points of contact between Wikimedia Austria and Wikimedia CH. It is mostly about information-sharing, which is working since a while very successful. For example regularly documents, samples, working processes and tools are shard via CiviCRM. For the future commons projects are planed. The personal meeting in Berlin was therefor very helpful. New contact persons at WM-CH from the French and Italian language area could be found, the existing contacts in the german-language Wikipedia-community deepened.

The WikiCon 2012 is the first experience in a project-related collaboration between Wikimedia Austria and Wikimedia CH. This cooperation was so far very successful.

For Wiki loves Monuments 2012 there are actually plans to share resources for the installation of the swiss Website and maps. Ruben Demus and Alexander Wagner are working at it. Alex is at the moment active in all languages of the country and is rebuilding the swiss monuments-lists so they can be evaluated automatically. The plan is, that Ruben in cooperation with Wikimedia CH is going to overwork the Website of WLM-CH.

A further idea for a deeper going cooperation: At the moment WM-CH is building up its multi-lingual office which should support the chapter and its board in communication and the cooperation in Switzerlands language-areas. Therefor in March 2012 the first employment contract was concluded. It's still open how the leadership should be arranged if additional employees are beeing droped. Wikimedia Austria is at the moment also thinking about its future developement and especially also about new employees. Possibly the two chapters could share human resources therefor.

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider


 
Group photography; Photo: Pavel Hrdlička CC-by-sa 3.0

Wikimania, Washington D.C.

The Wikimania is the largest meeting of the Wikipedia-Community worldwide and is taking place every year at another city around the world. It is fully organised by volunteers.

This years Wikimania was taking place in Washington, D.C. and was organised by the US-Sub-Chapter Wikimedia D.C. As it already did last year, Wikimedia Austria sponsored scholarships for Austrian participants. Nine of ten scholarships were given to Austrian Wikipedians travelling to the USA. The application- and pre-selection-process was organised by the Scholarship commitee of the Wikimania 2012. Surprisingly many nonmembers and not yet known persons for WMAT applicated this year. All Austrian applications were successful.

Some of the Austrian participants also held lectures at the Wikimania:

During the Wikimania the team of WikiTV and some other interested people visited the ORF-office in Washington, D.C.

An important meeting during the Wikimania was the foundation-meeting of the Wikimedia Chapters Association, where Manuel Schneider was participating for Austria. There the WCA was founded and the 18 delegates elected a chairman (User Fæ) and the vice-chairman (Ziko van Dijk). Subsequent to the Wikimania there were commitee meetings about budget, staff recruitment and Chapter-audits held.

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Wikimedia Chapters Association

One of the findings of the Finance Meeting in Paris was, that the founding of a umbrella organisation for the Wikimedia-Chapters was promoted. Especially conflicts and discussions with the Wikimedia Foundation brought up the wish for a strong coalition of the Wikimedia-chapters. It was interesting to see, that the WMF appreciated the founding of the Wikimedia Chapters Association. Their intention is, that the monitoring duties, which are at the moment done by the WMF could be done by the chapters themselfe. It would be better for all of us, to controll ourselfes ourown and build up new guidlines for professional working and serious handling of trademarks and donated money.

As it was difficult in the past to find a common opinion under the chapters, it was now difficult to found the Wikimedia Chapters Association. Many details had to be clarified for whitch it was very difficult to find an agreement. Wikimedia Austria was one of the first chapters to support the idea of an umbrella organisation and to provide a delegate and a budget (5.000 EUR). Many other chapters followed this example afterwards as ithas been published on Meta-Wiki.

Until the Wikimedia-conference in March proposals for a Charter were worked out, which could then be over-worked and finally signed by at least some of the chapters. Instead of a general secretary – which would have been funded by Wikimedia Germany for the starting-phase – a team was built to set the further steps towards the founding which was planed at the Wikimania 2012.

At the Wikimania 2012 the WCA was founded by 18 delegates of chapters. The elected chairman Fæ from UK and his vice-chairman Ziko van Djik from the Netherlands then overtook the leading of the new organisation. The protocol of the founding meeting can be found here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/First_meeting/Minutes

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Fund Dissemination Committee

After the discussions of the last years regarding the donations for the Wikimedia-movement a new commitee has now been founded: The Funds Dissemination Committee. Despite some exeptions (Germany, France, Switzerland) donations for the Wikimedia-movement are from now on only transacted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Organisations are however able to get money of this donations by two ways:

  • By a Grant, where up to tens of thousands Euros can be applied for projects. These grants are online monitored by the Grants Advisory Committee, a committee of volunteers. The transaction is done by members of the WMF. Wikimedia Austria got it's budget for this year as well as 10.000 EUR for the WikiCon 2012 by a grant.
  • The new Fund Dissemination Committee consists of WMF-Employees, WMF-Boardmembers and Community-members. It's only possible to ask for an annual budget there. The application period is biannual, but every organisation is only able to applicate once in a year. To applicate at the FDC it is necessary to have at least two completed grants or alternatively participated in a fundraiser. The two most recent annual and financial reports have to be presented to the FDC in english language.

Thanks to the excellent work of our members the on hand reports could be translated and submitted. After the participation in 2011/12s fundraiser and our grant in 2012 this should qualify us for the FDC. Following to this over three weeks requests of WMF-employees and the FDC reached us and were answered by our team. Our application was granted with an ammount of 220.000 USD, while we applicated for 241.088 USD. The reduction was constituted with scepticism regarding the growth of our project-work and the build-up-process of our office. The decisions of the FDC are brought before the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation which decides the actual granting of funds.

See also:

Based on a report by Manuel Schneider

Public Relations (Selection)

At the beginning of the year, the US Stop Online Piracy Act SOPA caused a huge media response. WMAT's press release on Wikipedias participation in the protest against this legislation ("APA – OTS – Wikipedia beteiligt sich am Protest gegen US Internet Zensurgesetz (SOPA)") was quoted in reputable, opinion-forming Austrian media such as Der Standard, Kurier and ORF:

Thanks to the intense commitment and dedication of individual members WMAT was also well-covered in regional press. In Upper Austria our member Franz Pfeiffer provided for regional press coverage with good ideas, such as the participation in the Ortsbildmesse (townscape fair) Perg:

Another highlight was the WikiCon which took place in Austria and which attracted not only participants but also numerous journalists from the border-triangle Germany, Austria and Sitzerland:

Pressespiegel WikiCon: http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Projekte/WikiCon_2012/Pressespiegel

In addition, there was good media response to the Wiki Loves Monuments award ceremony. The online editions of several newspapers showed the winning pictures as photo galleries:

Further press reports and press releases can be found here http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Presse

Future: Outlook and Ideas

Vienna Office

The new office is located in Vienna's 7th disctrict and has been in development since November 2012. The office will function as the office for the managing director and other staff and as an open space office and conference room for Wikimedians and Wikipedians from Austria as well as for international visitors. The premises house two desktops and a conference space which can host up to ten people. A small kitchenette facilitates catering for small groups with tea, coffee and modest snacks. In addition, WMAT's library and photography equipment will find a new home in the Siebensterngasse.

The WMAT staff supports the core tasks decribed in the association's strategy by developing and conducting targeted measures for information, explanatory work, image building, fundraising, support for the Wikipedia community as well as generating new volunteers and authors for Wikimedia projects. Furthermore, they contribute to maintaining the infrastructure and strengthening national and international partnerships and cooperations. In order to undertake these tasks, one part time staff and a paid intern are provided for in addition to the full time managing director.

http://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/Gesch%C3%A4ftsstelle

Wiki Loves Public Art

Wiki Loves Public Art is an international photo contest focusing on artworks that are publicly accessible. Thousands of sculptures, mosaics, mural paintings, memorials and other art in public space cannot be covered by the Wiki Loves Monuments photography contest. However, the fact that artwork is not listed, does not mean that it is not relevant. In many cases such artwork can be photographed and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons without problems. WMAT will organize the contest for the first time in spring 2013.

Wiki Loves Plants

WMAT is planning a cooperation with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Part of the cooperation is the design of a project aimed at compiling Austrian plants and their colloquial names (in the context of workshops with Austrian botanists or a photography contest). "Wiki Loves Plants" is the provisional working title.

Abgerufen von „https://mitglieder.wikimedia.at/w/index.php?title=Archiv/2012-Annual-Report&oldid=9731“