German Wikipedians discovered a road sign citing Wikipedia. The road sign is located at Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany. It denotes the “Erika-Mann-Bogen”, a street named in 2006 after Erika Mann (1905–1969) (article in English), the eldest daughter of Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann.

Members of the German Wikipedia community assume that the Hamburg municipality, by explicitly citing Wikipedia, wanted to express its esteem for the Wikimedia project, which is in Germany comparably high. Others raised the question if the usage of the text complies the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). One participant of the discussion joked that the GFDL had perhaps been printed on the backside of the sign which can not be seen on the photo.

Frank Schulenburg
Head of Public outreach

(contributed by Kizu Naoko [user:Aphaia] from the Foundation Communications Committee)

On 25th June, around 12:36 UTC (21:36 in the Japan Standard Time), Japanese Wikipedia has reached its 500,000 article milestone and has become the first non-European and non-Latin script Wikipedia to pass
over this milestone. The exact 500,000th article is unknown but is very likely one of the following:

フランク・ラザフォード (Frank Rutherford),

国際チャレンジデー (International Challenge Day),

ウエストバージニアの水運 (West Virginia Waterways) or

南阿蘇鉄道MT-2000形気動車 (South Aso Rail Line MT-2000 Diesel Engine).

While this wiki was set up in mid 2001 already, its activities began substantially years later, late 2002, and has steadily been growing. Now it is the 5th biggest Wikipedia and still one of fastest growing Wikimedia projects. In Japan, where the most Japanese speakers dwell, Japanese Wikipedia is known as one of major online references. In 2007  2.7 million people in Japan, roughly over 20% of the whole population of the nation, used Wikipedia from their home, and the number of users has steadily growing since 2005 when the first research was done,  CNET Japan reports.

With a degree of friendly rivalry, the Japanese Wikipedia chases sibling project, Polish Wikipedia, which is 4th largest and reached half a million articles in May. Both projects continue to show steady growth.

The Polish Wikipedia is 9th of the most popular sites in Poland (April 2008). New stats (look on the graph):

http://www.webinside.pl/news/5001

Every day volunteers write ~300 new articles, with average size 1,5 kb

pl wiki (the Polish Wikipedia) has 340 featured articles and more than 200 good articles.

In the beginning of 2008 the Polish Wikipedia started schools and university projects. The first 4 ended with good results (interview with prof. Czachorowski - Polish entomologist, who started 2 projects).

01.07. 2008 will be started new initiative “Holidays with Wikipedia” Wikipedians will work for better quality and they will invite (by sitenotice) readers to collaboration.

—

Congratulations to the Polish and Japanese Wikipedia editors!  May the friendly rivalry continue, and here’s to doubling this milestone in the next few years.

I am pleased to welcome Rebecca Handler as Wikimedia Foundation’s Major Gifts Officer, and Rand Montoya as Head of Community Giving. Rebecca will start officially on August 4. Rand will start officially on July 7.

Rebecca most recently consulted with the Branson School providing fundraising recommendations, training Alumni in donation solicitation and writing fundraising materials.  Prior to the Branson School, Rebecca worked for the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco where she implemented a comprehensive fundraising plan for the new $83MM community center, managed a portfolio of Major Donor relationships and directed an Annual Plan for the Center’s preschools. Her previous experience included work for the Lighthouse for the Blind & Visually Impaired and Project Bread, a program raising money for emergency food
programs. Rebecca has an M.B.A from the University of San Francisco and a B.A. in Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Rand has over 10 years experience working in the non-profit sector and is an experienced development professional.  He comes to us from the American Red Cross (Bay Area Chapter) where he served as the Development Services Manager.  In that role, he directed a $3MM per year fundraising program.  Prior to that, Rand was with the Alta Bates Foundation as the Information Systems Coordinator. Rand also spent 5 years with Hospice of Marin where he worked in various database and fundraising capacities. Rand holds a degree in Social Welfare from the University of California at Berkeley.

Rebecca and Rand are thrilled to be joining us and garnering further support for the Foundation’s mission.

–
Veronique Kessler
Chief Financial and Operating Officer

Wikimania is an annual conference put together by a team of local volunteers for Wikimedians around the globe.  The original conference, hosted in Frankfurt in August 2005, was put together as an opportunity for members of the growing communities to meet and talk with each other and those involved in wiki software development.

This year’s Wikimania is being held in Alexandria, Egypt, in the prestigious Bibliotheca Alexandrina.  The venue chosen was built both as a tribute to the Library of Alexandria of antiquity and as a center of knowledge and learning, which nicely compliments the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation.   The event, featuring a variety of presentations, panels, and workshops from wide ranging topics of interest to Wikimedians, educators, the free-culture community at large, tech geeks, and the public at large, runs from Thursday, July 17 and continues to Saturday, July 19, 2008.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator

It’s a great day to download Firefox 3 and edit your favorite wiki!

Earlier today a small consortium of wiki-developers, including our own Brion Vibber here at the Foundation, put the finishing touches on the Universal Edit Button.  With this little Firefox 3 extension users will be able to click one button, located conveniently in the Firefox address bar, to instantly access the ‘edit’ page for an increasing number of participating wikis, including Wikipedia.  A MediaWiki extension has been created so other wiki operators can implement the button into their own site.

At this time the button is exclusively available on FireFox (get help with the install), but there’s no reason we shouldn’t expect to see similar functionality in other browsers down the road.  Further proof that that the web is quickly shifting to become an ‘edit this page’ kind of place.  The power of public collaboration at work!

The Universal Edit Button was first discussed at the 2007 Recent Changes Camp, and again explored at the recent Recent Changes Camp in Palo Alto.  The button is a great example of the product of open-source collaboration and the mutual commitment of wiki developers to foster a community of interoperability and interconnectedness.

Here’s to the new age of the edit-powered web!

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

FYI, the following was sent out from the Foundation’s press office earlier today.  Still time for press registration for Wikimania:

PRESS REGISTRATION FOR WIKIMANIA 2008 IN ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT CLOSING JUNE 18, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO, CA June 13, 2008 - Press Registration for Wikimania 2008, the annual conference for the volunteers, contributors, and stakeholders of Wikimedia’s free knowledge projects, concludes next week on Wednesday, June 18. Wikimania 2008 will take place July 17-19, 2008 in Alexandria Egypt, on and around the grounds of the new Library of Alexandria.

Wikimania is an exceptional opportunity to explore topics related to the global expansion of free knowledge and internet-based collaboration.  Hundreds of Wikimedia volunteers and software developers from around the world, as well as regional experts and enthusiasts will be in attendance.

Accredited members of the press can register on-line at:
http://wm08reg.wikimedia.org/pressRegistration/

Limited bookings for accommodations in Alexandria are available on a first-signed-up, first-offered basis.

For more information about Wikimania 2008, visit:
http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/

For more information about Bibliotheca Alexandria, visit:
http://www.bibalex.org/English/index.aspx

For more information about the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects, including Wikipedia, visit:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects

For further questions, use the contact information in the Wikimedia Press room.

On Monday the Wikimedia Foundation started a qualification program to train senior citizens of the 50-plus age group as “Wikipedia trainers”. The future Wikipedia trainers shall be enabled to run their own Wikipedia workshops in internet cafés for older people. The long-term goal is to raise contributions from older people, who are still underrepresented in the Wikimedia Foundation’s projects.

The course will last six weeks. During the first weeks the participants will learn the basics of how to edit Wikipedia articles. In a second phase the participants will collaboratively develop a concept for Wikipedia courses for senior citizens. Subsequently, the participants should be able to act as Wikipedia evangelists and motivate other people of their age to contribute to Wikipedia.

The qualification program is part of the Foundation’s attempt to encourage contributions from targeted underrepresented groups.

Frank Schulenburg

Public outreach coordinator

UPDATE: Frank has written up some additional information about this program here.

In July 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation, in collaboration with UNU-Merit, plans to launch the first general survey of Wikimedia readers and contributors (with a focus on Wikipedia). This survey will ask questions on:

• demographics (gender, profession, etc.)
• factors which influence whether people contribute or not
• topic and activity areas of interest for readers and contributors
• awareness of Wikipedia sister projects and the Wikimedia Foundation

The more languages we can present this survey in, the better! It will give us invaluable information about who our audience and our contributors are to different language Wikimedia projects, allowing for comparisons across languages and cultures. The anonymized data from this survey will be freely licensed.

If you speak and write languages other than English fluently, please help us to translate the survey.

Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

The voting in the 2008 elections for the Board of Trustees is currently being held through June 22.  This summer’s election is to fill the seat currently held by Board Chairperson Florence Devouard.   This is the first Trustee election to take place under the Board restructuring approved by the board in April 2008.

Why are we having board elections?  The Wikimedia Foundation is a unique entity in the fact that our projects are managed by a great number of people around the world, volunteers who create and edit the content on the Wikipedia sites and our other projects like Wikinews and Wikimedia Commons.  The volunteers are members of related project communities from which members have agglomerated to form a meta-community of individuals interested in the Wikimedia Foundation and having a voice to participate in determining how Wikimedia fulfill its mission both short-term and in the years to come.

Who is eligible to vote?  The 2008 Board Election Committee has provided guidelines as to which members of the community are eligible to vote in the election.  It effectively covers anyone who is presently active on at least one Wikimedia project, has a history with some edit contributions.

Is Florence Devouard running again?  It saddens me to say that Florence has chosen to pursue other endeavors in lieu of returning to her position as Chairperson of the Wikimedia Foundation.  Florence has overseen the board during a period of rapid growth and maturity of the Wikimedia Foundation and left a legacy that will be difficult for subsequent board to follow.

Is the candidate running for board chairperson?  Although Florence is vacating the position, the election is only for a board seat.  The board then determines among them who they want to perform the duties of Chair.

Who is running for office?  Candidate presentations are located here.  Each candidate for board has provided personal details and a statement as to how they believe they can benefit the Wikimedia Foundation.  There is also a question and answer section where community members have asked candidates a number of questions pertaining to how they see their roles as board members.

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator

Quite a bit of discussion lately on planet wikimedia (a lovely aggregator of dozens of wiki-focussed blogs) about something called SUL - that’s Single User Login if you’re not the sort of person who doesn’t find yourself logging into a Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, or similar Wikimedia project account.

Although any human on the planet can edit a Wikimedia project without an account, the majority of editors take advantage of user accounts on all of the projects to keep track of their edits, share background about their interests, and to communicate with other Wikimedia volunteers. On English Wikipedia alone there are over 7,000,000 separate registered user accounts.

And although lots of editors spend the majority of their time in one project, say Wikipedia, there are thousands of other editors who dabble in other Wikimedia projects several public and internal planning wikis.

Obviously this presents one unfortunate problem - a dozen separate user accounts on each project. Hence, SUL! Project volunteers can now follow a process that migrates all of their individual accounts into one master account for all the projects. new volunteers will be able to take advantage of this as well, using one unique username and password for all of their cross-project work.

Volunteer developers and staff developers began rolling the system out over the last few months for select users, and as of today it’s open to anyone and everyone with multiple accounts across the projects.

Although this might not have a dramatic impact on your own wiki experience, rest-assured that it will ultimately make the lives of all our multi-project editors much, much easier. Bravo to the team for a job well done.

Get hooked up with SUL here - follow the discussion and check out what others are saying as well.

J. Walsh, Head of Communications