Wikimédia France/Annual report 2011

A PDF Report in English will be published before the end of July

See the PDF Report in French

Annual report 2011

Letter from our President

Rémi Mathis, president of Wikimédia France
- Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC-BY.

After such an active year as 2010, filled with new partnerships, it was time for Wikimédia France to set up a professional team to improve its action.
This decision was well-considered and is not an end in itself: its purpose is to enable us to respond faster and better to the challenges we are facing as we grow in every aspect. The number of members is growing; the number of activities is growing; the amount of money collected thanks to the fundraising is growing; and above all the expectations of French society and of our partners towards Wikimédia France are growing.

For these reasons we hired several employees after our first permanent employee left. Adrienne Alix was hired as a programs director: she used to be the Wikimédia France president for two years and we can only praise the wonderful work she achieved as a volunteer. Carol Ann O'Hare joined us as an Education&Research head; Sylvain Boissel became volunteer coordinator and Julien Fayolle managed the fundraising for several months.

Our action towards cultural institutions went on, showing the success of the meetings of 2010. For example, Benoît Evellin stayed in residence at the palace of Versailles for six months, introducing the staff from this institution to the collaborative world of Wikimedia projects... and introducing Wikimedians to the treasures of this palace in a privileged way. While some projects, as the one with the Pompidou Center, were getting started, some, like the partnership with the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse, kept on on developing.

Hiring an education and research head allowed us to initiate a second line of development aimed at these sectors. Wikimédia France ran a stand at the Paris Education Fair, designed pedagogic materials to use as collateral during outreach events with high school students, and signed a partnership agreement with the university PRES Lille Nord de France to encourage doctoral students to contribute.

We defined a third line centered around the issues of francophonie following the report we wrote for the General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France. During the Estates-General of Multilingualism in Overseas Territories, several members had the opportunity to explain that Wikimedia projects have a role to play to highlight the languages of France on the Internet; now broader actions are to be taken in 2012.

On top of these partnerships set up for a medium to long duration, Wikimédia France also organizes one-off events, and the year 2011 was eventful indeed. Wikipedia's ten-year-anniversary was fittingly celebrated all over France: we must particularly mention Wikimedians from Rennes (Britanny, western France) who placed notice boards from Wikipedia's articles in front of the main sights of the city. The “Wiki loves Monuments” contest was also a great common success with the other European Chapters: more than 25,000 pictures of French historic buildings have been uploaded to Commons and awards were presented to the ten winners — four of them won a European award afterward — during a party at the museum of Cluny, Paris.

But Wikimédia France is far from stopping there, as symbolic as these actions may be. Thanks to our new microfunding committee, we can respond more accurately to our members' requests, providing them with a flexible framework for the projects they initiate. For instance photographic equipment was acquired within this framework: members enrich the Wikimedia Commons database with it, notably during outings in small groups that help them know each other better. Dozens of small projects are started by members who know they can rely on our logistical support; these small initiatives enhance Wikimedia projects, reach an audience who does not contribute or even know about them, teach them, explain the ins and outs of our activity to the media: it is them, along with our 36,000 donors of 2011, that I want to thank.

Rémi Mathis, President of Wikimédia France

Paleographer archivist, Rémi Mathis is the head librarian for 17th century works in in the Department of Prints and Photography of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France) and the editor of “Les Nouvelles de l'Estampe”. He has contributed to Wikipedia since 2005 and has been a Wikimédia France Board of Trustees member since 2009.

Part 1: Our activities

Local activities

Wikimédia France members are eager to share around their experience on Wikimedia projects and organize many activities, lectures, workshops and meetings in their hometowns.

A map of the association's activities shows the members' meeting points where actions are organized, supported by the association's organization.

Local groups often bring together Wikimédia France members and contributors to Wikimedia projects who are not members. Active local groups can be found in Rennes, Paris, Toulouse and Grenoble; there are also occasional meetings of contributors and members in other cities.

Since 2011 a committee of members and trustees fosters these local activities by giving out small grants (up to 2,000 euros) to purchase equipment or to organize local events.

Organizing photo outings

Contributors to Wikimedia projects understand the importance of a comprehensive photo coverage of monuments, cities and our general heritage. They are involved in setting up a free picture database of our territory, notably by organizing photo outings, where they meet and take pictures of a city or district or theme together. Wikimédia France helps them by getting accreditation for them, making contact with institutions such as Versailles easier and providing photographic equipment.

On their own or with others, Wikimedians strive to offer good quality, well-documented illustrations to the broader public.

In 2011, the Paris group organized outings in:

• Rouen, Normandy (northwestern France)
• Chartres (95 kilometers Southwest of Paris)
• Palace of Versailles
• Collège des Bernardins, Paris

Wikimedians from Western France (based in Rennes, Brittany) met for photo outings in:

• Saumur (western France)
• Amboise (center of France)
• Redon (Brittany)

Promoting Wikimedia projects during local events

Attending the Education Fair
− Thesupermat, CC-BY-SA

Volunteers endeavor to be available to present and explain Wikimedia projects and often introduce beginners to Wikipedia editing.

They spend much time in local events and organizing their own booths in order to make Wikimedia projects more visible and accessible.

In 2011, Wikimédia France attended many events:

• the Ubuntu Parties in Paris (May and November) and Toulouse in November
• the Local Meetings of Free Software in Angoulême (soutwestern France)
• the Free Software Days in Lyon (southeastern France) in November
• training for Thalès employees in la Celle-Saint-Cloud and Colombes (Paris suburbs) in October and December
• Arts Festival in Paris in December
• the Education Fair in Paris in November

Celebrating Wikipedia's ten-year anniversary

Panel discussion in Nanterre
− Copyleft, CC-0

In January and May 2011, we celebrated Wikipedia's and French-language Wikipedia's ten-year-anniversaries. It was an opportunity to organize events towards the general public in Rennes, Toulouse and suburban Paris so that they get to know Wikipedia better and do not hesitate to become contributors.

On January 15, the anniversary of Wikipedia's creation (the first active language edition was the English-language one), Wikimedians from Toulouse shared a friendly lunch and presented Wikimedia to a wider public, often unaware of our sister projects, in José-Cabanis Library hall.

Ten-year anniversary in Rennes
− Auregann, CC-BY-SA

On April 29 in Nanterre (suburban Paris), a panel discussion was held on Wikipedia's ten-year anniversary, free projects (Creative Commons, OpenStreetMap) and institutions (Palace of Versailles, Paris West University of Nanterre). During this party a song about Wikipedia was played, composed by Valentin Villenave, and excerpts from the movie Truth in Numbers? Everything according to Wikipedia by Scott Glosserman and Nic Hill were shown.

On May 13 and 14 in Toulouse, two events celebrated French-language Wikipedia's birthday: first a lecture on “Wikipedia, ten years after, a new approach of culture?” at the José-Cabanis Library; on the day after, Wikimedians were present in the library hall with material to teach how to contribute and a set of notice boards recounting the story of Wikipedia in ten stages.

For their part, Wikimedians from Rennes organized a very visible action for the encyclopedia's ten-year anniversary that was held across Rennes from May 23 to 29. For eight days Wikipedia articles become real in form of a temporary exhibition of notice boards. Ten sites, corresponding to ten symbolic places of the city ( Brittany Parliament, Opera, Thabor park etc.), were chosen to put up big boards presenting a summary of the corresponding Wikipedia article. A die-cut window pierced where usual picture would be allowed you to see the actual monument through it. On every board a message, a URL and QR code invited the public to visit the event website and to go to the “Cantine Numérique” (a coworking space hosting lectures and workshops on all digital matters) for workshops and presentations.

Training and Outreach

Raising awareness to Wikimedia projects

Workshop at the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse
− PierreSelim, CC-BY

The association regularly organizes workshops to teach how to contribute to various audiences.

Many workshops were organized: for librarians in Paris and Toulouse; in the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse; for journalists at AFP (a French news agency) in Paris; with participants of forums about ICT in Brest (Brittany); for high school students in Mantes-la-Jolie (West of Paris) and for teachers in Versailles, for researchers of the Center for African Worlds Studies (“Centre d’Étude des Mondes Africains”) etc.

We also address wider audiences thanks to numerous lectures. In 2011, more than 25 lectures — specialized or not — were held by association volunteers or salaried employees in France and Switzerland.

Working with the education and research world

Cover of the booklet “Wikipedia in class”
– Sylvain Boissel and Nojhan, CC-BY-SA

Wikimédia France decided to focus part of its work towards the world of education and research in order to help teachers understand the functioning and richness of Wikimedia projects better, to help organize pedagogic projects around Wikipedia, but also to encourage students and researchers to contribute to the encyclopedia.

Hiring Carol Ann O'Hare as an Education&Research head in June 2011 meets this goal. Pedagogic materials and a contributing guide booklet were drawn up with the working groups. We use them as a supporting material during activities towards pupils.

Many contacts were made with universities, leading to activities to be held in 2012. A partnership with the Doctoral College Université Lille Nord de France was signed in 2011: its goal is to teach doctoral students how to contribute on Wikimedia projects as part of their mission of popularizing their scientific research works.

Spreading the French language and the languages of France

In May 2011, Wikimédia France authored a report on the situation of the French language within Wikimedia projects to the General Delegation for the French language and the languages of France.

This report was then widely circulated in ministries and inserted into the annual report on the situation of French language submitted to the members of the French Parliament. It has enlightened some institutions dedicated to French language as to how important Wikimedia projects are to the influence of French language on the Internet. This led to making many contacts, to planning projects and to creating a “languages” working group.

The association was also invited to take part in the Estates-General of Multilingualism in Overseas Territories in Cayenne (French Guiana) to explain how relevant Wikimedia projects are for the vitality of the languages of France. We also authored a report on the situation of the languages of France on Wikimedia projects for the opportunity.
Translator's note: the languages of France include regional languages such as Breton, Alsatian and creoles, and immigrant languages such as Arabic and Spanish.

These two reports are now available on the association's website. Projects are under way for 2012, for instance the uploading of videos and transcripts of the speeches from the Estates-General of Multilingualism on Wikimedia Commons and Wikibooks.

Media exposure

Our association, thanks to its members and employees, was very present in the media lately — through press release, interviews... — in order to promote Wikimedia projects and special events.

Wikipedia's ten-year anniversary

Ouest-France, 20 minutes, Europe 1, Radio Laser and Canal B (Rennes local radios), Britanny edition of the 19/20 (news) of France 3 channel.

Partnership with the Palace of Versailles

Le Monde, Ouest-France, inforadio (twice), France 3 Île-de-France news, LCI, europe1.fr, numerama.fr, artactu.com, ecrans.fr (Libération), Lemonde.fr, Lexpress.fr, evene.fr, 01.net, ActuaLitté.com, artclair.com, Arretsurimage.net.

Wiki Loves Monuments

ActuaLittés, L’Agitateur de Bourges, Standblog, Écrans (twice), Le Monde (twice), Libération (twice), RFI, La Revue française de généalogie, franceinfos.fr

Other

• National newspapers: Libération, L’Express, Télérama, Le Nouvel

Économiste, L’Éco

• Local newspapers: La Montagne, Le Courrier de l’Ouest
• Radio: RFI, France Culture ("Masse critique", "Soft Power" et "Place de la toile")
• Television: France 3 (national edition of Soir 3news)

Access to cultural heritage

Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. Thanks to the partnership, access to the palace was made esaier for Wikimedians
− Myrabella, CC-BY-SA

In 2011, Wikimédia France pursued its action towards cultural institutions to encourage their members to contribute to Wikimedia projects, but also to open and spread contents under a free license or in public domain.

Following the “Rencontres Wikimédia” of December 2011 aimed at culture professionals, which was a significant meeting between institutions and Wikimedians, many projects have been carried out or are under way.

The most symbolic project of the year is certainly the partnership with the Palace of Versailles and the “residence” of Benoît Evellin, a Wikimédia France volunteer, for six months at the palace. Thanks to this project, the institution's staff better understands Wikimedia projects and a great number of contributors and association members took part in the project. Several dozen articles have been created or enhanced on Wikipedia thanks to the cooperation between Wikimedians and the Palace of Versailles; 2,250 pictures have been taken thanks to authorizations and help from the Palace staff. Benoît introduced all staff to contributing.

The association also started to work on articles about contemporary art with the Pompidou Center and a more general partnership is being prepared.

Photographing at the Museum of Natural History of Toulouse is going on under the Phoebus Project, launched in 2010: more than 1,200 pictures now illustrate the Museum's collection on Wikimedia Commons.

Wikimédia France is also co-organiser of the Museology 2.0 seminar for the school year 2011-2012 in partnership with IRI (Institute of Research and Innovation) and the ministry of Culture.

Supporting the creation of documents and pictures under free licenses

As in previous years, Wikimédia France helps contributors to get a privileged access to public events in order to take pictures to be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons.

In 2011 more than 6,600 pictures have been taken with Wikimédia France's support. Covered events are very diverse: from music festivals and concerts to the Motorcycle Show and book fairs.

The whole of the media produced with Wikimédia France is to be found on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Supported_by_Wikimedia_France

• 
  Bernard Lavilliers performing live at the "festival du bout du monde" in Crozon (Brittany).
  Thesupermat - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Euphaedra xypete
  Didier Descouens - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Park of the Palace of Versailles - Latona Fountain.
  Coyau - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Motorcycle Show of Paris.
  Thesupermat - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Yuuki performing live during Japan Expo South in Marseille.
  Esby - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Reading room of Sainte-Geneviève Library in Paris.
  Jastrow - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Coelacanth - Trias - Ambilobe, Madagascar
  Pierre-Selim - CC-BY-SA
• 
  Nolwenn Leroy performing live during "festival de Cornouaille" in Quimper (Brittany).
  Thesupermat - CC-BY-SA

Taking part in the international Wikimedia movement life

Wikimedia France members and salaried employees took part in several international events of the Wikimedia movement:

• May: coordination meeting of Wiki Loves Monuments;
• August: eleven members and employees went to Wikimania, an annual conference of the movement, in Haifa, Israel; some of them spoke in eight lectures or sessions;
• September: a volunteer attended the Creative Commons Global Summit in Warsaw;
• December: five Wikimedians took part in the GLAMcamp in Amsterdam, whose goal is to coordinate activities by Wikimedians from all over the world with cultural institutions.

The association also provided considerable human and logistical support to the Wiki Loves Monuments contest, for instance by creating and maintaining the French website and organizing the French prize-giving ceremony (providing the prizes and selecting the judges) at the Museum of Cluny in December.

Supporting Wikimedia projects

In April, the Board of Trustees approved the setting up of the micro-funding commission, whose goal is to provide for financial needs for members' projects, as long as the sum is not over €2,000.

The commission assesses members' requests; it consists of members from both inside and outside the Board. The commission members are appointed by the Board.

In 2011, the commission, which became effective last autumn, financed:

• the purchase of two Canon Powershot cameras to be lent to Wikimedians
• the purchase of the catalogue of the “Sous l'égide de Mars” exhibition to have a precise description of the pictures uploaded on Commons

Supporting the other Wikimedia chapters

Wikimédia France supports other Wikimedia associations in carrying out their projects. In 2011, we supported two projects:

• €3,000 to Wikimedia Canada to organize “Wikipedia takes Montreal”. In spite of a hurricane on this very day, 112 people took part in this event, uploading more than 4,300 pictures on Wikimedia Commons.
• €2,000 to Wikimedia Ukraine to purchase prizes for the “French Autumn” contest, in which 750 participants (mostly Ukrainian but also French) wrote and translated articles about France on Ukrainian-speaking Wikipedia and about Ukraine on French-language Wikipedia. There are now 550 more articles about France on Ukrainian-language Wikipedia and 142 more articles about Ukraine on French-language Wikipedia.

Lobbying

Wikimédia France acts towards politicians to promote freedom of panorama, fair use and the freeing of art works and museums collections, as all these points can help improve Wikipedia. In practical terms:

• Meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels in June;
• Making contact with members of French Parliament;

Part 2: Supporting the Wikimedia Foundation

Wikimédia France transferred part of the donations it received to the Wikimedia Foundation. This American non-profit charitable organization (501(c)(3) status) operates Wikipedia, a top-six internet website, and other Wikimedia projects in order to provide free access to knowledge for everyone (Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons...)

Supporting these projects is also the purpose of the Wikimédia France association and of its fundraising. The aim of this transfer to the Wikimedia Foundation is to contribute to:

• financing the facilities necessary to host French-language Wikimedia projects like the French-language Wikipedia, the third most important language edition of 280;
• the capacity to support the intensive consultation of French-language Wikimedia projects websites in France and other French-speaking countries (an average 1,000,000 pages viewed per hour in early 2012, among them 30% consulted from other countries than France): Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and more and more African countries as Gabon, Morocco, Tunisia, Central African Republic. It should be noted that the French-language edition of Wikipedia is increasingly accessed in countries like Germany, United States, or South Korea.
• hosting projects in languages that broadly disseminate French culture (the 280 different language editions of Wikipedia contain more than 1,000,000 articles about France and French culture): for example, the Chinese-language Wikipedia contains more than 145,000 articles about France and French culture, the Arabic-language one 83,000 and the Russian-language one 30,000.

Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects have become a vehicle for spreading French language and culture across the world that cannot be ignored.

Wikimedia Foundation will provide a receipt vouching for the funds deposited and will describe how they were used by the end of its fiscal year (mid-2012).

Part 3: Internal Operation

Fundraising

Donations, which account for almost all of Wikimédia France's receipts, nearly doubled in 2011 compared to 2010. Wikimédia France collected more than one million euros altogether in 2011. €472,000 out of this amount was transferred to the Wikimedia Foundation: that is the French association's contribution to the projects' international financing, in particular for the computer infrastructure of Wikimedia projects. These donations come primarily from private individuals; the average donation is 40 euros, from almost 38,000 donors (three times as many as in 2010). The annual fundraising took place from November 15, 2011 to January 6, 2012. 60% out of our donors asked for a receipt to receive the tax deduction allowed by their donation.

The fundraising is still basically organized by volunteers, with the significant help of Julien Fayolle (fundraising manager, salaried employee from September 2011 to February 2012) and Élisabeth Coye (secretary who has worked for our association fore more than three years, assisted by a freelance secretary from time to time). The fundraising costs are low, at €44,000. This fundraising campaign was particular as we endeavor to call for donations with more diverse messages and banners in order to better show our community's diversity, but also by positioning and translating banners in various languages spoken on the French territory and by sending an information and thank you letter to every former donor.

It should be noted that our 2011 accounts present a high cash surplus: this is due to the fact that the Wikimédia France annual fundraising, which gives us almost all of our resources, takes places mostly at the end of the financial year, from mid-November to the first week of January.

Membership

In 2011, the association expanded from 234 to 349 members; as every year, the increase was particularly sharp during the fundraising period, that is from mid-November to the first week of January.

Salaried employees

During the year 2011, the association increased its number of salaried employees to keep on supporting its volunteers' work, to widen the scope of our projects and to provide for the association's development.

In March 2011, our permanent employee Bastien Guerry left his position in our association.

In May 2011, the association hired Carol Ann O'Hare as a Research&Education head (her contract started on June 20, 2011) and Adrienne Alix as a programs director (her contract started on July 4).

In July 2011, Sylvain Boissel was hired as volunteer coordinator; his contract started on August 15.

From September 15, 2011 to February 14, 2012, Julien Fayolle worked as a fundraising manager to coordinate activities regarding the annual fundraising.

Since July 2011, the association has rented an office at “Le Lawomatic”, a co-working space in the 10^th arrondissement of Paris to accommodate our employees and receive members and visitors.

Receipts and expenses (general view)

As in the previous year, we experienced a very big increase in our financial resources as the donations have doubled: they rose from €515,000 in 2010 to €1,048,000 in 2011. These resources come almost exclusively from donations collected during the annual fundraising. As this campaign takes place at the end of the financial year (coinciding with the civil year) between mid-November and the first week of January, the association's accounts present a high cash surplus of almost €350,000. Having the fundraising at the very end of the financial year makes budgeting more difficult; so the Board of Trustees decided to submit a resolution about moving the beginning of the financial year back to July 1.

On the expenditure side, €472,000 were put aside in the 2011 accounts to be transferred to the Wikimedia Foundation. It is the contribution of the French association to the international financing of the projects, including the computer infrastructure. The funded amount was transferred to the Foundation in April 2012. In May 2011, Wikimédia France transferred a contribution from the fundraisings of 2010 and 2009 (the latter could not be transferred in 2010 because of the lack of sufficient fiscal guarantees). These two contributions were provisioned in our 2010 accounts.

Part 4: Wikimedia projects: overview as of late 2011

The association brings together participants to the different projects supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, as the Wikipedia encyclopedia, the Wikimedia Commons database, the Wiktionary dictionary and several other projects regarding knowledge. All these projects are developed collaboratively by Internet users themselves thanks to the MediaWiki software.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a project to build a free, reusable encyclopedia in every language of the world. Everyone can contribute to it directly on its website and 80,000 users are considered as active contributors.

Launched in January 2001 in English, the project consists of 21 million encyclopedic articles in over 280 languages as of December 2011! In late 2011, the English-language edition of Wikipedia was the biggest with 3.9 million articles. Then there are the German and French-language editions with 1.4 million and 1.2 million; fr.wikipedia.org got past one million articles in September 2010. 44 editions of Wikipedia have at least 100,000 articles and 216 editions have over 1,000 articles. New languages are proposed and launched every month.

With 476 million unique visitors in 2011, Wikipedia is the fifth most visited website according to comScore. In France, Wikipedia is the sixth most visited website with over 19 million unique visitors (more than one web user out of two) according to Médiametrie/NetRatings ranking.

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is an online database that anyone can enrich. Launched in September 2004, it contains reusable media files (images, sounds, videos, audio texts etc.) that can be easily and directly used by all Wikimedia projects. In December 2011 Wikimedia Commons hosted 12.3 million files.

Wiktionary

Wiktionary is a project to create free dictionaries and thesauruses in every language. This project was started in December 2002 and is now available in 171 languages with nearly 13.8 million entries altogether. The more complete versions are the English-language and French-language ones (2.9 and 2.1 million respectively) followed by the Chinese-language, Lithuanian-language, Malagasy-language, Russian-language and Turkish-language editions, each of them having over 250,000 entries. 54 other languages have at least 10,000 entries.

Wikibooks

The Wikibooks project aims to build a collection of e-books specifically targeting students, like works, textbooks and annotated books fallen into the public domain. Aiming to help both students and teachers in high schools and universities, this project was started in July 2003. In late 2011, it offers almost 185,000 modules in over 220 languages. The most complete edition is the English-language one with over 36,000 modules; the French-language editions has over 12,000 modules.

Wikinews

The Wikinews project was launched in December 2004 with the mission to report the news on a wide variety of subjects. In late 2011, it was active in 33 different languages and contained almost 185,000 news stories altogether. Containing over 12,000 news stories, the French-language edition is the fourth in terms of size behind the Serbian-language, English-language and Polish-language editions.

Wikiquote

Wikiquote is a repository of quotations taken from famous people, books, speeches, films or any intellectually interesting materials. Proverbs, mnemonics or slogans are also included in Wikiquote. Launched in 2003, Wikiquote is available in 88 languages with almost 131,000 pages in late 2011. The largest version is the English-language one with over 19,000 pages, followed by the Polish-language and Italian-language editions. The French-language edition, which was once closed because of legal problems and reopened in December 2006, is the twelfth in terms of size with over 22,800 quotations on almost 3,400 pages.

Wikisource

Wikisource is a digital library started in November, 2003. It offers old works fallen into the public domain and contemporary books under a free license. About 60 languages are represented. The French-language library has over 900,000 pages from 75,000 texts; those include 2,500 literary sources, but also science, legal texts, journals... Wikisource offers most of these texts in two forms: the scanned original work as images and the electronic version as text.

Wikiversity

Wikiversity is a project dedicated to host and develop learning material and learning communities at all levels. It was launched as a Wikimedia project (in beta testing) on August 15, 2006 in English and German with a coordinating multilingual hub. Wikiversities have been developed in 14 languages since. After getting past 1,000 lessons in March 2010, the French Wikiversity offers over 1,200 lessons from 38 faculties in late 2011 and hosts thirty-five research work modules an ten collaborative work modules. Despite what its name may suggest, Wikiversity is not limited to university level materials, but is open to materials and communities of all learner levels.

Wikispecies

Wikispecies is a project to provide a central species database for taxonomy, a science of describing, defining groups of, identifying, naming and classifying biological organisms. Wikispecies, which is aimed specifically at the needs of scientific users and available in English only, contained over 323,000 entries in late 2011.

MediaWiki

MediaWiki is an associated project. It is a wiki engine released under the GPL (GNU Public License) that is used by all Wikimedia projects and many other sites. In 2005 MediaWiki won the prize at "Les Trophées du Libre" contest in the category special PHP prize.

Wikimania

Wikimania is the name of international conferences of the Wikimedia Foundation. Organized every year since 2005, there are an opportunity to take stock of the wiki world. Wikimania 2011 was held in Haifa, Israel, from July 4 to 7. A delegation of a dozen members of the association went there, with the association's financial support, to meet Wikimedians from other countries, talk about our projects and discover what is being done elsewhere.

Back cover, acknowledgment & license

Back cover

Created in October 2004, Wikimédia France is a non-profit association run upon the French law of July 1901. Its aim is to support the free dissemination of knowledge and particularly the projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

It is recognized as a local chapter by the Wikimedia Foundation. However, it is a legally and financially independent entity, obeying different rules and a separate leadership.

Wikimédia France — Association pour le libre partage de la connaissance

ID card

Declaration to the Préfecture : January 24, Paris
Date of the publication in the Official Journal: March 5, 2005

Abbreviation: WMFR

Head office: 
Wikimédia France
26-28 rue de Londres
75009 Paris

Email: info@wikimedia.fr
Website: http://www.wikimedia.fr
IRC channel: irc://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-fr

SIREN number (SIRET): 481 796 464 (00024)
APE code: 913 E

Acknowledgments

Wikimédia France thanks those who help support the free dissemination of knowledge and particularly Wikimedia projects. We want to thank especially:

• Our donors, thanks to whom we can initiate bolder and bolder actions every year. Their unfailing and ever-growing support encourages us to continue to work. Let us cite notably among our generous donors:
  • Typhon, a hosting provider, for the technical support they have been offering us since our creation;
  • Linterweb for its technological contribution, especially on the Wikipedia.fr search portal;
  • Ogone who supplies us with a secure payment system allowing donations online.
• And a special thank to our volunteers.

Document's and illustrations' licences

This report was written by Adrienne Charmet-Alix, Anthere, Thesupermat, Rémi Mathis, Thierry Coudray with participation of Julien Fayolle, Jean-Frédéric, Crochet.david, Carol Ann O’Hare, VIGNERON, Ofol, Otourly, M0tty, Kropotkine 113, Zetud, Floflo, Benoît Evellin, Bapti, Seb35, Edhral, Litlok, Charlotte Matoussowsky and Sylvain Boissel. Layout by Sylvain Boissel (CC-BYSA 3.0) on a draft made by bayo and historicalr (public domain).
Logos from the Wikimedia projects are copyrighted by the Wikimedia Foundation © & ™ All rights reserved, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Other logos belong to their respective owners.
The six pictures on the report cover (the latter was created by Sylvain Boissel) were taken in 2011 with Wikimedia France support and released under free license. From left to right and top to bottom: Grand_Tétra_MHNT.jpg by Didier Descouens (CC-BY-SA 3.0) — MHNT_-_Whiteia_woodwardi.jpg by PierreSelim (CC-BY 3.0), Salle_de_lecture_Bibliotheque_Sainte-Genevieve_n07.jpg by Marie-Lan Nguyen (CC-BY 2.0), L’attaque du carré des décabristes by Vassili Timm (public domain, photo by Thesupermat), Parc_de_Versailles,_Bassin_de_Flore,_Jean-Baptiste_Tuby_(1672-79)_07.jpg by Coyau (CC-BY-SA 3.0 & GFDL), 110 ans de l'automobile au Grand Palais - Panhard et Levassor 7 CV bicylindre Voiturette by Clément-Rothschild - 1902 - 002.jpg by Thesupermat (CC-BY-SA 3.0)