Wikimedia Highlights, January 2012
Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for January 2012, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
Wikimedia Foundation Highlights
Foundation supports historic anti-SOPA Wikipedia blackout
On January 18, the community of the English Wikipedia made history with its decision to black out its entire project for 24 hours in protest of two proposed US laws — SOPA and PIPA — that would have seriously damaged the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia. The communities of over 30 other Wikimedia projects supported the protest. Many Foundation staff assisted in the effort, handling the technical side of the blackout as requested by the community, providing code and design, facilitating discussions, contributing legal analysis and handling an unprecedented amount of press coverage.
During the blackout, more than eight million US-based readers used the CongressLookup tool to find their political representatives. A blog post by Sue Gardner received more than 13,000 comments, with the overwhelming majority supporting the blackout. Google News listed over 11,000 media stories about the Wikipedia blackout and the other Internet protests of January 18, and #wikipediablackout was tweeted almost 1 million times. Support for both SOPA and PIPA has since dwindled. Observers expect that they will not become law in their proposed form.
San Francisco Hackathon
The first San Francisco Hackathon was attended by 92 participants, many of them complete newcomers. They attended training sessions about Wikimedia technology, followed by team work on demo projects which were then presented in a showcase session and judged by a jury. The first prize went to "SMSpedia", which allows the user to text a page title to a phone number, who is then called back by the service and can listen to the Wikipedia entry read aloud.
Mobile announcements: Official Android app, and Orange partnership for free Wikipedia access in Africa/Middle East
In the first partnership of its kind, mobile operator Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation will provide more than 70 million Orange customers from 20 countries in Africa and the Middle East (AMEA) with mobile access to Wikipedia — without incurring data usage charges. Also in January, the official Wikipedia Android app was announced. It was installed more than half a million times within the first two weeks.
Data and Trends
Global unique visitors for December:
- 457 million (-3.7% compared with November; +15.6% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release January data later in February)
Page requests for January:
- 18.0 billion (+10.4% compared with December; +16.4% compared with the previous year)
- (Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for December 2011 (>= 5 edits/month):
- 83,293 (+0.1% compared with November / +1.6% compared with the previous year)
(Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects except for Wikimedia Commons)
Report Card for December 2011: http://stats.wikimedia.org/reportcard/RC_2011_12_detailed.html
- The report card is currently undergoing a redesign as a more fully-featured dashboard (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects).
Financials
(Financial information is only available for December 2011 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the period of July 1, 2011 - December 31, 2011
Revenue: $ 25.6 million
Expenses:
- Technology Group: $ 4,801,082
- Community/Fundraiser Group: $ 2,501,444
- Global Development Group: $ 2,154,912
- Governance Group: $ 464,533
- Finance/Legal/HR/Admin Group: $ 2,916,686
Total Expenses: $ 12,838,657
Total surplus/(loss): $ 12,784,247
Revenue was ahead of plan due to grants of $ 2.8 million and additional donations ahead of plan of $ 2 million.
Expenses for the month is $ 2.9MM vs plan of $ 2.6MM, approximately 11% higher than plan. Year-to-date is $ 12.8MM vs plan of $ 14.2MM, approximately 10% lower than plan.
Underspending YTD is due to timing of capital expenditures ($ 989K - budget was spread evenly over 12 months), internet hosting ($ 64K), volunteer development ($ 142K), travel and conference expenses ($ 233K), personnel expenses ($ 584K), recruiting expenses ($ 124K), and IT desk equipment ($ 77K) offset by higher awards and grants ($ 261K - budget was spread evenly over 12 months), legal and accounting fees ($ 81K), professional services ($ 293K), and bank fees ($ 248K).
Cash of $ 30.6 million, which is thirteen months of cash reserves at current spending levels and fourteen months of cash per the annual plan.
Other movement highlights
RecentChangesCamp2012
RecentChangesCamp2012, an OpenSpace unconference focused on wikis and online collaborative practices first held in 2006, took place at the University of Canberra from January 20 to January 22. It was attended by numerous Wikimedians from Australia and abroad.
The Netherlands' oldest museum starts editing challenge
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Wikimedia Nederland and the Teylers Museum (the oldest museum in the Netherlands) have started "The Teylers Challenge" where participants collaborate on multilingual content related to the museum and its collection.
Zagreb trip explores future Croatian chapter
From January 20 to January 22, Ting Chen — Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation — and Chapters Committee members Miloš Rancic (Wikimedia Serbia) and Bence Damokos (Wikimedia Hungary) visited Zagreb to meet with local community members and discuss the future of Wikimedia Croatia (a chapter to be approved).
Australian Paralympic Committee and Wikimedia chapter send "Wikimedians to the Games"
The Australian Paralympic Committee and Wikimedia Australia launched "Wikimedians to the Games", a contest for Australian Wikimedians to improve content related to the history of Paralympic Movement in Australia. The two winners will have the opportunity to fly to London and cover the 2012 Summer Paralympics for Wikinews, Commons and Wikipedia.
First "Public Domain Day" celebration in France
On January 26, the French Wikimedia chapter, together with Creative Commons France, Communia and people from the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF) organized a celebration of "Public Domain Day", accompanied by the creation of a website. "Public Domain Day" events highlight the entrance of copyrighted works into the public domain at the beginning of each year, and this was the first such event in France.