Wikimedia Highlights, July 2014

Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for July 2014, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement

Wikimedia Foundation highlights

edit
Knowledge For Everyone - a short documentary accompanying the petition

Petition for free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones

edit

On July 28, the Wikimedia Foundation launched a petition for free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones, as it is offered in the Wikipedia Zero program. The petition is accompanied by the short documentary film, titled Knowledge for Everyone, about a group of high school students in South Africa who had written an open letter asking the country's mobile carriers for such access, so that they could use Wikipedia for their schoolwork.

edit

After more than four years, a Rome court dismissed a case against the Wikimedia Foundation, describing Wikipedia as "a service based on the freedom of the users" and setting positive precedent for other claims in Italy. Also in July, the Foundation successfully obtained orders preventing four websites advertising a service of paid editing of articles on Wikipedia from abusing the “Wikipedia” trademark.

 
Screenshot of new iOS Wikipedia app

New Wikipedia app for iOS mobile devices

edit

In July, the new native iOS Wikipedia app was released, following the successful launch of the Android app in June. The app has the same features as the Android app, including the ability to edit both anonymously and logged in, saved pages for offline reading, and a history of your recently visited pages.

Grants impact analysis

edit

The Wikimedia Foundation's Grantmaking department published the first set of analyses for an impact review focusing on $4.4M of fully reported grants from the year 2013/14 in its three grants areas: Individual Engagement Grants, Project & Event Grants and Annual Plan Grants.

 
"Key observations from this first round of impact analyses" (presentation slide)
edit

Global unique visitors for June:

432 million (-7.9% compared with May; -9.1% compared with the previous year)
(comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects, not including mobile devices; comScore will release July data later in July)

Page requests for July:

20.583 billion (+1.8% compared with June; +4.4% compared with the previous year)
(Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation content projects including mobile access, but excluding Wikidata and the Wikipedia main portal page.)

Active Registered Editors for June 2014 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots):

74,549 (-7.0% compared with May / -2.0% compared with the previous year)
(Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects.)

Report Card (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects):

http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/

(Definitions)

Financials

edit
 
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of June 30, 2014
 
Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of June 30, 2014

(Financial information is only available through June 2014 at the time of this report.)

All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date June 30, 2014.

Revenue 51,280,212
Expenses:
 Engineering Group 17,380,695
 Fundraising Group 3,701,090
 Grantmaking Group 1,860,627
 Programs Group 1,766,790
 Grants 5,695,611
 Governance Group 1,254,286
 Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group 5,114,480
 Finance/HR/Admin Group 7,025,451
Total Expenses 43,799,030
Total surplus (7,481,182)
in US dollars
  • Revenue for the month of June is $1.31MM versus plan of $1.67MM, approximately $0.36MM or 22% under plan.
  • Year-to-date revenue is $51.28MM versus plan of $50.07MM, approximately $1.21MM or 2% over plan.
  • Expenses for the month of June is $6.58MM versus plan of $4.52MM, approximately $2.06MM or 46% over plan, primarily due to higher legal fees, capital expenditures, grants, outside contract services, personnel expenses, and travel & conference expenses offset by lower internet hosting expenses.
  • Year-to-date expenses is $43.80MM versus plan of $50.07MM, approximately $6.27MM or 13% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, payment processing fees, staff development expenses, overall grants and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal fees, outside contract services, and conference expenses.
  • Cash and Investments - $49.67MM as of June 30, 2014.


Video of the monthly Wikimedia Foundation metrics and activities meeting covering the month of July (July 31, 2014)


 
Infographic from Wikimedia UK's report

Other highlights from the Wikimedia movement

edit

Wikimedia UK publishes impact analysis of Wikimedian-in-Residence programs

edit

The UK Wikimedia chapter published the result of an impact analysis of Wikimedian-in-Residence programs at British cultural institutions. Among the recommendations of the report is to increase the duration of residencies (residencies should be longer to ensure impact, e.g. 9-12 months for larger organizations) and to have clearer project goals for each residency to improve assessing impact.

First German "culture hackathon"

edit

Organized by Wikimedia Germany together with the German Digital Library, the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and the Service Center Digitization Berlin, the first "Coding da Vinci" culture hackathon took place in Berlin on July 6. The five winning software project include a project linking a list of names of authors ostracized by the Nazis with additional information from Wikipedia and other sources, and an app showing historical paintings from the Stadtmuseum Berlin, which hosted a Wikipedian in Residence in 2012, as illustrations on modern OpenStreetMap maps.