Wikimedia Highlights, June 2014
Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for June 2014, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
Wikimedia Foundation highlights
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Revamped Wikipedia app for Android, and new optimized view for tablet users
editThe new Android Wikipedia app was released in June and is now available in the Google Play store. Core features of the app include the ability to save pages for offline reading, a record of your reading history, and the ability to edit either as a logged in user or anonymously. The app is the first mobile platform that allows anonymous editing.
Also, since June 17, users on tablets are now redirected to the new tablet-optimized mobile site; they were previously being sent to the desktop version of all Wikimedia projects. Early data suggests that this change had a positive impact on new user signup and new editor activation numbers.
Media viewer released on all wikis
editIn June, the multimedia team released Media Viewer v0.2 on all Wikimedia wikis, with over 20 million image views per day on those sites that are tracked. Global feedback was generally positive and helped surface a range of issues, many of which were addressed quickly. Based on this feedback, a number of new features were developed by the team: view images in full resolution, view images in different sizes, show more image information, edit image file pages, as well as easy disable tools for anonymous users and editors.
First impact assessment of FDC grants (APG)
editThe results of the first impact assessment for Annual Plan Grants (FDC grants) to Wikimedia organiations were published. Based on the reports of the 9 organizations funded in Round 1 of 2012-2013, the report found that organizations had strength in content-related projects, which benefitted from full time staff and consistent partnership:
- Content development results: 12K articles improved, 168K images on Commons, and 86K other media on Commons
- Participation improvements (new editors; active editors; retained editors) were not recorded by most organizations. But over 9000 people were touched by the programs associated with the activties of the organizations, and Wikidata (a new Wikimedia project developed by Wikimedia Deutschland) saw 3000 new active editors.
Term of Use amended with transparency requirements for paid editing
editThe Wikimedia Foundation published a new amendment to the Terms of Use to address disclosure of paid editing.
Data and Trends
editGlobal unique visitors for May:
- 469 million (+0.7% compared with April; -10.2% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects, not including mobile devices; comScore will release June data later in July)
Page requests for June:
- 20.217 billion (-0.2% compared with May; -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 May 2014 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots):
- 80,131 (+6.5% compared with April / -1.9% compared with the previous year)
- (Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects.)
Report Card (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects):
Financials
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(Financial information is only available through May 2014 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date May 31, 2014.
| Revenue | 49,972,461 |
|---|---|
| Expenses: | |
| Engineering Group | 15,308,224 |
| Fundraising Group | 3,392,468 |
| Grantmaking Group | 1,696,721 |
| Programs Group | 1,630,409 |
| Grants | 4,104,348 |
| Governance Group | 909,083 |
| Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group | 4,066,924 |
| Finance/HR/Admin Group | 6,109,383 |
| Total Expenses | 37,217,560 |
| Total surplus | (12,754,901) |
| in US dollars |
- Revenue for the month of May is $0.78MM versus plan of $1.67MM, approximately $0.89MM or 54% under plan.
- Year-to-date revenue is $49.97MM versus plan of $48.40MM, approximately $1.57MM or 3% over plan.
- Expenses for the month of May is $3.71MM versus plan of $4.49MM, approximately $0.78MM or 17% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, and FDC grants partially offset by higher legal fees, outside contract services, and travel expenses related to community convening events.
- Year-to-date expenses is $37.22MM versus plan of $45.55MM, approximately $8.33MM or 18% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, payment processing fees, staff development expenses, grants and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal fees and outside contract services.
- Cash and Investments - $53.13MM as of May 31, 2014.
Other highlights from the Wikimedia movement
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Israel’s Ministry of Education and Wikimedia Israel agree on initiative to integrate Wikipedia in schools
editThe Israeli Wikimedia chapter announced a agreement with the country's education ministry to support the integration of Wikipedia into the ministry's school curricula in the coming years. Through the planned cooperation, history, geography and science teachers will receive special professional training to instruct students on how to contribute to new or incomplete Wikipedia articles for which information is lacking or inadequate.
Wiki Indaba: Africa's first regional conference of Wikimedians
editDuring three days in June, more than 35 Wikimedians came together in Johannesburg for the first ever Wiki Indaba Regional Conference. All four regions of Africa were represented by at least one country, with West Africa having the lion’s share.
US National Archives announces plans to upload all of its holdings to Wikimedia Commons
editThe US National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) announced plans to upload all of its holdings to Commons. NARA hired a Wikimedian-in-Residence in 2011 and had already uploaded over 100,000 images to Commons since then.