Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Oesterreich/November2013

Vienna office

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As the subsequent paragraphs show, November was a busy month for WMAT. Besides preparing our annual assembly and a first draft of the annual report, we also organized the WLM award ceremony and 5 year anniversary party, answered all the questions on our FDC proposal and commented on the FDC staff assessment as well as facilitated the external and internal assessment of our accounting.

Wiki Loves Monuments Award Ceremony and WMAT birthday party

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Our birthdaycake at the award ceremony

On November 14th there were two mayor WMAT-events taking place: First we had our annual Wiki Loves Monuments Award Ceremony held at the premises of the Federal Monuments Office at Vienna Hofburg. Every year this is the moment to award the winners of Austrias national WLM competition and give them their official certificates and awards. This year the Federal Monuments office, our partner for WLM, invited Willi Gaballier, a celebrity who wrote a master's thesis about monument conservation, to commit the awards.

The second event taking place on the same day was the birthday party of Wikimedia Österreich. The association was founded in 2008 and was therefore getting 5 years old in 2013. We shared our birthdaycake with the attendees of the WLM Award ceremony first and then moved with our members to Siebensternbräu, a restaurant right next to our office, where the founding assembly of Wikimedia Österreich took place at May 2nd, 2008. There we celebrated our fifth birthday with some of our community-members and other interested Wikipedians.

Please find more pictures of our 2013 WMAT Award Ceremony at Category:Images from Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Austria award ceremony

WMAT general assembly

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This year, the annual general assembly of Wikimedia Österreich was held in the state capital of Lower Austria, St. Pölten, on November 17th. With only one exception the whole board of WMAT was present in St. Pölten and open for questions and discussions with the members. In addition some non-members attended our general meeting to get in touch with the association and its board and staff, which led to a total of 20 people attending our general assembly this year.

The assembly was one of the most constructive and successful in the history of WMAT. For the first time WMAT had an internal and an external audit - both were conducted successfully. The internal auditor made some suggestions for improvements, especially concerning the documentation of travel expense accounting and freelancer contracts, which will be implemented next year. The board as well as community representatives from different factions also praised the work of the staff during the last year and it's positive effects on their work. This proves that WMAT is on the right track concerning it's goal to be a reliable service provider for the community. Apart from recalling the last year, we also discussed next years budget and program planning and collected stimuli and ideas from the community. Some of the central points of our discussions regarded upcomming projects and events for next year like Wiki Loves Earth. Two Wikipedians additionally presented their idea of a regional wiki. The association members also elected their member for the Good Governance committee, which comprises one member of the board, one of the staff and one of the members. The assembly also welcomed and formally approved the Codex itself. The committee is now able to start it's work pursuant to the Good Governance Codex in case it is needed.

More information:

Wikipedia meets University

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During the last months WMAT established good contacts to the University of Vienna. In order to get to know each other better and to explore possiblities for further cooperation on a broader basis it was decided to plan an event for all stakeholders in March 2014. Under the slogan "Wikipedia meets University" the event aims to bring together students, uni staff and Wikipedians in order to discuss common goals as well as differing views. Currently we plan a combination of talks, a panel discussions and interactive group discussion (e.g. world cafe). For WMAT the aim of the event is to introWikipedia and how it works behind the scenes, to communicate dos and don'ts around Wikipedia in academic life and to win some new volunteers among students and university staff. For WMAT's plans to establish expert networks as consultants for Wikipedia authors on certain topics (e.g. WW I), this event is a good ice breaker and starting point. You may find more inforamtion here (in German).

WikiCon 2013 in Karlsruhe

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Puzzeling at the WLM award ceremony during the WikiCon 2013

The WikiConvention is the annual meet-up of the german-language Wikipedians. After having the WikiCon 2012 in Austria, the event this year took place in southern Germany from November 22nd to 24th. Karlsruhe is a city in the west of the german state of Baden-Württemberg, lying at the border of Germany and France and circa 592 kilometers (air-line distance) away from Vienna. Nonetheless Wikimedia Österreich decided not only to support the event financially, but also to organise a ride sharing from Vienna to Karlsruhe for Austrian Wikipedians. Additionally the association came up for travel costs for Austrian Wikipedians travelling to Karlsruhe individually.

In Karlsruhe the Austrian participants of the WikiCon 2013 not only attendet various talks and presentations but also held some of them by their own. Four presentations were held by our Austrian Wikipedians, most of them regarding Wiki Loves Monuments, our Austrian experiences with the contest and the further development in the next years. Also the regiowiki.at of User:Hubertl and User:Karl Gruber was topic of one talk.

As every year the WikiCon was a great opportunity to get personally in touch with all the Wikipedians one is working with around the year in Wikipedia. Additionally at saturday evening the german collegues organised their WLM award ceremony at the WikiCon, where WMAT got the chance to present our WLM-finalists too.

Find photographies and presentation documents of the WikiCon 2013 on Commons: Category:WikiCon 2013; You might also want to read our report in German language at our mebers wiki.