Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Serbia/2012

This is Wikimedia Serbia activity report for the year 2012.

January

Meetings

There were three meetings during January which featured members of Wikimedia Serbia and activists from Wikipedia in Serbian language. Beside standard discussions, the main focus was on Free Knowledge for Free People event, Financial meeting in Paris and Open Wiki GLAM conference (more information follows).

Free Knowledge for Free People

Thanks to the grant for capacity building, Wikimedia Serbia formed an organizational team and started preparing for the first out of six events planned. In order to build capacities of Wikimedia Serbia, we found organizers outside Wikimedia, with previous experiences in the event management, willing to join the organization. Organizational team consists of Duška Rajković and Marko Stefanović, with Miloš Rančić as logistical backup. Adequate space has been chosen and technical preparations have been made.

Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia conference

By using the existing database of state institutions, we created a list of GLAM invitees for the upcoming conference. The organizational team made personal invitations for every invitee and sent them during the middle of the month. Registration for media and GLAM institutions started at the beginning of the month and event program was available to all participants. Press release and public invitations for participation in the GLAM conference were sent to all media. Our volunteers worked hard on translations and adaptations of content on the GLAM site. The grant application deadline for covering conference participation expenses was January 20. Our team reviewed all applications and decided to support Noopur Raval and Kiril Simenovski.

Financial meeting

Wikimedia Serbia supported the financial meeting held by Wikimedia France and delegated its representative. Because of the financial limitations, our only representative was Filip M. Preparations for this meeting started in January.

Financial report

Wikimedia Serbia entrusted the task of making the annual financial report for 2011 to Astra accounting agency. The annual financial report consisting of Balance sheet, Income statement and Statistical annex was created in line with the applicable laws of Republic of Serbia. The report is available at http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Датотека:Finansijski_izvestaj_2011.pdf.

Statement of solidarity with Wikipedians active on Wikipedia in english language

Wikimedia Serbia has taken a position of support towards Wikipedians working on Wikipedia in English language in their protest against SOPA and PIPA regulations. Our statement is avalable at http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Став_1/2012.

February

Live meetups

During February two live meetups were organized. Beside that, Wikimedians had an opportunity for meeting and socialization during Open GLAM conference, internal meeting, and Free Knowledge multimedia event.

Board meeting

The first expanded meeting of Board members and the Secretariat was held on February 7. During three hours meeting, the main discussion was focused on reorganization and current internal obligations and on reporting their current situation. WMRS Board adopted a proposal to hold meetings monthly, every first Wednesday and possibly more than once a month if that was necessary or at the request of Board members.

During the regular monthly meeting, beside regular internal matter, Board discussed opinions regarding Chapters Council. Board decided to support the forming of the Chapters Council, and to support the KISS model with elements of model B for which there are capacities (e. g. paid Executive Board). Board also concluded that chapter delegates must not be in dependent relation with Wikimedia Foundation, but may be chapter board members or chapter staff. Board gave Nikola Smolenski the authority to represent Wikimedia Serbia in discussions regarding Chapters Council at the Chapter Conference 2012. The resolution was published on: http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Одлуке_Управног_одбора

Bank account change

On February 3, Wikimedia Serbia officially stopped using services of Alpha Bank, and switched to Bank Intesa. Accounts in Bank Intesa thus became primary, and after closing the Alpha Bank accounts the only accounts of Wikimedia Serbia. WMRS now accepts RSD payments on account 160-361757-38, and foreign currency payments on account 00-540-0000021.6

8th regular assembly

President Ivan Nador announced the regular assembly of Wikimedia Serbia. On assembly, members accepted the minutes of the previous assembly and formally accepted new members of WMRS. Financial report for business 2011 was also accepted. Present members unanimously selected Filip Maljković as the assembly secretary. More about 8th regular assembly here: http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Осма_редовна_седница_Скупштине

Meeting with Mathematical Institute of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts

Meeting with Museum of City of Belgrade

WMRS Board member, Miloš Rančić, had informal talks with staff of Museum of City of Belgrade, and on that occasion he presented the concept of WMRS activity and Wikimedia projects in order to accomplish cooperation on future projects. Museum expressed a desire to cooperate with WMRS. Both parties agreed that another meeting with concrete ideas is needed.

Web 2.0

Youth Center CK13 organized public debate about the websites for sharing free information and content. As part of program, the audience had the opportunity to watch film The Truth According To Wikipedia. After film, WMRS representative Mile Kiš held a two-hour discussion about Wikimedia Serbia and Wikimedia projects. He also gave an interview to local TV stations.

Financial meeting in Paris

At the Financial meeting in Paris held from February 17 to 19, WMRS representative was Filip Maljković. Along with WMRS, the meeting was attended by representatives of 17 chapters and representatives of WMF. After returning from Paris, Filip submitted a detailed report to the WMRS Board.

GLAM Conference

With the support of Register of National Internet Domain of Serbia, Wikimedia Foundation, Youth Center of Belgrade and EUnet, Wikimedia Serbia organized the first WIKI GLAM conference in Serbia named Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia. The event gathered around 80 representatives of GLAM institutions and University. Conference program consisted of 6 parts. More about the GLAM conference here:

Internal GLAM Meeting

Wikimedia Serbia and its GLAM team organized an internal meeting with Wikimedia GLAM representatives from India, Italy, Hungary, Macedonia, France and Czech Republic. The idea was to share impressions about the Serbian GLAM conference, and about opportunities for cooperation, sharing of information and experiences. The meeting was held in the offices of Serbian ISP EUnet. More about this meeting here: http://glam.wikimedia.rs/index.php?title=GLAM/Newsletter/OWGSConf2012/Састанак (SR) or The Internal meeting (EN)

Free Knowledge for Free People I

First of the six planned events for WMRS capacity building was held on February 24th, 2012. Around a hundred of guests gathered at the REX cultural center. The idea for the first part of the program was to inform the guests about Wikimedia and free knowledge. Two short films were shown, La Sierra and La Selva, as well as the Truth in Numbers trailer. After this, speakers of WMRS and Razmena veština (Skill Share) addressed the guests.

Protest against ACTA

After the Internal GLAM meeting, WMRS members and Wikipedia editors unofficially participated in the protests against ACTA in Belgrade.

Lecture at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade

At the invitation of a Faculty professor, Dragan Satarić held an introductory lecture about Wikimedia and Wikipedia for the students of the third year attending the Internet business course. During the lecture, students were informed about the principles of both Wikipedia and Wikimedia Serbia. Dragan and the teacher's assistant explored the possibility of including students in the project of writing term papers on Wikipedia, and further consultation regarding this idea was agreed on.

Creative Commons

At the beginning of the month, Wikimedia Serbia, as the only "host-organization" of Creative Commons Serbia project registered the creativecommons.org.rs domain. Wikimedia Serbia intends to make further efforts in order to enrich this website with new information about spreading Creative Commons culture in Serbia.

March

Planning for July 2012-2013

WMRS members started proposing their projects for inclusion in the WMRS Annual activity plan for period between July 2012 and July 2013. Board meeting: WMRS board meeting was held on March 7, where we prepared for the Assembly session, and discussed about the Chapters council and politics that were to be approved.

CEE meeting

Local members of CEE organisational team have successfully finished negotiating with local institutions for the support for CEE meeting planned for October 2012, having secured meeting rooms and conference space, equipment and technical staff. Negotiations for a discount with the catering provider have also been started. Likewise, team members have made additional effort to secure discounts for lodgings for CEE conference participants.

Ninth Assembly session

The ninth Assembly session of WMRS was suggested by the president, Ivan Nador, over the internal mailing list, and it took place on March 25, 2012. At the assembly new president, board and vice-presidents were elected. Assembly members have discussed and adopted changes to the Bylaws, Rules of Assembly Procedure and application form. Assembly has disbanded the Regional Board for South Serbia as it didn’t show any activity in the previous period.

Minutes from the Assembly are available at http://rs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Девета_ванредна_седница_Скупштине (in Serbian)

Bylaws: https://rs.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bylaws&oldid=1482

New members of the Board: At the ninth session of Assembly of Wikimedia Serbia, WMRS members have selected new board members. Decision is as follows: new board members are Goran Obradović, Duška Rajković, Đorđe Stakić, Ivan Matejić, Marko Milosavljević, Milan Stojanović, Miloš Rančić, Nevenka Antić, Nikola Smolenski, Filip Maljković. With this decision coming into force, Ana Mladenović and Ivan Nador stopped being board members.

Vice presidents of WMRS: At the ninth assembly session of Wikimedia Serbia, members have elected the following persons as vice-presidents: Ana Mladenović, Bojan Kalkan, Dragan Satarić, Ivan Nador, Đorđe Stakić, Jovan Vuković, Marko Milosavljević, Milan Stojanović, Miloš Trajković, Nevenka Antić, Nikola Smolenski, Slobodan Kašterović and Filip Maljković. With this decision coming into force, mandates of vice presidents that didn’t get a new mandate by this decision have been terminated.

Easter Fair

Acting on behalf of Wikimedia Serbia, Ivan Nador has taken part in the lecture titled “New life of Serbian lexicography” (sr: “Novi život srpske leksikografije”) at the Easter Fair. That lecture presented Wikipedia and “Serbian Encyclopedia” (sr: “Srpska enciklopedija”).

Berlin Meeting

At the Chapters Meeting in Berlin, Wikimedia Serbia was represented by Nikola Smolenski and Mile Kiš. WMRS was presented with a four minute long presentation (video is available on the Wikimedia Philippines Youtube channel). Mile and Nikola also took part in the conference program, representing views of Wikimedia Serbia, and Nikola was also the authorized WMRS representative in the part of the program concerning Chapters Council.

GLAM

Šumatovačka

Center for art education Šumatovačka has contacted WMRS to arrange a meeting about possible GLAM cooperation between the Center and WMRS. The call came after the successful Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia conference. The center has presented a project for a digital archive of its heritage and was interested to know more about WIKI GLAM models of cooperation.

Donation of photographs of Mira Alečković

WMRS member and Wikipedia user going under nickname Jagoda has made contact with journalist Srđa Nikolić, the son and heir of Serbian author Mira Alečković that resulted in the donation of 30 images to Wikimedia Commons, enriching it for an entire gallery of images which were put to use on several projects.

Seminar on Computer science and Applied Mathematics

WMRS members Dragan Satarić and Nevenka Antić participated at the Seminar on Computer science and Applied Mathematics organized by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts by holding a lecture titled “Digitalization and Knowledge Society”

Media appearances

March 12: Interview with Miloš Rančić titled “Fight against censorship on the Internet” was published on B92.net website

Wiki student

Project of writing Wikipedia articles was started at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences. The writing period was between March and May and the project included three events with Wikimedia Serbia volunteers (lectures and workshops, where students had the opportunity to edit Wikipedia on the spot) at the faculty, all of which were in March.

Academy board

Following the recommendation from the meeting of the Board, several member of WMRS have created the Academy board as a body in charge of executing and coordinating educational programs. Academy board was later approved by WMRS Board on April 14.

April

Board activities

Board held two meetings in April: one on 4th and again on 25th. On April 4 meeting, WMRS board has started working on the Annual plan/grant for the next year; it has also approved the following documents:

Privacy Policy, which explains personal data collection and processing through regular activities of the organization
Staff Policy, which explains ways and principles of hiring professionals of various professions for providing professional services
Organization’s Finance Policy
Work and Development Strategy 2012-2014

Free Knowledge for Free People

Second party in the Free Knowledge for Free People series, which had a goal of promoting Wikimedia Serbia and Wikimedia projects, took place on April 7 in REX Cultural Center. During the party the film “Truth in Numbers” was shown, and attendance was around 70 people.

Wiki high schooler

Project Wiki high schooler was started in April at the Seventh Belgrade Gymnasium (sr: Sedma beogradska gimnazija). The goal of the project was getting high school students acquainted with Wikipedia through writing Wikipedia articles. Introductory lecture was held on April 19, and on April 23 a workshop was held in the computer science laboratory, where students had an opportunity to get some first hand experience in Wikipedia work. This project is the first of its kind in high schools and marks the beginning of cooperation between Wikimedia Serbia and high school education in Serbia.

ISOC

Wikimedia Serbia has decided to support the friendly organisation ISOC Serbia (sr: ISOC Srbija) in that organization's grant application with its parent organisation ISOC with an in-kind donation in space for meetings and work done by members of Wikimedia Serbia. The work would consist of conducting a survey among members of Serbian Parliament about using online tools in communication with citizens with a focus on raising awareness about Internet freedoms and influence of Internet on the process of democratisation.

Media Board

The Media Board of Wikimedia Serbia was established with five members, and Sanja Pavlović was elected as its president. Plan of activities was made, which consists of getting members of the board familiar with the Strategy and activities of Wikimedia.

Academy Board

Based on a recommendation from the board meeting, several WMRS members created an Academy Board, a body tasked with conducting and coordinating educational programs. The Academy Board was subsequently approved by WMRS board on April 14.

GLAM:Ljiljana Pekić

In april, we contacted the wife of the Serbian author Borislav Pekić, Ljiljana Pekić, who decided to select some photos of her late husband from her personal archives and release them. The photos were then uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Mrs Pekić also helped us to initiate the cooperation with the Serbian Post, who released a collection of postage stamps titled "Great men of Serbian literature", which was also uploaded to Commons.

May

Wiki high schooler

The second and final workshop was held on May 7 for the students of the Seventh Belgrade Gymnasium. This workshop prepared students to write their seminal papers, i.e. Wikipedia articles.

Media Board

Members of the Media Board had meetings with the board member Filip Maljković and Mile Kiš. Subjects of those meetings included editing Wikinews and getting familiar with the structure of the organization and its communication strategy.

Board activities

On May 13, Wikimedia Serbia board approved the Conflict of Interest Policy. The board held a meeting on May 22, discussing mostly current issues and ongoing projects.

Wiki student

Project of writing Wikipedia articles was started at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in February and lasted until June. The first lecture about using and editing Wikipedia by WMRS members was held in February, whereas the second one was held on May 7.

June

Free Knowledge for Free People

The third party in the Free Knowledge for Free People series was held on June 8 at GRAD European Centre for Culture and Debate (also known as KC GRAD). This party had most attendees until now (around 150 people). Short films “La Selva” and “La Sierra” were shown at the party, and the special guest was Josh Lim from Wikimedia Philippines.

Wikipedia Academy

Wikipedia Academy, organized by Wikimedia Germany, was held between June 29 and July 1. Đorđe Stakić, WMRS board member, attended the conference and gave a presentation on Saturday, June 30.

Seminal papers

A project of writing seminal papers in Petnica science research center was started in June. Miloš Rančić and Sanja Pavlović gave a lecture on June 14, after which students started creating articles on Wikipedia. This was the first case of cooperation with a science center in Serbia.

Nea Pangea

In June we started cooperation with the Nea Pangea cultural center. We had several meeting laying grounds for further cooperation on various projects.

Board activites

Wikimedia Serbia board held a meeting on June 12, where several small changes to the recently approved politics were approved. The strategy of work and development of WMRS and the Annual grant were also discussed.

July

Belgrade Aviation Museum

In July we started a cooperation with the Belgrade Aviation Museum which resulted in a large number of photographs and articles about Serbian aircraft.

August

Wiki Loves Monuments

We started preparations for the Wiki Loves Monuments photo competition. We selected Tamara Petrović as the organizer, and did extensive work in preparing the monument database and setting up a website, which can be found at http://wlm.rs.

Board activities

A meeting of the WMRS board was held on August 29, where the Annual grant and the upcoming GLAM camp were the main topics. The board completed its Annual plan during the month of August and has also actively worked on the Annual grant application for GAC.

September

Wiki Loves Monuments

Wiki Loves Monuments competition was held in September. Nearly 4000 photographs from about 150 uploaders were collected in Serbia.

Promotion of free knowledge

At the Belgrade Youth Office (sr: Kancelarija za mlade grada Beograda) we had a project “Promotion of free knowledge” (sr: “Širenje slobodnog znanja”). The goal of the project was the promotion of Wikipedia to a wider audience. The project consisted of three workshops which were held on 3 days at the beginning of September. Ivan Matejić, Đorđe Stakić and Filip Maljković took part in the workshops, at which visitors, after short introductory lecture, had a chance to try out editing Wikipedia.

GLAM camp

GLAM camp was held in London between September 14 and 16. Tamara Petrović and Ivan Matejić participated as representatives of WMRS. CEE conference: During September we continued with the preparations for CEE conference, the goal of which was to gather representatives from Central and Eastern Europe. We started devising conference program, opened registration and executed logistic preparations.

October

Press conference

On October 12 we held a press conference at the Belgrade Youth Center (sr: Dom omladine Beograda) announcing CEE conference and opening of the Belgrade office of Wikimedia Serbia.

CEE conference

CEE conference was held on October 13 and 14 in the Belgrade Youth Center. In attendance were around 50 representatives from most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Also in attendance were representatives of WMUK and Asaf Bartov as a WMF representative.

Media appearances

October 1: Interview with Mile Kiš, Nikola Smolenski and Goran Obradović was published in the magazine “World of Computers” (sr. Svet kompjutera)
October 13: Goran Obradović and Asaf Bartov gave an interview for newspaper “Politika”
October 16: Filip Maljković appeared as a guest in the radio show “Digital icons” (sr: Digitalne ikone”) on Radio Belgrade 2
October 17: Goran Obradović and Filip Maljković appeared as guests in the TV show “Biljana for you” (sr: “Biljana za vas”) on TV Avala

Lectures

On October 25, members of WMRS held two lectures:

Free Internet content as teaching resource

Dragan Satarić gave a lecture “Free Internet content as teaching resource” (sr: Slobodni internet sadržaji kao edukacioni resurs) at “ICTeachers - teachers that set the standards” (sr: ICTeachers - nastavnici koji postavljaju standarde) conference held in Palace of Serbia (sr: Palata Srbije),

Creative Commons

Nevenka Antić gave a lecture titled “Open digital Creative Commons standardization and scientific interaction - problems, trends, solutions” (sr: “Otvorena digitalna Creative Commons standardizacija i naučna interakcija - problemi, tendencije, rešenja”) at the conference “Open Access Week 2012” in the University library "Svetozar Marković".

Opening of the office

We made preparations for opening of the Wikimedia Serbia office, which was planned for the beginning of November. Activities included searching for office space in the center of Belgrade. After detailed research, we decided to take the apartment which is currently used as the office, and we signed a contract with the apartment owner.

November

First employee and office

In November Wikimedia Serbia hired its first employee - Mile Kiš was hired for the following twelve months, being a WMRS Secretary General. He will work from newly opened office of Wikimedia Serbia in the center of Belgrade, which was ceremonially opened with a party on November 10.

Wikimedia Serbia Blog

On November 25 Wikimedia Serbia launched its blog with the goal of improving communication with the community members and relaying global Wikimedia news to the Serbian language speakers.

Wikimedia Serbia Library

Within our office, on November 27, we opened the Library of Wikimedia Serbia. The goal of the library is to collect books and other media, with three main purposes: archival of material published by Wikimedia Serbia and other Wikimedia organizations; collection of material that could be used on Wikimedia projects; and collection of material that can be digitalized. The library collection is available to all visitors for use within the office.

Wiki Loves Monuments

In November, we announced the results and information of the following exhibition of the winning photographs in the press. Design was done for the exhibition, T-shirts and certificates for the winners, jury and sponsors and design for the layout of the winning photographs for printing. On November 20, exhibition of the winning photographs was held in the "Nea Pangea" Cultural Centre in Belgrade in the form of a cocktail party, with approximately a hundred people in attendance. The exhibition lasted for four days.

On November 27, Tamara Petrović appeared on TV Kopernikus where she spoke about Wiki Loves Monuments project.

December

Blog

First post on the blog was published on December 7, and by the end of December, 3 more posts were published.

GLAM

Wikimedia Serbia signed a cooperation agreement with the Museum of Aviation in Belgrade at the end of August 2012. By the end of December, there were 35 new articles on Serbian Wikipedia related to this project, as well as seven new templates. The museum also donated 88 photos, that were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Read Wikipedia

The representatives of Wikimedia Serbia were in Novi Sad, in a visit to the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, and company “Alfanum”, that is developing Serbian language speech synthesis software. At the meeting, we were acquainted with the technical details of the software and we obtained access to Alfanum's server. Thus, Wikimedia Serbia now has free access to their otherwise commercial software.

We have carried out initial server tests and made a preliminary selection of articles, that will be submitted to the software. The criteria for choosing articles included their quality and length, and they were predominantly selected from the list of good and featured articles.

Creative Commons

Wiki Loves Science

The project Wiki Loves Science was started for the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Creative Commons and the 5th anniversary of Creative Commons in Serbia. As a part of this project, a panel called “Open Standards in Science” was held on December 13 at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade. The participants of the panel included representatives from Wikimedia Serbia, Creative Commons Serbia, Faculty of Mathemathics and other professors and docents. The focus of the panel was the development of the initiative for implementing innovative open judicial models for the scientific interaction in accordance with the European and global legal standards.

Beside the panel, a mini photo gallery was created, which contains images obtained from the Faculties of Chemistry and Mathematics, University of Belgrade, as well as from the University Library “Svetozar Marković”.

The project was presented in the gallery of the Youth center of Belgrade. The program included the projection of obtained images, presentation of the first sound Creative Commons sculpture and playing Creative Commons music from the first Creative Commons CD in Europe.

Lecture about Creative Commons licenses

On December 8, a lecture titled “Intellectual property and Internet” regarding Creative Commons licenses was held in Hacklab in Belgrade.

Wikiexpedition

On December 14th, three-person team from Wikimedia Serbia organized a pilot Wikiexpedition tour. The team visited the villages of Dobanovci, Šimanovci, Pećinci, Dobrinci and Kraljevci, as well as the town of Ruma, were it has taken over 200 photos, of which 162 were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wiki_Expedition_Serbia_01).

In cooperation with the Homeland Association of Ruma, a lecture about Wikimedia and Wikipedia was held in Ruma, with demonstration about editing Wikipedia. The lecture was held in the town library.

Academy Board

The Strategy of the Wikimedia Serbia Academy Board was approved in December 2012. It defines the target groups, goals, methods of work and cooperation with educational institutions, as well as tasks and responsibilities of its members. After Strategy, Academy Board has also approved its Workplan for the period 2012-2013 and its official logo.

On December 4, workshops were held for students in Seventh Belgrade Gymnasium and Third Belgrade Gymnasium, and on December 8 in Seventh Belgrade Gymnasium. Contact was made with professors at Mladenovac Gymnasium

Members of this Board also actively participated in organization of "Open Standards in Science" panel. Dragan Satarić acted as a moderator of the event and Đorđe Stakić held a presentation.

1001 Arabic Words

In December we started preparation for "1001 Arabic Words" project.

Lecture in CK13 in Novi Sad

On December 23 members of Wikimedia Serbia Tamara Petrović, Mile Kiš and Filip Maljković gave a lecture at Youth Center CK 13 (sr) in Novi Sad, where they presented (sr) several projects of WM RS and held a workshop where they showed interested attendees how to edit Wikimedia projects.