Wikimedia Highlights, May 2013/cy
Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for May 2013, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
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The Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising team published a report from the 2012-2013 fundraiser. The report reviews the evolution of banner design and includes data about the 2012 year-end English campaign and the 2013 multilingual campaign, which raised a total $35 million USD from over 2 million donors.
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The Legal and Community Advocacy (LCA) team published a statement on trademark practices, which requests community feedback on the Wikimedia trademark policy, procedure, and other questions. The objective is to balance the interest in licensing the brand for mission-aligned activities, with the necessity of preventing misuse and "naked licensing" (licensing without quality control). This is the opportunity to provide ideas as the team considers updating the trademark policy and practices.
Wikipedia Zero launches in Pakistan
Wikipedia Zero, the program to give people around the world mobile access to Wikipedia free of data charges, is now available in Pakistan, in partnership with Mobilink (Vimpelcom). The company's user base of over 32 million people makes this the second largest Wikipedia Zero launch to date.
"Nearby" feature shows Wikipedia articles in the reader's vicinity
On location-aware devices (such as smartphones with GPS), a new "Nearby" page lists articles close to the reader's current location. The feature is designed for mobile devices, but also works on the desktop version of Wikipedia.
New hosting environment for community-developed tools
The Tool Labs, an environment for community developers to provide external software tools supporting work on Wikimedia projects, is now operating. With the support of the German Wikimedia chapter, many existing tools have already migrated from the Wikimedia Toolserver to Tools Labs.
Search for new Executive Director begins
The job opening for the Wikimedia Foundation's new Executive Director has been posted. This starts the search for a successor for Sue Gardner, who will step down later this year. Board of Trustees chair Kat Walsh asked Wikimedians for help in finding the best possible candidate, by spreading the news in their networks.
Data and Trends
Global unique visitors for April:
- 517 million (-0.17% compared with March; +9.16% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects; comScore will release May data later in June)
Page requests for May:
- 21.0 billion (+0.8% compared with April; 16.5% compared with the previous year)
- (Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects including mobile access)
Active Registered Editors for April 2013 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots):
- 82,553 (+0.86% compared with March / +4.38% compared with the previous year)
- (Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects.)
Report Card (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects):
Financials
 Wikimedia Foundation YTD Revenue and Expenses vs Plan as of April 30, 2013 |
 Wikimedia Foundation YTD Expenses by Functions as of April 30, 2013 |
(Financial information is only available through April 2013 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date April 30, 2013.
Revenue |
$50,441,664 |
|---|---|
Expenses: | |
Engineering Group |
$11,909,113 |
Fundraiser Group |
$3,085,352 |
Grantmaking & Programs Group |
$7,894,416 |
Governance Group |
$630,123 |
Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group |
$2,560,446 |
Finance/HR/Admin Group |
$4,757,347 |
Total Expenses |
$30,836,797 |
Total surplus |
$19,604,867 |
- Revenue for the month of April is $8.87MM versus plan of $9.78MM, approximately $908K or 9% under plan.
- Year-to-date revenue is $50.44MM versus plan of $45.52MM, approximately $4.92MM or 11% over plan.
- Expenses for the month of April is $5.78MM versus plan of $4.10MM, approximately $1.68MM or 41% over plan, primarily due to higher grant expenses (timing of FDC grants), legal fees, and personal property tax expenses partially offset by lower personnel expenses, internet hosting, and bank fees.
- Year-to-date expenses is $30.84MM versus plan of $34.07MM, approximately $3.24MM or 9% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal expenses, bank fees, outside contract services, and personal property tax expenses.
- Cash position is $45.6MM as of April 30, 2013.
Other movement highlights
More than 11,000 nature photos in Ukrainian "Wiki loves Earth" contest
Wiki Loves Earth is a new contest about taking photos of national nature heritage sites in the Ukraine, organized by the country's Wikimedia chapter. During one month, 365 participants uploaded more than 11 000 images to Wikimedia Commons, depicting more than 1000 of these sites (from a list of 7000). A jury selected the 12 best photos, receiving awards in a ceremony in Kiev on World Environment Day (June 5).
Hackathons in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv
149 participants from 31 countries attended the Amsterdam hackathon in late May, the annual largest meet-up of the Wikimedia development community (which had been held in Berlin in previous years). Also in May, Wikimedia Israel held its first hackathon in Tel Aviv, attended by about 30 people. Several of them made their first steps as Wikimedia developers at this event.
Railway photo expedition in Poland
In collaboration with the Polish State Railways, the Polish Wikimedia chapter is organizing photo expeditions to document railway sites this summer. The activity is open to international Wikimedians, who will form small teams with Polish-speaking leaders to explore the train infrastructure in different parts of Poland. Participants will be equipped with free train tickets and special passes that allow them to enter and photograph objects which are normally not accessible to the public.
Online course about editing Wikipedia articles
The Peer to Peer University (P2PU) is a nonprofit online learning community which recently launched its "School of Open", in coordination with Creative Commons. As part of the School of Open, a six-week course titled "Writing Wikipedia articles" is offered. Its second run began in May, with more than 60 students enrolling.