Relazione sulle attività 2019/en

This is an English translation of Relazione sulle attività 2019 ,
it may be not updated or may be different from the original

Introduction

Wikimedia Italia – Associazione per la diffusione della conoscenza libera (hereinafter referred to as Wikimedia Italia or WMIT) was founded on 17th June 2005 in Canino (Italy). WMI is a non-party, non-political, non-profit association that actively contributes to the diffusion, the improvement and the development of knowledge and culture throughout the world.

Wikimedia Italia and its social purpose

Wikimedia Italia is the national chapter recognized by Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit American organisation that provides the essential infrastructure for Wikipedia, the online multilingual free-content encyclopaedia cooperatively written by volunteers. In particular, Wikimedia Foundation hosts in its servers Wikipedia in all its languages and many other projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.

Wikimedia Italia works alongside Wikimedia Foundation but does not legally represent Wikimedia Foundation nor Wikipedia in Italy. Wikimedia Italia is entitled to use Wikimedia brands and logo exclusively for its institutional activities. Similarly, since 2016, Wikimedia Italia acts as national chapter for the OpenStreetMap Foundation but remains independent from it.

Wikimedia Italia aims to spread out the philosophy that inspires all the Wikimedia projects and OpenStreetMap; the members of the association contribute to the projects or share their underlying values. Being part of this association facilitates to share ideas and experiences with people from all over the world and allows to be directly involved in the development of the Wikimedia movement and its objectives.

The activities carried out on Wikipedia by the members of Wikimedia Italia are purely personal; the association has no responsibility and does not give guidelines or advices on this.

Wikimedia Italia members

The annual membership fee to join Wikimedia Italia is 25 € and it never changed since the foundation; there is also the possibility to subscribe for 15€ if the member is less than 25 years old. During the general assembly of the 23 June 2019, was ratify the possibility to became a member also for underages (without the entitlement to vote). On the day of the foundation it was counting 18 members, at the 31 December of 2019 there were 367.

• New (from January to December 2019): 72
• Decayed: 123
• Avarage age: 47 years old
• Youngest member: 14 years old
• Oldest member: 87 years old
• Gender:
  • Women: 80
  • Men: 287
• Region of residency:

1. Lombardia 83
2. Veneto 39
3. Emilia Romagna 39
4. Toscana 36
5. Lazio 36
6. Piemonte 25

All the other regions have less than 20 members, while 8 live abroad.

Coordinators

Some members coordinate voluntarily the activities by geographical region or thematic area to improve and keep going local initiatives.

In the 2019 were nominated by the Board 24 local and thematic coordinators. With the purpose to compare and know each others better, on the 16 of February it took place a meeting in Milano were there been 13 coordinators, 3 members of the staff e 1 Board member plus Valentina Erba, an extern adviser to teach how to do a local fundrising.

Staff

During the year worked for the association Francesca Lissoni (administration and fundraising, on maternity leave for part of the year), Laura Leopardi (fundraising, replacement for Francesca Lissoni during maternity leave), Francesca Ussani (communications), Giorgia Masiello (office manager, internship), Giovanna Ranci (project manager education), Marta Arosio (project manager GLAM, on maternity leave for part of the year), Daniele Saibene (project manager GLAM, replacement for Marta Arosio during maternity leave) and Marco Chemello (Wikipedian in residence).

At the end of the year the partnerships with Università Cattolica Università degli Studi di Milano, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca and Università degli Studi di Bergamo were renewed with the aim of starting again to host trainees to support with all the projects, in particular Wiki Loves Monuments.

Activity

GLAM

Cultural institutions

The participants of the Summer school 2020

The Summer School is the main novelty for what concern I progetti Wikimedia per le istituzioni culturali. The program was developed with the participation of Museo Leonardo Da Vinci di Milano and with Biblioteca Europea di Informazione e Cultura. It took place from the 9th to the 13th of September in the Milano’s Headquarter. (see images and presentation).

The 16 available places were entirely took by people who work in libraries, museums, archives furthermore the relations developed during this occasion started brand new projects.

About this is worth mentioning the collaboration with Musei Civici di Modena, Archivio Storico Ricordi and Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. This last one signed an agreement for a Wikipedian in residence in 2020.

Giorgia Masiello at the info-point of Wikimedia Italia during Convegno delle Stelline 2019

Another important partnership is the one with CEI/BCE and LazioInnova, who gave wide opportunities for start new activities in the future. Some other partnerships are finally arrived to the goal:

• Comune di Firenze e la biblioteca delle Oblate,
• Comune di Assisi,
• Festival dell'architettura di Assisi,
• Camera del commercio di Como.

Many others events, concerning education for professionals who are involved in cultural works, were realised by the volunteers of Wikimedia Italia. We must highlight for the numerous activity the members of Toscana, Abruzzo, Campania, Basilicata, Marche, Lombardia and Veneto.

Particularly impressive are the projects named "La Palestra Wikipedia": seven encounters with editing marathons on artistic and historical themes took place in Palazzo Strozzi. It was organised by Susanna Giaccai, Manuela Musco, Stefania Puccini and Silvia Bruni. "Sulle tracce di Vincenzo Bindi" a project based on the graduation thesis by the member Anastasia Nespoli, involved some volunteers of Abruzzo Carla Colombati, Pietro Valocchi, Lorenzo Marconi and the Director of Polo Museale Civico di Giulianova Sirio Pomante in the activity to classify and make accessible to everyone all the cultural heritage of all Abruzzo.

Among all the editathon organised in 2019, stand out the project "Bruciare l'immaginazione", a marathon who took place at the Library of Philosophy of the Università degli studi di Milano with the partnership of Associazione italiana biblioteche, AIPH (Associazione italiana Public History) and the Municipality of Milan in the day of the anniversary of the Opernplatz (the biggest Nazi book burning). Another important meeting was “Donne di pubblico dominio. Un editathon wikipedia dedicato alle figure femminili” with the partnership of Università di Torino, Politecnico di Torino, Fondazione Teatro Nuovo, rete di Biblioteche Civiche Torinesi and the user group WikiDonne.

At last, also this year Wikimedia Italia took part at Convegno Stelline, the most important meeting for the Italian librarians. The association was massively involved during the days concerning the libraries, with an info point and severals speeches of the members like Chiara Storti, Marco Chemello, Luca Martinelli, Claudio Forziati and Giorgio Bevilacqua. Furthermore Wikimedia Italia is now involved as main partner in a new initiative dedicated to schools (see Education).

Quantitative indicators

New projects or organization of institutional activities	15
Events for the cultural sector	39
Live training for cultural institutions	19
Debates open to the public	2
Wikipedians in residence	1
Participants at the summer school	15 (+ 7 members e 2 educators from cultural institutions)
Number of academic internships	4 partnerships (activated in 2020)

Education

In 2019 more than 350 participants (between students and teachers) from circa 16 schools attended to courses of the association for learn and contribute to the project of Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap. Other 1330 participants took part in more than 55 presentations and conferences in schools and by initiative of teachers across all the Italian regions. We have to count also more than 12 universities where expert Wikimedians lecturing more than 180 people between students, researchers and professors.

Partnership with MIUR (Ministry of University and Research)

In July 2019, the MIUR accept the request of Wikimedia Italia to recognise three courses developed to teach to school professors how work the Wikimedia’s projects and OpenStreetMap. The courses are:

• A scuola con Wikipedia: information literacy e scrittura collaborativa (about information literacy and collaborative writing);
• Educazione al patrimonio culturale digitale con i progetti Wikimedia (about the digital cultural Heritage);
• OpenStreetMap: il database geografico collaborativo per la conoscenza del territorio (about OpenStreetMap).

Training for MIUR's teachers organised by Wikimedia Italia at the Liceo Scientifico Statale Galileo Galilei (Potenza)

The courses are composed by 20 hours in total, divided in 12/15 hours in presence and 5/8 hours for the individual contribution to the Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap under the supervision of an educator. At the end of the courses, the participant is able to develop activities for the students based on the Wikimedia projects and connected with the school programs. In this school year, where activated 3 editions for every course for a total of 9 courses in the cities of Verona, Milano and Potenza. The acknowledgment by the Ministry permit to be sponsored in the online platform for the Italian teachers retraining. The teachers are also able to pay the courses with the found gave by the state. To promote the courses there is a new area in the website of the association.

During the year the association partecipates to the events called Futura, this events are designed by the MIUR to promote the national plan for digital school (PNSD). In April in Genova, Stefano Sabatini, Alessandro Marchetti and Francisco Ardini spoke about maps and geographical free data, education to the cultural heritage and open knowledge to fifty teachers who were motivated and interested. In November in Matera, Luigi Catalani spoke about information literacy and collaborative writing with the Wikimedia projects.

Activities in the schools

In the period between February and April, the offices of Wikimedia Italia hosted two young students from the “Racchetti – Da Vinci” High School of Language in Crema for an high school internship named "Tradurre e migliorare voci Wikipedia sul tema della libertà di stampa in Europa" realised with the participation and the collaboration of Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT) / Centro per la Cooperazione Internazionale (CCI).

Students at work, Liceo Medi of Battipaglia

The request for the internship has arrived directly form the two girls: in fact those were interested about what is behind Wikipedia and how it works. Their educational path was divided in seven meetings and was guided by Niccolò Caranti, Wiki curator for OBCT-CCI, with the participation of the staff of Wikimedia Italia. The students focused their work mainly on the theme of the freedom of press, translating form English to Italian and viceversa, several pages dedicated to journalists who got killed while doing their job.

About the courses, this year was more problematic for the financial aspect for several schools. Nevertheless many activities were realized that involved more than 600 students. Here are reported the most relevant activities in terms of effort, time spent and results.

Two high schools (ITET Pasini and Liceo scientifico Tron) hosted courses for students with the aim to enhance the territories and the local eminent figures with collaborative projects. Both activities were financed by the PON (a monetary found by the Minister of Education). This involved in total 48 students.

After a pleasant collaboration with Wikimedia Italia in 2018, the Liceo Scientifico Linguistico Classico Medi di Battipaglia (SA) signed with Wikimedia Italia a partnership for the next three years. The activity in the 2019 was lead by the members Remo Rivelli and Alessandra Boccone with the participation of the association Battipaglia 9 aprile 1969 and involved 35 students who contributed in Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Commons.

In Trentino, the projects Peer code and Wiki Me Up, managed by Matteo Ruffoni and Valeria Framondino, involved four schools with more than 100 students to contribute continually during the year to the projects Wikiversità, Wikivoyage and Vikidia.

Thanks to the member Francesco Serra, Wikimedia Italia collaborated with the Istituto agrario di San Michele all'Adige and Biblioteca della Fondazione Edmund Mach, an important organisation in Trentino about education and scientific research in agriculture.

Other courses and events involved the Istituto Lombardo Radice a Roma (PON) where the students translates some entries with the help of the member Gianfranco Buttu, the Liceo Torquato Tasso in project with also Banca d’Italia, the school IIS Capellini-Sauro (indirizzo chimico) of LaSpezia with the members Alessandro Marchetti and Gregorio Bisso, the Liceo Paleocapa of Rovigo with Roberto Ciciliato, the junior high school of Albino with the members Stefano Del Bo and Francesco Benvenuti for the Linux Winter day. At last we need to report also the first course dedicated to the parents promoted by the IIS Boscardin di Vicenza and leaded by the members Marco Chemello and Maria Pia Dall’Armellina.

In the new initiatives we must highlight the first edition fo the Concorso Fabrizio Rocca, who took place in Bolzano. This event is in memory of a student ICT-struck who died before one's time. Students form secondary High Schools were invited to write tutorials on ICT and coding to be published on Wikiversità. At this contest participated more than thirty students who worked individually or in group, the output are the tutorials (one of them in english) designed for junior high schools students.

In the University

The students from the courses "Strategia e tecniche di marketing digitale" of IULM during the presentation of the project by Wikimedia Italia with the support of Gruppo Mondadori.

Wikimedia were involved in activities who concerned universities from every part of the country, most of them thanks to the intense work of all the members.

From Milan with Politecnico and Milano-Bicocca to Università del Salento, passing from Padova, Bologna, Genova, Pisa, Firenze, Roma, Napoli, Salerno, Teramo, Università della Tuscia and others, were involved many students and professors in the Wikimedia projects. Learning how to became active users and give to the community their own contributes.

Some universities have already a partnership with the association who became stronger through the years: like Politecnico of Milan that also this year promoted the course for PhD “Sciences, Technology, Society and Wikipedia” with the presence of our members and Andy Mabbett. Also with Politecnico, a new course called "Scienza e tecnologia per tutti" (science and technology for everyone) was launched for all the engineering students as activity optional course. It had the participation of 30 students from different areas.

An important project is also the one with IULM with the participation of Fondazione Mondadori, who gave the contribution in many entries and who release several historical images related to the Italian publishing. The work done by the participants was done in November 2019 during a lecture open to the public.

Events

In the 2019 Wikimedia Italia partecipate as co-host or partner in many important events concerning the world of school and university.

On the 14th March, in concomitance of Convegno Stelline dedicate to libraries, there was for the first time the day "Strategie Digitali per la Scuola" (Digital Strategies for school) with initiatives dedicated to teachers, principals and school librarian. Wikimedia Italia was partner of Editrice Bibliografica and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore for the organisation of this event were participated more than 300 teachers.

The association partecipate with a speech by the national coordinator of schools and universities Luigi Catalani during the plenary session and with six workshops. Five of them were dedicated to Wikipedia, Wikisouce and Wikibooks by the members Luca Martinelli, Marco Chemello and Luigi Catalani and one about accessibility and usability of the Wikimedia Projects for partially sighted conducted by Agnese Marchesini and Marzio Glauco Ghezzi from the association Albinit. The Scientific commitment of the convention recognised the value of this workshops and they permit the issue of a certificate by Università Cattolica.

Day dedicated to schools as part of the conference "Wikipedia in Academia"

The success of this event permit us to develop contacts for four new activities:

• a presentation of the wiki-activities for the schools at the professors meeting of the Istituto Comprensivo Nord 1 of Brescia and the successive training course of 10 hours for the teachers of the institute;
• the participation at the Winter School “Integrare conoscenza ed informazione. In viaggio verso la scuola digitale” (Integrate knowledge and information. A journey to the digital school) organised by Università Cattolica di Milano dedicated to the school libraries for teachers of high schools and librarians (the beginning is programmed in January 2020 and Wikimedia Italia will have 4 hours on the total of 14);
• the participation at the second level master in Digital Humanities by Università di Milano (16 hours in the A.Y. 2019/2020)
• the insertion of a workshop dedicated to OpenStreetMap in "Sfide – la scuola di tutti" (Challenges- the school for everyone) in the edition 2020.

In September Wikimedia Italia organised with Università degli studi Padova the congress "Wikipedia in Academia": a two days event to share the wiki-experience conduct in several courses in the university and for compare it with similar experience in the academic world. The first day got the presence of 40 people circa and speech by international guests and members. The day after was dedicated to schools and got the participation of 50 people circa between teachers and speakers. This event was particularly wished by the members Corrado Petrucco, Dario Da Re, Cinzia Ferranti, Maria Pia Dell'Armellina and Marco Chemello.

Quantitative Indicators

This evaluation is obtained by the questionaries we got from the students and the teachers during the activities between 2018/2019:

• 72.7% of teachers overall satisfied (who gave a score of 3 or 4 in a scale with maximum 4) - 117 questionaries;
• 76.1% of students on the average satisfied (who gave a score of 3 or 4 in a scale with maximum 4) - 11 questionaries;
• 100% participants to events - 9 questionaries;
• 16 schools involved with laboratories activity (not frontal lessons);
• 5 universities involved in laboratories activity (not frontal lessons);
• 1889 people involved with presentations, events or various educational activities.

	Schools: courses	Schools: presentations, meetings	Universities: courses,seminaries,conferences..	Total
Number of total participants	377	1331	181	1889
*students	354	607	151	1112
* teachers, professors, researchers	23	724	30	777
Number of presentation	-	55	14	69
Number of wikimedians educators involved	15	42	21	-

(+) number of places where there been at least one presentation. The schools involved are more than this because in many events the participants came from different schools.

OpenStreetMap

2019 was a transitional year for OpenStreetMap. After a 2018 rich of events and initiatives (wended with the organisation the event State of the Map in Milano), the activities continued in a constant and continuative way thanks to the energy of the members in Piemonte, Veneto and Lazio. For new develops will be essential the professional integration of a project manager and of a coordinator who will represent the members.

OpenStreetMap and the Public Administration

Alessandro Sarretta speaks about OpenStreetMap and accessibility at FOSS4G-it Torino

A relevant result of 2019 is the collaboration between Comune di Padova, the first public administration in Italy who decided to use OSM. This partnership took to a drafting for a Barrier-Free Plan of the city.

The OSMers, coordinated by Alessandro Sarretta, were involved in a series of meetings with citizens and delegates from dieci Consulte di Quartiere to identify in every zone the relevant areas to map on OSM and gather useful data for improve the accessibility. For every meeting there was a related mapping session through the streets of the city. This involved volunteers of OSM, citizens, people with disability and members.

A Barrier-Free plan was written based on the data and the analysis of the mapping. This plan was accepted and adopted by the local administration.

OpenStreetMap and Civil Defence

In October 2019, after 19 months of work, the progetto V-IOLA finished, an activity financed by the European Union which involved Wikimedia Italia (with the member Alessandro Palmas) the department of Civil Defence, CIMA Foundation, Italian, Romanian and Montenegrin Red Cross and other important partners. Several appointments were made for study, improve and coordinate the online help of volunteers on-line in order to reduce environmental ad humanitarian risks and coordinate better the rescue operations.

Several meetings for testing the use of OSM took place between Serbia and Montenegro. The most participated encounters were one in Savona in January 2019 (with 40 people circa at CIMA Foundation Headquater) and the other one in Finale Emilia in September 2019 (at the regional camp of the Italian red cross).

Events and Educational Courses

Mapping the paths at Balme (TO)

During 2019 the community of OSM promoted several debates and educational meetings. One of them is FOSS4G-it, who took place in Padova. In this occasion six members of Wikimedia Italia partecipated as speakers. Another event was Padova Bike City: this one was composed by two encounters dedicated to OSM.

For the third consecutive year, took place the Torino Mapping Party. It was organised with the partners 5T and ITHACA and the patronage of the City of Torino. This year the event focused on indoor and outdoor mapping of the cultural places of the city like the Egyptian Museum, the National Museum of Cinema and the Royal Museum.

Worth mentioning is the partnership with CAI in Piemonte. Thanks to this were developed several activities in the cities of Biella and Balme dedicated to map paths and coordinated by the member Marco Brancolini.

Indicatori quantitativi

Year	Events	Total participants	New users	Expert Users	Active members in OSM
2018	24	1247	-	68	17
2019	44	660°	345	315	17

° This number does not include the participants to the V-IOLA project, around 60 and 80 people

Wiki Loves Monuments

In 2019, the photographic contest Wiki Loves Monuments arrived at the 8th edition in Italy; it counts more than 10.000 monuments, 6 important partners, 9 regional contests and a special one in Lazio dedicated to the Valle del Primo Presepe.

The competition confirms great results in terms of numbers and visibility despite the absence of support for a sponsor.

Neither this year the goal of the advocacy activity was reached, about changing the regulatory framework concerned publication of photographs of cultural heritage and the freedom of panorama.

Numbers

The 2019 edition permitted to collect 25.889 photographs of monuments: a number that took Italy to conquer the second place for number of uploads.

The Italian edition conquered the second place also for number of users involved (with a gap of just 60 users from the first place). A total of 925 participants and 670 registered to Wikimedia Commons for the competition getting in touch for the first time with universe of the collaborative projects.

Most of the new users were involved with the 28 photographic Wikitrip. These were promoted by the volunteers of Wikimedia Italia in 7 Italian regions, the most operative region was the Toscana with 11 meetings.

The international chart

The shot of Castelmezzano made by Paolo Santarsiero, third place in Italy and tenth globally. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The photography took at Castellmezzano by Paolo Santarsiero, got the 3rd place in the national chart and the 10th in the global chart of Wiki Loves Monuments. For this last competition it was selected by an international jury between 470 images rewarded locally in the 48 countries who participates in the 2019 edition.

Partner and local contest

Several historical partners confirmed their support for the 2019 edition of Wiki Loves Monuments, like FIAF, ICOM Italia, BASE Milano, Foundation Grand Paradis and Touring Club Italiano. This year, for the first time, joined also IgersItalia, an association of fond of digital photographies who is in the community of Instagram.

Thanks to the members and to the volunteers active in the territory and the local partners, Wikimedia Italia promoted 9 local contest (two of them at their first edition Wiki Loves Puglia and Wiki Loves Lazio). Furthermore, thanks to the collaboration of the Diocesi di Rieti, Comune di Greccio, Comune di Rieti and the Provincia di S.Bonaventura dei Frati Minori, for the first year the association created the special contest Wiki Loves Valle del Primo Presepe, with the aim of enhance the cultural heritage of the territories called “Valle Santa”, who hosted Saint Francis and the first representation of the nativity.

The traveling exhibition and the public events

Ferdinando Traversa, organizing member of Wiki Loves Puglia, together with one of the photographers awarded in 2019 and the FIAF regional representative at the WLM award ceremony and exhibition in Bari. By Enniocusano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The 2019 it was a year rich and full of events for the project Wiki Loves Monuments. On the 23 of March the award ceremony of the 2018 edition took place at the Sala Bertarelli of the Castello Sforzesco in Milano. This event was also the first exhibit of the prized-photographs of the 7th edition. The event, with a participation of around 70 people, hosted speeches by Lorenzo Losa (President of Wikimedia Italia), Gianfranco Buttu (the Wikipedian juror), Lorenzo Lipparini (member from the local government and open data center of the Comune di Milano) and Lucia Esposto (represent FIAF).

After this event, the travelling exhibition moved to Gaggiano (Milano), San Quirico D'Orcia, Potenza e Bari thanks for the organisational support of the members Luca Landucci, Luigi Catalani and Ferdinando Traversa.

Between October and December there were several prize-giving ceremonies connected to the 8th edition of the contest: first of all the conference in Torino at Palazzo Cisterna on the 23 November, that ended with the national prize-giving of the contest. At this event participated 50 people including the winners and the representers of the partners of WMI. It opened with a speech about the freedom of panorama with the participation of Antonella De Robbio (coordinator of the study-group AIB Open Access e Pubblico Dominio (GOAPD)), Deborah De Angelis (attorney and founder of the Studio Legale DDA, Creative Commons Italian Chapter Lead and Representative al Global Network Council), Chiara Veninata (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione (ICCD)) and Marco Valle (Links Foundation).

Others prize-giving events connected with locals or special competition took place in Rieti (Wiki Loves Valle del Primo Presepe), Padova (Wiki Loves Veneto), Como (Wiki Loves Lake Como), Bari (Wiki Loves Puglia), Pescia (Wiki Loves Toscana) and Bari (Wiki Loves Puglia).

Freedom of Panorama

Also in the 2019 Wikimedia Italia continued the negotiation with institutions to promote regulatory adjustments that consents the freedom for reproduction of the images of cultural heritage. Beyond promoting the conference about the freedom of panorama, Wikimedia Italia lobbied the European institution asking for extend the freedom of panorama for all the UE countries with the guidelines about copyright voted on March. Unfortunately the request was not accepted by the European politician: it will be necessary to continue the activity of advocacy and keep on a spotlight on this theme in the next years.

Quantitative Indicators

	Participants (at the contest)	Corporations	Pictures	Monuments authorised	Interactions on Social Network during September	New contributors (from Wikigite)	Events (press publishing)	Exibition’s stops	Testimonial	Change of the regulatory framework	New significative partners
2018	1078	1077	29107	11504	3974	-	106	5	2	Not reached	0
2019	925°	1407	25889	13663	1412	ND°°	392	5	3	Not reached	0°°°

° 670 participants on 925 (72%) registered on Wikimedia Commons for the competition of this year.
°° Is not possible calculate how many new contributors joined with the WikiTrips. The number must be a subset on the number upon.
°°° "Significative"is a corporation with more than 1000 members.’'

Support to the volunteers

The engagement of the volunteers is the base of every activity of the association and is present in every project. In the program “Support to the volunteers” are collected some activities that support their work but are not in specific projects.

The Assemblies: a moment for meet and share

Wikimedia Italia Assembly: the members present in Milan. By Settimioma, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The 2019 was a crucial year for the Wikimedia Italia members: the regular meeting took place in April (in Palermo) and in November (in Torino). An extraordinary meeting took place on the 23 June.

This last assembly was particularly relevant because in the agenda there were the renewing for the social positions and the modify of the association's Statuto for adapt it to the next reform of the third sector in Italy.

Thank to the presence of 180 members (physically or by proxy) the association were able to reach all the aims in the agenda. Now Wikimedia Italia is ready for the Italian reform of the third sector and it have new social positions. It was voted also an important modification of the statute about the possibility to involve underage members in the life of the association.

Economical and organisational sustain

Also in the 2019, for the third year in a row, the association confirmed the program of microgrant, assigning a fund of 10.000€ to finance projects of a maximum 500€ each.

The projects proposed were evaluated by a commission composed by five members, nominated by the board and for the duration of a year. Unfortunately the fund was assigned just in a minimum quantity: in fact the commission received just 6 requests and decided to refuse just one of them, pay out just 1200€.

Except the exclusion of the propose by member Federico Leva, for a donation of reference works to Internet Archive, all the other allocations covered activities connected to the local contests of Wiki Loves Monuments 2019, like the organisation of the first edition of Wiki Loves Puglia, the promotion of Wiki Loves Toscana and the prize-giving of Wiki Loves Abruzzo.

It continued also this year the internal training between members, with themethods p2p. Were organised in total six encounters cured by the staff of Wikimedia Italia and the members Lorenzo Losa, Alessandro Brollo, Luigi Catalani, Marco Chemello, e Marco Brancolini. Extensively took part to this events 50 people in presence and by computer.

International participation

Meeting between the staff of Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia France in Milan, 6-7 June 2019. By Marta Arosio, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Also this year, the association promoted the participation of the volunteers in the events concerning Wikimedia globally: from the 7 till the 9 of February Lorenzo Losa and Daniele Saibene took part at Iberoconf in Santiago de Chile. Lorenzo Losa have been also to the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin from the 29 till the 31 March.

The members Matteo Ruffoni and Paolo Mauri gave a speech at the Wikimedia + Education In San Sebastian, at this partecipate also the member Ialrio Valdelli and the PM Didattica Giovanna Ranci. In month of November Luca Martinelli took part as representative of the association at the WikiDataCon 2019 in Berlin.

The teams of Wikimedia Italia and France met in Milano on the 6th and the 7th of June by initiative of the staff and of the two nationals presidents. This two days meeting was and opportunity for sharing and comparing the two realities and it had also the objective to launch together international projects.

Also this year were assigned the participation grants “Alessio Guidetti” to favour the presence of users in Italian language project and of members of the association at Wikimania 2019, the annual conference who took place in Stockholm this year. The four grants covered the cost of the journey, the accommodation and the subscription to the event. At this event partecipate also the President Lorenzo Losa for the Board and Marta Arosio for the Staff.

Quantitative Indicators

Activities where the members where involved or participated	247
Activities where the members where involved or participated which do not refer to other programs	72
Financial requests approved	8
Participation grants	6 (4 effectively used)
Internal trainings	5
Participants at the internal trainings	27
Members who partecipate at the mailing list	170
Unsubscription from the mailing list of the association
Members who made at least one editing in the internal wiki	58
Coordinators who carried on at least 3 activities	17
Members who carried on at least one activity	67

Communication

During 2019 Wikimedia Italia succeeded to reach a wider public through communication channels (blog, social media and the newsletter) thanks to timeliness updates, a systematic plan for publishing and a major variety of treated arguments. The association received a good attention also in the traditional media with a doubled press clippings thanks in particular to the initiatives Wiki loves monuments and the advocacy activity related to the UE copyright directive.

For internal communication, the line followed was composed by giving timeliness answers, having defined process and giving to the members and the volunteers new tools for communicate the activities of the association in more effective way.

The purpose for the next year is to improve the capacity of stimulating the interaction with the publics and open a continue and direct dialog with the press; it will be necessary also to work more on the image of the association, for reach a better coherence and recognisability.

Internal communication

Brochure, pencils and stickers realized in 2019 by Wikimedia Italia, by Francesca Ussani (WMIT), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Beyond guarantee timeliness, thoroughness and transparency on the reports for all the members, in the 2019 the association commit for giving them tools to work better and promote the activities in the territories. The brochure was renewed in a better format and were realised new gadgets as pencils and stickers, plus it was created a kit for coordinators who were presented during the meeting of the 16th of February in Milano.

The members were more involved in the realisation of interviews for the blog of Wikimedia Italia: on a total of 124 articles published during the year, 34 contained an interview or an account or a member or an active user on a project (circa two for each month).

External Communication

For this year we registered just positive datas: 5% of new subscription of the newsletter, +4% followers of Facebook, +2% followers on Twitter and +40% of visits on the website. Like for 2018 is still difficult to involve the public with interactions: the reactions, the comments and the sharings are decreasing on the social networks but is stable the rate of newsletter opened.

The press clippings is redouble compared with the previous year: 392 concerning Wiki Loves Monuments (106 in the 2018) and 158 concerning to Wikimedia Italia, with a peak during the obscuration of Wikipedia as a protest for the UE reform of copyright on the 25th and 26th of March.

Beyond the new website dedicate for 5X1000 (an Italian donation connected to tax payment), in this year were created others two new areas dedicated to the Summer School and the educational courses (recognised by MIUR) dedicated to the teachers of high schools.

Quantitative Indicators

Channel	Indicator	2018	2019
Wikimedia.it	Visitors	377819	530258 (+ 40,3%)
	Frequency (total of articles published on the blog)	135	124 (-8,1%)
	Number of articles written by members (interviews included)	17	34 (+100%)
Newsletter	Network	4362	4598 (+ 5,4%)
	Interest (subscription cancelled)	0,18%	0,10%
	Interesse (emails opened)	23%	23%
	Efficiency	17,22%	19,69%
Facebook	Followers	9089	9493 (+ 4,4%)
	Participants (reactions)	12240	11692 (-4,5%)
Twitter	Followers	13408	13741 (+2,5%)
	Partecipanti (reactions)	30276	22878 (-24,7%)
Press e media	Presence of Wikimedia Italia in the press (number of articles in all the newspapers);	200	550
	Network (number of new journalist with who it was open a direct communication);	13	13
	Deepening (articles with an interviews to a member or to the staff / open-ed).	17	63

Fundrising

The plan for the 2019 was realised just in part: the original plan was rich of ambitious ideas to improve the fundrising of the association, but most of them were difficult to start or complete.

After this, the total for the proceeds between memberships and donations was 34.328€ for the 2019. Compared with the previous year there is a variation of -26,31% (46.463€ ). This fall came from a reduction of the donations (-32,91%), because the membership fees got a major income of 8,38% compared with the 2018.

As every year, form the month of March, it started the campaign 5X1000 using the tools of the last years. About this it was realised a new webpage with new functionality with the collaboration of an external professional. The most relevant news of it is the possibility to request a reminder by email, sms or whatsapp with the fiscal code of Wikimedia Italia useful for the tax return. This tool permitted to import in the database circa 900 new contacts since the page was created.

Market investigation

During 2019 it was realised a market investigation with the aim to evaluate the knowledge and the perception of the public about the main thematic areas spread by Wikimedia Italia. This permitted to have data to improve the activities of communication, fundrising, and the promotion of activities across the country. This job was commissioned by the agency Metron, the results were presented to the members in Torino during the assembly of the 23 November.

Quantitative Indicators

	Incomes 2018	Incomes 2019	Income variation	Numbers 2018	Number 2019	Number variation
Memberships dues	7.422,08 €	8.044,07 €	+621,99€ € (+8,38%)	322	334	+12 (+3,73%)
Donations	39.040,64 €	26.193,48 €	-12.847,16 € (-32.91%)	1.804	1.594	-210 (-11.64%)
Total	46.463 €	34.238 €	-12.225 € (-26.31%)	2.126	1.928	-198 (-9.31%)

Aim: at least the 10% of the accountants and CAF contacted by phone for 5x1000 became “hot contacts".

Result: the activity gave the 8% of hot contacts.