Wikimedia news/numero 74/en

Wikimedia News n. 74, April 17th 2014

The new board of Wikimedia Italia, by Ilario (own work) - [CC-BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

5 x 1000 to Wikimedia Italia: THANK YOU!

Postcard for devolving your 5x1000 to Wikimedia Italia, by Jollyroger

On April 9th the Italian tax agency reported the 2012 data about the devolutions of the 5x1000 tax quote. We're proud to annouce that more than 4 000 Italian citizens chose Wikimedia Italia as destination for their quotes, for a total revenue of 142 246,97 euro. We warmly thank all the people who wrote our fiscal code in their income declaration and signed for freeing the culture. Wikimedia Italia ranked 151st on over 34 000 associations.

Our gratitude is not mere politeness! Your support is really fundamental, as it allows us and our volunteers to fuel the projects aimed to spread the free culture in Italy. That's the reason we invite you to write again this year our fiscal code 94039910156 in your income declaration (or to instruct your business consultant to do so) and to sign to devolve your 5x1000 quote to Wikimedia Italia.

Wikimedia Italia members’ meeting: election of the new board

The Wikimedia Italia members’ meeting took place in Florence, hosted by The Hub on April 5th. The schedule was dense of topics, among which the election of three new board members. As usual, the morning was dedicated to discuss topics of general interest for the community; we had the first official presentation of OpenStreetMap project, whose members updated the audience about the forthcoming creation of the Italian chapter. Eagle, Wikimania 2015 and crowdfunding were other topics touched during the day, together with the approval of several board resolutions, among them the one to acknowledge the new associates and to delete members defaulting since 2012.

The works went on after a quick lunch: Laurentius (Lorenzo Losa), Sannita (Luca Martinelli), Mizar (Gian Francesco Esposito), Atropine (Ginevra Sanvitale), Cortesi (Simone Cortesi) and Franciaio (Francesco Tarantini), candidates for the board, exposed their positions. With a total of 69 votes, Cortesi, Sanvitale e Martinelli were declared elected, and the board appointed them respectively of the roles of vice-president, projects accountable and secretary. Their functions add to the ones of Andrea Zanni, the new president, and Cristian Consonni, who inherits the treasurer’s role from Cotton (Alessio Guidetti).

The meeting was also the chance to announce a new, international, candidature: Frieda Brioschi, the historical ex-president of Wikimedia Italia, communicated to the attendees her intention to apply for one of the two vacant Affiliate-selected board seats (ASBS) in the Wikimedia Foundation Board. Frieda expressed her wish and availability to candidate herself and the Wikimedia Italia Board welcomed this decision with enthusiasm, ensuring its official support for the candidature!

The complete record of the meeting is publicly available here, in Italian: Verbale

Attendees could also collect their 2014 membership card. Those who could not get to Florence will receive it directly at home. If you are not yet member, and you wish to become, just follow the directions in the subscriptions page and pay the annual fee, this year unchanged at 25€.

Archeowiki: wikitrips for everybody

In the last issues of Wikimedia News we gave ample reports about the Archeowiki project, about the activities put in place with students of first and second grade secondary school and with the seniors of the AUSER groups. We are almost at the end of this adventure and it’s time to involve you, our members and sympathizers. From next May to the beginning of June, the volunteers archaeologists and wikipedians will be glad to accompany groups of people to visit some of the museums related to the project. The entrance to the museums is free, attendants are only asked to reach the place by themselves.

If you are interested, please sign up for the event by filling the online form (one for each event), where you can also express your eventual preference for a collective meal; Wikimedia Italia will do the organization work. For the moment, Archeowiki is a project focused in Lombardy. We understand that people living too far would find it difficult to attend. We apologize, and hope that in the future similar initiatives can be offered in other areas of Italy as well.

Here there are the proposed dates for the four meetings in the museums, with their link for signing up. The visits will take place in the afternoon, but for all the details we kindly ask you to wait until the days immediately before the trip.

• Sunday, May 4th 2014: Museo Archeologico Rambotti in Desenzano del Garda. Sign up here.
• Sunday, May 11th 2014: Civico Museo “Goffredo Bellini” in Asola. Sign up here.
• Sunday, May 18th 2014: Civico Museo Archeologico in Castelleone. Sign up here.
• Sunday, June 8th 2014: Museo Civico Archeologico in Varese. Sign up here.

Please answer as soon as possible, in order to organize the Wikitrips at their best! For any questions feel free to contact us at segreteria@wikimedia.it

Wiki Loves Monuments 2014: let's go!

The 2014 edition of the World's Largest Online Photo Contest has begun! Aspiring photographers, lovers of art and monuments, people who love their city, tourists, and of course shooting professionals are called upon to unleash the cameras and to challenge with their shots: Wiki Loves monuments is an initiative that sets ambitious goals, first of all to create a great online database that collects photos of all the monuments in Italy, even and especially those less famous. Wiki Loves Monuments Italia has the great merit of awakening the interest of citizens for those monuments often forgotten, that are part of the everyday landscape of everyone, but often ignored and not valued.

The new edition needs everyone's help! How?

1. Are there in your town monuments that you would like to enhance and photograph? Let us know! Write to [mailto: contatti@wikilovesmonuments.it contatti@wikilovesmonuments.it] and, at the same time, inform your local council about this important initiative. The participation requires a release by the local institutions: help us get it!
2. Are you a photographer, are you part of an association of enthusiasts or do you know photographers who would be interested in participating? Let us know or let them visit our website. Don't miss the opportunity to take part with one or more photos: the Italian cultural heritage is everybody's wealth!

Wikimedia Conference 2014 in Berlin

Sunday, April 13th was the final day of the Wikimedia Conference 2014, the worldwide meeting of the experts of the Wikimedia movement, which takes place once a year. After the Italian exception of 2013, the conference returned to Berlin and was organized by the experienced team of the local chapter, Wikimedia Deutschland. For Wikimedia Italia attended Frieda Brioschi, Andrea Zanni (Chairman) and Cristian Consonni as member of the FDC (Funds Dissemination Committee).   After returning from Berlin, Zanni said: "It was an opportunity for Wikimedia Italia to talk and to discuss with other national chapters. We discovered some of our strengths: our relationship with libraries and librarians, for example, is peculiar and to our knowledge no other chapter has established a deep and fruitful dialogue as we did. EAGLE also seems to be the first project that uses the Wikibase software out of Wikidata, and the same Wikidata team has proven very interested." For Wikimedia Italia, it was also an opportunity to formalize the endorsement for Frieda Brioschi, candidate as a new member of the Board of the Wikimedia Foundation in the so-called Chapter Selected Seats, the three positions elected every two years directly by the chapters and the thematic workgroups. The elections will take place from April 15th until May 31st, 2014 .

Finally, in the words of Andrea Zanni we also learnt of the sad incident that happened during the days of the conference in Berlin: "It was very sad to learn of the death of Cynthia Ashley-Nelson, American Wikipedian, just a few days ago appointed vicechair of the Affiliation Committee. We all saw her on the first day of the conference, and knew of her death in the hotel during the night. The conference was greatly shaken by this event and all the works have been dedicated to her. " Wikimedia Italia joins the condolences to Cynthia.

News from the OpenStreetMap world

The changeset of HOT intervention in West Africa

• If you want your city, state or country have better OSM data, you need more local mappers. Some important tips by Richard Weait.

• The Humanitarian OSM Team (HOT) wrote a review article on response to the epidemic of Ebola in 2014 in West Africa.

• In just 29 hours, a small number of users mapped the entire town of Mamou (20105 buildings), the place of the hearth of the epidemic Ebola.

• Jorieke wrote a report concerning a a week spent in mapping Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

• A Chris Fleming's column about apps for Android Mapping. Especially interesting in view of the mapping party.

• Andy Allan has released some screenshots of his new tile server Lightning.

• The University of Heidelberg has organized a workshop for children on OSM.

• The fastest routing engine, OSRM, has received several improvements. Read the full list of Dennis here.

• Stefano Sabatini has tried to map in 100 countries for 100 days.

• Through a partnership between DigitalGlobe and Mapbox it is now possible to track the satellite photos of this well-known commercial supplier; it also promises to release new images from area of ​​500,000 square kilometers! This is the announcement on the blog Digital Globe .

You can read the Full Version of the OpenStreetMap newsletter on the official website (in Italian).

News from the Wiki world

• The project WikiSkills, sponsored by Wikimedia Sverige, which aimed to educate teachers on how to use the Wiki products at school, ended on December 2013. The initiative, co-financed by the European Union, has met a great success. On the site you can find the results and the materials produced.
• Katherine Maher is the new Head of Communications of the Wikimedia Foundation, the announce by Sue Gardner (Executive Director in charge) in the blog of the foundation.
• The internet world has been shaken in recent days by the Heartbleed bug, which makes it potentially vulnerable much of the information included in the internet over the past two years. A young - only 19 - Italian Wikipedian, Philip Valsorda, has not panicked and first created a test site to verify the reliability of a server and, if needed, to remedy the problem. Many developers have followed him, creating different tools for the same purpose.

Flash news: Easter closure

Wikimedia Italia office will be closed next week for Easter holidays; we'll be back on April 28th. A happy Easter and a happy April 25th to all of you.