Wikimedia news/numero 81/en

Specimen: /Specimen

W i K i M e D i A N e W s no. @@ - @@, 2010

Official monthly bulletin from Wikimedia Italia Association.

Editorial

Autumn. Halloween is celebrated, trips outside the city are organized, maybe people think that Christmas is approaching. This happens in the world out there.
It's the second year that in November the most difficult period of the year for the Board begins: the organization and the daily management of the fundraising.
Organizing the fundraising means to shadow the Wikimedia Foundation and their demands, to study contracts, to subscribe to new mailing lists, to come up with slogans, to spread pages of explanations, to translate FAQs and in the meantime to try and optimize the tools so that we may be prepared for the wave of activity which will begin shortly.
When the fundraising actually begins and banners appear on all projects' pagess, the first thing that happens is that we lose our treasurer and secretary for a few months: Cotton, Aubrey and all their staff (Xaura, Dinwath, Remulazz) are completely absorbed by subscriptions flowing in, questions about donations, registrations of gifts, contacts with WMF which are nevertheless required (every self-respecting fundraising gets technical problems or changes to do on the spot!). At the time of writing, there are 170 mail in the subscribtion mailbox, 88 in the information mailbox and still others in the general one.
Install OTRS, enroll people directly from the site and write scripts for importing data are some of the little things we did to simplify the job of secretary and treasurer, but they are only the tip of the iceberg: we were not able to customize our CRM, it's more than six weeks since we tried to open an account at the post office but we have not succeeded yet - despite all our efforts - and the list of problems does not stop there.
On 11 December, when the directors shall meet visually, one of the topics on the agenda will be hiring one or more persons during the next year to help us carry out those activities for which we don't have sufficient resources (and sometimes expertise): communication, secretariat, various consultants (fundraising, legal, graphics, non-profit specialists).
In closing I remind you of the hot topics still open, that we're overlooking because discussion, consensus and interests languish: the celebration for the ten years of Wikipedia and the forthcoming Festival of Digital Freedom.

Frieda

What happened during last months

Members' meeting in September

A break in a hecting day. Other photos in Commons.

On September 25 we held our yearly ordinary members' meeting of Wikimedia Italia, hosted by the Dipartimento di discipline della comunicazione at the University of Bologna.

Unfortunately we could not record and transmit a real-time video of the assembly: an audio recording is available, although the presence of a single microphone at the chair meant that the questions from the public are barely audible.

The morning began with brief presentations by our guest, Professor Lalli, and Frieda. The presence of a large and involved audience led to an interesting discussion: a useful opportunity for information and comparison.

Some of the topics discussed were:

• Relationships with schools, universities and cultural and heritage institutions;
• The quality of Wikipedia articles in the medical field and other specific areas;
• The possibility of increasing their quality through collaboration with institutions and experts in the category;
• The encouragement of participation through certificates or other evidence that can be added to their curriculum vitae <ref> See also one of the recommendations for community health emerged from Wikimedia strategic planning process.</ ref>;
• Statistics and attention to the confidentiality of the Wikimedia projects;
• Accessibility ok Wikipedia content to deaf-mutes.

During the afternoon the actual Members' meeting took place. We renewed the Board and reviewed the main events of the past year (they are discussed in more detail in our annual report). We also have the opportunity to present and discuss briefly the project "ideas from Wiki" (see below) and the new WikiGuide on Wikimedia Commons produced by Christian Biasco (see below).

Notes

News from WMF projects

• Wikibooks:
• Wikinews:
• Wikipedia:
• Wikiquote:
• Wikisource:
• Wikiversity:
• Wiktionary:

Talk with us

If you want to participate actively in Wikimedia Italia, what about joining the mailing list? http://mailman.wikimedia.it/mailman/listinfo/associazione
Beware! The list may be quite lively, with up to twenty messages a day.

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Editorial staff:

• Luca Sileni (editor-in-chief)
• Frieda Brioschi;
• Marco Chemello;
• Nemo (section "News from WMF projects")
• Aubrey (section "News from Biblioteca" and GLAM)
• Christian Cantoro (section "News from W@H" )
• .mau. (English version)

To contact the staff, write at: redazione@wikimedia.it or directly to the editors:

• Luca Sileni - wikisenpaigmail.com
• Frieda Brioschi - ubifriedagmail.com
• CristianCantoro - kikkocristiangmail.com

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Notice. This newsletter is exclusively intended for information about Wikimedia Italia, both to its members and to the general public; as per Art. 1, Comma 2, Legge 7 marzo 2001 no. 62, it is not an editorial product