GLAM/Newsletter/January 2012/Contents/Australia and New Zealand report

This Month in GLAM – Volume II, Issue I, January 2012

Australia and New Zealand report

Australian Paralympic Committee and other Australian and New Zealand GLAM efforts

Wikimedia Australia and the Paralympic Games

Wikimedians to the Games

The Australian Paralympic Committee and Wikimedia Australia are continuing HOPAU: Wikimedians to the Games. This project was highlighted on the front page of the Australian Paralympic website and was mentioned in Wikipedia signpost.

Other HOPAU activities

With the help of the Wikimedian in Residence, 14 spoken word articles about the Paralympic Games and Australia at the Paralympics were contributed to Simple English Wikipedia. These 14 articles represent a large proportion of all Spoken Word articles on Simple Wikipedia, with only 36 other articles having Spoken Word versions on them previously. Another 14 Spoken Word articles were created on English Wikipedia.

Views to the Australian Paralympic Committee related content were down by half from period between 1 December 2011 to 30 December 2011 from the period between 26 October 2011 to November 24 2011, with 55,900 article views compared to 76,000 views. This was attributed to several factors, including the holiday season and the lack of a large number of DYKs helping to drive views to articles. The most popular article in December was Jeremy Doyle, while in the November period it was Troy Sachs.

Several HOPAU participants did a mini edit-a-thon on 2 January 2011, and worked to improve the article about Brian McNicholl, a Paralympian who competed in at least six Paralympic Games and, between the Paralympics and Stoke Mandeville Games, won six medals. This was followed up by additional research and source work at the National Sport Information Centre where sources were found to help improve articles about Victorian Paralympians active during the late 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

There has been a major push by Graham87 to add information about Australian Paralympians who have been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and other honorary medals. He has updated over 50 articles about individual Paralympians with this information. In addition, there have been several discussions on the hopau mailing list where Paralympians have shared their knowledge and related their experiences about getting these honours for Paralympic medal winners.

As part of an ongoing effort to better organise GLAM materials related to the HOPAU project on English Wikipedia, a WikiProject box was created for inclusion on talk pages. It has been added to many articles that are covered by the project including Peter Homann, Priya Cooper, Australia men's national goalball team and Australia at the Paralympics. This has several benefits, including make it easier to find articles, to get better project statistics, and more easily point potential contributors to an assessment area to highlight our best content.

Graham87 has been very active in January and expanded a number of articles about Paralympians including Russell Short, Deahnne McIntyre, Tracey Cross, Julie Russell, Peter Homann, :Christopher Scott, Melissa Carlton, Anton Flavel, Kieran Modra, Lyn Lepore,Lisa McIntosh, Kerry Golding, Tania Modra, Sarnya Parker, Greg Ball, Eric Russell, Julie Higgins, Noel Robins and Jamie Dunross.

Many of Australia's Paralympic competitors had scholarships at the Australian Institute of Sport. Aussiesportlibrarian has gone through many articles about Australia's Paralympic and non-Paralympic competitors to note which ones.

RecentChangesCamp 2012 Canberra

RecentChangesCamp is an Open Space facilitated general wiki conference that has been around since 2006, when it was first held in Portland, Oregon. It has been held yearly ever since in the United States, Canada and Australia, and attracts participants from all over the wiki community including commercial wikis like wikiHow and Wikia staff and community members, non-profit related wiki participants, wiki developers on multiple wiki platforms, open culture enthusiasts, educators using wikis, and people in the GLAM and cultural sector. It is not a GLAM conference, but GLAM participants have always attended, participated with, interacted with and shared their knowledge with the wider wiki community.

National and international participation

Several people from the Australian and international GLAM movement attended RecentChangesCamp 2012 held in Canberra from 20 to 22 January. They included LauraHale, John Vandenberg, Danny_B., Whiteghost.ink, JJ Harrison, Wittylama, Chris Woodrich, and others. While the conference was Australia's general wiki conference and not specifically focused on GLAM, there were several sessions that specifically discussed Australian GLAM efforts including the Australian Paralympic Committee's GLAM project, the National Library of Australia, efforts underway at the National Museum of Australia and Wikimedia Indonesia's LONTAR project. Most of the international participants at RecentChangesCamp 2012 were involved with GLAM projects and visiting Australia for the first time. They were pleased that the conference was being held in Canberra because members of our local GLAM community were in attendance, and because they had a chance to see wild kangaroos out the window of the event venue. Two took the opportunity to go outside, enjoy the beautiful summer weather and take pictures of the 'roos with the intention of uploading these pictures to Commons.

An Indonesian at RCC

Chris Woodrich, a Wikipedian who does freelance work for Wikimedia Indonesia, visited Canberra to attended RecentChangesCamp with scholarship assistance from Wikimedia Indonesia and Wikimedia Australia. He has been active in Wikimedia Indonesia's GLAM efforts with libraries and education. He talked about the needs of the Indonesian Wikimedia community, issues involving creating Indonesian content on the English and Indonesian Wikipedias, and problems regarding the lack of Indonesia-related pictures on Commons. While attending, he made contact with several Australian and international attendees that will help him with future GLAM efforts in Indonesia, and learned about a conference facilitation that might be useful for him on the ground in Indonesia.

The Indonesian report on RecentChangesCamp can be found on their wiki and was mentioned on their Facebook account.

A Czech at RCC

Danny B. from the Czech Republic attended RecentChangesCamp in Australia. RecentChangesCamp is a general wiki conference which uses open-space that attracts people from the wider wiki editing community including commercial wikis, non-profit wikis, wikis used in education, personal wikis, wiki programmers and Wikimedia project wiki contributors. His participation was possible because of grant assistance from Wikimedia Australia. His route from the Czech Republic to Canberra and back took over 70 hours each way, include overnight stays in Seoul, South Korea and Sydney, Australia, and ended with a 3 and a half hour bus ride from Sydney to Canberra. His participation at RecentChangesCamp came about because of connections he made at GLAMcamp Amsterdam in December 2011, where he met LauraHale from Australia and had an extended discussion about wiki metrics. While attending sessions various topic sessions, such as those on technical topics, communication and outreach or cultural outreach session, he interacted with a number of Australian wiki users including those from the education sector, non-profit sector, and government sector, sharing some of his experiences from Czech projects. He was also transferring his experiences at the session focused on starting of New Zealand and Thai chapters.

Danny B. z Česká republika se zúčastnila RecentChangesCamp v Austrálii. RecentChangesCamp je obecná wiki konference, která se používá open-space, který přitahuje lidi z širšího Wiki úpravy Společenství, včetně obchodních wiki, neziskové wiki wiki ve vzdělávání, osobní wiki wiki programátorů a projektů Wikimedia wiki přispěvatelů. Jeho účast byla možná díky grantové pomoci z Wikimedia Austrálie. Jeho cesta z Česká republika do Canberra a zpět trvalo více než 70 hodinách cesty, včetně přenocování v Soulu, Jižní Korea a Sydney, Austrálie, a skončil s 3 a půl hodiny jízdy autobusem ze Sydney do Canberra. Jeho účast na RecentChangesCamp přišla, protože on dělal spojení na GLAMcamp Amsterdamu v prosinci 2011, kde se setkal s LauraHale z Austrálie a měl delší diskusi o metriky wiki. Zatímco navštěvuje různá setkání téma setkání, jako jsou ty, o technických tématech, komunikace a informačních a kulturní dosah zasedání se ve styku s řadou australských wiki uživatelů, včetně těch z oblasti vzdělávání, neziskového sektoru a sektoru vládních institucí, sdílení některých své zážitky z českých projektů. On byl také převést své zkušenosti na seminář se zaměřil na zahájení Nového Zélandu a thajské kapitol.

NEXT: A proposed model for cultural outreach project management

The Recent Changes Camp also provided an opportunity to discuss some concerns about how broadly the GLAM concept is being used and how that affects Chapter support of volunteer activities. The idea is related to how Chapters can:

best support different types of projects;
make sure funding is applied where it was intended;
help knowledge about such projects be transferred effectively among projects.

John Vandenberg, Whiteghost.ink, JJ Harrison, Chris Woodrich were participants in a session that tried to develop a model for projects that took place in the present, and had an end point, and were therefore different from projects involving ongoing work in organisations (whether GLAMs or other sorts of organisations). The model developed was called "NEXT", (News, Events, eXhibitions, Travel). Wikimedia Australia is providing grant money to fund professional journalist accreditation cards for accredited reporters in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania and other regions not being supported by established chapters. This sort of support is appropriate to NEXT activities and different from the kind that assists by sharing practices suitable for GLAM outreach such as Wikipedians-in-Residence.

The model in detail and its application is explained on the OutreachWiki page NEXT.

National Museum of Australia on copyright

Another session was about Wikipedia efforts by the National Museum of Australia, with a museum staff member facilitating the session. Much of the session revolved around discussing copyright issues surrounding museum collections, and the desire for museums to make more of their collection available to the public by being able to photograph it both institutionally and by the public at large. The museum could not do this, not because of commercial concerns, but because of copyright and trademark issues. For example, Australian-made Holden cars often have the Holden logo, a trademark, on them. It is not easy to take pictures of these cars with the trademark removed without losing the idea of the photograph's subject. In other examples, some items in a collection do not belong to the museum exhibiting them. The copyright belongs to the original owners or the donations come with copyright related restrictions that prohibit the museum from taking pictures or allowing others to take pictures of them. Because copyright and trademark issues vary from item to item in a collection, museums may prohibit visitors generally from taking pictures of the whole collection. Copyright issues are so complex that there are two or three lawyers employed by the National Museum of Australia who spend a great deal of their time working on them.

Metrics

Amongst GLAM participants, a recurring theme was metrics, how to measure the effectiveness of GLAM projects on Wikimedia Foundation projects, and how these metrics can be used to justify institutional participation in a project. There are a variety of methods that have been designed by German Wikipedians and ones designed by members of Wikimedia Australia like John Vandenberg. The problem is that at the end of the day, most GLAM organisations including the National Library of Australia and the Australian Paralympic Committee have a mission that includes sharing cultural knowledge of their efforts with, in this context, Australian society. This is not something that can easily be measured because it is more a goal than an objective.

Photography at the AIS Game

There was a discussion regarding issues of getting sport-related organisations to donate pictures to Commons, the challenges of working with such organisations, and how to engage Wikimedia Australia members to increase pictures, video and sound at sporting events in a context outside official relationships with a team, league or sport. Ideas included working with our current members to get them organised with journalism credentials on Wikinews, proving the success of programs like Wikimedians to the Games, and personal outreach. There was also a discussion about freedom of panorama in Australia and how this extends to cover live sporting events both inside and outside. Users Bidgee and JJ Harrison, took over 1,000 pictures at the basketball game. For both photographers, this was a unique experience as they rarely photograph sport, which requires a different understanding of framing of pictures. There is a hope to get at least one featured picture from this session and there will be more Australian sport pictures.

Photography at Parliament House, Canberra

On Sunday, a few campers had to leave the Camp early and several people ended up visiting various cultural institutions around Australia's capital. JJ Harrison was part of one such group who ended up visiting the Parliament House. He took several pictures while the group toured the building. One important picture he took was of the Australian copy of the Magna Carta. Selected files can be found on his gallery page. The group also visited the National Library of Australia and the National Museum of Australia.

Happy Birthday Wikipedia

Our Melbourne meetup coordinator Steven Zhang was pleased with the turn out of Melburnians on Sunday to celebrate Melbourne Wikipedia's 2012 birthday on 15 January. Melbourne's beautiful weather brought together Wikimedians to make one of the best supported meetups held in Melbourne for some time, with 12 in attendance. Participants engaged in lively discussion over tasty pizza and hot coffee. As the meeting progressed we spoke about the 11th anniversary of Wikipedia, and led by our now retired intrepid WMAU public officer and committee member Brian, we charged our cups and glasses in a toast to Wikipedia.

In our midst were editors who have been editing for several years; others who are newly acquainted with Wikipedia and who were interested in getting started; others were enthusiastic about getting involved and knowledgeable about the GLAM projects; and others wanting to get involved with Wikimedia Australia with students from one of Melbourne's universities. Several other discussions took place about ongoing Wikimedia Australia GLAM projects and turned to potential future projects as well as offers of help and getting involved.

Wanting to sustain the momentum of the meetup, Wikimedia Australia members have already begun following up with participants including those who have some experience with GLAM related projects to ascertain what can be done in the future to support local efforts in Victoria. Steve believes it is important to maintain contact and therefore participants were happy to provide contact details, and agreed to being contacted prior to each monthly meetup.

We were fortunate to have on the day among the participants, one person who is a skilled photographer, and who like all passionate photographers goes nowhere without his cameras. He produced terrific individual and grouped photos of participants engaging in conversation around the table, as well as a group photo of all participants, and he countered protestation about him needing to be in the photo by an instructive reply that 'the photographer is always behind the lens'. He is pleased to give his permission to place his photos on Wikimedia Commons. So lots to organise post-meetup.

We all look forward to the February meetup and hope that more of our Wikimedian members and community come along and enjoy a great day with all of us; a day that was made possible because of the enthusiastic turn out on Sunday. We take this opportunity to thank everyone for their lively contribution to a successful meetup.

Lopit group in Melbourne

On 21 January, a Wikipedia Workshop was held in Melbourne Australia for Southern Sudanese immigrants living in Australia. It was organised by Michael Billington, and six people attended. The group learned the basics of editing Wikipedia by working on Lopit people, taking a stub article up to C class. This workshop is one of several planned for Southern Sudanese people in Melbourne. The workshop will help in Australia's GLAM efforts by giving the workshop facilitator an opportunity to do training that can be used with more traditional GLAM organisations and assist Wikimedia Australia in doing future outreach to minority community cultural organisations in a traditional and non-traditional GLAM sense.

New Zealand

WikiProject New Zealand and Stuart Yeates are working through all entries in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles. A very productive interaction via twitter with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage (who manage the dictionary) saw a bug fixed which paved the way for the semi-automated generation of stubs for those listed in the dictionary.

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