Wikimedia Polska/Reports/2012

This is Wikimedia Polska report from November 1, 2011 - November 28, 2012.

Summary

According to our plans for 2011/2012 from November 15, 2011 (see: [1]) we were successful at:

• In terms of our support for content creation: Wikigrants, Wikiexpedition and Wiki Loves Monuments were finished as planned; several new - not planned projects were succsessfuly finished (Wikiskaner, cooperation with "Szkoła Pod Żaglami") or they are actually in good progress (Wilamowice, cooperation with Association "Archivum Patriae"); we were not successful with cooperation with National Museum in Warsaw - the project leader did not start it at all.
• In terms of Wikimedia outreach/promotion: POTY exhibition and Wikiworkshops were delivered as planned; promotional booklets and gadgets were produced in even higher amount than planned and used effectively during various events and meetings; Not planned participation in a NGO Zone at Open'Er Music Festival proved to be quite successful; less money on planned visits at external conferences were spent than planned - only 5 of 12 planed visits happened, mainly due to a lack of volunteers ready to provide high quality lectures.
• In terms of organising our own conferences and meetings: Wikimedia Polska Annual Conference, Polish Wikipedia Workshop and Public Domain Day have been held as planned; several local meetings (twice in Poznań, in Lublin, Warsaw, Katowice and Olsztyn) were supported financially by WMPL as planned; Open Education / GLAM congress has not been organized - the leader of the project failed to do anything about it.
• In terms of the international support: Foreign scholarships for chapters' meeting in Berlin and for Wikimania were donated as planned; 4 instead of a planned 1 foreign visitor to our annual conference were supported; support for Eastern and Central Europe Wikimedia Meeting was made as planned in a form of 10 scholarships.
• In terms of operational costs and general finance: The level of income exceeded by 42% the estimated amount - the estimation was 350 000 PLN, we gained 516 900 PLN (162 830 USD); 98.2 % of income was obtained from a 1% tax deductible system; our expenditure roughly fit to the planned structure and amount. We estimated to spend 316 000 PLN (94 800 USD) and we actually (till the end of November) spent 308 200 PLN (96 730 USD).

Detailed report

General/Infrastructure

Wikimedia Polska is an registered association run under Polish law and having a legal personality. It was established on November 15, 2005 in Łódź and obtained its tax deductible status on March 28, 2007.

Number of members: 125 (as of November 28, 2012)

• Number of regular employees: 2 (secretary running an office, accountant)
• Number of irregular paid staff: 1 (Wiki Loves Monuments coordinator)

Structure and governance

• The Executive Board consists of seven active Members: the President, Vice-president, Treasurer, Secretary and three regular Members.
• Audit Committee consists of three active Members including its Head.
• Arbitration Committee consists of three active Members including its Head.

Present members of the Executive Board, Audit and Arbitration Committees were elected in June 2012 for a period of two years. See: Władze

Office and maintained infrastructure

Wikimedia Polska runs one physical office. The headquarter is located in Łódź, Tuwima 15 Street. Rented facitility of approx. 20 m² is equipped with 3 computers and a printer/copier/scanner combo.

The Chapter has been maintaining two dedicated servers and one virtual:

Dedicated server rented from OVH company ([2])

The server is used currently by 40 people (40 shell accounts), mainly for operation of bots and holding source photographs and scans. The server holds 3 wikis (Polish Wikipedia ArbCom wiki, internal wiki of WMPL and open test wiki for checking if Polish Wikipedia templates and scripts are compatible with new versions of MediaWiki), and 3 wordpress based services: official blogs of Polish and Belarussian editions of Wiki Loves Monuments and main blog of Wikimedia Polska. The server holds also a dozen of disussion lists [3] (see also: Listy dyskusyjne).

Own server

obtained as a gift - which is used as backup machine for tools.wikimedia.pl and it is not publicly available

Virtual server on az.pl company

which is mainly used as a mailbox for holding official E-mail accounts of WMPL (for employees, members of the Board, press officer and leaders of WMPL projects). See: Adresy e-mail.

Operated Internet domains

WMPL pays for holding 11 domains. Most of them are simply redirected to the relevant Wikimedia Projects and are mainly held in order to avoid squatting. http://www.wikipedia.pl points to the search site in order to avoid direct legal responsibility for Polish Wikipedia content. http://wikizabytki.pl is used for official blog of Wiki Loves Monuments contest in Poland, and wikilovesmonuments.by is used for the same purpose for Bellarusian WLM. http://www.koed.org.pl points to the official page of Coalition for Open Education.

See detailed list of domains: Domeny

Financial Report

The numbers in financial report are based on incomplete accounting data as received on 28. November 2012. Many described projects are currently in progress. The numbers should be considered as a rough snapshot of the current financial situation of Wikimedia Polska.

Structure of income

The main source of income for Wikimedia Polska is 1% tax deductible donations. According to Polish law taxpayers can choose one and only one NGO with tax deductible status to donate it with 1% of his/her income tax. It is made via tax form, which taxpayers have to fill each year from January 15 till April 30.

In our plans we assumed the level of income from this main source around 300,000-350,000 PLN. To our surprise the income was much higer:

Source	Amount (PLN)	Amount (USD)	%
1% tax deductible	507,550	159,880	98.2
other donations	8,180	2,580	1.6
membership fees	1,170	370	0.2
Sum	516,900	162,830	100.0

Therefore it seems that we end up the year with around 200,000 PLN (63,000 USD) profit. However our plans for the next year are increased for over 100%.

Structure of expenses

As at the end of November, general structure of expenses is as follows:

Name	Amount (PLN)	Amount (USD)	%
International support	86,300	27,100	28.0
Operational	58,500	18,370	19.0
Conferences/meetings	56,600	17,720	18.4
Projects	55,100	17,300	18.0
Promotion/outreach	48,400	15,200	15.6
Scholarships local	3,300	1,040	1.0
Sum	308,200	96,730	100.0

and it roughly fit to the planned expenditures structure and amount. The estimated budget was as follows:

• Projects: 63,000 PLN (18,900 USD)
• Outreach/promotion: 40,000 PLN (12,000 USD)
• Events/meetings: 81,000 PLN (24,300 USD)
• International support: 72,000 PLN (21,600 USD)
• Operational costs: 60,000 PLN (18,000 USD)
• Sum: 316,000 PLN (94,800 USD)

So, it was a bit higher then the actual one but there is still a month to the end of the fiscal year, so it is expected that it would be a bit higher than estimated. The most expensive content production project was "Wikiexpedition" for which we spent around 24,000 PLN (7,500 USD). The most expensive event was the Annual Wikimedia Conference in Łódź for which we spent 30,400 PLN (9,500 USD). The highest amount of money for international support was spent for Wikimania scholarships: 60,300 PLN (18,900 USD). It was also the highest single expenditure this year.

Activities

One of the Public Domain books scanned for Wikisource within 2011 grants.

Content creation

Wikimedia Poland continues to support several endavours aiming to enrich wikis with a difficult to obtain content.

Wikigrants

Budget - 3,200 PLN

Wikigranty (Wikigrants) is an on-going initiative funded by Wikimedia Polska, dedicated to provide financial support for volunteers willing to enrich Wikimedia projects and asking for such an aid.

This local micro-grant system is administrated by a special committee, supervised and supported by Wikimedia Polska. Its aim is support Wikimedians by covering costs of books and other source materials necessary for editing Wikipedia and the sister projects, some equipment (scanners, cheap cameras), as well as travel, museum tickets and copying costs. The system has been maintained since 2006 and proves to be effective and relatively cheap.

On January, 31 the eight edition has been established (resolution). Within this run Wikigrants Committee has awarded 17 grants so far, comparing to 16 grants awarded in the previous Feb - Dec 2011 edition. As the Executive Board remains content with the results, Wikigrants are planned to be continued in consecutive years.

Further reading: Wikigranty on Polish Chapter wiki

Leaning Tower in Pisa, 1931: the picture from over one hundred stereo photos scanned

WikiSkaner

Budget spent - 3,500 PLN

In January 2012 a WikiSkaner initiative was started and proper funds were addressed (resolution). The scanner has been purchased and installed in order to upload high quality scans to Wikimedia Commons. Furthermore, a project of scanning of historical stereoscopic photographies was undertaken (resolution). Presently the scanner remains in use as an asset of Wikimedia Polska.

Further details: Category:Glass plate positives

Wikiexpedition 2012

Camper of the southern team, the palace in Gródki in background

Budget - 24,000 PLN (not yet fully calculated)

Wikiexpedition is an expedition around one of the regions of Poland in order to gather documentation concerning that region (especially photographic). The first Wikiexpedition took place in 2008. This year it was focused on east-southern and east-northern corners of Poland (resolution). Two teams of Wikipedians (north and south, 10 people) took over 3500 pictures and expanded several hundreds of articles in Polish Wikipedia. The initiative had a very good local media coverage, both radio and press (including on-line titles).

Further details: Wikiekspedycja 2012 and Category:Wikiekspedycja 2012

Wiki Loves Monuments 2012

The winner or the Polish WLZ contest

Budget - 12,000 PLN (not yet fully calculated)

Wiki Loves Monuments (called Wiki Lubi Zabytki) was organized in Poland for the second time. Over 600 participants uploaded over 50 000 pictures which made Polish contest the most successful of all similar contests worldwide in term of numbers of pictures. On December 8th a final social event when awards will be handed will be held in Warsaw.

The side effect of the contest is establishing the cooperation with several local heritage institutions and NGO's as well as attracting new Wikimedians.

Further details: w:pl:Wiki Lubi Zabytki and official blog of the contest

Wilamowice Project

Budget - 7,200 PLN

Vilamovian native pronunciation of śtodbirger by Józef Gara

Wilamowice is a small town in Silesia, Poland. It is famous of its own unique culture and language, which is currently spoken by less than 100 elderly people, so it is under danger of being extinct. The Wilamowice project (resolution 1, 2, 3) is devoted to preserving and documenting the language by a creation of Vilamowian-Polish-English vocabulary with recorded pronunciation of the words.

A group of Polish Wikipedians regularly meets Mr. Józef Gara who agreed to record the proper pronunciation of Vilamovian words. The pronunciation has been already recorded and part of the files in the Ogg format has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Then they will be used in Polish Wiktionary and Vilamovian Wikipedia. Mr. Gara donated also his book, which contains a dictionary and poems written in Vilamovian. The book is currently under edition in Polish Wikisource .

Further details: Wilamowice and recordings on Commons

Co-operation with "Szkoła pod Żaglami"

The cruise in 2011, Madera

Budget estimated - 5,000 PLN (not finished yet)

Executive Board decided to support an initiative (resolution) of the "School under Sails of Krzysztof Baranowski" Foundation ("Szkoła Pod Żaglami Krzysztofa Baranowskiego"). In co-operation with the foundation we have uploaded to Wikimedia Commons over 300 pictures from the current and previous cruises and wrote regular news from the ship in Wikinews. Wikimedia Polska acted as one of the sponsors of this endeavor and this partnership may be continued in the future.

Further details: Szkoła pod Żaglami, gallery on Commons and news in Wikinews

Co-operation with Association "Archivum Patriae"

Document of Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland, February 6, 1623

Budget - 0 PLN (cost free)

On June 28, 2012, Polish Central Archives of Historical Records (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych) in co-operation with Association "Archivum Patriae" and Wikimedia Polska started releasing scans of old historical documents and manuscripts. So far 70 scans have been uploaded to Commons in order to test if this type of cooperation is about to be fruitful to all the partners.

The driving force of the co-operation from the Central Archives and "Archivum Patriae"'s point of view is to make these documents as widely used in Wikimedia projects (and not only there) as possible. Although all of the scans are in the public domain, the organizations are asking re-users for always providing information about the source of the documents and a proper description of them.

Further details: Commons:Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych

Co-operation with academic and students' initiatives

Budget - 0 PLN (cost free)

Wikimedia Polska remains eager to co-operate with students and their professors, willing to spread their knowledge while promoting and improving the Wikimedia projects. In 2012 an "Open Knowledge" endavour has been initiated, resulting with a small batch of proposed articles and farther learnings of needs of participants not familiar with an open, free encyclopedia. These efforts will be continued in future.

900 000-th article on Polish Wikipedia and 13 000-th article on Polish Wikinews awarded

Budget - ca. 1,200 PLN

Existing volunteers are the core source of new content and promoting their activism and encouraging for further work - with methods like occasional events - remains one of the aims of Wikimedia Polska Association.

In May 2012 a competition for Polish Wikipedians was sponsored (resolution, event description). Small financial awards and gadgets for the author of 900,000-th Polish Wikipedia article and four authors of next consecutive articles were granted.

In July 2012 an analogous competition was held on Polish Wikinews (event description) and the author of 13,000-th Polish Wikinews article was awared with a set of gadgets.

For 2013 similar initiatives are planned.

Conferences and meetings

Wikimedia Polska International Conference 2012

Wikimedia Polska Meeting in Łódź, lecture of Mr. Mirosław Wojalski

A meeting of one of the working groups during the Conference

Budget - 30,400 PLN

From June 1 to 3 the annual conference organized by Wikimedia Polska was held in Łódź (resolution 1 and 2). The program included a number of presentations and discussions regarding projects supported by Wikimedia Polska and its partners. The key part was a General Assembly of Wikimedia Polska Members, with a discussion upon the Association's projects and future and an approval of the annual Financial Report and General Report presented by the Board, as well as reports of Audit Committee and Arbitration Committee.

Furthermore, biannual elections to the Executive Board, Audit Committee and Arbitration Committee were held.

• Newly appointed Executive Board consists of: President: Tomasz Ganicz (Polimerek), Vice-president: Michał Buczyński (Aegis Maelstrom), Treasurer: Marek Stelmasik (Masti), Secretary: Karol Głąb (Karol007), Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska (Magalia), Maciej Król (Maikking) and Daniel Malecki (Leinad).
• Audit Committee: Head: Juliusz Zieliński (Julo), Agnieszka Kwiecień (Nova), Małgorzata Wilk (Maire).
• Arbitration Committee: Head: Tomasz Skibiński (Elfhelm), Julia Maria Koszewska (Lantuszka), Patryk Michalski (Paterm).

Wikimedia Polska acted as a sponsor of the event, additionally providing scholarships for participants from Poland and abroad.

Further details: Wikimedia Polska site

GDJ 2012 Workshop

Budget estimation - 17,000 PLN (not yet calculated)

GDJ: work in groups

Recording equipment of WikiRadio team

GDJ 2012 took place in Chorzów on 23-25 November 2012 and was supported by WMPL (resolution 1 and 2). GDJ is a workshop for devoted Polish Wikipedia editors and a platform for exchange of the ideas and plans for the future of Wikipedia. The workshop is organized annually since 2007. This year it was mainly focused on 3 topics: reorganization of Help and Meta pages in Polish Wikipedia, treatment of newbie editors (including ideas on how to increase the number of new editors), and relations of Wikipedia community with the outside world, especially the readers when they are not happy with the content of a Wikipedia article.

The discussions and presentations were recorded by WikiRadio team.

Further details: GDJ on Meta.

Other events in Poland

Wikimedia Poland sponsored a few smaller meet-ups of Polish Wikimedians in Warsaw, twice in Poznań, Chorzów and Lublin encouraging a spirit of co-operation within the community.

Conferences attended by our members

• Our sponsored members (resolution) took part in the Wikimedia Chapters' Meeting in Berlin, March 20 - April 1, where preliminary talks on Wikimedia Chapters' Association were held.
• WMPL sent its representative to deliver Wiki Loves Monuments workshops in Kiev and Brno (resolution).
• Wikimania 2012: Wikimedia Polska provided 16 grants for travel, accommodation and participation expenses: 10 for applicants from Poland and 6 from the outside, for a maximum amount of PLN 90,000 total (resolution). Grantees were then selected from the submitted applications by a special committee consisting of 3 members, including one member of the Board - the Treasurer. Additional funds were provided for persons with a partial scholarship from Wikimedia Foundation (resolution). Finally 16 persons were awarded a scholarship, including 4 from abroad (2 from Russia and one from Ukraine and Uzbekistan) and 2 who finally could not come. Our grantees took part in the majority of events providing a wide coverage of the Wikimania to the community (using wiki, social media etc.) as well as in the Preconference (WCA establishment) and Unconference.

Participants of WMCEE 2012 Conference in Belgrade, Serbia

• Wikimedia Polska became a key patron to the Central and Eastern European Wikimedia Group Conference in Belgrad, October 12-14 2012, providing EUR 3,500 for scholarships for foreign participants (resolution). Additionally, four WMPL members were delegated (resolution) in order to deliver speeches, reports, to share and exchange their experience and insights with the Central and Eastern European community.
• WMPL continued its co-operation with Russian community, sponsoring (resolution) its member on the Wikipedia Ru 2012 Conference. (Detailed report)

Promotion and Outreach

Picture of the Year exhibitions

Budget - 5,000 PLN (still in progress)

Starting from 2011, Wikimedia Polska has been supporting a moving exhibition of the best pictures awarded in the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition. The printed reproductions (16 of A0 size, 1 of A1) of winning pictures from the years 2006-2011 are presented in publicly accessible places across Poland in order to promote Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia/Wikipedia, Free Culture and Licenses. Thanks to our volunteers, the exhibit was presented in 12 Polish cities, including Warsaw, Bytom, Częstochowa, Lublin, Łódź and Gdynia.

Wikimedia Polska provides its patronage and covers costs of print, frames and transportation. In September 2012 a purchase of dedicated frames has been approved and additional funds of PLN 5,000 for further exhibits have been addressed (resolution). The endeavor is planned to be continued in the future on the on-going basis.

Further details: POTY on Wikimedia Polska wiki

Participation in a NGO Zone at Open'Er Music Festival

Budget - 2,000 PLN

In 2012 Wikimedia Polska participated in a NGO Zone located on the festival camp during Open'Er Festival. It is the biggest commercial musical event in Poland, held in four days in Gdynia. During these days volunteers supported by WMPL (resolution) along with an office employee were presenting Wikimedia in a less often targeted environment as projects not only readable but also editable.

Leaflets, brochures and gadgets

Bags

Budget- 42,000 PLN

WMPL published two brochures about Wikipedia: "Witamy w Wikipedii (Welcome to Wikipedia) and "Wikipedia Krok po Kroku" (Wikipedia step by step) (both in 2 x 1000 copies), and a brochure about free licenses "Anatomia Wolnych Licencji (Anatomy of Free Licenses, 92 x 500 copies). This materials are used during workshops and promotional events.

WMPL published 1000 copies of the POTY exhibition leaflet and WLM Flyer.

Also, 1000 laynards, 100 bags, 150 T-shirts, 500 pencils and around 1000 buttons with Wikipedia and Wikimedia logos were produced and spread during conferences, meetings, used as gifts during various contests and on similar occasions.

Lectures

Budget - 1,000 PLN

6. lectures about Wikimedia Projects were provided by Wikipedians during external conferences and events. See more: Wykłady

Workshops

Budget - 2,200 PLN

WMPL offers an organization of wiki-workshops for selected, targeted groups of potential editors of Wikimedia Projects.

In 2012 12 workshops were organized, among others a series of workshops for elderly people in Łódź, for scientists and students in Lublin (during Science Festival) and in Technical University of Częstochowa.

Further details: Wikiwarsztaty

Co-operation and Advocacy

Wikimedia Chapters Association

In March/April Wikimedia Polska representatives took part in the Berlin meeting, voicing their willingness of further co-operation and observation of results and signing a statement of support.

On the first meeting of WCA in Washington, D.C. in July, 10-11 2012 Wikimedia Polska representatives took part in the discussions shaping the future of Wikimedia Chapters Association. In July, 11 a representative of Wikimedia Polska took a seat in the first WCA council and confirmed enterance of Wikimedia Polska to the WCA. Then Wikimedia Chapters Association was established and Wikimedia Polska became a funding member. WMPL representative was chosen to the WCA budget committee.

In following months, Wikimedia Polska took part in a WCA shaping process.

Central and Eastern Europe Approach

Wikimedia Polska confirms its dedication to co-operation with Central and Eastern European partners and providing them with organisational and financial support.

This assistance included the beforementioned scholarships and encouraged visits of Wikimedia Polska members in Kiev, Brno, Belgrad and Moscow, as well as a registration of a wikilovesmonuments.by domain (resolution), and it is intended to be continued in the future.

Coallition for Open Education (Koalicja Otwartej Edukacji - KOED)

Wikimedia Polska cooperates with 14 other Polish NGO-s as a member of the Coalition for Open Education. Tomasz Ganicz, president of Wikimedia Polska is currently a vice-president of KOED and a member of its Executive Board. Coalition is an advocacy/lobbying group working towards free open-content education in Poland. Among others KOED provides screening and lobbying for positive changes in copyright law and internet regulation legislation in Poland. Together with KOED WMPL was the main organizer of the Public Domain Day in December 2011 in Warsaw, co-organized a workshop for "openers" in Kraków, 2012 and an Open-Content week event in Toruń.

Co-operation with OpenstreetMap Poland

WMPL in cooperation with OpenStreetMap Polska Association organized one Wikiexpedition (to Bieszczady Mountains) and established a special prize for an OpenStreetMap contest for a person who put several hundreds POI points of monuments and simultaneusly participated in Wiki Loves Monuments, again uploading several hundreds of pictures to Wikimedia Commons. WMPL office is used by OpenStreetMap Polska as a correspodence address to receive paper mail.

Transfered from Wikimedia Polska wiki. See authors: [4]