Activiteiten 2008 (en)

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Introduction

This page consists the activity report of Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland (Association Wikimedia Netherlands). It is intended to give the membership insight in that the board has done in the past year. It has been discussed at the Annual General Assemblee on January 31, 2009.

Looking back on the year 2008, it appears that this has been an eventful year for Wikimedia Nederland. The board has been working on current subjects, which was enjoying and has delivered many results. On the other side, the board has reached less results then intended on a more fundamental reflection on the role of the Association.

As in every year up to now, the annual Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland has been organized, partially by a new team, but with a wellknown core of volunteers. Steps have been set in the direction of a political lobby, a bid has been started for Wikimania 2010 and finally the association has been involved in an application for a preliminary injunction, which has been won by Wikimedia Nederland.

In the mean while, internal board disagreements appeared which costed a lot of energy from the board. Learning from this, the board has written a function description for all board members. This should be a first step in the direction of a more professional organization.

While writing this report, it becomes clear every time how important especially Wikipedia is considered to be. The movie Fitna by Dutch parlementarian Geert Wilders included a link to the Wikipedia article about the film in the credits. This was in March 2008. Luckily, the outside world did not notice this since nor Wikipedia nor Wikimedia had anything to do with the movie. At the end of the year, the association received sympathy from several directions during the application for a preliminary injunction. That the general public appreciates Wikimedia can be clearly concluded from the positive results from the Annual Fundraising, of which the results continued in early 2009.

General

Board

Composition

The board consisted in 2008 from the following people:

  • Elly Waterman (president)
  • Ronald Beelaard (treasurer until 18 September)
  • Marjon Bakker (until 12 September)
  • Hay Kranen (secretary)
  • Lodewijk Gelauff (treasurer after 18 September)

Marjon stepped down on 12 September, on 18 September Lodewijk has been elected as treasurer.

Meetings, minutes

In 2008 two General Assemblees have been held: 29 March and 14 September. The board had 7 meetings. Besides that a vision meeting was organized on January 26, 2008. Minutes are available online after approval (in Dutch) through http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Notulen. Het bestuur heeft een contract gesloten met de Wikimedia Foundation over de fundraising.

Development membership

At the begin of 2008, Wikimedia Nederland had about 100 members. This was 170 by the end of December. This includes members who became a member because of the annual conference, and also several members who did not pay their membership fee in 2008. A drop in the membership towards 120 is to be expected.

Legal

In 2008 (for the first time) a preliminary injunction has been requested against Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland by a Dutch business man with an article on Wikipedia. He was dissatisfied about the content of this article, and demanded deletion of the article and wanted the personal details of the author. Wikimedia Nederland has no access to these data and has no special rights on this. The judge agreed with this opinion, and refused the preliminary injunction.

Wikimedia Nederland has been supported by CMS Derks Star Busmann in Utrecht. See also the (Dutch) press release: http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Nederland_wint_kort_geding_Sijthoff

Press

In 2008 the Wikimedia Projects were often discussed in the Dutch press. Usually this was about the Dutch language Wikipedia. Besides a large number of references to Wikipedia for more information, Wikipedia or Wikimedia was also subject of the attention regarding censorship, influence towards traditional encyclopediae, milestones and some criticism.

There were some reports about Wikimedia Nederland itself. In May the Wikiportrait project was mentioned and begin November there was some attention for the annual national Wikimedia conference. Finally, Wikimedia Nederland made it to the news due to the forementioned primary injunction.

For a more elaborate summary, please see http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Persaandacht/2008

News letter

The board started in 2008, answering many requests, with a news letter for the members. In 2008 three editions were published. Besides these news letters, a monthly, English, activity report is published for the international community and the other chapters.

Activities

Wikimedia Conference NL 2008

The annual Wikimedia Conference, this year with the theme "The editable world", was a great success. On Saturday November 1, 2008 over 100 visitors came together at Meeting Plaza in Utrecht to listen to lectures by, amongst others, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Arnoud Engelfriet and Philipp Birken.

Following the conference, a questionnaire was held amongst visitors and speakers. These results show that the visitors were in general very confident with the conference and the chosen subjects. On average the visitors gave the conference a 7.4. The results are being processed to use in a next conference and for the 2010 Wikimania bid (see below).

Wikimania 2010

Wikimania is a three day congress for visitors and editors of the Wikimedia projects from all over the world. Every year this event is organized in another country. The country is selected based on several bids which are submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation. In the past years Wikimania has been organized in Frankfurt, Boston, Taipei and Alexandria; in 2009 Wikimania will be in Buenos Aires.

Wikimedia Nederland planned to prepare a bid to get Wikimania 2010 organized in The Netherlands, and a committee was brought together for this purpose.

Reaction to Green Paper / Copyright lobby

In July 2008 the European Committee (EC) published the green paper "Copyright in the knowledge economy" which presented a large number of questions on this subject. Wikimedia Nederland was asked by the Dutch ministry of legal affairs asked Wikimedia Nederland to react on this green paper. Following that request, a committee was formed within Wikimedia Nederland. Two representatives of this group participated an informal meeting at the ministry, which served as a foundation for the reply of the Government to the green paper. The vision of Wikimedia has been processed in this.

The reaction on the green paper of Wikimedia Nederland, which discussed practically all questions laid down by the EC, was mainly written online. The final version was translated into English, and has been submitted together with the Dutch version to the EC. Based on this English version, also Wikimedia Germany, Wikimedia Italy, Wikimedia Czech Republic and Wikimedia Hungary have submitted a reply.

Working Group Free Media

Wikiportrait

Wikiportrait is a project to acquire portraits of Dutch celebrities under a free licence. For this purpose a website was launched, wikiportret.nl where people are guided through the tough process of a suitable licence with an upload wizard. Finally, the user is guided to an upload form, where the photo they submit will be sent to the volunteers on OTRS and there the validity of the image is checked. A Press release was published, which was copied in some media. An overview of the current submitted portraits is available on Wikimedia Commons.

Trainings

One training was organized in 2008 for the active Wikimedians to exchange experience and knowledge.

Working group brochures

Plans have been developed to found a working group brochures, a subject which enthousiasts several Wikimedians. This should be worked on further in 2009.

Presentations and other contacts

  • Hay Kranen presented on December 4 at the Polder Linux User Group in Hilversum.
  • Elly Waterman was in contact with Sanquin about the possibilities offered by Wikibooks for organizations which are involved with blood transfusions in the Netherlands.
  • Contacts have been established with Beeld & Geluid (Sound & Vision), De Waag and Creative Commons about liberation of for example the Polygoon journaal.
  • Contacts have been established with Open Streetmap
  • Contacts have been established with Ilse about potential cooperation

International

Following the initiative of Wikimedia Nederland, a meeting was organized in Beek-Ubbergen (Nijmegen) from 23-25 May for representatives of ten chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation. During this meeting the cooperation between the Wikimedia organizations was discussed, information and knowledge was transferred, ideas for activities, membership connection etc. have been exchanged. The meeting is to be repeated in 2009 in Berlin.