Now Monmouthshire Council have agreed that we can document a whole town. Monmouthpedia has already led to over 40 new articles on the small Welsh town of Monmouth. We intend to have 1,000 QRpedia codes installed by April and many of you have helped already – Thank you!

Over the last few weeks, the Wikipedia community has been discussing proposed actions that the community might take with relation to proposed legislation in the United States called Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House of Representatives, and the PROTECTIP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If passed, these would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia. With more than 2,000 Wikipedians commenting on this legislation from all over the world, and a clear majority in favour of taking action, this was the first time the English Wikipedia has ever staged a public protest of this nature, and it’s a decision that wasn’t lightly made.

It was felt that both SOPA and PIPA are pieces of clumsily drafted legislation that are dangerous for the internet and freedom of speech. It provides powers to regulatory authorities to force internet companies to block foreign sites offering ‘pirated’ material that violates U.S. copyright laws. If implemented, ad networks could be required to stop online ads and search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites ‘found’ to be in breach of copyright.

However, leaving to one side the fact that there are more than enough adequate remedies for policing copyright violations under existing laws, in most jurisdictions, these draft bills go too far and in the framing SOPA and PIPA totally undermine the notion of due process in law and place the burden of proof on the distributor of content in the case of any dispute over copyright ownership.

Therefore, any legitimate issues that copyright holders may have get drowned out by poorly-framed draconian powers to block, bar, or shut down sites as requested by industry bodies or their legal representatives. Copyright holders have legitimate issues, but there are ways of approaching the issue that don’t involve censorship.

Wikipedia depends on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. This needs other sites to be able to host user-contributed material; all Wikipedia then does is to frame the information in context and make sense of it for its millions of users.

Knowledge freely shared has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it.  Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikipedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or, if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, will mean that the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to

All around the world, we’re seeing the development of legislation intended to fight online piracy, and regulate the Internet in other ways, that hurt online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.

As I am sure you know, the English version of Wikipedia will be taken down for 24 hours from 0500 UTC tomorrow in protest at the US SOPA and PIPA bills.

Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia movement. We regard the SOPA and PIPA legislation in the United States as a threat to the current operation of Wikipedia. This could also affect Wikimedia’s other projects, which operate under U.S. law.

The members of the Wikipedia community have been balloted to determine whether they wish to blackout Wikipedia on Wednesday and agreed that this should happen. Wikimedia UK is an independent British charity that defends the decision of our community.

For more information contact our office on 0207 065 0990, or read the press release from the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco.

Richard supports Jon Davies, our Chief Executive, in preparing financial reports and budgets as well as managing office processes in our drive to professionalize in line with charity best practice and our values. He will be responsible for developing relationships between the chapter and community as well as reporting on the outcomes of projects and funding.

He is a regular long-term figure at social meetings (wiki-meets) and chapter events and has held significant positions of trust within our Wikimedia community. He is passionate about the mission and values of Wikimedia UK and is established as a driving force in our outreach activities.

Wikimedia received and reviewed 343 applications for the position with six outstanding candidates making the final interview. With his experience and commitment, Richard offers a firm and stable hand on the tiller for the coming year.

Links

• You can read more about Richard at his Wikipedia user profile
• Read the published Office and Development Manager job specification
• Find out more about Wikimedia UK at http://uk.wikimedia.org, where you can read our Vision and Values and our calendar of events

Wikimedia UK has given four scholarships to attend the conference from the UK, all four will give presentations to share their experiences and knowledge. They are:

• Dr Toni Sant, Director of Research at the University of Hull’s School of Arts and New Media in Scarborough, UK, talking about Embracing Wikipedia as a Learning & Teaching Resource
• WereSpielChequers, a long-time contributor to Wikipedia and Wikimedia UK’s activities, talking about experiences of Wikimedia-GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) partnerships in the UK
• Dhaval Vyal, currently the only active administrator on the Gujarati Wikipedia, talking about Growth of Gujarati Wikipedia and possible aspects of dissemination
• Vinesh Patel, founder of the Imperial College Wikipedia Society, talking about Wikimedia and student societies: present and future

The scholarship recipients will be putting together public reports of their experiences which will be posted to the Wikimedia UK wiki over the next few months.

Gaining Charitable Status

British Library Editathon participants standing outside the British Library

Over the last year, Wikimedia UK has begun an innovative program of outreach activities that have included partnerships with cultural sector organisations including the British Library, the British Museum, Derby Museum, the National Archives, Coventry’s Herbert Art Gallery and Museum and the National Maritime Museum. There have been a number of Wikipedia training academies with organisations such as Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council and a workshop at the Institute of Physics. The University of Bristol partnered Wikimedia UK with a UK Outreach summer internship, and there was also a Wikipedian in Residence working with the leading global biodiversity organisation ARKive.

Contact details

Many of you will have met Jon at the September Wikimeet, along with the other finalists. He is the former Chief Executive of Families need Fathers, Britain’s leading shared parenting charity, and a former leader of the London Cycling Network. He will be coming along to the 50th London Wikimeet and the Wikimedia UK EGM on 16th October, where he is keen to meet as many people as possible and hear how they would like the chapter to develop.

Jon is a fantastic find for us. His skills and experience – working with volunteer led organisations and leading charities though periods of change and growth in activities – are just what we have been looking for. His consensual approach is a natural fit to Wikimedian culture and his confident and reassuring manner will be invaluable in the times of change ahead. I am very confident that he will be a very successful addition to the chapter.

Finding and choosing the right person would not have been possible without the help of many people along the way. I would like to thank everyone involved in this. In particular, thanks go to:

• Everyone who gave us feedback from the Wikimeet
• The three external people whose experience was essential to ensuring the right questions were asked and we chose the right person: Nick Poole from the Collections Trust, Matthew Cock from the British Museum and Sebastian Moleski from Wikimedia Deutschland
• Barry Newstead from the Wikimedia Foundation who gave important help when we were drafting the job description
• The board members who gave significant time and effort wading through CVs, attending shortlisting meetings, candidate interviews and board discussions
• Prospect-us, our recruitment agency, whose widespread marketing of the position and advice along the way has been invaluable
• The British Library, who kindly donated a venue for the interviews.

Please give your every support to Jon when he starts and let me know if you have any further queries about his role.

Andrew Turvey

Wikimedia UK

The Board has been doing a lot of work on this in the last two months. The advice we have received from the Charity Commission and our lawyers is that for the best prospect of success, we need to amend Wikimedia UK’s Object, and also make some minor changes to our Memorandum and Articles of Association.

To do this, we are calling an Extraordinary General Meeting on 16th October 2011, to coincide with the 50th London Wikimeet. There will only be one item of business: the amendment of the Memorandum of Association with revised Objects. The Board is unanimously supporting the amendment of the Memorandum and we hope the new Objects will not prove controversial. The intention of this motion is not to actually change anything Wikimedia UK does, just to re-define our objectives in a way that better fits in with charity law.

You can see the proposed amendment on the EGM wiki page. Members of the WMUK board are happy to answer any questions you have about the amendment; please ask them on EGM talk page.

If you are able to attend in person, please sign up here. The EGM will be at the Penderel’s Oak on Sunday 16 October 2011. We’ll be in the room downstairs (as you may remember the most recent London wikimeet got a bit crowded).

If you are unable to attend then please vote by proxy. This is particularly important to ensure that we have quorum at the EGM in order to pass the amendment. Details on how to vote by proxy are included in the EGM notice.

All Wikimedia UK members will receive an email with formal notice of the EGM. Only current Wikimedia UK members can vote. If you aren’t a member, but would like to get involved, then you can join online for just £5.

This is an important milestone in our development and we are very happy to have got to this stage. Please help us take it one step further.