The final stages of the salvage of the sixteenth-century carrack Mary Rose on 11 October 1982. Image released onto Wikipedia by the Mary Rose Trust, and restored by a Wikimedia volunteer.

3 January 2010, UK: The Portsmouth-based Mary Rose Trust have released a number of photographs relating to the salvaged sixteenth-century warship Mary Rose onto Wikipedia. This is the first such image donation by a UK-based organisation.

“Making content available on Wikimedia is a fantastic way to increase the visibility of our cultural heritage,” Mike Peel, Chair of Wikimedia UK, says. “These images can now be seen by the millions of people around the world that regularly read and edit Wikipedia and its sister projects.”

The donation consists of 57 high resolution, previously unpublished photographs, some of which were taken specially for Wikipedia. It complements a substantial rewrite and expansion of the Wikipedia article on the Mary Rose, driven by the work of a Wikimedia volunteer from Sweden, Peter Isotalo. Two photographs are of the final stages of the salvage operation on 11 October 1982; the first time the Mary Rose had been above water since it sank on 19 July 1545. The remainder show sixteenth-century artefacts, including weapons, tools and personal items, recovered from the Mary Rose during its salvage.

After its recent expansion, the article on the Mary Rose will be prominently linked from the Did you know… section of the front page of Wikipedia on 4 January; this page routinely receives over four million visits each day. In addition, it is on course to become a “Featured Article”, one of the best on Wikipedia, and thus eligible to be the main featured article on Wikipedia’s front page.

Wikimedia UK is currently organising Britain Loves Wikipedia, a free photography contest to be held in participating museums across the UK throughout February, with the resulting images being used to illustrate Wikipedia articles. Previous content partnerships with Wikimedia in other countries have included the Bundesarchiv and Deutsche Fotothek in Germany, the Tropenmuseum in The Netherlands, Regionarkivet in Sweden and Queensland Museum, Australia. Wikimedia UK encourages more cultural organisations to make their images, audio recordings or videos freely available to the public on Wikimedia Commons.

EDITORS’ NOTES

About the Mary Rose:

The Mary Rose, once the pride of King Henry VIII’s navy, was raised by the the Mary Rose Trust from the bottom of the Solent just off Portsmouth in 1982, 437 years after it accidentally foundered while engaging a French fleet. The project of salvaging the ship was a major undertaking and proved to be a milestone within the field of maritime archaeology. When the Mary Rose sunk, the ship and its contents were sealed off by layers of clay and sediment thereby becoming a time capsule of sixteenth-century Tudor England. The thousands of artefacts found when the ship was excavated and raised have provided important clues to the life of the men of all classes that served on her during the 1540s, about shipbuilding, naval warfare and countless other fields.

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. It was started on 7 September 2004, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It currently contains over 5.5 million freely licensed images and media files.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting the projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia, one of the world’s ten most-visited websites, and Wikimedia Commons.

Further information:

• Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/
• Mary Rose Trust: http://www.maryrose.org/
• Mary Rose on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose
• All images in the donation on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mary_Rose_Trust_donation
• Cultural partnerships with Wikimedia: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cultural_partnerships
• Britain Loves Wikipedia: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Britain_Loves_Wikipedia

Contact details:

Michael Peel, Chair, Wikimedia UK

• Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Charles Barker, Managing Director of the Archaeological Services, Mary Rose Trust

• Email: c.barker@maryrose.org

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What do Howard Carter, discoverer of the famed tomb of King Tutankhamen, novelist Ford Madox Ford, and sexologist Havelock Ellis all share in common? They all died in 1939. On New Year’s Day 2010 all their works enter the public domain in the UK and become free for any use.

Each year the opening of Public Records in Britain is a well-publicised event; the press pore over interesting items replacing decades-old speculation with facts. There is a lesser-known addition to Britain’s cultural commons; all authors and artists who died seventy years ago have their work freed of copyright restrictions. In the digital age, their works can be re-used and adapted in many more ways: paintings can be reproduced and turned into new artwork; novels can be adapted and retold; text can be freely downloaded to e-book readers – a best selling item this Christmas – and anyone can create audio versions.

Creative works in the public domain are the backbone of our rich cultural heritage. Nursery rhymes are adapted for modern themes, fairy tales turned into Hollywood blockbusters and hymns reprinted for church congregations to sing. The addition of new creative works to this heritage renews and reinvigorates our culture.

Wikimedia UK anticipates January 1, “Public Domain Day”, 2010 being a great year for additions to the digital Wikimedia Commons. The poetry of W. B. Yeats, the works of Sigmund Freud, and Arthur Rackham’s classic children’s book illustrations all enter the public domain. When the complexities of copyright no longer encumber reuse of old works, a work that has been a “sleeper” can become a new classic. Perhaps the definitive example of this is “It’s a Wonderful Life“, the 1946 Frank Capra film that became a Christmas classic in the 1980s.

Wikimedia UK promotes the uploading of copyright-free text to Wikisource, a sister site to Wikipedia, so that it can be widely enjoyed. Audio recordings of public domain works may be added to the Wikimedia Commons site, and Wikimedia UK invites you to join us and help digitise and preserve our common cultural heritage. You can make it available for everyone to share, build on, and simply enjoy.

EDITORS’ NOTES

Copyright law:

Please note that Wikimedia UK does not give legal advice. Information on copyright law and public domain can be found in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 as amended by the The Duration of Copyright and Rights in Performances Regulations 1995.

About Wikipedia:

Wikipedia is the fifth most popular website with 345 million visitors worldwide. Read by around 40% of UK web users, it is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, a US charity. Wikipedia is collaboratively written by over 100,000 active volunteers world wide and all material is published under a free license.

About Wikisource:

Wikisource is a repository of free texts (literary, reference and general), and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. It was started on 24 November 2003, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is another sister project to Wikipedia. It was started on 7 September 2004 and currently hosts more than 5 million images. UK works are accepted if they are released by the copyright owners under an eligible free license or if they are in the public domain under both US and UK law.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is the US-based non-profit organisation that operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world. These include Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is an independent organisation that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Further information:

• Wikisource: http://www.wikisource.org/
• Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/

Contact details:

Michael Peel, Chair, Wikimedia UK

• Email: michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Andrew Turvey, Secretary, Wikimedia UK

• Email: secretary@wikimedia.org.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)7754 881 562

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Wikipedia logo (Copyright Wikimedia Foundation - Fair use)

Wikimedia UK have fielded more than half  dozen enquiries, been quoted in four newspapers, had three radio interviews and two television interviews. The media response has been coordinated by Mike Peel, Chair of Wikimedia UK, helped by David Gerard, volunteer press contact for the Wikimedia Foundation and Andrew Turvey, Wikimedia UK’s secretary. The interest all started from an article in the New York Times on Monday headlined “Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People“. When the story crossed the Atlantic, British media companies started contacting Wikimedia UK rather than the Foundation, so they could have someone local to talk to and in the same time zone.

Much of the news reporting has been exaggerated and misleading, typified by “Newsnight”’s headline “Is the philosophy of Wikipedia dead?“. Throughout our media work we have tried to give a more accurate and balanced view, explaining the background to the trial and the impact this will have on Wikipedia. We have not proactively contacted the media and have only responded to enquiries as they have come in.

Wikimedia UK takes no position on the ongoing discussions within the community about this trial, and are only concerned to make sure that the media represent the changes fairly and accurately and that potential contributors, users and partners leave with a good impression of the project.

The current status quo on the English Wikipedia, which has been in place for many years, is that when an article receives an above-average amount of vandalism, the article would be “protected”. For vandalism conducted by unregistered users, semi protection would result in all unregistered and new users (New being nothing more than a few days old) being unable to edit an article.

The configuration that is currently planned for a trial of 2 months has two parts. The first is “Flagged Protection”, which will be used in place of protection on some articles on living people. This allows everyone to continue editing, but changes by new users have to be checked by users that have been around for longer. The second is passive “patrolling”, which just serves to make identification of vandalism easier. The first part has been the subject of a great deal of confusion amongst the media (and indeed, amongst Wikipedians); it is easy to confuse applying this tool to a few pages with applying it to all Wikipedia pages.

A list of media within the UK that have covered this story is given below, along with the link between the stories and Wikimedia UK. Please note that some of the links are only valid for seven days.

Television

• Newsnight, Tuesday 25th August (link only live for 7 days), 11:20pm – includes interview with David Gerard (Interview only)
• Sky News, Wednesday 26th August – interview with David Gerard

Radio

• 25th: Radio Five Live, 6:40pm – live interview with David Gerard
• 26th: Radio 2, Chris Evans, 5:30pm – live interview with David Gerard
• 26th: 4fm (Ireland), Lunchtime on Four (link only live for 7 days),  2:41pm – live interview with Andrew Turvey

Newspapers / Online

• 25th: BBC - Wikipedia to launch page controls – with quotes from Mike Peel
• 25th: The Times – Wikipedia to end editing free-for-all – with quotes from Mike Peel
• 25th: UKPA – Trial editing of Wikipedia entries – with quotes from Mike Peel
• 26th: Daily Mail – The Wikipedia police: Encyclopedia site recruits 20,000 editors to stop malicious tampering with entries – no contact with WMUK
• 26th: The Telegraph – Wikipedia ends unrestricted editing of articles – no contact with WMUK
• 27th: The Independent – The Big Question: Why has Wikipedia changed editorial policy, and will it improve the website? – quote from Mike Peel

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