Highlights from the Wikimedia Foundation Report and the Wikimedia engineering report for July 2014, with a selection of other important events from the Wikimedia movement
Contents
Wikimedia Foundation highlights
Petition for free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones
On July 28, the Wikimedia Foundation launched a petition for free access to Wikipedia on mobile phones, as it is offered in the Wikipedia Zero program. The petition is accompanied by the short documentary film, titled Knowledge for Everyone, about a group of high school students in South Africa who had written an open letter asking the country’s mobile carriers for such access, so that they could use Wikipedia for their schoolwork.
Legal victories in Italy and against paid editing sites
After more than four years, a Rome court dismissed a case against the Wikimedia Foundation, describing Wikipedia as “a service based on the freedom of the users” and setting positive precedent for other claims in Italy. Also in July, the Foundation successfully obtained orders preventing four websites advertising a service of paid editing of articles on Wikipedia from abusing the “Wikipedia” trademark.
New Wikipedia app for iOS mobile devices
In July, the new native iOS Wikipedia app was released, following the successful launch of the Android app in June. The app has the same features as the Android app, including the ability to edit both anonymously and logged in, saved pages for offline reading, and a history of your recently visited pages.
Grants impact analysis
The Wikimedia Foundation’s Grantmaking department published the first set of analyses for an impact review focusing on $4.4M of fully reported grants from the year 2013/14 in its three grants areas: Individual Engagement Grants, Project & Event Grants and Annual Plan Grants.
Data and Trends
Global unique visitors for June:
- 432 million (-7.9% compared with May; -9.1% compared with the previous year)
- (comScore data for all Wikimedia Foundation projects, not including mobile devices; comScore will release July data later in July)
Page requests for July:
- 20.583 billion (+1.8% compared with June; +4.4% compared with the previous year)
- (Server log data, all Wikimedia Foundation content projects including mobile access, but excluding Wikidata and the Wikipedia main portal page.)
Active Registered Editors for June 2014 (>= 5 mainspace edits/month, excluding bots):
- 74,549 (-7.0% compared with May / -2.0% compared with the previous year)
- (Database data, all Wikimedia Foundation projects.)
Report Card (integrating various statistical data and trends about WMF projects):
Financials
|
|
|
(Financial information is only available through June 2014 at the time of this report.)
All financial information presented is for the Month-To-Date and Year-To-Date June 30, 2014.
| Revenue | 51,280,212 |
|---|---|
| Expenses: | |
| Engineering Group | 17,380,695 |
| Fundraising Group | 3,701,090 |
| Grantmaking Group | 1,860,627 |
| Programs Group | 1,766,790 |
| Grants | 5,695,611 |
| Governance Group | 1,254,286 |
| Legal/Community Advocacy/Communications Group | 5,114,480 |
| Finance/HR/Admin Group | 7,025,451 |
| Total Expenses | 43,799,030 |
| Total surplus | (7,481,182) |
| in US dollars |
- Revenue for the month of June is $1.31MM versus plan of $1.67MM, approximately $0.36MM or 22% under plan.
- Year-to-date revenue is $51.28MM versus plan of $50.07MM, approximately $1.21MM or 2% over plan.
- Expenses for the month of June is $6.58MM versus plan of $4.52MM, approximately $2.06MM or 46% over plan, primarily due to higher legal fees, capital expenditures, grants, outside contract services, personnel expenses, and travel & conference expenses offset by lower internet hosting expenses.
- Year-to-date expenses is $43.80MM versus plan of $50.07MM, approximately $6.27MM or 13% under plan, primarily due to lower personnel expenses, capital expenses, internet hosting, payment processing fees, staff development expenses, overall grants and travel expenses partially offset by higher legal fees, outside contract services, and conference expenses.
- Cash and Investments – $49.67MM as of June 30, 2014.
Other highlights from the Wikimedia movement
Wikimedia UK publishes impact analysis of Wikimedian-in-Residence programs
The UK Wikimedia chapter published the result of an impact analysis of Wikimedian-in-Residence programs at British cultural institutions. Among the recommendations of the report is to increase the duration of residencies (residencies should be longer to ensure impact, e.g. 9-12 months for larger organizations) and to have clearer project goals for each residency to improve assessing impact.
First German “culture hackathon”
Organized by Wikimedia Germany together with the German Digital Library, the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany and the Service Center Digitization Berlin, the first “Coding da Vinci” culture hackathon took place in Berlin on July 6. The five winning software project include a project linking a list of names of authors ostracized by the Nazis with additional information from Wikipedia and other sources, and an app showing historical paintings from the Stadtmuseum Berlin, which hosted a Wikipedian in Residence in 2012, as illustrations on modern OpenStreetMap maps.
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