2012

1. Internationalization and localization

   Translation editor growing snazzier

   (Emor me’at ve-ase harbe. —a Hebrew proverb) The Wikimedia Foundation’s Language Engineering team is continuing the makeover of the Translate extension, which started taking shape in early December. (Introduced in 2011, this MediaWiki feature powers the translation of Wikipedia’s software, announcements, reports and fundraising banners, and of other sites and software projects.) During its... Read more

2. MediaWiki

   The magic behind Wiki Loves Monuments Panamá: free software

   (This guest post comes from David Narváez, one of the organizers of Wiki Loves Monuments in Panamá. You can see the winning photos from the country here.) We all knew right at the beginning that organizing an event like Wiki Loves Monuments was going to be a great challenge. We had a very limited team of volunteers, a special challenge of providing two categories inside the contest, we had to st... Read more

3. Chapters

   Wikimedia Chapter convinces Czech Parliament to release photos to Wikimedia Commons

   The Czech senate election in October 2012 has yielded 27 new members of the upper chamber of Parliament of the Czech Republic, who now represent a third of the 81 total seats. Their role is to carry out their voters’ wishes during the next six years, as well as pass, reject or amend the legislature approved by the Chamber of Deputies. The senators thus become an important part of Czech publi... Read more

4. Fundraising

   Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012 fundraiser

   The Wikimedia Foundation is happy to announce the successful completion of our ninth annual fundraising campaign in record time. Wikipedia readers donated $25 million and once again affirmed the value of the project by guaranteeing that the online encyclopedia will remain ad-free. Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number... Read more

5. Fundraising

   The Impact of Wikipedia: visual storytelling

   (This video is part of a series produced for this year’s Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser. You can also view this video on Youtube.) A montage video, Impact of Wikipedia, part of a series showcasing Wikimedians. Every year for a handful of weeks in November and December, the Wikimedia Foundation has traditionally asked Wikipedia users to support the 5th largest website in the world with whateve... Read more

6. Fundraising

   The Impact of Wikipedia: Andrea Zanni

   (This video is part of a series produced for this year’s Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser. You can also view this video on YouTube.) Andrea Zanni discusses the power of serendipity Andrea Zanni is a digital librarian at the University of Bologna, where he promotes and disseminates the institution’s 16 open-access journals, and provides access to digitized historic books by compiling metadata... Read more

7. Picture of the Day

   Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Day: Cab Calloway Gottlieb

   William P. Gottlieb is one of the most celebrated American jazz photographers. His photo of jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, above, is the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Day for 25 December 2012 Although Gottlieb studied and taught economics at the University of Maryland, in 1938 he began writing a weekly jazz column for the Washington Post. From there, he purchased a speed graphic pres... Read more

8. Chapters

   Wikimedia Chile hosts Wikipedia editathon, photo awards ceremony

   On 15 December, in the BiblioGAM library at the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM Cultural Center), Wikimedia Chile celebrated the prize ceremony of the Wiki Loves Monuments Chile 2012 photo contest, where we awarded prizes to the 10 winning photographs that represented Chile in the international contest, along with the 5 honorable mentions highlighted by the Chilean jury, and a special pr... Read more

9. Mobile

   The countries in which mobile matters most

   At the beginning of this year, we launched Wikipedia Zero with the aim of reducing barriers to accessing knowledge on mobile devices. Many people in the developing world use mobile phones as their primary–or only–means to access the Internet. Through partnerships with telecommunications companies, Wikipedia Zero removes the cost of data as an obstacle between individuals and the power ... Read more

10. Fundraising

    The Impact of Wikipedia: Ravan Jaafar Altaie

    (This video is part of a series for this year’s Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser. You can also view this video on YouTube.) Ravan Jaafar Altaie and the impact she has had on the world through editing Wikipedia. Like so many other Wikipedians, Ravan Jaafar Altaie was inspired to edit Wikipedia as a way to learn more about the world around her. As a native of Iraq, she also hoped to make a differ... Read more