Jewish cemetery at Rabí Castle

The Jewish Monuments grant project aims to gather freely licensed photos of all existing Czech Jewish monuments, with particular focus on synagogues and cemeteries, whether those are still in religious use or are used for different purposes. The grant is part of Wikimedia Czech Republic’s Mediagrant project (see earlier blog post). It was launched in August 2011 and was inspired by projects documenting Czech municipalities, protected Natural Areas and Memorable Trees throughout the Czech Republic.

When we started planning, there was a wiki page containing a list of Czech Jewish cemeteries, some of which had articles about them; there were also several articles on major Czech synagogues and the portal of Judaism (Hebraistika). However, no records about the buildings of Czech synagogues were available for the photographers to check when planning a trip. Therefore it proved essential to put together all Czech Jewish monuments to show which had been documented sufficiently and which of them were still lacking any photographic documentation.

The first step was to make lists of the monuments by region, including the names of each (e.g. Synagogue in Slatina), the town and district they were situated in, their GPS location, a brief description commenting on the position, availability and usage of the building these days, and any photos already taken. When the 2012 Wiki Loves Monuments competition was about to start, and lists of Czech cultural monuments were being put together, the charts became a useful source of information on available photos. Logically, one of the grant rules is to fill in any newly photographed places in the charts to keep the information current and ready-to-use by other photographers.

Jewish cemetery in Klatovy

Obtaining the GPS data proved to be one of the most difficult columns to complete, as some cemeteries and synagogues were hardly ever mentioned in online or printed materials. As a result, their position often had to be checked with the local authorities. Some municipal officers were so helpful they offered to provide pictures of their own or even take new ones. Unfortunately, some of the monuments still lack exact positioning.

Several photographers expressed surprise at seeing how the original purpose of many buildings had changed over the years. While some former synagogues are used as concert halls and museums, other synagogues, in particular those in rural areas, have been turned into houses, fire stations, shops or even discos. Many of the cemeteries have also been long forgotten, so that even some locals have no idea of their existence; others are looked after well, with caretakers routinely restoring the fallen gravestones and remodeling the stone fences. Alas, there are some cemeteries that do not get any attention at all, presenting the lonely visitor with a scene of broken gravestones scattered all over the place, nettles flourishing in places where gravestones have been stolen, and unpruned trees casting shadows on the pebbles that visitors had placed on the tombs long before.

Torah ark in the winter Gospel Hall in the former synagogue in the municipality of Čkyně

Grant statistics

As of 10 May 2013, photographs from eleven journeys have been listed in the Mediagrant Tracker. None of them focused just on Jewish monuments, as the places tend to be situated rather far from each other and photographers usually plan their journeys to also include municipalities, memorable trees and protected areas, i.e. objects included in other Mediagrant projects.

The following table shows photo journeys made between August 2011 and April 2013 listed in the Czech Jewish Monument grant and the number of photos taken during the journeys.

The table below shows journeys made in the same period that also included photos of Czech Jewish monuments under the Jewish Monuments grant, though listed in different Mediagrant topics.

It is true that the two years of the Czech Jewish Monuments project have shown clearly it doesn’t reach the popularity of the Protected Areas or Czech Municipalities projects, partly because the topic is not able to address or attract the masses, and also because not many Wikipedians are actually taking part in the project. Still, we believe it is worth continuing, since the Jewish culture has always been part of the country’s social life and history.

(You can see more photos in this category on Wikimedia Commons)

Jitka Erbenová, Wikimedia Česká republika

This post is available in 2 languages:

На русском языке  • English

In English:

On May 18th, 2013, we gathered for a big WikiParty in Moscow, Russia. It was dedicated to three important events: the millionth article in Russian Wikipedia, the twelfth anniversary of Russian Wikipedia, and the traditional WikiAwards for achievements of Russian Wikipedia’s contributors during 2012.

Russian University of Economics was the main venue, however the event began in the Sokol district with a tour by Wikipedian Andreykor, who wrote good and featured articles about this area. In addition to the celebration, Wikipedians Vladimir Soloviev and Sergei Vladimirov held workshops and the university held an Open Day. The university’s event organizers even enriched the celebration with a master class in carving lemons, a pun and symbol of the million articles.

The day of the celebration happened to also be the countrywide Russian day of planting forests. On this day, people planted 27 million new trees in the area of 8700 hectares during various events, setting a record in Russia. Among these trees were Alley of Free Knowledge oaks, planted by Wikipedians from the Russian Economic University, and Wikipedia Avenue pines, which will become a part of a forest destroyed by fires few years ago near the town of Roshal, in the Moscow region.

In addition to these celebrations, on May 22 we celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Sakha Wikipedia at the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in St. Petersburg. Sakha Wikipedia is a project in one of the many languages spoken in Russia.

The celebrations took place amid increased public attention to the government’s attempts to blacklist several Wikipedia pages about drugs and suicide. Earlier, the Russian Wikipedia went on strike against the legislation that enables such decisions; however, what’s more important is Wikipedia’s achivements and the possibility to hold such diverse celebrations.

Anastasia Lvova, Wikimedia Russia

На русском языке

Википедия на русском языке отпраздновала миллион статей и день рождения дубами, соснами и награждением

18 мая 2013 года в Москве прошёл Праздник Википедии, который был посвящён сразу трём важным событиям — написанию миллионной статьи, двенадцатой годовщине русскоязычного раздела, а также вручению традиционных премий за достижения в работе над проектом за 2012 год.

Основной площадкой празднования стал Российский экономический университет им. Г. В. Плеханова, однако мероприятие началось в районе Сокол, о котором проводивший экскурсию участник Andreykor написал ряд хороших и избранных статей. В самом университете, помимо празднования, мастер-классов участников Википедии Владимира Соловьёва и Сергея Владимирова, а также награждения, проходил день открытых дверей; организаторы университетских мероприятий ещё сильнее расширили празднование, устроив мастер-класс по карвингу на основе лимонов, символов достигнутого миллиона.

Кроме этого, празднование перекликалось со Всероссийским днём посадки лесов. В этот день в России был установлен рекорд — участники различных акций посадили 27 миллионов новых деревьев на площади 8700 гектаров. Среди этих деревьев — дубовая Аллея свободных знаний, высаженная участниками Википедии на территории Российского экономического университета, и сосновая Аллея имени Википедии, которая станет частью лесов у города Рошаля Московской области, несколько лет назад сильно пострадавших от пожаров.

Кроме того, 22 мая в Санкт-Петербурге, в постоянном представительстве республики Саха (Якутия) прошло празднование пятилетия Саха Википедии, одного из проектов на языке народов России.

Проведение всех этих празднований проходило на фоне повышенного общественного внимания к внесению в черный список запрещенных веб-сайтов ряда страниц проекта о наркотиках и самоубийствах. Ранее проект бастовал против законодательства, на основе которого были приняты эти решения; впрочем, тем важнее оказываются достижения Википедии и возможность проведения столь разносторонних праздников.

См. также / See also commons:Category:Wiki Party in Moscow 2013-05-18

использованные изображения / images used: cc-by-sa 3.0. file:Wiki Party in Moscow 2013-05-18 IMG 5186.JPG, Voyagerim; file:2013-Wiki-premiya-dub-002.JPG, Maxcinedoc (Максим Астраханцев); file:Wikipedia Alley, Roshal 02.jpg, Кармальская Елена

Львова Анастасия, НП «Викимедиа РУ»

This post is available in 3 languages:

English  • Polski • Español

English

Wikiexpedtion logo

A Polish national railways class EU07

Wikimedia Polska, the Polish Wikimedia Chapter, is about to organize a Railways Expedition in collaboration with the Polish Railways Company. The photography expedition is devoted to train infrastructure in Poland and will give participants unprecedented access to sites they wouldn’t otherwise see so closely.

Polish Railways has offered the opportunity to teach Wikipedians to navigate the railway premises, after which they will receive ID cards entitling them to enter and photograph objects normally inaccessible to the public. Polish Railways will provide us with free monthly railway tickets for all participants and special passes to legally enter and photograph rail tracks, workshops, rail yards, cargo railway stations and museums belonging to Polish Railways. Wikimedia Polska will cover the costs of accommodation and food (travel to Poland is not covered).

We are looking for people interested in this form of Wikiexpedition. We want to form 2-3 person teams, with Polish-speaking leaders and participants from other countries. We’d like to underscore the fact that you will not need to speak Polish to participate; we’re happy to help you navigate the language. Teams would be moving independently, both in terms of time and location. We think it would be useful to organize several teams that could work in different areas of Poland. The Wikiexpedtion will take place this summer, sometime between June and September, 2013.

If you want to join the railways expedition, just add yourself to the list on the Wikimedia Polska wiki. Basically, the only requirements are that you a) have an obsession with trains and railways and b) that you are excited to spend around a week (or more) traveling in slow trains that stop at all manner of tiny stations around Poland.

Tomas Ganicz, Wikimedia Polska

Polski

Wikiekspedycja kolejowa

Wikimedia Polska organizuje wikiekspedycję kolejową we współpracy z PKP. Wyprawa ta ma na celu wykonanie dokumentacji fotograficznej dworców, składów kolejowych i infrastruktury kolejowej w Polsce.

PKP zaoferowało możliwość przeszkolenia chętnych Wikipedystów z poruszania się po terenach kolejowych, po którym dostaną oni legitymacje uprawniające do wchodzenia i fotografowania obiektów normalnie niedostępnych publicznie. Zainteresowane osoby otrzymają też darmowy bilet kolejowy open na okres 1 miesiąca. Wikimedia Polska funduje uczestnikom wyżywienie i nocleg w trakcie trwania ekspedycji.

W związku z tym szukamy ludzi zainteresowanych taką formą Wikiekspedycji. Zespoły kolejowe poruszałby się niezależnie od siebie, zarówno jeśli chodzi o czas, jak i miejsce. Rozważamy 2-3 międzynarodowe zespoły składające się z 2-3 osób, które mogłyby działać w różnych obszarach Polski. Polscy uczestnicy wspieraliby językowo zagranicznych, stąd przynajmniej jedna osoba w zespole powinna mówić po polsku i angielsku. Wikiekspdycja odbyłaby się w okresie lipiec-wrzesień 2013.

Jeśli chcesz dołączyć do ekspedycji kolejowej dopisz się na wiki Wikimedia Polska [2]. Od kandydatów oczekujemy jedynie aby: a) byli fascynatami kolejnictwa, b) byli gotowi poświęcić ok tygodnia (lub więcej) na podróżowanie lokalnymi pociągami.

Tomas Ganicz, Wikimedia Polska

Español

Wikiexpedición por tren en Polonia

Wikimedia Polska, el capítulo polaco de Wikimedia, está organizando una expedición ferroviaria en colaboración con la Compañia de Ferrocarriles Nacionales Polacos. La expedición fotográfica está dedicada a la infraestructura ferroviaria de Polonia y permitirá a los participantes un acceso sin precedentes a sitios que de otro modo no podrían ver tan de cerca.

La Compañía Polaca de Ferrocarriles ha ofrecido a wikipedistas voluntarios la oportunidad de entrenarse en las instalaciones ferroviarias, después de lo cual recibirán una credencial que les permitirá entrar y fotografiar lugares y objetos que normalmente son inaccesibles para el público. La Compañía entregará boletos de tren mensuales para todos los participantes de forma gratuita y pases especiales que les permitirá tener acceso de manera legal y fotografiar vías, talleres, estaciones de carga y museos pertenecientes a la Compañía de Ferrocarriles. Wikimedia Polonia cubrirá los costos de alojamiento y comida.

Estamos buscando gente interesada en esta clase de expedición. Queremos formar equipos de 2 a 3 personas, incluyendo un líder que hable polaco y participantes de otros países. Nos gustaría destacar que no necesita hablar polaco para participar; estaremos encantados de ayudarle con el idioma. Los equipos se moverán independientemente, tanto en términos de tiempo y lugar. Pensamos que sería útil organizar varios equipos que podrían trabajar en diferentes regiones de Polonia. La Wikiexpedición se llevará a cabo este verano, entre junio y septiembre de 2013.

Si deseas unirte a la expedición ferroviaria sólo agrega tu nombre a la lista en la página wiki de Wikimedia Polska: [3]. Básicamente, los únicos requisitos son a) estar obsesionado con los trenes y los ferrocarriles, y b) estar emocionado de pasar una semana (o más) viajando en trenes lentos que paran en todo tipo de estaciones pequeñas alrededor de Polonia.

Tomas Ganicz, Wikimedia Polska
Traducción por Justin Duranboger

Tuve la oportunidad de conocer al sociólogo Alfonso Ortí hace tiempo, cenamos juntos una vez , compartimos una conferencia , y pudimos comer al día siguiente pero hubo un enfrentamiento .. y es que la izquierda española (si tal nombre podría dársele) lleva a la gresca desde que el mundo es mundo.. tambien estuvimos con  Lolo Rico, directora de cine y TV (más conocida como directora del famoso programa de televisión "La bola de Cristal" en el que un icono de la juventud de España "LA bruja avería" tuvo su presentación ...) fué una curiosa, pero muy curiosa discusión en la que aprendí que es imposible organizar un acto y quedar bien en cuestiones de protocolo cuando te colocan entre la espada y la pared ...fué la primera vez que se le dedicaba unas jornadas a ese programa de televisión que formó a toda una generación española, y que el teléfono rojo guerra paró en seco... pero,  esa comida habría sido estupenda si no se hubiera producido el incidente .. con mis compas de organización estaban Lolo Rico, Alaska, Vaquerizo, Santiago Alba ..., and others ... pero por lo que traemos aquí esta historia es por lo que sucede cuando un texto, una obra un esquema en este caso cuando lo analizas con el tiempo .. y no puedes quitar de tu mirada, la cara del autor .... TRASTOCA de una manera tan vital la apreciación de la obra que casi no puedes ya evitar pENSAR , literalmente, de OTRA MANERA ... mirar sin saber que nuestro punto ciego es saber a la vez conformamos lo que miramos al mirar , .. a lo que yo añadiría que mientras miramos somos mirados por nosotros,  a la vez que por la propia mirada .. somos mirados por la mirada... 

...y es que andamos bastante jartos de la ideología alemana ...(q claramente visualizó Nietzsche la religión oculta anarquismo y marxismo laicizada , pero religión !! la filosofía alemana esa CERVEZA caliente!! tan poco grata para los negros de piel oscura mediterraneos del Norte de Africa como los andaluces )   quizá si, o quizá tambien , las estructuras filosóficas que nacieron CONTRA un estado de cosas no sean sino la FORMA DE MANTENERLAS en la existencia ... el ying y el yang que entre fascismo y marxismo andamos, entoavía enreaos .. y es que como decía er torero hay gente pa tó ... cuando le contaron que Ortega se dedicaba a filosofar .. ;-) 

Salvo entre enamorados, la mirada siempre establece un régimen de desigualdad que debería ser equilibrado por algún castigo.Se mira siempre desde lejos y desde arriba, impunemente ,y así se cree uno a cubierto de todo contagio y de toda responsabilidad penal. Cámara o pistola —que técnica, gesto y lenguaje tanto emparentan—, la víctima lo es sobre todo de la distancia infinita entre las dos fuerzas así enfrentadas: la víctima se deja apalear, desnudar, manipular, pero se 'deja' también mirar. Una de las peculiaridades sin duda de nuestro tiempo es ésta en virtud de la cual los mismos que protestamos contra todas las otras desigualdades aceptamos como natural la desigualdad de la mirada, que la tecnología al mismo tiempo ha globalizado y normalizado.

Unos matan y otros son matados; unos miran y otros son mirados. 

" Por ello, para q el engaño surta efecto, tiene q valerse de una esperanza lisonjera y perversa. Por eso también, desde todos los púlpitos se predica la esperanza, bien encerrada en lainterioridad, bien con un consuelo en el más allá. Por eso también, las últimasmiserias de la filosofía occidental ya no pueden presentar su filosofía de la miseriasin la prenda de una superación, de una trasposición. "

Pensar significa traspasar.Pero, dsde luego, el traspasar noha encontrado, hastahora, su pensamiento suficientemente agudo #twittsofia Bloch
— eraser juⒶnjo * ✘ ★ (@eraser) May 23, 2013

#FreeBassel / David Kindler / CC BY

If you subscribe to Creative Commons’ newsletter or follow us on Twitter and Facebook, you’re likely familiar with the story of Bassel Khartabil, our friend and longtime CC volunteer who’s been in prison in Syria since March 2012. Today, on the second birthday that Bassel has spent in prison, friends of Bassel and members of the open community are taking a moment to reflect on his situation and call for his release.

The Index on Censorship, which honored Bassel in March with the Digital Freedom Award, has compiled a collection of birthday wishes for Bassel:

I just want him free, I pray for him to be free and I pray for all his friends who believe and work on Bassel’s freedom. – Bassel’s mother

It is your birthday. It is not a day of happiness — yet. But when justice is done, and you are released from your wrongful imprisonment, all of us will celebrate with enormous happiness both this day, and every day that you have given us as an inspiration for hope across the world. – Larry Lessig, founder of Creative Commons

Read more

Our friend Jon Phillips, organizer of the #freebassel campaign, has launched a project called FREEBASSEL SUNLIGHT. In Jon’s words, “Please help shine some sunlight on Bassel by doing some novel research on his situation, where he is located, and help connect the dots of his situation and life.”

Artist and filmmaker Niki Korth recently developed a game that uses quotations from Bassel to start conversations about free and open communication, the conflict in Syria, and other topics. Niki has been publishing the playing cards online as well as videos of people playing the game.

Earlier this week, Niki led a few of us at CC in the game. You can watch our responses to several of her questions on her Vimeo page.

In this video, CC CEO Cathy Casserly voices our shared hope that we’ll see Bassel soon:

Read more

• Free Bassel, Free Culture
• Lawrence Lessig’s WSJ Article on Bassel Khartabil

ULS deployment prep

The Language Engineering team is working on refining several important features of the Universal Language Selector. This extension will provide an umbrella of services including selection of UI language, input tools and fonts. ULS will superannuate Narayam and Webfonts to provide a unified solution for configuring language settings for MediaWiki. During this development sprint, critical bugs related to positioning of ULS’ activation area and its “cog icon” label were fixed. These affected multiple MediaWiki skins and interlanguage wiki pages. The improved version will be deployed over several phases. More information about the upcoming deployment can be found in the deployment schedule.

ULS testing

ULS features are to be verified based on the test scenarios identified. These scenarios, based on the Cucumber framework, can be adapted for automatic as well as manual testing. The scenarios cover core features of ULS: triggers, language settings panel, display settings, font selection and input tools selection. These have been written in a simple “Given-When-Then” format and provide the steps for easy walkthroughs. The testing instance hosts all the latest updates that are being made. The team is looking for volunteers who can help us with testing and reporting bugs. Let us know if you would like to join and help (write to runa at wikimedia dot org or ping us on #mediawiki-i18n) .

What’s next

The team will be completing all feature changes and testing them by end of the current sprint to be ready for kicking-off the roll-out of phase 1 of ULS. Roll-out will be coordinated by Niklas Laxström with administrators of all scheduled wikis. The team will also be hosting a bug triage session on May 29, 2013 on freenode.net IRC on the #mediawiki-i18n channel.

ULS is live on Commons!

Meanwhile, based on consensus reached by the Commons community, Universal Language Selector and the Translate extensions have been enabled on Commons.

For more details about the Language Engineering projects and ways to participate, please write to me [runa at wikimedia dot org] or ping us on #mediawiki-i18n.

Runa Bhattacharjee, Outreach and QA coordinator, Language Engineering

MediaWiki is being used in all kinds of environments, from internal and private corporate wikis to other Free Culture wikis. That is, of course, the great benefit behind Free and Open Source Software; the software can be modified and used in new situations the original authors didn’t necessarily expect.

Because the Wikimedia Foundation wants the MediaWiki project to be as healthy as possible, and also address the needs of as many different constituencies as possible, the Foundation invests a lot of time and effort into ensuring the entire MediaWiki community feels empowered, not just those that happen to have an @wikimedia.org email address. You can see this effort most notably from the Engineering Community Team and the efforts especially around volunteer coordination and outreach.

To encourage further outside investment in MediaWiki, we are opening a Request for Proposals (RFP) (PDF) for the release management of MediaWiki. The long-term goal of this effort is to jump-start these activities as community-supported functions, thus encouraging widespread leadership in the future of MediaWiki.

The process for this RFP is a community-involved one. There is a three-week period for organizations to prepare and submit their proposals, after which the community can comment on and ask questions of the proposers. The Wikimedia Foundation will take all of this feedback into account when making the final decision for who will lead the release management of MediaWiki for the next year.

With this, the future of MediaWiki looks bright, and we’re excited to see where this will lead us!

Greg Grossmeier, Release Manager
Rob Lanphier, Director of Platform Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation