Commons:Wikimedia UK

Wikimedia UK

Open knowledge for all

Wikimedia UK is the charity which promotes Wikimedia Commons and other Wikimedia projects in the United Kingdom.

That includes encouraging UK cultural institutions to release material to Commons.

How do we help?

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Lending out photography equipment: The charity has a variety of Equipment available for Wikimedians to use in the UK, including cameras and tripods. See here for more details.

Project grants: Wikimedia UK has a grants programme (up to £2000) open to any member of the charity. We can support expenses such as travel costs, or event costs, so if you have an idea for improving Commons think about becoming a member and applying for a grant.

Running events: The charity also runs events such as Wiki Loves Monuments UK or Wikipedia Takes Coventry. They're open to anyone interested, so keep an eye on the events page. You can even borrow one of the charity's cameras cameras!

Liaising with institutions: Especially through our Wikimedians in Residence, the charity seeks to persuade cultural institutions to release their images under a Creative Commons license. If you have something on your wishlist, get in touch with glam wikimedia.org.uk

Supporting open knowledge

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One of the charity's strategic goals is to develop open knowledge. One of the measures Wikimedia UK uses to assess the impact on the quality of open knowledge is the number of Featured (FP), Quality (QI), and Valued Images (VI) supported by the chapter. Below is a sample of some of the files which have been through the various quality assessment processes. More can be found here:   FPs,   QIs, and   VIs.

Wiki Loves Monuments

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In 2013, the UK took part in Wiki Loves Monuments for the first time. Over the course of two competitions nearly 20,000 photographs of historic sites have been uploaded. The photos from 2013 can be seen here, and those from 2014 here.

Upload projects

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Wikimedians in Residence

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We worked with the British Library to get the release of this collection of Canadian images.

In 2012 WMUK worked with the National Archives to upload images from their collection of war art. Some of the images are below and the full batch can be seen here.

Annual reviews

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