Report March–May 2009
This is a short update on Wikimédia Magyarország's activities covering March through May.
Starting first major programs
At the beginning of March Wikimedia Hungary commenced three of its major programs for the current year, notably a micro-grants program, a picture competition and an article writing competition.
The picture competition and the micro grants program are running until 15 June and we accept submissions (especially for the picture competition) from everyone. For more information please see the page on Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikimedia_Hungary_picture_competition.
You can view the already submitted works at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wikimedia_Hungary_picture_competition/Submissions; the assessment will be concluded until July 15 in a fashion similar to the Picture of the year selection, all editors are welcome to participate.
The first round of the article writing competition was concluded in March with over 30 submitted or vastly improved articles, some of them are on the way of becoming featured. The editors of the three articles found best were awarded with Wikimedia goodies and valuable antique books (contributed by one of our members).
Chapters meeting
Wikimedia Hungary, as all chapters was invited and present at the April Wikimedia Conference in Berlin. Having representation – with the help of fellow chapters – was one of the major international activities of our chapter this year.
General Meeting
Wikimedia Hungary held its AGM on 23 May. As can be expected, there were “state of the association” speeches and lots of necessary legal housekeeping. The bylaws were not changed at this point but the Board was authorised and asked to pursue the possibility of changing the legal address of the chapter to the campus of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE). This change would bring us closer to all the life around the university, to make this happen the Board will have to secure sponsorship to rent a nominal area (1 m2) inside BUTE and then a second General Meeting will officially make the change of address.
Wikipresentations
The writer of the 10 millionth Wikipedia article and our VP held a presentation in Szeged in March about Wikipedia. Following the success of these presentations, we were invited to give two follow-up presentations at a club of the county chamber of commerce on 5 May. This second time our VP and one of our members gave a general overview of Wikipedia as the repository of human knowledge and the technical aspects of setting up a wiki.
Hungarian National Bank
Our president approached the Hungarian National Bank to request advice on the legal use of reproductions of Hungarian banknotes and coins to determine whether and under what conditions they can be uploaded either to Wikimedia Commons or the Hungarian Wikipedia. The meeting held in April provided some useful insight about the current policies and possibilities regarding these uses as well as some general guidelines about the possible ways for us to get proper permission to publish.
Following this, the Hungarian National Bank has approached our chapter to provide feedback for the next revision on the central bank's legal order governing the reuse of reproductions of the banknotes and coins. In our response, sent on June 5, we emphasized the outdated elements of the previous order and advised the bank on reasonable conditions they should set (keeping in mind ease of reuse, anti-counterfeiting measures and the standards issued by the European Central Bank on euro banknotes). Furthermore, we asked the bank to give more consideration to regulating the copyrights it holds as well as the rights to use reproductions to facilitate the actual use of the digital reproductions on Wikimedia projects.
Creative Commons Hungary Association
The Creative Commons Hungary Association was officially registered on May 15. This is really good news to us as the local CC community has been a great source of legal help and we look forward to extending this mutually beneficial relationship even further.