Guggenheim image donation; Wiki campaign gets advertising award

Guggenheim Museum donates 100 images, hosts editathon

artnet and The Next Web report (May 6) that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is releasing a hundred images of works in its collection under Creative Commons licences in conjunction with a May 19 editathon. The donation includes works by Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Klee. Pharos, president of Wikimedia New York City and a speaker at the editathon, told the Signpost that the works should all be available in the Wikimedia Commons category commons:Category:Media contributed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in time for the event. The images will be of works already in the public domain, but they will be higher resolution images than have been previously available, and will include both two-dimensional and three-dimensional works.

Wikipedia stunt earns advertising award

Advertising Age reports (May 4) that a campaign involving Wikipedia was honored at the 94th annual awards of the Art Directors Club, presented last week in Miami Beach. The campaign was created by the Costa Rican branch of Leo Burnett Worldwide for Fundación Paniamor, a Costa Rican non-profit organization dedicated to children's advocacy, for the 2014 presidential election last May. In October 2014, they edited the articles of the major candidates on the Spanish Wikipedia, including the eventual winner Luis Guillermo Solís, to insert a largely blank section asking what the candidates would do to address childhood protection issues. The edits were immediately reverted and the articles protected, but the campaign drew attention to the edits with the hashtag #IncompleteBios. The campaign received attention in the Spanish-language media and claims credit for the candidates all adopting childhood protection policies in their platforms.

In brief

Talkin' Wikipedia Editing Blues: Newsday reports (May 5) on a new "Wiki folk musical" by TV writer and producer Larry Mollin about Paul Clayton, the folk singer who mentored Bob Dylan. Search: Paul Clayton, the Man Who Loved Bob Dylan runs from May 6 to May 21 at Stage 72. Mollin told Newsday "I thought it would be fun to structure a play based on the structure of a Wikipedia page." The article did not describe what specific structure was adopted from Wikipedia or report whether or not the audience would be able to edit the performance if they were unsatisfied with it.

Editors of the world, unite: The Diamondback reports (May 4) on the International Workers' Day editathon at the University of Maryland's Hornbake Library.

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in": Former Gambino crime family mobster John Alite alleged (May 3) to the New York Post that he is the target of a "cyber-hit" by John A. Gotti. The alleged campaign includes Twitter accounts, YouTube videos, and vandalism of Alite's Wikipedia article.

The grammar hero Wikipedia needs: The media fascination with Giraffedata and his quest to rid Wikipedia of the phrase "comprised of" has not dissipated. On the May 1 episode of the CBS Evening News, Steve Hartman interviewed Giraffedata for the On the Road segment and appeared to have difficulty keeping a straight face while doing so.

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