Azulejos: Sharing artistic beauty

Tudor Mihăescu writes (on his Romanian blog) about the joy of discovering and sharing the beauty of azulejo, an art form that Portugal has produced for over five centuries. Beauty often inspires a longing to share it.

Le-am văzut în Portugalia pe clădiri, palate şi biserici. M-au surprins prin răcoroasele nuanţe de albastru, mi-au plăcut în mod special. Când m-am întors în România, cu ocazia unui concurs de scriere pe Wikipedia, am redactat un articol pe acest subiect. Ulterior, în cadrul acestui concurs, am obţinut locul întâi la secţiunea Arte...

I saw them in Portugal on buildings, palaces and churches. I was surprised by their variegated shades of blue, which I particularly liked. On returning to Romania, I wrote an article about this for a Wikipedia writing contest, which won first place in the Arts category. Remembering these azulejos, I recently searched through Google to see them again. Many reproduce scenes of heroism in the history of the old Portuguese empire. Beyond the historical stories documented on them, these painted tiles are known for their astonishing artistic value.

Crisp, concise reports and news

We are lucky to have some fine periodicals in our community, especially for English and German readers.

Wikizine was most active in 2008/9, and came back briefly for two issues in January around the 10th anniversary.  More than any other publication, it has focused on summarizing a lot of information, from many different angles, into a tiny package.  In principle, this makes it easy to translate and share.  I have always been a fan of the 'zine; thank you, Walter.

The Wikipedia Signpost has continued to mature into a solid periodical, worthy of its active and detail-focused community.  Its templates for article layouts are excellent, and it has managed to keep individual beats short and sweet without sacrificing content. The archives are a powerful and condensed way to follow the pulse of the English Wikipedia, and to a lesser degree Wikimedia as a whole.

Monthly periodicals exist as well -- the German Kurier is the closest equivalent to the Signpost in another language, updating on a rolling basis with its own narrative style.  And the quarterly magazine Wikimedium (originally in German) has spawned a Czech version, and both pay attention to excellent layout for the print versions that they hand out to members and at meetings.  I keep copies of the last two; they are gorgeous.

And last but not least, the Wikimedia Monthly Report also focuses on summarizing a wealth of activity into a small package. It began in early 2008 as the ED's monthly report to the Board.  Sue, then still fairly new as the Foundation's Executive Director, started making these public, saying on foundation-l:

You may know that I send regular reports to the Wikimedia board. Starting this month, I'm going to experiment with sending them here as well.
Why am I doing this? I generally want the work of the staff to be visible & transparent to anyone who's interested. I don't see a really compelling reason _not_ to send the reports to foundation-l, and I'm assuming people here will appreciate being kept in the loop.
[...] I'd like to try this out for a couple of months and see what happens. Let me know if you find it helpful :-)  - Sue Gardner, January 31, 2008 

We found these very helpful, and since then this has become the most beloved staple of the Foundation's publications.  It has also provided a good model for transparency and detail for other groups publishing regular reports on their own work.  Three cheers for this sustained success!