Dear fellow Wikimedians, dear Florence,
as the Wiki loves Africa 2019 competition is coming to its close I would
like to bring back the question which I raised already in December 2018:
*1. Do others share my impression that images from the competition are
hardly ever used in wikipedia articles?*
*2. Do others have the impression that the present approach for Wiki
Loves Africa does not help much to close the knowledge gap about Africa? *
When I posted in December some participants here voiced interest but
wanted to wait for a feedback fom the organizers. Such a feedback I have
not seen. So allow me to repeat some lines from my first post:
/I was an early fan of the idea of "Wiki Loves Africa" but I have to
confess that my fan status has cooled over time. I cannot claim to have
done a comprehensive reseach but did some checks here and there.//
////*So I have the impression that
a) the competition has brought a number of really beautiful photographs
b) the competition has brought lots of images which are not used
anywhere in wikipedia articles (my short checks give me the impression
that could be the case for the vast majority of images produced)*//
////
//and//*I ask myself if the reason may be that a lot of these mages is
frankly unusable.*//
////
//I remember that prize selected image showing some beautiful ladies in
Massai attire knitting under a tree (the year of adornment) which was
selected in a winner category but is unusable for any purpose (unless
you want to document fake stereoptypes - the motive was fake...)//
////
//There is a lot of nice looking images which I do not know how to use
because of their not clear labelling, unhelpful categories and useless
explanations. It helps me as author nothing to see an image and a text
like "traditional tools of Ghana/Malawi/etc". *This is unusable and
useless*.//
////
//I write this not from the point of view of a lover of beauty (my taste
is poor) but just simply from the view of a wikipedia author. I would
love to have some thousand images (not necessarily beautiful) which
just show African villages. We know the criticism about the white spots
on the African maps of knowledge. Villages back home in Germany may have
less than 1000 inhabitants but 3 articles about the village, about its
church and about the sports club. Images are available and people look
for them.//
////
//*I do not want to denigrate Wiki loves Africa but i would love to hear
from others how they see the value of the results as they have been so
far. Why do we do it - what do we get from it? *//How can images about
"play" be useful for closing the white spaces on the African map of
knowledge?/
Cheers, Ingo - "Kipala"
Jenga Wikipedia ya Kiswahili user group
