Hi Bobby, 

As you may already be aware, I know what Wiki-Indaba is all about and if you dig out some thread on this list or have been following discussions on this list, you will notice that I bided for Wiki-Indaba 2016 on behalf of my country, Nigeria. 

That being said, we do not want a situation where people will need permission from a committee to help countries that needs help. 

We do not want people to use the committee to promote personal agenda. I already noted that the goals of "Activating African Communities"[1], a personal project run by one of the three members of this committee are what we are seeing on the Wiki Indaba Steering Committee.

We don't want another level of bureaucracy. I personally cannot give a progress report of my project to any committee except the WMF and or a committee constituted by WMF to handle such things. 

Again, Wiki-Indaba scholarship committee, LOC and WMF should handle how people are selected for scholarship. 

Regards, 

Isaac
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Activating_African_Communities

On Jun 11, 2018 2:01 AM, "Bobby Shabangu" <bobbyshabangu@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Isaac, 

Thanks for your questions and comments, and I think they are important to bring forth so that we clarify them and get an understanding of what the Wiki-Indaba gathering and subsequent Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee (WIScom) is all about. 

Remember the conference brings together old hands of Wikimedia and newbies and Wikimedians with some experience but needs capacity building,  we also have free knowledge advocates and mission aligned institutions including sponsorships like our friends the Goethe-institute, and some Embassies and university reprentatives. Projects and challenges are shared by Wikimedians here and solutions are identified, but how do we track if those solutions are being implemented and are working? How do we provide support?  How do we give conference attendees the right tools to run their project? This is where the WIScom comes in. To provide simple actionable solutions that will bring together Wikipedians within the African continent after the conference. 

So, to simply answer you, Wiki-Indaba is not about the conference but is about Wikimedians within the African continent. And although helping Wikimedians organise the conference will be part of what WIScom do, but WIScom is not necessarily about events management (the conference) but it's more about people management (Wikimedians). 

We don't want meta or this mailing list to be the only way for us to communicate but we want to also include a Facebook page and Twitter handle for Wiki-Indaba where our friends the Goethe-institute or Creative Commons or some Wikipedian in Malawi or Central African Republic can know about us and receive the same assistance. 

Please read more about why we have the conference on the link here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2014

Kind regards, 
Bobby Shabangu 


On Sunday, June 10, 2018, Isaac Olatunde <reachout2isaac@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Zeineb, 

Thanks for sharing this information. However, I do have some questions and comments.  I have listed them below. 

1. You wrote "Support Wikimedians within The African continent who wants to run Wikimedia projects but don't know where to start or how to go about doing that, as well as finding out about the progress of projects run by Wikimedians within the African continent and diaspora" How is this related to Indaba? I believe an Indaba steering committee should primarily focus on the business of Indaba which is the African regional conference. 

2. While I do agree on the need to support individuals that one to run Wikimedia projects in their countries, I do not think we need a committee to do that, even if we do, I don't think Indaba steering committee should be the one to handle this. This appears to be out of scope. 

3. "Finding out about the progress of projects runs by Wikimedians in Africa and diaspora " is a go thing, I also think this is out of scope for Indaba steering committee " Reports/Progress reports are often published on Meta Wiki for everyone to see and people are welcome to contact project coordinator if there is a capacity in which they which to help. I do not think we need a committee to do that and if we must have a committee, I don't think Indaba Steering Committee is the appropriate committee to do that. 

4. In your page you wrote "Management of scholarships application and awarding process " In 2017, I proposed here "Indaba Scholarship Committee " like "Wikimania Scholarship Committee" but it does appeared that the LOC with support of the WMF handled the process. Thus, it might be a good idea to have a separate body like the one proposed above, WMF and LOC to handle this process. 


I do think the roles of this steering committee are overstretched and we do need to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. 

Regards, 

Isaac 

On Jun 10, 2018 12:01 PM, "Zeineb Takouti" <zeinebtakouti@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear African Wikimedians, 

I hope this email finds you well.

As you will remember that during our  Wiki-Indaba conference in Tunisia it was agreed that we need to put together a steering committee that will be responsible for capacity building which includes amongst other things providing support to countries who wish to host Wiki-Indaba conference in the future, support Wikimedians within the African continent who wants to run Wikimedia projects but don't know where to start or how to go about doing that, as well as finding out about the progress of projects run by Wikimedians within the African continent and diaspora and letting everyone know through social media etc. 

Currently the Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee (WISCom) is composed of representatives from countries who were previously host to the conference, this includes Myself,  Bobby Shabangu and Felix Nartey. We would like to increase the steering committee, and we are calling for applications from volunteers who are interested to be part of the WISCom. The applications can be done by answering a few questions on this page  here .

The due date for applications is Friday 22 June 2018. 

You are free to share this message on other social groups for more participation. 

Kind regards, 

Zeineb Takouti


Zeineb Takouti
Chef de projet / Consultante Junior
Co-fondatrice et secrétaire générale de Carthagina
Membre de  Wikimedia TN User Group
GSM: (+216) 54 394 883



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