Dear Distinguished Wikipedians,
This is a Wake Up call to all of us who meant well for African based wikipedians.
I have been waiting for many months and it's running into a year and half, yet nothing is heard from No-One. Though, I could be wrong but this is a slice of my thought on Wikindaba and the Spirit behind it.
1. Is Wikindaba a one-off event.
2. What are the outcomes of the various committees setup after the event and their effect on the overall development of various communities in the region.
2. Are the Action points mapped out after the event been reviewed and acted upon by any one or a group of committee.
3. If we jettisoned the Idea of Wikindaba would the huge nvestment by WMF on this project gone through the drainage.
4. No doubts, other regions are collaborating through a larger meet up , a replica of Wikindaba. Why is it difficult to sustain our own initiative as Africans.
5. What is stopping us from building on the achievement of the maiden Edition of Wikindaba 2014.
5. Don't we have local communities, chapters and other open knowledge platforms begging for collaboration and prime initiatives in the context of Africa any more.
7. Don't we (Younger User Groups) have anything to learn from established User Groups and Chapters in Africa any more.
The WMF through annual Wikipedian Conferences and Wikimania due to limited fund has shown that sponsorship can't go round all the wikipedians that are not financially strong but are keen to attend these events . Since, most of these event are organized outside Africa. One can only conclude that we Africa wikipedian suffer it most. Therefore, only the African version of this event in the picture of Wikindaba can give us the sense of belonging.
Lastly, I am begging other wikipedians to join hands with me to wake up the sleeping giants in us .
This is a piece of more questions but no answer.
The harvest is many but the laborers are few.
Olaniyan Olushola
Team Lead, Wikimedia User Group Nigeria (WUGN)
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.