the coding of a software, WikiFundi, that provides an off-line
editing environment that mimics the Wikipedia environment. The
software will be made available in French and English.
How will the edited content offline eventually get merged into Live
Wikipedia?
This is an excellent question.
And the answer is "manually" (copy paste) because the people involved
considered any type of automatic merging would create much trouble.
Kiwix
is a reader. It features the entirety of Wikipedia content, to be
read, and only to be read.
Wikifundi will not include Wikipedia. It is a mediawiki based website,
which will be as much as possible set-up like our mediawiki, and which
will include the most used templates. The idea is that Wikipedia style
articles could be created or improved directly in WikiFundi (for
example during an edit-a-thon), and more or less copy-pasted into
Wikipedia once an internet connexion is available. Which means that the
edit-a-thon could be made with one box and one electrical plug, with all
participants accessing wikifundi through the local network created by
the box.
Note that in the pack, we will provide kiwix as well.
Flo
rexford
On Monday, June 13, 2016, Florence Devouard <fdevouard(a)gmail.com
<mailto:fdevouard@gmail.com>> wrote:
Hello everyone
WikiAfrica has recently started a new project, the Wikipack Africa.
The project amalgamates:
* the coding of a software, WikiFundi, that provides an off-line
editing environment that mimics the Wikipedia environment. The
software will be made available in French and English.
* the creation of action packs for use by local Wikimedia
chapters, user groups or isolated individuals in Africa, and
* a Wikipedia Writing Contest to be run in African Schools,
#WikiChallenge African Schools
It will roll out in two phases :
Phase 1 involves the creation of the WikiPack Africa. WikiPack
Africa is a digital kit located via a local network device
(Raspberry PI). The local network device will provide access to an
off-line editing platform that mimics Wikipedia, and provides
related materials and additional OER resources. The WikiPack
Africa will both facilitate the outreach work of Wikimedia
chapters, User Group and individuals, and encourage the growth of
digital skills and content contribution by teachers and students
across Africa. The pack allows for ongoing training and
contribution even when technology, access and electricity outages
fail or are not available at all.
The WikiPack Africa delivered to users will comprise two Raspberry
PIs and some offline materials (posters, leaflets, pull-up banner,
tee-shirts, etc.). The WikiPack will be delivered to several
Wikimedia User Groups located in Africa end of 2016. A Call for
Interest will be made to identify which groups will receive the
Packs (8 countries will be covered as part of the pilot launch).
The project has been conceptualised and conceived by Isla and
myself after seeing how frustrating limited access to internet or
even to electricity could be when trying to participate to Wikipedia.
The WikiPack Africa is primarily meant for individuals and groups
wanting to implement outreach projects and:
* work with galleries, libraries, archives and museums to bring
cultural content online;
* work with education partners to get educators and students
contribute or better understand Wikimedia projects;
* more generally, organise edit-a-thons, photo hunts, workshops,
press conferences, etc. to promote Wikimedia projects.
The #WikiChallenge African Schools (Phase 2) will use the WikiPack
Africa to facilitate an entertaining, powerful, collaborative and
interactive content creation competition between schools in
Sénégal, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinée, Niger, Tunisia, Madagascar, and
Cameroon (countries may change...). The challenge will run early 2017.
The full project is run in partnership with Wikimedia CH and the
Orange Foundation. It will be primarily implemented by Florence,
Isla and Emmanuel Engelhart (Kelson, from Kiwix) from May 2016
until summer 2017.
The project proposal, its documentation and its outcomes will be
under a CC BY SA 4.0 licence.
---------
CALL for SUPPORT
Current next steps include in particular
* working on the WikiFundi software. This shall be lead by Kelson
and part of the development should be done during the Kiwix
Hackhaton prior to Wikimania. If you are interested to help, and
simply interested to better understand what is planned, please get
in touch;
* working on the content that will be put on WikiFundi.
We will NOT provide the entirety of Wikipedia on the plateform,
but only a mix of "presentation material", some "help:pages",
"showcase of best articles" and a large % of templates currently
available on Wikipedia. If you want to help or provide insightful
input, please get in touch (with me), by email or on the wiki talk
page or during Wikimania.
We start working on the English content first. My current
challenge is to identify the most relevant help pages... and adapt
them to this offline editing environnement.
---------
* To read more about Wikifundi:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiFundi
* More information about the wikipack :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipack_Africa/en and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipack_Africa/fr
* WikiProject page on the English Wikipedia :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipack_Africa
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
African-Wikimedians mailing list
African-Wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians
_______________________________________________
African-Wikimedians mailing list
African-Wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/african-wikimedians