Hi all,

I think both of you (Ingo and Rexford)  have raised genuine concerns. However my greatest worry is how we have allowed Wiki Indaba to translate in our lives as Wikimedians. 

Whether an active Wikimedian, a Community Lead, a Project Organizer, etc. What have you done that reflects the direct implications of the conference in your works and the knowledge amassed from there?

The essence of this conference can only be proven in our works, and in our works are we solely responsible for. I wish to entreat us all to grow our communities and better try to achieve our goals in the pledges we made at the end of the conference (Wiki Indaba)

Hope to hear about our exploits soon!!

Cheers,
Felix

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 11:28 AM, Nkansah Rexford <nkansahrexford@gmail.com> wrote:

@ingo

Using 'edits' only as a benchmark for someone's activeness on Wikimedia websites might not necessarily be the best measurement.

There are some contributors who are not directly contributing to the wikis but their help come in so well to get content onto Wikipedia or other Wikimedia sites.

I will use my work as WIR at Africa centre as example here. Although I did almost all the uploads of images taken, without Isla's paperwork assistance and coordination with heritage organizations, there would not have been any images in the first place to upload.

Thus, if you should look at my edits on Wikipedia or Commons, and say because I uploaded 10 images but Isla didn't, so she 'doesn't' qualify, kinda, to attend wiki indaba, well, I think you're flawed.

I hope we all don't expect everyone to equally edit on Wikipedia or other project websites. Some don't contribute in direct ways, and its best to have other means of measurement for such ones.

Creative Commons for instance funded a project that led to training and reaching out to new ones in Ghana. So if one say, because the lead behind such funding and project doesn't edit Wikipedia, so he or she (she is a she in this case, namely, Kelsey) doesn't actually fit attending such a conference, then we must be making a mistake then.

If I edit so well, but another don't, it doesn't mean the other isn't active. It might be that the other is active in a way that's not directly visible on the wikis.

Of course it is extremely impolite on such occasions to question the value of the presence of others with whom you share a desk or a meal so I just kept my thoughts to myself... But yeah, questions came..

Indeed, it would have been, kinda impolite, to do so. Because you would have realized not all edit Wikipedia, but they likely are active in a way that you aren't aware of.

And if you should ask me about what I write about, I might say, nothing. But I uploaded more images to Commons than you perhaps edited Wikipedia, and how about that?

Rexford
khophi.co

On Apr 15, 2015 7:00 AM, "Isla Haddow-Flood" <islahf@africacentre.net> wrote:
Hi Ingo,

Speaking as one of the initiators of WikiIndaba, I just wanted to clarify the choice of delegates.

You are right, many people that were invited had little to no understanding of editing Wikipedia. Because of the lamentable nature of the editing community across Africa, it was felt that in countries where little to no editing occurred but aligned activity (Creative Commons, open street map, etc.) was active, we needed to invite people who had already proven their commitment to the open movement and were part of an open community within their country. In some cases it has helped to galvanize a fledgling wikimedia community. In others, it wasn't so successful.

But it was early days, and we needed to start somewhere. Since WikiIndaba, wikimedia usergroup Tunisia has hosted WikiArabia, which has been very successful and has helped to galvanize the communities in North Africa and ME.

Warmest
Isla

Excuse the brevity, sent from my iPhone.

> On 15 Apr 2015, at 07:04, Ingo Koll <ikoll@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> RE: African-Wikimedians Digest, Vol 7, Issue 60, Participation in WIkiindaba
>
> I found it interesting to read the discussion linked in Asafs short post. As the Indaba was my first WMF-event ever I wondered about the several people I met who obviously never or only very rarely had ever done edits or written articles  (one of my small-talk questions was: What do you write about?). Of course it is extremely impolite on such occasions to question the value of the presence of others with whom you share a desk or a meal so I just kept my thoughts to myself... But yeah, questions came..
>
> From the reply I do not yet quite understand how everybody came about (a "country representative" whose en:account showed not 1 edit, as far as I remember...). Was there a certain number of edits to show, or edits over a certain period of time?
>
> OK, interesting discussion
>
> Cheers - Kipala
>
>
>> 1. Re: Wiki Indaba? (Asaf Bartov)
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Another piece of context is the short discussion WMF and WMZA had over the grant report about the Indaba.  It is available here:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:PEG/WM_ZA/Wiki-Indaba-2014/Report
>>
>> the report itself is here:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:PEG/WM_ZA/Wiki-Indaba-2014
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> A.
>
>
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