Dear Colleagues,
Apologies for my epistles Dear Asaf,
Thank you for your points and for the links.
Kindly note that you quoted my mail out of context by saying that I am being alienated and
de motivatedbecause I didn't receive scholarship. It's not about
"Olaniyan" butabout the gross denial of many groups in Africa, the opportunity
of exposure tonew knowledge and information that Wikimania offer to share. Just likeyou
and I know that, Wikimedia is about community development and no communitycan develop
without an effective execution of projects. Now tell me, if youchose just 4 applicants in
Africa, how do you want other communities that werenot represented to learn from the
products/outcomes of the event?. Also, if youbelieved that Wikimedia is about free sharing
of knowledge and information, howcan communities and individual from the alienated groups
share their projectwith the larger community of Wikimedians?
I want us to read anddigest an extract from Wikimania mailing list on some of the
questions raised onissues relating to the selection of applicants for wikimania
scholarship below:
"Olatunde raises a significantissue in that call for communities to participate in
the community village isdemoralising if communities dont have the opportunity to attend
the event whichis suppose to be bringing everyone together. We have the
underlyingprinciple of sharing the sum of all knowledge, if we dont do it internally
thenwe cant do it successfully externally.
As for the response the process for Wikimania has been changed, in Mexico lastyear a
decision was taken with many communities unaware and excluded from thediscussion because
they didnt have anyone there. With Wikmania being every 2years its becomes more
significant that all communities have representativesattend every wikimania otherwise it
ends up isolating communities for 4 yearsfrom the whole of the movement. The
scholarship process is alsobroken and its needs to be discussed it needs to be
reconsidered to allow forthe changes”
Submitted by Gnangarra.
It seems some of us are comfortable with our minority role in the movement…and if we
continue this way, I wonder what would be the future of the movementin the continent.
Great thanks to Isla and Florence and others for their roleson the continent, by
providing direction through the introduction of sustainable platform for
collaborationand sharing of knowledge among the various communities in Africa. Even
withthis on hand, we still need a larger forum where all the communities andvolunteers who
align with our movement can come together to express themselves yearin year out.
Now that no one knows the fate of Wikiindaba and Wikimaniais out of reach. What next?
Submitted. Olaniyan Olushola
Director, WUGN
Treasurer, FOSSFA
MD, Olbims Consulting
Phone: +2348154876844
Email: olaniyanshola15(a)gmail.com
Email: olaniyanshola(a)yahoo.com
Email:treasurer@fossfa.net
User page: Olaniyan Olushola
Facebook: Olaniyan Shola
Twitter :Olaniyan73
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