Hi Kasper
There's a French speaking part in Cameroon, if its not their official
language. Cote d'Ivoire has French as national language. Egypt and
Tunisians were present. English speaking countries like Ghana was there.
So speaking of French representations, I think for the first ever
conference of wikiindaba, it was okay. In subsequent events, more countries
can be included.
I may be wrong, but I don't think drawing language lines in this conference
is of any importance. Whatever the different countries that come, the
default language to be used will be English. The conference is for
Africans, not anglophone or 'portophone' or whatever. Of course, attendees
are free to speak language they are comfortable in when they attend.
I also must say that, I've hardly known Douala if not for my WiR in za.
However, I cannot say for sure that, because myself or one or two of people
I know doesn't know Douala, for that reasons, Douala isn't reaching out to
many or Douala is making poor country-based representations.
The next wikiindaba will invite more from different countries. More
countries will be represented. I don't think any special preference will be
given to francophone countries whatsoever. Its a conference for Africans,
not English speaking or Portuguese or French.
rexford |
On Dec 7, 2014 3:52 PM, "Kasper Souren" <kasper.souren(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Dec 4, 2014 at 11:59 AM, Isla Haddow-Flood
<islahf(a)africacentre.net> wrote:
In June, Wikimedia ZA held Wiki Indaba. It was
for wikipedians from
Africa and wikipedians working on Africa from outside, as well
as those
from the aligned movement across Africa. We had delegates from all over
Africa, including Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Tunisia, and France.
Afripedia was
invited, I know, because I made a special effort
to make sure they knew
about it. I believe Florence also mentioned it to them. But there was
some
change happening at Afripedia too.
That's participants from 3 Francophone countries in Africa, the
relevant Wikipedia mentions 24 and 31 countries. Last week I asked and
none of the 14 Africans who attended the Douala session knew about
WikiIndaba. Same for the participants in Madagascar if I remember
correctly.
Also on
wikiindaba.net I don't see *any* French language content (I
googled "français site:wikiindaba.net" ). That makes it pretty hard
for people who don't speak English to attend.
I think another Wiki Indaba will definitely
happen, but for when and
where
you will have to check with Douglas at Wikimedia
ZA the original
organizers
(and aiming for Ghana for 2017 is a great idea,
hopefully having had
others
in 2015-6).
That's great!
I really don't see any point in spitting the
conference and having a
francophone one separate from the rest. It means we are going backwards,
but
with Afripedia on board, perhaps the weighting of
the conference can
become
more balanced. You can find out more about the
conference at
WikiIndaba.net
It's not really splitting if there was no French language part to
begin with, right? ;)
With a separate it would be much easier to convince French language
organisations such as La Francophonie to support the event. But I
guess a separate track with a big effort to attract Francophone
participants could also suffice for that.
Also note I can't speak for Afripedia, I'm merely a contractor who did
2 Afripedia training sessions. I do have some connections now though
that can help a lot to build afro-anglo-francophone bridges.
Moreover don't get me wrong, I agree it's better to create one
multilingual event, ideally also include Arabic and Portuguese and at
least 2 African languages spoken in different countries (e.g. Swahili,
Mande languages, Peul). But this requires a lot more effort than from
what I can see from last WikiIndaba - and I'm happy to help make with
that to assure the next WikiIndaba will be a real polyglot conference!
Cheers,
Kasper
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