Wiki Loves Africa: It is still too early to give a full feedback on what
worked, what did not work, what was painful, what was nicely unexpected
since the project is not over yet. But I would like to share a few quick
thoughts with regards to the question of "who can undertake the
organization of a project" :)
1. I think it is much easier for participants to the project when a
structure can carry it from an administrative point of view because it
can take the burden of admin/financial tasks off the shoulders of those
interested to help, but not interested to do the paperwork
2. I actually also think it is safer from a financial risk management
point of view :)
3. The contest took way more time and energy I would expect it would
take. I come out of it with a brand new and strong respect for the
organizers of Wiki Loves Monuments !
The number of volunteers in Africa is not unlimited and the amount of
practical support we got out of Africa was not much (for example,
Wikimedia France refused to relay the press releases. For example, The
SignPost did not care to even write a line to talk about the contest. We
were just ignored).
As such... the load is heavy for those involved.
Wiki Loves Monuments currently works in a more distributed manner
(organized in large part per country), but in most cases, the country
features a chapter or at least a developped user group. This is not what
we have. In a few countries, we have a chapter and a small official user
group. In most countries, we have at best one person.
So I am rather little convinced that a model where groups of 1-5 people,
in 10 different african countries, would request a grant from WMF and
handle things from A to Z in their country, would actually work. But we
will collect feedbacks on that matter after the contest is over to see
what would be the best option for next year :)
4. Last... probably more than in other places in the world, we got
official rubber stamping requests. For example, a "non wikimedian" jury
member asked us official statement to describe what the contest is
about, how it is run, what is expected from jury members and so on. For
example, a potential local partner asked for an official document
proving that Samuel was indeed in charge of facilitating the contest
locally. This is typically one of the reasons why chapters were created
in the first place. Often, external organizations are reassured when we
show business cards, official paper letter, signatures and so on. And
they prefer to send money to a bank rather than a paypal account. And
they prefer providing gifts to a brick and mortar association rather
than sending the gifts to a po box.
So yes... it takes a group to take initiative to organize it. And we had
this group this year. It was wonderful. I hope to see even more people
to get in the boat next year (globally or locally). But just as I like
Wikimedia France to be a "support" structure in France for the Wiki
Cheese project, I think we need a "support" structure for WLA. And
Africa Center does that.
Cheers
Flo
PS: gosh, I am glad this list is alive !!!!
Le 03/12/14 03:09, Asaf Bartov a écrit :
On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Kasper Souren
<kasper.souren(a)gmail.com
<mailto:kasper.souren@gmail.com>> wrote:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Africa
I see the contest is over now, will there be another one coming up?
Maybe. What it takes for that to be a "yes" is a group to take
initiative to organize it, and to request the resources needed to run
it (at the very least, prizes, but usually also logistics etc.),
whether via a grant or through local sponsorships or crowdfunding. In
the case of this competition this year, the organization was
undertaken by the Africa Centre, which secured a WMF grant to fund it:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Africa_Centre/Wiki_Loves_Africa_…
(you might also be interested in the talk page)
I was quite disappointed by the limited participation of
Cameroom to the photo contest. Given the effort already been
done in that country to train editors and to promote the
project, I expected more input.
While trying to upload some pictures to
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Afripedia_Douala I'm
starting to understand at least one part of the issue. Internet
connections are really bad. Very high ping times, both at the
French institute as well as in the hotel I'm staying in now, which
I can't easily consider cheap (at least in terms of pricing).
Is there a robust way to upload pictures to Commons over bad
internet connections?
Not that I know. It may be a good discussion to have on wikitech-l
and/or commons-l.
Cheers,
A.
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