Dear colleagues in Kenya,
I would like to let you know that (after consultation with the Affiliations
Committee) the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director, Sue Gardner, is not
extending the Board of Trustees' provisional recognition of your group as
Wikimedia Kenya. We recommend you pursue recognition as Wikimedia User
Group instead.
The recognition was conditional upon incorporation within a year, and that
has not happened. In addition, the provisional board disintegrated (with
some people leaving the chapter entirely) and no replacement announced,
almost no activity took place this past year, casting doubt on the group's
sustainability as a chapter, and certain personal issues added much
confusion and demoralization, which no doubt contributed to the inactivity.
In parallel, the Wikimedia movement has created new models of affiliation,
not available at the time your group was seeking recognition, that we are
confident would better serve your group at this stage, and would be more
appropriate, than the traditional incorporated chapter model.
Specifically, we encourage you to seek Wikimedia User Group recognition
(via AffCom -- e-mail affcom(a)lists.wikimedia.org) right now, which will
give you almost all the benefits of chapter recognition, with almost none
of the bureaucracy: trademark permission will be available to you, and as
you know, grants are always available, even to unincorporated groups (and
we will take steps to improve group oversight and governance to minimize
risk). Everything I know about this group and about AffCom suggests this
should be a smooth process.
Note that this does mean that the name "Wikimedia Kenya" should no longer
be used by you or others to refer to your group, and specifically, that you
are not to incorporate under that name. (It is best if incorporation under
any name is postponed until there's a better idea of the group's interest,
capacity, and plans. Creating a formal entity prematurely could saddle you
with inconvenient responsibilities without any of the benefits.)
"Wikimedians in Kenya", "Friends of Wikipedia in Kenya", and any number of
other names you may feel comfortable with, are good possibilities for the
name of your group, and can be recognized by the WMF if you do choose to
pursue User Group recognition.
We'd like to stress this is neither a punishment nor a demotion of your
group; it is actually an adjustment of what we call the group to match
reality and to adhere to the original terms of the provisional recognition.
We recognize your dedicated and valuable contributions in the past, and
look forward to renewed energy and accomplishments on this new path, as a
user group, and will be happy to support you in this in every way we can.
On behalf of Sue Gardner and the Wikimedia Foundation,
Asaf Bartov
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
Dear Kenyan Wikimedians,
my name is Johanna, I've been working in the German Wikimedia office for a couple of months and will be in Kenya from 10 April to 4 May. It would be great if some of you would find time to meet. Anything else you'd like to know - just ask :)
Looking forward to meeting you /jo.
Johanna Havemann, Dr.
Editor at African Perspectives
Facilitator to the UN Indigenous Youth Caucus
E: johanna.havemann(a)gmail.com
M: +49 176 22 88 24 37
W: http://africanperspectivesblog.wordpress.com/
LinkedIn: http://de.linkedin.com/in/johavemann
Skype: jo79hanna
Hi Kenyan Wikipedians,
Currently there are no free images of Wikipedia Zero and I'd like to change
that!
I'd like to introduce you to Omar Nabulsi, a photographer currently
employed at Sony who is volunteering his services to document Wikipedia
Zero in South Africa and Kenya.
In a week, he will be documenting Kul Wadhwa as he makes deals with mobile
carriers in both countries and while he isn't doing that his goal is to
document Wikipedia Zero on mobile phones, and the distribution of mobile
devices in Africa.
His original plan was to find a good taxi driver who would be able to show
him around town and I was like - wait let me send an email to a few people
first.
So if anyone here has the bandwidth to help Omar in his task, he is cc'd.
Thanks for reading & if you want to ask me about anything please feel free,
I want to respect everyone's time.
Victor
--
*Victor Grigas*
Storyteller <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knv6D6Thi0>
Wikimedia Foundation
vgrigas(a)wikimedia.org
+1 (415) 839-6885 x 6773
149 New Montgomery Street 6th floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
https://donate.wikimedia.org/
dear Wikipedians in Kenya,
with Tobias Schönwetter and Kelsey Wiens from the University of Cape Town and CC Africa, Isaac Rutenberg from the Strathmore University Centre for IP and IT Law, and another partner from Germany we are currently identifying, we are planning to apply for a project which it would great to link with you.
The project is called Wikipedia Primary School and it aims at providing on Wikipedia the information necessary to complete the cycle of primary education in the languages used by the different education systems.
Our idea is to focus on Kenya and South Africa with the ERAfrica New Ideas programme (2014-2016). you find below an overall description of the project.
The project actually comes from your experience of distributing offline Wikipedia in Kenya and it would be great if some of you would like to contribute to it.
Also the Africa Centre is working to organize trainings and activities for wikipedians in residence in Kenya.
We don't need an official letter, but simply a letter for the people interested in the project. you can also contact me directly or you can maybe discuss among you if the project is relevant and write together a letter with the names of the people who would like to participate. for the moment i will keep you updated on the project development and invite you to join the activities or to apply for open positions. I think it would be also very precious to document your experience with offline Wikipedia, maybe with some interviews. this could also be a specific activity directed by your group. Maybe also the link with the Strathmore University Centre for IP and IT Law can be useful for further initiatives linked to GLAMs. I also just wrote to OER Africa - Open Educational Resources Africa which is based in Nairobi.
what do think? would it be possible to collaborate on this project?
please consider that i would be more than pleased to change the project also according to your ideas and proposals.
looking forward to hear your impressions and my very best regards
iolanda/iopensa
--
Iolanda Pensa - via Rabolini, 10 - 20125 Milano - Italia. Tel. +39 335 655 36 33, io(a)pensa.it - http://www.iopensa.it - Skype: iopensa.
Researcher at SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
--------------------------------------
Wikipedia Primary School
Providing on Wikipedia the information necessary to complete the cycle of primary education in the languages used by the different education systems.
A project allowing students, families and teachers to find on Wikipedia the documentation necessary to obtain the primary school qualification in their country, in their language.
Wikipedia is meant to be an educational tool and it is currently available online, via mobile phones and offline. Experiences have shown that, once accessible, Wikipedia does not provide information that responds directly to curriculum-based questions. The project relies on Wikipedia as an existing and growing resource, it solves the need for an encyclopaedia capable of responding to curriculum-based questions, and it fosters Wikipedia content, quality and outreach.
More specifically the project aims at:
Bridging Wikipedia and primary education. This objective implies to move the Wikipedia community towards a focus on primary education, and at the same time to strengthen the capacity of the education ecosystem to contribute to Wikipedia, and in general to open collaborative knowledge.
Enriching Wikipedia with new content relevant to primary education. This objective implies an assessment of the articles produced.
Fostering the development of translations and new content in different Wikipedia linguistic editions. This objective implies the release of existing educational resources (OER in cc by or cc by-sa), the production of datasets and the involvement of the Wikimedia movement.
Verifying and evaluating the use of Wikipedia as a source of information for primary education. This objective implies the involvement of stakeholders and data analysis.
Wikipedia Primary School contributes to universal primary education and to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG2: Achieve Universal Primary Education). Even if it is scalable and international, the project is conceived primarily to address African countries and languages.
Wikipedia is a very peculiar encyclopaedia. It is a living organism made of a wide community with specific policies, clusters and dynamics. Contributing to Wikipedia means to play a fair game, and to respect the way Wikipedia works, its rules and community. To strengthen the capacity of Wikipedia to respond directly to curriculum-based questions, the project does not simply transfer content from national schoolbooks into Wikipedia. The methodology is centred around research and fieldwork activities.
Research activities focus on monitoring Wikipedia in different linguistic editions; understanding the different national education systems and identifying which are the content capable of responding to curriculum-based questions; involving a scientific committee in contributing to the project; establishing and managing a Wikipedia Scientific Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific publication in Creative Commons attributions share-alike license, designed to involve scholars and to assess Wikipedia articles, in collaboration with other scientific journals and by fostering synergies between scientific knowledge and Wikipedia and open access; producing datasets to generate stub articles on Wikipedia in all linguistic editions; uploading content, in particular OER Open Educational Resources already available and images and texts provided with an open license compatible with Wikipedia; supporting territorial development with tutors and with upload capacities (in particular for countries with low connectivity); monitoring and evaluating the project.
Fieldwork activities focus on testing and enhancing the use of Wikipedia in primary school and it is developed in collaboration with the stakeholders already working in education. They provide training, in particular training for Wikipedians in residence; they organise Wikipedia events, in particular Wiki Loves Monuments; they allow networking with institutions and governments to facilitate the release of content with open licenses; they tutor institutions and people; they develop pilot projects in schools and in collaboration with NGOs working in education; they establish hotspots where needed; and they facilitate the distribution of Wikipedia offline in countries where relevant.
What we do not do
Wikipedia Primary School is a scalable and international project with a specific goal: it responds to a real need, it relies on existing networks and resources, and it is structured to allow people and institutions to contribute to it. The very nature of the project is meant to produce a broad impact. If the project Wikipedia Primary School is successful, it can be developed in the future by producing content for other cycle of education.
We do not break Wikipedia rules. The project respects Wikipedia pillars and the opinions of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia communities.
We do not believe the project substitutes in any way the essential role of people and institutions working in education. We want to contribute in a specific way to the work many people and institutions are already implementing and we believe only a collaborative approach can really allow the project to be effective and relevant.
We do not produce a selection of Wikipedia articles. We want people to access and benefit from the whole Wikipedia.
We do not address students, teachers and families only. Contributing to Wikipedia is meant to provide better knowledge for everyone everywhere.
We do not work for governments and ministries of education. The project is meant to be independent. It selects articles to be based on national educational systems, but it does not implement on Wikipedia governments’ strategies or requests.
We do not provide offline access to Wikipedia over online access. We consider online access to Wikipedia a priority and the best way to access Wikipedia, because it allows to contribute to it.
We do not consider Wikipedia a schoolbook. Wikipedia is not a schoolbook and it can not substitute teachers and educators and other appropriate educational resources.
We do not simplify Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and it requires a certain level of literacy in order to access it. We do not want to adapt Wikipedia to primary school level; we want to include topics and content relevant for primary education.
We do not make content available for Wikipedia only. Using Creative Commons as part of the project methodology allows contents to be available beyond Wikipedia.
We do not promote Wikipedia as a stable and passive resource. We consider essential that people who use Wikipedia understand what Wikipedia is. To understand it, the only appropriate way is to contribute to it and being part of it.
We do not provide Wikipedia as it is. The project aims at fostering a joint effort to improve Wikipedia and to assess its quality.
We do not centralise all the activities. The project can only reach its goal and produce high quality content and impact, if people and institutions can adapt them to their context, vision and work.
What practically we want to do
1) Involving governments in releasing dataset about public administrations (to contribute to Wikidata and produce stub articles; at the moment only Botswana is fully documented)
2) Asking OER open educational resources to be released in cc by or cc by-sa (and not cc by-sa-nc-nd).
3) Asking other institutions working in education to contribute to OER.
4) Assessing Wikipedia articles by creating a Wikipedia Scientific Journal. the idea is to assess wikipedia articles with the involvement of academic peer-revierwes. this is specifically necessary for content related to Africa because it needs to acknowledge the last 60 years of postcolonial studies (which at the moment they are not well represented on Wikipedia). the Wikipedia Scientific Journal is established in partnerships with existing scientific journals; the peer-reviewers of those scientific journals review the articles (existing ones and new ones) and we can make calls for papers. those call for papers can address existing Wikipedia authors but also scholars (who can add those publications to their cv since they ae peer-reviewed and made in collaborations with scientific journals). it is not a direct way of working on Wikipedia but i think it is the most relevant on the long run.
Once articles are peer-reviewed they can be translated and they can be rewritten in specific ways. At the same time also articles from Vikidia can be a source.
5) Establishing a scientific committee who defines which articles contribute to primary education and they overview and evaluate the project. the scientific committee is also a communication tool which makes sure stakeholders are involved.
6) Fostering communication and community building among the different Wikipedia/Wikimedia clusters (project pages on Wikipedia, different projects, different wikipedia linguistic editions, wikimedia chapters, project such as wiki loves monuments which helps to understand what wikipedia is and to start contributing)
7) Monitoring what happens with data analysis.
The project Wikipedia Primary School and all its documentation is under Creative Commons attribution share alike license. Iolanda Pensa drafted the project in 2012.
At the moment WikiAfrica Cameroon promoted by doual'art with the support of Orange Foundation is implementing a pilot project around Wikipedia and primary school (2012-2013).The WikiAfrica Primary School Feasibility Study has been developed in 2012 with the support of volunteers and lettera27 Foundation to evaluate the possible synergies between Wikipedia and primary school with a focus on the linguistic editions of Wikipedia and their use in primary education in Africa, current Wikimedia projects, OER-Open Educational Resources and case studies on the primary schools systems and current relevant projects in the field of education in Italy, Cameroon and South Africa. The Africa Centre based in Cape Town is currently developing trainings in Africa for Wikipedians in residence. SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland and University of Cape Town, in collaboration with Wikimedia Switzerland and the Africa Centre based in Cape Town have applied in March 2013 for a Swiss South African research project related to Wikipedia Primary School within the SSAJRP programme.
Consider me available as well
------------------------------
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 21:18 MSK Kosgei Isaac wrote:
>Count me in.
>
>On 19 March 2013 11:40, Oliver Stegen <info(a)oliverstegen.net> wrote:
>
>> ** ** **
>>
>> Thanks and welcome (again), Ednah, David & Obonyo,****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Together with Limoke, Steve, Dennis and myself, I’m now counting seven.
>> Looking forward to our first new meeting.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> More power to Wikimedia in ****Kenya****!****
>>
>> BT****
>>
>> ** **
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Ednah Kiome [mailto:ednahkiome8@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 19 March 2013 11:24
>>
>> *To:* **The discussion list for the Wikimedia Kenya chapter.**
>> *Subject:* Re: [Wikimedia ****Kenya****] Fwd: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania
>> 2014:Officialbid list
>> ****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> I am in.****
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 11:07 AM, David Mugo <raidarmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:*
>> ***
>>
>> Count me in.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> David.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad****
>>
>>
>> On Mar 19, 2013, at 10:10 AM, Limoke Oscar <oslimoke(a)gmail.com> wrote:****
>>
>> I agree, Its a Challenge rather than an embarrassment to us. :-) What
>> matters is now for us to re-energize ourselves and re-align our objectives
>> to move forward.****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Oliver, I am still calling on folks interested to join the User Group
>> model so that we can re-establish a membership based on interests and
>> commitment. Am assuming we will have to get new commitment from folks. So
>> far we have : Dennis, Oliver, Steve and **I.** when we get to 6, we can
>> have our 1st meeting. Yes?****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Thanks for all the wishes Asaf, SJ and Tom****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> Regards,****
>>
>> ** **
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 19, 2013 at 9:23 AM, Oliver Stegen <info(a)oliverstegen.net>
>> wrote:****
>>
>> +1
>>
>> Any meetings of our group on the horizon? Either RL or virtual/online?
>>
>> With continued hope and best wishes for Wikimedia in **East Africa**,
>> BT****
>>
>>
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Samuel Klein [mailto:meta.sj@gmail.com]
>> > Sent: 18 March 2013 20:57
>> > To: **The discussion list for the Wikimedia Kenya chapter.**
>> > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ****Kenya****] Fwd: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania
>> 2014:
>> > Officialbid list
>> >
>> > On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org>
>> > wrote:
>> > > On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 11:37 PM, Limoke Oscar <oslimoke(a)gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> > >
>> > > I don't think it's a shame, and shouldn't be a pain: organizing a bid
>> is
>> > a
>> > > lot of work, but is almost purely on-wiki, and can be done by one or
>> two
>> > >
>> > > Anyhow, we should all be happy for our Tanzanian colleagues for having
>> > found
>> > > the initiative and energy to do this. It's not a competition. :)
>> >
>> > Yes. You might even try working with them to organize a shared
>> > regional event, if their bid for Wikimania itself doesn't work out.
>> > They clearly have a lot of energy for bringing people and speakers
>> > together around Wikimedia topics.
>> >
>> > > Like I said in my more formal letter, you must not look upon the
>> > expiration
>> > > of the provisional recognition as a blow or as a failure -- it was
>> > merely a
>> > > deadline expiring, for a formal process that doesn't actually matter as
>> > much
>> > > as it used to, because we now have these new affiliation models, which
>> > would
>> > > have been more suitable in the first place, had they existed at the
>> > time.
>> >
>> > Yes. And once you have some projects underway, if they start to grow,
>> > you may always reapply to become a Chapter.
>> >
>> > SJ
>> >
>>
>> ****
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikimediaKE mailing list
>> WikimediaKE(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediake
>>
>>
Such a shame and pain to us that Arusha actually bid for Wikimania 2014,
with no Organized Chapter down there (-: and we had a very organized Chapter
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: James Forrester <jdforrester(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 8:55 AM
Subject: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2014: Official bid list
To: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)" <
wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
All,
To confirm, the candidate bids to host Wikimania 2014 are:
* Arusha, Tanzania
* London, UK
The bids now have two weeks (until 23:59 UTC on 17 March 2013) to
finalise all major information on their pages, responding to questions
from the jury and the community, and prepare for the
question-and-answer phase.
Good luck to both bids!
On behalf of the Wikimania 2014 Jury,
Yours,
--
James D. Forrester
jdforrester(a)gmail.com
[[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] (speaking purely in a personal
capacity)
_______________________________________________
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--
*Limoke Oscar
*GIS, Google Apps & Business Development
Pawa IT Solutions Limited