> Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:14:15 +0200
> From: notafishz@gmail.com
> To: wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikimedia ZA] Wikimedia South Africa, kickoff Workshop - 7/8 August 2010
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> I am finally finding five minutes to thank you all for the warm
> welcome and to reiterate that Bence and I, as well as any other member
> of the chapters committee, are here to help with any questions you
> might have.
>
> Here is our "wikimedia report" of our workshop.
>
> Best,
>
> Delphine
>
> ========
> Wikimedia South Africa, kickoff Workshop - 7/8 August 2010
>
> == BACKGROUND ==
> Wikimedia activities in South Africa are not exactly new, in 2007,
> iCommons and the Wikimedia Foundation organised a Wikipedia Academy in
> Johannesburg, while a group of Wikimedians started to put together a
> bid for Wikimania. The South African chapter idea probably finds its
> roots in those two initiatives, but for lack of momentum at the time,
> did not pick up. In 2010, Achal Prabhala, member of the advisory board
> of the Wikimedia Foundation, who helped found the Indian Chapter, put
> the idea back on track.
>
> Achal, with the help of Kerryn McKay and Daniela Faris of the African
> Commons Project [1], advertised the idea of a workshop to kick off a
> South African chapter, and invited various wikipedians and otherwise
> interested people (FOSS activists, users of Wikipedia, non-profit
> experienced people) to participate in a workshop destined to kick off
> a South African chapter.
>
> == WORKSHOP ==
> The Workshop gathered around 25 people [2] from different backgrounds,
> among which Ian Gilfillan, who had been leading the Wikimania bid and
> Nhlanhla Mabaso, Head of CNS at The Universtiy of the Witwatersrand,
> who played a great role in reaching out far and wide for interested
> (and interesting) people. Bence Damokos and myself attended as members
> of the chapters committee.
>
> === Saturday, 7th August ===
> The session started with an introduction to the Wikimedia Universe,
> focusing on the existing organisations (Foundation and Chapters) and
> outlining the existing processes to set up a chapter, as well as what
> chapters do.
> After a round of introduction of each of the participants, the group
> then split into smaller working sessions which reflected on the
> following topics:
> *Potential activities and initiatives for a South African Chapter
> *Vision of a Wikimedia Chapter in South Africa
> *Purpose of a Wikimedia Chapter in South Africa
> *Challenges that a Wikimedia Chapter in South Africa might face
>
> The results of these sessions can be found on meta here:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_South_Africa&oldid=2072112
>
>
> Of those results, two have particularly caught our attention as being
> specific to South Africa, or at least different than one might expect
> from such a session in other chapter groups, namely:
>
> *Ownership of Wikimedia to South Africans (in the purpose section):
> this was meant as giving the chapter the task of making sure that
> Wikimedia projects don't appear too "foreign" or even too "western",
> but rather would hopefully be recognized as fair in representing South
> Africa but also the whole African continent.
>
> *Documenting content which is only orally available; finding a
> workable citation method for languages with oral traditions (in the
> challenges section): a task which actually questions fundamental
> pillars of Wikipedia (no original research and "cite your sources")
> and is much more critical in many of the African languages than maybe
> in western languages.
>
> A third point that was unique - so far - to South Africa, though maybe
> less novel than the above two was the role and share of mobile
> internet access and the associated opportunities and challenges that
> it will bring. Africa is a continent where internet access through
> mobile phones is the rule rather than the exception, and efforts to
> make Wikipedia accessible not only to read, but also to edit, are a
> real challenge that an African chapter should tackle.
>
> === Sunday, 8th August ===
> The Sunday session focused rather on presenting and discussing the
> different legal options for a Chapter in South Africa as well as work
> on a timeline of next steps and the formation of a team for the
> creation of the chapter. Results can be found here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_South_Africa&oldid=2072112#Proposed_Timeline
>
> == CONCLUSION ==
> The idea of fostering the creation of a chapter by enabling people to
> meet, specifically reaching out to potentially interested people and
> bringing them together for a workshop is somewhat of a novel idea in
> chapter creation. We found it to be extremely interesting and
> productive. It allows, in countries where getting together, or taking
> the first (legal) steps might be a real hurdle to chapter creation, to
> be extremely helpful in ensuring that diversity of the people
> represented in the first step of the chapter is achieved.
>
> Bence and I would like to thank Achal for starting this process,
> Kerryn and Daniela for organising the workshop and everyone present
> for their participation and the lively dicussions. We are confident
> that such initiatives should be fostered in countries where founding a
> chapter might encounter difficulties to emerge.
>
> The future of Wikimedia South Africa is discussed on the wikimediaza
> mailing list:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza, as well as
> on meta. Please join the conversation.
>
>
> [1] http://www.africancommons.org/about/
> [2] http://picasaweb.google.com/davidrichfield/Wikimedia#5502986611082048162
>
> --
> ~notafish
>
> NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails will get lost.
> Intercultural musings: Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikimediaZA mailing list
> WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza