Hi all,
David Richfield here. I'm semi active on en-wikipedia at the moment.
We need to make people aware of options to use and contribute to
community projects like wikipedia, openstreetmap.org, linux, etc.
When people understand what they can get and how they can help others
in the process, we all gain.
We also need to educate the educators, so that they can help students
to understand the difference between different types of sources: what
is a primary source, a secondary source and a tertiary source? How do
you cite information? What do you use different sources of
information for? What kind of information to you need to track to a
primary source, and what to a secondary source? Can you cite
something you haven't read? When people can correctly answer these
questions, they'll know how to use and contribute to Wikimedia
projects.
Another thing: if language educators realize how brilliant translation
is as a language education tool, and how people who translate
Wikipedia into African languages can gain while giving, it should be a
great leap forward!
Looking forward to the meetup! Getting a venue sorted is now getting
urgent: any ideas?
--
David Richfield
e^(πi)+1=0
Hello,
I'm Nic. I've made a few contributions over the last 5 years.
I have also been a regular contributor of data to the OpenStreetMap
project for nearly 4 years. I've worked on open source routing
software for them for 3 years. I've seen an interesting twitter
message recently : "I would like to see the day when Wikipedia is
called 'the OpenStreetMap of encyclopedias'."
Regards,
Nic
Having just met Achal Prabhala at UCT in Cape Town, I am most interested in
participating in Wikimedia SA! I'm of Canadian origin, but based in South
Africa doing my masters in educational technologies at UCT. I work half
time with the Centre for Educational Technologies on the OpenContent OER
project which has been helping UCT academics create and share openly
licensed teaching and learning materials. I am an enthusiast and researcher
of open education/source/technology, networked learning, and all things
edtech.
In particular I am interested in how SA academics can contribute to
wikipedia, using wikipedia statistics to track and analyze south african
article activity and users, and building up the base of English SA
articles. I also see tremendous benefits in building up the articles in
other SA languages.
Michael Paskevicius
OER UCT Project
University of Cape Town
Centre for Educational Technology
Tel:+27(21) 650 3477
http://twitter.com/mpaskevihttp://opencontent.uct.ac.zahttp://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-ucthttp://www.cet.uct.ac.za/oerhttps://vula.uct.ac.za/portal/site/openuct
Following on from Ian's post, I thought I'd list the existing Wikipedias
in South African languages - as they exist (excluding English). I was
wondering if it might be worth finding out who the editors behind some
of these pages are - while some of the SA language Wikipedias host very
few articles, clearly there is someone behind them and someone who took
the trouble to create them and start initial pages. From my
understanding, the group of people on this list - as it stands - does
not include any non-English/Afrikaans editors as yet, and so it would be
worth our while to contact the people behind these pages and find out
how we can help them grow:
Afrikiaans: 15704 articles (http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuisblad)
Swati: 175 articles (http://ss.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likhasi_Lelikhulu)
Tsonga: 173 articles (http://ts.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlukankulu)
Venda: 164 articles (http://ve.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayani)
Zulu: 147 articles (http://zu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikhasi_Elikhulu)
Xhosa: 115 articles (http://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphepha_Elingundoqo)
Tswana: 105 articles (http://tn.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
Sotho: 69 articles (http://st.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leqephe_la_pele)
Any help that anyone can provide in this regard is much appreciated. I'm
also copying Cary Bass from the Wikimedia Foundation who widely
interacts with editors and other volunteers - Cary, if you can recommend
Wikipedians we can get in touch with regarding the languages listed
above, that would be great. (You will probably have to subscribe to this
list to post to it, and it would be good to have you on here anyway).
Cheers,
Achal
Hi
A brief introduction from my side. I'm Ian Gilfillan, living in
Observatory, Cape Town. I first came across the idea of a free resource
of all the world's knowledge in a book by Ursula Le Guin, and when I
first encountered Wikipedia fell in love with the vision. I've been
involved in the English Wikipedia from very early on, and tinker in a
number of the other Wikimedia projects as well.
I have a background in Free and Open Source software, wrote a book on
MySQL, and currently am director of an online organic and ethical food
co-operative, the Ethical Co-op.
I participated in the first African Wikipedia Academy a few years ago
and co-ordinated the Cape Town bid to host Wikimania (it eventually went
to Alexandria).
I keep fairly close track on the progress of the various Wikimedia
projects in African languages, and write regularly on the topic on my
blog - you can see the latest at http://www.greenman.co.za/blog/?p=715
I look forward to meeting a lot more of you in person soon :)
--
Ian Gilfillan
www.greenman.co.za
Hello everyone
I am Lourie, as Kerryn already introduced me. Currently I am
studying physics at the University of Stellenbosch. In my extra time I work on
various projects, such as competing in the Google X Prize. In the past I
contributed on a regular basis to Wikipedia and later worked as a developer on
the Toolserver. Unfortunately I am currently too busy for even one these activities.
That’s why I don’t contribute anymore to Wikipedia or the Toolserver.
From the beginning of this year I started to look into the
possibility to include Wikipedia in the university curriculum in some manner.
Currently all the first years has a course that handles about scientific communication. One of the many
aspects we are focussing on is the correct use of references. As David said; the
fact that people doesn’t understand or know how to use references are a great
problem. I started to chat with the coordinators of these courses, with the
idea to incorporate Wikipedia. Unfortunately the head coordinator was in a car
accident this holiday, so things are going slower than usual. My idea was to
implement the concept at Stellenbosch and then spread it to the rest of the South
African universities. Currently we and Potchefstroom (and probably some other
universities) are already using the same sort of information for this course. That’s
why I thought that if I could get Wikipedia implemented at Stellenbosch, it
would easily spread to the rest of South Africa.
As Kerryn said in the one email; most of the people in South
Africa has a completely wrong idea of Wikipedia, and the other Wikimedia
projects. If we succeed in starting the South African Chapter; it would be
great if this could be one of the initial projects handled by the chapter. Not
only will we get the academia involved at contributing to articles, but we may
even succeed in promoting the quality of Wikipedia articles. This way we could
even encourage the rest of the South African population to contribution to
Wikipedia and make use of its information. That way we could address issues,
such as the tiny amount of Afrikaans and other African language articles on
Wikipedia. People like to read articles that are in their home language, so we might
improve the popularity of Wikipedia this way.
I literally wrote some of these ideas down as they went
through my head. So please do make comments and say where we could improve on
them. I am really excited to see you all at the workshop. I believe that if we
could get all the correct people together we could make a great success of the
South African chapter!
Kind regards,
Lourie
Hi everyone
Thanks Ian for introducing all of us.
I would like to start a discussion following on from a couple of discussions
with some Wikipedians. Lourie - The Extremist - and I had a great phone
conversation last week. He is on staff at Stellenbosch University but was
on holiday in the Northern Cape and only had dial-up to connect which made
it basically impossible to get online. So we had a good old fashioned
telephone conversation :)
Anyway, Lourie was talking about *Wikipedia in Academia* and the need for
academics to really understand the value of Wikipedia. In South Africa we
are sitting with that rather outdated perception that Wikipedia is a crazy,
error-riddled platform which can offer no support to academics or students.
As this notion has been brought up by Nhlanhla Mabaso who is at Wits
University, I think that this could be discussed in the Chapter workshop as
one of the initial projects/ vehicles that could be undertaken.
I'd like to vote that we start a thread here getting everyone's feedback on
this idea, and also on other issues that you think should be discussed at
the workshop in terms of goals in taking SA Chapter forward!
Cheers
Kerryn
* * * *
KERRYN MCKAY
director, The African Commons Project
email me at: kerryn(a)africancommons.org
phone me: +2711 486 0211, cell: +27 82 334 6165,
skype me: kerrynmac
Hi everyone
Following on from my earlier email please note that The Extremist is Jan
Vermuelen and not Lourie who is LouriePieterse on Wikipedia. Apologies to
Jan and Lourie for the mix up! :)
It might be a good idea for everyone to introduce themselves and share a bit
of background about how they've come to be a Wikipedian or Free Culture
activists/ geek who is interested in Wikipedia. I think that there is an
exciting mix of folk on the list who can bring dynamic thinking and great
skills to the proposed Chapter.
Cheers for now
Kerryn
* * * *
KERRYN MCKAY
director, The African Commons Project
email me at: kerryn(a)africancommons.org
phone me: +2711 486 0211, cell: +27 82 334 6165,
skype me: kerrynmac
Hi everyone
The introductory workshop for the Chapter will be held on 7 and 8 August
(Saturday and half day Sunday) and you are invited to come and take part.
Venue will be at Wits University; final details to be shared later.
Let me know if you are able to attend the workshop and, if you are from out
of town, if you will need travel/ accommodation scholarship.
Thanks so much
Kerryn
* * * *
KERRYN MCKAY
director, The African Commons Project
email me at: kerryn(a)africancommons.org
phone me: +2711 486 0211, cell: +27 82 334 6165,
skype me: kerrynmac
Hi, and thanks everyone for your interest in a local Wikimedia chapter.
We've had a few false starts before, but this time we've got a wider
range of people involved, some funding to help us meet up in person, the
help of the African Commons Project, and the assistance of someone who's
helped start up the recently-approved Indian Wikimedia chapter, Achal
Prabhala.
Local content is relatively poorly covered on the Wikimedia projects.
Not too many people outside of contributors even know that Wikipedia
exists in all 11 official languages, not just English. One of the main
goals of a local chapter is to promote the Wikimedia projects here so
that more people contribute - local scientists and academics, for
example, are often users, but not contributors.
And all of that is to help realise the vision of a world in which every
human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
Kerryn has already given out some proposed dates for our first meetup -
either full day Friday, 6th August and half day Saturday, 7th August
OR alternatively full day Saturday, 7th August and then half day Sunday,
8th August. Please let her know which day suits best.
Please help spread awareness of this initiative. We've already contacted
many local contributors directly, but if you know of anyone else who'd
be interested, please point them to our page on Meta-wiki,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_South_Africa and to this
mailing list.
Hope to be meeting many of you soon, in person!
--
Ian Gilfillan
www.greenman.co.za