Hello everyone (sorry for cross-spamming)
I am very proud and privileged to announce that Wikimedia ZA is finally registered locally! The process was delayed due to a change in our local companies act during 2011. We as the chapter is very excited about the future of Wikimedia ZA. Many thanks to those who helped us bring the required people together and establish the chapter. Also many thanks to the African Commons Project for taking care of many of the administrative aspects during the chapter formation phase. Special thanks to Kerryn McKay for taking great interest in this process and also all of the other members of the administrative team.
Kind regards
Lourie
Hey all,
After my chat with Lourie two weeks ago, I discussed a possible
WikiLovesMonuments with Lodewijk. He was one of the guys that organised the
first edition in the Netherlands, and he really helped me organising the
edition last year in Belgium. The competition will go global this year:
Europe, India, Chile, Canada, USA, Russia, Israel, Philippines, are sure
they will participate this list (full list of particating
countries<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Partici…>).
And he was looking forward to see South Africa join the competition!
More information on the competition is on Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012 You can
find a proposed organisational
timeline<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2012/Timeline>that
will help us with organising the event.
Maybe we could meet to chat about the possibilities, and see if we can find
enough persons that are interested? I had already a first chat with Lourie
two weeks ago. I propose a meeting, again in Cape Town: see the DOODLE
http://www.doodle.com/m2ih8nhm2grka4xv
Grtz,
Maarten
Hello everyone,
This is just a quick notification that the follow up
Xhosa language workshop will be held this weekend on Saturday, 25th
February at the same place and time as the last workshop. The Bessie Head
Computer Lab in the basement of the Beattie Building, University of Cape
Town from 09h00 to 11h00.
I have also attached some pictures from the last Xhosa wiki awareness
workshop we had at the the Western Cape Provincial government last week
Friday. Many thanks to Francis at Wikiproject Africa for taking these
pictures.
Cheers,
Douglas.
Discott
--
Douglas Ian Scott
司道格
Skype: douglas0scott
UK mobile number: +44 (0)755 452 5277
Chinese mobile number: +86 1 364 330 7351
South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727
WikiAfrica is pleased to invite you as a self-declared African
Wikipedian to evaluate the Africa Incubator. WikiAfrica has created
the Africa Incubator to support and assist new authors, as they create
their first articles and learn the ins and outs of contributing to
Wikipedia.
The Africa Incubator is a âsoft landingâ for new authors to
develop articles that relate to Africa. It assists them in becoming
compliant and knowledgeable of Wikipedia principles and rules. Based
within the Wikipedia framework, the Africa Incubator is fully
interactive and enables feedback, assistance and forums.
This is where we need your help! For the Africa Incubator to be
successful, it needs the intervention, interaction and experience of
Incubator Mentors. We are looking for a pool of active experienced
Wikipedians to consistently participate in âowningâ the Africa
Incubator. Incubator Mentors will assist new comers through the
editing process. They will also help test and expand the Africa
Incubator, and will play a vital role in encouraging newcomers to be
Wikipedians for life
Please visit
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Incubator] to give
us your honest feedback and evaluation.
WikiAfrica is a ground-breaking project that is designed to Africanise
Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles over two years.
Find out more about this project here
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica].
To get involved, contact Francis [wikipedian(a)wikiafrica.co.za]
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/wikiafrica
Facebook: www.facebook.com/WikiAfrica
Dear Wikipedian,
As you know, with nearly one-billion people,Africa represents the
world's third-largest market after China (1.3-billion) and India
(1.1-billion), and is widely recognized as the last frontier for
global economic growth. It is also where humanity began. And yet it
has the lowest and least informed profile of any region on the
Internet. What does appear is often not complete, selective, lacks
context and reinforces outdated stereotypes.
Africa deserves a new deal â and especially in Wikipedia.
The Africa Centre in collaboration with Lettera27 would like you to
participate in a ground-breaking project that is designed to
Africanise Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles over
two years. The project promotes a new method of acquiring and sharing
knowledge that is fully-inclusive, mainstream, intercultural and
relevant to contemporary and historic Africa. This initial phase of
the project is focused on encouraging external Africa-based, cultural
organisations, museums and archives, as well as bloggers and
journalists, to contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia.
The project will be approached and achieve its goals via the following
four activities:
⢠Create partnerships with organisations that have existing
digitised content that is readily accessible;
⢠Motivate the adaptation of a copyleft or Creative Commons approach
to intellectual property.
⢠Activate new Wikipedia users and editors in Africa; and
⢠Create training tools and assist with the mentorships required to
activate a new team of users and editors of Wikipedia. See more on
this at the Africa Incubator
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Incubator]
Click on Get started
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Get_started] or the
Project page
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Projects] to
contribute to WikiAfrica and become a member!
Through WikiAfrica we aim to increase the content of Africa articles
by engaging content partners and individual Wikipedians in the project
as a way of improving participation to Wikipedia from the African
continent.
Thank you
Francis Awinda
Wikipedian in Residence
(user: Awinda)
Skype: Awinda
Twitter:AwindaF
Email:francisa@africacentre.net
Tel:+27793087519
www.africacentre.net
Hello, everyone.
I would like your input on an idea we at the Wikimedia Foundation have been
exploring as one possible model of outreach activity in South Africa: a
two-day "train the trainer" event in Pretoria for (mostly campus)
librarians from South Africa, to enable them to go back to their respective
institutions and communities and deliver two-hour and one-day talk and
workshops on Wikipedia. The training event would be funded by a grant from
the Wikimedia Foundation.
More details: the participants are to be carefully selected for good
existing computer literacy and relevant skills (but a Wikipedia background
won't be required), and the training event would include a balance of
"theory" (free knowledge, free licenses, NPOV), background ("How does
Wikipedia get written?"), user training (navigation, categories, Commons,
talk pages, portals, WikiProjects, ...), and basic editor training (user
accounts, basic markup, where to get help, how to interact on talk pages).
Ideally, the trainee-trainers would be able to deliver a two-hour
"introduction to Wikipedia" or "How to Make the Most of Wikipedia" module,
and/or a one-day "Introduction to Editing on Wikipedia" workshop, in their
respective communities, as opportunity and conditions permit.
This specifically seeks to address a "bootstrapping" difficulty, i.e. the
short supply of Wikipedians available to deliver that sort of training. No
attempt will be made to make these trainers pose as veteran Wikipedians;
the focus is clearly to be along the lines of "Wikipedia is tremendously
useful, and we can share some useful information about it that would let
you use it more effectively and explore it further on your own".
We are looking into partnering with a Pretoria-based non-profit named ITOCA
-- Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa -- which specializes
in conducting training events for librarians, teachers, and IT personnel in
sub-Saharan Africa. (Ms. Blessing Chataira of ITOCA is subscribed to this
list.) ITOCA can handle the logistics of holding this event -- recruiting
and selecting participants, booking and providing accommodations and
refreshments for the training event, preparing physical materials,
collecting feedback and providing follow-up with participants in their
respective communities after the event, etc. What ITOCA certainly cannot
do is _prepare and deliver_ such training. That would certainly require a
veteran Wikipedian!
I would therefore ask if any of you might be interested in working with the
WMF on designing the curriculum for such an event, and/or in delivering
such training, once a curriculum is available. The Wikimedia Foundation
would gladly cover travel expenses (i.e. Wikipedians outside Gauteng can
certainly help!) and provide a "per diem" budget for meals and incidentals.
I welcome feedback about the idea, whether or not you're able to help out.
Cheers,
Asaf
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi Lourie and Maarten
WikiAfrica is very keen to support a Wiki Loves Monuments in South Africa,
and indeed across Africa - we have been looking a this very subject (great
minds obviously think alike!). Perhaps we could all meet to try to
co-ordinate a campaign and draw attention to Wikipedia in the process??
When is good for any of you - perhaps when Maarten is back after the 6th?
Warmest
Isla
: :
Isla Haddow-Flood
Marketing and Communications Manager
Project Manager : WikiAfrica
a. 5th Floor, 28 St George¹s Mall, Cape Town w. www.africacentre.net
t. +27 21 418 3336 f. +27 21 418 5385 skype. islahaddow
The Africa Centre is a non-profit social innovator that provides a platform
for
exploring contemporary Pan-African cultural practice as a catalyst for
social change.
> From: <wikimediaza-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Reply-To: <wikimediaza(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:04:18 +0000
> To: <wikimediaza(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: WikimediaZA Digest, Vol 19, Issue 14
>
> Send WikimediaZA mailing list submissions to
> wikimediaza(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> wikimediaza-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> wikimediaza-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of WikimediaZA digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop (Heather Ford)
> 2. Fw: Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop
> (Lourie Pieterse)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:21:15 -0800
> From: Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com>
> To: Kerryn McKay <kerryn(a)africancommons.org>
> Cc: WikimediaZA <wikimediaza(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, MADe
> <MADe(a)wikipedia.be>
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki
> Workshop
> Message-ID: <38CF2CEC-71E6-41B6-AA40-AE3513BB37F3(a)gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> +1 yay! fab idea :)
>
> On Feb 16, 2012, at 3:59 AM, Kerryn McKay wrote:
>
>> Hi Lourie
>>
>> Yep, I'm with you. I think this is a great project, and - as you mentioned
>> to me offline - really accessible for people to take part in and contribute.
>> Some cool ideas also around it - we could organise an upload party where we
>> could have a stall somewhere (at a university or shopping centre on a certain
>> day) where we could help people upload their pics there and then.
>>
>> I'm also happy to chat - maybe we could get together on skype even?
>>
>> Kerryn
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> * * * *
>> Kerryn McKay
>> The African Commons Project
>>
>> 082 334 6165
>> skype: kerrynmac
>> twitter: kerrynmckay
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Lourie Pieterse <louriepieterse(a)yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> Hello Maarten
>>
>> It is nice hearing from you again! It sounds to me like a wonderful idea, and
>> I am sure that there will be some South Africans who would like to
>> participate in this competition. What do the others from Wikimedia ZA think?
>> I would definitely be interested to meet up with you and discuss the
>> possibilities. When are you again in the Cape Town area?
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Lourie
>>
>> From: MADe <MADe(a)wikipedia.be>
>> To: wikimediaza(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:23 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Very nice to see all the activities on the smaller South African language
>> wikis! Hopefully this means a start for those projects. I have another idea
>> to get some more things happening.
>>
>> In Belgium I started the "Wiki Loves Monuments" competition. The goal for the
>> participants was to take a picture of a heritage site and to post them on
>> Wikicommons. The best images were selected and they could win a variety of
>> prices (Belgium: iPad). It was part of a bigger European contest (18
>> countries). The goal was to attract new contributors to the wiki projects,
>> and for Belgium to gather some wikipedians to start our own Belgian wiki
>> chapter.
>>
>> The competition itself was fairly simple to organise. The European organisers
>> provided tools, a website, logos, a dedicated Wiki Commons upload tool, ...
>> and also funding (10,000 ZAR). We made the translations (Belgium alone: five
>> languages), we searched for our own jury, we searched for Belgian prices, and
>> we got into contact with government organisations that helped us with a venue
>> for the price ceremony and some more practical things.
>>
>> The result was fantastic. 170.000 new images in Europe, of which 6000 in
>> Belgium. Lots or media attention for the competition. At least 50 (!) new
>> Belgian members that started working on Wikicommons or Wikipedia itself. A
>> solid group of people that wanted to work on our own chapter. We established
>> good contacts with government organisations that suddenly understood
>> Wikipedia is not a black box but made by real people. Nice media coverage on
>> the competition.
>>
>> The European competition will be organised in September of this year. They
>> would really enjoy SA to join in, and I'm sure WMF can help us with most of
>> the funding. I think this is an easy way to get the attention of new people,
>> especially from poorer regions (if we provide the necessary translations).
>>
>> Who is interested to get more information, or to help with the organisation?
>> We can meet in Cape Town, Durban or Johannesburg (I'm almost everywhere for
>> my current job<338.gif>)
>>
>>
>> Grtz,
>> Maarten
>>
>> BE: +32 475 21 38 35
>> ZA: +27 71 491 31 38
>> Skype: mdeneckere
>>
>> 2012/2/14 Douglas Scott <douglas.i.scott(a)gmail.com>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Ian is absolutely right. Although the workshops them selves tend to create a
>> number of articles creating a community of dedicated editors for Xhosa
>> language Wikipedia will be a very big challenge that I think will take a long
>> time. On the up side people are very eager and interested but on the down
>> side, as Ian has mentioned, there are still problems with basic computer
>> literacy and access to computers/internet. I suspect that it will take a
>> number of workshops followed by some sort of program such as one (and this is
>> only an idea right now) whereby teachers use Xhosa Wikipedia to test their
>> students translating abilities thereby creating a self perpetuating process
>> that continually exposes new people to editing that wiki.
>>
>> As I mentioned to Ian on Saturday I think that a big part of creating a
>> healthy community of editors on Wikipedia is finding enough people with the
>> right type of personality that is at home using a computer. I think that is
>> as much a numbers game as anything else which means spending a long time
>> exposing as many people as possible to the idea and process of editing
>> Wikipedia. A process that is made harder by relatively low rates of computer
>> literacy. But then again we must start from some where I suppose. Either
>> way, more work and support is needed and so long as I have free time and am
>> in Cape Town I am happy help.
>>
>> P.S. Thanks for checking the stats Ian. To be frank I am delighted that one
>> extra substantial edit was made since the workshop on Saturday. That in its
>> self is a 0.7% increase! :-D
>>
>>
>> On 14 February 2012 00:02, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> Thank you so much, Ian. Appreciate it.
>>
>> On Feb 13, 2012, at 1:15 PM, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
>>
>>>> Great :) I'd be really interested to know whether people continued to edit
>>>> after the workshop if you could share.
>>> To try answer Heather, the article count went from 125, which it has been
>>> stuck at since at least November 2011, to 131 during the class, and there
>>> has only been one substantial edit from any of the participants on the
>>> weekend (a new article, increasing the count to 132) since the workshop, so
>>> the answer seems to be no.
>>>
>>> The workshop was 2 hours, and, briefly, we hoped to teach creating a user
>>> account, creating or editing (via translation from English) an article,
>>> adding links, adding a picture, and I wanted to add interwiki links to the
>>> list as well. Everyone created or edited an article, and most, if not
>>> everyone, added links, though only some could create a user account due to
>>> IP limits, and very few got to adding an image or interwiki links. Douglas
>>> goes into more details in his post.
>>>
>>> It's more complicated to add links in Xhosa than in English due to the way
>>> prefixes are used in the language, so quite often an article may exist, but
>>> the link doesn't point to it, and there are already duplicate articles for
>>> this reason.
>>>
>>> There is still such a barrier with basic computer use, that I found a
>>> substantial portion of the class was showing people how to maximize and
>>> minimize windows, how to open a new tab or window, etc, and I got the sense
>>> that there wasn't always a real understanding of why the various steps were
>>> being performed, which reduces the chances of them being repeatable outside
>>> of the class.
>>>
>>> The one article that was created afterwards is an orphan, with no incoming
>>> or outgoing links.
>>>
>>> There was a lot of enthusiasm, so hopefully having a followup quite soon
>>> will keep the interest and momentum going, but I would expect there to be
>>> not much sustained activity as a result of the workshop alone.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ian Gilfillan
>>> www.greenman.co.za
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikimediaZA mailing list
>>> WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
>>
>> Heather Ford
>> www.ethnographymatters.net
>> @hfordsa on Twitter
>> http://hblog.org
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikimediaZA mailing list
>> WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Douglas Ian Scott
>> ???
>> Skype: douglas0scott
>> UK mobile number: +44 (0)755 452 5277
>> Chinese mobile number: +86 1 364 330 7351
>> South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikimediaZA mailing list
>> WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikimediaZA mailing list
>> WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikimediaZA mailing list
>> WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikimediaZA mailing list
>> WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
>
> Heather Ford
> www.ethnographymatters.net
> @hfordsa on Twitter
> http://hblog.org
>
>
Hi all
Russavia from English Wikipedia and Commons here
I am currently looking for some photographers in several countries who
might be able to assist me with taking photos from South Africa which I am
requiring for some articles I am working on.
Details of what I require can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Russavia/Required_photos#.C2.A0South_Afri…
If anyone is able to help me, or if anyone knows of photographers who
can help, feel free to contact me on this email (and to pass my email
on), or i can be contacted at
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Russavia
In the event someone is able to help, and the photo subjects are
obscured, I may be able to organise with the local diplomatic mission
for inside access to take photos and the like, so this is an option if
anyone is willing.
Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Scotty (Russavia)
Hi Maarten
Did you get this email? It would suite me best if we can decide on a time and place today, because I need to plan for the weekend. Thanks.
Lourie
----- Forwarded Message -----
>From: Lourie Pieterse <louriepieterse(a)yahoo.com>
>To: MADe <MADe(a)wikipedia.be>
>Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:03 PM
>Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop
>
>
>Happy to hear that! Saturday morning should be fine; where and when would suite you best?
>
>
>Lourie
>
>
>
>>________________________________
>> From: MADe <MADe(a)wikipedia.be>
>>To: Lourie Pieterse <louriepieterse(a)yahoo.com>
>>Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 11:47 AM
>>Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop
>>
>>
>>Hello Lourie,
>>
>>I didn't forget you: I tried to use the sudden interest in the WM SA to find some more interested people.
>>
>>I'm arrived yesterday in Cape Town. We could meet on Saturday morning? On Saturday afternoon I leave CT again, to come back only on the 5th of March. We could meet in March, too.
>>
>>My cellphone: 071 41 31 38
>>
>>Grtz,
>>Maarten
>>
>>
>>2012/2/16 Lourie Pieterse <louriepieterse(a)yahoo.com>
>>
>>Hello Maarten
>>>
>>>
>>>It is nice hearing from you again! It sounds to me like a wonderful idea, and I am sure that there will be some South Africans who would like to participate in this competition. What do the others from Wikimedia ZA think? I would definitely be interested to meet up with you and discuss the possibilities. When are you again in the Cape Town area?
>>>
>>>
>>>Kind regards
>>>Lourie
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>________________________________
>>>> From: MADe <MADe(a)wikipedia.be>
>>>>To: wikimediaza(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:23 AM
>>>>Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Hi all,
>>>>
>>>>Very nice to see all the activities on the smaller South African language wikis! Hopefully this means a start for those projects. I have another idea to get some more things happening.
>>>>
>>>>In Belgium I started the "Wiki Loves Monuments" competition. The goal for the participants was to take a picture of a heritage site and to post them on Wikicommons. The best images were selected and they could win a variety of prices (Belgium: iPad). It was part of a bigger European contest (18 countries). The goal was to attract new contributors to the wiki projects, and for Belgium to gather some wikipedians to start our own Belgian wiki chapter.
>>>>
>>>>The competition itself was fairly simple to organise. The European organisers provided tools, a website, logos, a dedicated Wiki Commons upload tool, ... and also funding (10,000 ZAR). We made the translations (Belgium alone: five languages), we searched for our own jury, we searched for Belgian prices, and we got into contact with government organisations that helped us with a venue for the price ceremony and some more practical things.
>>>>
>>>>The result was fantastic. 170.000 new images in Europe, of which 6000 in Belgium. Lots or media attention for the competition. At least 50 (!) new Belgian members that started working on Wikicommons or Wikipedia itself. A solid group of people that wanted to work on our own chapter. We established good contacts with government organisations that suddenly understood Wikipedia is not a black box but made by real people. Nice media coverage on the competition.
>>>>
>>>>The European competition will be organised in September of this year. They would really enjoy SA to join in, and I'm sure WMF can help us with most of the funding. I think this is an easy way to get the attention of new people, especially from poorer regions (if we provide the necessary translations).
>>>>
>>>>Who is interested to get more information, or to help with the organisation? We can meet in Cape Town, Durban or Johannesburg (I'm almost everywhere for my current job)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Grtz,
>>>>Maarten
>>>>
>>>>BE: +32 475 21 38 35
>>>>ZA: +27 71 491 31 38
>>>>Skype: mdeneckere
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>2012/2/14 Douglas Scott <douglas.i.scott(a)gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>>Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Ian is absolutely right. Although the workshops them selves tend to create a number of articles creating a community of dedicated editors for Xhosa language Wikipedia will be a very big challenge that I think will take a long time. On the up side people are very eager and interested but on the down side, as Ian has mentioned, there are still problems with basic computer literacy and access to computers/internet. I suspect that it will take a number of workshops followed by some sort of program such as one (and this is only an idea right now) whereby teachers use Xhosa Wikipedia to test their students translating abilities thereby creating a self perpetuating process that continually exposes new people to editing that wiki.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>As I mentioned to Ian on Saturday I think that a big part of creating a healthy community of editors on Wikipedia is finding enough people with the right type of personality that is at home using a computer. I think that is as much a numbers game as anything else which means spending a long time exposing as many people as possible to the idea and process of editing Wikipedia. A process that is made harder by relatively low rates of computer literacy. But then again we must start from some where I suppose. Either way, more work and support is needed and so long as I have free time and am in Cape Town I am happy help.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>P.S. Thanks for checking the stats Ian. To be frank I am delighted that one extra substantial edit was made since the workshop on Saturday. That in its self is a 0.7% increase! :-D
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>On 14 February 2012 00:02, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>Thank you so much, Ian. Appreciate it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>On Feb 13, 2012, at 1:15 PM, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Great :) I'd be really interested to know whether people continued to edit after the workshop if you could share.
>>>>>>>>To try answer Heather, the article count went from 125, which it has been stuck at since at least November 2011, to 131 during the class, and there has only been one substantial edit from any of the participants on the weekend (a new article, increasing the count to 132) since the workshop, so the answer seems to be no.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The workshop was 2 hours, and, briefly, we hoped to teach creating a user account, creating or editing (via translation from English) an article, adding links, adding a picture, and I wanted to add interwiki links to the list as well. Everyone created or edited an article, and most, if not everyone, added links, though only some could create a user account due to IP limits, and very few got to adding an image or interwiki links. Douglas goes into more details in his post.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>It's more complicated to add links in Xhosa than in English due to the way prefixes are used in the language, so quite often an article may exist, but the link doesn't point to it, and there are already duplicate articles for this reason.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>There is still such a barrier with basic computer use, that I found a substantial portion of the class was showing people how to maximize and minimize windows, how to open a new tab or window, etc, and I got the sense that there wasn't always a real understanding of why the various steps were being performed, which reduces the chances of them being repeatable outside of the class.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>The one article that was created afterwards is an orphan, with no incoming or outgoing links.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>There was a lot of enthusiasm, so hopefully having a followup quite soon will keep the interest and momentum going, but I would expect there to be not much sustained activity as a result of the workshop alone.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>--
>>>>>>>Ian Gilfillan
>>>>>>>www.greenman.co.za
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>>>WikimediaZA mailing list
>>>>>>>WikimediaZA(a)lists.wikimedia.org
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>Heather Ford
>>>>>>www.ethnographymatters.net
>>>>>>@hfordsa on Twitter
>>>>>>http://hblog.org
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>--
>>>>>Douglas Ian Scott
>>>>>司道格
>>>>>Skype: douglas0scott
>>>>>UK mobile number: +44 (0)755 452 5277
>>>>>Chinese mobile number: +86 1 364 330 7351
>>>>>South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>
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>
>
Hello everyone,
Here are some of the previously promised pictures from Saturday's Wikipedia
workshop that I promised to send out. I think the event went well and I am
looking forward to doing a follow up workshop in about two weeks time.
Many thanks to Ian and Ana for helping out and to Prof Nyamende from UCT's
African languages department for organising the computer labs and inviting
everyone.
Cheers,
--
Douglas Ian Scott
司道格
Skype: douglas0scott
UK mobile number: +44 (0)755 452 5277
Chinese mobile number: +86 1 364 330 7351
South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727