I wanted to share a paper [1] (abstract below) that I co-wrote with others
which is a small part of the really interesting project that some of the
folks on this list were involved with (the Wikipedia Primary School Project
[2]) in SA. Will hopefully be talking about this (and other Wikipedia work)
at Wikimania this year. Would love to hear any feedback you might have.
Best,
Heather.
[1] author's preprint here https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qn5xd and
published version here
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444818760870
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Primary_School_SSAJRP_pr…
Dr Heather Ford
Senior Lecturer, School of Arts & Media <https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/>,
University of New South Wales
w: hblog.org / EthnographyMatters.net <http://ethnographymatters.net/> / t:
@hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
Beyond notification: Filling gaps in peer production projects
In order to counter systemic bias in peer production projects like
Wikipedia, a variety of strategies have been used to fill gaps and improve
the completeness of the archive. We test a number of these strategies in a
project aimed at improving articles relating to South Africa’s primary
school curriculum and find that many of the predominant strategies are
insufficient for filling Wikipedia’s gaps. Notifications that alert users
to the existence of gaps including incomplete or missing articles, in
particular, are found to be ineffective at improving articles. Only through
the process of trust-building and the development of negotiated boundary
objects, potential allies (institutional academics in this case) can be
enrolled in the task of editing the encyclopaedia. Rather than a simple
process of enrolment via notification, this project demonstrated the
principles of negotiation required for engaging with new editor groups in
the long-term project of filling Wikipedia’s gaps.
I just found something quite strange when looking for stats on which
Wikipedia language versions people are requesting for southern Africa.
Looking at
https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountry…
I noticed that Russian Wikipedia accounts for (usually) the second or third
most requested Wikipedia language version after English (or Portuguese in
the case of Mozambique).
In SA, Russian Wikipedia accounts for the second most requested Wikipedia
project. This seems to be new and I'm wondering why... is this just because
there are now more Russians in SA and other southern African countries?
Anyone have any ideas?
Best,
Heather.
Dr Heather Ford
Senior Lecturer, School of Arts & Media <https://sam.arts.unsw.edu.au/>,
University of New South Wales
w: hblog.org / EthnographyMatters.net <http://ethnographymatters.net/> / t:
@hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
Dear ZAnians,
Greetings from Berlin. Douglas, Mpho and Coenraad are also here but so far
we've each been doing our own thing since there are several simultaneous
tracks in the conference. Here, I'm reporting on something that only I
attended, but which (I think) requires the attention of the chapter, namely
the Community Capacity Map
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Capacity_Map#Community_Capacity_M…>
(CCM).
You'll see it's not a geographical map but a table which lists the
capacities of affiliates.While the presenter was clear that there is no
requirement that affiliates fill in all (or even any) of the categories, in
his presentation of the purpose of the CCM it was obvious to me that we as
a chapter stand to benefit - since the ever-growing staff of the Wikimedia
Foundation will use the map as one of their tools in deciding where to
allocate support.
You may also notice that I experimentally started a row for Wikimedia-ZA
but I now feel I should consult the collective on the process for going
forward. The template used takes some getting used to. Quite possibly in
future the information will be displayed in a more intuitive way - perhaps
even a real map. But I think we should submit it so long.
What do others think?
--
*Michael Graaf*
*Researcher, Editor &*
*Community Informatics Practitioner*
keybase.io/michaelgraaf
+27795487242
Hi
I wanted to remind you of the upcoming monthly edit-a-thon [1] and
you're very welcome to support or simply pop-in for a chat. The
American Corner will extend the invitation to the writing workshop
held at the Central Library.
To improve attendance, we've also started experimenting with
meetup.com [2] and you are free to publish other events here.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Cape_Town/American_Corner
[2] https://www.meetup.com/Wikimedia-ZA/
Best, Reuben
Hi Vira,
Sorry for the delayed response. I was in rural Namibia and just got back.
I have just filled out the form and included the etherpad info that
Coenraad shared. Thanks Coenraad.
Looking forward to seeing you all in Berlin.
Regards,
Douglas.
On 10 April 2018 at 12:35, Coenraad Loubser <coenraad(a)wikimedia.org.za>
wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Can we discuss this here: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WMZA_WMCON_Wall
>
> If I don't manage to follow up on Mon April 16 by 12:00, Douglas if you
> would be so kind so as to copy our etherpad contents to the form below.
>
> On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 12:41 PM, Vira Motorko <support.wmcon(a)wikimedia.de>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi Douglas, Michael, Mpho and Coenraad
>>
>> You participate in the Wikimedia Conference 2018 as representatives of
>> Wikimedia South Africa
>>
>> As it’s already a tradition, we want to have again a huge wall with the
>> profiles of all attending Wikimedia organizations, groups, committees and
>> WMF teams. It’s a nice way to show the huge diversity of our movement, as
>> well as present best projects of your community.
>>
>> I kindly ask you to fill in this form together until April 16, so we can
>> print it out and hang on the wall with other organizational profiles from
>> different communities.
>>
>> You can find the form here:
>>
>> https://goo.gl/forms/926S96h2bkGi9wNh1
>> <https://www.google.com/url?q=https://goo.gl/forms/926S96h2bkGi9wNh1&sa=D&us…>
>>
>> If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to drop me
>> a line!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Vira,
>>
>> WMCON18 Support
>>
>
>
--
Douglas Ian Scott
司道格
Skype: douglas0scott
South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727