Hello,
I have just gotten off the phone from a person in the Western Cape
government to do a workshop at the government archives this coming Friday
in Cape Town.
If anyone is interested in joining me the location is the Western Cape
Archives and Record Service, 72 Roeland Street, Cape Town. The event will
be at 11am to 1pm on Friday, 17 February.
Now that I think about it this would also be a good opportunity to set some
thing up for a GLAM project there some time in the future. I would be
delighted to get your thoughts on perhaps doing a GLAM event there, or some
sort of GLAM project.
Thanks,
Douglas.
--
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
Dear Wiki colleagues,
I am excited to invite all members of the South African chapter of
Wikimedia to participate in the Wiki Africa project that will expand
and increase the contents of Africa information in Wikipedia. Through
this invitation we hope to build a strong partnership in promoting
African content in Wikipedia.
WikiAfrica is an international collaborative project between Africa
Centre and Lettera27 that is designed to Africanize 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. The initial two years are focused on
encouraging external Africa-based, cultural organizations, museums and
archives, as well as bloggers and journalists, to contribute their
knowledge to Wikipedia.
These initial two years focus on content related to literature,
poetry, art, cinema and other cultural products. WikiAfrica will not
exclude anything that falls outside of these categories, but focuses
most of its energy in these areas. At the same time, the WikiAfrica
project expands the African content that is already available online
and improves existing articles by combining sources and promoting the
participation of experts. WikiAfrica contributes to the aims of
Wikimedia projects online (especially the WikiProject Africa,
WikiProject African diaspora and the Africa Portal) and also works
externally with texts, quotes, images, audio and video.
The project will be approached and achieve its goals via the following
four activities:
-Create partnerships with organisations that have existing
archives that are readily accessible and that are predisposed to
placing this content online;
-Motivate the adaptation of a copyleft or Creative Commons
approach to intellectual property.
-Activate new Wikipedia users and editors in Africa through
marketing and promotion; and
-Create training tools and establish the mentorships required to
activate a new team of users and editors of Wikipedia (wikipedians).
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 Wiki Africa and become a member of Wiki Africa!
Please visit our incubator at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Incubator for a step
by step guide on how to start your articles for new authors.
We look forward to working with Wikimedia South Africa in knowledge
exchange, participation and contribution to this project.
For any questions don't hesitate to contact me.
Thank you
Francis Awinda
Administrator and content manager Wiki Africa
Email:francisa@africacentre.net
Tel:+27793087519
Hello,
The workshop for Xhosa language academics that I have been talking about
will be taking place this Saturday, 11th February and will run from 9am to
11am.
The venue is the Bessie Head Computer Lab in the basement of the Beattie
Building. The Beattie Building is adjacent to the Arts Block. Prof Nyamende
has told everybody and many people have indicated that they are coming. I
am told that the Lab is big enough to accommodate everyone. The time is
still 09h00 to 11h00. Please let me know if you can or are interested in
joining or helping out as it would be nice to have some extra Wikipedians
around. I will email some pictures of the workshop afterwards.
Thanks,
Douglas.
--
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
Hi, everyone.
I'd like to make sure you and your fellow community members are all aware
that Wikimania Scholarship applications are being accepted, until Feb 16th.
Be sure to apply if you want to attend and have something to contribute!
All the details are here:
http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
Cheers,
Asaf
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation
Hello everyone,
Since I have gotten such an overwhelmingly positive response from Xhosa
language practitioners on introducing them to Xhosa Wikipedia an informal
preliminary workshop for six people at the University of the Western Cape
has been organised by the African language department there. It would be
great to have some local Wikipedian volunteers to help introduce them to
editing Wikipedia. Below are the details. If you are interested in
joining us then please to let me know in advance.
Tuesday, 31/01/2012, at 13h00. University of the Western Cape, The Xhosa
Department, New Arts Building, Room D132.
Thanks,
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
Hello everyone,
Its been an issue for some time now that the African language Wikipedia's
are not doing as well as the vast majority of other Wikipedia's. Xhosa
Wikipedia, the language of more then seven million South Africans, has only 125
articles <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias>, making it the
272nd largest wiki. About half the size of
Inuktitut<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuktitut_language> Wikipedia.
I contacted the head of the African languages department at the University
of Cape Town and had a meeting with him yesterday to discuss it. It seems
like it went very well and I have already been contacted by 9 Xhosa
language specialists in the Western and Eastern Cape who are very
interested in attending a workshop to learn more about editing Wikipedia.
I would like to know if anyone would be interested in helping me host any
workshops in Cape Town the near future? It would be nice to have another
Wikipedian around to help coach people during the workshop. Since this is
still very early days yet we have not set a date yet for the workshop but I
would like it to take place within the next month or so, or even sooner
then that. I would also be interested in getting your feedback on the
idea. Right now the objective is just to train a few Xhosa language
Wikipedians and make it known to them how free and easy it is to edit
Wikipedia and contribute. As well as to expand Xhosa language Wikipedia by
translating articles from well written English Wikipedia articles. So far
all the people that have contacted me are either academics that specialise
in Xhosa studies at the Universities here in Cape Town or are from
government.
Best,
--
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
Oh wow!!!
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jay Walsh <jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 9:00 AM
Subject: [Foundation-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] English Wikipedia to
go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
To: wikimediaannounce-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Please also see the related blog post,
http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/01/16/wikipedias-community-calls-for-anti-so…
The release is posted here:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_…
*English Wikipedia to go dark January 18 in opposition to SOPA/PIPA
*
San Francisco -- January 16, 2012 -- On January 18, 2012, in an
unprecedented decision, the Wikipedia community has chosen to blackout the
English version of Wikipedia for 24 hours, in protest against proposed
legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the
U.S. House of Representatives, and PROTECTIP (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate. If
passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring
about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United
States.
Wikipedia administrators confirmed this decision Monday afternoon (PST) in
a public statement (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action#Summary_and_c…
):
Over the course of the past 72 hours, over 1800 Wikipedians have joined
together to discuss proposed actions that the community might wish to take
against SOPA and PIPA. This is by far the largest level of participation in
a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia, which illustrates the level
of concern that Wikipedians feel about this proposed legislation. The
overwhelming majority of participants support community action to encourage
greater public action in response to these two bills. Of the proposals
considered by Wikipedians, those that would result in a "blackout" of the
English Wikipedia, in concert with similar blackouts on other websites
opposed to SOPA and PIPA, received the strongest support.
“Today Wikipedians from around the world have spoken about their opposition
to this destructive legislation," said Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.
"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take - and while we
regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even
a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free
speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening
precedent of Internet censorship for the world."
We urge Wikipedia readers to make your voices heard. If you live in the
United States, find your elected representative in Washington (
https://www.eff.org/sopacall). If you live outside the United States,
contact your State Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar
branch of government. Tell them you oppose SOPA and PIPA, and want the
internet to remain open and free.
*About the Wikimedia Foundation
*http://wikimediafoundation.org
http://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 474 million unique visitors per month, making them the
fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November 2011).
Available in 282 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 20 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an
audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through donations and
grants.
*Media Contact:
*
Jay Walsh
Head of Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415 839 6885 x 6609
jwalsh(a)wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately
directed to Foundation-L, the public mailing list about the Wikimedia
Foundation and its projects. For more information about Foundation-L:
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--
David Richfield
e^(πi)+1=0
Dear colleagues,
Apologies in advance for posting only in English, but I would love to have
the opportunity to work more closely with South African Wikimedians so I
hope it is still worthwhile sending this message.
WMF is now seeking fellowship applicants and project ideas for the
Community Fellowships Program.
Community members from all Wikimedia projects and all languages are
strongly encouraged to apply by the deadline of January 15th 2012! Could
you please help spread the word by sharing this open call in your community?
Wikimedia Community Fellows are spearheading community projects,
undertaking research, and piloting new models for engagement to help scale
and increase sustainability of volunteer work in the Wikimedia movement.
The Foundation provides intensive, time-limited financial and logistical
support for fellows to focus on projects of strategic importance.
Submissions for Spring 2012 are encouraged to focus on the theme of
improving editor retention and increasing participation in Wikimedia
Projects.
If you'd like to work with WMF on projects to boost participation and
retention, or know someone who should be recommended for a fellowship, or
if you've got ideas for a fellowship project WMF could support, we'd like
to hear from you! Please visit
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships, or contact Siko
Bouterse at sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org for more information.
Best regards,
Siko
--
Siko Bouterse
Head of Community Fellowships
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
sbouterse(a)wikimedia.org