David Richfield wrote:
At Software Freedom Day I got some schoolkids from Mamelodi interested
in the project, and they tried their hands at translating some English
text into the Sepedi wikipedia incubator. They were very eager, and
were intensely debating which word to use for which concept. We
didn't get much done: only a paragraph or two, but I spoke to their
computer studies teacher, and they have a computer lab with internet
access, and she's willing to open it up for us on a Saturday, and the
kids said they'd be happy to come in on a Saturday for the project. I
still have to hear from her again, and I'll keep you all in the loop
as things develop.
I'm happy to go there and facilitate, but if you have experience of
this kind of thing, or know Sepedi, or have a clear idea of what the
most urgent, achievable or useful articles would be, please help!
Great, that sounds very hopeful. If the students can remain active that may
be enough to get the project bumped up to official status. Have you spoken
to Mohau, or has he got hold of you? He's been keeping the Sepedi Wikipedia
going almost single-handedly, and may know his way around best. He's on this
list, but that's no guarantee he saw or read the mail. I've made the subject
more descriptive to help :)
There's a list of "articles every Wikipedia should have" at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_Wikipedia_should_have
but I'd ignore it, and just let the students be guided by their interest
rather than try and force them to write "important" articles. I'm not sure
getting someone to write about Verdi or Sarah Bernhardt is the way to go :)
More general things I'd suggest focusing on include getting people to
register and log in rather than just edit anonymously (according to the
tracker at
http://toolserver.org/~pathoschild/catanalysis/?cat=0&title=wp/nso&…
no one has edited while logged in this month) and to be aware of interwiki
language links.
Great suggestions, thanks for the input. I guess my next actions are:
* Call Gatang Comprehensive School up to re-establish contact with the teacher.
* Contact Mohau (what are his details?)
--
David Richfield
e^(πi)+1=0