Hi all,

I am not sure that I am going to be able to make it to the first projected meeting in August - but will try... Heavy load of work at present. If not, be assured of my support in spirit.

I'd just like to give strong endorsement to discussion of Wikipedia in/by/for Academia (and related contexts) - and perhaps more especially of the role that academics/researchers could/should play in ensuring that their respective subject areas are well covered - because of the use of Wikipedia by people out there - particularly in a schooling context. I come from a part of the country which is not well represented in references easily to hand - and even on wikipedia it is relatively poorly represented. It was this latter issue that spurred me to get involved. I have some thoughts on all this on my Wikipedia user page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Blarcrean

All the best

David

David Morris
Archaeology
McGregor Museum
P.O. Box 316, Kimberley 8300, South Africa
Tel +27-(0)82 2224777
+27-(0)53 8392706
Fax +27-(0)53 8421433

From: Kerryn McKay <kerryn@africancommons.org>
To: wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Wed, 14 July, 2010 10:38:27
Subject: [Wikimedia ZA] Chapter initiatives going forward - you ideas

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 In South Africa we are sitting with that rather outdated perception that Wikipedia is a crazy, error-riddled platform which can offer no support to academics or students.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@africancommons.org
phone me: +2711 486 0211, cell: +27 82 334 6165,
skype me: kerrynmac