Ekushe Toye!

I'm copying our mailing list so that other South African Wikimedians can contribute to the discussion.

You have not necessarily been eliminated: Phase 1 is still under way, but what I can say unofficially is that there is an enormous number of excellent applications by people who are already heavily engaged in the movement.

Even if you are not selected for one of the limited number of scholarships, I, as a member of Wikimedia South Africa, would like to help you engage further with the project, especially in regards to building a strong African Wikimedia presence. Hopefully next year we'll be able to make an extremely strong showing!

What would be really great would be if you could go to our Facebook page and our mailing list and introduce yourself: I would love us to build a more pan-African movement and see how we can mobilise editors across the continent. What that means is that we can help you to edit Wikipedia in such a way as to have a real impact. One of the easiest places to make an impact would be in the Yoruba wikipedia: Take a look at this page for example: https://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yor%C3%B9b%C3%A1 I'm sure you'd be able to translate it properly. Maybe you can find pages that interest you in http://yo.wikipedia.org and translate them from English? After doing one page per day for a year on the Yoruba Wikipedia, you'll be 100% guaranteed to get a scholarship next year, especially if you engage with other editors in Nigeria. Make sure you're logged in when you edit: that way it's easier to track your progress, and for other editors to contact you if they want to collaborate.

If you have any problems with editing Wikipedia, please contact me at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Slashme - I'll definitely get back to you with help and advice.

Good luck and happy editing!

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 10:02 PM, Toye Oye oyesunkanmi@gmail.com wrote:

Does this mean I failed the first Phase of the Screening? Thanks

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 9:54 AM, David Richfield davidrichfield@gmail.com wrote:

...

Dear Oloruntoba,

While reviewing Wikimania scholarship applications, I came across yours. Because of the high level of other applications, it's possible that you will not be granted a scholarship this year, but I'd really like to introduce you to the Wikimedia South Africa organisation: we are extremely keen to help people like you become active in the free knowledge movement.

Please check out our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WikimediaZA - there you will connect with other African Wikimedians from a variety of backgrounds.

We're planning to host a pan-African conference (WikiIndaba) in Johannesburg this year, and also to host Wikimania in Cape Town next year, and we need help to make it happen.

If you're interested, please also join our mailing list: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza and check out our website: http://wikimedia.org.za/wiki/Main_Page

Best regards,

David