Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challengehttp://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
Hi Asaf
That's interesting news. The challenges though will be quite different to the Swahili event. Swahili is widely-spoken across numerous countries, and had a sizeable Wikipedia community beforehand. Afrikaans isn't as widely spoken, but has a relatively lively Wikipedia and active community. However, finding 35 judges from within the community will not be possible - there were only 24 active editors in April - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaAF.htm
For both Tswana and Zulu, the Wikipedias are barely functional, with no active editors.
It does provide an opportunity though to kickstart some activity, create awareness, and make some progress towards building a community. I would be wary though, after the Swahili experience, of bringing in lots of new people for a competition in the absence of an active community. I believe the Swahili community had some challenges integrating the new editors and articles, and doing so in a vacuum might be trickier.
I'm happy to assist, though I'd like to discuss more with Google their aims and expectations, and give them a better idea of the situation as it is.
ian gilfillan
On 13/06/2011 22:53, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/
WikimediaZA mailing list WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
Following the success of Swahili? Have you actually spoken to a Swahili Wikipedia editor? I have and I haven't met one who'd agree with you.
While I appreciate that this brings exposure to Wikipedia and the language it is a massive burden on the editors. Swahili editors got an upsurge of pages, but no long terms commitment of contributors. Google essentially arrived, gave out cokes, got massive media exposure, and left. All the editors volunteered their time and where left picking through the debris left after the event. I'd hardly call relying on massive amounts of volunteer time "heavy lifting funding wise", Google gives very little.
So unless lessons have been learnt and integrated into this program "beware of Google bearing gifts".
I'd say go for it for Tswana and Zulu - if you can find contributors - you can't damage something that doesn't exist. I disagree with Ian, I think you would get more Afrikaans participants because of a passion for language, internet connectedness, etc. But I'd hate to burden the existing Afrikaans community to repair rubbish that will be contributed by drive by writers.
Asaf, maybe you can outline what lessons have been learnt from the Swahili effort and how those are integrated into these planned events.
On 2011-06-14 03:07, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
Hi Asaf
That's interesting news. The challenges though will be quite different to the Swahili event. Swahili is widely-spoken across numerous countries, and had a sizeable Wikipedia community beforehand. Afrikaans isn't as widely spoken, but has a relatively lively Wikipedia and active community. However, finding 35 judges from within the community will not be possible - there were only 24 active editors in April - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaAF.htm
For both Tswana and Zulu, the Wikipedias are barely functional, with no active editors.
It does provide an opportunity though to kickstart some activity, create awareness, and make some progress towards building a community. I would be wary though, after the Swahili experience, of bringing in lots of new people for a competition in the absence of an active community. I believe the Swahili community had some challenges integrating the new editors and articles, and doing so in a vacuum might be trickier.
I'm happy to assist, though I'd like to discuss more with Google their aims and expectations, and give them a better idea of the situation as it is.
ian gilfillan
On 13/06/2011 22:53, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/
WikimediaZA mailing list WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
WikimediaZA mailing list WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
Hello, everyone.
Thank you for your responses. I welcome discussing them:
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:00 PM, Dwayne Bailey dwayne@translate.org.zawrote:
Following the success of Swahili? Have you actually spoken to a Swahili Wikipedia editor? I have and I haven't met one who'd agree with you.
Certainly, it was not an _unmitigated_ success. To me it is, on balance, a success, because beyond the content contribution to the Wikipedia in Kiswahili, it gave birth to a group of enthusiasts who ultimately formed a group of activists _still_ growing to this day and doing excellent outreach work already, and well on their way to becoming recognized as a Wikimedia chapter. See their wiki for details, and in particular their school outreach work[1].
While I appreciate that this brings exposure to Wikipedia and the language
it is a massive burden on the editors. Swahili editors got an upsurge of pages, but no long terms commitment of contributors. Google essentially arrived, gave out cokes, got massive media exposure, and left. All the editors volunteered their time and where left picking through the debris left after the event. I'd hardly call relying on massive amounts of volunteer time "heavy lifting funding wise", Google gives very little.
So unless lessons have been learnt and integrated into this program "beware of Google bearing gifts".
Lessons have indeed been learnt. Following feedback from the Kiswahili Challenge, we intend to devote more attention to judge selection and process, to focus on locally-relevant articles, and to emphasize better (and more restrained) use of the Google tools.
A number of things have changed for the better since 2009, too. For example, we now have much better training materials (ready for adaption, translation, etc.) in the Outreach wiki[2], and specifically in the Bookshelf project[3] therein, both of which did not exist in 2009. We also have more "bandwidth" (read: attention capacity) from WMF staff to follow this event and the preparations for it.
I disagree with Ian, I think you would get more Afrikaans participants
because of a passion for language, internet connectedness, etc. But I'd hate to burden the existing Afrikaans community to repair rubbish that will be contributed by drive by writers.
All the above would work to minimize (never eradicate) the amount of "rubbish" generated by the Challenge. Sure, some people Just Won't Get It, no matter how good the training and ongoing coaching may be. But most will, and, as with regular newbies who arrive on their own, a forbearing, welcoming attitude is ultimately more productive than a strict and exacting one. We know this as Wikipedians[4]. I certainly acknowledge the veteran editors would be called upon to bear an additional load of mentoring, coaching, correcting, and, yes, reverting.
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://wikimedia.or.ke/Main_Page [2] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page [3] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project [4] My home wiki is the Hebrew Wikipedia, another small-language project that has ~120K articles and has been struggling with the perennial problems of newbies like all the other projects. [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/African_Wikipedia_Challenge_2011
On 2011-06-14 03:07, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
Hi Asaf
That's interesting news. The challenges though will be quite different to the Swahili event. Swahili is widely-spoken across numerous countries, and had a sizeable Wikipedia community beforehand. Afrikaans isn't as widely spoken, but has a relatively lively Wikipedia and active community. However, finding 35 judges from within the community will not be possible - there were only 24 active editors in April - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaAF.htm
For both Tswana and Zulu, the Wikipedias are barely functional, with no active editors.
It does provide an opportunity though to kickstart some activity, create awareness, and make some progress towards building a community. I would be wary though, after the Swahili experience, of bringing in lots of new people for a competition in the absence of an active community. I believe the Swahili community had some challenges integrating the new editors and articles, and doing so in a vacuum might be trickier.
I'm happy to assist, though I'd like to discuss more with Google their aims and expectations, and give them a better idea of the situation as it is.
ian gilfillan
On 13/06/2011 22:53, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challengehttp://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/
WikimediaZA mailing listWikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
WikimediaZA mailing listWikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
-- regards Dwayne
WikimediaZA mailing list WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
Hello again, everyone.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
If none of the people receiving this e-mail are interested, perhaps some of you can help us find someone who would be?
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
If one of you is planning to respond to or engage with me on this, but hasn't found the time yet, I'd appreciate a quick note, just so I know we shall have _some_ cooperation from WMZA.
Thanks!
I forgot to copy the list.
----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Lourie Pieterse louriepieterse@yahoo.com To: Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org Sent: Sat, June 18, 2011 1:51:47 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Google's Wikipedia Challenge 2011
Hello Asaf
Sorry for taking so long to reply on this topic.
As far as I know we will definitely be interested. We did discus this topic a while ago when Nanjala Misiko contacted us. I don't know why no one else replied so far, they are most probably very busy. Even if the chapter doesn't decide to get involved my university (Stellenbosch) will be interested. About two weeks ago I had a meeting with a few people from the library, and they would be willing to facilitate and promote the Google competition to our students. The main idea is to get an idea of how many students know about editing Wikipedia, because we need these statistics for another project we are planning.
Kind regards Lourie
________________________________ From: Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org To: wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sat, June 18, 2011 1:27:25 AM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Google's Wikipedia Challenge 2011
Hello again, everyone.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
If none of the people receiving this e-mail are interested, perhaps some of you can help us find someone who would be?
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
If one of you is planning to respond to or engage with me on this, but hasn't found the time yet, I'd appreciate a quick note, just so I know we shall have _some_ cooperation from WMZA.
Thanks!
Hi Asaf
In my personal capacity I'm not able to assist at this time as I have a number of projects that are nearing completion and thus cannot take the time to assist or coordinate.
From the discussions on the list, though, it seems alittle as if the
concerns that locals have raised - which probably are 'accurate' representations of what happened after the fact - are being 'overlooked' and you're kinda just going to go ahead anyway ... For example I'm not sure if any 'post exericse' activity has been considered to perhaps support those language communities manage the sudden upsurge of new people/content etc to ensure that this isn't an unsustainable activity at the end of the day? (And I don't have the solutions right now myself!)
Be that as it may, I'm also assuming that you would soon need to begin discussions with universities to find out who/where/when you will be able to conduct these content sprints? I'm not sure if you have this sorted out, but if not I have a name or two of people at Wits and UCT - Lourie has mentioned Stellenbosch - with whom you might be able to take discussion forward here locally. Let me know if you need these.
Regards Kerryn
* * * * Kerryn McKay The African Commons Project
082 334 6165 skype: kerrynmac twitter: kerrynmckay
On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 1:27 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello again, everyone.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.orgwrote:
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
If none of the people receiving this e-mail are interested, perhaps some of you can help us find someone who would be?
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
If one of you is planning to respond to or engage with me on this, but hasn't found the time yet, I'd appreciate a quick note, just so I know we shall have _some_ cooperation from WMZA.
Thanks!
-- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
WikimediaZA mailing list WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
Hi Asaf,
I'm curious about how the languages were chosen for this challenge?
There are some really incredible people on this list with great experience running similar types of projects so my big suggestion would be for you to engage with them in the planning process rather than merely to ask for foot soldiers :)
In fact, I think what would make most sense would be to share the documentation of lessons learned from the Kiswahili challenge and to be able to have a good discussion about potential solutions to the key problems.
I'd love to speak to the Kiswahili folks as well but if you have already documented this, then that would be most helpful as a start.
Best, Heather.
Heather Ford Ethnographer: Swiftly | Ushahidi http://swiftly.org/ | http://ushahidi.com/ @hfordsa on Twitter http://hblog.org
On Jun 17, 2011, at 4:27 PM, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hello again, everyone.
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
If none of the people receiving this e-mail are interested, perhaps some of you can help us find someone who would be?
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
If one of you is planning to respond to or engage with me on this, but hasn't found the time yet, I'd appreciate a quick note, just so I know we shall have _some_ cooperation from WMZA.
Thanks!
-- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
WikimediaZA mailing list WikimediaZA@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
Hello again, everyone.
Thank you for your valuable feedback. Special thanks to Lourie for volunteering to help concretely with Afrikaans and a venue at Stellenbosch, as well as volunteering to be a trainer. We also have veterans of the Kiswahili Challenge happy to train (in English), so we are probably well covered for trainers.
I have given this much thought, and I have come to see the original plan is not set up for success. I therefore suggest to POSTPONE the Challenge by at least 2-3 months, and see if we can improve both our plan and the situation in the projects before we embark on the challenge.
I would be _delighted_ if some of you would join me in thinking about this and planning for a successful Challenge.
Let me describe my current thinking and how I propose to proceed, with your help:
==Problems== * The editing communities in isiZulu[1] and Setswana[2] seem moribund. All the recent edits are by bots or manual dumps of interwiki links. None of the editors who have ever contributed significantly seem to be around. In short, the projects are stuck. This means there is no one at hand to support the Challenge newbies in guidance and article refinement. * Potential judges for the Challenge can probably be recruited from among linguists, academics, cultural agencies and the like -- but all would be entirely unfamiliar with Wikipedia and its platform, requiring some orientation (even if we don't expect them to actually edit a wiki).
==Solutions?== * Plan and execute targetted outreach activities on campuses (and high-schools?) to recruit a fresh group of contributors to isiZulu and Setswana Wikipedia -- through lectures and workshops, unrelated to the Challenge. * Reach out to formerly-active isiZulu Wikipedians[1] and tell them about the Challenge. Perhaps they would be interested in resuming their contributions to zuwp given the infusion of energy and material from the Challenge? * Likewise for Setswana[2].
The WMF itself has no presence in Africa, so WMZA activists are naturally the ones best positioned to carry out such outreach. The WMF can and will, however, support such activity through funds, training materials, merchandise, and any other resource it can effectively put at WMZA's disposal.
Your opinions most welcome. If there are any takers, I'd love to start collaborating on a plan for campus/school outreach immediately.
Cheers,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZU.htm#wikipedians [2] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTN.htm#wikipedians
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello, everyone.
Thank you for your responses. I welcome discussing them:
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:00 PM, Dwayne Bailey dwayne@translate.org.zawrote:
Following the success of Swahili? Have you actually spoken to a Swahili Wikipedia editor? I have and I haven't met one who'd agree with you.
Certainly, it was not an _unmitigated_ success. To me it is, on balance, a success, because beyond the content contribution to the Wikipedia in Kiswahili, it gave birth to a group of enthusiasts who ultimately formed a group of activists _still_ growing to this day and doing excellent outreach work already, and well on their way to becoming recognized as a Wikimedia chapter. See their wiki for details, and in particular their school outreach work[1].
While I appreciate that this brings exposure to Wikipedia and the language
it is a massive burden on the editors. Swahili editors got an upsurge of pages, but no long terms commitment of contributors. Google essentially arrived, gave out cokes, got massive media exposure, and left. All the editors volunteered their time and where left picking through the debris left after the event. I'd hardly call relying on massive amounts of volunteer time "heavy lifting funding wise", Google gives very little.
So unless lessons have been learnt and integrated into this program "beware of Google bearing gifts".
Lessons have indeed been learnt. Following feedback from the Kiswahili Challenge, we intend to devote more attention to judge selection and process, to focus on locally-relevant articles, and to emphasize better (and more restrained) use of the Google tools.
A number of things have changed for the better since 2009, too. For example, we now have much better training materials (ready for adaption, translation, etc.) in the Outreach wiki[2], and specifically in the Bookshelf project[3] therein, both of which did not exist in 2009. We also have more "bandwidth" (read: attention capacity) from WMF staff to follow this event and the preparations for it.
I disagree with Ian, I think you would get more Afrikaans participants
because of a passion for language, internet connectedness, etc. But I'd hate to burden the existing Afrikaans community to repair rubbish that will be contributed by drive by writers.
All the above would work to minimize (never eradicate) the amount of "rubbish" generated by the Challenge. Sure, some people Just Won't Get It, no matter how good the training and ongoing coaching may be. But most will, and, as with regular newbies who arrive on their own, a forbearing, welcoming attitude is ultimately more productive than a strict and exacting one. We know this as Wikipedians[4]. I certainly acknowledge the veteran editors would be called upon to bear an additional load of mentoring, coaching, correcting, and, yes, reverting.
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://wikimedia.or.ke/Main_Page [2] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page [3] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project [4] My home wiki is the Hebrew Wikipedia, another small-language project that has ~120K articles and has been struggling with the perennial problems of newbies like all the other projects. [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/African_Wikipedia_Challenge_2011
On 2011-06-14 03:07, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
Hi Asaf
That's interesting news. The challenges though will be quite different to the Swahili event. Swahili is widely-spoken across numerous countries, and had a sizeable Wikipedia community beforehand. Afrikaans isn't as widely spoken, but has a relatively lively Wikipedia and active community. However, finding 35 judges from within the community will not be possible - there were only 24 active editors in April - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaAF.htm
For both Tswana and Zulu, the Wikipedias are barely functional, with no active editors.
It does provide an opportunity though to kickstart some activity, create awareness, and make some progress towards building a community. I would be wary though, after the Swahili experience, of bringing in lots of new people for a competition in the absence of an active community. I believe the Swahili community had some challenges integrating the new editors and articles, and doing so in a vacuum might be trickier.
I'm happy to assist, though I'd like to discuss more with Google their aims and expectations, and give them a better idea of the situation as it is.
ian gilfillan
On 13/06/2011 22:53, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challengehttp://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/
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-- regards Dwayne
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-- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
Hi Asaf
I think that this sounds good and lays a foundation for executing the challenge and other activities going forward. I think that an awareness drive is something that could be undertaken. We need to think about this and the easiest and most interesting way to do it. WMZA made some positive academic contacts during our kickoff workshop. Not so much contact, though, with schools but I think that the high school idea is also really good and we would have to find a contact. I think that some people on the ZA board will be able to assist with.
Reaching out to formerly active Zullu Wikipedians might be a challenge, but is certainly worth a try.
Lourie and I can also contact the WMZA board members directly to see if there is interest and as a group and to come up with a few ideas as well.
Rgds Kerryn
* * * * Kerryn McKay The African Commons Project
082 334 6165 skype: kerrynmac twitter: kerrynmckay
On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 12:14 AM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hello again, everyone.
Thank you for your valuable feedback. Special thanks to Lourie for volunteering to help concretely with Afrikaans and a venue at Stellenbosch, as well as volunteering to be a trainer. We also have veterans of the Kiswahili Challenge happy to train (in English), so we are probably well covered for trainers.
I have given this much thought, and I have come to see the original plan is not set up for success. I therefore suggest to POSTPONE the Challenge by at least 2-3 months, and see if we can improve both our plan and the situation in the projects before we embark on the challenge.
I would be _delighted_ if some of you would join me in thinking about this and planning for a successful Challenge.
Let me describe my current thinking and how I propose to proceed, with your help:
==Problems==
- The editing communities in isiZulu[1] and Setswana[2] seem moribund. All
the recent edits are by bots or manual dumps of interwiki links. None of the editors who have ever contributed significantly seem to be around. In short, the projects are stuck. This means there is no one at hand to support the Challenge newbies in guidance and article refinement.
- Potential judges for the Challenge can probably be recruited from among
linguists, academics, cultural agencies and the like -- but all would be entirely unfamiliar with Wikipedia and its platform, requiring some orientation (even if we don't expect them to actually edit a wiki).
==Solutions?==
- Plan and execute targetted outreach activities on campuses (and
high-schools?) to recruit a fresh group of contributors to isiZulu and Setswana Wikipedia -- through lectures and workshops, unrelated to the Challenge.
- Reach out to formerly-active isiZulu Wikipedians[1] and tell them about
the Challenge. Perhaps they would be interested in resuming their contributions to zuwp given the infusion of energy and material from the Challenge?
- Likewise for Setswana[2].
The WMF itself has no presence in Africa, so WMZA activists are naturally the ones best positioned to carry out such outreach. The WMF can and will, however, support such activity through funds, training materials, merchandise, and any other resource it can effectively put at WMZA's disposal.
Your opinions most welcome. If there are any takers, I'd love to start collaborating on a plan for campus/school outreach immediately.
Cheers,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZU.htm#wikipedians [2] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTN.htm#wikipedians
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.orgwrote:
Hello, everyone.
Thank you for your responses. I welcome discussing them:
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 11:00 PM, Dwayne Bailey dwayne@translate.org.zawrote:
Following the success of Swahili? Have you actually spoken to a Swahili Wikipedia editor? I have and I haven't met one who'd agree with you.
Certainly, it was not an _unmitigated_ success. To me it is, on balance, a success, because beyond the content contribution to the Wikipedia in Kiswahili, it gave birth to a group of enthusiasts who ultimately formed a group of activists _still_ growing to this day and doing excellent outreach work already, and well on their way to becoming recognized as a Wikimedia chapter. See their wiki for details, and in particular their school outreach work[1].
While I appreciate that this brings exposure to Wikipedia and the language
it is a massive burden on the editors. Swahili editors got an upsurge of pages, but no long terms commitment of contributors. Google essentially arrived, gave out cokes, got massive media exposure, and left. All the editors volunteered their time and where left picking through the debris left after the event. I'd hardly call relying on massive amounts of volunteer time "heavy lifting funding wise", Google gives very little.
So unless lessons have been learnt and integrated into this program "beware of Google bearing gifts".
Lessons have indeed been learnt. Following feedback from the Kiswahili Challenge, we intend to devote more attention to judge selection and process, to focus on locally-relevant articles, and to emphasize better (and more restrained) use of the Google tools.
A number of things have changed for the better since 2009, too. For example, we now have much better training materials (ready for adaption, translation, etc.) in the Outreach wiki[2], and specifically in the Bookshelf project[3] therein, both of which did not exist in 2009. We also have more "bandwidth" (read: attention capacity) from WMF staff to follow this event and the preparations for it.
I disagree with Ian, I think you would get more Afrikaans participants
because of a passion for language, internet connectedness, etc. But I'd hate to burden the existing Afrikaans community to repair rubbish that will be contributed by drive by writers.
All the above would work to minimize (never eradicate) the amount of "rubbish" generated by the Challenge. Sure, some people Just Won't Get It, no matter how good the training and ongoing coaching may be. But most will, and, as with regular newbies who arrive on their own, a forbearing, welcoming attitude is ultimately more productive than a strict and exacting one. We know this as Wikipedians[4]. I certainly acknowledge the veteran editors would be called upon to bear an additional load of mentoring, coaching, correcting, and, yes, reverting.
As for judges -- yes, Google's figure of 35 judges per language would be a challenge, certainly for Zulu and Tswana. We shall try to achieve at least half that many for each. I ask for your help in this -- volunteer judges can sign up on the page I just created in Meta to start concentrating information about this[5]. I will also be reaching out to some non-Wikipedians to serve as judges -- academics, linguists, etc.
I am also on the lookout for a volunteer trainer from South Africa, ideally a speaker of at least one of the three target languages. The trainer needs to be available for a whole week of fairly intensive training sessions in 2-3 universities in South Africa and 2-3 others in Botswana, on the week beginning July 25th. The Foundation will fund travel; Google will fund accommodation. The Foundation will also help prepare the training materials. Please let me know if you're interested and available.
Once again, I welcome any suggestion for improvement, to make this as successful and beneficial to our movement and mission as possible.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://wikimedia.or.ke/Main_Page [2] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page [3] http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bookshelf_Project [4] My home wiki is the Hebrew Wikipedia, another small-language project that has ~120K articles and has been struggling with the perennial problems of newbies like all the other projects. [5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/African_Wikipedia_Challenge_2011
On 2011-06-14 03:07, Ian Gilfillan wrote:
Hi Asaf
That's interesting news. The challenges though will be quite different to the Swahili event. Swahili is widely-spoken across numerous countries, and had a sizeable Wikipedia community beforehand. Afrikaans isn't as widely spoken, but has a relatively lively Wikipedia and active community. However, finding 35 judges from within the community will not be possible - there were only 24 active editors in April - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaAF.htm
For both Tswana and Zulu, the Wikipedias are barely functional, with no active editors.
It does provide an opportunity though to kickstart some activity, create awareness, and make some progress towards building a community. I would be wary though, after the Swahili experience, of bringing in lots of new people for a competition in the absence of an active community. I believe the Swahili community had some challenges integrating the new editors and articles, and doing so in a vacuum might be trickier.
I'm happy to assist, though I'd like to discuss more with Google their aims and expectations, and give them a better idea of the situation as it is.
ian gilfillan
On 13/06/2011 22:53, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hello, everyone.
Following the success of the Google Kiswahili Wikipedia Challengehttp://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/[1] in 2009, the WMF has been in touch with Google's Nairobi office about a "Wikipedia Challenge" to be conducted in the languages Setswana, isiZulu, and Afrikaans, to be held from early August 2011 to early October 2011.
This is basically a writing competition (translations are allowed) of articles, with a proposed grand prize of a sponsored trip to Wikimania 2012 (in Washington D.C.), and several smaller prizes.
The competition is now at the planning phase, and we would very much like to involve some of you at WMZA on several fronts. The first and most pressing is finding volunteer judges for the articles that would be submitted. Google wants 35 judges per language, expecting each judge to need to put in 2-3 hours a week for the duration of the competition. Are you able to begin interesting your local communities in these languages and enlisting volunteers for this?
And generally, could you identify an appropriate contact person? (or one per language?)
This could be a very energizing program for your chapter to engage with. Google are doing most of the heavy lifting, funding-wise.
Thanks,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://www.google.com/events/kiswahili-wiki/
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-- regards Dwayne
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-- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
-- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
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Hello, Kerryn and everyone.
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 12:05 AM, Kerryn McKay kerryn@africancommons.orgwrote:
Hi Asaf
I think that this sounds good and lays a foundation for executing the challenge and other activities going forward. I think that an awareness drive is something that could be undertaken. We need to think about this and the easiest and most interesting way to do it. WMZA made some positive academic contacts during our kickoff workshop. Not so much contact, though, with schools but I think that the high school idea is also really good and we would have to find a contact. I think that some people on the ZA board will be able to assist with.
So now that we are postponing the Wikipedia Challenge idea with Google, let's try and make progress with outreach. Does WMZA have current plans for outreach activity? If so, where can I see them, what is the timeline, and how can the WMF help? If not, let's start planning some! The WMF can help with funding, materials (mostly in English), and networking. Does WMZA have an internal wiki, or do you do planning on Meta, or just on this list?
Lourie and I can also contact the WMZA board members directly to see if there is interest and as a group and to come up with a few ideas as well.
So what does the board say?
Thank you,
Asaf
Hello Asaf
We haven't got definite answers from the other board members. They are most probably still on holiday.
So far we doesn't have plans for outreach activities, as far as I know. Your help would be greatly appreciated!
We mainly use the mailing list and direct email. We then put the information later on on Meta such that it is easily accessible.
Thanks for your enthusiasm and time.
Kind regards Lourie
________________________________ From: Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org To: Kerryn McKay kerryn@africancommons.org Cc: wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Fri, July 1, 2011 6:41:51 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Google's Wikipedia Challenge 2011
Hello, Kerryn and everyone.
On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 12:05 AM, Kerryn McKay kerryn@africancommons.org wrote:
Hi Asaf
I think that this sounds good and lays a foundation for executing the challenge and other activities going forward. I think that an awareness drive is something that could be undertaken. We need to think about this and the easiest and most interesting way to do it. WMZA made some positive academic contacts during our kickoff workshop. Not so much contact, though, with schools but I think that the high school idea is also really good and we would have to find a contact. I think that some people on the ZA board will be able to assist with.
So now that we are postponing the Wikipedia Challenge idea with Google, let's try and make progress with outreach. Does WMZA have current plans for outreach activity? If so, where can I see them, what is the timeline, and how can the WMF help? If not, let's start planning some! The WMF can help with funding, materials (mostly in English), and networking. Does WMZA have an internal wiki, or do you do planning on Meta, or just on this list?
Lourie and I can also contact the WMZA board members directly to see if there is interest and as a group and to come up with a few ideas as well.
So what does the board say?
Thank you,
Asaf
Hi all,
I'm busy catching up on my emails after an inactive period. Sorry for leaving you all in the lurch!
After reviewing this thread, I'd like to make a few comments:
==Google Challenge==
Although I was excited by the project at the start, I've realized that I just don't have contacts who have the combination of skills and time to be useful as judges or trainers. This seems to be a real obstacle to progress here.
If we get to a point where we want to push the issue some more, I can network a bit among my media and academic contacts for what they're worth and see if I can come up with some leads of people who'd be excited.
==Outreach==
We don't have a separate wiki: all our stuff is on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_South_Africa
I'd be happy to add opinions and moral support to any outreach programs, and even (starting in late August) offering up weekends to help directly. Also, if we have a bit more of a scope for what we want to do with this kind of outreach, I'll do some networking to see if I can find some more people who'd like to get involved.
I'll be travelling for work to Nigeria and Swaziland, and to Israel for Wikimania in the next month, and then in September or October, Thailand (also for work), so I might be patchy in terms of communication until that's all sorted.
Feel free to SMS or call me on +27718539985 any time if my input can make difference to a project happening or not happening: sometimes I could actually muster a bit of extra energy, given a prod in the right direction, and action breeds action!
Best regards,
David Richfield
Hello Asaf
It seems like there might have been a little bit of confusion. I will help in the way you said below, but I won't be available to act as an trainer. My time is very limited, so I will help with the administration and so on, but can't also commit to being a trainer.
I must say that the idea to postpone it and plan things in more depth sounds like a good idea. I am sure that I will be able to recruit potential judges, but this will only be for Afrikaans. Stellenbosch are not really that big on the other African languages. You can take them as a subject, but in the time I have been here I haven't heard much of it. Maybe I just didn't keep my ears on the right places. :)
We, here at Stellenbosch, talked the other day about an outreach activity. Like using the student paper, the student radio station, official university blogs and so forth. I am sure that we can make the challenge part of that outreach events. I think that the two will support one another nicely.
I am happy to hear that you are so eager to start and work on this. Maybe you could listen in and give us some advice regarding what we plan to do here at Stellenbosch? Keep in mind that almost everything I have mentioned above is only what I do here at Stellenbosch, this is not necessary executed by the chapter itself. I don't want it to sound like the things I do here at the university is done in the name of our chapter.
I was also contacted a while ago by AfricaCentre, which helps with WikiAfrica, and they also showed interest in supporting us with outreach and so forth. Initially they actaully wanted help with uploading images, and then we started to talk briefly about WikiAfrica. I am planning to meet up with one of the people that work there next week, and I will then definitely ask them about what support they are willing to give us.
Kind regards Lourie
________________________________ From: Asaf Bartov abartov@wikimedia.org To: wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, June 22, 2011 12:14:03 AM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Google's Wikipedia Challenge 2011
Hello again, everyone.
Thank you for your valuable feedback. Special thanks to Lourie for volunteering to help concretely with Afrikaans and a venue at Stellenbosch, as well as volunteering to be a trainer. We also have veterans of the Kiswahili Challenge happy to train (in English), so we are probably well covered for trainers.
I have given this much thought, and I have come to see the original plan is not set up for success. I therefore suggest to POSTPONE the Challenge by at least 2-3 months, and see if we can improve both our plan and the situation in the projects before we embark on the challenge.
I would be _delighted_ if some of you would join me in thinking about this and planning for a successful Challenge.
Let me describe my current thinking and how I propose to proceed, with your help:
==Problems== * The editing communities in isiZulu[1] and Setswana[2] seem moribund. All the recent edits are by bots or manual dumps of interwiki links. None of the editors who have ever contributed significantly seem to be around. In short, the projects are stuck. This means there is no one at hand to support the Challenge newbies in guidance and article refinement. * Potential judges for the Challenge can probably be recruited from among linguists, academics, cultural agencies and the like -- but all would be entirely unfamiliar with Wikipedia and its platform, requiring some orientation (even if we don't expect them to actually edit a wiki).
==Solutions?== * Plan and execute targetted outreach activities on campuses (and high-schools?) to recruit a fresh group of contributors to isiZulu and Setswana Wikipedia -- through lectures and workshops, unrelated to the Challenge. * Reach out to formerly-active isiZulu Wikipedians[1] and tell them about the Challenge. Perhaps they would be interested in resuming their contributions to zuwp given the infusion of energy and material from the Challenge? * Likewise for Setswana[2].
The WMF itself has no presence in Africa, so WMZA activists are naturally the ones best positioned to carry out such outreach. The WMF can and will, however, support such activity through funds, training materials, merchandise, and any other resource it can effectively put at WMZA's disposal.
Your opinions most welcome. If there are any takers, I'd love to start collaborating on a plan for campus/school outreach immediately.
Cheers,
Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation
[1] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZU.htm#wikipedians [2] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTN.htm#wikipedians
wikimediaza@lists.wikimedia.org