[Wikimedia-l] Kumusha Takes Wiki

Wed Oct 2 21:42:56 UTC 2013

Nod

I was thinking that it could be an interesting idea to get in touch with 
local touristic agencies because it is certainly of their interest to 
make a little bit more information about their area available.
I have a French friend for example, who is a geologist and living in a 
nearby country, and propose those "nature-related" trecks. I think he 
could give me a feedback on such an idea.

Flo

On 10/2/13 5:48 PM, Peter Southwood wrote:
> Hi Florence,
> No problems with OR for Wikivoyage, which is why I didnt ask...
> This would be a great opportunity to fill in some of the blank spaces.
> Perhaps the project could make use of some of the section headings used
> in Wikivoyage to encourage contributors to provide the specific
> information that would be useful to the project.  Not exclusively of
> course, but it would make the information much more accessible for
> re-use, and it might encourage the contributors if they see that their
> work is appreciated by another project. We are particularly short of
> good images for African destinations.
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Florence Devouard" <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
> To: <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 5:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Kumusha Takes Wiki
>
>
>> Hi Peter
>>
>> Photo-upload, certainly as much as possible to Commons indeed. That
>> was part of the discussion indeed because the OF was interested in
>> funding a mobile application that would be super high simple to upload
>> photos (in particular with regards to licensing) but would also
>> provide simple tools within the application (such as cropping, light
>> balance and so on). But now that we have the Commons Mobile
>> Application, I think it not a priority.
>> With regards to licensing, I thought it funny that some people would
>> consider the current application as "complex" with regards to licenses
>> choice. When I first downloaded it and tested it, I was quite
>> horrified by the limited choices...
>> Of course, there will be some work to do around licensing issues (such
>> as a simple to read doc to explain IP rights and conditions in various
>> African countries).
>>
>>
>> With regards to text content, we already planned to have places to
>> host some of the content because I'm pretty sure some of it will not
>> fit in wikipedia with regards to its rules. Isla and I will probably
>> have differing views on this because she is used to working in an
>> artistic environment whilst I am primarily a rather pragmatic
>> engineer. Let me share some of the info we put on the proposal:
>>
>> The geographical article about Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is very
>> short and generic:
>> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Géographie_de_la_Côte_d%27Ivoire
>> The English version is hardly better:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Ivory_Coast
>> A list of Ivory Coast communities has actually been created (see
>> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_communes_de_Côte_d%27Ivoire)
>> but most articles are hardly more than placeholders (see
>> http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacanda for the French version and
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacanda for the English version).
>>
>> In the past 11 years I have been on Wikipedia, I have discovered that
>> one of the thing newbies love to contribute are articles related to
>> their near life-environment. In short, their village, their city,
>> their neighborhood. It is right now getting much tougher to suggest
>> newbies to fill up some data about their city when they live in France
>> or the US because a lot is already there.
>>
>> But look out a few articles related to villages or cities in Ivory
>> Coast. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboisso-Comoé
>> (navigate through the cities listed at the bottom). That's MISERABLE.
>> Look at
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Populated_places_in_Lagunes to
>> see how are described "populated" places... jeeeee.
>>
>> I actually do not fear too much "original research" because if
>> Wikipedia does not like it, we can put stuff elsewhere (including on
>> non wikimedia sites). We can create a wikibook to host stories from a
>> famous griot for example, or the coverage of an event on Wikinews. We
>> can probably work on Wikivoyage. Everything is red there...
>> https://fr.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Cote_d%27ivoire (and trust me if I tell
>> you that this page is laughable... under the paragraph "travel by
>> boat/plane" it is written "There is a magnificent view, that's
>> extraordinary"
>>
>> Yeah right :)
>>
>> I actually do not fear NPOV too much because we can explain what it is
>> about. It would be no different from any other outreach project,
>> whatever the country !
>>
>> What I could fear is the lack of sources. Indeed, there is a chance
>> that if inhabitants improve the article about their village, they will
>> have a hard time to prove by sources that there are about 500
>> inhabitants there and that the primary resource is this and that crop.
>> We can rely on strong sources in France. Maybe not so in Ivory Coast.
>>
>> At this point, it will be up to the community to decide if they prefer
>> to keep totally empty articles such as now, or if they can tolerate a
>> number of inhabitants with no source.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Flo
>>
>> On 10/2/13 4:23 PM, Peter Southwood wrote:
>>> Hi Florence,
>>> How much of the information is likely to be usable in Wikipedia? Will
>>> there be any requirement for reliable references, NPOV and NOR?
>>> Will photo-uploads go to commons?
>>> Regards,
>>> Peter Southwood
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Florence Devouard"
>>> <anthere9 at yahoo.com>
>>> To: <wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 2:03 PM
>>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Kumusha Takes Wiki
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear friends
>>>>
>>>> It is my pleasure to announce the launch of a new project, "Kumusha
>>>> Takes Wiki".
>>>>
>>>> Kumusha Takes Wiki is a project that aims at activating communities
>>>> across Africa to create and contribute freely-licensed information,
>>>> texts, images and media about their communities (villages, townships,
>>>> suburbs, inner cities, etc). It will use community journalism to
>>>> gather community-relevant information on heritage, culture, notable
>>>> persons, geographical features, among other things. It will give each
>>>> community an online presence that is 'owned' by the community, provide
>>>> information that can be pulled into Wikipedia, Wikimedia projects or
>>>> OpenStreetMap databases, and it hopes to add immeasurably to the
>>>> understanding of Africa to every human being on the planet (from the
>>>> people in the village to the person in New York, Mumbai or Milan).
>>>> This project gives a public voice to communities across Africa,
>>>> empowering them to share their own histories and, through training, to
>>>> acquire valuable and transferable skills.
>>>>
>>>> The project was designed by Isla (South Africa) and I (France), with
>>>> the support of Iolenda (Italy) (yeahhhh, three wikiwomens !)
>>>>
>>>> Without going much into details (see links below), let's say that this
>>>> project will involve Wikipedians in Residence in two African countries
>>>> (Ivory Coast and Uganda), training in South Africa, local events in
>>>> the two above listed countries and a big photographic contest
>>>> involving the entire African continent.
>>>> More information here:
>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Kumusha_Takes_Wiki (available in
>>>> French and English)
>>>> For those unaware, the official languages of Uganda are English and
>>>> Swahili, whilst the official language of Ivory Coast is French. Our
>>>> project being bilingual is not a bug, it's a feature :)
>>>>
>>>> I should probably outline that our goal is not so much about getting
>>>> african content in Wikipedia but more about outreach and awareness in
>>>> the field.
>>>> As such, the Wikipedians in Residence will not so much focus on
>>>> getting in touch and establishing partnerships with institutions in
>>>> big cities so that content may be freed and added to our projects (see
>>>> the current wikipedia description of a WiR:
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence).
>>>> Our "Residence" will be the "Kumusha" (a Shona term meaning "the place
>>>> where you come from"). Our WiR will rather try to activate the local
>>>> communities to help them discover our projects and share their
>>>> heritage with us. As such, the events are more likely to take place in
>>>> little villages, suburbs, shantytowns, camps, agricultural
>>>> communities, than in big cities. Participants are more likely to be
>>>> teenagers with cellphones than middle age men in suits. Data collected
>>>> is perhaps more likely to be geographical and social related data
>>>> about a little city than high level politics.
>>>>
>>>> The project is financially supported by the Orange Foundation (France)
>>>> for Ivory Coast and Uganda... starting 1st of October !
>>>> A good part of the original submission made last spring is available
>>>> here for those interested :
>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Activate_Africa_(Orange_Foundation)
>>>>
>>>> I am very glad to have the opportunity to work on that project :) It
>>>> is a long way from my presentation back in Wikimania 2005 (Wikimedia
>>>> projects in the developing world:
>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Presentation-FD1)
>>>> As for Isla, she is involved in the WikiAfrica project
>>>> (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiAfrica_Cameroon) through the
>>>> Africa Centre, and some of you met her at Wikimania Hong Kong where
>>>> she lead a panel about Activating Africa
>>>> (https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Activating_Africa).
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Our twitter handle is @KumushaWiki
>>>>
>>>> You are naturally welcome to comment, criticize, relay, participate,
>>>> support and copy :)
>>>>
>>>> Anthere
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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