3rd Wikimedia Botswana Meetup & Editor-a-thorn

Participants

• Oarabile Mudongo
• Candy Khohliwe
• Mompati Dikunwane
• Raymond Mosweu

WikiIndaba Conference

Wiki Indaba is a 3 day conference to be held in Johannesburg (South Africa). It will be a gathering of African Wikimedians and other open knowledge volunteers who are aligned to Wikimedia mission.This conference is the first step towards the establishment of African co-operative structures and organs made up of Wikimedia Chapters, Wikimedians and mission aligned Thematic Organizations. This is the first regional conference to be held by and for African chapters in Africa, the region of the world with the lowest Wikipedia coverage.

Challenges and Success in Southern Africa

Challenges in Southern Africa

• Lack of internet accessibility ( This limits most editors from editing Wikipedia gradually,Students access the internet in a short period of time specifically delegated for Wikipedia which means a student can take up to a month editing a single article.

• Less number of Wikipedia Users in Southern Africa because of poor out-reach methodologies therefore this leads to less number of editors in Southern Africa ( e.g We need more collaboration between Bantu Speaking cultures for instance Lesotho to recommend articles to one another as way of increasing the number of articles to another country such as Botswana [ Same language]).

• Well the other challenge I could say it is misconception or stereotype that Wikipedia has wrong information. Therefore this discourage active participation from the youth more especially university students (We need active Wikipedians to help verify articles that are submitted in local language constantly and we can do it together). Furthermore, unlike traditional or open access journals, Wikipedia is dynamic: content can be updated easily whenever necessary and new articles are added and improved each day.

• The volume of updates and how to prioritize them is one of the most persistent challenges for content editors.

• Lack of Support for initiatives from users in terms of funding (Wikipedia Writing Contests, Challenges) to activate Wikimedian's and make Wikipedia's presence in Southern Africa.

• Lack of knowledge on how to apply for grants at (WMF) or other chapters which are necessary for to carry out vital activities which keep editors active such as workshops, editor-a-thorns and pilot projects.

• Poor support structure in Wikipedia Communities; Wikipedia Communities should be able to communicate, share ideas on how to strengthen and grow their communities so as to keep Wikipedian's editing.

• Lack of knowledge on Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons etc

Successes in Southern Africa

• Establishment of WikipediaZero on mobile phones in Botswana (Orange Botswana) and South Africa (MTN) which introduces students and the public to use Wikipedia on their PDA devices for research purposes.

• Wiki Loves Monuments hosted by South African Chapter and Kenyan User group.

• The initiation of Wikipedia In Residence is great improvement to inspire Wikipedians to continue working on collaborating Wikipedia with other organizations.

• The first Wikipedian Wikiconference in Africa ( WikiIndaba) which is meant to link all Wikimedians across Africa.

Maintaining Wikipedia Policies for New-bies

• Neutral Point Of View (NPOV)

• Verifiability

• Notability

• Assume Good Faith (civility and patience)

• Break all the rules…be BOLD

Expanding Wikipedia Articles ( Stub cleanup)

Please lets use this link for the Google Translation toolkit if interested to translate articles from English to Setswana.

https://translate.google.com/toolkit/list?hl=en#translations/active