Talk:WikiIndaba conference 2017/Program

From the survey that was shared early to gather your views and thoughts on the upcoming Indaba, the following were gathered. We think all highlighted areas are essential for a successful conference that will lead a lot of impact but these need to be structured to encapsulate a widened scope on the subject. The five lines of projects that people wish to learn about will be worked on by the organizers, WMF Staff and or responsible chapters that have a wealth of understanding on the subject area to allow a well built program around the theme while the organizers work closely with the community on the topics of interest outlined below.

New projects people wish to learn about

Wikidata

I enjoyed Asaf's session on Wikidata dubbed "Wikidata for Absolute Beginners" at Wikimania and i think a similar thing could be done at Indaba so to acquaint all newbies to the platform. Most people expressed enthusiasm for the subject in the survey and i was thinking a repeat of this could be helpful, my thoughts --Flixtey (talk) 17:05, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Education program

As per my discussion with Felix and Raphael I'd like to see how the WMF Education team can help in any capacity. We would like to see that the program of sessions and trainings addresses the needs of the community attending the conference. Is there a place where people have made specific requests or proposals? Tighe Flanagan (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Tighe for your contribution we got all these from our survey and we are willing to share the survey with you. All we need is to craft or customize an educational program that will suit the African Continent since that was what most of the respondents expressed interest in knowing more about in order to start. We however welcome recommendations, suggestions and contributions from the community.Rberchie (talk) 16:55, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

GLAM

GLAM seems to be a key area of interest in the African community. The survey proved the importance to the community and it will be useful for us to highlight a few important things we wish to learn about the subject from the Conference here. Pinging Alex Stinson (WMF) to share a few thoughts on this. This is however opened to the community for discussion. --Flixtey (talk) 16:57, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Hey, just wanted to respond to the ping, and say hi. At the moment, my travel will be dependent on a lot of things: including timing. I am looking forward to hearing more. I would also be open to connecting the organizers with other folks who can talk about GLAM well. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:32, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Topics of Interest

• Fundraising from other institutions
• Understanding the grant making process
• Fostering Collaborations
• Community activation & Corporate Governance
• Improving individual skills and interests
• Continuation of resolutions from the the Indaba (WikiIndaba 1)
• Clear definition of the future of Indaba
• Generation of knowledge for Africa
• Issues affecting Africa
• Harassment
• Solving the issues of referencing
• Education program
• Volunteer burnout
• Reaching successful partnerships
• Starting GLAMs
• Using metrics
• Free licenses
• Impact & engagement sessions
• Reviving local and indigenous languages
• Best practices of organizing projects
• Challenges and opportunities for affiliates in Africa
• Mobile editing & challenges of Wikipedia in low connectivity areas

How do we coin the topics above to bring out very useful discussions that will reflect the goals of this conference?

Tentative Program Table

The program is hoped to be developed along three main tracks:

1. Community resources and activation / engagement - topics the build on the communities capacity (eg: fundraising from other institutions, volunteers burnout, understanding the grant making process, reporting and storytelling, community activation and corporate governance, impact and engagement sessions, etc.)
2. Future innovative projects and or collaborations on the continent - issues on the continent and finding solutions (eg: reviving local and indigenous languages, solving the issues of referencing, generation of knowledge for Africa, issues affecting Africa, a letter to the ED, following up on the resolutions from the last indaba, fostering collaborations, etc.)
3. Improving individual skills and interest - individual capacity building opportunities (eg: how to avoid harassment, new projects people wish to learn, free licenses, etc.)

A table will be added soon...

Day	Tracks	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text	Header text
Day 1	Community Resources Engagement	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Day 2	Improving Individual Skills	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Day 3	Future Collaborative Projects	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example

Suggestions

Subject categories I really liked the format of the most recent Wikimania. I think it might help if you divided the programme into the following categories: Critical issues and projects; Training; and Discussions. That would cover most things, but allow for clear separation of expectation of format. What do you think? Islahaddow (talk)

Well it sounds good to me and it seems to reflect the goals for the conference.--Flixtey (talk) 15:50, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Islahaddow for your suggestion I think the categories you have listed are really exhaustive and more definite,I therefore think we can organize the programs along those lines. Thanks once again for your suggestion.Rberchie (talk) 16:28, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Question de langue

Je vous prie par avance d'excuser mon intervention en français.

Nous nous acheminons vers la deuxième conférencce WikiIndaba et je voudrais quelque peu m'inquiéter de la communication en anglais uniquement.

Comment, dans ces conditions, réaliser une WikiIndaba conférence ouverte à toute l'Afrique (anglophone et non anglophone compris) ?

Merci de votre aimable attention. --Zenman (talk) 13:30, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

(Traduit avec Google translate) Bonjour Zenman, je vous remercie de votre commentaire et question. Le problème d'avoir une section de conférence dans une langue autre que l'anglais est la suivante: Je suppose que dans le monde Wiki éditeurs plus francophones parlent anglais que contributers anglophones parlent le français. Meilleures salutations, --Gereon K. (talk) 20:37, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Merci de votre réponse. Si WikiIndaba est tourné vers ces "francophones qui parlent anglais", alors, l'organisation telle qu'elle est prévue actuellement (uniquement en anglais) est correcte. Et ce débat est sans objet.

Mais s'il s'agit d'une conférence véritablement ouverte à tous les wiki-éditeurs africains (y compris ceux qui pourraient avoir des idées à proposer sans nécessairement pouvoir les exprimer en anglais), il faudrait, à mon humble avis, très sérieusement revoir les choses. --Zenman (talk) 15:11, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

I believe you have a genuine concern however, you will admit that it its quite impossible to have a conference with both languages spoken simultaneously. As rightly said by Gereon, most french speaking individuals somewhat speak good english as compared to their english speaking counterparts, and so for the convenience of all, i think we have to choose one that meets our community half way even if not fully. All i am saying is, every conference has its limitations but sometimes the limitations is for the better good of all. There is a similar discourse ongoing here - https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-July/084681.html (Translation needed please!) --Flixtey (talk) 16:46, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

J'avoue que je suis peu convaincu par ce "its quite impossible to have a conference with both languages spoken simultaneously" et moins encore par l'argument des francophones parlant mieux l'anglais que les anglophones ne le font du français. Et ne me dites surtout pas que l'option actuelle est le meilleur compromis.

Ce qui est en jeu ici, me semble-t-il, c'est la volonté de capitaliser toutes les ressources intellectuelles dont dispose la communauté sans que les différences linguistiques ne constituent un frein pour certains. Mais bon... --Zenman (talk) 00:29, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

On pourrait demander aux participants qui ou combien d'entre eux comprennent une conférence en français. (translation: One could ask the particpants who or how many would understand a talk in French...) --Gereon K. (talk) 07:11, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Oui, ce serait une bonne idée, me semble-t-il. Ceci pourrait peut-être décider certains qui se sont abstenus jusqu'à présent (moi y compris) à manifester leur intention de prendre part à la conférence. --Zenman (talk) 08:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Qu'est-ce qui empêche de tenir une conférence bilingue (FR/ANG)? --Papischou (talk) 09:18, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Je pense que nous pouvons nous inspirer des grandes conférences internationales où il y a une traduction simultanée (anglais / français).--Cyriac Gbogou (talk) 11:18, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Et qui est celui qui rend l'interprétation simultanée? Vous? --Gereon K. (talk) 12:26, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Ne posons pas la question ainsi. Nous cherchons des solutions à un problème qui me parait réel. Pas à avoir raison. Et cela n'a rien de personnel me semble-t-il. Ce n'est pas parce que quelqu'un propose une interprêtation qu'il doit nécessairement être l'interprête. Si par exemple, c'est le principe d'une conférence bilingue qui est retenu, chacun pourra alors faire ses propositions en ce qui concerne l'interprétation. --Zenman (talk) 15:35, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

I really like the discourse going on here and i understand how fundamental language is to a conference. I wish to unfortunately say that from our point of view as the organizing body, it will be difficult for us to have a bilingual conference as we don't have the means or capacity to carry through such an agenda. However the conference in itself will afford us the opportunity to further discuss this and reach a consensus on the way forward for Indaba. Flixtey (talk) 16:22, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Très bien. A l'impossible, nul n'est tenu. Merci. Traduction : Well. Nobody is expected to do the impossible. Thanks. --Zenman (talk) 17:22, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

What are the common issues you want to solve? What will be treated as a solution found?

On the grant talk page, User:Rubin16 asked the above brilliant questions but unfortunately this questions were ignored. One of the core objectives of Indaba is to promote Wikimedia projects in Africa, and to solve major problems retarding the growth of Wikimedia Projects in Africa. I think it's extremely important for us to figure out the challenges faced in each countries and the possible solution to these challenges. We need to know the strengths, weakness and the need of each countries. African languages Wikipedia are nothing to write home about, Akan Wikipedia for example. I have asked myself several times if African Wikipedians are even aware that their local language wikipedia exist. This is one problem among other problems that need to be address with Indaba. Wikicology (talk) 14:39, 5 October 2016 (UTC)