Hi Kerryn, I am hoping that many of the people, some time down the line in the more distant future, will start editing when they are more comfortable with it or more inclined to edit Wikipedia. I after all only started doing serious editing back in 2010, about three or four years after I first made my user account on English Wikipedia.
Also I really like some of the ideas being thrown about. The Wiki Loves Monuments project sounds really great. Especially for a place like Africa which needs so much more content on Wikipedia then most other places. Cheers, Douglas. On 14 February 2012 09:24, Kerryn McKay <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Douglas and Ian > > That is tremendous, and I guess that there can't be massive activity > leading from one workshop, especially given the lack of computer skill that > you both note coupled with the apprehension to edit (all technical-related > issues). Great that you are doing the follow-up because the only way to > overcome that is by doing the follow up workshops so that people don't slip > back; it's such a prevalent challenge in computer literacy training in > general. > > Douglas, your idea of 'embedding' some form of Wikipedia culture into a > class scenario is very interesting, and wonder if some of these > participants might consider it further down the line when they are more > comfortable. > > Kerryn > > > > * * * * > Kerryn McKay > The African Commons Project > > 082 334 6165 > skype: kerrynmac > twitter: kerrynmckay > > > > > > > > On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 12:24 AM, Douglas Scott <[email protected] > > wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> Ian is absolutely right. Although the workshops them selves tend to >> create a number of articles creating a community of dedicated editors for >> Xhosa language Wikipedia will be a very big challenge that I think will >> take a long time. On the up side people are very eager and interested but >> on the down side, as Ian has mentioned, there are still problems with basic >> computer literacy and access to computers/internet. I suspect that it will >> take a number of workshops followed by some sort of program such as one >> (and this is only an idea right now) whereby teachers use Xhosa Wikipedia >> to test their students translating abilities thereby creating a self >> perpetuating process that continually exposes new people to editing that >> wiki. >> >> As I mentioned to Ian on Saturday I think that a big part of creating a >> healthy community of editors on Wikipedia is finding enough people with the >> right type of personality that is at home using a computer. I think that >> is as much a numbers game as anything else which means spending a long time >> exposing as many people as possible to the idea and process of editing >> Wikipedia. A process that is made harder by relatively low rates of >> computer literacy. But then again we must start from some where I suppose. >> Either way, more work and support is needed and so long as I have free >> time and am in Cape Town I am happy help. >> >> P.S. Thanks for checking the stats Ian. To be frank I am delighted that >> one extra substantial edit was made since the workshop on Saturday. That >> in its self is a 0.7% increase! :-D >> >> >> On 14 February 2012 00:02, Heather Ford <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Thank you so much, Ian. Appreciate it. >>> >>> On Feb 13, 2012, at 1:15 PM, Ian Gilfillan wrote: >>> >>> Great :) I'd be really interested to know whether people continued to >>> edit after the workshop if you could share. >>> >>> To try answer Heather, the article count went from 125, which it has >>> been stuck at since at least November 2011, to 131 during the class, and >>> there has only been one substantial edit from any of the participants on >>> the weekend (a new article, increasing the count to 132) since the >>> workshop, so the answer seems to be no. >>> >>> The workshop was 2 hours, and, briefly, we hoped to teach creating a >>> user account, creating or editing (via translation from English) an >>> article, adding links, adding a picture, and I wanted to add interwiki >>> links to the list as well. Everyone created or edited an article, and most, >>> if not everyone, added links, though only some could create a user account >>> due to IP limits, and very few got to adding an image or interwiki links. >>> Douglas goes into more details in his post. >>> >>> It's more complicated to add links in Xhosa than in English due to the >>> way prefixes are used in the language, so quite often an article may exist, >>> but the link doesn't point to it, and there are already duplicate articles >>> for this reason. >>> >>> There is still such a barrier with basic computer use, that I found a >>> substantial portion of the class was showing people how to maximize and >>> minimize windows, how to open a new tab or window, etc, and I got the sense >>> that there wasn't always a real understanding of why the various steps were >>> being performed, which reduces the chances of them being repeatable outside >>> of the class. >>> >>> The one article that was created afterwards is an orphan, with no >>> incoming or outgoing links. >>> >>> There was a lot of enthusiasm, so hopefully having a followup quite soon >>> will keep the interest and momentum going, but I would expect there to be >>> not much sustained activity as a result of the workshop alone. >>> >>> -- >>> Ian Gilfillan >>> www.greenman.co.za >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> WikimediaZA mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza >>> >>> >>> Heather Ford >>> www.ethnographymatters.net >>> @hfordsa on Twitter >>> http://hblog.org >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> WikimediaZA mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Douglas Ian Scott >> 司道格 >> Skype: douglas0scott >> UK mobile number: +44 (0)755 452 5277 >> Chinese mobile number: +86 1 364 330 7351 >> South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727 >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> WikimediaZA mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza >> >> > -- Douglas Ian Scott 司道格 Skype: douglas0scott UK mobile number: +44 (0)755 452 5277 Chinese mobile number: +86 1 364 330 7351 South African mobile number: +27 (0)79 515 8727
_______________________________________________ WikimediaZA mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
