+1 yay! fab idea :) On Feb 16, 2012, at 3:59 AM, Kerryn McKay wrote:
> Hi Lourie > > Yep, I'm with you. I think this is a great project, and - as you mentioned > to me offline - really accessible for people to take part in and contribute. > Some cool ideas also around it - we could organise an upload party where we > could have a stall somewhere (at a university or shopping centre on a certain > day) where we could help people upload their pics there and then. > > I'm also happy to chat - maybe we could get together on skype even? > > Kerryn > > > > > > * * * * > Kerryn McKay > The African Commons Project > > 082 334 6165 > skype: kerrynmac > twitter: kerrynmckay > > > > > > > On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:21 AM, Lourie Pieterse <[email protected]> > wrote: > Hello Maarten > > It is nice hearing from you again! It sounds to me like a wonderful idea, and > I am sure that there will be some South Africans who would like to > participate in this competition. What do the others from Wikimedia ZA think? > I would definitely be interested to meet up with you and discuss the > possibilities. When are you again in the Cape Town area? > > Kind regards > Lourie > > From: MADe <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 9:23 AM > Subject: Re: [Wikimedia ZA] Pictures from Saturday's Xhosa Wiki Workshop > > Hi all, > > Very nice to see all the activities on the smaller South African language > wikis! Hopefully this means a start for those projects. I have another idea > to get some more things happening. > > In Belgium I started the "Wiki Loves Monuments" competition. The goal for the > participants was to take a picture of a heritage site and to post them on > Wikicommons. The best images were selected and they could win a variety of > prices (Belgium: iPad). It was part of a bigger European contest (18 > countries). The goal was to attract new contributors to the wiki projects, > and for Belgium to gather some wikipedians to start our own Belgian wiki > chapter. > > The competition itself was fairly simple to organise. The European organisers > provided tools, a website, logos, a dedicated Wiki Commons upload tool, ... > and also funding (10,000 ZAR). We made the translations (Belgium alone: five > languages), we searched for our own jury, we searched for Belgian prices, and > we got into contact with government organisations that helped us with a venue > for the price ceremony and some more practical things. > > The result was fantastic. 170.000 new images in Europe, of which 6000 in > Belgium. Lots or media attention for the competition. At least 50 (!) new > Belgian members that started working on Wikicommons or Wikipedia itself. A > solid group of people that wanted to work on our own chapter. We established > good contacts with government organisations that suddenly understood > Wikipedia is not a black box but made by real people. Nice media coverage on > the competition. > > The European competition will be organised in September of this year. They > would really enjoy SA to join in, and I'm sure WMF can help us with most of > the funding. I think this is an easy way to get the attention of new people, > especially from poorer regions (if we provide the necessary translations). > > Who is interested to get more information, or to help with the organisation? > We can meet in Cape Town, Durban or Johannesburg (I'm almost everywhere for > my current job<338.gif>) > > > Grtz, > Maarten > > BE: +32 475 21 38 35 > ZA: +27 71 491 31 38 > Skype: mdeneckere > > 2012/2/14 Douglas Scott <[email protected]> > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikimediaZA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikimediaZA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza > > > _______________________________________________ > WikimediaZA mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza Heather Ford www.ethnographymatters.net @hfordsa on Twitter http://hblog.org
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