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Africa Wiki Challenge

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Central Notice Settings
What is the campaign duration?
  • 1st July,2025 → 14th July,2025
Which projects will you be targeting?
  • Wikimedia/Meta/MediaWiki/Wikimedia Commons/Wikipedia/Wiktionary/Wikinews/Wikiquote/Wikibooks/Wikiversity/Wikisource/Wikivoyage/Wikijunior/Wikispecies/Wikifunctions/Incubator
What languages will you be targeting?
  • One Language (English) / Multiple Languages (Swahili / Afrikaans / Amharic / Hausa / Yoruba / Igbo / Somali / Zulu / Xhosa / Kinyarwanda / Shona / Malagasy / Wolof / Lingala / Tigrinya / Oromo / Ewe / Akan / Tswana / Sotho / Northern Sotho / Kabyle / Berber (Tamazight) / Ganda / Tumbuka / Ndebele / Chichewa / Fula / Krio / Taita / Kanuri / Twi / Tsonga / Venda)
Do you wish to show banners to Logged In users, Anonymous Users or Both? Do you want to target users with a specific number of edits or average monthly?
  • Logged In users, Anonymous Users or Both, Users with high number of edits, users with low number of edits

What countries will your campaign target?

  • South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Namibia, Mali, Niger, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Somalia, Eritrea, Chad, Central African Republic, Mauritania, Lesotho, Eswatini (Swaziland), Djibouti, São Tomé and Príncipe, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Seychelles, Mauritius.

Banner/Campaign Diet:

  • To be determined by Central Notice admin

What is the purpose of the campaign? How will you measure the success of the campaign?

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Description - Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA)’s Africa Wiki Challenge is an initiative designed to generate and enhance African content on Wikipedia, with a particular focus on issues that are central to the African continent’s history, development, achievements, and ongoing struggles. The annual competition strives to enhance information about Africa on Wikipedia and its sister projects.

Metrics -

What banner(s) will you use? What will be your landing page?

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Type of grant - Wikimedia Community Fund

Link to grant - AWC 2025 Grant Page

Discussion

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Kindly Check and approve my application for Central Notice Banner for the Africa Wiki Challenge 2025.

@DerHexer, @Ciell

Kindly assist me fast track this process as the campaign has already started running.

Znyadzi (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

@Znyadzi please carefully read the CentralNotice/Usage guidelines:
Best --Johannnes89 (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Johannnes89,
  • I have added the Central Notice Request to the Central Notice Calendar and enabled translations for the campaign's related pages.
  • However, @Nokib Sarkar worked on a banner which he tried to share for confirmation of whether the banner suits the campaign and communicates the theme thereof but shared a different link. I have requested that he shares the right link to the banner for confirmation.
  • I will like to confirm the banner prepared by @Nokib Sarkar before we use the standardized banner to avoid duplicate banners for the same campaign, however, we can continue with the standardized banner if it is able to communicate the theme for the campaign.
Thanks and Regards Znyadzi (talk) 10:56, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Johannnes89'
Here is the link to the Central Notice Banner:
Africa Wiki Challenge Central Notice Banner Znyadzi (talk) 13:10, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
All links for this request: campaign, banner banner preview.
@Znyadzi, @Nokib Sarkar I agree with comments made by both @Johannnes89 above and @Trizek below:
  • per usage guidelines, please don't use images as banner texts. This is what your banner looks like for me on mobile/android, because images aren't dynamic enough. This is the consequence of using images instead of words&code. (And this is why you preferably test the banner on several devices, before you leave those boxes checked in the settings.)
  • please share your request and/or proposal in time, so you don't have to ping people, and admins and community members have ample time to review the request and to help and support you - .... and you don't get 4 admins reviewing and commenting on a banner that is not ready to run yet.
  • imho the campaign settings are okay, besides the runtime for the campaign and the projects+language targeting that Johannes already mentions.
  • Did you coordinate the dates for your banner with the organizers of Wiki Loves Earth, since their banners also target Wikipedia? (and Commons, but I agree with Johannes that a banner for a campaign for a writing event should not (or only rarely) target the image repository - remember to target as narrowly tailored as possible to the event you are organizing)
Ciell (talk) 17:28, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell, thank you for providing the clarification on the key considerations.
I have reviewed the details for the Africa Wiki Challenge 2025 campaign and confirm their accuracy. However, I have observed that the current banner along with its corresponding preview does not effectively communicate the campaign's central theme, which is critical for its success.
I would appreciate it if you could update the banner text to align with the content presented in this template: Template:Africa Wiki Challenge 2025 Central Notice Banner .
Best Regards - Znyadzi (talk) 11:18, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would appreciate if the color of the font is changed to blue other than black.
Thanks Znyadzi (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's way too much text. CentralNotice/Usage guidelines recommends 50-70 characters in 1-2 lines of text. The current banner design has 56 characters in 2 lines of text. You are requesting 3 lines with 156 characters, which doesn't look good, particularly on small devices.
Please take care of the other concerns I mentioned above as well: Either select a shorter banner runtime of max. 2 weeks or get community approval by starting discussions on all local wikis where you want to show your banner for a longer period. Johannnes89 (talk) 17:54, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Znyadzi I made a few changes to the banner: I added the link with call for translations of the banner text :) and changed the color of the text to 'navy blue' (#000080) per your request here, and the font to Montserrat as you used in your template example. Please let me know if the color is correct, or you would like a different shade of blue. A full list of webcolors is available on enwp - I would need the #-code.
Then I took your lines of text and created a new call to action (which needs to be short!), "Africa Wiki Challenge 2025: Reclaiming Our Narrative - Join the Africa Wiki Challenge by registering on Meta-wiki today!". See again the banner preview and let me know if there need to be more changes.
I also took a look at your landing page, and tried to help out with the translation tags, but that is not my expertise. It would be great if someone on your organizing team could read up and master the translation extension, so you can create even better information for the participants Ciell (talk) 08:12, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The mobiele view still looked a bit distorted, so I changed some settings of the logo's. It's mainly the AWC image that pushes everything to the right. I have no real idea how to solve this (that's beyond my coding knowledge), but I think it's readable now. Ciell (talk) 08:58, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell,
As requested, the files used in the template the Africa Wiki Challenge Logo and the Open Foundation West Africa logo Znyadzi (talk) 10:59, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The content in the Banner is also okay.
Thanks Znyadzi (talk) 11:33, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Ciell,
I wish to know when the Central Notice Banner will be approved and what is pending now for the approval of the Central Notice Banner. Znyadzi (talk) 11:23, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not Ciell, but you still need to take care of multiple issues with the CentralNotice/Usage guidelines we've mentioned in previous comments [3][4][5]:
  • Banners usually need community approval, especially if you want them to run for longer than 14 days. You'll need to get consensus on all language versions of all projects affected by your banner, we can only make an exemption if you select a time period of max. 14 days for your banner.
  • Your landing page should be translated (or at least translatable) to the same languages you are targeting with your banner. I recommend turning to Meta talk:Babylon (once the page is ready according to Meta:Internationalization guidelines) in order to have translation admins turn on the translation feature (mark the page for translation).
  • You haven't submitted any banner translations yet [6] even though your team should be capable of doing at a least some translations (you can use this link [7] and change the langue to start with banner translations).
  • In order to avoid en:banner blindness campaigns should be targeted as narrowly as possible. Your event only mentions Wikipedia, I still don't understand why the banner should be displayed on projects like Wiktionary or Wikinews.
Johannnes89 (talk) 13:07, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Johannnes89,@Ciell
Please note that I have adjusted the date for the Central Notice Banner in the Central Notice Calendar Page to facilitate the approval process as soon as possible.
The date has been adjusted to run for 14 days (from 1st July, 2025 to 14th July, 2025). Znyadzi (talk) 12:30, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Johannnes89 Znyadzi (talk) 08:54, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell,
The date for the Central Notice banner has been adjusted to run between 1st and 14th July in the Calendar.
Kindly confirm and the details for approval.
Let me know if there are any more concerns.
Best Znyadzi (talk) 15:53, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Great to learn you've landed on a new date @Znyadzi!
Now, since you want many languages to join your event through the banner, please ask your team and the communities to help you translate the text in as many languages as possible! Here is the link to start translating, and you can change the language in the top right. More information on the translatable interface is on translate wiki.
I have also left a message on the Meta Babylon talkpage to get someone to activate the translation tags on your landing page, so people can start translations there as well. Ciell (talk) 18:39, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Johannnes89 is it okay for you as well, now that the campaign will have a run-time of 14 days? Ciell (talk) 18:45, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell I'm ok with it, although ideally I would have wished for an answer why the banner needs to target so many non-Wikipedia wikis given that the landing page only mentions improving content on Wikipedia. But that's not important enough for me to block enabling the banner. Johannnes89 (talk) 19:11, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I reviewed the information on the landing page again, and I agree. While the multi-year grant for the OFWA includes more, this specific event focuses on article writing only, and has one special prize for the best image on Commons.
@Znyadzi: do you think it's fair to leave out some of the wiki-projects that are less about article writing, can you maybe make a selection? Ciell (talk) 20:20, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell,
I have selected three wiki-projects to run the banner which are Commons, Meta and Wikipedia and have updated the projects in the Central Notice Calendar.
Thanks Znyadzi (talk) 10:21, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Znyadzi: perfect, thanks! I'll change the settings and schedule your banner to start next week.
I notice translations have started, but please emphasize to the translators that these should really be in the language indicated, and to not copy/paste the English text. The Hausa banner translation should really be in the Hausa language, same for Swahili. Ciell (talk) 07:00, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also, your landing page is ready for translations, as is the page header. I'm going to give the English pages and the images protection-status now, because of the high traffic they will be receiving. Ciell (talk) 07:05, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Ciell,
I will communicate the needful to the translators.
Thanks Znyadzi (talk) 07:15, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Central Notice admin comments

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@Znyadzi: Since a grant was approved for this campaign, I am more on the positive side of approving it. But, since the banner is not ready yet, unfortunately, you have to wait a bit for me to design the banner as per your design. And, sorry for the late response, I am wondering why this request was not noticed earlier. Nokib Sarkar (talk) 17:31, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, can you please share me the logos or graphics (must be uploaded to wikimedia commons) that were used for the banner? Since we are fast-tracking, I would be trying my best. Nokib Sarkar (talk) 17:35, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Nokib Sarkar,
Below is a link to the template created for the banner with the relevant logos that were used for the banner uploaded to commons for your perusal.
Africa Wiki Challenge Central Notice Banner.
Thanks for reaching out. Znyadzi (talk) 17:45, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Znyadzi Can you check the campaign whether I listed all the required regions and languages you wanted? Also, please keep in mind that the calender is pretty red (busy) starting June 1st. So, I might have to lower the impression diet to accommodate all the requests. Nokib Sarkar (talk) 18:14, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Nokib Sarkar, The contest is running in all of Africa and therefore covers all Africa regions and African languages.
Thanks. Znyadzi (talk) 18:30, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Znyadzi, to fast-track things, I used the code for the previous year banner Banner and adapted that. Can you please check if the banner looks okay to you for time being? Nokib Sarkar (talk) 19:09, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If everything looks okay, please let another admin adjust the diets and enable it. Bye. Nokib Sarkar (talk) 19:29, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Nokib Sarkar,
The link you provided to the banner redirects to Wikimedia Foundation Transparency Report/2014.
kindly check and revert.
Thanks. Znyadzi (talk) 10:17, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Znyadzi
The banner goes to Event:Africa Wiki Challenge 2025/Home. However, there are two things that question me:
  • there is no text on your banner, just images, which makes it not readable for everyone;
  • {minor] the background of the banner makes the colours of the logo not being readable.
Trizek from FR 16:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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