ISA Tool/Results and best practices 2025
Introduction
ISA is a fun, multilingual, mobile-first microcontributions tool, that makes it easy for (groups of inexperienced) people to add structured data to images on Wikimedia Commons.
ISA was originally built to provide better multilingual and structured descriptions of Wiki Loves Africa images. But it is also developed to be useful to all of the Wiki Loves X competitions, and eventually ended up being meant for all media files on Wikimedia Commons.
ISA was developed as a collaboration between Wiki In Africa, Histropedia and the Structured Data on Commons project. It is a GLAM pilot for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons.
The ongoing facilitation and communications for the ISA Tool is by the Wiki In Africa team.
Some of ISA Campaigns in 2025
Campaigns organised by Wiki In Africa
Tell Us About Her campaigns: Women in Literature – March 2025
| Tell us about Her | |
|---|---|
| Campaign image: | 
|
| Link to the campaign: | https://isa.toolforge.org/campaigns/377 |
| Launch date: | March 1, 2025 |
| Closing date: | March 31, 2025 |
| Facilitator: | Donia |
| Categories/Topic: | Improving visibility (and descriptions) of women in literature. |
| Criteria: | See guidelines https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Depiction_guidelines |
| Prizes: | 2 prizes : 1st prize : USD50 ; 2nd prize: USD25 (or equivalent value in an online or data voucher). |
| Results: |
 Contributors: 26 ; Images worked on: 60,682; Total Contributions: 19,207 Winner:
|
Wiki Loves Africa campaigns > ISA Challenge – Farm To Plate (October & November 2025)
| Wiki Loves Africa 2025 Farm to Plate | |
|---|---|
| Campaign image: | _ISA_campaign_header.png)
|
| Link to the campaign: | https://isa.toolforge.org/campaigns/421 |
| Launch date : | 1st October 2025 |
| Closing date: | 30th November 2025 |
| Facilitator : | Donia |
| Categories/Topic : | Improving description of the Wiki Loves Africa 2025 pictures on Wikimedia Commons. |
| Criteria : | Changes of ranks should not represent more than 20% of the edits. Rank edits over 20% will be discarded. See guidelines: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Depiction_guidelines |
| Results : |
|
Wiki Loves Africa campaigns > ISA Challenge – Climate & Weather (February 2025)
| Wiki Loves Africa 2023 Climate & Weather | |
|---|---|
| Campaign image: | 
|
| Link to the campaign: | https://isa.toolforge.org/campaigns/373 |
| Launch date: | February 1, 2025 |
| Closing date: | February 28, 2025 |
| Facilitator: | Donia |
| Categories/Topic: | Improving description of the Wiki Loves Africa 2023 pictures on Wikimedia Commons. |
| Criteria: | Changes of ranks should not represent more than 20% of the edits. Rank edits over 20% will be discarded. See guidelines: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Depiction_guidelines |
| Prizes: | Internet bundle or Amazon gift cards worth $50 for 1st prize and $25 for second prize |
| Results: |
Winners
Top focus countries:
|
Campaigns organised by various wikimedia community members
WLA 2025-Sudan
| WLA 2025-Sudan | |
|---|---|
| Link to the campaign: | https://isa.toolforge.org/campaigns/394 |
| Launch date: | April 30, 2025 |
| Closing date: | July 30, 2025 |
| Facilitator: | Ola Mahadi |
| Categories/Topic: | Images from Wiki Loves Africa 2025 in Sudan. |
| Results: |
Contributors: 15 ; Images worked on: 552; Total Contributions: 6410 |
Let’s have our images speak Arabic
| Let’s have our images speak Arabic | |
|---|---|
| Link to the campaign: | https://isa.toolforge.org/campaigns/439 |
| Launch date: | December 18, 2025 |
| Closing date: | December 21, 2025 |
| Facilitator: | Rotana |
| Categories/Topic: | Images related to Iraq and Kuwait. |
| Results: | Contributors: 10 ; Images worked on: 25738; Total Contributions: 4059 |
ISA Impact
Metrics by Queries
| Metric | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of contributions | 0 | 51,640 | 85,563 | 182,421 | 156,426 | 159,335 | 98,428 | 136,428 |
| Number of contributors | 0 | – | – | 267 | 180 | 130 | 314 | 380 |
| Number of captions edited | 0 | – | – | 4,060 | 9,251 | 2,350 | 6,875 | 13,291 |
| Number of depicts edited | 0 | – | – | 178,361 | 147,175 | 156,985 | 91,553 | 123,137 |
Learnings over the years
- Campaigns with clear topics and visuals perform better.
- Incentives and social media visibility boost participation.
- Cross-promotion with Wiki Loves Africa or Wiki Loves Women increases impact.
- Active presence and visibility in international events like Wikimania Hackathons can organically attract new contributors, build cross-regional collaborations, and sustain technical maintenance of open tools like ISA.
- Tensions still exist with some Wikimedia Commons editors over the quality of the work done by ISA tool users. To limit the risk of poor quality work led by financial incentives, we decided to stop offering money gifts during the campaigns specifically run by Wiki in Africa (in the past, we offered 20 to 50 USD to the biggest participant)
Community Engagement & Highlights
ISA Tool Training to community
Ukrainian community (Europe)
As part of a technical course organised by Wikimedia Ukraine, the course coordinators contacted the Wiki In Africa team to deliver a training session on the ISA Tool. An ISA facilitator accepted the invitation and conducted a session on 17 June, explaining how to use ISA to improve the visibility and structured data of Wikimedia Commons content.
Iraq and Kuwait community (MENA)
The Wikimedia communities in Iraq and Kuwait planned an ISA campaign focused on adding Arabic descriptions to images related to their countries. They contacted the ISA facilitator, who prepared and delivered a hands-on presentation on 18 December, introducing the tool and guiding participants through practical use cases aligned with the workshop’s goals.
ISA @ Wikimania 2025
Wiki In Africa Team presented ISA tool as a poster at Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi.
Technical highlights
Recognition
- Eugene, main developer, recognized as Tech Wikimedian of the Year. When he was asked about the most tool he interested in wikimedia projects, he mentioned ISA.
- Loka, an admin on Arabic wikipedia, is recently interested in ISA tool and offer instant help to fix some bugs or offer some stats from time to time.
Wikimania 2025 Hackathon: A Catalyst for New Contributors
During Wikimania 2025 in Nairobi, the Hackathon pre-conference became a major space where new contributors discovered the ISA Tool. One participant, in a post published on Diff, shared how they first learned about ISA during the MediaWiki environment setup session, when Eugene233, the main developer and maintainer of ISA, introduced the project. Inspired by its purpose and community-driven impact, the contributor chose ISA as their Hackathon project, collaborating with a mentor to set up the tool locally and work on an issue.
The experience showcased ISA’s role as a gateway project for developers entering Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem – especially those passionate about structured data, visual knowledge, and tools that empower underrepresented communities. As they noted: “It was hugely popular, especially among African communities. Something clicked. I knew right there this was going to be my Hackathon project.” The story emphasizes how inclusive, well-documented, and community-supported tools like ISA can help attract new technical contributors from all over the world — extending the tool’s impact beyond its African origins and into the broader Wikimedia developer ecosystem.
Following Wikimania, interested contributors organised the WMA Tool Series – ISA Spotlight Session to sustain momentum from the Hackathon and further explore ISA’s features and use cases.