Talk:WikiIndaba conference 2017/Questions & Needs

Question: - What is going on here? May I respectfully ask Wikimedia Ghana Community why they are including France and Germany on this page? When did European countries become part of Africa? Wikicology (talk) 20:13, 4 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Because those are the two countries (along with Switzerland I would add) that run projects related to Africa I guess. I think the title of this page is wrongly phrased as people from those countries may not have needs. But since this page records who wants to participate ... I guess those countries should be here Anthere (talk)

Thanks for your comment, Anthere. I only need clarification on this. Wikicology (talk) 07:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

oh... and on a funny note... Marseille (the city I live in...) is often called the northest african city [1] Anthere (talk)

I have a suggestion...

I think it would be best to be very upfront about what participants can bring to the table.

"Valuable learnings: present an overview of a valuable learning you want to share with others." looks very vague to me in terms of actions. I do not know actually if that "learning" is meant online on this talk page or offline during the conference. It may not translate too well either.

What about something like "what will you offer other participants" and cite some examples (I can teach how to categorise images, I can teach how to use Kiwix, I can teach etc.)

Also, respectfully, I would like to suggest that the Ghana team show the example to the other teams and does not limit itself to adding names of interested participants but also actually add answers to the questions.

Anthere (talk)

And of course, the wording:Valuable learnings: present an overview of a valuable learning you want to share with others is not terribly bad but not completely sensible to me. I concur with Anthere on the need to change the title to "what will you offer other participants"?. Wikicology (talk) 07:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note - There are more than 13 countries in Africa. List of countries in Africa can be found here. All the best. Wikicology (talk) 14:08, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- @@Wikicology: the 13 countries I listed here are countries that we know have Wikipedia activities. If there are any you know that we do not know of please feel free to add them.And then again we were advised to only select active Wikipedians or project leaders. On the issue of France and Germany's inclusion,I had a participant from each of the countries on the list of potential attendants hence the need to add those countriesWikiIndaba_conference_2016/Participants.@@Anthere: thanks for your suggestion I will address it promptly.Rberchie (talk) 15:57, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wait.... Rberchie, let me use my glasses, what do you meant by we were advised to only select active Wikipedians or project leaders???? Do you meant only active Wikipedians and project leaders can attend the conference or eligible for scholarship? My understanding is that all African Wikimedians are eligible to attend Wikiindaba but not everybody would be eligible for scholarship. One of the core goals of Indaba is to attract new editors and if you are restricting attendees to only active Wikipedians and project leaders, I wonder how this goal would be achieved. I am not sure the WMF can give such ridiculous advise. Pinging KHarold (WMF) for clarification. Wikicology (talk) 07:28, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Swahili[edit]

So what do we do from Swahili Wikipedia? We are not a country, we are the second most read wikipedia in an African language (after Afrikaans, 1.1 mio views in September 2016) and our core group is a bunch of people spread out all over. Kipala (talk) 22:40, 5 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Kipala: thanks for bringing that to our notice. We will immediately add a tab for Swahili but please do well to answer the questions about your need etc with your community.RegardsRberchie (talk) 08:26, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Eek! if you are adding a tab for Swahili, then you will need to add tab for other languages Wikipedia like Yoruba and Zulu Wikipedia. Wikicology (talk) 21:54, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Wikicology: there is tab created for others and it is clearly stated underneath that tone can add others which haven't been added. Again to the best of our knowledge there is Usergroup in Nigeria and a Chapter in South Africa unless you want to prove otherwise, that is the members contributing in the aforementioned languages are not known by the User and the Chapter in the respective countries.Rberchie (talk) 22:13, 6 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are obviously missing the points here. What I am silently saying is that you don't need to create tabs for every local languages in Africa as this may cause confusion. You probably want to create the tab simply because there is a local Wikipedia in that language. Indaba is not about Wikipedia alone, it's about Wikimedia projects in general. Participants should apply for indaba based on their country/contributions and be eligible for scholarship based on their contributions to Wikimedia projects. By Wikimedia projects, I don't mean ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA alone. This must include contributions to local language Wikipedia (e.g zu:wiki, ak:wi), Wikimedia Commons, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, Wikidata, Wikisource and so on. Wikicology (talk) 07:11, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]