WikiAfrica Hour/Results and best practices 2022
Introduction[edit]
WikiAfrica Hour is a monthly vodcast to support the activities of the WikiAfrica movement and wikimedians across Africa.
WikiAfrica Hour intends to:
- Share current updates, and highlights of Africa Wikimedians activities
- Interact with guest(s) (if any), and take questions from community members
- Promote synergy within the Wiki community by discussing topics, projects, constraints, collaborations, and opportunities.
Project goals[edit]
The main goals of the programme are to increase the cohesion of the Wikimedia Movement across by :
- Increasing the understanding of and sharing opportunities within the global Wikimedia Movement
- Showcasing the global movement through an African lens by offering alternative perspectives, applications and solutions
- Providing a platform where African solutions, contributors and leaders are showcased to the regional and global movements
2022 SMART Goals for WikiAfrica Hour[edit]
S: Specific
What needs to be accomplished?
At least one new live StreamYard broadcast episode of WikiAfrica Hour to air each month.
Who’s responsible for it?
The WikiAfrica Hour live broadcast episode is handled by the WikiAfrica Hour host, User:Ceslause.
For the year 2021, Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado) from Wikipedia Weekly took up the responsibility of giving us access to their StreamYard platform for free, for the purpose of hosting WikiAfrica Hour. In 2022, we went ahead to pay for our own StreamYard platform.
Despite the help from Wikipedia Weekly, WikiAfrica Hour is a program proposed and run by Wiki In Africa, and as such Wiki In Africa owns the editorial responsibility.
What steps need to be taken to achieve it?
User:Ceslause and the entire WikiAfrica Hour team brainstorm to come up with a particular topic or title for each month. The team also deliberates on subject matter experts who are knowledgeable about the topic, to be invited as guest speakers during the episode. User:Ceslause researches to get the email addresses of the prospective special guests.
An invitation letter is sent by User:Ceslause, to the prospective guests, detailing the proposed date and time for the episode. The guests either confirm their availability and willingness, or in very rare cases, their unavailability, which results in us finding a substitute.
Upon confirmation of guests, User:Ceslause proceeds to develop the episode script, as already programmed on the episode script template created by Isla Flood-Haddow (User:Islahaddow).
Among the items on the episode script, are tentative questions developed by User:Ceslause for the guests. These questions and the entire episode script are reviewed by Isla Flood-Haddow (User:Islahaddow) and Florence Devouard (User:Anthere). These questions are shared with the special quests before the session, after being thoroughly reviewed. This is contained in a preparation email sent to each guest, alongside a link to enable the guest join the StreamYard broadcast studio, which is already branded and styled accordingly by Isla Flood-Haddow (User:Islahaddow) before each episode goes Live.
There is also a section of the script that contains news updates from within the Wikimedia movement, and outside news that relates to the movement. These news updates are collated from various Wikimedia communication channels, and announced by User:Ceslause and Nonny User:Actveso , or Afek (User:Afek91 sometimes, during the news updates segment of the episode. The news updates for every month and the links for action points are also available on the “Newsroom” column of the WikiAfrica Hour meta page for interested community members to access them.
M: Measurable
The activity output is fully measurable by the number of episodes released since inception. From 23rd April 2021 till date, we have successfully hosted 20 episodes.
A: Achievable
Through the collective effort of the Wiki In Africa team, WikiAfrica Hour has been able to achieve one episode every month till date.
R: Relevant
The WikiAfrica Hour vodcast is a Live event, a design which enables the community members and audience to ask the guests questions and get responses in real time.
Each episode is divided into three sections. The first section is the discussion with the guests, during which the guests adequately respond to the script questions. The second section is the Questions and Answers segment, which provides the opportunity for community members and live audience to ask the guests questions and receive responses in real time. The third section is where the host and a second person (Usually chosen by the host) share community news updates that have been collected from the various information platforms in the wiki space.
The African community needed an initiative like WikiAfrica Hour, which:
- Shares current updates, and highlights of Africa Wikimedians activities
- Interacts with guest(s) (if any), and take questions from community members
- Promotes synergy within the Wiki community by discussing topics, projects, constraints, collaborations, and opportunities.
The closest to what WikiAfrica Hour offers, was The African Hour, which didn’t stand the test of time. WikiAfrica Hour has however proven to be able to do both, by already featuring two bilingual (French and English) episodes, episode 5 (Wiki Loves Africa 2021: Meet the winners) and 9 (Offline tech bridge), thanks to Florence Devouard (User:Anthere)and the WikiAfrica Hour host, User:Ceslause who are bilingual.
And most importantly, the episode topic for each month is ensured to be relevant to events happening at that time across the movement!
T- Time-bound
A WikiAfrica Hour episode usually takes an average of 3 weeks to plan.
Week 1 tasks are as follows:
- Decide focus/topic of session
- Identify guests
- Invite guests
- Confirm guests and time slot
- Do a call for News contributions
- Create Canva artwork
- Upload image to Commons
- Add info to Meta
- Add Episode page post to Wiki In Africa website
Week 2 and 3 tasks are as follows:
- Newsletter announcement
- Email confirmed guests. Request:
- Links to any online profiles or bios
- Twitter or other social media handles
- their organization’s social media handles (if relevant)
- share any links they might raise during the session
- Focus topic published on Social media
- Create 2-4 leading questions about the topics drive information about the upcoming WikiAfrica Hour … including link to WikiAfrica Hour meta page
- Hashtags
- Share on Social Media and Wiki spaces to drive attendance of WAH session
- Wikimedia Mailing Lists:
- African Wikimedians
- Wikimedia L
- Facebook
- WikiAfrica pages
- Wikipedia Weekly
- WikiIndaba Facebook messenger group
- LinkedIn (Wiki In Africa)
- Twitter:
- WikiAfrica account
- Telegram:
- Wikimedia General Chat
- African Wikimedians
- WikiFranca
- WikiProject Africa portal:
- WikiProject Africa in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Africa
- WikiProject Africa in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discussion_Projet:Afrique
2022 Objectives and Impact[edit]
| 2022 Objective | 2022 impact | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Host a minimum of 12 WikiAfrica Hour episodes in 2022 | 11 episodes hosted | The limitations surround media coverage for nominated members seeking election to the WMF board delayed one episode by a month |
| Have a minimum of 24 guests discussing their experiences | 39 guests hosted | NIL |
| Increase in viewership to 40% of 2021 levels | 51.2% increase | 1,812 in 2021 vs. 3,718 in 2022 |
| Engage with and increase WikiAfrica audience by 30% | 50% increase in YouTube subscribers | 2021 = 740 subscribers, 2022 = 1480 subscribers |
Episodes aired in 2022[edit]
Below is a table showing the episodes hosted in 2022:
| Episode title | Topic | Guests | Moderator | Date | Watch the episode | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Free, Open & Cool!
A discussion around what criteria a tool should meet to be used in the Wikimedia and Open movement, tool development, and maintenance, plus a watch-party of the 2022 Wikimedia Coolest tool Award. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 16/12/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| 18 | How different user groups are run.
It's a discussion about building, reviving, managing and recognizing communities. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 25/11/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| 17 | Wiki Loves Africa 2022 Winners: Sharpest Shooters
A walk through the photography & videography journeys of the winners of the various Wiki Loves Africa 2022 International prizes. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 28/10/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 16 | Wiki Identity
How are Wikis easily identified? Why are these identities important? It's a round table discussion with the teams behind the respective identities associated to various Wikimedia projects. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 23/09/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 15 | Wikimedian/Wikipedian in Residence
A tête-à-tête with some very experienced Wikimedians/Wikipedians in Residence, to learn what it takes to be one, plan and execute topical projects successfully, while helping Wikimedia solidify relationships with other organizations. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 02/09/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 14 | WikiGovernance:On Board
A one-on-one with the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees 2022 election Top 6 candidates. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 05/08/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 13 | AfroGLAM
This episode aims to give insight on GLAM projects in Africa, importance, impact and prospects. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 03/06/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 12 | Who is Maryana Iskander?
The new CEO of Wikimedia Foundation has resumed her role officially, after about 19 listening tours. This episode is to engage her personality, experience, aspirations, etc, as she goes about her term as the CEO of Wikimedia Foundation. |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 22/04/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 11 | Podcasting Wikipedia Women.
In the spirit of March being the Int'l women's month, we dedicate this episode to celebrate some very amazing Wikipedia Women In Podcast and their awesome initiatives |
|
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 25/03/2022 | Watch this episode | 
| |
| Episode 10 | Building communities, one photo at a time.
What is it like organizing local photo contests as part of an Int'l photo contests? Challenges, Lessons, Successes? |
Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 25/02/2022 | Watch this episode |  | ||
| Episode 9 (Offline tech bridge) | With over 4 billon people disconnected digitally, some amazing projects are working to bridge the divide. Come listen to the ideas behind these projects. | Ceslause Ogbonnaya | 28/01/2022 | Watch this episode |  |
WikiAfrica Hour 2022 communications materials[edit]
Lessons learnt[edit]
What worked well
- The post-episode communications was really efficient in driving up YouTube viewership.
- Having a back-up topic has ensured we have topics to discuss six months in advance
What didn't work well
- Getting increased number of Live attendees is still a bit of a challenge. We are looking to run a poll in 2023 to know what day and time work for the prospective attendees.