WikiIndaba conference 2019/Submissions/State of African Wikis: What Are The Challenges Facing African Language Wikipedias? Any Potential Solutions?
 | This is an  Accepted submission for WikiIndaba conference 2019 that has been reviewed by the members of the Program Committee and accepted into the conference program |
- Submission no. 009
- Title of the submission
- Challenges Facing African Language Wikipedias: What Are The Potential Solutions?
- Type of submission (lecture, panel, tutorial/workshop, roundtable discussion, lightning talk, birds of a feather discussion)
- Lecture / Panel
- Author of the submission
- Sam Oyeyele (User:Jamie Tubers); Dumisani Ndubane (User:DNdubane (WMF))
- Panelists
- Anass Sedrati
(If you'd like to be on this panel, please contact User:Jamie Tubers).
- Language of presentation
- English
- E-mail address
- samoye_
hotmail.com
- Country of origin
- Nigeria; South Africa
- Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
- Wikimedia UG Nigeria; Wikimedia Foundation
- Personal homepage or blog
- Abstract (up to 300 words to describe your proposal)
The stunted growth of African Language Wikipedias has been a major source of concern for quite a while in the movement. Even though the African Wikimedia Community is steadily expanding, the same can not be said of Wikipedias in African Languages. This is majorly due to the fact that, a lot of Africans contribute to and read Wikipedia in non-indigenous languages; typically colonial languages.
This panel will be bringing together leaders of the movement on the continent to discuss the major causes of this sad trend, and ways to mitigate this and promote the use of Wikipedia in African local languages.
- What will attendees take away from this session?
An update on Wikipedia projects in Africa. This session hopes to bring to the general consciousness of African Wikimedians, the sad state of our local language Wikipedias. It also hopes to seriously get practical suggestions on how to fix this problem, from grassroots Wikimedians in various African communities, so that we can figure out the next directions to take in improving the use of Wikipedia in our local languages.
- Theme of presentation
- Sister Projects
- WikiCulture & Community
- For workshops and discussions, what level is the intended audience?
General (Beginners to Advanced audience).
- Length of session (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long)
- 55 minutes
- Will you attend WikiIndaba if your submission is not accepted?
- Yes
- Slides or further information (optional)
There maybe few slides to show some statistics at the beginning of the discussion.
- Special requests
- Is this Submission a Draft or Final?
Final
Interested attendees[edit]
If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with a hash and four tildes. (# ~~~~).
- Anass Sedrati (talk) 16:18, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
- Mounir Touzri (talk) 22:02, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
- --Gereon K. (talk) 09:38, 25 October 2019 (UTC)