Wikimedia Community User Group Uganda/Events & Projects/Wikimania 2022/Micheal Kaluba/Report
User Details[edit]
- Usernameː Micheal Kaluba
- Affiliationː Wikipedia Community User group Uganda
Event Name[edit]
Wikimania 2022
My Experiences[edit]
There was a whole lot of experiences in this year's Wikimania , First I applied for the personal grant and unfortunately wasn't awarded but in the same season I applied to volunteer at the event and this was granted. I as well got the national grant and I used the money on data, meals and transport.
Pre- Wikimania Preparations[edit]
However much I didn't succeed with the Individual grant, I was privileged to be part of the Wikimania Core Organizing Team for Uganda and this brought in a whole lot of new experience and got the national grant and I used the money on data, meals and transport. It being my first time to be part of the Organizing team for such a big event, we several meeting with the organizing team right from the writing of the grant proposal to the Wikimedia foundation. After our grant proposal was accepted, we held about Eight Planning meetings for the Event. On the team, I was assigned a task of building the application for the national individual grant which I did with a team of three.
Several issues were discussed in the planning meetings and everything just went on as planned.
Then for volunteer role, I volunteered a scribe so we had pre- Wikimania traings for volunteers on Wednesday 11 August 2022 where our roles were explained to us and how we were to execute them successfully and recordings were as well shared for those that weren't able to join in.
Day 1-11/08/2022[edit]
This day started with an Opening Session at around a half passed noon though there was some kind of technical issues which caused some bit of delay. As a volunteer, my role was a Scribe and my tasks included Liaising with the tent manager and supporting when needed. At the beginning of the session: shared the etherpads link and some general instructions for the session. Throughout the session: Session Scribe = takes notes of the most important points of the session (all other session attendees are welcome to add notes too). After the session: uploads the notes on wiki.
I was assigned 13 - 16 UTC that was 14 - 19 EAT in Tent 2 started with Hatch-A-Wiki Project of the Wiki Advocates Philippines session where they shared about Central Bikol Wikipedia project and Wikipedia projects in the Philippines. They also shared tips on how to start Wiki projects from scratch.
In the same tent, I attended and scribed a session called Strategy on Running Wikimedia Communities of Taiwanese Indigenous then finished the day with Crisis and GLAM where shared about
- National Museum Cross-Wiki Project,
- There is a DEADLINE; Every day, Everywhere, pieces of knowledge are lost forever due to infinite reasons.(see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:There_is_a_deadline )
- Information about the Museum Nacional Rion de Jenerio
- On Sep 2 2018 a fire disaster struck that night that destroyed the biggest part of the Museum
- The apparent reason was non-function of the anti-fire systems
- The reason below was the lack of funding which leads to systems not being maintained
Nassima Chahboun pointed out that;
- WHindanger; Creating content about endangered sites to create awareness about these sites
- Why create this content?
- Who is created for and about?
- Locals
- Foreigners
- Heritage Professionals
- How is this content reaching out to the audience?
- Leveraging Wikidata
- Making Wiki Content Accessible
- All the content from the different Wikimedia projects is available on www.wikiworldheritage.org
Hanna Osadchuk pointed out that;
- Ukraine has over 5000 museums and 5000 libraries and most aren't operational since they are being occupied by Russian troops.
- New Meaning to the old Projects
- Wiki Loves Monuments
- Edit-a-thons
Day 2-12/08/2022[edit]
On this day, we had our amazing in person event at Capital Kitchen and this started with an interesting induction with two truth and one lie where each person would introduce them selves and tell two truths and one lie about them selves and the congregation had to guess which one among the three would be a lie.
We shared about the different projects being undertakes by the Wikimedia user group Uganda like GLAM, Wiki Loves Monument, Wiki Soccathones, WikiGap, Wiki Loves Africa and many more projects.
We had a strategy planning session where we were divided into groups and each group shared among them selves and after shared with the entire team responding to the questionsː
How do you imagine the Wikimedia Community User group Uganda in 3-5 years?
What does it look like?
What does it do?
What does it not do?
I interacted and met new people at the event and it was really fun and wished the entire event was in person.
After this , I embarked on my volunteer role where I was assigned to 14:30 - 15 UTC 5 that's 17ː30 - 18ː00 EAT in Tent 3 where I scribed a session called Seeking new strategies of engagement: the benefits of science communicators on Wikipedia where we had a presentation from Wikimedia Chile by Carla Toro and I took a few notes below;
- The scientific new presented in Chile and Latin America isn't so trustworthy because the official sources are not that trusted because of the basis on how what is true of false is presented.
- Science itself reveals that most of the publications are behind payment walls and most of it done in English.
- Science is like a spectrum and about the issue of access only approximately 47% is in open access so they either of be knowing English which is not obvious that everyone knows English.
- Another problem are the article which only have unexplained formulas.
- Wikipedia is one of the five most visited sites but can we help if the source where people are looking for information is outed.
- Wikipedia, in this sense can be a good solution.
- In Wikipedia Chile, they are creating documents on how to communicate science on the internet
Day 3-13/08/2022[edit]
On this day attended a few sessions like Podcasting about Wikimedia in your language, Celebrating the African Librarians Week past and present, Improving mobile web for experienced editors where we shared about the experience on mobile editing. Then Wikimedia Language Diversity Hub: Status and preliminary research results where Jon Harald Søby, Sadik Shahadu shared about;
- What the Language Diversity Hub is?
- The LDH was born out of the Celtic Knot conference
- The hub is currently led by an interim steering committee
- Working with different language incubators.
- Research: the goal is to understand how can a hub would work, how a hub can support these small languages? Support them with resources & help to expand their work.
Day 4-14/08/2022[edit]
On the last day of the event, I mainly enjoyed the session called Wikimedian of the Year where Jimmy Wales and Mehrdad Pourzaki presented the Wikimedians of the year in different categories.
Connections[edit]
Sarah Skavron
DivineGaby
Links[edit]
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2022:Submissions/WMOTY
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2022:Submissions/Podcasting_about_Wikimedia_in_your_language
https://wikimania.wikimedia.org/wiki/2022:Submissions/Improving_mobile_web_for_experienced_editors
Special Thanks[edit]
In a special way I thank the Wikipedia user group Uganda community for the scholarship, Geoffrey Kateregga, Alice Kibombo, Sandra Achenge, Alvin Ategyeka, Drake Tamale, Faith Quera, Shafic, COT for Ugandan User group and the general COT volunteering team.