Wikimedia South Africa/Board Meeting/12 December 2016

Wikimedia ZA: Board meeting

12 December 2016

Present

• Douglas Scott
• Ian Gilfillan
• Tanner (Africa Centre guest)
• Bobby Shabangu
• Deon Steyn

Meeting has Quorum.

Introductions

• Douglas - Introduction to events in cape town
• Bobby - introduction to events in JHB

Africa Centre

• Bobby - Isla+Flo stating that Africa Centre funding Wikimedia ZA. Concerns over confusion over what is going on in the Wikipedia space with who is doing what.
• Tanner - Isla was a staff member of the Africa Centre, Flo was an independent contractor of the Africa Centre. Africa Centre has not worked with either for the past 12 months. Geotea Inst. has been funding one of Isla and Flo’s projects.
• Bobby wants to know what the mission of the Africa Centre is.
• Tanner: the Africa Centre is focused on disrupting the Arts space in Africa such as the audio archive of African poetry. As well as the audio + video archive project called Talking Heads. Wiki Africa is another project done with Moleskin in Italy with a focus on pushing archival projects in Africa with branching specific interests. Trying to get content about Africa on Wikipedia. Mostly English and French Wikipedia. The Africa Centre held money for the Chapter in the Chapter’s early years (2012) as a temporary favour.
• Ian - clarity needed over wording on the Africa Centre website
• Bobby proposes an MOU with the Africa Centre to clarify the nature of our relationship. Specifically with a focus on improving and enhancing any content on Wikipedia about Africa. African content.

Africa Centre Project Proposal

• Tanner presents an African Centre initiative for WMZA to work with them on

A project in the Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, and Free State to focus on a Wikipedian in residence type project Open to what type of Wikipedia projects They are not in a position to do the training of people on Wikipedia, to train up the Wikipedian in residence Money from the SA lottery board, proposal made in 2013/14 WMZA gets to decide on what type of role we should play Funding starts in January 2017 and will last 12 months from then. The plan was to focus on heritage institution to get their content on Wikipedia and get their staff to contribute to Wikipedia.

• Bobby - thinks it is a good thing to work with AC on this. Expresses a concern over sourcing funding.
• Tanner-WMZA would agree to what we want to do and what is expected of us. It is WMZA’s decision what we want.

Copyright Amendment act

• Douglas- proposal to start a process to put up a banner ad in SA for people to comment on the new Copyright Act when it comes up for public comment so that Freedom of Panorama is included
• Bobby agrees, we need to do the banner
• Ian feels that it is a good idea to include the broader Wiki community to discuss if we should put the banner up.
• Agreement to pursue it
• Ian is concerned that a vote might not be the best way to get this done

• Good idea to draw up a proposed banner ad.
• Broad support for this - Douglas agrees to write up the proposal.

Websites

• Currently we are getting poor service from Web Africa. We host WikiIndaba 2017, but Ghana has been unable to FTP, while Ian can only sporadically connect.
• Web Africa still have David as the primary contact, and in spite of requests from Ian to both David and Web Africa, he is still the account owner.
• There was also an unexpectedly large bill from Web Africa.
• Ian to investigate the bill, and to investigate moving accounts as he finds necessary.

CIPC CoR39 update

The board received word that WMZA’s CoR39 form was updated with the CIPC effectively recognising the resignation of David, Isla, and Maarten as board members of Wikimedia ZA. This will allow WMZA to proceed with registering a new bank account so we are in line with our agreement with the Wikimedia Foundation to have two accounts. One for Wikimedia Foundation funding and another account for other money from other sources. Wikimedia ZA would like to thank David, Isla, and Maarten for being outstanding directors during their time on the board.