Wikimedia South Africa/Board Meeting/22 September 2020

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WMZA Board Meeting - 22 September 2020 Time: 19:00

Attendees:[edit]

  • Douglas
  • Deon
  • Rossouw
  • Wynand
  • Bobby
  • Coenraad

Apologies:[edit]

  • Adri
  • Ian

Agenda:[edit]

20th birthday[edit]

Douglas: Wikipedia will be turing 20 years old on the 15 January 2021. Afrikaans Wikipedia turns 20 on the 16 November 2021. The international community is trying to coordinate a big public event.

Community event[edit]

  • Online vs offline?
  • Bobby: have an online event that is anchored in a physical offline event.
  • Douglas: proposes to have both a Cape Town and Johannesburg physical event that anchors for the online event. Bobby seconds.

Media pack/ Press releases[edit]

  • Coenraad: Ping WMF (Zach) for marketing support
  • Douglas: Find Wikimania 2018 media contact list
  • Radio interview talking points
  • Brief structure: Why birthday celebration is important. Who we are. What we do.
  • Douglas: will share press packs and contact list, and cc on journalist emails.
  • Coenraad: to send Douglas details for send as @wikimedia.org.za

Next community meetup[edit]

Douglas: Would be nice to have another online community meetup. When to have it?

Afrikaans Wikipedia support[edit]

  1. email for Afrikaans Wikipedia - afrikaans@wikimedia.org.za
  2. Joining the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy for Science and Arts)
WMZA joining and voting on paying membership
Concern raised over ensuring that the Akademie and our relationship with them (including articles that might be connected to awarded prizes) are non-political.
Deon points out the NPOV mission of all Wikipedias and will look into ensuring that the Akademie relationship is non-political.
Deon will have coffee with an Akademie to discuss all these issues.
  1. 20th Wikipedia birthday cooperation - see what we can do together <South African Academy for Science and Arts>
  2. First prize for best annual article for af.wiki - First prize awared by the Akademie. Deon will try to see if they can give that prize.
Concern over also supporting other African language Wikipedias and how to support them as well as supporting af.wiki.
  • Deon will update the board on how the situation with the Akademie evolves and their support for af.wiki.

How to help other African language Wikipedias[edit]

  1. LIASA WikimediaZA & Indegenous Language Project to launch soon
  2. Bobby has not yet had a chance to connect with UNISA language specalists to find wiki champions. He has connected with the University of KZN and is connecting up the community of language academics. They have requested an MOU to help our connection at UKZN mobalise support. Bobby has written up that MOU already. Bobby shares MOU with UKZN, it includes a mention to run some edit workshops to support African langauge Wikis. Plan is to run 3 edit workshops with UKZN. Bobby with follow up with UNISA and University of Swaziland.
  3. Wynand mentions the additional task from last meeting of writing up a formalised framework for approaching universities for language support. Wynand & Bobby to write this up. This includes what the value proposition is for partner organisations working with WMZA.
  4. Bobby to share MOU with UKZN with board.

Follow through on action items[edit]

  1. We're all volunteers, but we committed to help so need to dedicate time
  2. Coenraad volunteered to prod people marked in bold on action items on minutes until staff member appointed - only request is that people are marked in bold on each action item
  3. Bobby mentioned special thanks to Adri for improved organization since she joined
  4. Coenraad has set up an Asana board with important dates: https://app.asana.com/0/home/1114928055036118

Hiring the administrator[edit]

Requirements for the position is now done. Thank you Adri for working on this.

  • Douglas - to post it and make it publically known.
  1. Audit of Malagasy Wiktionary
  2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Small_wiki_audit/Malagasy_Wiktionary
  3. Try and avoid this for other Wiktionaries/Wikis
  1. Rossouw got accepted to Hack Ur Culture
  2. having a meeting on Thursday
  1. Rossouw visiting Windhoek in October, might arrange a meetup
  2. Coenraad going to try to help and attend too

Open GLAM Working Group[edit]

  1. Brief update from Bobby - will give info about WMZA here
  2. 700 African attendees registered for https://glam.opendata.ch/ - open to all


LiT (LIASA-in-Touch) article[edit]

  1. Question about attachments to mailing list
  2. Rather send links

End[edit]

Meeting ends at 20:36

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