Wikimedia South Africa/Board Meeting/23 June 2020

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Wikimedia ZA Board meeting - 23 June 2020


Attendees[edit]

  • Michael
  • Ian
  • Adri
  • Coenraad
  • Douglas
  • Wynand
  • Bobby
  • Deon

Apologies[edit]

  • Rossouw

Wikipedia Branding[edit]

  • Deon: Keep the name as is
  • Douglas: The name change is divisive. The Foundation should have an election by a specific date. This legitimizes the process and keeps it democratic.
  • Michael seconds this.
  • Ian: Not in favour of the change or the way it's being forced on the community.
  • Coenraad: Doesn't think a name change is necessary, a clear brand has value, but should be obvious, but the separation between Wikipedia and Wikimedia and the process of getting to know Wikimedia, and understanding how they are different, and interact, is a valuable process, that we risk losing
  • Bobby also votes to keep the name as is.
  • Adri to complete the survey and share with board before submitting for any changes

Copyright vs Blind SA[edit]

  • https://blindsa.org.za/2020/06/19/blind-sa-constitutional-challenge-of-the-copyright-amendment-bill/
  • The President is sending the bill back to Parliament. First reason is that it was incorrectly tagged and then there are apparently constitutional problems with it.
  • Waiting to find out if the bill goes back to parliament or public review or committee review.
  • Ian to make statement on Twitter Account. Douglas will on his own account.
  • Douglas is meeting with Wiki Deutchland to discuss how to discuss this issue with the media and broader public.
  • Douglas to work on a letter next week on behalf of the Chapter.
  • Coenraad to look up and reach out to documentary makers "guild" he heard about who got done in by copyright law a decade or two back.
  • Recreate is also working on a response.
  • This affects our communications with Maroela Media. We will send them a letter in the mean time. Ask Wikimedia Foundation Law department to draft a letter on Wikipedia as a whole explaining the situation.
    • In the meantime the articles can start being taken down.
    • Ask Jocob and or Stephen about this as the servers are in America on what their opinion is on orphan works. - can also ask SA legal experts, Tobias - Douglas to do this and board to remind him.

Goethe-Institut South Africa - Hack your culture[edit]

  • GI and Wikimedia and Who's Knowledge are collaborating a "decolonize the internet" workshop. First event was last week and the next event will be this weekend.
  • GI will be giving prizes: Laptop, tablet and mobile.
  • Anyone can join and starts Saturday at 10.
  • To join: Send an email to Stephen at GI who would then add you to the event.
  • GI is also running a hackathon. This is an open event for groups advocating for open source knowledge.
  • They want to know if we as a Chapter wants to be involved.
  • If anyone is interested they can respond to Stephani.
  • Stephanie is asking for data, but needs to be shown how to access this herself. Bobby will look at this and get more information.

Celtic Knot Conference[edit]

  • https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2020
  • Michael suggests that we join this conference 9-10 July as a networking opportunity as they can help us with African voice assistants.
  • Bobby to look at possibly doing something between this event and the GI event
  • Coenraad to ping WMF people who were also working on something similar and will check in at Celtic Knot too

Moleskine event tomorrow[edit]

  • Editathon event to upload all the translated articles to the various language Wikipedias.
  • Papa is looking for people to help train at 10:00 tomorrow.
  • Unfortunately all board members have work commitments.
  • We need to have an MOU for Moleskin about best way to run edit workshops for best ways to activations and retention of the contributors.
  • We can also introduce Papa to the various African platforms so that he can speak to the various communities directly.
  • Bobby to talk to Papa and introduce him with a few different chapters and active editors that are looking for articles. Bobby to also chat to Jeff who is responsible for the emerging communities and Rudolf.
  • Ask the Foundation for an MOU template.

Budget Update[edit]

  • Good news: Budget has been approved. Money is being processed at the moment.
  • We have unspent money and will need to reimburse this in the future.
  • Breakdown of unspent money from the previous budget

General list of police stations and hospitals[edit]


Next board meeting[edit]

  • Discuss the process of getting an Admin and what their responsibilities would be as well as the personality matrix. Share all this info in advance so we can decide next time.
  • The characteristics are already in the Grant Application.
  • Look at old hiring matrix in The Dropbox Folder.
  • Note that we are looking for a "sole proprietor", not a "staff member".
  • Run through previous meeting notes.