Good answer Felix.
I wanted to make one little point though...
Le 11/06/2018 à 14:19, Felix Nartey a écrit :
Hello Isaac,
Thanks for your concerns, I think its good to ask these questions now
so that we all have some understanding of what the committee will or
will not do.
1. I don't think the committee wants to create a bureaucratic process
by offering to support Wikimedians on the continent. I think all that
is being proposed is to offer help to those who require such
assistance. Please note that this doesn't stop anyone who wants to
help a group, community or country in any capacity, this is just a
gesture to support and to be responsible for some of the action items
ensued from Indaba.
2. I think during Indaba 2017 discussions around helping other African
countries know about Wikimedia and starting communities where there
wasn't any arose. However after the conference, just a handful of
participants championed this cause. What the steering committee wants
to do on this, is to ensure that discussions are followed through even
after the conference and it takes responsibility of action items
resulting from the conference. Once again this doesn't stop anyone who
wants to help a neighbouring country, all this does is to provide more
hands on deck to support. Nobody needs to report what they are doing
for a country to WISCOM but sharing will go along way to encourage
others who are doing same or want to start something around that.
3. I think we are all aware that nobody is obliged to share any
progress reports or success stories with any group other than the WMF,
No. Not even to WMF.
There is no obligation to share success stories or report progress to
anyone.
It is a good idea to do so though.
But unless it is funding a specific project, there is special obligation
to WMF.
Florence
(to reflect on roles and responsibilities...)
however due to the kind nature of our ecosystem, these are made
available anyway on Meta for transparency. The committee is interested
in sharing and projecting amazing work from the continent. No hidden
agenda here, just a way to share more stories about the good work of
our brothers and sisters on the continent. However if pledges are made
during indaba to pursue or work on something the committee may follow
up with such participants to learn what has happened after the conference.
4. It is important for scholarships to be overseen by the committee to
ensure that instrumental people attend the conference. Currently
because every LOC has done this by themselves in the past there is not
much data and knowledge sharing amongst previous hosts. People who
attended in 2014 in SA were not passed on to Ghana and those who came
in Ghana were not also passed on to Tunisia. The committee wants to
create institutional knowledge around who attends and their impact
after the conference, using this data by subsequent committees will
help select the right participants each year.
I hope this answers your questions.
Cheers,
On Mon, Jun 11, 2018 at 3:55 AM Isaac Olatunde
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Bobby,
As you may already be aware, I know what Wiki-Indaba is all about
and if you dig out some thread on this list or have been following
discussions on this list, you will notice that I bided for
Wiki-Indaba 2016 on behalf of my country, Nigeria.
That being said, we do not want a situation where people will need
permission from a committee to help countries that needs help.
We do not want people to use the committee to promote personal
agenda. I already noted that the goals of "Activating African
Communities"[1], a personal project run by one of the three
members of this committee are what we are seeing on the Wiki
Indaba Steering Committee.
We don't want another level of bureaucracy. I personally cannot
give a progress report of my project to any committee except the
WMF and or a committee constituted by WMF to handle such things.
Again, Wiki-Indaba scholarship committee, LOC and WMF should
handle how people are selected for scholarship.
Regards,
Isaac
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Activating_African_Communities
On Jun 11, 2018 2:01 AM, "Bobby Shabangu" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Isaac,
Thanks for your questions and comments, and I think they are
important to bring forth so that we clarify them and get an
understanding of what the Wiki-Indaba gathering and subsequent
Wiki-Indaba Steering Committee (WIScom) is all about.
Remember the conference brings together old hands of Wikimedia
and newbies and Wikimedians with some experience but needs
capacity building, we also have free knowledge advocates and
mission aligned institutions including sponsorships like our
friends the Goethe-institute, and some Embassies and
university reprentatives. Projects and challenges are shared
by Wikimedians here and solutions are identified, but how do
we track if those solutions are being implemented and are
working? How do we provide support? How do we give conference
attendees the right tools to run their project? This is where
the WIScom comes in. To provide simple actionable solutions
that will bring together Wikipedians within the African
continent after the conference.
So, to simply answer you, Wiki-Indaba is not about the
conference but is about Wikimedians within the African
continent. And although helping Wikimedians organise the
conference will be part of what WIScom do, but WIScom is not
necessarily about events management (the conference) but it's
more about people management (Wikimedians).
We don't want meta or this mailing list to be the only way for
us to communicate but we want to also include a Facebook page
and Twitter handle for Wiki-Indaba where our friends the
Goethe-institute or Creative Commons or some Wikipedian in
Malawi or Central African Republic can know about us and
receive the same assistance.
Please read more about why we have the conference on the link
here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiIndaba_conference_2014
Kind regards,
Bobby Shabangu
On Sunday, June 10, 2018, Isaac Olatunde
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
Hi Zeineb,
Thanks for sharing this information. However, I do have
some questions and comments. I have listed them below.
1. You wrote "Support Wikimedians within The African
continent who wants to run Wikimedia projects but don't
know where to start or how to go about doing that, as well
as finding out about the progress of projects run by
Wikimedians within the African continent and diaspora" How
is this related to Indaba? I believe an Indaba steering
committee should primarily focus on the business of Indaba
which is the African regional conference.
2. While I do agree on the need to support individuals
that one to run Wikimedia projects in their countries, I
do not think we need a committee to do that, even if we
do, I don't think Indaba steering committee should be the
one to handle this. This appears to be out of scope.
3. "Finding out about the progress of projects runs by
Wikimedians in Africa and diaspora " is a go thing, I also
think this is out of scope for Indaba steering committee "
Reports/Progress reports are often published on Meta Wiki
for everyone to see and people are welcome to contact
project coordinator if there is a capacity in which they
which to help. I do not think we need a committee to do
that and if we must have a committee, I don't think Indaba
Steering Committee is the appropriate committee to do that.
4. In your page you wrote "Management of scholarships
application and awarding process " In 2017, I proposed
here "Indaba Scholarship Committee " like "Wikimania
Scholarship Committee" but it does appeared that the LOC
with support of the WMF handled the process. Thus, it
might be a good idea to have a separate body like the one
proposed above, WMF and LOC to handle this process.
I do think the roles of this steering committee are
overstretched and we do need to avoid unnecessary
bureaucracy.
Regards,
Isaac
On Jun 10, 2018 12:01 PM, "Zeineb Takouti"
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
Dear African Wikimedians,
I hope this email finds you well.
As you will remember that during ourWiki-Indaba
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Indaba>conference
in Tunisia it was agreed that we need to put together
a steering committee that will be responsible for
capacity building which includes amongst other things
providing support to countries who wish to host
Wiki-Indaba conference in the future, support
Wikimedians within the African continent who wants to
run Wikimedia projects but don't know where to start
or how to go about doing that, as well as finding out
about the progress of projects run by Wikimedians
within the African continent and diaspora and letting
everyone know through social media etc.
Currently theWiki-Indaba Steering Committee (WISCom)
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Indaba#Wiki_Indaba_Steering_Committee_%28WISCom%29>is
composed of representatives from countries who were
previously host to the conference, this includes
Myself, Bobby Shabangu and Felix Nartey. We would
like to increase the steering committee, and we are
calling for applications from volunteers who are
interested to be part of the WISCom. The applications
can be done by answering a few questions on this
pagehere
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Indaba/Steering_Committee_%28WISCom%29>.
The due date for applications is Friday 22 June 2018.
You are free to share this message on other social
groups for more participation.
Kind regards,
Zeineb Takouti
Zeineb Takouti
Chef de projet / Consultante Junior
Co-fondatrice et secrétaire générale de Carthagina
Membre de Wikimedia TN User Group
GSM: (+216) 54 394 883
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*Felix Nartey*
*Cofounder/Managing Director *
*Website: Open Foundation West Africa
<https://openfoundationwestafrica.org/>*
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*Skype:Flixtey*
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