[Foundation-l] Invitation to participate in Wiki Africa project!
Dear Wiki colleagues, I am excited to invite members of Wikimedia Foundation to participate in the Wiki Africa project that will expand and increase the contents of Africa information in Wikipedia. Through this invitation we hope to build a strong partnership in promoting African content in Wikipedia. WikiAfrica is an international collaborative project between Africa Centre and Lettera27 that is designed to Africanize Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles over two years. The project promotes a new method of acquiring and sharing knowledge that is fully-inclusive, mainstream, intercultural and relevant to contemporary and historic Africa. The initial two years are focused on encouraging external Africa-based, cultural organizations, museums and archives, as well as bloggers and journalists, to contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia. These initial two years focus on content related to literature, poetry, art, cinema and other cultural products. WikiAfrica will not exclude anything that falls outside of these categories, but focuses most of its energy in these areas. At the same time, the WikiAfrica project expands the African content that is already available online and improves existing articles by combining sources and promoting the participation of experts. WikiAfrica contributes to the aims of Wikimedia projects online (especially the WikiProject Africa, WikiProject African diaspora and the Africa Portal) and also works externally with texts, quotes, images, audio and video. The project will be approached and achieve its goals via the following four activities: -Create partnerships with organisations that have existing archives that are readily accessible and that are predisposed to placing this content online; -Motivate the adaptation of a copyleft or Creative Commons approach to intellectual property. -Activate new Wikipedia users and editors in Africa through marketing and promotion; and -Create training tools and establish the mentorships required to activate a new team of users and editors of Wikipedia (wikipedians). Click on Get started (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Get_started ) or the Project page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Projects) to contribute to Wiki Africa and become a member of Wiki Africa! Please visit our incubator at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Incubator for a step by step guide on how to start your articles for new authors. We look forward to working with all Wikimedia members interested in developing African content through knowledge exchange, participation and contribution to this project. For any questions don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you Francis Awinda Administrator and content manager Wiki Africa Email:franc...@africacentre.net Tel:+27793087519 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] WikiAfrica invites you to support the Africa Incubator
WikiAfrica is pleased to invite you as a self-declared African Wikipedian to evaluate the Africa Incubator. WikiAfrica has created the Africa Incubator to support and assist new authors, as they create their first articles and learn the ins and outs of contributing to Wikipedia. The Africa Incubator is a âsoft landingâ for new authors to develop articles that relate to Africa. It assists them in becoming compliant and knowledgeable of Wikipedia principles and rules. Based within the Wikipedia framework, the Africa Incubator is fully interactive and enables feedback, assistance and forums. This is where we need your help! For the Africa Incubator to be successful, it needs the intervention, interaction and experience of Incubator Mentors. We are looking for a pool of active experienced Wikipedians to consistently participate in âowningâ the Africa Incubator. Incubator Mentors will assist new comers through the editing process. They will also help test and expand the Africa Incubator, and will play a vital role in encouraging newcomers to be Wikipedians for life Please visit [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Incubator] to give us your honest feedback and evaluation. WikiAfrica is a ground-breaking project that is designed to Africanise Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles over two years. Find out more about this project here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica]. To get involved, contact Francis [wikiped...@wikiafrica.co.za] Twitter: twitter.com/#!/wikiafrica Facebook: www.facebook.com/WikiAfrica ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Introduction to the WikiAfrica project in Wikipedia
Dear Wikipedian, As you know, with nearly one-billion people,Africa represents the world's third-largest market after China (1.3-billion) and India (1.1-billion), and is widely recognized as the last frontier for global economic growth. It is also where humanity began. And yet it has the lowest and least informed profile of any region on the Internet. What does appear is often not complete, selective, lacks context and reinforces outdated stereotypes. Africa deserves a new deal â and especially in Wikipedia. The Africa Centre in collaboration with Lettera27 would like you to participate in a ground-breaking project that is designed to Africanise Wikipedia by generating and expanding 30,000 articles over two years. The project promotes a new method of acquiring and sharing knowledge that is fully-inclusive, mainstream, intercultural and relevant to contemporary and historic Africa. This initial phase of the project is focused on encouraging external Africa-based, cultural organisations, museums and archives, as well as bloggers and journalists, to contribute their knowledge to Wikipedia. The project will be approached and achieve its goals via the following four activities: ⢠Create partnerships with organisations that have existing digitised content that is readily accessible; ⢠Motivate the adaptation of a copyleft or Creative Commons approach to intellectual property. ⢠Activate new Wikipedia users and editors in Africa; and ⢠Create training tools and assist with the mentorships required to activate a new team of users and editors of Wikipedia. See more on this at the Africa Incubator [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Incubator] Click on Get started [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Get_started] or the Project page [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiAfrica/Projects] to contribute to WikiAfrica and become a member! Through WikiAfrica we aim to increase the content of Africa articles by engaging content partners and individual Wikipedians in the project as a way of improving participation to Wikipedia from the African continent. Thank you Francis Awinda Wikipedian in Residence (user: Awinda) Skype: Awinda Twitter:AwindaF Email:franc...@africacentre.net Tel:+27793087519 www.africacentre.net ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l