Wikimedia South Africa

This is a page for discussing the creation of Wikimedia South Africa, a Wikimedia chapter for the country of South Africa. Our mailing list is at https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza - please sign up there.

• Gather the people
  • Mailing list: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaza
• Plan the workshop - logistics
  • Finalise location: This will be a day and a half workshop to allow time for brainstorming, discussions, debate etc. The workshop will be a full day session on Saturday 7 August and half day Sunday 8 August.
  • Travel / accommodation scholarships: The African Commons Project has obtained funding to cover limited travel and accommodation costs Please can you let Kerryn know urgently if you will need a travel scholarship. Contact her via the wikipediaZA mailing list to discuss further.

• Plan the workshop - content and process
  • Setting up the agenda for the working session (Intro workshop as discussed above.) If need be we can add a page to outline the agenda. Look at the guidelines here to give us an idea about goals and structure.
  • Look at the legal criteria - The African Commons Project will show some examples that other chapters have used to give local Wikipedians some helpful background information

• Formation/ registration of the Chapter

• Steps going forward

• Adriaan (talk • contribs • email)
• AYISTO (talk • contribs • email)
• Blarcrean (talk • contribs • email)
• Discott (talk • contribs • email)
• Greenman (talk • contribs • email)
• Htonl (talk • contribs • email)
• Jeandré du Toit (talk • contribs • email)
• LouriePieterse (talk • contribs • email)
• Mpaskevi (talk • contribs • email)
• Nroets (talk • contribs • email)
• Stefanor (talk • contribs • email)
• Slashme (talk • contribs • email)
• The Extremist (talk • contribs • email)

Please feel free to swop out your name with your account info as in the People Interested section.

• Lourie
• Tobias
• David
• Derryn
• Adam
• Alice
• Rasi
• Aslam
• Daniela
• Kerryn

Please feel free to swop out your name with your account info as in the People Interested section.

• Johann
• Michael
• Charlene
• The Other Madiba
• Ian
• Michael
• Lourie

1. Running drives to acquire non-written information or information not available in written format (e.g. oral)
2. Making localLourie, Tobias, David, Derryn, Adam, Alice, Rasi, Aslam, Daniela, Kerrynised and locally relevant video, audio and written guides on using Wikipedia/MediaWiki.
3. Create space for digital audiovisual content.
4. Submit/edit by SMS. Look into using USSD technology?
5. Communities of interest are carriers of information that need to be represented (e.g. Khoisan) - get it

1. Recognize local content creators by featuring them in Wikimedia projects and old and new media releases
2. Rewards for best/most contributions: most new articles, most corrections, best new article.
3. Reward ideas: Sponsorship to international Wikimedia conference(s), T-shirts, money.

1. Helping people to take the first step: Get communities (e.g. students) in a computer lab, guide them in creating and verifying accounts and making their first edit.
2. Campaigns with local celebrities at schools and universities. Identify people who will be willing to support, e.g. progressive artists and Free Kiba artists.
3. Wikipedia Academy type activities.
4. Get content through group field activities, especially special interest groups like photojournalists or ×ばつ4 enthusiasts, inspired by Britain Loves Wikipedia
5. Host virtual events to target a specific topic with potential users such as universities, Linux Users Groups or Bloggers. Involve knowledgeable people who can help steer process.
6. Wikimedia South Africa Facebook group.
7. Regular city meetups open to all
8. Meet up to collaborate together (physically).
9. Annual conference to create relationships between Wikimedia contributors and content owners, or to focus on academics, explaining how to use Wikipedia in education.
10. Apply to host Wikimania
11. Promote language specific meetings (physical and virtual), with the idea of doing translations.
12. Inform the general public about the advantages of the Wikimedia projects.
13. Integrate the Wikimedia projects into the educational system.
14. Raise profile and increase recognition of Wikimedia projects by increasing coverage of events and activities
15. Keep mailing list up to date and include new members in all channels of communication.

1. Build partnerships with Open-Source stakeholders by collaboration on events
2. Promote multi-lingual contributions.
3. Document different cultural backgrounds (do a test run first).
4. Broaden world knowledge about South Africa.
5. Creating a link between well resourced institutions and underserved communities.
6. Identifying IP belonging to the government and lobby them to put it under a free license.
7. Interfacing with the communities that can verify local oral history.

1. For a vibrant multilingual and multicultural content community that generates and disseminates content that is used and understood by the local and global community
2. Facilitating contributions to the commons of African knowledge
3. Free access to knowledge in home languages to support development, collect and disseminate information about but not exclusive to South Africa
4. Creation of and access to free and open knowledge in South Africa

1. To support the SAfrican Wikimedia community
2. To foster a sense of community
3. To learn from inspire and support other African Wikimedia communities
4. To encourage dialogue between communities of free culture and free software
5. To build/facilitate/disseminate/provide knowledge in all SAfrican languages
6. To contribute to the development of local languages (all South African languages)
7. Making existing knowledge open
8. Make Wikipedia accessible in terms of technology, language and accessibility
9. To provide good quality content on local topics
10. To protect, preserve and promote local cultures including contemporary culture
11. Engaging with other open communities
12. To interact with archives and museums
13. To build a local community of Wikipedians
14. Negotiating copyright on behalf of local projects; raising awareness of Wikimedia
15. Promoting academic use of Wikimedia projects/ get advocacy of academic institutions
16. Promoting mobile access.
17. Have the chapter be a link between virtual community and real world
18. Encourage people to help with problems/bias/lack that they see in Wikipedia? (Wikipedia Academies)
19. Local chapter can incentivise/motivate local contributors by highlighting their work
20. Ownership of Wikimedia to South Africans
21. Connect editors and writers to specialists (public policy initiative for South Africa)
22. Kickstarting projects; focused activity; nurturing volunteers; encourage not dictate
23. Raise money to implement development projects (money for specific initiatives)
24. Central hub: enabler, facilitator, networker, local presence

1. Building and maintaining critical mass
2. Internet access
3. Focusing on academic use
4. Access through mobile phones
5. Localisation
6. Access to hardware
7. Creating local content on a global project
8. Documenting content which is only orally available; finding a workable citation method for languages with oral traditions
9. Accommodate competing perspectives and promote inclusion
10. Avoid bias/ culture that is enabling, inclusive
11. Financing
12. Potential legal issues (legislation that can be inhibiting)
13. Geographical distances and resources to enable meetings of the chapter
14. Identifying relevant sources of knowledge
15. Proactive advocacy to lobby govt, pvt sector and civil society
16. People turnover within the chapter could affect sustainability
17. Different formats for accessing information esp. for disabled people
18. Languages (hybrid forms vs formal forms; language varieties vs standard languages)

• Establish relationships with existing organisations that are already working in the area of educating and supporting stakeholders in key areas (e.g. engage the Cape Film Commission and the Cape Music Commission, which may already be educating artists about key aspects of music or film production, in order to use open strategies to license and market their work as well as utilise the tools that are currently made available by Wikimedia).
• Upload public domain dictionary entries onto Wikisource; edit this information so that it can be uploaded onto Wiktionary. Encourage publishers to make use of these Wiktionary entries; this could incentivise entrepreneurs (via funding mechanisms / partnerships with government or corporates) to explore ways of creating products or services.
• Approach the DoE to mandate and/or fund the publication of open textbooks on WikiBooks.
• Encourage schools to create pages on their region's histories; approach the DoE to integrate such a task into the relevant school curricula.
• Establish a task team to learn which school learning materials should be licensed alternatively via CC or GPLs.
• Assist community libraries to establish virtual libraries.
• Engage organisations (e.g. UWC's Mayibuye Centre, Community Video Education Trust, District Six Museum, Robben Island Museum, the Apartheid Museum, DISA, Centre for Popular Memory, UCT) that are archiving audio, video & film documentary material on South African history.
• Engage corporations in training initiatives in terms of lectures, workshops and uploading helpful open content by appealing to their knowledge of the BEE scorecard system.
• Upload content created through public funding, although the copyright assigned to it maybe unclear (e.g. Dept of Arts and Culture, IT technical terms in official languages), in order to promote discussion about the information commons.
• Work together with the University of Stellenbosch to promote the contribution to Wikimedia projects, as they are planning to supply students with laptops from next year on.

• Stefanor registered the wikimedia.org.za domain name and will transfer it when the chapter is formed. Currently it redirects to this page.

The process has stopped and stalled a few times before, but began again in earnest in May 2010, with assistance from Achal Prabhala, who helped with a similar process in India, Nhlanhla Mabaso and the African Commons Project.

• First session. Delphine speaking.
  First session. Delphine speaking.
• Lunch, day 1.
  Lunch, day 1.
• Lunch, day 1.
  Lunch, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.
• Supper, day 1.
  Supper, day 1.

• Chapters committee
• Local chapters FAQ
• Step-by-step chapter creation guide
• Requirements for future chapters
• Guidelines for future chapters
• Legal Structures commonly used by Non-Profit Organisations

• Local chapters