Decolonise the Internet (Nigeria)

Background

The Goethe-Institut’s new programme “Decolonise the Internet” focuses on bridging the unequal representation of voices from the Global South on the internet and aims to increase awareness on how AI and algorithms might perpetuate racisms. The projects take place in ten different countries in sub-Saharan Africa and have different formats, such as edit-a-thons, podcasts and texts. In Nigeria, the Goethe-Institut has partnered with the Wikimedia UG Nigeria

The Goethe-Institut

The Goethe-Institut is the Federal Republic of Germany’s cultural institute, active worldwide. Its mandate is to promote the study of German abroad and to encourage international cultural exchange. Today it is represented in 98 countries and has some 3,300 employees. It contributes widely to the promotion of artists, ideas and works. Supporting the local cultural scenes and strengthening pan- African dialogue through the arts are part of its mission on the African continent, where it operates 19 institutes in Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Alexandria, Cairo, Casablanca, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Kigali, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Nairobi, Rabat, Tunis, Windhoek and Yaoundé, as well as liaison offices in Algiers, Kinshasa and Ouagadougou and cultural associations in Antananarivo, Bamako, Cape Town, Harare, Kampala and Maputo.

Wikimedia User Group Nigeria

Wikimedia User Group Nigeria is one of over 165 international affiliates of Wikimedia Foundation Inc, headquartered in San Francisco, United States of America. It was registered as Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation Inc. as a non-profit organization in Nigeria with the aims of promoting open license initiatives in Nigeria through the promotion of Wikipedia and its sister projects.

The Project

In Nigeria, the project has been designed to address the existing gender gap and systemic bias against Nigerian women by focusing on improving their visibility on the internet. To achieve these objectives we have been planning to initiate a number of initiatives, including (1) a social media campaign aimed at advocating the achievements of exceptional women in Nigeria as role models for the upcoming generation (@wikimediang on Facebook and Twitter, and officialwikimediang on instagram ), (2) a capacity development program called Basic Wikipedia Training as a means of equipping interested participants with writing skill in content creation, and (3) a writing contest aimed at improving support the improvement of Wikipedia content on existing Nigerian women that are not well written and creating new articles to tell new stories of Nigerian women from the African perspective.

Project Timeline /Work Plan

Work Plan
S/n	Activities	Time Line
1	Call for Applications	7th- 20th September
2	Researcher/ Collection of data	7th- 20th September
3	Sorting, Selection and announcement of Successful applicants for the training	21st -25th September
4	Social Media Campaign	Mid September- mid November
5	Training (3sets of Training)	1st Set: 28th Sept- 2 Oct 2nd Set: 5th-9th Oct 3rd Set: 12th-17th Oct
6	Writing Competition	2nd-15th November
7	Review of articles	16th- 30th November
8	Announcement of Result	2nd December

Basic Wikipedia Modular Training

To kick-off, we organized three Basic Wikipedia Modular Trainings to open up the world of Wikipedia to African Women! Studies have shown that most of the articles on Wikipedia are written from Europe and the US – and articles written from Africa are mainly written by men.

Therefore, the aim was to particularly encourage African Women to learn about Wikipedia and to take up the important task of adding knowledge to Wikipedia.

The Basic Wikipedia Modular Training took place ONLINE in October and consisted of 5 sessions that lasted 2 hours each from Monday to Friday.

Schedule of Basic Wikipedia Training

Schedule of Basic Wikipedia Training
Date	Activities	Facilitators	Links to Training Video
28th Sept 5th & 12th Oct	Cheat Sheet of Wikipedia editing	Sam Oyeyele	Cheat Sheet of Wikipedia editing
29th Sept 6th & 13th Oct	Basic Wikipedia editing and how to cite a reference	Uzoma Ozurumba	Wikipedia Basic Training : Basic Wikipedia editing and how to cite a reference
30th Sept 7th $ 14th Oct.	Flow of Creating Wikipedia Page	Ayokanmi Oyeyemi	Wikipedia Basic Training : Flow of Creating Wikipedia Page
1th,8th & 15th Oct	Copyright & Free licenses (Wikimedia Commons)	Olatunde Isaac	Copyright & Free licenses (Wikimedia Commons)
2nd,9th & 16th Oct	Translation of articles into other language versions of Wikipedia: How to use the content translation tool	Samuel Okepefi	Translation of articles into other language versions of Wikipedia: How to use the content translation tool

Writing & Translating Competition: Nigerian Heroines

The Writing & Translating Competition is a national contest designed to celebrate and improve the visibility of Nigerian women. This means that the articles can be about any Nigerian woman who has made an impact – in the past or present. You could either translate an already existing English article into one of the Nigerian languages present on Wikipedia or create a completely new article in any of the languages.

The contest will be organised in all the four Wikimedia communities in Nigeria:

Hausa Wikipedia
Igbo Wikipedia
Yoruba Wikipedia
English Wikipedia

The contest runs from November 2nd until November 22nd, 2020.

Winners will be announced on the 2nd of December 2020.

What prizes are offered?

The competition will award a laptop to the winner and a smartphone for runner up for each Writing Competition ( En, ha,ig, and yo).

Judging ( Rules)

A jury consisting of (1) community liaison officers and (2) experienced Wikimedians from each community will decide on the criteria for the writing competition.

Scoring Sheet
Element	Exemplary 3	Proficient 2	Partially Proficient 1	Unsatisfactory 0	Points
Content	Is it reasonably well written? It provides a fresh and balanced perspective on the topic.	Provides original ideas with a minimum of personal bias.	Provides one or two original ideas which include some personal bias.	Does not provide any original ideas and personal bias is obvious.	____/3
Content	The content is very neutral with fair representation without bias	The content is moderately neutral with fair representation without bias	The content is fairly neutral with fair representation without bias	The content is not neutral	____/3
Content	The prose is excellently clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors	The prose is moderately clear and concise, without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors.	Provides only minimal understanding, or reflective thought about the topic with some copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors.	Provides no understanding or reflective thought about the topic and contains too many copyvios, spelling and Grammar errors	____/3
Content	Excellent Manual of Style (MOS) compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists	Good Manual of Style (MOS) compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists	Fair Manual of Style (MOS) compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists	Poor Manual of Style (MOS) compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists	____/3
Content	It is factually accurate and verifiable.	It is moderately accurate and verifiable	It is fairly accurate and verifiable.	It is poorly accurate and verifiable	____/3
Wiki-Links	Excellent Wiki-link to existing articles to enhance the information presented.	Good Wiki-link to existing articles to enhance the information presented	Fair Wiki-link to existing articles to enhance the information presented	Does not include any Wiki-links	____/3
Media files	The article contains a high-quality image(s) with an appropriate caption	The article contains a quality image(s) with an appropriate caption	The article contains a fair quality image(s) with an appropriate caption	The article does not contain any image(s) with an appropriate caption	____/3
Media files	Images are excellently tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content	Images are moderately tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content	Images are fairly tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content	Images do not contain any copyright information.	____/3
Citation	Consistently uses the standard bibliographic format to cite sources	Uses standard bibliographic format to cite sources most of the time.	Does not use standard bibliographic format to cite sources, and citations are incomplete	Does not cite any sources	____/3
Citation	Accurately cites all sources of information to support the credibility and authority of the	Most sources are cited accurately and support the credibility of the information presented.	Few sources are cited accurately and support the credibility of the information presented	Does not provide any accurate information about the sources	____/3
Translation	Translation is done without a machine (Google Translation for example) in the language of the local Wikipedia with an excellent diacritical mark	Translation is done without a machine (Google Translation for example) in the language of the local Wikipedia with a moderate diacritical mark	Translation is done without a machine (Google Translation for example) in the language of the local Wikipedia with a no diacritical marks	Translation is done with a machine(Google Translation for example) with no diacritical marks	____/3
Category	The article is placed in the appropriate categories. It is placed in at least 3 categories	The article is placed in the appropriate categories. It is placed in at least 2 categories	The article is placed in the appropriate categories. It is placed in at least 1 categories	The article does not contain any category	____/3
Number of bytes of words	The article contains at least 3000 bytes of words	The article contains at least 2000 bytes of words	The article contains at least 2000 bytes of words	The article contains at least 1000 bytes of words	____/3