WM ZA/October 2022

This page summarises the activities of Wikimedia South Africa between 15 to 21 October 2022. This was noted as a particularly eventful week for the chapter, hence this mini-report. The chapter would also like to welcome new members to the community mailing list following these events and would like to note the growth in community health.

Edit-Your-Pride

Participants at the Edit Your Pride event at the Iziko Museum of Natural History in Cape Town.

Participants at the Edit Your Pride event in Johannesburg.

The Edit Your Pride event was hosted by Wikimedia South Africa in partnership with Iziko Museums on Saturday 15 October 2022. The event was held in two locations at once with the main event taking place at the Iziko Museum of Natural History in Cape Town and a second event, held at the same time, at The Forge in Johannesburg.

The primary purpose of the event was to increase awareness of Wikipedia and how to start editing; with a long term intention of growing the Wikipedia editing community in South Africa and increase diversity by encouraging the inclusion of the LGBT community. The secondary purpose of the event was to increase and improve content on Wikipedia relevant to the LGBT community.

Chapter members involved in hosting this event were: IngridThomson, Discott, Bobbyshabangu & michaelgraaf

Cape Flats Book Festival

Some of the participants of the Cape Flats Book Festival Wikipedia session posing for a group photograph.

Wikimedia South Africa hosted a session at the Cape Flats Book Festival on Sunday 16 October 2022. This was an outreach effort to increase awareness of Wikipedia and how it works. Discussions and a long two hour Q&A was held to answer questions about Wikipedia, NPOV, good sources, how to edit and/or start a Wikipedia article, and conflict of editing rules.

About 5 or 6 people participated in the event with the chapter being invited back to Festival in the following year. This event allowed the chapter to connect with an under represented demographic group on Wikipedia with the long term intention of increasing the diversity of the South African editing community.

Chapter members involved in this event were: Discott

Stellenbosch Afrikaans editor training

Participants at the Afrikaans language Wikipedia training event held in Stellenbosch.

On the 18th of October an editor training for Afrikaans language editors was hosted in Stellenbosch by the Woordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal (WAT) who made their facilities available and co-organised the event.

Chapter members involved in this event were: Oesjaar

Wiki Indaba

Wikimedia South Africa is assisting in the organisation of the WikiIndaba Conference 2022 which will take place from 4-6 November. The chapter has been assisting in a number of the logistical aspects of the conference. WikiIndaba is the Africa regional Wikimedia conference. This year's event will take place in Kigali, Rwanda and is hosted by the Wikimedia Community User Group Rwanda.

Chapter members involved in helping out with this event are: Bobbyshabangu

Other events

Other events that we have been working on the past week that we are excited about for the future include:

• Wiki Loves Plants: a regional photographic competition aimed at getting pictures onto Wikimedia Commons to help illustrate Wikipedia articles on plants. Currently the plan is to run the competition from December 2022 to the end of January 2023 but there is a possibility we might run it month later from January 2023 to February 2023 instead. More information to follow.
• WIPO membership application: this week WMZA received official notification that we were unsuccessful for WIPO observer status. It seems the letter was circulating in the postal system for a few months. The chapter had already known of the rejection since 15 July 2022 but only recieved the letter on 17 October 2022. The application, along with the applications of 6 other chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation, was rejected by China due to the Wikimedia communities recognition of Wikimedia Taiwan.
• Signed up for the Youth Day Africa Knowledge Initiative: this week Wikimedia South Africa signed up to host events in November to support the Africa Knowledge Initiative's Youth Day celebration. The event is part of the The WikiVibrance Project that looks to increase the number of young people within the Wiki community. Please let the chapter know if you want to get involved in this as we are currently looking for volunteers to help organise events.