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Africa, with nearly one-billion people, 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profile of any region on the internet; moreover, what does appear is often selective, lacks context and reinforces outdated stereotypes. Africa deserves a new deal – and especially 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 including regional WikiProjects (especially 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 (click here, for more information).;
- 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 or the Project page above to contribute to WikiAfrica!
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Wikipedia in a nutshell
Wikipedia is a free, online multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. It has been created by thousands of everyday people. Since its launch in 2001, Wikipedia has accumulated an archive of 30 million pages in around 287 languages. The English language version has over 4.3 million articles. Wikipedia is one of the 5 most popular Web sites on the Internet.
In addition to Wikipedia, the non-profit Wikimedia foundation oversees several other open-content projects, including:
- Wiktionary, a dictionary and thesaurus
- Wikibooks, a collection of free texts and other books
- Wikiquote, a collection of quotations
- Wikisource, a collection of free source documents
- Wikiversity, a collection of free learning materials
- Wikispecies, a directory of species
- Meta-Wiki, which coordinates all the other projects.
External links
- Afripédia - project to create communities of Wikipedia editors in Africa (in French)
- Afrophonewikis, mailinglist about Wikipedias in African languages
WikiAfrica is a collaborative and international project designed to make Africans contribute to the Wikipedia language versions. The project will promote a new method of acquiring and sharing knowledge that is fully-inclusive, mainstream, intercultural and relevant to contemporary and historic Africa. The project aims to assist and support the growth of Wikipedia as a free and open encyclopedia that provides greater access to Africa's wealth of contemporary and historic realities. This is done through networks, research, projects, publications, and events. WikiAfrica contributes to Wikimedia projects online and also works externally with texts, quotes, images, audio and video.
Why WikiAfrica
Over the last ten years, Africa’s users of the Internet have increased nine times faster than European and twenty times faster than North American users. There are over 110 million people living in Africa today actively using the Internet on a regular basis, with an expected annual increase of 10 million new users per annum. Uniquely, much of this growth is happening via cell phone technology with Africa representing the highest mobile Internet usage patterns of any continent on the planet.
Unfortunately however, Africa remains the least visible continent on the Internet. Comprehensive, current and eclectic information on Africa is conspicuous by its absence. This invisibility is apparent whether we look for events, people and places of global historic importance, literature, science, art or any other information, or for present day activities, accomplishments, thoughts and news. The two billion people now using the Internet as their primary source for research, information and knowledge cannot access a broad, deep, rich understanding of what Africa was, what it is today and what is possible in the future.
Since 2001 Wikipedia has emerged as the single most important online source of information freely accessible to anyone anywhere. Wikipedia is the most popular online reference system, the most effective secondary source, the most edited and discussed encyclopaedia online and one of the first entries on search engines. The project is a collaboration between lettera27[1] and Africa Centre[2]. The project was initiated by Lettera27 in 2006. Both organizations believe that Wikipedia is the ideal tool for addressing the problems of Africa’s absence on the Internet.
Plan
The WikiAfrica Archive intends to encourage and support the creation or expansion of 30,000 Wikipedia articles over two years. During this period the focus will be on content related to literature, art, cinema and other cultural products. It will not exclude anything that falls outside of these categories, but will focus most of its energy in these areas. The principal reason is because these categories offer the greatest opportunities to find organisations around the African continent that both have existing archival material that is readily accessible, and who are predisposed to promoting the content they have in an online medium. WikiAfrica creates networks, involves users, facilitates the participation and access to Wikimedia projects, as well as providing analytical and exploratory tools and instruments, generating new content and research, gathering funds for scholarships, and supporting present and active resources.
The following outlines the expected outcomes and deliverables for the WikiAfrica project for the first two years. WikiAfrica intends to:
- Produce and expand 30,000 Wikipedia articles about Africa. Achieving this goal will make a meaningful and permanent contribution to the knowledge base available online that relates to the African content;
- Expand the African content that is already available online and improve the existing articles by combining sources and promoting the participation of experts;
- Provide a catalyst for the online community both in Africa and beyond to actively participate in generating new articles and subjects relating to and relevant for contemporary Africa; and
- Advocate and implement the use of a Creative Commons license approach to content available on the Internet. Creative Commons provides a mechanism to maintain copyright conditions for works such as software, documents, music and art on the internet. For more information on licenses and Wikipedia, click here.
Initially the project was called La Palabre, which is loosely translated to mean discuss, talk or share. A proverb from Mali says “La Palabre is precious, because in the afterlife there is none.” The proverb emphasizes the importance of dialogue, verbal exchange, socialization, and mediation. It is in this spirit that WikiAfrica wishes to operate, helping to expand and improve information available about Africa online.