CentralNotice/Request/Africa Growth Pilot call for participants

Africa Growth Pilot call for participants

• FNartey (WMF) (talk · contribs · page moves · block user · block log), primary contact (Requested at 09:04, 3 August 2023 (UTC))

Central Notice Settings
What is the campaign duration? 4th August 2023 → 16th August 2023 Which projects will you be targeting? Wikipedia/MetaWiki/Commons What languages will you be targeting? English Do you wish to show banners to Logged In users, Anonymous Users or Both? Do you want to target users with a specific number of edits or average monthly? Logged in users What countries will your campaign target? Countries in sub-Saharan Africa Banner/Campaign Diet: To be determined by Central Notice admin

What is the purpose of the campaign? How will you measure the success of the campaign?

Description - The Africa Growth Project Pilot aims to improve community efforts by creating a better online learning experience to maximize the impact of volunteer work. The course will be provided on WikiLearn, focusing on training current and new editors in understanding the fundamentals of contributing to Wikipedia and exploring different ways to contribute. within the Wikimedia movement

Metrics -

What banner(s) will you use? What will be your landing page?

Banners -
Use the standard banner with logo File:Africa Growth Project Circle purple no line.png and text "Join the Africa Growth Project Pilot to understand the basics of contributing to Wikipedia and learn about the many ways to contribute beyond article writing. Apply from August 4 - 16, 2023"
Landing Page - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Africa_Growth_Pilot/Live_Tutorials_on_Core_Policies

Is this project grant funded? Please provide a link

Type of grant -

Link to grant -

Central Notice admin comments

Hi FNartey (WMF), thanks for the request! I have a couple of questions:

1. The requested campaign start date (August 04) is in the past, and cannot be met even if the request is expedited (it's generally recommended to request campaigns at least 10 days in advance, ideally more). How do you wish to handle this? Should the campaign end date (August 16) be respected (and the campaign shortened), or do you prefer a different solution?
2. At the moment, there are three other campaigns happening simultaneously at enwiki (DiscussionTools try out campaign, Movement Charter drafts July 2023 campaign and Wikimania 2023 registration campaign). According to the Usage guidelines for CentralNotice, the official limit is two campaigns per any project/language/country combination (which is already violated); enabling a fourth campaign would make this even worse violation (especially considering all four campaigns seem to be WMF-requested or WMF-sponsored).
3. Would you mind clafifying Countries in sub-Saharan Africa for me please? Ideally, please enumerate all countries in which the campaign should run (as that's what I need to enter into the admin interface).
4. If I understand the requested settings correctly, the campaign should only run on English Wikipedia, Commons and Meta-Wiki, and the banner should only display in the English language. Is that correct? If so, were the communities informed about the upcoming campaign (and where please)? Communication with targetted communities is important for having successful campaigns (and also required by the request campaign process, see the steps at CNR for details).

A courtesy FYI to Asaf (WMF), who pinged me about this campaign off-wiki.

Sincerely, ---Martin Urbanec (talk) 08:33, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi Martin Urbanec! I'll leave the other questions to Asaf (WMF) and FNartey (WMF), but regarding #3, would you prefer ISO codes, country names, or another format? RMaung (WMF) (talk) 14:33, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@RMaung (WMF) Thanks for your answer. Country names would be ideal for me! Martin Urbanec (talk) 19:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Martin Urbanec! Here are the countries: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, French Southern and Antarctic Lands, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Réunion; Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha; Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, São Tomé and Príncipe, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe. RMaung (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Martin Urbanec,

1. I appreciate your attention to the request and I acknowledge the time limit. We would be pleased if, once approved, you allow the campaign to run until the specified end date (August 16).
2. If our banner request cannot be run on enwiki for the aforementioned reason, we would appreciate it if you could consider the other two wiki platforms requested in our proposal. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
3. So these will be anglophone countries in sub-Sahara Africa. However if you require a conclusive list of countries in. what format would you want them as requested by my colleague @RMaung (WMF).
4. You are correct. So a broader call was sent on the Wikimedia-l, however targeted emails have since been sent to African communities via group chats on Telegram, Facebook and the African mailing list.

Let me know if I missed anything, thanks! FNartey (WMF) (talk) 15:16, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I suggest we remove majority francophone, lusophone and arabophone countries, as well as small territories, so a more streamlined list would be:

• Botswana
• Cameroon
• Ethiopia
• Eritrea
• Gambia
• Ghana
• Kenya
• Lesotho
• Liberia
• Malawi
• Namibia
• Nigeria
• Rwanda
• Sierra Leone
• Somaliland
• South Africa
• Swaziland
• Tanzania
• Uganda
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

Thanks. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 14:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the country list @Asaf (WMF). I'm leaving out Somaliland, as it is not available in WMF's geolocation system. Somalia is available though (of which Somaliland is a part of) -- do you want to use that instead?

In any case: please verify the geolocation as set at [1]. Martin Urbanec (talk) 15:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi Asaf (WMF), FNartey (WMF) and RMaung (WMF), thanks for the answers. This is now  Approved, considering it will only run for a couple of days, and is fairly narrowly targetted. Even though I'm approving this request now, it is on the edge of the guidelines (both in terms of advance notice and in terms of banner concurrency), and it would be great if we can avoid this with future requests. I've prepared a banner draft at [2] -- can one of you please review it and let me know if it needs any changes? Sincerely, --Martin Urbanec (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, looks good to me! And yes, the country list looks right, and please add Somalia. We are taking steps to better coordinate CN requests across WMF to prevent such difficulties from now on. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 15:51, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay, Somalia is now added. Enabled We should now be live (campaigns ends on August 16, as requested). Martin Urbanec (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2023 (UTC)