Grants:TPS/Bobbyshabangu/Wikimania/2019/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2019!

Participant

Bobbyshabangu (talk) 14:43, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

WikimediaZA

Outcome

Option 1: Shared Experience: What is one way you shared something from your experience with your community (either locally or globally), after the event?

In the past I was frustrated whenever I run edit workshops that have over 6 participants because of the 6 account limit Wikimedia rule, this was because after the 6th participant create their account no other Wikimedia username can be created from the same IP address, so my solution was to ask participants to create usernames before they come to the event but even that did not always work because some participants come to the event without having created usernames but after this Wikimania I've learned how to do just that in different ways where I can ask for permission to be an coordinator where this rule will be lifted. I've also learned that I can create a dashboard and simple load the usernames there and this too can circumvent the 6 IP rule. Important links were also shared with me on editathons and other editing events which I find very useful.

There's also the movement strategy sessions I've attended while at Wikimania, this was very helpful in order to get an insight of the conversations that were talking place there, as well as participating in the strategy movement conversations. I was particularly interested in Capacity building and Diversity working group sessions. I then went back to South Africa and ran a strategy Youth Salon as well as facilitated a strategy workshop with my chapter and the themes we were talking about were the same ( Diversity and Capacity Building).

Add a link here to a blog post or newsletter you wrote about your participation afterwards, or to a meet-up you organized to share your experience with your local community.

You can read more about how I ran the movement strategy in South Africa in the link here.
See link here for how we ran and edit workshop with teachers and learners in Johannesburg.

Option 2: Learning Pattern: What is one useful learning pattern you can share with the Wikimedia movement?

Add a link to a learning pattern - either a new pattern you created with insights from your participation, or an existing pattern to which you added your endorsement and some significant new "considerations" or “examples” from your experience.

Option 3: New Creation: What was one useful outcome that was created at the event for the Wikimedia movement?

Add a link to something new that was created as a result of your participation in this event (for example, you might link to a new tool that you and your co-participants worked on at the Hackathon, or to pages created in a workshop you participated in).

Connections

There were a lot of useful connections I've made during this Wikimania but there are few that were a highlight, please see below response about my experience regarding my connections:

Having taken the decision to edit the SiSwati, Zulu and [1] Wikipedias more and edit less English Wikipedia, I found that there were challenges especially around infoboxes and categories, however after attending talks about how links work it did make m work simple when it comes to linking pages I've created to other Wikimedia pages in those language Wikipedias, and I've also discovered that if pages didn't link it makes them not count in that language project, and they remain orphan. This was run by user Amir Aharoni, we later connected on Telegram where he helped me translate the Zulu Wikipedia logo from Zulu to English. He also explained the concept of OTRS related to Wikimedia Commons to me which was a bit confusing.

Another eye opening connection was that about Wikidata and infoboxes presented by users Mike Peel, Deryck Chan and RexxS. Here I connected with Deryck_Chan who helped me with setting up info boxes especially in the Siswati Wikipedia.

Anything else

This was my second Wikimania, 1st one being in Cape Town. I liked everything about this Wikimania except the food. I think next time participants should be given a choice if they want a meat free diet or diet with meat. Otherwise the whole experience was great, the program was awesome, transportation was efficient and the pre-conference learning days were awesome as well, we've actually learned a lot from them because of their practicality and engagement.

One great thing about attending a conference like Wikimania is that it gives you to meet with other participants from your community then from there you have a chance to have meet-ups. We did have an African meetup.