Wikimania 2023/Scholarships/Wikimedia South Africa/Lefcentreright Report

I, Jan-Hendrik du Toit, otherwise known as User:Lefcentreright on Wikimedia projects had the privilege of receiving a scholarship to attend Wikimania 2023 at the Suntec Convention Centre in Singapore. Since 2017, I've been a regular editor on the English Wikipedia. I joined the Afrikaans Wikipedia in May 2019 before becoming a regular editor during the COVID-19 lockdowns from March 2020. I was fortunate enough to be appointed an administrator on the Afrikaans Wikipedia in June 2020. In April 2023, I had the privilege of becoming a member of the Wikimedia South Africa board.

It was my first time leaving the African continent and travelling to Asia.

Sessions I attended

16 August 2023

I attended the following sessions: Wikipedia Basics Workshop. Workshop on Simple Digitization, Uploading and Indexing Public Domain text in Wikisource, Basics of Editing Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons Basics Workshop, Wikisource in Uganda, Workshop on Manuscript Digitization of Wikisource Loves Manuscripts (showcase) and Helping Wikisource recognize handwritten documents.

I attended the opening of the Wikimania Conference in the Plenary Hall later that same day.

I admit that I did follow fellow Southern African scholarship recipient, Ingrid Thomson, around as I was unsure what to expect.

17 August 2023

I became more independent on this day and attended sessions on my own.

I attended the following sessions:

The "Bashkir Wikipedia - 18 years of sustainable development" workshop hosted by Bashkir Wikimedian Rustam Bеy Nuryev. The Bashkirs are an ethnic group native indigenous to Asia, concentrated in the Republic of Bashkortostan, a federal subject of the Russian Federation. I felt that it was a necessity for me to attend this lecture as I'm an administrator of a smaller language Wikipedia and I wanted to hear what a prolific editor of this Wikipedia had to say on how to recruit people to edit Wikipedia and how to navigate editing a smaller language Wikipedia. What I learned is that the Afrikaans Wikipedia must be popularised like the Bashkir Wikipedia because popularisation leads to awareness which leads to people knowing of this Wikipedia and ultimately deciding to contribute. The Afrikaans Wikipedia community should also constantly look for volunteers by regularly holding events. The Bashkir Wikipedia awards medals and certificates to its most prolific editors as a way for them to honour editors and increase editor retention. This is something we should consider on the Afrikaans Wikipedia.
Part of the "Secrets of effective editing workshops" workshop by Ukrainian Wikimedian Nataliia Tymkiv. What I learned from this workshop is that it is important for editing workshops to be as straightforward as possible in order to encourage people to become Wikipedia editors. Workshops must not contain complex jargon which could leave participants and prospective Wikimedians feeling more confused and skeptical of Wikimedia than before the workshop.
"ChatGPT vs. WikiGPT: Challenges and Opportunities in harnessing generative AI for Wikimedia Projects" panel discussion in the Plenary. The past few years have seen the rise of artificial intelligence, particularly ChatGPT. It is only a matter of time before Wikimedians start utilising ChatGPT on Wikimedian projects. While artificial intelligence has immense potential for Wikimedia projects, we should also be aware of the risks.
The "Decolonizing knowledge — a perspective from the Ukrainian community workshop" hosted by Ukrainian Wikimedians Nataliia Tymkiv and 2023 honourable mention in the Wikimedian of the Year award, Anton Protsiuk. The Ukrainian language had been suppressed by the Russian Empire since the 18th century. I listened to how Ukrainian Wikimedians struggled for nearly a decade and a half to change the toponym of the Ukrainian capital on the English Wikipedia from "Kiev" to "Kyiv" as in the Ukrainian language.
The "Aotearoa Pasifika performance". This was a beautiful performance to witness in the Plenary Hall.
The "Relaunch of Healthcare Translation" workshop hosted by Wikimedian James Heilman. I learned that WikiProject Medicine has a translation dashboard on this link to translate articles on the English Wikipedia to other Wikipedias. This tool can potentially come in handy for the Afrikaans Wikipedia.

18 August 2023

On this day, I attended the following sessions:

The "Better Sharing in a World with AI: Creative Commons Looks Ahead" panel hosted by Kat Walsh, Catherine Stihler, and Nate Angell. I learned that with Creative Commons licenses one can freely share pictures, research, etc. Creative Commons licenses can be found on Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, etc. There is a Creative Commons Global Summit happening in Mexico City from 3–6 October 2023. With “Better Sharing” Illustrations, there is universal access to knowledge and culture. It signifies progress, collaboration and social solidarity. Creative Commons has created legal infrastructure for the web and AI can be good for the Commons because it can be used to help build works of knowledge and scholarship.
The "Decolonizing knowledge through languages: why making Wikimedia more multilingual and multimodal matters" roundtable which included Ishan Chakraborty, Paska Darmawan, Dumisani Ndubane, Claudia Pozo. Some key points that I can take away from this panel discussion are that many people use Wikipedia to learn and content on Wikipedia can have a large impact on search results on Google. Many people can't access the internet in English, therefore it is important for them to have access to content that is in a language which they can understand.
The "A new approach to contributor growth in Africa" lecture by Dumisani Ndubane and Asaf Bartov. What I learned from this lecture is that African online penetration will be similar to global trends by 2023 and that prospective editors are currently not knowledgeable of Wikimedia (its platform, policies and culture). This new project's goal is to have close to 5,000 active African editors by 2030 and will use the Big Funnel Approach which will welcome prospective editors. Only in Stage 2 of this project is where the investment in training new editors will begin to take place. The project has this approach because people want step-by-step instructions on how to edit Wikipedia, the current "status quo" (current resources on how to learn to edit Wikipedia are either nonexistent or out of date) and it will proactively seek out new editors. The curriculum of this project will have two introductory modules and then two core modules on the core policies of Wikipedia.
The "The Case for NC Commons" lecture by James Heilman and South African Wikimedian Douglas Ian Scott. There are millions of images not suitable for Wikimedia Commons because they have NC licenses. nccommons.org is not yet a sister website of Wikimedia. The benefit of having NC Commons as a sister website is that it will grow the Wikimedia movement and improve what we offer to readers. If I can get the editors of the Afrikaans Wikipedia on board, we can begin the process to include it as a sister project.
Lastly, the Afrika Baraza. It was wonderful to interact with fellow African Wikimedians by playing bingo and discussing the African Agenda.

19 August 2023

On the final day of the conference, I attended the following sessions:

The "Higher Education networking and meetup" with fellow scholarship recipients, Martin Hipangwa and Ingrid Thomson, where we discussed higher education as well the possibility of including Wikipedia.
"Resources for Incubator projects" lightning talk by Benny. I will for sure be using some of those resources for Afrikaans projects in the Incubator.
The "Engaging with Youth" talk by Youngjin Ko. I felt that it was important for me to attend this lecture as I am a youth. I was only 12 when I started editing the English Wikipedia and I would like to see more young people edit Wikipedia.

Finally, I attended the closing ceremony in the Plenary Hall.

Observation and general comments

I really enjoyed attending this conference, thanks to the Wikimedia South Africa scholarship. It was my first time leaving Africa. I met so many new people, including fellow South African Wikimedian Dumisani Ndubane, Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander as well as Wikimedia co-founder Jimmy Wales just to name a few. It really made me view Wikimedia in a completely different light/perspective.

I used to wrongly believe that it was just me and Wikimedia, but attending this conference made me realise that I am part of a bigger global community to bring free educational content to the world. I am not alone when I edit; there are people who edit beside me to help Wikimedia reach its goal.

Attending this conference made me more motivated to edit Wikimedia projects, such as the Afrikaans Wikipedia and the English Wikipedia. One could say it "energised" me to edit Wikimedia.

I found all talks/workshops I attended interesting and I hope to use what I heard to improve the Wikimedia projects I work on, such as the Afrikaans Wikipedia. I would like to see more recognition (certificates and/or medals) given to prolific editors to increase editor retention.

Final thoughts

Receiving a scholarship to attend Wikimania and attending the conference was really a life-changing experience for me. I learned so much and I got to meet many new people and build connections. It completely changed the way I approach Wikimedia. I am really thankful to Wikimedia South Africa for giving me a scholarship to attend such an event.