Wikimania 2018: Sessions on, or of interest to, Wikimedia projects in African languages

The 14th annual Wikimedia conference - Wikimania 2018 - starts today, 18 July, in Cape Town, South Africa, and runs through 22 July. It is the second Wikimania to be held on the African continent - the first being at Alexandria, Egypt in 2008 - and the first in Africa south of the Sahara.

Here is a quick look from afar at what Wikimania 2018 sessions in the conference program might treat questions related to African language editions of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, etc. - what we have previously referred to as "Afrophone Wikis."

Preconference

According to the program, the first two days - 18-19 July - are devoted to the Preconference, consisting of "various miniconferences and meetings." Among these, I'd make special note of the 2-day Decolonising the Internet Conference - "…the first ever conference about centering marginalized knowledge online!" Run by the NGO Whose Knowledge? (logo at right) as an invitation-only event, it has a theme that I'd consider of interest to increase African language presence on the internet.

Main conference

The main Wikimania conference follows, on 20-22 July. On the morning of the first day, Friday 20 July, there is a track devoted to Africa with three sessions, all of interest (titles link to project pages, which in some instances already have further links to slide presentations):

• Babel's Tower: South Africa's Wikipedias: An overview and discussion of Wikipedia editions in South Africa's languages (focusing on the 11 official languages), and ways to address the poor development in most of those, including "possible interventions via both educational strategies and technological options." The presentation is by Michael Graaf, who wrote his dissertation at the University of Cape Town on South Africa's Wikipedias.
• Africa's Wikipedias: "A panel to discuss the interesting challenges and possibilities of the Wikipedia language editions of Africa. Includes review of new tech to amplify efforts of editors." Panel includes several editors of African language Wikipedias (Afrikaans, Arabic, Swazi, Tsonga, and Xhosa).
• The quotation of oral sources in a decolonization context: Discussion of how to incorporate oral citations in a resource that generally requires citation of written (ideally published) sources. Reference to an oral citations project in Namibia. Presentation by Bobby Shabangu and Stefanie Kastner.

That same morning, there is another session of particular interest from the perspective of working on African language projects (unfortunately conflicting with the Africa track):

• What tools do we need for small Wikis to increase content and quality?: "This presentation will offer tools especially conceived for medium and small Wikis. From Wikidata-based infoboxes to template translators, those tools will be described taking Arabic Wikipedia as an example." Presentation by User:Helmoony.

 In the afternoon of the same day, another Africa-specific session that might have some content relevant to languages:

• Coolest African Projects - Be inspired: Spotlights relatively unknown projects and activities by African Wikimedia affiliates. Presentation by Emna Mizouni, Felix Nartey, and User:Thuvack.

On the second day of the main conference, Saturday 21 July, the morning session has several sessions of special interest, including three in the Languages track:

• Wikipedia for Indigenous Communities: Compares Western and OvaHerero (Namibia) approaches to knowledge, and discusses a project approaching Wiki editing in a way more acceptable to their community. Presented by Peter Gallert.
• How majorities can support minority languages: Although description does not indicate Africa content, it deals with how people in positions of relative power (in this case speakers of dominant languages) can help those in positions of less power (speakers of "minority" languages) with their Wikipedia projects. Presentation by Jon Harald Søby, Astrid Carlsen, Jean-Philippe Béland, and User:Barrioflores.
• Including minority languages in Wikimedia projects, a strategic approach: Again, no specific Africa content indicated, but a possibly relevant discussion of how to include minority languages in Wikimedia projects. Presentation by Ahmed Houamel-Bachounda.

Also in the morning, sessions dealing with Africa in the Education track (thus conflicting with the above), but without indication whether African language projects will be discussed, or just major Europhone language projects like English & French:

• How do teachers in Chad use Wikipedia to fill the knowledge gap?: Session "aims to explain how some Chadian teachers who were trained to use Wikipedia convinced their students not only to stop plagiarizing Wikipedia but also to contribute to Wikipedia and thus start the principle of sharing knowledge." Presentation by Abdallah Azibert.
• Activating the next generation : Wikipedia in Schools: Discussion of use of Wikipedia in schools, including by WikiAfrica Schools and WikiChallenge Africa Schools. Presentation by Isla Haddow-Flood and User:Anthere.

Source: Commons.WikiMedia.org

On the morning of the last day, Sunday 22 July, four sessions in the Communication track look interesting from the point of view of African language projects (even though none of these are specifically mentioned in the session descriptions except for the last one):

• Working towards Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia (GLOW): Discusses a 2017 collaboration among Wikimedia Foundation, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Wikimedia India chapter (WMIN), user groups and external partners on a "pilot project in India to encourage local Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant articles in Indian languages." The results will inform development of the GLOW program, which is explained. Presentation by Jack Rabah and Rupika Sharma.
• Record every language of the world village by village, with Lingua Libre: Discusses project to facilitate "the recording process of words in any language (even minor languages or dialects), uploading them to Wikimedia Commons and reusing them on other projects such as Wiktionary, Wikipedia or Wikidata." Presentation by User:0x010C.
• Every Language in the World: Introducing Wikitongues: Focuses "on the activities coordinated by Wikitongues, a not-for-profit organization promoting the use and preservation of every language in the world" through collection of oral histories. Presentation by Daniel Bogre Udell.
• Diglossia and Multilingualism: A help or a Hindrance to Arabic Wikipedians?: Explores "the ways students who are native speakers of Arabic [which has a standard & many vernacular forms] in a multilingual educational system overcome the obstacle of sharing knowledge by using a common idiom while allowing millions of readers engage with the content they create. This session will also suggest solutions for communities with similar language challenges inspired by the educational model used in Arabic-speaking schools that participate in the 'Student Write Wikipedia' program." Presented by Bekriah S. Mawasi.

The above should not be interpreted as meaning that other sessions would not be of interest. This is a subjective selection based on my reading of the descriptions. On the whole it is nice to note the optimism in several cases, with regard to African language projects, and also the efforts to accommodate and integrate oral content and sources.

By coincidence, the timing of Wikimania 2018 corresponds with the 40th anniversary of the Niamey expert meeting on transcription and harmonization of African languages, so I'll draw some connections between the two seemingly very different events in the next post.

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Note: The first two images above are from the webpages for the event (Wikimania 2018) or organization (Whose Knowldge?) concerned. Attribution of the third image can be found on the linked Wikimedia Commons page.