Introduction to Wikimedia
Ayokanmi oyeyemi
30th November 2025
TransVisibility Campaign
Hello! I'm Ayokanmi
Programs Director for Wikimedia Nigeria
LGBTQ+ contributor
Linked data enthusiast.
Wikimedia community strategist.
Photographer.
(He/Him)
ayokanmi@wikimedia.org.ng
« Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. »
That’s our commitment
What is Wikimedia?
March 2000
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo"
Wales
(born August 7, 1966) is a British-
American Internet entrepreneur.
Lawrence Mark Sanger (born July 16, 1968) is an American internet project developer
began with its first edit on 15 January 2001
In August 2002, shortly after Jimmy Wales announced that he would never run commercial advertisements on Wikipedia, the URL of Wikipedia was changed from wikipedia.com to wikipedia.org (see: .com and .org).
Aug. 2002
On 20 June 2003, the Wikimedia Foundation was founded.
20 June 2003
Communications committee was formed in January 2006 to handle media inquiries and emails received for the foundation and Wikipedia
Jan. 2006
On 10 January 2006, Wikipedia became a registered trademark of Wikimedia Foundation
10 Jan. 2006
Has a Global reach
“Wikipedia is the single greatest Open Education resource the world has ever seen”
Jim Groom, Instructional technologist, speaking at #OER16
More accurate than you think
Not a social network
This training is delivered as part of Wiki For Human Right Campaign with Femmehive
TransVisibility camapign
…….an initiative to train transpersons so they can improve Wikipedia articles about transpersons.
Why TransVisibility?
Editing Wikipedia
By File:We_Can_Do_It!.jpg: J. Howard Miller, artist employed by Westinghouse, poster used by the War Production
Co-ordinating Committee derivative work: Tom Morris (This file was derived from We Can Do It!.jpg:) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
By Mono (Own work) [Public domain or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
Ways to Contribute
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Creating new articles around Nigeria Transpersons topics which can be for organizations, persons or a discussion.
You can contribute in your local Language
Adding pictures to articles.
Improving the quality of articles by adding citations or sources
Adding pronouns
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What should a Wikipedia article be?
A representation of summaries of dominant opinions on a subject
A hand curated annotated bibliography A starting point for further research
Screengrabs from Wikipedia, CC-BY-SA
What should a Wikipedia article not be?
About you, someone you know, or somewhere you work
Personal conjecture, or written like an essay
Unsourced, or copied word for word from another source
Screengrabs from Wikipedia, CC-BY-SA
The fundamental principles
of Wikipedia may be summarized in
pillars
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view
Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute
Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with
respect and civility
Wikipedia has no firm rules
pillars
The Marmot of Notability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability
If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are
independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list.
Inklein at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0]
The Conflict of Interest Capybara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest
Conflict of interest (COI) editing involves contributing to Wikipedia about yourself, family, friends, clients, employers, or your financial and other relationships.
COI editing is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia.
Editors with a COI, including paid editors, are expected to disclose it whenever they seek to influence an affected article's content.
CaplinRous at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]
The Reliable Sources Racoon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_s ources
Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.
By Ken Thomas (KenThomas.us (personal website of photographer)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Beware the Copyrighted Material Crocodile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyright_ violations
Wikipedia’s is text may be freely redistributed, reused and built upon by anyone.
Copying material without the permission of the copyright holder from sources that are not public domain or compatibly licensed is likely to be a copyright violation.
By Amada44 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The Vine Snake of Verifiability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability
In Wikipedia, verifiability means that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.
By @ Vikas patil photography (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The Neutral PoV Nine banded armadillo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_p oint_of_view
All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
By leppyone (Nine-banded Armadillo) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The No Original Research Nightingale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_origina l_research
Aka “no personal interpretation”
The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist.
By Frebeck (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Language Wikipedia at a glance
But first thing’s first –
What’s Wikidata, anyway?
Wikidata is a knowledge base
A database of structured, linked data multilingual
read by humans & machines open to all under a free license
It is Wikipedia’s youngest sister project
Launched October 29, 2012
Part of the Wikimedia Movement ecosystem
In short:
Wikidata is <3
Structured data, you say?
Claim = Item --> Property --> Value
Item is any topic (Wikipedia article, thing, person, place, concept, etc.)
Property is a specific single kind of data relevant to this item (e.g. height for mountains, capitals for countries, gender for humans)
Value is either a reference to another Item (the capital of Germany is Berlin) or a literal value (e.g. 8848 meters)
Items and Properties
An item is described by a series of claims, each asserting a single datum or fact about it.
A property is a specific kind of information, like a field in a form, and is used to describe what the data means.
Examples
An item about a country would have claims about the following properties: population, land area, official languages, borders-with, anthem, capital city, demonyms, Gross Domestic Product, etc. etc.
Examples
An item about a person would have claims about: name, date of birth/death, place of birth/death, citizenship, occupation, languages spoken, religion, sexuality, father, mother, children, notable works, place of education, etc. etc.
Claim examples (Item --> Property --> Value)
Earth --> highest-point --> Mount Everest
Mount Everest --> elevation above sea level --> 8848 meters
Earth --> deepest point --> Challenger Deep Challenger Deep --> elevation above sea level -->
-10,994±1 metre
Another way of looking at it
Earth -->
highest-point: Mount Everest deepest point: Challenger Deep
Challenger Deep -->
elevation above sea level: -10,994±1 metre
Mount Everest -->
elevation above sea level: 8848 meters
Once more with numeric IDs
Earth (Q2) --> highest-point (P610) --> Mount Everest (Q513)
Mount Everest (Q513) --> elevation above sea level (P2044) --> 8848 meters
Earth (Q2) --> deepest point (P1589) --> Challenger Deep (Q459173)
Challenger Deep (Q459173) --> elevation above sea level (P2044) --> -10,994±1 metre
Once more without squishy humanspeak
Q2 --> P610 --> Q513
Q513 --> P2044 --> 8848 meters Q2 --> P1589 --> Q459173
Q459173 --> P2044 --> -10,994±1 meters
Interlude: Why numbers?
Labels are ambiguous and sometimes redundant: What is Lagos?
State in Nigeria, in Portugal, state name, personal name, movie company, hotel?
Language-neutral - not everybody speaks English! Robot-friendly (robots love numbers ;)
Questions so far?
Let's go explore Wikidata!
Let's teach Wikidata Something new!
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:NewItem
Do I really have to just guess property names?
Nope. Here's a handy property browser: https://hay.toolforge.org/propbrowse/ https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:List_of_prope rties
Contributing to Wikidata to enhance Nigeria LGBTQ visibility
The Wikidata Game
Semi-automates micro-decisions and make incremental improvement of Wikidata super-fun.
Remember:
Wikidata is <3
Thanks! @ayokanmioyeyemi [[user:kaizenify]]
Any questions?