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Empowering Women

in the

Digital Age

Through Open Knowledge

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"Imagine a world in which every single human being(especially African women) can freely share in the sum of all human knowledge“�

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Do you think it is possible?

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About Us

The African Wiki Women is a growing African Women’s community collaboratively addressing the underrepresentation of African women on Wikipedia and its sister’s project by empowering them with the necessary skills and support to thrive as contributors and leaders within the open knowledge community.

�Our Socials Contacts:�Facebook | X | Instagram | LinkedIn | ���

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Blessing Linason

Blessing Linason is a certified Librarian and the Program Coordinator for the Africa Wiki women, Blessing co-founded the Kwara State University fan club and actively participated in various training programs. Her involvement in project management includes co-organizing initiatives like Wiki Glam Awareness, Wiki-Cred for information professionals, Wikipedia awareness for Library and Information Science Students.

Bukola James

Bukola James is a certified Librarian and a Co-founder of Africa Wiki Women and Learnovation Foundation Network. She has been an active Wikimedian since 2020. She serves as the Community Coordinator for the Africa Wikipedian Alliance, Special Adviser for the Wikipedia + Education User Group. Additionally, Bukola is the Regional Liaison for Sub-Saharan Africa in the Let's Connect peer working group and an active member of the Creative Commons Open Culture Platform. Her work within the Wikimedia community has been focused on fostering community engagement and promoting open knowledge.

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Table of Contents

01

02

  • What is Wikimedia?
  • Wikimedia Communities and Projects
  • Introduction to Wikipedia
  • Wikipedia Basics
  • Misconceptions of Wikipedia
  • Contributing to Wikipedia
  • Wikipedia needs more African Women!
  • Maintaining a Good Online Profile on Wikipedia
  • Q&A and Interactive Discussion

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What is Wikimedia

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  • Wikimedia is a collection of open source websites that empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

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  • The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is a nonprofit organisation, founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales  and based in San Francisco U.S.A.
  • The Foundation raises money, distributes grants, controls the servers, develops and deploys software, and does outreach to support Wikimedia projects.

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  • It does this through various projects, individuals and institutions/organised groups.

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Wikimedia Communities and projects

  • The Wikimedia Communities are made up of people who are passionately collecting, contributing, and share all human knowledge freely.
  • There are 146 registered Wikimedia affiliated groups globally.
  • We currently have 16 thematic hubs and 40 User Groups in Africa based on region and languages.
    • Volunteers
    • User groups, Hubs, and Chapters
    • Fan Clubs
  • It has 16 domains/Websites that are edited and improved by this community of volunteers around the world.

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The 16 Wikimedia Projects

  • It has 16 domains/Websites that are edited and improved by a community of volunteers around the world.

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Wikipedia Basics

  • Wikipedia is coined from the words wiki and encyclopedia.
  • A Wiki however, is a website which allows collaborative editing of content and structure by its users.
  • Created on January 15, 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.
  • Over 56 million articles in 329+ languages across different Wiki pages
  • It’s not a finished project! It’s always evolving!
  • The English Wikipedia has the most articles of any edition, at 6,796,564 as of 13th March 2024.[5]

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Misconceptions of Wikipedia

  • Wikipedia is a secondary source. Wikipedia is a tertiary source (Reference material).
  • Edits done to a Wikipedia article cannot be reversed. New edits can be deleted or reversed and old edits can be restored if necessary.
  • Anyone can add their opinion to Wikipedia and claim it as fact. Opinions are not allowed on Wikipedia and we have reviewers and administrators patrolling articles.

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  • All Wikipedia Articles are unreliable and unverifiable. We use grading scheme for determines the readability and usability by academia and readers.
  • All Wikipedia Articles are prone to vandalism. Controversial, sensitive or vandalism-prone pages have been protected to varying degrees.[1
  • Wikipedia makes people lazy, they’re more likely to commit plagiarism. When properly introduced and explained, Wikipedia actually empowers individuals to do self-directed research using the encyclopedia as a starting point.

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Contributing to Wikipedia

  • In order to contribute factual based and verifiable information on Wikipedia we make use of the 5 pillars and core content policies of Wikipedia.

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    • Core content policies;
      • Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) i.e written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias.
      • Verifiability (WP:V) i.e people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source.
      • No original research (WP:NOR) i.e all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. 

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  • 5 pillars of Wikipedia;
      • 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.

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Wikipedia needs more African Women!

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  • Women make up half of the world’s population; (49.7% in globally; 50.14% in Africa).
  • But only 19% of all biographies on Wikipedia are about women. And only 13% of Wikipedia editors identify as women.
  • Women make up 49% of all @Wikipedia readers, but only 20% of new Wikipedia editors identify as women. @Wikimedia volunteers are working to #ChangeTheStats. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wikipedia-needs-more-women
  • The sub-Saharan African population(1.21.billion) is one of the fastest-growing in the world but there is still inadequate Wikipedia articles about the region.
  • The gap is even bigger when it comes to women.

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Together we can change the Stats!!!

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Maintaining an Excellent Profile on Wikipedia

For African Women to maintain an excellent profile on Wikipedia they must comply with the following key points.

  • Visibility Matters:
    • Be visible on Wikipedia to showcase achievements and increase recognition.
    • Establish as leaders and role models, challenging stereotypes.
  • Amplifying Voices:
    • Share experiences and achievements globally.
    • Counteract stereotypes and foster inclusivity.
  • Guidelines for Success:
    • Ensure accuracy and reliability.
    • Keep content relevant and neutral.
    • Consistently update and engage with the community
    • Encourage engagement and feedback from the Wikipedia community.

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Building a Brilliant WikiPage for African Women!

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Whether you are making a new page, or improving an existing one, there are some key features that can help to make it useful & navigable.

They include:

    • Lead section
    • Heading
    • WikiLinks
    • References
    • Categories
    • Infoboxes
    • Pictures
    • Succession boxes
    • Library resources
    • Sisters projects
    • Authority control
    • Other templates

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Together we can change the Stats!!!

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Further Reading

Training Slides to guide: Wikimedia promotion,Introduction to Wikimedia /Wikipedia, Introduction to Wikipedia, How to create a Wikipedia account, How to edit Wikipedia articles, Verifiability, NPOV tutorial, Adding Infoboxes, Accessing information RWC, Evaluating Information RWC and Creating Information RWC.

Videos: Introduction to editing Wikipedia, How to create a userpage, How to edit existing Wikipedia pages right away, Editing Wikipedia using the visual editor, Creating a Wikipedia article from scratch, Creating Wikipedia articles 2, Moving your article to the main space, Adding Infoboxes, Adding images to Wikipedia articles, What do I need to do to get my articles published, How to edit using sandboxes, How to create multiple sandboxes, Editing articles for WikiFocus, Training resources for WikiLovesLibraries, and Posting a message of Wikilove on Wikipedia.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directed_acyclic_graph
  • https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Categories

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Thank you

very much!

Questions!!