{"id":14382,"date":"2010-08-11T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-08-11T16:57:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T14:57:00","slug":"sa-to-get-wikimedia-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/14382-sa-to-get-wikimedia-chapter.html","title":{"rendered":"SA to get Wikimedia Chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A group of volunteers met on 7 and 8 August to discuss the creation of a local <a href=\"http:\/\/meta.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/Wikimedia_chapters\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Wikimedia Chapters: Meta-Wiki\">Wikimedia Chapter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With the support of the Wikimedia Foundation, The African Commons Project facilitated a meeting for local Wikipedians and other individuals interested in participating in a local Chapter.<\/p>\n<p>The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which supports such projects as Wikipedia, an online encyclopaedia which is free to use and free to contribute to or amend by anyone.<\/p>\n<p>Achal Prabhala, who is on the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory board, attended the meeting along with Delphine M&eacute;nard and Bence Damokos from the Wikimedia Chapters committee.<\/p>\n<p>Damokos and M&eacute;nard explained that local Wikimedia Chapters are a mechanism to structure the efforts of volunteers, be a partner for local institutions or organisations, as well as provide a local presence.<\/p>\n<p>Chapters usually take the form of non-profit, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are rooted in a country and that register according to local law, said Damokos and M&eacute;nard. They are also membership organisations that have an elected board.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the proceedings involved developing a draft vision and purpose for the Chapter which needs to be included in the founding documents to be submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Potential activities and initiatives were also brainstormed. These included running drives to acquire or generate content, rewarding local contributors, raising awareness and getting more people involved.<\/p>\n<p>The results of the discussion are visible on the <a href=\"http:\/\/meta.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/Wikimedia_South_Africa\" target=\"_blank\">South African Chapter&#8217;s Meta-Wiki page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>From the information presented by the representatives from the Wikimedia Foundation and Kerryn McCay, director of The African Commons Project, the setup of a local Chapter would take anything between 7 and 10 months.<\/p>\n<p>M&eacute;nard and Prabhala encouraged the volunteers in attendance that activities could still be arranged while the Chapter was being set up.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php\/257918-South-Africa-to-get-Wikimedia-Chapter\">Local Wikimedia chapter<\/a><\/strong> &lt;&lt; comments and views<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Volunteers gathered over the long weekend to discuss the establishment of a local Wikimedia Chapter in South Africa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14382"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}