Hello everyone,
It is a fact that for many African countries especially, a common
thing like a selfie with a national statue can be copyright infringement.
For some time now Wikimedia Ghana UG <https://wmghug.wordpress.com/>has
been learning what it needs to do to have Freedom of Panorama introduced in
Ghana.
Today we are happy to announce that following a session
<https://accra18.re-publica.com/en/session/freedom-panorama-why-free-knowled…>
on Freedom of Panorama with Douglas Scott of Wikipedia ZA at re:publica Accra
conference <https://accra18.re-publica.com/en>, we have put up a petition
on change.org for the President of Ghana to put his weight behind this.
Before you sign the petition you'll need to know this:
*Problem:*
Ghana's Copyright Act of 2003, Act 690 at the moment restricts Freedom of
Panorama.
Because of the restriction of Freedom of Panorama taking a photo or video,
or creating images or copies of monuments, buildings, sculptures and other
permanently public artwork including those belonging to the state could be
a crime.
*Our Request *
We are petitioning his excellency and our minister for the arts to have
Parliament revisit our Copyright Act of 2003, Act 690 and grant Freedom of
Panorama.
*About Fair Dealing In Ghana*
We have put a preamble to our FOP research as adviced by a lawyer here
<http://bit.ly/FOPPreamble> to explain the status quo in Ghana.
*Why the president?*
Though it is Ghana's Parliament that would amend the act, the lawyer and
the presidential staffer who is our liaison has recommended we channel this
through the presidency instead.
The Chief of Staff is ready to receive this on the president's behalf
Sign the petition here
<https://www.change.org/p/h-e-nana-akufo-addo-please-introduce-freedom-of-pa…>
.
And while you are there, if you have questions, suggestions, concerns, even
typos to report, I'll gladly handle them before we print it out for
delivery.
––
Regards
Sandister Tei | Curator Media & Journalism, re:publica Accra | Citi
FM/TV | Wikimedia
Ghana UG representative + co – founder | Purple People
m: +23320266290 tw: @SandisterTei <https://twitter.com/SandisterTei> ig:
@s.andister <https://www.instagram.com/s.andister/>
re:publica – The most inspiring festival for the digital society.
See you in Accra December 14-15 2018!
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Great work Ammar!
I look forward to great results from these events! Kudos.
Sam.
________________________________
From: Wikimedia-ng <wikimedia-ng-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org> on behalf of Ammar Abdulhamid <ammarpad(a)yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2018 5:49:55 PM
To: Wikimedia-ng
Cc: Mailing List for African Wikimedians
Subject: [Wikimedia-ng] Outreach In Northern Nigeria
Greetings to all.
I am glad to inform you that our first workshop in the project Outreach In Northern Nigeria will take place between 28th and 29th December 2018.
Both events will take place at the Chilla Luxury Suites, located in Nasarawa GRA Kano, Kano State, Nigeria.
This pioneer workshop in Northern Nigeria, is one of the two programs that aim to increase awareness of Wikimedia projects in Northern Nigeria as well as pique interest in reviving the projects that exist in Hausa language, the dominant language of the region.
It will also involve strategic discussion, on Friday 28th, with staff from Bayero University, Kano on how the University can support Wikimedia activities on campus and beyond.
The workshop will have, in confirmed attendance, Olaniyan Olushola, president of Wikimedia User Group Nigeria.
The schedule of activities of the two-day event are being updated at Wikipedia Workshop, Kano 2018<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Workshop,_Kano_2018> on Meta-Wiki project.
This program is funded by a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation in mid 2018 and is supported by Bayero University, Kano, Soho Foundation, Katsina and Center for Information Technology and Development, Kano.
With thanks,
-Ammar Abdulhamid
Grants:Project/Outreach In Northern Nigeria.
Hi everyone,
I am looking for a wikimedian who is an active contributor on the LGBT+ related content on Wikipedia, in his local language.
Who can help me?
Thanks,Houssem
sent from my phone. Please forgive the typos
Dear Florence
I join in the congratulations for getting to a new round of funding for
Wiki loves Africa photographic competition.
I was an early fan of the idea but I have to confess that my fan status
has markedly cooled over time. I cannot claim to have done a
comprehensive reseach but did some checks here and there.
*So I have the impression that
a) the competition has brought a number of really beautiful photographs
b) the competition has brought lots of images which are not used
anywhere in wikipedia articles (my short checks give me the impression
that could be the case for the vast majority of images produced)*
and*I ask myself if the reason may be that a lot of these mages is
frankly unusable.*
I remember that prize selected image showing some beautiful ladies in
Massai attire knitting under a tree (the year of adornment) which was
selected in some winner category but is unusable for any purpose (unless
you want to document fake stereoptypes...)
There is a lot of nice looking images which I do not know how to use
because of their not clear labelling, unhelpful categories and useless
explanations. It helps me as author nothing to see an image and a text
like "traditional tools of Ghana/Malawi/etc". This is unusable.
I write this not from the point of view of a lover of beauty (my taste
is poor) but just simply from the view of a wikipedia author. I would
love to have some thousand images (not necessarily beautiful) which
just show African villages. We know the criticism about the white spots
on the African maps of knowledge. Villages back home in Germany may have
less than 1000 inhabitants but 3 articles about the village, about its
church and about the sports club. Images are available and people look
for them.
We have put in hours and hours of work doing stubs about Tanzanian wards
and are nearly complete. Most Tanzanian wards are optically pretty
boring villages which often look similar and rarely have remarkable and
distinguishing architecture, sometimes landscape features in the
background. A photographic challenge in my view is to catch (a less
boring?) scene with some signboard that has has the name of the local
school, ward office or church on it to make identifiable. I do not get
them unless I travel myself overland and take pictures. But our users
would love to see them!! And I assume that it may be similar in other
countries.
I do not want to denigrate Wiki loves Africa but i would love to hear
from others how they see the value of the results as they have been so
far. Why do we do it - what do we get from it? How can images about
"play" be useful for closing the white spaces on the African map of
knowledge?
Cheers, Ingo - "Kipala"
Jenga Wikipedia ya Kiswahili user group
Dear All,
I would like to inform you that I have asked for a rapid Grant and a
regular Grant, both related to promoting and distributing offline Wikipedia
(using the Kiwix program) in Senegal. One project will be bringing WikiMed
to health centers lacking internet access and the second project will be
bringing offline Wikipedia as well as other educational resources to
schools with very poor or no internet access.
Both of these projects include "training" sessions so that the future users
of offline Wikipedia will be able to benefit straight away from the huge
wealth of information contained in the encyclopedia which will henceforth
be at their disposal.
WikiMed project:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/GastelEtzwane/WikimedS…
Education project:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Offline_Wikipedia_in_Senegal…
Please have a look at these two proposals, and if you feel that they are
worth pursuing, please endorse the proposals. I welcome your comments and
remarks on the grant proposal pages.
Best regards
Gabriel Thullen
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chers Toutes et Tous,
Je tiens à vous informer que j'ai fait deux demandes de subvention (un
"Rapid Grant" et un "Grant"), toutes les deux liées à la promotion et la
distribution de Wikipédia offline (avec le programme Kiwix) au Sénégal. Le
premier projet va apporter WikiMed à des centres de santé qui n'ont pas
d'accès internet, et l'autre projet va apporter Wikipédia ainsi que
d'autres ressources pédagogiques à des écoles situées dans des zones sans
connexion internet.
Ces deux projets comportent aussi un volet "formation" pour que les
personnes concernées puissent tout de suite profiter au maximum de la
richesse de l’encyclopédie qui sera dorénavant à leur disposition.
Project WikiMed :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/GastelEtzwane/WikimedS…
Project Education :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Offline_Wikipedia_in_Senegal…
Je vous remercie de regarder ces demandes, et si vous les jugez
intéressantes de les soutenir. Vos commentaires et remarques sont les
bienvenus sur la page de demande de Grant, en français ou en anglais.
Avec mes salutations les meilleures
Gabriel Thullen
Hello
You may find the complete list of grant requests made for Wiki Loves
Africa 2019 here :
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Africa_2019#Funding
I have noticed that the following countries, listed as participants, did
not apply to a rapid grant (I do not know if that is normal or not
normal, so just point out to the situation in case)
* Uganda : listed as participant, but no rapid grant found
* Angola : same
* Lybia : same
* Guinea-Bissau
* Ghana : same
* Cote d'Ivoire : same
* Mali: same
Previous years participants but not listed this year (just in case...)
* Tanzania :
* Egypt: