[Wikipedia-l] [Fwd: Africa WikiProjects]

Thu Dec 15 20:24:21 UTC 2005

Hoi,
Sometimes something good comes out of unfortunate affairs. Have a read 
of this e-mail that I forward to you with permission.
Thanks,
   GerardM

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Africa WikiProjects
Date: 	Tue, 13 Dec 2005 12:40:00 -0500
From: 	Martin Benjamin, Editor <swahili at yale.edu>
To: 	Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
References: 	<43940170.8050504 at gmail.com>

Hi Gerard,

There is a discussion right now on an academic Africa list about how and 
why to use Wiki in class and scholarship.  I'm copying the discussion clips 
below.  What comments do you have that I can pass along to the 
list?  Particularly, how would you (or your colleagues) advise a professor 
to approach a Wikipedia class project?  What tools are available to make 
the job easier?  Are there links that offer particularly helpful guidance?

Many of the people who might be inspired to join the project have very 
limited computer expertise - think email, web clicking, and the ability to 
use Word.  How can such people be eased into the world of Wiki?

Here are the comments to this point:

________________

Pursuant to a discussion on H-Luso-Africa on the topic of Wikipedia, an
internet encyclopedia much in the news in a rather negative way lately, I
decided that rather than gripe about the misinformation there, I would add
something myself.  To that end I have completely modified the article that
relates to the Kingdom of Kongo and have added a kinglist to the somewhat
inaccurate one that is found on  one of its links.  Both my article and
the kinglist are as up to date and accurate as I can make them given the
limitations of space and the format of an encyclopedia article.  Indeed
elements of both are based on unpublished manuscript and archival sources,
though the format does not allow footnoting.

I am hoping that the article may spin off and help to create more accurate
information in cyberspace about Kongo, given that Wikipedia is growing in
popularity and more and more widely used in spite of our serious and well
placed misgivings.

I would love any feedback that others might give me on the utility of
doing this, either on line or off.

_______________

I think it is extremely important for the Africanist community to edit
and create articles for Wikipedia and other popular sources of
information about Africa. Wikipedia articles are often the most widely
consulted source of info about the history of an African country and the
information contained in Wikipedia articles is copied and freely used
(syndicated) during the creation of thousands of multiplying websites. It
is unfortunate that universities have often not yet come to appreciate
the information revolution which is taking place and thus have not come
to terms with the need to encourage scholars to actively participate in
this revolution since it is part of our vocation, I would argue, to
provide easily accessible information and analysis based on our research
to the general public and not just scholarly articles for our colleagues.
In any case, even scholarly articles are increasing being made available
on websites for the general public as well as for fellow scholars, and so
the distinction between scholarly articles for colleagues and informative
articles for the general public is not as sharp as it used to be. I
recently checked a Wikipedia article on a country I study and found much
of the information very outdated. For those who argue that this is one
indication of the unreliability of Wikipedia articles, I would remind
them that such information often comes from books on African history
which are still widely consulted but very dated. For example, Pierre
Kalck's books on the Central African Republic are still very much
consulted by people wanting to find out about or write a short synopsis
of the history of the country, and while the sections in his books on the
colonial and post-colonial period are still very useful, his chaptes on
precolonial history are now full of misinformation which is unfortunately
used by people constructing websites. The revisionist literature about
precolonial Central African history is not as accessible because it
exists in books and articles which most people cannot easily get their
hands on. So one of our tasks, I would argue, is to share our knowledge
of the most recent revisionist literature on topics with a wider public
by editing and updating Wikipedia articles. For those that argue that
conspiracy theorists and others often include false or dubious
information in Wikipedia articles or other websites, I can only remind
them that books are published every year which are full of dubious and
inaccurate information on every topic under the sun. We need to do what
we can to help improve the quality of what is available on the internet
instead of only complaining about it or discouraging our students from
using internet sources.

______________

Thanks to John Thornton and Richard Bradshaw for bringing up the subject
of Wikipedia and articulating the reasons why African studies should
treat
it as a serious resource.

I would add three quick thoughts:
1) Adding and improving content relating to Africa on the Wikipedia might
be framed in terms of outreach.

2) It might be possible to work with students in the context of courses
on Africa to add to the Wikipedia. For instance an assignment to critique
and if necessary update/correct/complete Wikipedia entries. One imagines
this
could have some interesting spinoff effects, such as motivation (not just
writing an assignment for a grade, but disseminating something for others
to use), and initiation into a kind of scholarly publication (I know that
sounds
stretched, but for undergrads and beginning grad students it would likely
be the first time they "publish" anything serious on the web or anywhere
else). Sure there's a risk of introducing less than ideal material into
the system, but in theory at least, if enough people are doing this, poor
quality content will be improved - and the quantity of information
available on Africa will also increase.

3) Although the vast majority of Wikipedia's content is in English, it
is expressedly a multilingual resource with currently a small amount of
content in some African languages. So another area for contribution might
be entries in these and other still-unrepresented languages of the
continent. In
addition to contributions by African and Africanist scholars, advanced
students of African languages might also be a source of additional content
(under guidance of their instructors, and perhaps as part of what they are
graded on in their language courses).

________________

Let me step out of editor mode for a second here, and say that the more I

think about Donald Osborn's suggestion regarding having students in
African
Studies courses update the Wikipedia, the more I like it.  Such a plan
provides students with an opportunity to dabble their toes in the
production of knowledge, but does so with at least a modicum of academic
oversight.

Perhaps we should dub this the "Osborn Initiative"?

___________________

In a course on the history of the Central African Republic this term, I
specifically encouraged my students to write such good research papers
that they could use them as a basis for a Wikipedia article and attach
their full paper to the site as a link. For example, one student conducted
research on the history of the exploitation of diamonds in the CAR and the
Kimberley Process, and I have encouraged him to write a Wikipedia article
on diamons in the CAR and to attach his research paper as a link. Another
student wrote about Protestant missions in the CAR. Same thing. Another on
the role that NGOs are playing in the CAR. Ditto. I did not make it a
requirement of the course this time, but I plan to do so in the future. I
must say that the students were generally very dubious about their ability
to write a paper which would be good enough to be attached to a Wikipedia
article, but some seem interested in trying it.

One real advantage of Wikipedia articles is the links that can be attached
to it to lead the reader with a click to more detailed information on the
topic. For example, an article on the history of the Grace Brethren
mission in the CAR might include a link to triune baptism,
dispensationalism and other topics which would help the reader under-stand
what distinguishes the Grace Brethren from other Brethren groups, what is
taught in their seminaries in the CAR, etc. The main article is just a
take-off point for links which let the reader go anywhere she or he needs
to in order to gain a deeper knowledge of the topic. When I was studying
the Brethren I found the Wikipedia articles on dispensationalism very
helpful since I am not a theologian and was only vaguely familiar with the
difference between Covenantalism and Dispensationalism. Since
Dispensationalists usually have a very pro-Israel orientation, one has to
wonder how Brethren teachings in the CAR has, or will eventually shape,
the views of Central African church leaders toward the Arab-Israeli
conflict (or whatever one chooses to call it). Thus, the difference
between Covenantal and Dispensationalism may be of interest to historians
who examine the conceptual framework within which Central African
Christians view Southwest Asian affairs. Well, enough said for now.