Weblearning

WIR – a reality check

I am writing this post from Berlin and the sense of unreality has receded. I really enjoyed every moment of the Wikimania Conference at the Cite Sciences et Industries. I can’t believe there was a point where I thought that the conference would not happen and I was about to turn down the chance to realise a life long dream and visit Berlin.

But back to reality and I need to bring up why I said that Wikipedia can be brutal. A group of “Wikipedians in Residence” have not been paid. At Wikimania I encountered our “bad actor”. Someone who is messing with people’s trust without any thought as to the consequences. Now I could focus on that one person, but that would be making her a scapegoat, punching down. In my experience things are usually much more complicated. Yes, B and her manager A (I have redacted their names) from African Wikipedia Alliance represent the most visible part of this brutal Wikipedia. I want to focus the organisation and its leadership though. And its here I am holding leaders accountable and making my thoughts visible.

Code for Africa (CfA)

Code for Africa positions itself as Africa’s “largest indigenous network of civic technology and open data / data journalism labs”. According to the introduction we received when I signed up as WIR, they have 110 full-time staff in 26 African countries.

I saw that CfA and the African Wikipedian Alliance (note that they do not have a website) were advertising for a WIR and I applied and was appointed from the 1 May to the 31 September (note these dates).

Timeline of Events

Code for Africa and the African Wikimedia Alliance seem to place adverts for a Wikipedian in Residence on a regular basis. On the 9 April 2026, I initiated a correspondence with three people (who all have a Code for Africa email addresses).

“I saw a notice about the African Wikipedian Alliance (AWA). My username on Wikipedia is Derek J Moore, and I would be very interested in finding out more.”

The call and passes me onto a person called B who requested that I apply for “event organiser rights”. I don’t have these rights, but I apply, and on the 13 April I confirm to her that I do have event organiser rights. On the 22 April, I receive the following welcome letter from B

Congratulations Derek!

We’re excited to let you know that you’ve been selected as a 2026 AWA Inclusion fellow. This five-month fellowship runs from 01 May to 30 September.

As a next step, you will be issued your fellowship contract, which stipulates your fellowship deliverables, remuneration, and other terms and conditions. Please review the contract carefully once you receive it, and if satisfied, sign and return it as instructed. In addition, please complete the Fellowship onboarding form by 11:59 PM UTC on 24th April. This will help us prepare for your onboarding, which will take place in May. The specific onboarding start date will be communicated to you soon.

During the onboarding phase, you will be expected to:

Join the CfA Slack workspace, where all fellowship-related communication will take place.

Recruit contributors/participants and assess their needs ahead of the formal implementation of your deliverables, which commences in May.

Develop a topic list for your assigned countries within the Southern African region and neighbouring countries, which are focus areas of this project..

Attend a 2-day onboarding session, where you will be properly guided on our in-house content campaign management and on-wiki documentation.

P.S: The completion of all onboarding processes is crucial to the success of your fellowship.

We’re thrilled to have you on board and look forward to the contributions you will make to this meaningful initiative. If you have any questions, you can email a@codeforafrica.org or b@codeforafrica.org . We look forward to working with you to strengthen Africa’s digital information ecosystem.

Warm regards,

On the 28 April, I receive a request from B via Slack

Hi @Derek, welcome to your official fellowship communication channel. This channel will be used to check in on your progress during the fellowship, ask questions related to your monthly work, and submit your monthly proof of deliverables, work plan, link to your Meta page, and invoices. A detailed guide will be provided during your onboarding. Welcome on board. cc @A

Twin Mosia (who signed the contract on 28 April) and Jan Hendrik were also appointed. There was a delay in sharing the contract with me. I signed the contract from a week later. .Red Flags

Errors on dates in the contract
An absence of a verifiable website for African Wikipedia Alliance.
No actual link to the Funding Organisation.

On the 7 May we all meet on Google Meet and it is here that we learn about the “Deliverables”

CFA_AWA_Norway _Fellowship 2026 Agenda Download

Links to Resources

Please find below the relevant AWA Norway Fellowship resources to support your work throughout the programme:

More Red Flags

I was quite surprised. These deliverables are not how a WIR works and are an un unnecessary duplication. We are also instructed to set up our AWA inclusion page. But my name is spelled wrongly, I correct the mistake and then I think that I will be a bit creative on my Meta page, but since the initial misspelled my name mucks up everything, B and A think that I need more help (and they call another meeting). But they cannot explain the odd reporting for this WIR fellowship. Something seems off.

Feedback and progress.

22 May. Jan, Twin and I (who are the WIR) form a WhatsApp group, And it is there that we start to share our experiences. They are still optimistic. Jan and Twin deliver the goods and I have to catch up (I started a week late).

22 May Proof of deliverables conversation

Hello @Derek Moore All your points have been duly noted. However, we do need your proof of deliverables (PoD) for internal processes. The finance team need a structured format to confirm that work has been done and approved especially because they cannot access your wiki meta page. That documentation goes along with your invoice to the finance team which is what activates the payment process, these are also the things that partners review alongside internal project reports to ascertain that the outputs promised have been delivered. That’s what @B meant when she explained about needing the docs for partners and all.
It is not a question of trust at all, these kinds of documentation are necessary parts of the process.

A May 22nd at 1:27 PM

@Derek Moore On filling out the work plan (the how-to video shared earlier). The actual process is that the necessary pages, particularly the Monthly deliverables section must be filled as you edit. @B reviews and approves these edits before it goes on your meta page. The same applies for the blog posts, a draft is shared, which is reviewed internally and then approved for publishing on the Diff blog.Again, I understand these were not explicitly stated in the contract but the addendums, which the contract covers, includes information about documentation and reporting (Fellowship Summary – Subsection 6 “Meta Page & Documentation”. These details were also discussed during onboarding (Slides 24, 31, 33)This is our quality control process, and apologies if this has not be communicated very clearly enough before now.
Thank you for all the great work already started and looking forward to more. cc @Tolu

26 May, I act on the feedback. But am still puzzled as these deliverables conversations and addendums. Wikipedia has the facility to allow you to measure and check your own contributions. Either to a single article (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Page_history. Or you can use this Global Contributions Tools (see https://globalcontribution.toolforge.org) to view what I have added

The outreach dashboard (https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/) also gives you the amount of information required. At no point thus far, have they mentioned that there is a funding problem. Just the demand for deliverables, which amount to 30 articles or items! That’s a lot of work.

A month goes by and no payment is received. The three of us South Africans begin to worry and reach out to other “Wikimedians in Residence” and Robert (from Ghana) joins us in early July and Candy (from Botswana) joins the group on the 13 July. These two, who have been WIR for a month longer than us, conform that they too have not been paid.

Contract Revisited.

The contract has flaws and the addendum part of the contract is also flawed. Because these addendum are not a part of the contract, and you cannot download the whole contract in one document. The contract could be changed. Then whistleblowing portion of the contract cannot be downloaded at all. And a couple of months into the fellowship, we (there are five of us who are in the same position) are still waiting to be be paid and submitting deliverables. This begins to feel like a scam. A pattern of non payment, demands for deliverables and apologies.. I raise the matter with Bobby Shabangu on the 2 July and Robert, on behalf of us all, raises the matter with Willy Busolo (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:WBuloso-WMF) in a joint letter

We, the undersigned participants of the AWA Fellowship, are writing to seek your urgent intervention regarding the continued delay in the payment of our fellowship stipends as Wikipedia In Residence.

For several weeks, we have made repeated attempts to engage the project team through emails and other communication channels to understand the reasons for the delay and obtain a clear payment timeline. Unfortunately, we have not received any tangible response or meaningful communication that addresses our concerns. The lack of transparency has only increased the uncertainty and frustration among fellows.

This fellowship was not presented as a purely voluntary initiative. Participants committed to approximately 0.5 Full-Time Equivalent (0.5 FTE) throughout the programme, with clearly defined responsibilities, reporting requirements, and deliverables in exchange for an agreed stipend. Throughout the fellowship, participants have continued to deliver on their commitments in good faith, investing significant time and professional expertise to achieve the agreed outcomes. Many fellows have completed, or are close to completing, their deliverables, yet the agreed stipends remain unpaid (Almost 5 months for some)

As the delays continue without clear communication, many participants feel that the goodwill, professionalism, and labour of Wikimedians are being taken for granted. While we remain committed to advancing free knowledge and value partnerships such as this fellowship, we also believe that contributors deserve to have commitments honoured and to be treated with fairness, transparency, and respect. The Wikimedia movement recognizes professional roles that support its mission, and we believe the same standards of accountability should apply to fellowship programmes that require significant professional commitments.

Given the lack of progress, fellows have begun discussing publishing an open letter and exploring the legal remedies available to us. However, before taking either of these steps, we wanted to reach out to you in your capacity as Program Officer for Sub-Saharan Africa. We sincerely hope that, with your support and intervention, this matter can be resolved promptly and amicably.

We would greatly appreciate your guidance and any assistance you can provide in engaging with the relevant parties to secure a clear resolution, an explanation for the delays, and a definitive payment timeline.

The Undersigned AWA Fellowship Participants

Twin Mosia

Robert Obiri

Jan-Hendrik du Toit

Derek Moore

Candy Khohliwe

Up until now all of this information is burried. Slack is a closed shop, and our Whatsapp group conversations are also internal. But at the request of the what’s app group, I begin to make a this public.

Off to Paris

I’m a Wikipedian in Residence and was awarded a scholarship to Wikimania. I catch my flight to Paris on the 19th July and hope to address this matter with senior Wikipedians. I had contacted Bobby (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Shabangu) who said that Code For Africa does eventually pay. We had not heard from Willy. Chatted to Florence who indicated that she had had bad experiences with this group. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Devouard I brought the matter up in the Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network meeting (https://wikimedia.eventyay.com/wm/wikimania2026/talk/MMCANG/), and had little success. Then I attended a workshop, where I discovered that B was co- leading it. And I challenged her about the role she was playing in the organisation. This was when the Trust and Safety group stepped in.

Appology from the CEO

It does seem that raising concerns has brought things to a head as on the 27 July, after the conference finished. Justin Arenstein, published this message on my feed on Slack (and the what’s app group confirms that other WIR in residence the matter correspondence also on Slack). The message says.

hi.We haven’t connected before, but I’m the CEO at Code for Africa (CfA). I’ve been following the frustrations fellows have experienced due to delayed payment on fellowships. I know that the AWA team, and our grants manager @Kwasi have all been communicating about the issue, but thought that it might be useful if you also heard from me.First, as Kwasi indicated, we apologise unreservedly for the late payments. Our position has, however, been delicate: we have had to balance how much we can share with fellows against confidentiality clauses in the underlying funding agreements. Audits of deliverables against fellowship tranches are also an issue we need to be careful about. As you know, CfA is a nonprofit that operates based on grants or support from a wide range of donor organisations. Very few of these grant-making organisations however directly fund Wikipedia work, despite how crucial it is for us all to have robust public information foundations. CfA initially self-funded our support for AWA beginning 5yrs ago, and has since (as the programme has grown) slowly began building in fractional slices of Wikipedia activities into media development or information integrity budgets to prove to donors that WiRs are just as important as journalism support. None of those budget lines are big enough yet to cover a full set of fellowships, but we have been pooling the funds into ‘baskets’ underpinned by multiple donors so that we can underwrite fellowships like yours. One quirk of the system means that the communication terms for the fellowships are not standard: some donors require confidentiality, while others encourage proactive communication.That strategy worked well, until February 2025 when the US Government discontinued funding for a number of international programmes and organisations. The ripple effect impacted immediately on CfA’s USAID funded Wikipedia fellowships in West Africa (Mali, Niger, etc), and more recently began to impact more widely as many of CfA’s partners (like NDI, Internews, etc) began pausing their Africa programmes or completely closed shop (like Pact and Chemonics). Even non-US partners are currently paying agreed commitments to CfA late due to the global ripple effect: Germany’s GIZ, for example, is six months behind on its payments for an info integrity programme that contributes to WiRs.As Kwasi has noted, this has unfortunately had a knock-on affect to our onward payments. CfA initially used its own reserves (our emergency funds) to cover shortfalls to ensure we could pay on time, but after depleting those reserves we are now only able to make project payments once we have received payment from donors.In the interim, as Kwasi has explained, CfA has prioritised paying outstanding fellowship stipends on a rolling basis, settling the oldest outstanding invoices first for audited deliverables. We’re also formalising our comms, so that you have a direct line to Kwasi for updates.And, while the funding basket model worked well, we recognise it is susceptible to late payment by a single donor. We are therefore revisiting and strengthening the model. We are also in conversation with EU-based donors to push for dedicated support for African Wikipedians, so that we don’t have to layer them into other programmes. These structural changes are in motion, but take time to materialise.We greatly value your patience, and appeal for your continued commitment during this challenging period.Sincerely,

What about the CfA deputy.

So funding can be a challenge for a non profit, I get that CFA are in the middle of a model change. But when there is a funding challenge, and there are structural changes being made, you don’t hire more people, demand more and tell people to trust you. You trim your own belt, you warn.

A few month ago, I met Chris, the deputy of Code for Africa, and have his number (my sister knows him). I thought that because he was involved, that I would be informed about the payment problems and other issues. My questions were not addressed, instead I was redirected to B. A criteria in our contract was that we blog about the experience, this was revised and we were then told not to blog. The contract is in complete breach, the contacted dates don’t match reality. I don’t think that hiding this chaos serves the open world. I’m hoping that a third party can address the matter. Hopefully Janina from Trust and Safety.

Conclusion

I was really pleased to be appointed as a WIR. Three months into this unpaid fellowship, I’m not too sure quite how I feel. I’m seeing an endless story of poor communication, bad planning, cheap apologies, unfair expectations and non delivery. The WIR experience contrast sharply with Wikimania 2026. The disappointment is brutal. This sense of extraction, for a “higher cause” is a problem those of us who work in open.

I had expected better from Code for Africa, who were aware of this problem long before we were hired, who know how tight things are. I’ve raised this with Janina, from Trust and Safety. To A and B, a feature of working as open practitioners should be openness about successes and failures. Trust comes when we work together to make something better. Not by insisting on a long list of deliverables when you KNOW that there is no payment. That is brutal.

There is a paradox about being open. Sharing openly enables extraction (and not equity) when there is a power asymmetry. My blog post is a small attempt to balance the scales. Justin, Chris, A and B. Janina. You, of course, have the opportunity to reply but even better. Just pay us.

Two months into my WIR with Code for Africa

This Wikipedia world can be brutal. But that is to be expected. The last of the five pillars of the movement makes it very clear. “Wikipedia does not have firm rules.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Five_pillars

Weirdly enough this approach works for me (perhaps my anarchic self enjoys it the frission and debate). But this community space also is organised and safe.

Q: Would I use online English Wikipedia for children to participate in?
A: Nope. This is not a place for nurture.

Q: Would I teach a class of teens how to contribute to an off line vernacular version?
A: Most definitely yes. There are so many examples to learn from. Some will take this further, which is awesome (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Wikipedia). Warning: English Wikipedia is a rabbit hole. But the media server is pretty good.

Q: What do you like about Wikimedia?
A:I’ve been teaching myself GeoJSON (combining open street maps and templates). Wikidata Queries is fascinating for those who want to see the semantic web. The translation options are well designed. Those who get “transclusions”, modules and templates, will enjoy the opportunity to practice computational thinking with a Wikimedian in Residence

Q: What about University students?
A: Most definitely yes. Get off the LMS and practice your thinking in public. Do it together (edit-athon), its safer. And then “scholars” who wish to push themselves onto the knowledge graph or who have some desire and need to game this system. I’ve been quite surprised at what Wikimedia can do.

I’m off to Paris for Wikimania at the end of July and I am SO excited. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Wikipedian in Residence

Lerato (🤣🤣🤣) prompted me. I prompted Chat GPT. My WIR (Wikipedian in Residence) Community Coordinator with the African Wikipedian Alliance gave me the final push. I’m starting to record, collect and publish the statistics about the status of “Vernacular Wikipedia”.

My dashboard about Vernacular Wikipedia has been placed on Github. Its offers brief information about 9 vernacular languages in South Africa. Depending which language you speak, the numbers will mean different things.

Afrikaans has the most articles (129 029) and isiZulu follows at second. (12 267). But in this is not a race, its the opportunity to learn. For example, if you look at Pages you’ll see a big a number. That’s the the non article information, the conversations and discussions, plans and edits, that goes on behind the scenes. Wikipedia has far more than articles.

If you would like to verify the data behind the dashboard, then click on Afrikaans or isiZulu for the json file. The same pattern applies to all json files. The dashboard is flashy? The json file to complicated? Then view the screenshot. This is my baseline for May 2026. I’ll try to collect the same information for the next five months.

The dashboard does make JSON prettier. https://web-learning.github.io/sa-wikipedia-dashboard/? But there is no suger coating the numbers. The current picture is for vernacular languages in South Africa is – frankly – bleak.

Not all is lost. There are some Wikipedians who ARE making a massive contribution. I’d like to introduce you to two of them (they are also from South Africa like me) who are also Wikipedians in Residence (WIR)

Twin Mosia is a South African museum curator, Mosotho cultural activist, heritage practitioner and a Wikimedian from Mamafubedu, Free State. He is a co-founder and chairperson of the Lubombo-Maloti Wikimedia User Group.
Jan Du Toit who joined the Wikimedia movement at the age of 12 in June 2017 became an administrator or on the Afrikaans Wikipedia in 2020. He has also created Wikidata items and uploaded freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons on relevant topics. Du Toit served on the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia ZA from 2023 until 2026.

I have created another dashboard. Its not ready to be released. It shows a more comprenhesive picture about vernacular Wkipedia contributors. I’m hoping that this resource WILL give Lerato (🤣🤣🤣) an idea of who needs to be put into positions of administration.

A connected musician

Learn about Wikipedia, Wikdata and Commons, and how they can feed knowledge panels.

It has been my experience, that when a group of people come together and share their practices with each other, they then can also see the best in their own and each other’s work. They can then encourage each other to cross the barriers and boundaries that hold them back. This is true online and in person.

Skilled musicians have used technologies for years to produce music. They can also use web apparatus to create a Knowledge Panels (KP), those prominent boxes that appear on Google search) and become known. Its probably a good idea to do this together.

Recently, I (rather reluctantly) created a KP for myself. Its pretty rubbish because I have been quite inconsistent with my name (I refer to myself as Weblearning and Derek Moore). But, FWIW, this is what creates those convenient boxes that makes you think you know me. https://www.google.com/search?kgmid=/g/11x2l8yhp3

Five steps to claim your KP

Go to Google, enter your name and hit search.
Results will appear and if you are on Google’s Knowledge Graph, three dots will appear next to your name
Click on the dots and choose “Claim this knowledge panel”
Once on the the verification page, click, “Get Verified”
Then enter required information and submit

Note: You will have to take and upload a selfie while holding a government approved id. I DON’T like doing this and would suggest caution. Google does instruct you to cover your ID numbers. But its possible that some facial recognition detection is taking place. You will notice that my KP has a picture of me next to a Wikipedia banner. I suppose that’s the bargain?

20 years ago Chris Duigan asked me years ago to create his first website. He and I made something that I was really proud of. It was a site designed for four different target groups.

Cape Winelands
Johannesburg
Pietermaritzburg & KZN Midlands
Durban

Chris grasped a few lessons about making your digital footprint on the “Knowledge Graph” that would take me far longer to learn.

Be consistent with your digital identity
Find patrons who are trusted and you can add value to
Take steps to cross-reference yourself on trusted sources with
- interviews
- niche articles
- links to and work with other musicians.

I’m looking forward to exploring these lessons I’ve learned with a few musician friends. Click on the image above to see the presentation. We will be looking at how to feed these knowledge panels. If you look at my KP, you’ll see it only says I have one daughter. That’s because the other one said that she did not want a digital footprint. So I did not include her in my Wikidata profile and she’s not on Google’s Knowledge Graph.

Screen with Derek Moore’s Knowledge Panel — OERxDomains21 Media Pass by @visualthinkery is licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Concert Venues

This is a map of concert venues. It is populated by this GEOjson file

Take a look at
Concert Venues, that I originally created on CodePen. Thanks Chat GPT for some assistance

Spatial lens (part 3)

Field Notes by @visualthinkery is licensed under CC-BY-SA.

The third post is about maps personal cartography and my (fr) “géomatique” attempts with geodata. I’ll explore a data centred “map”, generated “automatically” with spatial data infrastructure.

Instead of a “normal” hand drawn map (see the map of the 19th arrondissement of Paris below), or a map with a particular boundary with labels (see the Parc de la Villette map on Codepen and the corresponding 19th Arrondissement.geojson on Github). I’ll generate an Arts Festival query and compare Arts festivals in two countries and make it possible to download available information.

Firstly – how many ARTs Festivals are on Wikidata? Look at https://w.wiki/MHP7 or visit query.wikidata.org. You’ll see instructions to answer the question. “Count the instances (P31) of arts festivals (Q4801521)”.

title: Number of Arts Festivals on Wikidata
SELECT (COUNT(*) AS ?count)
WHERE {
?item wdt:P31/wdt:P279*   wd:Q4801521
}

The answer to this numbers question will vary as it depends on the available data and how well I constructed the query.

Resources Used

Sites like Geojson / Wikidata / Wikimedia Commons /Leaflet/ SPARQL/ Overpass Turbo offer access to openly licensed data, which allowes me to remix and re-use materials under stated conditions. I can combine these resources, to make layers of information visible. Sounds complicated? Yup! Demonstrable? I think so. Can others do this. Absolutely Yes! Please feel free to copy and paste.

Disclosure: I used chat GPT

Paris and Clarens

Anonyme, graveur, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

I am off to Paris in July on a scholarship. As part of my preparation, I have been looking at Parisian maps and plotting out places / events that I want to visit /attend. There’s Bastille Day on the 14th (I’ll just miss that one) and the Paris-Plages (how cool, fake beaches on the Seine).

I’’m not only mapping small parts of Paris. The Clarens Arts Festival is on Wikipedia and I made a key locations map for Nicola Martins.

With my data driven spatial specs on, I’m going to make an arts festivals map. I’ll show you how to….

make a map base layer which will contain markers to arts festival locations in South Africa and in France
position the festivals and each location on the base layer map. When clicked, a label will appear with a corresponding image (if it exists). Each festival will have a Wikidata number (for update purposes).
build the base layer map and marker on Leaflet and on a table. Data will be supplied by an openly licensed GeoJSON file generated by the SPARQL and formatted for the chart.

Wikidata, Commons, Wikipedia and OpenStreetmaps have been extremely useful as resources. They often contain co-ordinates, included map modules, OSM templates that pull in openstreetmap data or geoshapes (P3896). These worked exemplars have permitted me see how map shapes are generated and stored as points, lines or polygons. I’ve also started a collection of GeoJSON files on GitHub. Yes, Chat GPT, Leaflet and CodePen have shown how a static GeoJSON file can be turned into a visual. You can do the same (and change the parameters quickly using SPARQL). The generated file could then be archived on Wikimedia commons, built into the map itself, or uploaded as a raw file to GitHub or be included in a spreadsheet. These GeoJSON files can also be generated by using https://overpass-turbo.eu/ I’m very sure that there are more options. Its always helpful to have plan B.

Beads and baskets and SPARQL

So, we are exploring some abstract concepts. To help me pull vague abstractions together into a clear explanation, I like think about something physical and concrete. Instead of festivals, I’ll use beads and think about “trays”, “baskets” and “weaves”. You might have to think of your own.

Why physical and concrete? Let’s use another abstract concept. Time! By itself, time is hard to imagine. When you picture a clock with numbers, long and short hands, a clock face and a seconds hand ticking loudly as it passes these numbers. Then time’s passage becomes easier to notice and comprehend.

Querying SPARQL is also quite vague. So I’d like you to imagine you have scooped up some pretty beads and sorted them by colour. You need to store these beads somewhere, so you pop them into different baskets. Now assume that you have a range of beads and baskets. It gets quite difficult to remember which basket you placed which colour beads in. So you give the basket a label which links these basket and the beads in your mind. Now lets also assume that beads represent different things. Status, wealth, spiritual values. The basket label becomes is a “memory location” and the beads therein are arranged and categorized around that memory location. Now lets say that beads are not only about colours. Beads could also a way of communicating emotions in different languages. Our basket labels become more complicated. There are more variables introduced, or “memory locations” and the beads (when seen in relation to other beads) hold multiple meanings.

A Query Service called SPARQL allows me to locate beads (stored entities ) in baskets (memory locations). These beads and baskets are on Wikidata (a sister project of Wikipedia) and I can combine them in different permuatations . In this case SPARQL is going to help us identify Arts Festivals in South Africa and in Arts Festivals France. Each SPARQL query is an instruction. Go into a room that contain a wide mixture and assortment of beads. Use the baskets and sorting trays. Press play to execute a query and extract the desired beads from identified baskets. Then fill a tray with a particular collection of those beads.
After that, you will string the beads together and attempt to make meaning. Drawn from matching colours or perhaps it through a Zulu love letter. The meaning could be stitched into a an image grid, a map or a graph.

Making sense of variables

Image grid of pictures of SA Art festivals.
SA Arts festival plotted on a map
Arts festivals compared on a world map

Guide for SPARQLing : Collect arts festival beads from the basket South Africa (P258 is the memory location) . Then string festival beads together as a grid of images (and not a necklace). These arts festival (Q4801521) orbs must be local and located in South Africa (Q258). You will display the workings of your search in a tray.
Eventually a collection of pictures of arts festivals from South Africa that are on Wikidata should emerge. Go to the Wikidata Query Service and paste this SPARQL in.

#defaultView:ImageGrid (my beads strung together)

SELECT ?beads ?beadsLabel ?beadsPic
WHERE
{ #baskets trays and beads  
  ?beads   wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q4801521.      
  ?beads   wdt:P17 wd:Q258.
  ?beads   wdt:P18 ?beadsPic.      
}

Look in the tray. I am a little surprised by I have found. Only two arts festivals here in SA? Nope. There are only two South African arts festivals with pictures. Notice there is also other information, some which can be downloaded.

SA Arts festivals plotted on a map

Guide for SPARQLing: Collect beads/items called Q4801521 (arts festivals) in a labelled tray. The selected beads/item must have an associated geo location (P625) and then weave / plot both the festival and geo location on a map once you press play (https://w.wiki/M8GS)

#defaultView:Map

SELECT ?item ?itemLabel ?itemGeo 
WHERE
{
  ?item wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q4801521.      
  ?item wdt:P625 ?itemGeo.      

SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
}

Now look at the results. You will see that there are arts festivals on the map from all over the world.
Experiment and play: What differences can you see between the above two queries? Hint: I switched a few words.

Arts festivals (compared) in four countries.

Guide for code: Collect the beads labelled arts festival (Q4801521) from two baskets labelled country South Africa (Q258), France (Q142), Canada (Q16) and….(you decide). Use the geographic coordinates basket (P625) to sort them them out by location and then display the name of the festival and the country. Optional : display the image and festival URL. https://w.wiki/FJfu

Select DISTINCT ?item ?itemLabel ?itemCountry ?itemGeo ?itemPic
where { ?item wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q4801521;
wdt:P625 ?itemGeo;
wdt:P17 ?itemCountry .
VALUES ?itemCountry {wd:Q258 wd:Q142 wd:Q16}
OPTIONAL {?item wdt:P18 ?itemPic .}
SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "en" }
}

If you have followed thus far, well done. This has been hard to write. It also might be hard to read and understand. Babbling is how we learn a new language.

A recap. I used SPARQL to

make an image grid of pictures from festivals.
plot out festival locations on a map.
compare arts festivals in two, three or four countries (with images and a URL).

These three queries might leaving you asking WHY? You have not found many arts festivals. Well, that’s because Countries have a geomatician deficit. We need to be exploring geospatial technology. To be making our own streetmaps. By hand, or on Wikipedia or with GeoJSON.

Wikipedia and Wikidata frequently refer to maps / geodata. We can use a GeoJSON file for creating layers above our basemap. If you do mapping, you’ll find that GIS software is compatible with GeoJSON. You’ll also find it useful to know how to add co-ordinates to Wikidata?

Data meets the map of Paris

Screenshot of a vector based map of Paris. See experience arcgis com for mor about Paris map making

My first Paris map in this post was a hand drawn map of the 19th arrondissement. My second was a vector based map of all of Paris’s arrondissement’s . A SPARQL query (see below) shows the different points in the 19th arrondissement. If you insert #defaultView:Map and run this query, you will see a collection of Wikidata points.

SELECT ?arrondissement ?arrondissementLabel ?coord ?geo
WHERE {
?arrondissement wdt:P131/wdt:P279* wd:Q204622; #// 19th arrondisimont of Paris
OPTIONAL { ?arrondissement wdt:P625 ?coord }
OPTIONAL { ?arrondissement wdt:P3896 ?geo.}SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "fr,en". }}

Finding the shape of the “19th arrondissement of Paris” (“Q204622”) requires detailed geo co-ordinates. The map that we have here has drawn an odd leaf shape.

“coordinates”: [
[
[
[2.3647, 48.8721],
[2.3802, 48.8768],
[2.4010, 48.8895],
[2.4108, 48.9021],
[2.3850, 48.8980],
[2.3720, 48.8935],
[2.3600, 48.8790],
[2.3647, 48.8721]
]
]
]

If there were more details in the GeoJSON and if these were stored on commons and referenced by Wikidata, you might also be able to use SPARQL to find the shape.

SELECT ?geo WHERE {
wd:Q204622 wdt:P3896 ?geo .
}

My manual attempt at creating a boundary shape is disappointing. Thus far, I have found the best way to obtain the desired boundary shape is with https://overpass-turbo.eu/ and a query that relates to a way or relation on OpenStreetMap

[out:json][timeout:25]; 
relation(9552); 
out geom;

Using this query allows me to create an exportable GeoJASON file of the 19th Arrondissement (saved on Github) that I also adjusted and shared as Data:19_arrondissement_de_Paris.map on Wikimedia Commons.

Back to South Africa

Do we know all the locations of arts festivals in our country? If we try a simple SPARQL query (see example above) and place of the results in a table

item	itemLabel	itemGeo	itemPic
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q3642773	Aardklop	Point(26.9022247 -26.67771)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6979502	National Youth Jazz Festival	Point(26.526666666 -33.31)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q131057081	Rocking The Daisies	Point(18.522784665 -33.48255583)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q1266836	Durban International Film Festival	Point(31.025 -29.8583)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q137455846	Clarens arts festival	Point(28.416667 -28.516667)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q10990225	National Arts Festival	Point(26.5193 -33.3195)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7098568	Oppikoppi	Point(27.13611111 -24.88388889)
http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6650288	Little Hearts Festival	Point(18.420129 -33.904859)	http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Littleheartsfestival2.JPG

I can’t really make a geo shape to accompany this table. There are arts festivals here in Johannesburg. We can make a GeoJSON file of the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens (aka Emmarentia Dam). There are many events in this park. Can we use Turbo Ovepass to draw the shape?

[out:json][timeout:25];  
way(23019683);  
out geom;

Nope. Did not work. Can we draw the shape from open street map? Yes. Go to Export and download a ZIP file. Unzip and open the files with https://geojson.io/. You will find that the information is rather messy. You could clean it up with Open Refine Or just find the geo-coordinates that refer to Emmaentia Park. These are a few other https://tyrasd.github.io/osmtogeojson/ tools https://racum.blog/articles/osm-to-geojson/ that can assist with GeoJSON conversions. You now have a South African shape drawn with geo co-0rdinates.

Final Thoughts

Geospatial data infrastructures allows me to abstract alternate mapping systems (from SA). I think that we can (and need to) question both the human-made and the computer generated structures that promise to address our needs, wants and desires. If we explore our built environments (with the other underbuilt parts in between) and combine our own maps with our mediated networks. then will begin to see to see a socio-technical imaginary that’s been developed to fulfil a certain group’s needs, wants, and desires.

Our tangible environment has visible physical features and less visible infrastructures. For example, a library has visible components. Books, shelves, seating areas, issuing desks, study areas, and computers. Less visible is all the activities in the book chain, who finances the books on the library shelves, who sells software licenses to the city. On campus, the visible features include lamposts, roads, pavements, benches, transport, pedestrian bridges, lecture theatres, labs, studio’s etc. The faculties committee’s governance choices, procurement processes, computer budgets and MS license costs etc are less visible, and in some cases they are hidden. In this geo spatial world, what we call our mediated environments, the visible infrastructures are privately owned devices (laptops, phones, chargers). We are less likely to see the other infrastructures – wifi routers, servers, switches, undersea, DNS records, cables etc, that join to other privately owned infrastructures and intersect with other public and privately owned components. All these visible and less visible features contribute to the socio technical imaginary that we believe holds things together. While some of these structures are in our heads (called schema) these data infrastructures can be made visible. Increasingly, it’s easier to ask private companies to create and manage the visualisation of our socio-technical imaginaries, either in public and mediated spaces. (I’m available).

So what’s my point? Yes, turn to Google Maps for directions. Admittedly, this is easy to use. But as I mentioned in my presentation about epistemic opacity, component makers comply with their political masters to build these socio-technical imaginaries. And then they make the maps to show you around. So whether you are in a physical public or mediated private space. The architecture, the landscapes and designs, the background planning, budgets and management are a reflection of the “beliefs that affect or govern the behaviour patterns of society”. Can we see and recognise what’s going on in the under mapped world. Here’s a small glimpse.

Please take a look at my Arts Festival Dashboard. You can see the source code on codepen (this will change as I fiddle with the code). The dashboard will update as you add more arts festivals.

References

https://librarycarpentry.github.io/lc-wikidata/05-intro_to_querying.html

Neumann, A. (2008). Web Mapping and Web Cartography. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Boston, MA.

I have been blogging about spatial matters and have split my thoughts into three parts.

Spatial Lens (part 2)

Field Notes by @visualthinkery is licensed under CC-BY-SA. Remix by Derek Moore (Weblearning).

Maps permit you “…to write the subjective back into the supposedly objective, to take something that’s meant to be neutral, and make it personal again.”
Gerald Marx quoted in
https://currencynews.co.za/art-of-the-week-gerhard-marxs-landscape-would-be-the-wrong-word/

Maps (see part 1) are more than the distance between places or way to find something. They are also are a vehicles for stories.

Making a story centred map

When visiting a new town, city or country, I orientate myself by going on a stroll. I try to find the “Centre Point” of a place. The centre of Middelburg is the NG Kerk (Wit Kerk) (25°45’43.2″S 29°27’25.0″E) and the Llandaff Oratory (Little Church) (Q628483) is the centre of Van Reenen. Knowing where the centre of town lies…allows me to orientate myself.

If I went Amsterdam, the centre point would be the “Oude Kerk” (lat=52.37 lon=4.89). After hearing all that religious history a visit to a “brown café” might be a nice contrast and alternative. Listed below are a few of the historic cafés. Each making a claim to fame, with a delightful story.

In ‘t Aepjen (1550)
- 52°22’34.6″N 4°54’00.6″E or 52.376278, 4.900167
Café Karpershoek (1606)
- 52°22’41.1″N 4°53’46.0″E or 52.378083, 4.896111
De Drie Fleschjes (Three Little Bottles) (1619)
- 52°22’27.4″N 4°53’32.3″E or 52.374278, 4.892306)
Café Brandon (1626)
- 52°22’31.7″N 4°53’11.2″E or 52.375472, 4.886444

You have seen how I created three general purpose location maps (for libraries) and introduced four thematic human centred maps with multiple labels for M.J. Naidoo (family history), City Centre Lobamba (places to see when in Eswatini), Clarens Festival (venues in town where events take place), the Parktown mansions (properties owned by Joburg’s Randlords ) and Guerrilla Blue Plaques (social history).

This map of Amsterdam is just another version. I’m hoping you going to try it out.

{{OSM Location map
|coord = {{coord|52.374167|4.898056}} See OUDE KERK for REGIONAL CORDINATES
|zoom = 15
|float = {{float|right}}
|width = 400
|height = 400
|title = A visit to Amsterdam
|auto-caption = 14
|caption = {{navbar|Festival Locations|plain = y}}
'''A visit to Amsterdam'''
|shape1 = n-circle
|shape-outline1 = white
|shape-color1 = {{#ifeq:{{{highlight|}}}|1|black|#ffd401}}
|mark-size1 = 16
|mark-title1 = 
|mark-coord1 = 
|mark-title2 = In ‘t Aepjen (1550) See IN 't AEPJEN for CAFE CO0RDINATES
|mark-coord2 = {{coord|52|22|34.6|N| 4|54|00.6|E}}
}}

These human centred maps are full of people who live or work there. Might it be possible to attach a human voices to the actual place. A story teller can weave event and places together. When these stories are shared together, trust is built, emotional connections are made.

Human centred mapping topics

Voices from people who live in hijacked buildings in Jo’burg
The unsung (and unheard of) heroes
The (incomplete) Bookshop Tour of Johannesburg
A Blue Plaque Trail in partnership with you local historian

Big jump here.

Scope: Draft a numbered campus map of lesser-known places on your University campus, using the Wikipedia Open Street Map Template (see more examples).

Rationale for this work

If you do want to allow others to address the marginalization and exclusion that map makers manufactured, then utilising Wikimedia’s map-making capabilities, to tell stories of under appreciated, remote, ignored or even blanked out people is a great way forward.

References

https://librarycarpentry.github.io/lc-wikidata/05-intro_to_querying.html

M. Arikawa and M. Lu (2022) Ubiquitous Digital Storytelling with Local and Dynamic Georeferencing of Analog Maps. Chapter from Y. Wakabayashi and T. Morita (eds.), Ubiquitous Mapping, Advances in Geographical
and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1536-9_2

Neumann, A. (2008). Web Mapping and Web Cartography. In: Shekhar, S., Xiong, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of GIS. Springer, Boston, MA.

This is the second in a series of blog posts about spatial lenses

How I (wish) I might work

#FolioFriday is a quickly spent hour. Each week I try to focus on my writing and thought. This is when the restless “monkey mind” of mine, appreciates calm and a regular routine. Even happier when my shared writing is in the company of friends. Bit like evening boarding school prep time!

FolioFriday allows me to make my voice clearer, to pull thoughts from what I know, draw ideas together from what I’ve read and concentrate this work alongside a few other people in the room. This blogging of mine sometimes does seem self-indulgent. However, the many blog posts that I have been reading over the years, have launched my practice and encouraged me to do something similar.

If FolioFriday leads to a community of academics, consultants, ed techies, teachers, young people, who would like to spend an hour thinking out loud, writing another report, or updating Foliofriday. africa in pleasant company, I’ll see that as a draw. If FolioFriday allows me (and you) to become a better writer, I’ll see that as a win.

There is a need to systematize this event, and so while blogging here, these are a few things that I need to prioritise.

Regularise my workflow so it fits with Folio Friday
Sort out the FolioFriday announcements and mailing list
Try find a way to help us all note our progress and recognise ongoing commitment
Improve / document a blogging routine.

Regularize my own workflow

Michael, Paul and I are planning to publish a chapter in the journal Post Digital Science and Education. Deadline is the 1 December 2024.

I’ve also been invited to submit an abstract by another friend

Am always pleased to have the opportunity to contribute my thinking among peers. If you look at my Orcid, you will see that I have not published that much among scholars. Read far too many trade publications and not enough scholarly work.

So before I begin the arduous/stimulating task of thinking with peers. I’m wondering if I can be a be a bit meta, articulate the implicit and explicit steps I (should) take when I am writing, putting a course together, coding a page. This is my attempt at workflow. I’ll divide the process into three (Prior, Authoring and Wrap). (Please note, this probably will change as I refine my process)

PRIOR | The pre-planning phase

Explore the idea. If this work is self generated, I open the folder named _Fiddle. If I am pitching to a client, I open the folder called _Prospects. Within each I create a folder with a date.
Understand at the brief. My inclination is always to jump in, and then hope that everything co-coalesces and fits into place. This works sometimes, but other times scope creep happens and the work becomes far bigger than it should be. As I begin to understand and process the brief, I take a large sheet of paper out and draft out the scope with an flatplan, sitemap, canvas or mindmap (FSPM). This is when I use pen, pencils, paint, paper.
Look at the brief again. Draft a “running head” on the chosen FSPM, but now make this format digital. The running head should indicate the content and attract attention, be short and simple and be aimed at a specific audience.
Select the authoring environment. Choose the environment. Will I use Word, Scrivener, my Wikipedia Sandbox, the shell I’ve set up on Github, my CodePen playground, the etherpad or my HTML template. You are going to be drawing on other people’s ideas. So have a mechanism available to ensure credit is given. Create a sub folder entitled “desktop research” in _fiddle or _prospects. For example, if writing in Word, use the Zoterro plugin. If designing a presentation, and finding images on Flickr, use Alan’s bookmarks
Prepare to submit the proposal. Proposal should reflect the client identity (logo, colours), the running head, date of submission. Before you do this, remember to
- spell and grammar check,
- refresh references through Zotero.
- add page breaks,
- update table of comments,
- make sure figures and diagrams have a caption
Write a cover letter. This introduces the running head, defines the jargon, indicates the focus. You could describe (in white text on the title page), where you see things going next. After sending off, set a follow up date on email. Then follow up and ask for feedback.

AUTHORING | The production phase

Ideally, the title, abstract and outline has been generated in the prior phase. That is my draft. The authoring process work might be approached with Pew & Mavor’s “Incremental Commitment Spiral Model” (2007) and / or Wenger’s Systems Convening”.

Exploration and / or Convergence
Valuation and / or Boundaries
Foundations and / or Identity
Development and / or Agency
Recognition

These different provides a way for individuals, organizations or projects to incrementally experiment and evolve within the terrain they are working
ICSM’s key practices and to evolve toward process models better suited to their
needs and competitive environment

Make my documents better

One of my constant problems when writing a document is identifying my audience. Its not that I don’t know who I am speaking to, its that “the audience” is located in different territories and each audience have a different things that they want to accomplish. So questions like this are not always helpful.

Q: Who are you addressing with your document?

A: Who do you want me to address. The funder, the target audience or the scholarship? The three are very different and I’ll illustrate this with an example of Google Maps. If the funder is from Europe or Canada, then they have a certain imaginary about using maps to find their way around. If the target audience is from a small country in Africa, where Google street view is not included and data is too expensive to use maps on your phone, then there is no point in referring to Google streetview. And if I quote Polish Philosopher Alfred Korzybski and say “The map is not the territory”, but I cannot go any deeper. It’s not because I’m lazy. It’s because access to Science and Sanity is a little harder for me, with my office off campus and no meaningful library access available, to address this deficiency. My reaction to these audience uncertainties is to begin from my own head and experience. Precisely the wrong place to write a document from.

So, finding common ground between your different audiences, , when the terrain is so uneven, is difficult. Perhaps its helpful to have

a shared goal,
named stages or stopping points along your journey
a clear outline of remains to be done.

So that I can progress and achieve my collective goal.

WRAP | Pulling it all together.

This is the hardest part for me (and I confess, that there is a big gap between this part of my blog post and the previous sections), because I have not know really how to wrap this up. Conclusions seems like a recurring issue and discussing it feels very uncomfortable. I will be adding to this. But for now: On the day or week of publication:

Put the publication onto your CV
Upload a PDF copy to your web site
Compile my bibliography with Zotero and share
Update your meta data on Wikidata
Write a b;og post about it.

Thanks to https://acs.ist.psu.edu/papers/how-to-write-papers.txt for inspiration

Foliofriday – a year later

I published the concept Folio Friday on the in Aug 2022

I registered the domain name FolioFriday (https://foliofriday.africa/ ) about a year ago (Jan 2024). I wanted to build upon the idea of making your thoughts visible. I had not given much thought to how making thoughts visible also made them scrapable, by LLMs.

Today (19 Feb 2026) I asked chat GPT this question

Does weblearning do folio friday?
A prompt made by Derek Moore:

Yes! Weblearning does have a thing called Folio Friday — but it’s not a formal event or competition like the hashtag-style portfolio days you see on social platforms. It’s more of a personal weekly practice that the Weblearning author shares on their blog. (weblearning.co.za)

Here’s the gist from Chat GPT
Replies from Chat GPT

📌 Folio Friday on the Weblearning blog

It’s a weekly habit the blog author (an educational technology practitioner) set up for themselves.
Each Friday they take some time to reflect on their week — looking at their work, learning, thoughts, moods, and patterns.
Sometimes they organize and highlight things they’ve accomplished (like work posted or achievements toward professional goals), and other times it’s more of a personal journaling moment to look back on how the week went.
The idea is to encourage reflection, openness, and shared learning, not competition or formal showcasing. (weblearning.co.za)

So — yes, Weblearning does mention Folio Friday, but in the context of a weekly self-reflection routine posted on their blog, not as an organized community event with submissions or a hashtag campaign. If you meant a different Weblearning (like a specific LMS or training provider), let me know!

Not bad chat GPT. Yes, this is a weekly habit that I try to follow. Others are welcome to join me when it suits them. Its about the practice of making your thinking visible. Two things I would like to emphasise.

Folio Friday is a small community of practices (COP) that uses the Pomodoro approach to guide our writing. Pomodoro is a simple way to keep your mind fresh. Every Friday, we meet on Zoom and write for 25 minutes, take a break and write for another 25. Focussed work is good. Doing focussed work with someone else is even better. Sharing your thoughts with others….https://foliofriday.africa/ that’s when you start to see why writing is a good habit

Uploading images onto Wikimedia Commons

Four step workflow for uploading images

I have a picture of the Llandaff Oratory It’s the little church at the top of the pass named after Frans Van Reenen. I’d like to add this photo to the Llandaff Oratory Wikipedia page.

Screen shot of images that pertain to the Smallest Church in Van Reenan

My task – to upload the image to Wikimedia Commons. I’ve used the four phases found in the Upload Wizard.

Learn
Upload
Release Rights
Describe

1) Login to Learn (about sharing work openly with licenses)

A person who creates a photo, owns the copyright to the photograph. The photo copyright could be given away, or sold, under specific conditions. These terms are set by a legal document known as a license that specifies the nature of the agreement. A free license simply means the creator permits others to use his or her copyrighted photo without asking explicitly for permission. Open licenses make it easier to share pics with others.

2) Upload your File from your device

Select your photo. High quality images are better. You might want to size them consistently. Below you will see a picture I took of the Littlest Church at Van Reenen. The tick shows that I selected it.

Go to the Upload Wizard. Click the blue button “UPLOAD“.

The photo might take some time to upload.”

Screenshot of the Wikimedia Commons upload Wizard

3) Release Rights are all about open licensing to the Commons.

You could set your release rights automatically – see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences
Otherwise you will be reminded about ownership of the image. Choose from these two options.

Consider an open licence? I prefer “CC BY” ensures you get credited whenever the photo’s reused. If you comfortable with code, you could try these templates with option 4 (of course you have to modify).

4) Describe file Details and add extra data

This part can skipped. But metadata is very useful later on, when you have many images.

Choose a filename. I keep it short (and try to ensure that I have got the spelling right)

Add a caption. The writing below an image is the caption, it places the image in a context. You have 255-characters to write the description. You might want to add a vernacular caption too?

Published date. Select the date when the image was first published

Describe Further. Add additional information. This is optional, but helpful for others

Insert a Wikidata item. There should be a main subject visible in the photo. Locate the Wikidata number and add structured data

Add a specific category. When working with a batch of photos you might want to add a category or use an existing one.

Location. You could add the geo-coordinates (or they might appear automatically)

MORE Additional information This is a hidden field. You might be uploading a map from open street maps. They you’d use the template {{OpenStreetMap}}

Post and Confirm. You are ready to finalise your post. All that has been submitted can be checked and corrected

Next: Adding

Advanced: Uploading files with OpenRefine

Adapted from ten steps to put photos on Wikimedia Commons (adapted from Commons Workflow handout by Mike Dickison, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

A visit to Eswatini

I was in Eswatini from the 21-22 May 2025 on what turned out to be my last training event for SWiP. My stay nearby to the Residence of Ndlovukazi (the Queen Mother) at Lobamba, Eswatini was far to brief. Muzi tells me that this is the royal, spiritual, cultural and political heart of Eswatini (previously called Swaziland). I probably broke far too many cultural taboos. Crap!

Sadly, I could not visit Umsamo Wesive (the national museum), wander around Libandla (bi-cameral parliament) or watch the Sihlangu Semnikat (the Kings Shield) practice at Somhlolo Stadium (the national stadium). But I did have a fabulous three day workshop at King Sobhuza II Memorial Park. And then I created a map for the organisations in town.

{{Lobamba City Mapp}} – Places that I did not visit when in Lobamba. Made with OSM Template

Although these locations were in walking distance of my hotel, I had double-booked myself for the “Great Debate”. So instead of exploring, I spent my days working alongside aspiring Wikipedians (journalism students, academics, and educators) on this WikiProject: Eswatini. Nights were spent planning (and worrying) how I would manage the “Great Debate” Topic: LLMs in Higher Education, which was scheduled for Friday, 23 May, my departure day.

Unlike other SWiP events, the visit to Eswatini did not have a post-event workshop evaluation. So I thought I’d share my thoughts with SADiLaR colleagues and Wikipedians

Code cannot completely compensate for poor language
We need to create conversational designs
An aggressive template – and quick cover-up
Unanswered Questions

1) Code cannot completly compensate for poor language skills?

I have been making onboarding tutorials in vernacular languages (Afrikaans, Zulu and Siswati) – see https://ss.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantfu:Derek_J_Moore

Now if you speak Siswati its possible that you are chuckling (or cringing) at my poor attempts at this language. I share the sense of embarrassment. I am bilingual, speak Afrikaans (average) and English (reasonably well). But unlike the majority of South African citizens, I don’t speak or write any vernacular languages and I often get things wrong.

I’ve noted before that language support for Siswati (and other South African vernacular languages) code on Wikipedia is minimal. But what I have not quite comprehended is just how much of the code underneath English Wikipedia templates and modules also needs to be installed onto the vernacular platform. Neither can I find too many clear vernacular guidelines on installing the code.

English Wikipedia has access to a wide code base and explicit policies and guidelines. What isn’t clear to me, at least here in Wikimedia South Africa, who are the people in charge of each language group and which policies do I fall under?

Wikipedia is available in almost 350 languages. Each language has its own community of volunteers. Efforts have been made to create translation resources, so that we can build on each other’s work. But the languages that have documentation and support are minority world languages. Regular communication is sent in English, not vernacular languages. For an organisation that intends to make all the worlds knowledge freely available, this is disappointing.

Vernacular Wikipedia has a partner in the form of Wikidata, a free, collaborative, multilingual, secondary knowledge graph. Wikipedia and Wikidata have the potential to bring transformation for in minority languages in the majority world. You can freely correct and improve what has been written in Wikipedia and Wikidata. For example, my poor attempts at Siswati, isiZulu and Afrikaans on Wikipedia can be corrected by any of you. But when I add to Wikidata, then that information on that platform can be algorithmically translated and placed in all language versions. How good are these translations?

I suspect that my coding across Wikipedia platforms and averagely translated sentences, simply creates technical debt? Code does not compensate for my poor language.

2) Conversational Design

( see by Erika HallMarch 15, 2018)

Accomodation was not at Mlilwane, but were were comfortably housed at Happy Valley Hotel (-26.440434,31.188795 | 26°26’25.6″S 31°11’19.7″E). During the day, the Knowledge Workers (my pet name for the SADiLaR crew) with Herschall and I ran sessions. Henry Count Evans had assembled a fine bunch of people for the workshop. I enjoyed talking to aspiring and interested Wikipedians more about ss.wikipedia.org. It was clear to me that they were all quite familiar with the platform. After the workshop had finished, I popped into every Wikipedians sandbox and there I left them a message {{New userpage}}. The code can be read below.

{{ombox |type = notice |image = [[File:Essay.svg|50px|link=]] |style = background:#f4f4f4;border: 1px solid #FFB2B2; |textstyle = color:#0A0A0A; |text = Hello, ”'{{SAFESUBST:ROOTPAGENAME}}”’, so glad that you joined us at the [[Training_workshop|Training Workshop]] a few days ago! Thank you for contributing to [[Wikipedia]]. I hope you enjoyed the experience and want to learn more. Maybe join a [[Wikipedia:Meetup|Monthly Meetup]] and connect with other Wikipedians?.
Perhaps experiment in ”'{{#if:{{{list|}}}{{{a|}}}|a|the}} user [[Help:My sandbox|sandbox]] of [[{{NAMESPACE}}:{{{1|{{ROOTPAGENAME}}}}}|{{{1|{{ROOTPAGENAME}}}}}]]”’. (PLEASE NOTE: A user sandbox is a subpage of the user’s [[Wikipedia:User pages|user page]]. It serves as a testing spot and page development space for the user and is not an encyclopedia article.) }}

I did not get a great response. Later I went back to what English Wikipedia calls the Tea House. SS calls it Likhefi leinthanethi which (if Google translate is right), means Internet Cafe. Today, if you visit this page, you might note the interaction, it is all one way and in English.

Khuluma nebantfu

There is often an apology for not using vernacular. But no attempt to hire or appoint someone who might assist. Now Bobby Shabangu is from that part of the world and I saw once that he was translating the communication. But gradually it has become a broadcast instead of a conversation? But I suppose when you have been a radio DJ, then maybe broadcasting stories comes more naturally than interacting? Or perhaps the organisational structures of Wikimedia, who send out the same press release across all platforms. Go through the typical corporate publishing process where all has to be approved and stay on brand.

Erica Hall wrote a book about Conversational Design (its free to download). She encourages designers to be story listeners and interreact with real people, to make social connections. Our conversations involve give and take and our orality makes us human. She has a lovely quote there.

Orality knits persons into community
Walter Ong

3) An aggressive template

iThempleti:Simple box is a template that creates an infobox in SS Wikipedia.

The instructions are clearly given. “A simple infobox that can be used for basically anything. All parameters are optional. If you don’t need all the lines, just leave them empty or delete them, but you must keep the brackets at the end.” For anyone who wants to experiment with an info box. this is a great spot to begin.

https://ss.wikipedia.org/wiki/iThempleti:Simple_box

On the workshop, I found myself showing advanced users how to use this template. But I quickly had to make an adjustment. Because the template contained a very aggressive photo of Jonas Savimbi, who played a big part in the civil war in Angola. Now I regard Wikipedia as a safe space. But that photo that a user (Naudefj) had inserted was unnecessary, and as a guest in that country, I don’t think that Wikipedians should have pictures of divisive figures in their templates. I removed (deleted) it. But the incident left me with questions about the relationship between Eswatini Wikimedian, Afrikaans Wikimedian and who was keeping this a safe space. our UNESCO hosts.

4) Some Concerns

I am in favour of Wikimedia’s decision to professionalise the paid work that Wikipedian volunteers do. It creates the conditions of employment and leaves much less room for doubt and dispute and protects both parties. I’ve done a few pieces of educational work overseas. When I worked in other countries, an international third party contacted me to do the work. They were very clear about what I could do or could not do and took responsibility for keeping me safe. We had a contract and there were parties to contact if things went wrong. In this visit, I went over to another country with a piece of code that was problematic. Essentially, Herschall and I and the SWiP team were bringing in aggressive code. With the many high-profile people this was a symbolic space where the king proclaimed he had no enemies? This code was a challenge. The second concern was that this work seemed to be part of a Wikimedia research grant See https://openreview.net/forum?id=zAoMpLW78U I am very much in favour of action research, but ethical consent from participants is necessary? I don’t think consent was given.

In return for these question, I was removed from the project. I must admit. I’m pretty bummed about that.