2019/Grants/Free Knowledge Africa

Title:

Free Knowledge Africa

Name:

Isaac Oloruntimilehin

Wikimedia username:

Timmylegend

E-mail address:

isaacoloruntimilehingmail.com

Resume:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacoloruntimilehin/

Geographical impact:

Nigeria

Type of project:

Other

What is your idea?

This project solely involves adding references from reliable sources to articles of town/cities, travel, tourism, geography, heritage and culture on the English Wikipedia. This will help improve the reliability of information and verification of information on the English Wikipedia.

A lot of Nigerian articles don't have enough and proper citations from reliable sources and we look to fill in the gap by sourcing for and getting credible sources for these articles. We look forward to adding over a thousand references to different Nigeria articles.

We would be working on a list of settlements (villages, towns and cities in Nigeria), by adding vital spatial information and references such as road codes, Zip codes, postal code, districts, when they were founded.

We intend to work on articles in this category and lists

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nigeria_geography_stubs
• https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_villages_in_Nigeria

The reference material to be used are government data that are not readily available and sorted, we would be making use of data from the Nigerian Postal Service, Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. These reference materials are not readily available online and accessible to use, it involves taking extra efforts and time to study and extract the required, relevant and necessary data.

All team members will be working on the same activity as well.

Why is it important?

There exists a huge gap about African/Nigerian destinations on Wikivoyage and Wikipedia without any significant attempt at carrying out a complete overhaul and improvement. We are attempting to bridge the knowledge gap on travel information on the African continent and within African countries on Wikivoyage. Our overall goal is to reduce the knowledge gap of travel information available on the English Wikivoyage and Wikipedia for Nigerian destinations (States, Cities and Towns) and highlighting the tourism potential in the various destinations. We also intend to update and improve the quality of existing articles and position the English Wikivoyage as a reliable travel advisory for travelling in Nigeria.

This is in line with the Wikimedia movement 2030 strategy recommendation of identifying topics for impact, and the following initiatives: list of high-impact topics, bridging content gaps and content initiatives in underrepresented communities.

Is your project already in progress?

No, Ideation phase

How is it relevant to credibility and Wikipedia? (max 500 words)

The project would promote the reliability and credibility of spatial/geographical/travel/tourism content on the English Wikipedia by adding information from reliable sources. Our overall goal is to reduce the knowledge gap of travel information available on the English Wikipedia for Nigerian destinations (States, Cities and Towns) and highlighting the tourism potential in the various destinations. We also intend to update and improve the quality of existing articles and position the English Wikipedia as a reliable source of information for various destinations in Nigeria.

What is the ultimate impact of this project?

We would be adding vital spatial information and references about towns and cities such as road codes, Zip codes, postal code, districts when they were founded. We would also be adding references to articles on travel, tourism, heritage and culture. We will consider the project a success when we have been able to help narrow the Nigeria travel information content gap on Wikipedia by a significant measure. This would be considered achieved when:

• At least 1,000 quality articles about Nigerian towns and cities have been improved on Wikipedia.
• We have significantly improved the awareness level of Wikipedia in Nigeria, through our efforts.

Could it scale?

Yes. While Free Knowledge Africa is still very new and our activities have been primarily centred around editing workshops, writing and upload contests, we plan to expand our activities into other key areas, such as: GLAM projects, strategic partnerships with relevant organizations outside of the Wikimedia movement and Government ministries etc.

Why are you the people to do it?

We are undergraduate students and graduates at the University of Ilorin who have been actively contributing to Wikipedia and its sister projects since 2018, and my team members are active members of the Wikimedia Club and have been actively editing Wikipedia for over two years. We are highly passionate about promoting the credibility and reliability of the content on Wikipedia. We organised a #1lib1ref campaign in 2020.

Timmylegend - (Project and Campaign Lead) - I am an experienced Wikipedian, and the current leader of the Wikimedia Fan Club, University of Ilorin. I have organised various campaigns at the University of Ilorin Wikimedia community such as 1Lib1Ref, Art+Feminism, Wiki Loves Africa, and Wikipedia pages wanting photos. I was a participant at Wiki Indaba 2019 conference. I will be facilitating the creation of instructional videos/materials, virtual meetings and selection of speakers/trainers on virtual training workshops for new members.

Haylad - (Coordinator) - He has previously led the Wikimedia Fan Club, University of Ilorin, organized multiple meetups and Wiki loves Africa photo walks/event at the University Club in Ilorin and Ado-Ekiti in 2019 and 2020 respectively. He will be in charge of recruiting and onboarding new members during the process.

Bilijin - (Data Entry) - She is an experienced Wikimedian with a knack for prudence, she and her team will be in charge of result collation and disclosure of Winners. She is a board member (Vice Chair) of the Wikimedia Nigeria Foundation Inc/Wikimedia User Group Nigeria.

James Moore200 - (Communications and Data Entry) - He is an experienced Wikimedian and a winner of the Wiki Loves SDGs 2020, organized by project everyone. He is highly skilled in social media engagements, publicity, and strategic communications.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_User_Group_Nigeria/Wikimedia_Fan_Club,_University_of_Ilorin

What is the impact of your idea on diversity and inclusiveness of the Wikimedia movement?

Our solution is primarily to raise awareness and also leveraging on the popularity of Wikipedia and the possibilities it offers to promoting tourism, knowledge, integration, cultural heritage and development in Nigeria and the huge knowledge gap that exists about travel information on Wikivoyage, with a call to action via a contest/campaign to bridge the gap.

This project seeks to generate momentum, excitement and interest amongst Nigerians to actively contribute to the Wikipedia project. This will be sustained in the coming years by building on the impacts and results of this year's activities by expanding the scope of the project to the entire African continent.

Nigeria is the world's 32nd-largest country by land size with and 6th largest country in terms of population, and most populated African/black country in the world (est. population is 203 million people). Nigeria is an emerging economy with prime destinations in various parts of the country for both business and leisure and a wealth of culture, history and wildlife, fantastic regional cuisines and amazing geographic diversity which is yet to be fully explored.

The standard of many highly visible articles about Nigerian destinations is very poor, with poor copyediting, incorrect capitalization, spacing, punctuation, grammar and usage; irregular formatting; and sometimes, even poor comprehensibility.

We intend to also use pictures from past photo contests and campaign such as Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Monument, Wiki Loves Africa etc on Wikivoyage articles and creating articles about some of these destinations.

This project would ensure that the geographical north/south gap is bridged on Wikipedia, and the gender gap on Wikipedia.

What are the challenges associated with this project and how you will overcome them?

The reference materials to be used are government data which are not readily available and sorted, we would be making use of data from the Nigerian Postal Service, Nigerian Bureau of Statistics. This reference materials are not readily available online and accessible to use, it involves taking extra efforts and time to study and extract the required, relevant and necessary data.

Due to the fact that the relevant publications are not easily available online. We will need to obtain access to them through a library and other government archives, while some will be obtained from various other sources such as academic papers, gazettes, development plans etc. We will document information about the sources themselves, and even digitize them if possible.

How much money are you requesting?

$6,000

How will you spend the money?

We intend to organize training sessions for participants and build a community that will promote and coordinate collaboration to create new articles and improve existing articles about travel, tourism, geography, cities/town in Nigeria on Wikipedia. To encourage participation and bridge the gap of accessibility to internet for participants, we would be offering internet data stipends to participants (about $250)

We intend to spend funds ($5400) on obtaining the data, processing the information from various sources as well as digitizing them and releasing them under an open license.

We intend to spend funds ($350) on prizes for active participants as well.

How long will your project take?

6 months

Have you worked on projects for previous grants before?

No

Although we have organised projects funded by WMF in the past.