Category: Earth (Arts and Literature)

Better than the Beatles

I’m not sure I’m going to sleep tonight. I’ve discovered a classic album, one of those new discoveries that sears itself into your consciousness, leaving you forever changed. Kurt Cobain listed this as his fifth favorite album of all time. Frank Zappa apparently called them better than the Beatles. I can’t believe I haven’t heard… Continue reading Better than the Beatles

June 2018 African language Wikipedia update, 50 000 articles for Afrikaans

There are only 19 days to go until Wikimania in Cape Town, so it’s a good time to look at the state of the African language Wikipedias again, as always based on the imperfect metric of number of articles. The following tables show the number of articles for each language on a particular date, as… Continue reading June 2018 African language Wikipedia update, 50 000 articles for Afrikaans

Cape Town wiki meetup with Wikimedia Foundation’s Asaf Bartov

Cape Town was very lucky to host Wikimedia Foundation’s Senior Program Officer Asaf Bartov at the end of his Africa tour. We held a meetup, and it proved particularly inspiring to those attending. Asaf spoke about Wikidata, discussed projects using the data, and demonstrated a number of tools that were new to most of us,… Continue reading Cape Town wiki meetup with Wikimedia Foundation’s Asaf Bartov

Black Panther

Tonight was the opening night of Black Panther. It’s been getting heavy publicity for being the first of eighteen Marvel superhero films to feature a black lead, and features a predominantly black cast. For some this is just tokenism, an attempt to find a new angle to sell yet more movie tickets. So was there… Continue reading Black Panther

Patreon meltdown

Patreon just made one of those decisions that look good when explained to investors in the boardroom, but are utterly suicidal when rolled out. They changed their fee structure, so that instead of the finance fees being charged to creators, they are now charged to patrons. The motivation is sound. Previously, the actual amount paid… Continue reading Patreon meltdown

September 2017 African language Wikipedia update

It’s time to look at the state of the African language Wikipedias again, as always based on the imperfect metric of number of articles. African Language Wikipedias Language 11/2/2011 9/5/2013 26/6/2015 24/11/2016 5/9/2017 Malagasy 3,806 45,361 79,329 82,799 84,634 Afrikaans 17,002 26,752 35,856 42,732 46,824 Swahili 21,244 25,265 29,127 34,613 37,443 Yoruba 12,174 30,585 31,068… Continue reading September 2017 African language Wikipedia update

November 2016 African language Wikipedia update

The March update was positive, so let’s see how the various African-language Wikipedias have progressed since then. As always, this measures the number of articles, which is an imperfect metric, but it’s interesting to follow the trends. African Language Wikipedias Language 11/2/2011 9/5/2013 26/6/2015 5/3/2016 24/11/2016 Malagasy 3,806 45,361 79,329 81,240 82,799 Afrikaans 17,002 26,752… Continue reading November 2016 African language Wikipedia update

Revisiting Patreon

In March 2015 I started a series, 30 Artists in 30 Days, where the plan was to find 30 artists to support on Patreon. The 30-days part ended up being a little loose. Read that post first if you haven’t already. It’s been about 18 month since then, and I thought I’d go back and… Continue reading Revisiting Patreon