Image from Wikimedia Commons African Language Wikipedias I’m at the 2024 Wiki Indaba, and it’s been inspiring to see the progress in the African Wikimedia space. I was at the very first Wiki Indaba, back in 2014, and the event has grown dramatically, with many first-time attendees. This has encouraged me to update my ‘annual’… Continue reading October 2024 African language Wikipedia update
Tag: wikimedia
South African language Wikipedias – Wikimania 2022 update
It’s Wikimania 2022 and, being a hybrid event, Cape Town hosted its own get-together. I took the opportunity to take a long overdue look at the state of the South African language Wikipedias. I include all eleven official languages, with the exception of English. Afrikaans 104,335 (95,700 on 18 January 2021) articles 190 (210) active… Continue reading South African language Wikipedias – Wikimania 2022 update
South African language Wikipedias 20th birthday review
I was asked to do a presentation at a Wikipedia 20th birthday party hosted by Wikimedia South Africa, which unfortunately I can’t make, but I still took the opportunity to look in a little more detail at the state of the South African language Wikipedias. I include all eleven official languages, with the exception of… Continue reading South African language Wikipedias 20th birthday review
November 2020 African language Wikipedia update
My last look at the state of the African Wikipedias was in March 2019, so the time is nigh to have a long-overdue look at whats changed since. (Thanks to this tweet from today for forcing me to use “nigh” in a sentence. May as well have asked me not to think of blue). As… Continue reading November 2020 African language Wikipedia update
March 2019 African language Wikipedia and Wiktionary update
African Language Wiktionaries Language 30/5/2010 15/5/2011 29/10/2014 22/3/2019 % + Malagasy 4,253 – 3,599,084 5,482,632 52.33% Afrikaans 14,669 14,731 15,794 20,831 31.89% Swahili 13,000 13,027 13,903 14,029 0.91% Wolof 2,689 2,693 2,310 2,312 0.09% Somali – – – 1,635 – Sotho 1,389 1,398 1,343 1,343 0.00% Lingala – – – 673 – Zulu 131 510… Continue reading March 2019 African language Wikipedia and Wiktionary update
Cape Town Wikimania, and some Wikidata observations
The 2018 Wikimania was held in Cape Town from July 18 to July 22. Wikimania is the annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation, the foundation supporting Wikipedia and other hosted projects, such as Wikimedia Commons, WikiVoyage, Wikidata and Wiktionary. I’ve never been to a Wikimania before – the closest I came was almost going to… Continue reading Cape Town Wikimania, and some Wikidata observations
Zulu Wikipedia reaches 1000 articles
Just in time for Wikimania, the Zulu Wikipedia has reached the 1000 article milestone. Congratulations to user Njabulo19 who created the 1000th article. Njabulo19 started editing actively in 2017 and has continued into 2018, and has paid particular attention to article categories. Well done Zulu Wikipedia community for having reached 4 figures – wishing you… Continue reading Zulu Wikipedia reaches 1000 articles
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
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