Historical background
The Hausa community is the largest ethnic group in West Africa and the most spoken language in Nigeria with a highest number of population. For the past many years, the main page of Hausa Wikipedia lacked sufficient effects that can convey interest to demonstrate and satisfy the desire of visitors and editors of Hausa Wikipedia. This has made the main page of Hausa Wikipedia uninteresting to visitors. Being arranged this way makes the local wiki have no flexibility and mobility deeper into the wiki, lacks link connectivity, and hides some important Wikipedia pages.
Change is coming
On 1 March, 2021 myself an administrator of Hausa Wikipedia by the name Anasskoko, reasoned that if the main page of Hausa Wikipedia can be as efficient as other standard local wikis like English and Arabic Wikipedia, then Hausa Wikipedia can rapidly progress, to the extent that it can attract visitors to become volunteers. With such progress we can attract a lot of visitors and editors that will be interested in giving contributions and build the local wiki. I dedicated much of effort, time, and data expenditure to make the main page look good and well arranged. This took creating over 60 pages, which include templates, discussion pages, categories, Wikipedia pages, and maintenance templates. All of which are linked to the Main page of Hausa Wikipedia for discussion, creation and maintenance of the page.
Furthermore, there are new improvement in the wiki, the fact that maintenance templates and categorization templates were created, from categories articles base on good articles, articles that need improvement, articles needing citations, articles that needs proper translation and articles to be deleted accordingly – all are categorized and linked from the main page.
Onboarding discussions
On 23 March, 2021, a discussion started taking place off-wiki and from different users, to collect opinions from different experienced users in Hausa Wikipedia. These discussions were structured in such away that the main page will be written base on a neutral point of view and to be written from different perspective, just like English and other developed wikis. Space was made for every user to say their mind in regards to the main page, so that corrections, recommendations and ideas can be put in to consideration regarding the new changes in the main page.
Merits and demerits
- The main is well organized when viewed from a Computer or Laptop.
- It lacks some arrangements when viewed from Mobile phone due to templates arrangements which is not yet fixed.
- In the news, today’s featured article, today’s article and other sections can only be updated manually.
You can view the new main page on Hausa Wikipedia.
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