Quality Over Quantity: The Story of the 72 Hours Virtual Marathon Edit-a-thon in the Igbo Wikimedians User Group

In the Wikimedia world where every edit counts, the Igbo Wikimedians User Group recently organized the 72 Hours Virtual Marathon Edit-a-thon, that brought together dedicated volunteers and native speakers of Igbo language to improve the reliability of Igbo Wikipedia. The marathon was organized by me, alongside Lucy Iwuala, Mark Lapang and Hilary Ogali–three amazing facilitators whose commitment and support helped make the event a success. 

The objective was simple but significant: clean up the backlog of articles with reference issues, broken links, and strengthen localization efforts on translatewiki. By the end of the marathon, we had fixed nearly 800 articles with reference errors, repaired over 400 articles with broken or dead links, and made significant progress on translatewiki. These efforts did not only improve the quality of articles but also increased the overall reliability of the Igbo Wikipedia.

The real success was in the collaborative effort, as the marathon edit-a-thon fostered learning, community engagement and mentorship, especially for newer editors. At the end of the 72 hours, we gathered once more for a closing ceremony to reflect, celebrate, and share insights. Here’s what a few participants had to say about their experience during the marathon:

“The training made me realize ways I can make Wikipedia better, I worked on translatewiki it was my first time though and the experience was good though I encountered restrictions here and there probably because it was a new account. I suggest awareness to be made concerning this program and more of this to be held in the future.” – Neme244

“It was a great experience whereby I was able to identify broken file, edit and correct them.” – Philip Emeka

“At first I thought the reference errors was a little bit tactical to pin point and make corrections but when I got a 4 minutes video from sir Chinonso, I found out it wasn’t that much of a hassle, this project is all round enlightening and very broad to be honest, and more of it would help reduce the discrepancies in articles. I suggest that more focus should be placed on newly translated articles to prevent further errors.” – Adimora chidinma

“The edit-a-thon was worth it
More of this should be coming at intervals, and with that, a lot will be covered in little time.” – Goodymeraj

“I learnt a lot in this edit-a-thon and I’m willing to participate if it will be held again.” – Vivian Amalachukwu

As we continue to grow the Igbo Wikimedia community, we remain committed to projects that prioritize quality, and cultural relevance. We’re not done yet. But for 72 hours, we made a real difference, and that’s a story worth telling!