My Experience at the WMA End-of-Year Hack Challenge 2025

This was my second time participating in a hackathon. The Wiki Mentor Africa (WMA) End-of-Year Hack Challenge 2025 was organized to close out the year in grand style, and it was a truly enriching experience for me.

For this hackathon, my role focused on technical documentation and translation into French to make knowledge more accessible across multiple languages. I was part of the ISA Team.

ISA means “to put” or “to place” in the ChiShona language.
The ISA Tool (Image Structured Assessment) is a tool that helps contributors assess images and add structured data on Wikimedia Commons, thereby improving image discoverability and reuse.

Team Structure and My Role

Participants were divided into six different teams: ISA, WdTmCollab, EMI, PULA, SourceWiki, and SCC. Each team was structured around three main domains:

• Coding
• Design (UI/UX)
• Technical documentation/translation

For the ISA Team, while the developers worked on implementing new features and the designers focused on UI and UX improvements, my responsibility was to document these new features in the ISA Tool Manual and properly translate them. Check out all my assigned tasks on the Wikimedia Phabricator here.

New Features Documented

Several important updates were made to the tool during the hackathon, including:

• A redesigned UI and UX to provide a smoother and more user-friendly experience.

• Improved visibility of active campaigns and user contributions, helping to motivate contributors.

• An enhanced Help Center, making it easier to learn about Wikimedia Commons, the ISA tool, and related topics.

• The Help and Reporting Issues feature, where contributors can report issues by filling out a form. Once submitted, the form automatically generates a Phabricator ticket, which administrators can track and resolve.

• A My Contributions page that allows users to easily view and track their contributions.

• A Year in Review page that enables users to view, celebrate, and share a summary of their yearly contributions with a wider audience.

I documented all these updates clearly in the ISA Tool Manual to ensure contributors can easily understand and use the new features.

Translation Experience and Challenges

In addition to documentation, I also translated both existing and newly added features into French. One of the most challenging tasks was adding translation tags to the new sections of the manual, as I repeatedly encountered error messages and got stuck for a while.

After several attempts, I first reached out to my teammate Sayvhior, who patiently guided me on what to do. And I then contacted the Translation Administrators, explained the problem, and the translation tags were eventually approved. This experience was a significant learning curve for me.

Highlights and Achievements

One of the biggest highlights of this hackathon was gaining deeper experience in technical documentation, an area I had not previously explored. Another major highlight was the recognition: I emerged as the 1st Runner-Up in the Documentation Domain, receiving an award.

My team, the ISA Team, also emerged as the overall winning team, and we were awarded $1,500. The ISA Team produced three individual winners, which was beautiful to witness. Shout-out to Gopavasanth, Sayvhior, and myself for this achievement.

Teamwork and Collaboration

Team collaboration was one of the strongest aspects of this hackathon. At one point, a teammate reached out to me after being assigned a task he did not know how to start. That same night, I recorded a step-by-step video tutorial to guide him through the process. This video can also be helpful to anyone interested in translations.

Appreciation

Special thanks to the WMA organizers for putting together such an impactful hackathon: Benedict Udeh, Eugene & Tochi Precious. A big shout-out to our ISA Team mentor, Swayam Agrahari, for his guidance and encouragement throughout the hackathon.

Finally, I deeply appreciate my active teammates for their outstanding contributions: Gopavasanth, Kongnyu Roger, Sayvhior, Trizzygana, Charipearl, Rwebogora, Umabruka, and Umar2z. It was truly a pleasure working with you all.

Conclusion

This hackathon reinforced the importance of collaboration, learning by doing, and stepping into new skill areas. It was a fulfilling way to wrap up the year, and I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute, learn, and grow.