The Genesis
It was indeed a busy 2023 for Igbo Wikimedians User Group as the community hit the ground running with the celebration of the 22nd anniversary of Wikipedia on 15th January 2023 alongside other Wikimedians. Details of the celebration are seen here as published.
The community immediately followed up with her Annual General Meeting on 27th January 2023 which had over 70 Igbo Wikimedians in attendance. At the meeting, the Group defined various roles, responsibilities and activities for members. The outcome of the meeting became the driving force towards the actualisation of various activities (local and international) achieved by the community in the year 2023.
Our 2023 Strategy
With the renewed 2023 spirit, it was no surprise that Igbo Wikimedians User Group carried out at least six International Campaigns/Events, eight online Learning Webinars, six partnerships leading to the establishment of two new Wiki Fan Clubs in 2023, two International Conference sponsorships, at least ten IG Wiki related posts published on Wikimedia Diff, and over forty Internal Grant events/projects. The aforementioned are shortlisted and broken-down in the course of this publication.
Igbo Wikimedians User Group initiated a unique strategy to enable them achieve their goals of 2023. They set out by putting up a team with defined roles and responsibilities which includes but not limited to programs coordination, events coordination, communications and partnerships.
International conferences and events in the Igbo community 2023
The unified efforts of the team and the entire community members paved a way to a successful year. In 2023, the community carried out series of International Campaigns/Events some of which were achieved via partnerships and collaborations. These include:
It is also worthy of note that Igbo Wikimedians User Group had the second highest number of quotes on Wikiquote after English during the #SheSaid 2023 Campaign.
Building Membership
The passion-driven team of Igbo Wikimedians went ahead to resume the community’s monthly learning webinar project which creates an avenue to train and build the Skillsets of community members. The Webinar is hosted monthly in Editions and in 2023 alone the community successfully hosted eight learning webinar editions which were well attended and appreciated by members. The projects and trainers at the webinars were strategically selected to corroborate the project topics viz:
- Introduction to Wikisource with Sateep Gill.
- Crowdsourcing biodiversity on Inaturalist and using GitHub to create biodiversity stubs on Igbo Wikipedia -Agnes Abah.
- Reading Wikipedia offline on mobile with Benedict Udehb.
- Conference Experience Sharing Session -Panelists.
- Introduction to Wikimedia Commons – Hilary Ogah.
- Introduction to Sound Photography – Abdullah Abubakar
- Basics of Wikimedia Commons categories – Wilson Oluoha.
- Mobile phone photography – Wasiul Bahar (Wikimedia Bangladesh).
IG Wiki 2023 partnerships
Same year with the aid of the IG Wiki teams, partnerships were entered into with some non governmental organisations, academic institutions and other Wikimedia User Groups which led to establishment of new Igbo Wiki Fan Clubs in tertiary institutions and hosting of international conferences. The community successfully went into partnership with Campus Photo Fest and Kodak Express Nigeria in organising Wiki Loves Africa 2023 in the Igbo community. A partnership also entered into with Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike Ikwo (AE-FUNAI) led to the establishment of an Igbo Wiki fan club in that institution. See press spotlight. Also, a successful partnership entered into with Ebonyi State University led to the establishment of an Igbo Wiki Fan Clubs at the institution. Thirdly, there was a partnership with Global Open Initiative Foundation to document Nigerian Supreme court cases; to mention but a few.
Over 40 Locally organised events in 2023
Indeed, the effects of the team set up by the Igbo Wikimedians User Group cannot be overemphasized. The team sect in charge of programs and event oversaw the successful planning and execution of over forty locally organised Igbo Wiki events (in-person and online) in 2023. These were events achieved via the community internal micro grants. These programs were organised by individual members, Hubs and fan clubs of the User Group. Outcomes of these programs/events can be seen on the Igbo Wikimedians User Group Meta page.
Igbo Wiki 2023 International conference sponsorships
The Year wound up with a successful sponsorship of two IG Wiki members to attend the 2023 Wiki Indaba Conference in Morocco. The members were selected from the top editors in the year 2022. Sponsoring these members to attend the Indaba Conference is an initiative by the User Group to appreciated her members for their contributions. See a report by one of the sponsorship recipients. Igbo Wikimedians User Group became the first User Group to do this in Nigeria.
WikiCommons (IG Commons Hub)
In 2023, our IG Wikicommons Hub organized a Description translation project which aimed at improving the index capacity of the Igbo language on Wikimedia Commons by introducing Igbo language translations to photos about Africa stored on Wikimedia Commons. The project had over 6,000 photos on Commons receive captions and descriptions in Igbo language and was adopted by Wiki In Africa as an associated project drive for Wiki Loves Africa with the objective of making photo contributions more useful on various projects.
Wiki Mentor Africa mini Hackathon
The Wiki Mentor Africa Hackathon, a project initiated towards the end of 2023 in collaboration with Wiki in Africa is a unique event focused on the ISA TOOL with the aim of making this tool better using the help of African developers and Wikimedia contributors. The project was successfully planned and executed through December 2023 into January 2024.
Communications
The community also did not fail in the area of communications which was one of the bedrocks of their 2023 achievements. They put up all Igbo Wiki events and activities for the Wikimedia community and the global community to see thereby creating room for feedbacks, monitoring and control. The community achieved at least ten IG Wiki related posts published on Wikimedia Diff with over 200 posts on their social media pages in the year 2023.
Some Igbo Wiki publications on Wikimedia Diff in 2023 include:
- Improving the visibility of Library collections through wikidata
- One year of Wiki Mentor Africa (WMA) – The Journey so far
- Spreading environmental insights in the Igbo community
- Wikipedia @22: Reactions, feedbacks and goodwill messages
- Wikimedia outreach, awareness and Edit-a-thon at Nnamdi Azikiwe University
- Wiki Indaba 2023 – A first timer’s perspective
- Capturing History: The success of Wiki Loves Monuments 2023 in the igbo wikimedianscommunity
- Igbo wikimedians communitys participation in the movement charter consultation
- Implementing the 2nd round of movement charter conversation in the Igbo wikimedians community
IG Wiki Social media pages
Conclusion
It was an interesting year for Igbo Wikimedians and more interesting working as a team to achieve set goals. With the aid of the community micro grants, members were opportuned to actively participate and take responsibility at events and actualisation of projects. The various Fan Clubs and Hubs within the community were in high spirits. This led to more increase in content created on the Wikimedia space and on social media. Igbo Wikipedia now has over 24,000 articles. Thanks too to other Wiki communities (both local and international) for their collaborations and partnership opportunities. Gratitude to Wikimedia Foundation for believing in Igbo Wikimedians User Group.
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