Wikimedian in Tanzania
Hoi, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about the Chinese. Today, I’m back
Wikimedia Kenya logo
to where I belong. I mean, the story would be about the East African things. Will talk about the activities and the ongoing movements made by a number of the Kenyans from Nairobi. I’m talking about the Board Members lead by Alex Wafula, Stephen Wanjau, David Mugo, Anne Njeri and finally Oscar Limoke (the one and Only).
The idea of establishing the chapter was brought by Abbas Mahmoud, former participant and winner of the 2009 Google Wikipedia Challenge. Took him few weeks to draw out the bylaw and submit it to the appropriate site. Slowly managed to initiate the Mailing list which gathered a number of volunteers to share their ideas and help creating some strategies in order to make the chapter established. Abbas created the page to the Wikimedia Kenya site and later Limoke made it into the CD, DVD, PDF, etc.
By then, it was only Samson Maosa, Oscar Limoke, and Abbas Mahmoud. BUT the movements inspired various numbers of Kenyans to join the cause. If you happen to be on the mailing list, I guess you know the activities and plans shows up on your mail box. However, I don’t see Maosa on the move quite often. When the plan for founding the chapter, there was:
Abbas Mahmoud
David Mugo
Samson Maosa
Alexander Wafula
Limoke Oscar
Oliver Stegen
Mohammed George – (this is me)!
Jacob Kipkoech
Chacha Maroa
Dennis Munene
Eleri James
Daniel Kimani
Wangai Mwangi
Kevine Okoth
Sarah Osano
Kenneth Kirop
Ory Okolloh
Grace Kariuki
Ann Njeri
Erick Njenga
Those are the guys who helped the establishment of the chapter. Abbas played a major role, but did not wish to engage himself on the Board (that made me nicknamed him the Kenyan Mandela). And when I asked him about the position on the Wikimedia Kenya, said:
“I do not have an official role in Wikimedia Kenya.– Abbas.”
That’s awesome!!!
A few days ago, The WMF blog covers how offline Wikipedia reaches Kenyan schools by means of a Wikimedia Kenya project. Wafula was notified via Swahili Wikipedia user talk page about that there are have been a signpost talks about the Wikimedia movement in Kenya:
“The Kenyan chapter – the only one in the region – officially launched the project at Wikipedia’s Anniversary on January 14, 2011; the project covers 30 schools in three regions, in which a team of volunteers travel to remote parts of Kenya to share offline Wikipedia with students, installing offline versions of the English Wikipedia from a disc or memory stick in schools that have computers. The volunteers then provide both teachers and students with tutorials on how to operate the database.”–
When you read the story on the Wikimedia Blog, you’ll find it very interesting – seeing how people gathered together and spread the information/awareness of Wikipedia in a rural areas for free! Back in 2011, I was introduced to Stephen Wanjau by Asaf Bartov that the guy is heading to Dar es Salam to deliver some Wikipedia training to a group of librarians, teachers, and IT personnel as part of a larger 3-day training event in Dar, run by the ITOCA organization.
But I couldn’t be able to meet with the guy. The training was taking place during the week-days which seemed to be pretty hard for me to attend the training. It was painful, but swamped with a job. On the 30th April 2012, Alex Wafula made the main page makeover and give the official Wikimedia Kenya website a new look. And now is following the allocation of the roles given to the Board Members of the WMKE:
Chairman – David Mugo
Vice chaiman – Oscar Limoke
Project Manager – Alex Wafula
Treasurer – Stephen Wanjau
Secretary – Ann Njeri.
Thanks,
Muddyb.
Hoi, I have an amazing news. Watch this: I did not notice if I have a bunch of visitors from the People’s Republic of China. There is almost eight cities were visits on my blog. I came to know about that when I went to analyze it by using the Google Analytics. See the screenshot below:
As the list stipulated below on the screenshot shows the exactly numbers. Thanks to Google for the tool.
Howdy! We are in deep sorrow due to the death of our friend occurred in Cape
The guy on the right side is our mate: Dulla Chicks.
Town, South Africa. Since I mentioned that the site will only provide the Wiki’s stories, but this is different, however, I remember him for one thing (courageous he was giving to me on writing the articles about Tupac Shakur). He was the one who asked me to write everything about Tupac because the guy was crazy over Tupac. I’ve managed to create all the albums of Tupack and various articles about his singles. Actually, it was awesome, but the death of the guy left us in pretty bad shape. We used to call him Dulla Chicks, nick named him after Mr. Chicks from the hip hop group “Lost Boyz
“. Dulla died in 14/03/12 due to blood cancer which also caused the brain damage.
Yours truly,
Muddyb.
Hi guys, um, today I have got a small piece of story to share with you. It’s been a while I did not update anything on this blog, that does not mean I’m retired of doing this things, no, BUT a really life activities stops me from updating many things on this blog and so on my Home Wikipedia. For that, I’m totally regret, however, there is nothing I can do.
On the last few days, I was trying to dodge what I was given to do at my working place, just to make sure I have some contents added on my Home Wikipedia. Believe me, it was hard, but finally I did it.
Also there was a reason for me to do that thing. I;ve seen a plenty of contributions made by two users: Baba Tabita and ChriKo. They’ve done a truly remarkable and inspirable job which triggered my mind to start working on some few articles correction and later added some few contents regarding the legendary Bob Marley and the rest of his group, i.e Bob Marley and the Wailers!
Despite of doing so, I’m still feeling like I have a debt to clear on the Swahili Wikipedia. Jumping on the Wailers was not on my to do list, BUT I had to create some members of the group because I was inspired by them right after I watched them on the TV during the morning time.
I said so ’cause I’ve had something else on my to do list and that thing is to create some key artcles about “Cote d’Ivoire”, i.e Culture of Cote d’Ivoire, History of Cote d’Ivoire, Education in Cote d’Ivoire, Geography of Cote d’Ivoire, Economy of Cote d’Ivoire, and many-many things based on my promise I kept on some new friend arrived at Swahili Wikipedia.
Promising someone that you are going to create or start writing something for his/her country is very nice, regrettably most of us has so many things to do with the prior articles. Sometime we have to agree – just to satisfy our newbies. But that thing keeps most of us in pretty hard time. We some time manage to keep the promise, but mostly we are not.
Sometime just pitting myself when I see I’m writing the history, geography, culture and many things about the other countries, but not my own. There is so many things need to be done about my country, but I did not and surprisingly I’m writing about others (this doe not mean I’m not a patriot, no). It is just a friendship satisfaction!
Believe me, I have a lot to do, BUT time seems to be my major obstacle. Nonetheless, I will do whatever it takes to finish whatever I’ve started lately.
With appropriate respects,
Muddyb.
Hoi! Guys, today is the end of the 2011.. And when I look back in 2010, my last edit for the 2010 was the death of Bobby Farrell (see http://sw.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bobby_Farrell&diff=prev&oldid=559717). And from January 3 of the 2011 – received a message from ChriKo, a Dutch Wikipedian (see http://sw.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Majadiliano_ya_mtumiaji:Muddyb_Blast_Producer&diff=prev&oldid=560783). He was asking about some new words which are needed to be converted to Kiswahili. Later, get myself involved on some PORTALS and made a very minor changes. At the end of January, I’ve created some templates for the TV series, i.e. Kigezo:Infobox television season. The 10th of February, I’ve created the article about Matt Parkman, the character from Heroes series – and created so many articles about the character from the said series.
Since February 10, did not add anything on the SWWP, but replying the message from my fellow admins. I’ve continued to show the tiny involvements on contribute at SWWP until April where I’ve started to write some articles about Enrique Iglesias’s albums. At the end of April, I’ve started to write some articles about ALIAS TV series characters – until May. At the beginning of May-June, managed to create various articles – but many as I used to.
From June 20 to September 11, I’ve started to write so many articles about the counties of Norway! At the middle of September, raised the articles about my home contry at the same time working on the Norwegian counties until November where I’ve started to write the articles about members of parliament in Tanzania.
From December 2011, started to correct some links on the language pages… Actually the articles were created by Baba Tabita and I was using the AWB to do some repititive job since it is easy to correct by using it. From December 15, 2011, I’ve decided to revive my precious articles about hip hop music and its culture, respectively. From it, managed to create the portals and other related articles about hip hop. Hip hop articles was my last hope for contributing on the Swahili Wikipedia for the year of 2011!!!
I WISH everybody happy new year 2012 and hopefully gonna make it again during the 2012 period to 2013!!!
With warmest regards from the precious friend,
Muddyb!
Hoi! Guys, this is what’s happening on the Swahili Wikipedia: Oliver or let me call him the way people of EA used to call him to – Baba Tabita, he’s very busy in his field. When I say in his field, I mean on the languages articles – cause the guy is a liguistic by professional (I ain’t got no jokes on him, buddies). Thus far, he did a truly remarkable job compare to his disappearance for quite some-time now! He was not contributing more often, but I think he beats us all within a few days. This is awesome. He’s writing about the languages from various corners of Africa. Especially the Bantu ones. On the other hand, there is a ME whose actually working on the hip hop articles. I’ve created the PORTAL of hip hop on the SWWP and creating the related articles on the past few days!
Oliver, you have my bless, mate. Keep it up and improve the Swahili Wikipedia to reach up to the good mark!
With best regards,
Muddyb
Howdy! It’s been a while since my last post. It does not look okay to me or to among of you guys to see me away like this. Maybe need to change the blogging style, i.e updating the happening stories quite often? The answer is yes, however, busy in real life kept me away from blogging and adding some contents on the Swahili Wikipedia and other Wikimedia’s sisters projects as well. Now what? Oliver really had me encouraged about adding some stub articles, at least to push my home Wikipedia to another level (although not good enough compare to the Afrikaans one), but it;s my home Wikipedia it needs my efforts to make it among of the biggest Wikipedia in the world! Thanks Oliver, I’m back with some stub articles about Wabunge (parliamentarins) of the United Republic of Tanzania. It’s awesome working about my country!
Sincerely,
Muddyb
Howdy! It’s been a while since my last post. Today, I had a few chat with one of the heavily involved user on the BetaWiki (translatewiki) this evening. I was just asking him for some friendly advise regarding my disappearence on the Wiki’s projects nowadays. What he told me was a trully remarkable. It’s not so bad if I’m sharing it with you guys.
It was like this:
[2:47:04 PM] Muddyb Blast…: Hoi, mate.. I got a single question:
I do not know why I lost an interest on Wiki’s projects nowadays… Since you’re an expert on this projects, there is anything you can tell me (perhaps) could make me back regularly on the Wikipedia? Just a piece of friendly advice.
“”Muddyb Blast…: Oh, if you have a time, please!
“Siebrand Mazeland: hey :0
Siebrand Mazeland: great to hear from you.
Siebrand Mazeland: I think the great thing about Wikimedia projects in general is that there is so much to be done, and that there are so many areas of interest to explore, you literally will never be done!
Siebrand Mazeland: So…
Siebrand Mazeland: What are your interests in general?
Siebrand Mazeland: Content creation, content organising, administration, community management, development, translation, localisation, …?
Siebrand Mazeland: Then there are the Wikimedia chapters; the country organisations, where you can work together with people in real life.
Siebrand Mazeland: You can organise meetings, conferences, run programs, be a Wikimedia Ambassador, be on the board of a chapter, ..
“”Muddyb Blast…: I think these could ring the bell on my mind:
Translation & Localisation
“”"”Siebrand Mazeland: ok.
Siebrand Mazeland: for translation there are 3 wiki communities that come to mind:
Siebrand Mazeland: * meta.wikimedia.org where you can translate things that are important for the communication of the communities (usually Wikimedia Foundation stuff)
Siebrand Mazeland: * commons.wikimedia.org: two things. Translate documentation and certain templates so that it is available in your languages. Second: there are multi-language descriptions. If you like looking at images, just find a category, and add new descriptions about images or translate existing descriptions.
Siebrand Mazeland: * translatewiki.net: we have a bunch of documentation that needs to be translated into as many languages as possible, including outr main page.
Siebrand Mazeland: Links:
:::Siebrand Mazeland: * https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special:Translate&group=page-0-all (all transltewiki translatable pages)
Siebrand Mazeland: * https://translatewiki.net/w/i.php?title=Special%3ATranslate&task=untranslated&group=wiki-twn-mainpage (translatewiki main page)
[2:56:08 PM | Edited 2:56:23 PM] Siebrand Mazeland: * http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation (this also covers content translation, of course, which I forgot to mention)
Siebrand Mazeland: * http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Localization (Commons localisation and translation)
:::Siebrand Mazeland: And then, *drumroll*!
Siebrand Mazeland: HTTPS://TRANSLATEWIKI.NET
Siebrand Mazeland: 
Siebrand Mazeland: Enough translation work there to keep you busy for months full time.
“Muddyb Blast…: You’re so nice, Brand! Will have to choose some links and try my best on them.. Especially Wikimedia Commons and TranslateWiki! Enough said and thanks for a wonderful advice!
Siebrand Mazeland: We support 20 different free and open source products now, so you should be able to find a project that you can be enthousiastic about making available in your language. An overview is at https://translatewiki.net (the bottom part of our main page)
Siebrand Mazeland: No problem.
Siebrand Mazeland: My last request to you. If I recall correctly, you are a blogger, too.
::::::Muddyb Blast…: hahaha
Siebrand Mazeland: Maybe you can rewrite this chat into a blog post?
Muddyb Blast…: Yes, of-course!
Siebrand Mazeland: That would be great.
[3:00:46 PM] Muddyb Blast…: Right away!
[3:00:58 PM] Siebrand Mazeland: I just dumped my brain here, and it’s wonderful if you can make it a comprehensive “Opportunities for translation and localisation in the Wikimedia landscape” post.
That is how the story ends. The guy is prodigy, believe me. I did not think if he would provide a good advise like that one… Now I have to stay put and see what I can do on the projects which I’ve committed myself as will give contributions.
Sincerely,
Muddyb
Howdy! Long time nor see you guys, but I’m back with the very less energy not 
as you guys expected to! Here’s the thing, if you can remember, back in 2009 I was creating the articles about the cities, provinces, and districts with various things from Turkey. And all of that happened because I promised somebody from Turkey will do that for him because we are friends. This time Norway is taking the chance (I did the same, promising) and it has to be done at any cost, i.e I have to fulfil what I promised to the guy. By far, I’ve managed to create several counties such as Akershus, Aust-Agder, Buskerud, Finnmark, Hedmark, Hordaland, Møre og Romsdal, Nordland, Nord-Trøndelag, and Oppland. Once I finish all the counties, will start with the municipalities and I’m sure gonna finish all of them just like I did on the Turkish cities and districts.
Hi guys! It’s been a while now since my last post, isn’t! Okay, look what I have here, now I have seen plenty of contributions which made by someone (I don’t know who’s he/she “Healthspeaks”). But so far he/she’s been doing great on health articles ’cause I believe is one of the people whom we have been expecting to see their contributions on Health Speaks Project which sponsored by Google. On the other hand, I see somebody who called himself “Jhendin”. He is an American, he’s always giving us some stub articles which we need the most from Wazungu like him who do not understand the Swahili very well, but their doing an outstanding job.
So now, go here http://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maalum:KurasaMpya and see for yourself!
Oops! I almost forgot, the Kenyan chapter looks very promising now!!!
Yours,
Muddyb
