On the 15th of January 2016, Wikipedia will celebrate its 15 year anniversary. So much has been achieved in the 15 years of Wikipedia’s digital life, but there is still so much that still needs to be done. For example, even after 15 years of adding information about all sorts of fascinating subjects, content about Africa in general, and African women in particular, is still limited on the world’s largest source of knowledge.

WikiAfrica has chosen to celebrate Wikipedia 15 by organising a bilingual (English/French) writing contest to increase the number of notable African women that are covered on Wikipedia. The contest hopes that at least 15 teams will create at least 15 articles on Wikipedia about notable leaders, historic and contemporary who have influenced their communities across Africa. The contest will start on the 15th of January 2016 (0:00 UTC) and will end on the 31st of January 2016 (23:59 UTC).

This contest launches Wiki Loves Women [[wikiloveswomen.org]], a content liberation project related to Women in Africa in four countries.

How do you get involved?

Getting involved in the contest is easy

  1. Register on Wikipedia if you are not already registered …
  2. Look on the competition project page on Wikipedia to start your own, or join an existing team. Create your team or join an existing team here.
  3. If you are starting a new team, choose a notable woman you want to write about – if you don’t know where to start, there is a suggestion list of notable women here. (please feel free to add women who are not listed on this list and should be!)
  4. On the 15th January, start writing …! You have until the 30th January to work together to make the article into one worthy of good article status.
  5. Have fun!!

Rules

  • The Contest is organised by teams (although individual participation is also accepted);Accepted articles must be biographies of a notable African woman;
  • The contest is bilingual English/French.
  • The m:Wiki Loves Women Writing Contest page on Meta will announce the winners and coordinate communication.
  • Translation of the final articles into other languages are very welcome!

Teams

  • Teams can be created by any wikipedian with a user account
  • Only contributors with a user account can join a team;
  • Teams can be composed of 1 to 10 members;
  • All teams are in competition, but it is perfectly ok for a team (or individual team member) to help another team!
  • Each team decides which notable woman they wish to celebrate and stick to that person;
  • It is allowed to create a team by country (=all contributors are from the same country). This could be reflected in the name of the team.
  • Every team should have a team leader, to be the contact between team and jury;
  • There is no deadline for the creation of a team (it can be created even after the contest is launched);
  • There is no deadline for joining a team (you can join even after the contest is launched);
  • If you want to join a team that has already been created, please check with them and get their approval;
  • Participants may use the user box to be created

Articles

  • Each team can only propose only one article;
  • Articles proposed will be only biographies about of a notable African woman;
  • The subject selected by a team may be changed in the first week of the contest;
  • The selection of the article is made by the team, after discussion;
  • The article may be proposed by the team or picked from a list of suggestions: Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Women/Writing Contest/Articles suggestions ;
  • Everyone can suggest a topic for an article. Please make sure those women are likely to be notable enough that they will stay on Wikipedia;
  • At the start of the contest, the article should not exist or should be a very, very, very basic stub, allowing for significant progress.

Links