Talk:Semapedia introduced to Africa: Powered by "Made in Ghana" technology

Original Reporting

For an article tagged with {{original}}, there is a requirement to give some background to the nature of the original reporting on the talk page. Can this please be provided? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Sources

As noted by Brian, all articles on Wikinews must cite sources. This includes articles which are original reporting. The contributors who did the original reporting for this article must create a section on this talk page called "Original reporting notes", which details who they are, what their connection is to the events being reported, and the nature of the original reporting. If the contributors doing the original reporting are part of the events being reported on, it may be more appropriate for them to request an interview. I've added the {{sources}} tag to the article until this can be resolved. - Borofkin 02:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Response to Comments Above From The Author

My name is Guido Sohne <guido@sohne.net>, my blog is at http://sohne.net ... I live and work in Accra, Ghana. Guido 12:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Original Reporting

The nature of the original reporting is that I wrote the article. I requested that the Kofi-Annan Centre organized the event, they did, invited people, and I made the presentation that the article refers to. Following the event, I wrote a press release so that the event could be entered into the historical record. Guido 12:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: Sources

I am both author and source. You are welcome to interview me if you wish. I felt it was appropriate to post the article as it was because I did not have anyone to write it for me, and I did not have enough linkage/contacts with the Wikipedia community to know how to proceed with it. Instead, I did what was practical, and did the best that I could under the circumstances. Guido 12:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that even though I added a citation for a source, which is the same content as published by Semapedia.org, it should be stated that this is the pristine original and the 'source' cited is thus the same as this. In other words, this is the source article (original reporting) and that article is also a source, since both are the same original. It was posted here before semapedia.org posted it ... How and what does one cite in that case? Guido 12:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Original reporting notes

I am active in promoting modern ideals/trends in use today: such as Free Software, Creative Commons, Wikipedia etc to the local society. As part of trying to get adoption on some of these key areas, I spend time trying to educate people and to get the message out and to sensitize decision makers. This event was one of those efforts.

I was approached by the founders of Semapedia to help get Semapedia off the ground in Africa. See http://semapedia/map for details of world use of Semapedia. In response to this, I asked for the Kofi Annan Centre (to which I am attached in an advisory, unpaid, honorary position) to assist in organizing an event. They did so, I presented the concept to people and got some really good reception.

Following this, and in furtherance of the original mission to get Semapedia accepted and used more widely in Africa, I summarized the event and the concepts behind it in a manner that would help other Africans understand the technology and its utility, as well as to get the word out so that more people would begin taking a look at the Semapedia. It is worth noting here that I have found a profound dearth of African content, and that more people using Semapedia, would mean that many more articles from Africa, written by Africans, would have to be created to make this possible. For example, for Accra, so many key things are missing from the Wikipedia article.

I presented at the event as well, and finished up by writing the news article, as mentioned above. Guido 12:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The presentation as made is at http://sohne.net/files/Semapedia.pdf and is being placed here as this link to serve as the equivalent to 'original reporting notes'. Guido 15:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Personal Opinion

I apologize for my ignorance in knowing all the little rules and details of writing free content, either for the Wikipedia, or for Wikinews. But I must reiterate, that I am much tougher than a lot of others, and you are going to have vanishingly few contributions from Africa, unless something changes, such as people assuming that we know all the rules.

Could you tell me how many people have contributed to Wikinews from Africa? And if there happen to be very few, then what happens when those few get 'suppressed'? While your policies are obviously in the interest of making your content better and more authoritative, I must say that they would pose a significant barrier to more people contributing, since if each time they do something, it is shot down, after a while, they just stop trying. Guido 12:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Requesting that contributors to a public project familiarize themselves with the rules and guidelines that apply before contributing is not 'suppression,' it's netiquette and is the responsibility of any Internet user, Wikinews reporters included. Rob T Firefly 16:27, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but we should not bite the new contributors, either. I've spoken with Wgsohne, and I think things are working well on the education side of things. We're learning from each other. Let's not be defensive, or aggressive, on any side. - Amgine | ^{talk en.WN} 16:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Well said, and I'm glad things are going well! I do apologize if my post seemed aggressive, that certainly wasn't my intent. Rob T Firefly 19:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Republishing

Sources added and original notes added as requested. Changing status back to published. Guido 15:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to move back to develop, but I am going to comment that you're probably not being objective enough in your reporting - this due to being closely involved with the project. The use/application of the project isn't explained clearly enough up-front enough. You need to catch readers with the "point your camera phone at the Semapedia label, take a snapshot, and explore the Physical wikipedia starting from what a map would label as the 'you are here' point". That particular wording belongs in a press release, so it'd need to be attributed to you as a quote from something like an IRC interview. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Initial summary of Semapedia

The summary of what Semapedia is, given at the beginning of the article, was difficult to read, so I re-wrote it. Is this OK? I regret that my version does not include a Wikipedia plug. LogicalDash 00:03, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Good job.

Thankyou to everyone who contributed. I found the article very enjoyable. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

This has also been mentioned in the signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-09-26/Wikipedia_applications. I'm trying to get the source for w:image:semacode.png, so I can put it on commons, and get it here. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)