Online Media News South Africa

Celebrating 15 years of Wikipedia

South African editors and contributors will meet in Johannesburg and Cape Town to join a global series of events, led by the Wikimedia Foundation, to celebrate Wikipedia turning 15 years old.
Celebrating 15 years of Wikipedia

Wikimedia ZA and NETucation, a leading Internet safety training company, have combined their resources to organise an edit-a-thon event in Johannesburg on Saturday 16 January.

"Wikipedia is not only valuable because of the free information it provides, it also allows South Africans to tell their stories to the world," says Ramon J. Thomas, founder of NETucation, who first used the Internet in 1993 in Port Elizabeth. "The most valuable contribution I have made is to expand articles about people and places I know very well across South Africa." He started to edit in English and Afrikaans for Wikipedia in 2006.

"I discovered that if I don't edit, no one will edit," says Bobby Shabangu, a member of the Wikimedia ZA board of directors. "I wanted to activate people into talking about Wikipedia and the work they do and everything... that is how I got involved with the whole thing." Since late 2012, he began to edit both the Swati and English Wikipedia.

Venue details

Cape Town - De Waal Park, Oranjezicht on Friday 15 January 2016 from 4pm to 7pm
Johannesburg - Nino's Rosebank, Johannesburg on Saturday 16 January from 9am to noon.
RSVP: http://bit.ly/WikipediaZA15.

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