WikiAfrica/OpenAfrica15/Outcomes/Barriers to contributing

Applicants to the workshop #OpenAfrica15 were asked to following question: "What are the barriers to contributing to Wikipedia in your country?" The following answers are from November 2015:

#	Country	Gender	Answer
1.			References and citations, Lack of understanding and use of Wikimetrics tools, Lack of experience in organizing projects like GLAM, Internet connectivity
2.			Poor Internet connectivity, Poor Electricity Supply, Lack of awareness of the people to the benefit accrued for contributing to wikimedia, Lack of Volunteering Spirit, Lack of Government policy to support advocacy for open knowledge.
3.			The major barriers in Ethiopia are low accessibility of the internet (which is only 1.7% of 94,000,000 population as of 2015) and computers, low level of awareness, low technical skills, and low internet bandwidth in areas where internet is accessible.
4.			Human Resource, Funding, Language
5.			Internet, Innexistant Community, Missing of online References
6.			Our Country Kenya faces power shortage especially now during the rainy season. This affects access to internet. The second barrier would be lack of opportunity epecially for students who have just cleared form four. They don't get good training to be computer literate.
7.			Lack of wikipedia advertising in Cote d'Ivoire. There is a lack of public promotion of wikipedia. The majority of the public is not formed or trained on wikipedia. Besides threre is limited access to internet in the Cote d'Ivoiret. The disadvantaged people do not have internet access because it is expensive and access to smart phones and computers is for wealthy people.
8.			First, ignorance. People do not know that we can contribute to wikipedia. For them, it is simply an encyclopedia where it just takes information. Secondly, some teachers forbid their students to go on wikipedia because according to them it is not credible.
9.			Lack of awareness that one can contribute to Wikipedia. Lack of knowledge and skills about how to contribute articles and do editing to digital media such as Wikipedia. Poor blogging culture. Problem of access to internet.
10.			We have many barriers to contributing to Wikipedia in Cameroon such as 1) The lack of rapid connection, the Internet speed is very slow. 2) The lack of electricity, we may spend more than one month without electricity. 3) The lack of registered database, many higher institutions in Cameroon do not have registered database where student may update and upgrade their information.
11.			Technically speaking, Kenya has the infrastructure needed to have a vibrant wiki-community. We’ve got a high mobile penetration rate (over 80% for the past two years according to the Communication Authority of Kenya) and mobile data is increasing becoming cheaper. There have been lots of advancements in the digital space in Kenya, and many people are going online to get services. Kenyans on social media have proven that they are a force to be reckoned with their numerous #SomeoneTell online campaigns. The main challenges, therefore, are skills and attitudes and perceptions. Though there is a wealth of information available and the ability to contribute to Wikimedia, digital media users are yet to get into the habit of sharing information on Wikimedia. Most people hold the perception that one requires lots of technical knowledge to become a contributor. Finally, those who are contributing to Wikimedia/Wikipedia currently are doing so at a very basic level. We lack the skills required to effectively tell stories and share information on these platforms.
12.			Lack of IT resources that can help in community engagements.
13.			In South Africa, barriers to contributing to Wikipedia could be lack of resources (such as computers,laptops,tablets,WiFi ) for poor intelligent students who reside in rural areas. Often times students with bright ideas end up not publishing them because of the mere fact that they do not have a platform to publish their views and raise their voices. Furthermore,l would contend that lack of information pertaining to Wikipedia serves as a great barrier.ln all honesty,without knowledge and training being given to the unskilled,people become barred from participating due to lack of knowledge and skills.
14.			There are many challenges to contributing to Wikipedia, or any other Internet activity. These are barriers mentioned time and again by all that are asked this question. These are the access to internet, and its affordability. The monopolized system of only one telecom company in Ethiopia poses a great challenge to the getting an affordable access to internet. The reach of internet services is also very weak. access to 3G network is almost non existent outside the capital city, and even internet access installation in different private and public institutions is not given priority and as such very difficult to have proper Internet access. But these infrastructural challenges are improving but it seems like their affordability to the masses will continue to be a barrier for some time to come. other infrastructural issues that I'd consider a greater challenge is the quality computer skills and not being able to utilize the internet for its potential. In a country where 'Internet' is quickly becoming synonymous with 'Facebook' the brief access to internet people have is spent on fruitless use of social media. This, I believe, emanates from the terrible quality of education in schools. Computer skills classes rarely exceed theory, and even more rarely include Internet usage skills. Government crackdown on political bloggers and then the propaganda trying to justifying their actions has has given rise of fears of article writing, although I would not consider it such a great problem now, but if such activities continue, it will degrade the mindset of the people which could have a far greater consequences. Finally, when it comes to challenges that I am facing, it would be the lack of culture of publishing on the internet. Few news, government or private agencies have a proper website, this would be be challenging in writing quality articles for there will be far fewer references and citations that can be stated. Community engagement continues to be a challenge as well. Proper event planning, without it being too technical, and then mechanisms for following on those engagements will be a great asset.
15.			The main barrier in Ethiopia is awareness on Wikipedia.
16.			I believe the barriers that exist in my community include the lack of understanding/appreciation to actively and effectively participate, the poor access to internet facilities; services hardly reach low income families and finally lack of supportive policies or cultures and finance
17.			Since medieval period, different Europeans had been visiting Ethiopia for different reasons such as political, economical, religious etc. And so, this so called visitors have contributing a lot by writing their experience as the history of the nation. But, in ancient times we Ethiopians are diligent on writhing different issues. The old manuscripts can be witness to this statement. But, after the Europeans, writing in non-Ethiopian language is left for non-Ethiopians. That is the reason why many articles and information about my country is contributed by foreigners. This may be for different reasons for different individuals, based on my experience and observation, the following are some of the reasons: 1. Luck of information about the project, 2. Luck of knowledge and experience in how to become part of such a good experience, 3. Luck of confidence, 4. Luck of education, 5. Accessibility of internet etc
18.			Some people have frightened by the tools of Wikimedia and think about that contribution is for a minority person. Other people think about Wikipedia is only for a few person. The lack of training to become a contributor. The lack of real will and awareness for provide rich content about Cote d'Ivoire. Sometimes,some people don't share knowledge. The free contribution non monetary.
19.			The main barriers to contributing to wikipedia work is computer illiteracy. Citizens who are well informed tend to get empowered even to follow online information sharing avenues. Being computer illiterate denies many people a chance to contribute positively to wikipedia endeavors in Kenya. Most citizens in my country lack internet access for online work in wikipedia. Most citizens also lack smart phones that are very vital in accessing the internet or wikipedia portals. Power failures is also attributed as a barrier to contributing to wikipedia because its event, then accessing wikipedia becomes hard.
20.			Some of the barriers to contributing to Wikipedia in Cameroon include using Wikimedia tools, the stigmatization of Wikipedia in academic circles and access to information on particular topics. A proper contribution to Wikipedia has to go beyond creating and editing content and this poses a problem because a significant number of local contributors are still at that basic level given that they are unaware of how to use tools such as GLAM, Wikimetrics and Wiki Data. Secondly, Wikipedia is disregarded in academic circles because lecturers have a superficial understanding of how it works and students do not know how to cite Wikipedia. This ends up alienating potential contributors and users. Furthermore, access to information on certain topics is inaccessible to Wikipedia contributors due to disorganized archiving systems and their lack of interest in Wikimedia platforms.
21.			Technological development : Many people doesn't have a good internet connexion and a laptop. Mentality : Only few can contribute without payment. Lack of support of local partners through awareness-raising activities. Lack of communication related to the project. Loss of motivation : During training sessions, many people are motivated, but lose very fast their motivation after training. There is no local structure to lead and accompany the project.
22.			The major problem here in Cote d'Ivoire is link to internet connection, the major part of the population does not have an internet connection even those who have access to it have a very low bandwith. Another, barrier is the ignorance of the population of Wikimedia Projects, the universities teachers forbide their students to use the wikipedia even to make a simple research on a specific subject.
23.			limited aces to remote areas with poor road networks in an attempt to interview people or take photographs. people who are unwilling to share about their culture, as they expect financial gain out of it.
24.			Kenya being third world,we are faced by the inability to access of this materials as many of the users are information poor thus making them unable to access and even write.
25.			a very big barrier that slows us down in contributing in the access of internet. people have to pay expensive to have access to internet every day; our sources are not enough: it is not frenquent to have many paper publication on a subject, and our history is oral; the user group is new and the team is not big enough, the team-mate are not totally involded to contribute too much...
26.			Lack of knowledge of the existence of Wikipedia and the value it adds or role it plays in society as a resource and learning tool for Kenya. Few and sometimes even lack of relevant partners to help with accessing the needed information and content for the projects. There has been no marketing strategy or events that would create awareness to the community about the many wikipedian projects. There are very few people in the open movement that are active in society and actively creating awareness on the use of open. In Kenya we have very few or even lack of local contributors and facilitators to add to or teach Wikipedian content. There is a challenge of lack of government backing and outward support especially in policy making; 1. Due to rigidity, 2. People seldom follow what the government does not support publicly due to ignorance. Copyright licenses are expensive and limiting- If contributors and beneficiaries were to take up CC licenses then there would be an increase in sharing of content , putting up of content and more people taking up Wikipedian information which is the main goal.
27.			Not sure
28.			I believe data is abundantly available, but verification can be time-consuming, particularly in liaising with stakeholders to vet information. Lack of human resources to ensure that suitable Wikis and articles are created to adequately reflect the dynamic, vibrant and controversial aspects of South Africa -not many people are in a position to work on a voluntary basis.
29.			South Africa, while being more developed than a number of other countries on the African continent, is still very much a third world nation. As a result of that, infrastructure and education are lacking, especially in rural areas throughout the country.Contributing to Wikipedia requires both of these assets. Many South African citizens do not have access to computers or the internet. While major cities have relatively strong IT infrastructure, rural areas do not receive as much support. Those living outside major metropolitan areas, such as in small towns, as well as those living in poverty in all areas of the country, are disconnected from the vast bodies of information that others who are more fortunate can take for granted. Along a similar vein, good quality education is not always easy to come by in South Africa. The thousands involved in recent tertiary student fee protests across the country can attest to this. Education is key in sustaining a population that is willing and able to contribute towards bodies of knowledge like Wikipedia. The language and research skills, among others, that are learnt throughout all levels of education are vital in the process of editing Wikipedia. A lack of local partners, such as GLAM and tertiary institution partners, hinders Wikipedia's ability to gain valuable information from and about South Africa. A final barrier is the lack of knowledge about the opportunities that exist to contribute towards Wikipedia. I have had countless personal encounters with individuals who, despite making use of Wikipedia, were not aware of the origin of the information, or that they could contribute themselves.
30.			The most common barrier in my country is lack of knowledge and access to information about how to contribute to knowledge through Wikipedia. It is also a common thing that people in my country are told not to use information provided on Wikipedia because it is unreliable. And there is less research skills and writing skills in Wikipedia, that is why we still have some places with less or no information at all about. Our place (Tsakane) is one example of such areas that do not have much information about it whilst it has a vast interesting history that even future generations needs to know about them.
31.			Encourager les jeunes à s'investir