Dave Palfrey

So which wikibrarians are heading to Nairobi for Wikimania.? There's a preconference workshop "Strategies and challenges to start Wikimedia Projects conversations in libraries" on Tuesday 5 August 2025 9 am - 1 pm at the conference venue. Please join in!

This by ‪@moiraweigel.bsky.social is utterly fascinating

I'm looking forward to it

Many of us already on October 2023 said this could very likely become genocide.
Instead of stopping it, people argued and argued over the word, and slandered those who used it.
But it is here, for all to see.
Let us all wear sackcloth and ashes.

Did you know you can attend Wikimania 2025 virtually?

Registration is FREE and will stay open until the conference begins. This year, Wikimania is taking place in Nairobi, Kenya. If you don’t mind a late night, view the program and see if any sessions are of interest!

📅 6 – 9 Aug 2025

w.wiki/BorK

Wikidata: a whirlwind tour through the land of Wikidata-powered apps Wikimania 2025 Wikidata's data is used in thousands of projects and often we don't realize what our work makes possible. In this session we will take a tour through some of the great applications and services that h...

Want to hear about some of the really cool things people are building with @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social's data? Come to my #Wikimania talk for a whirlwind tour.
wikimedia.eventyay.com/talk/wikiman...

In case you missed it, the Dambudzo Marechera page is posting his epic poem My Arms Vanished Mountains (cemetery of Mind) in parts, as read by Marechera himself.

#Africanlit #poetry #epicpoem #poetrycommunity

I understand why the Borges title has been translated as 'coalescing', but I'm not sure I like the gerund. Isn't it simpler just to translate the Spanish here as 'The Fusion of Ephemeral Objects'?

Outrageous abuse of state powers. Never forget that Yvette copper is compromised, having received money from vested interests. This is our Spartacus moment. I support Pal Action; I do not consider them to be terrorists. I DO think our gov is complicit in terrorising innocent people in Palestine.

Huge news. AI summaries are collapsing traffic to primary sources

Keir Starmer says good relationship with Donald Trump based on shared family values On first anniversary of Labour taking power, prime minister says it is ‘in the national interest’ for pair to connect

Trump’s ‘family values’? Dynastic kleptocracy, sexual predation and the misogynistic destruction of women’s reproductive rights? I know it’s hard to find something positive to say, but Labour comms just produced a chorus of women retching over their newspapers 🥳

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Genuinely surprised to see Nietzsche and Freud included in the march of reason here, alongside Copernicus Darwin & Marx

Yeah,I’d be thrown, so to speak.

An incredible place to retreat from rage and dread is this small online museum of artist ex libris plates, commissioned by bibliophiles through the decades. A whole culture is vanishing with cherished book ownership, and now we wallow in nostalgia for it. art-exlibris.net

yeah, but on whom is the joke here?

100,000 Dead: What We Know About Gaza's True Death Toll The death toll in Gaza, as reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry, understates the true scale of the crisis, researchers say. Hunger, disease, and Israeli gunfire at food distribution centers have made the war in the Strip one of the bloodiest of the 21st century

This story from @nirhasson.bsky.social demonstrates not only the scale of the carnage (at least 4% of Gaza's population) but the truly unprecedented targeting of civilians. Women and children account for 56% of those killed - more than twice their share in Sudan, Syria and Iraq.
archive.ph/tfOaG

Second up: Malawi 🇲🇼

And I'd love to hear more from Malawians here on the long march of the 50:50 campaign, and how it might relate to questions of digital representation. Tagging @ahc-malawi.bsky.social and @malawi24.bsky.social in case it's of interest to them. End of 🧵.

As always, for those who want to get involved, there's a Women In Red's 'redlist'. That currently contains 524 Malawian women who are in in Wikidata but don't yet have a page of their own on the English Wikipedia:

The Malawian flag

Most of these women aren't yet in any of the different language wikipedias. Only 237 Malawian women have a wikipedia page (31% of all Malawians who do). But some exciting plans are brewing in Scotland & Malawi to generate more English, Chichewa and Chitumbuka pages about Malawian women.

words in white on a purple background: 50:50 Campaign Malawi

Short 🧵today on Malawi: population 20.3 million. Wikidata currently knows of 1541 Libyans. 739 (50.93%) of them are women, including one trans woman. This high percentage of women is the result of some recent work, but it takes the long-running 50:50 campaign in Malawi as inspiration.

Palestine Action: How every MP voted on proscribing them as a terrorist group Find out who voted which way

The ban on Palestine Action: how every MP voted leftfootforward.org/2025/07/pale...

First up: Libya.

Each day this July I'll survey Wikidata's coverage of women in a different country. I'll focus on 30 countries, amounting to half the global population, where women are under-represented relative to the country's population. Just Wikidata? Or a more general digital problem? #1Day1WikidataCountry

@bilnas.bsky.social ? @wikipediaar.bsky.social ? @nodaysoff85.bsky.social ? @libyanhokage.bsky.social ? @libyanintegrity.bsky.social ? @libyanfrenchfries.bsky.social ? @libyaliberty.bsky.social ? @refugeesinlibya.bsky.social ? @libyalhadath.bsky.social ? @lcw.ngo ? Does this issue matter? End of 🧵

Many other Libyan women, like Elham Saudi, director of
@libyanjustice.bsky.social , have only a bare Wikidata entry, without a page in any wikipedia. Just a wikipedia fact? Or reflecting wider imbalances in digital representation? I'd love to hear from Libyans, or others here interested in Libya.

Similarly. the writer Kawthar Al-Jahmi (كوثر الجهمي) is only there in Arabic Wikipedia, and not yet in any other language wikipedias.

The actress Khadija Sabri (خدوجة صبري) is another Libyan woman who has her own page on Arabic Wikipedia, but doesn't yet have one in English.

Photograph of Sania Ghoma

For example, the politician Saniya Ghouma (سنية غومة) has a page in both the Arabic wikipedia and the French wikipedia. But there's not yet a page about her on the English wikipedia.

All kinds of remarkable Libyan women are on this redlist, from peacebuilders to powerlifters: academics, activists, actors, athletes, chess players, deminers, doctors, fashion designers, filmmakers, journalists, judges, karatekas, lawyers, local politicians, marine biologists...