WikiPolis Round-up: Project launched to document contents on political actors, institutions.

This was during a press conference held in Yaounde. It was organised by Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group, WCUG.

According to the President of the Wikimedians of Cameroon User Group, Alexandra Tchuileu, 2025 is an intense political year marked by two major elections notably the recently staged presidential election and the upcoming regional elections. 

She said the intense political activities will continue next year with municipal and legislative elections already scheduled for the early part of the year. 

“This period seems to be the ideal time to document… all current and past political actors linked to these major events, so that Wikimedia platforms can serve as a reference for future research,” she said.

She further explained that: “in addition to the traditional WikiPolis formula that has existed within the community since 2023, WikiPolis Round-up aims to document everything from small councils to the Presidency of the Republic, including local elected representatives, political leaders and other major public institutions in the country”. 

Stating that the Wiki platforms comprise Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons and Wikiquote, Tchuileu stressed that the information updated on the platforms will also serve as a tool for providing information and combating disinformation in an electoral context, where different audiences are often seeking a variety of information.

The initiative is open to all but the Wikimedia volunteers will have to partake in some capacity building workshops to be held in the four main poles.

At the end of the project, WCUG plans to remunerate the best contributors on each of the four platforms with the reward package consisting of an internet package, certificate, promotion on the social platforms of the WCUG.

“We will choose the best quality and quantity report contributors on Wikipedia, so it will not simply be necessary to have modified 500 articles, but we will see the type of modification that has been made,” she stated, before adding “We will also have this for Wikidata, the contributions in terms of data, what are the factual data that has been brought in that we will look at... We will also have the best in delivering the maximum number of different images and quality on comments”.

The project which will run till December 31, 2025, is unfolding simultaneously across the country with poles in Buea, Yaounde, Douala and Maroua.

About WCUG

The WCUG is the Cameroonian entity affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation since July 2017. It aims to support the free dissemination of knowledge and, in particular, projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. These include the Wikipedia encyclopaedia and its sister projects, Wikimedia Commons, WikiData and Wikiquote, among others.

To date, the WCUG boast of about a hundred volunteers spread across four centres in Cameroon and the association participates in several international campaigns and supports several local projects such as Saaré Lamou, WikiPolis, WikiKwatt and WikiCiné.

On the other hand, the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit charitable organisation dedicated to encouraging the expansion, development and distribution of free, multilingual educational content and providing the entire content of these wiki projects to the public free of charge. 

The Wikimedia Foundation manages the world's largest collaborative publishing projects, including Wikipedia, one of the top ten internet properties.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3627 of Monday November 17, 2025