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Recap: Wiki Loves Pride Lagos Physical Event and Lessons from the Past Six Months

24 July 2026 at 10:00
Wiki for Human Rights, Nigeria - Wiki Loves Pride
Wiki Loves Pride Flyer – Lagos

I started working as a volunteer community manager for Wiki for Human Rights, Nigeria, in November 2025 with a focus on organizing trainings and retaining LGBTIQ+ Nigerian editors as active contributors to Wikimedia projects. Although I created my Wikimedia account on 1 March 2024, I did not understand how editing worked and never made any contributions after creating it. 

The same year, I attended a Wikimedia session on Queerpedia. As a writer who is passionate about volunteering, particularly in the open knowledge movement, I still left without knowing how to contribute. The session ended with participants creating accounts but without a practical understanding of how Wikimedia actually worked. This is something I have observed among newcomers: navigating Wikipedia, the most well-known Wikimedia project, can be a daunting experience.

Wiki Loves Pride - Lagos 2026
After-session group picture

That changed when I attended Wiki Loves Pride 2025, held on 29 June. It was my first in-person Wikimedia event, and with my laptop beside me, everything about contributing to Wikipedia suddenly became much clearer. Through editing Wikipedia, I also discovered the wider Wikimedia ecosystem and its sister projects. Even after the training, I still encountered a few challenges, particularly with adding awards, information tables, and infoboxes. However, through conversations on WhatsApp with the Wikimedia Nigeria Project Officer, Ayokanmi Oyeyemi (user: Kaizenify), who facilitated the training, as well as guidance from Wikipedia help pages and Wikimedia Commons documentation, I was able to overcome those challenges.

Since assuming the role of Community Manager and Project Officer for Wiki for Human Rights, Nigeria, I organised monthly virtual and physical training sessions aimed at improving editor retention. Organising both the physical and virtual Wiki Loves Pride campaign this June felt like a full-circle moment; déjà vu. It also became an opportunity to reflect on the learning experiences from reviewing participants’ contributions and identifying areas where new editors commonly struggled. 

Wiki Loves Pride - Lagos 2026
Tony Obinna facilitating a session

Since becoming an active Wikimedia contributor in July 2025, I have made more than 3,000 edits across Wikimedia projects, with a primary focus on LGBTIQ+ and Nigerian topics. Beyond editing, I have also taken on leadership positions, including serving as a committee member for the Nigerian National Funding program and as a core organizing member for Queering Wiki, scheduled to take place later this year in Canada.

Alongside the online Wiki Loves Pride campaign, we partnered with the Centre for Population Health Initiatives (CPHI),  a health organization that serves both the general population and minority communities, to host Wiki Loves Pride. The program combined a Pride celebration with Wikimedia training for both experienced and new editors. It also marked the first time I independently facilitated an entire Wikimedia training session from the beginning to the end: account creation, making edits, and introducing participants to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem.

Wiki Loves Pride - Lagos 2026
Participants engaged throughout the session

As someone who has always dreaded public speaking because of a minor speech impediment, becoming part of the Wikimedia movement as a community leader has helped me grow tremendously. Standing in front of more than 15 participants and leading a session on documenting queer knowledge, I did not freeze or lose confidence. Community advocacy for LGBTIQ+ people in Nigeria has always required me to speak publicly from time to time, but Wikimedia has made it a consistent part of my work through monthly virtual and physical trainings. It has taught me that confidence in public speaking is often built through practice, and that many of the fears we carry can gradually be overcome through repeated experience.

WWDC 2025 Announced

By: Nick Heer
25 March 2025 at 23:44

Like those since 2020, WWDC 2025 appears to be an entirely online event with a one-day in-person event. While it is possible there will be live demos — I certainly hope that is the case — I bet it is a two-hour infomercial again.

If you are planning on travelling there and live outside the United States, there are some things you should know and precautions you should take, particularly if you are someone who is transgender or nonbinary. It is a good thing travel is not required, and hopefully Apple will once again run labs worldwide.

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‘Surveilled’ Documents Ronan Farrow’s Reporting on Spyware

By: Nick Heer
27 November 2024 at 05:39

Ronan Farrow, the New Yorker:

Decisions by the White House and by Republican lawmakers about spyware will have implications across a variety of policy areas that Trump and his associates are upending and that reach far beyond Washington. In recent years, an array of states, including Texas, Florida, and California have reportedly purchased spyware and other surveillance technologies; legislators and regulators will dictate whether that trend continues. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, at least two states have already used private personal data to prosecute people for getting abortions. That practice could expand with more widespread and affordable access to this technology.

This article appears to have been timed to coincide with the release of a new documentary on HBO, showing Farrow reporting out stories on NSO Group and other commercial spyware makers. It is not the most substantive piece and I think that plus the headline — “The Technology the Trump Administration Could Use to Hack Your Phone” — is more distracting than it is illuminating. U.S. administrations have, since George W. Bush, used terrorism as a means of hand-waving away civil liberties protections, including domestic spying. Barack Obama’s administration famously killed U.S. citizens without trial, an action which remains shocking to me to this day regardless of who carried it out. In his first administration, Donald Trump compromised the legitimacy of all manner of domestic and foreign politics.

So, to the question of whether the U.S. would begin using fancy spyware on citizens’ phones under any administration, the answer seems more like a question of when and not if. It is just one more tool of a long series of violations. The next Trump administration seems unlikely to be more restrained than the first but, when this happens, I bet it becomes part of the churn-and-burn media cycle. It will barely register except to those who already find this sort of stuff disturbing.

By the way, the documentary itself is fine. It is only about an hour long and is mostly a behind-the-scenes look at the reporting. I am not sure that there is anything new-for-2024 within. Farrow’s New Yorker articles about the subject are far more illuminating.

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