My name is Coenraad Loubser, and I live in Cape Town, South Africa. I've been editing Wikipedia since I first heard about it, probably in 2003.
I am passionate about broadband, information and democratized access to information, and believe that spreading affordable broadband connectivity is the best way to provide accessibility to education and in so doing provide the opportunity for empowerment. Wikipedia access has always been sponsored by us, on all our networks. I also think that it is important to ask permission even if you want to do something that you think is good, for somebody else. But asking permission is difficult because people don't understand what they are consenting to - so a good way is to invite them to come and look at something that you've done and let them learn by doing it themselves, instead. It is better for people to be able to help themselves than if you have to do it for them, because then there is no dependency on you.
Contributing to Wikipedia is not a competition or popularity contest - editing is a reward in and for itself, a very personal reward, to see how an article grows - and it should be the only reward. Even if not paying for edits, adding further rewards like scholarships, etc. for edits, should be discouraged. I find myself at 20 to 30 different computers over the course of a month, and logging in is a chore - and I love the fact that I don't have to. You can find a list of my article contributions done from my home computer, here
I joined the Wikimedia South Africa board in 2016 where my goal is to make sure that every single person that accesses the internet in Southern Africa understands what a Wiki is and how they can constructively contribute. It has been painstakenly slow progress, but considering that we have been an all volunteer board, I think our achievements have been stellar. There is always more one can do, however, and editing Wikipedia is not the only thing that's important.
Multi-licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License versions 1.0 and 2.0
I agree to multi-license my text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under Wikipedia's copyright terms and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license version 1.0 and version 2.0. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the Creative Commons terms, please check the CC dual-license and Multi-licensing guides.
