About / methodology

Wathi is isiZulu and isiXhosa for “said” — fittingly, since this is a record of what was actually said, not what someone claims was said. It catalogues video clips of South African politicians and tags each one by who said it and what topic it concerns, so you can search “who said what” on a topic or see a politician’s timeline of statements over time.

How an entry gets here

A moderator watches a video, transcribes or copies an exact quote, records the surrounding context (so the clip can’t be read out of context), tags the politician and topic(s), and links the original YouTube video at the relevant timestamp. We embed the original video rather than re-hosting a downloaded clip.

What is published

Only statements that have been checked against the source video by a second look (status reviewed) appear on this site. Statements that are still unverified, or that have been flagged as disputed, are kept in the editors’ working copy and are not published until they are resolved.

Corrections

If you think a statement is mis-transcribed or missing context, tell us which statement and what the source video shows at the timestamp. A disputed statement is taken down until a moderator has re-checked it; a corrected statement is republished with the fix.

What this is not, yet

This is a Phase 1 prototype: manual entry only, no automated ingestion from YouTube channels and no automatic transcription. Transcripts are used by editors while tagging but are not published here.