Hi All (cross-posting to make sure I reach as much of India as possible),
As you're aware, we had invited applications for Campus Ambassadors for the upcoming Pune Pilot of the India Campus Program.
The response has been fantastic: we've received ~500 applications/enquiries from across India, ~70 of which were from Pune. This has been really heartening - indicating the desire of many to support the Wikimedia movement. It's also been overwhelming because we need to process all the applications, respond to applicants, etc.!
I think, most critically, it also presents an amazing opportunity for us to introduce new people to Wikimedia projects (especially Wikipedia) - and invite them to join the community. I've interviewed quite a few and there is a recurring theme I hear from many of them. It goes something like, "I've been using Wikipedia for years and years, and I love it. I want to contribute back to it - but I wasn't sure how. Then I saw the banner and decided this was a great way to help." The overwhelming common trait I have noticed in the applicants is that they are bright, well-intentioned and eager to contribute.
Here are some thoughts I had, and I'd love to hear your suggestions/comments on these.
We should respond to every single applicant, and even to those who didn't actually apply but sent emails enquiries (such as "When is the program coming to my city?", etc.) No one should be left behind.
We will prioritise (in terms of sequence of events) the Pune Campus Ambassadors. We need to have a reasonable number available for a training session that we need to conduct before the start of the program. Of the 70 who applied from Pune, we should hopefully get 20-30 Campus Ambassadors.
The important suggestion I had for everyone else (in Pune and beyond) is that we do not "reject" anyone. While some might not become Campus Ambassadors because we don't plan to run the program in their towns/cities right now, or some in Pune might not currently have the desired experience (in teaching and people management), there is no reason that they can't participate in some other roles. Therefore, I don't think we should send any "reject letters" to anyone. No one should be left behind. Instead, we should send them options on how they can participate/learn more about participating. For example:-
i) they could form student clubs in their respective educational establishments
ii) they could form Wikipedia clubs in their workplaces/social groups (as a number of applicants are working professionals, and no longer on campus)
iii) they could become individual editors
For us to try and help realise their potential, here are some thoughts I had:-
i) Invite all the applicants/enquirers to attend the next community meet-ups. This was a suggestion shared by the Pune community. This would give them a chance to interact with the community and understand more about the movement/projects.
ii) Additionally, those who have not been selected as Campus Ambassadors can be reassured by telling them that they can join an "incubation" program. This was a suggestion shared by the Pune community. This would involve them attending meet-ups, learning how to edit, starting to edit - and being supported and hand-held along the way by existing community members. This would help them if they eventually wish to reapply as Campus Ambassadors. Even if they choose not to, they could easily become individual newbie editors.
iii) Invite all applicants/enquirers in a town/city to attend a full-fledged Wiki Academy. This was a suggestion shared by the Mumbai community. This is currently envisaged as a full day session where they are given insights into the movement & projects, taught how to edit, and actually edit articles.
iv) In towns/cities where a full-fledged Wiki Academy is not viable (e.g. if there aren't enough numbers of either participants or volunteers/volunteer time to run a Wiki Academy), then an alternative suggestion is to have a smaller group (3-5) of the applicants /enquirers linked up with a community member who can conduct smaller, shorter groups to explain how to edit and hand-hold them as they edit.
I'd really like to hear your views/comments/suggestions on the ideas listed here.
Also, do let me know which of you would like to volunteer either to help conduct Wiki Academies (point (iii) above) or to manage smaller groups of potential newbies (point (iv) above). Also, it'd be great if we could invite them to your next meet-ups at your respective towns/cities (point (i) above).
Another aspect I'd like to get suggestions from you on is how to manage the process of inviting them to these events. We could, for example, share the contacts of these applicants with the respective communities could reach out and invite them. Alternatively, if you wish this to be done for you, that also can be arranged (though it will put some strain on already stretched resources.)
I look forward to hearing from you. (Please note that we have received applicants from every corner of the country - so please don't assume that the applicants are only from Pune or only from large cities or only interested in English Wikipedia. (They are literally from everywhere, and no one should be left behind!)
Kind Regards,
Hisham Mundol
Wikimedia Foundation India Programs
skype: hisham.wikimedia
gtalk: hmundol(a)wikimedia.org
twitter: @mundol
Hi Folks
I am writing to all of you to correct a potential error. As you might be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation has set itself an important objective of supporting the community in India to expand participation. As part of this, India Programs has been set up - and I work for it.
I have put together a plan for India (please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs) - and I had communicated this on the India mailing list. This has generated interest as well as debate and discussion. However, I understand that some of you might not be on that mailing list. I therefore thought I'd correct this by reaching out directly to you and requesting you to have a look at the page and share your comments (on the Talk Page or on this mailing list or directly to me; my contact details are in my signature.) It outines the thinking behind India Programs, key initiatives, milestones, team structure, visit reports, IRC logs, recommendations on office location and some other details. I hope you find it interesting, and I'd love to hear your views / comments / suggestions.
Also, we I have a monthly IRC on India Programs with whoever is interested - on the first Thursday of every month. I'll send out an invite to your mailing list from now on. Do see if you can join in.
I am also going to try and attend as many community meet-ups in as many locations as possible - so I look forward to meeting as many of you as possible, as soon as possible. If you would be kind enough to let me know when the next meeting is planned for and on what schedule (e.g. 2nd Saturday, etc.) then I'll work out how to attend asap.
(Do excuse me if you have received this message through other mailing lists, or it's a bit of a duplication if you are already on the India mailing list.)
Thank You.
Warm Regards,
Hisham Mundol
Wikimedia Foundation India Programs
skype: hisham.wikimedia
gtalk: hmundol(a)wikimedia.org
twitter: @mundol
The 32nd Bangalore Wikimedia Meetup was organized on 2011April10 at 3 PM in
CIS, Bangalore. This meetup was headed by Subhashish Panigrahi
[[User:Psubhashish]] and attended by 7 Wikipedians. The speakers of this
meetup were Arjun Rao C, Achal Prabhala and Anirudh Bhati.
1st Talk: Arjun Rao C/ Experience in Berlin Wikimedia Conference, 2010
Arjun Rao talked about his participation in the Wikimedia conference held in
Berlin. He discussed about the new plans and ventures for Wikimedia projects
which will be the current focus for the chapters of several countries. He
also briefed the audience about the plans for the proposed projects under
Wikimedia India such as:
Knowledge kiosks in public libraries, Academies, Projects for improvements
in Indic language tools, Indic Wiki CD/DVD, improve participation of women
in Wiki communities, Wikimania for Indian Wikipedians, etc. Arjun showed
pictures of speakers from several countries who he befriended and shared
ideal structures of the the Wiki projects in those all countries.
2nd Talk: Achal Prabhala/ “Open Citation” & its perpectives
Achal introduced the audience about his ongoing project on “Oral Citation”,
its purpose, authenticity, possible issues and their solutions. He explained
the problems Malayalam Wikipedians faced when they have created well
constructed articles on several games played in villages, but there was no
proper citations as none ever tried to make literature based documentations
for them. Even he also stated the similar experiences he has with the
“Sapheri” speaking South African tribe where many traditional games were
never put under the modern documented rules and regulations but they are
great resources for the anthropologists. Many such important heritage
related articles could be cited using oral citation which is easier to
create, transform, share and cite. He also explained how credibility and
authenticity were created by interviewing the people about the dance
form/game/any such intended aspect. Most of the verbal conversation could be
translated and added to the audio file itself and later can be translated to
any other language. The source and copyright info can also be explained in
the audio file itself which would make this a very simplistic approach, but
potentially more accessible. Audio files would be more self explanatory,
easy to share in the form of podcasts and an elaborated audience could be
targeted.
3rd Talk: Anirudh Bhati/ “Outreach Campaign in North-East”
Wikimedia India member Anirudh Bhati has organized has visited to NREST
(North-Eastern Regional Institute), Arunanchal Pradesh in the festive season
of “Mopin”, a regional festival and “Srishti 2011”, NREST's institutional
function. Anirudh along with Wikipedian Nikhil Sheth introduced Wikipedia
and other WMF projects to almost 110 students and lecturers in CREST. They
demonstrated them “Editing in Wikipedia” and students themselves created
articles based on the demonstration over there. Surya Vaigunth, a final year
student and a computer enthusiast personally took initiative to teach to
masses and bring out a set of persistent contributors. Though most of them
were interested to see the opportunities of Indic Wikipedias, majority of
the critical mass was more interested for English article speculated more
about Arunanchal Pradesh and even uploading more picture than content
development. He also has demonstrated how to use Indic Wikipedias and
editing them. Srikanth added a note to uploading pictures and geotagging
them using external maps which would be useful for online searches. As a
part of the outreach program Anirudh also explained about the Offline
package developed by taking selected Wikipedia articles for school students
as a part of SOS Children's Village where Ashwin helped for creating list of
important articles. 2 major software programs OpenZIM and Kiwix are used for
compilation and running of the offline package respectively where the total
package (2.75 GB) could be burnt in a DVD. The team also had a video chat
with Portugese Wikipedian Beria Lima who had a talk about “Mirandese
language and Gender Gap”, Mirandese, being one of the dying languages needs
collaborative efforts and Wikipedia could be one solution to protect it. She
also discussed abput the low contribution of women because of several
reasons like Lack of Confidence, Lack of detailed knowledge, Male oriented
social set up , etc. Even she also connected thr same problem in the Indian
context.
Nikhil introduced Wikipedia to Kendriya Vidyalaya students. Saibal
Chatterjee, visiting prof and Chief- Coordinator of Srishti 2011 also
supported the event.
It was fun-filled and successful event with less audience but fruitful with
new ideas shared.
*
ସୁଭପାSubhashishPanigrahi
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ
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Hi Wikipedians in Bangalore,
Our next regular meetup is supposed to
be held on 9 th April 2011 ( Second Sunday of the month). I will unavailable
during that weekend. Will appreciate if someone [[BE BOLD]] and take the
lead this time.
Some pointers here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Howtodo
I haven't created the page for WPMBL32 yet.
Regards
Tinu Cherian