Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
A bigger question: On what basis did India Programs zero in on these topics for the pilots? Was the community asked whether this is what they want? I get the feeling that there is no community ownership whatsoever, which is what Pradeep was also talking of. On a larger scale, I suggest that the community must decide what India Programs should do on a macro basis with India Programs then being free to design pilots/programs within that macro framework. i.e., an annual plan of what India Programs is expected to achieve, say in the next financial year. Thereafter next year we must have a way of community assessment to find out whether the parameters set have been met or not. If they have been met there should be some incentive for India Programs - and if they havnt there must be some penalty for them, as that will spur them to meet the targets set by the community. I am talking of the community at large and not for the Chapter EC or Board or Advisors - this must be done by the community as a whole. Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:27:46 +0530 From: pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs Hi Hisham, Could you also provide full links as reference like how Srikanth L suggested to Noopur yesterday? I cannot click through inline links when checking mails on my Nokia phone. The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. Instead of doing this seperately as a pilot, does not collaborating with the Chapter make more sense? I would also suggest including in the pilot design itself ways for the community to feel ownership of the project so that these projects would continue despite the Chapter or the WMF. Also, a nudge to the Chapter to take more responsibility for and interest in the projects that (some very innovative) it undertakes. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 10:36 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Program constantly works on is that the the work that your team does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. Basic Community Building is the work that Shiju is doing with small Indic communities - in this case, Assamese. It will show what steps can be taken to build such communities - from communication to collaboration to outreach. This work is especially relevant to small Indic communities - but there are pointers even for larger communities (including English.) Story-telling for Community Building is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. Supporting Community Communications Initiatives (Wikipatrika) for Community Building is the initiative just announced by Noopur to support our community's newsletter, Wikipatrika. The attempt is to see how Wikipatrika can become more participative, richer in content and more regular in publication. Do go through these. Do also add your comments on the respective talk pages. The constant endeavor of all the work that we do is to help community members who want to take up the various initiatives that we are piloting (with them or with other community members.) Do go through these pilot designs and if you are interested in getting involved, or if you need clarification, or if you want support - please feel free to ask for it on the talk pages or offlist to any of us. Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 29th @ 9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: Hisham, you say you're conducted 22+ sessions. How would you rate the relative success of each of them? Four people editing on the day isn't good enough. Long term editors should be used to measure success. I think what you mean to say is that the editors on the day need to be tracked (not them: their contributions) regularly. This might aid in directing them to whatever post-outreach assistance they need, and also might result in the outreach 'business' snowballing, once other editors see how effective this is. I see two kinds of success for an outreach program: 1. Outreach multiplication, measured in outreach sessions per period (week/month/year) 2. Successful outreach sessions, measured in number of editors contributing x periods (weeks/months/years) after they participated in an outreach There is a third possible outcome, which is identifying (and perhaps rewarding) people who are good (ie conversion of newbies into editors) at outreach. I also see a different kind of outreach outcome, but which probably needs a different kind of outreach session, and that is through the addition of software contributors. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Vickram Fool On The Hill http://communicall.wordpress.com ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
Hi, I also think this idea of the community defining the framework must be extended to the Chapter as well. As long as Wikimedian organisations are not driven by what the community wants but sets the program themselves, there will be a disconnect. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 11:37 AM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: A bigger question: On what basis did India Programs zero in on these topics for the pilots? Was the community asked whether this is what they want? I get the feeling that there is no community ownership whatsoever, which is what Pradeep was also talking of. On a larger scale, I suggest that the community must decide what India Programs should do on a macro basis with India Programs then being free to design pilots/programs within that macro framework. i.e., an annual plan of what India Programs is expected to achieve, say in the next financial year. Thereafter next year we must have a way of community assessment to find out whether the parameters set have been met or not. If they have been met there should be some incentive for India Programs - and if they havnt there must be some penalty for them, as that will spur them to meet the targets set by the community. I am talking of the community at large and not for the Chapter EC or Board or Advisors - this must be done by the community as a whole. -- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:27:46 +0530 From: pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs Hi Hisham, Could you also provide full links as reference like how Srikanth L suggested to Noopur yesterday? I cannot click through inline links when checking mails on my Nokia phone. The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. Instead of doing this seperately as a pilot, does not collaborating with the Chapter make more sense? I would also suggest including in the pilot design itself ways for the community to feel ownership of the project so that these projects would continue despite the Chapter or the WMF. Also, a nudge to the Chapter to take more responsibility for and interest in the projects that (some very innovative) it undertakes. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 10:36 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Programhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program constantly works on is that the the work that your teamhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Team does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. - Basic Community Buildinghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building is the work that Shiju is doing with small Indic communities - in this case, Assamese. It will show what steps can be taken to build such communities - from communication to collaboration to outreach. This work is especially relevant to small Indic communities - but there are pointers even for larger communities (including English.) - Story-telling for Community Buildinghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. - Supporting Community Communications Initiatives (Wikipatrika) for Community Buildinghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Wikipatrika is the initiative just announced by Noopur to support our community's newsletter, Wikipatrika. The attempt is to see how Wikipatrika can become more participative, richer in content and more regular in publication. Do go through these. Do also add your comments on the respective talk pages. The constant endeavor of all the work that we do is to help community members who want to take up the various initiatives that we are piloting (with them or with other community members.) Do go through these pilot designs and if you are interested in getting involved, or if you need clarification, or if you want support - please feel free to ask for it on the talk pages or offlist to any of us. Best *hisham*
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
On Mar 29, 2012, at 11:27 AM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: Hi Hisham, Could you also provide full links as reference like how Srikanth L suggested to Noopur yesterday? I cannot click through inline links when checking mails on my Nokia phone. Full links updated next to hyperlinks in the mail forwarded below and I'm including them just below this line as well. India Program: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program India Program Team: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Team Pilot Designs: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs Basic Community Building: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building Storytelling: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling Wikipatrika: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Wikipatrika Going forward, we will put the full links in the mails directly. A lot of folks are now accessing stuff directly on their mobiles. The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. Instead of doing this seperately as a pilot, does not collaborating with the Chapter make more sense? Absolutely on both. More than happy to. (On Wikipatrika, we have already spoken on this matter with the Chapter.) Wikipatrika is going to need collaboration with a whole host of folks - and in the pilot design page, we've mentioned who all we will reach out to - and these include chapter CIGs / SIGs, for instance. On story-telling, you're right again - and in fact, quite a few profiles are already there on the chapter site (http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Main_Page as well as http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Featured_Wikimedian/Archive). We're going to try and help accelerate this - and see if there are any modifications we can propose. Will speak to the Chapter on this. I would also suggest including in the pilot design itself ways for the community to feel ownership of the project so that these projects would continue despite the Chapter or the WMF. I love this point and the idea! That is exactly what we want. For the current pilot designs, please feel free to make suggestions. For future ones, we will publish them at earlier stages and welcome inputs into the design. Let me also think through how we can start off pilot designs completely afresh. I'm thinking that we put out a problem statement about something that is important to the community, and then facilitate a ground-up community collaborative design for a pilot? Would be great to hear from anyone and on potential candidates in mind in terms of pilots? Throwing some ideas here Digital outreach (or a contribution campaign, as it is sometimes called) Similar to Wikiproject Medicine (currently underway in a few Indic languages), how about Wikiproject Software or some other subject (in other or the same communities) Student Clubs (whether in English or in Indic languages) hisham On Mar 29, 2012 10:36 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Program (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program) constantly works on is that the the work that your team (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Team) does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs) - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. Basic Community Building (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building) is the work that Shiju is doing with small Indic communities - in this case, Assamese. It will show what steps can be taken to build such communities - from communication to collaboration to outreach. This work is especially relevant to small Indic communities - but there are pointers even for larger communities (including English.) Story-telling for Community Building (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling) is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. Supporting Community Communications Initiatives (Wikipatrika) for Community Building (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Wikipatrika) is the initiative just announced by Noopur to support our community's newsletter, Wikipatrika.
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Story-telling for Community Buildinghttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. The Wikimedia India Chapter already runs a section call Featured Wikipedian on the chapter wiki. Is this pilot designed to replicate the work that is being already done? http://wiki.wikimedia.in More importantly, why do you believe that the story-telling effort will ultimately motivate more editors to contribute? Sure, I see some potential there for interested Internet users who come across Wikimedia's blog sites, but apart from that? Have you done a *cost-benefit analysis* on whether the story telling initiative is worth spending the time and efforts of your team? From my own experience, some of the long-term editors are anonymous while most of the long-term and established editors are quite private to the extent that they would not wish to link their real life with what they do on Wikipedia. I think your efforts are better directed elsewhere identifying high-potential opportunities, design implement high-quality pilots. I am quoting one of the emails you sent as an explanation to the Foundation-l On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 5:00 PM, Hisham hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: The advantage that Trust brings to the table is speed and intensity. I think the nature of the Trust's operations will be to identify high-potential opportunities, design implement high-quality pilots and transfer learnings to the Chapter, other community groups and the community at large. As and when the Chapter and/or other community bodies have built the capacity to take over projects from the Trust, the Trust will fully facilitate this. From what I can see, you are simply undertaking projects which can be organized by Wikimedia India Chapter once it receives funding and engages a part-time employee to help it with that. On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Pradeep Mohandas pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com wrote: I also think this idea of the community defining the framework must be extended to the Chapter as well. Let's have this discussion on a separate thread. Thanks. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
True, but that would probably have to be slightly different as the chapter is volunteer driven. During the AGM we could frame what the chapter should be doing in the next year and review it at the next AGM. We cant have an incentive/penalty as everyone is a volunteer, but it will keep the EC on their toes if they want people to re-elect them. IMO, the chapter part of this discussion should continue on the chapter members list, lets focus on India Programs here - it would be great if we could get more views on this here to get a feel of what everyone thinks. Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:28:36 +0530 From: pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs Hi, I also think this idea of the community defining the framework must be extended to the Chapter as well. As long as Wikimedian organisations are not driven by what the community wants but sets the program themselves, there will be a disconnect. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 11:37 AM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: A bigger question: On what basis did India Programs zero in on these topics for the pilots? Was the community asked whether this is what they want? I get the feeling that there is no community ownership whatsoever, which is what Pradeep was also talking of. On a larger scale, I suggest that the community must decide what India Programs should do on a macro basis with India Programs then being free to design pilots/programs within that macro framework. i.e., an annual plan of what India Programs is expected to achieve, say in the next financial year. Thereafter next year we must have a way of community assessment to find out whether the parameters set have been met or not. If they have been met there should be some incentive for India Programs - and if they havnt there must be some penalty for them, as that will spur them to meet the targets set by the community. I am talking of the community at large and not for the Chapter EC or Board or Advisors - this must be done by the community as a whole. Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:27:46 +0530 From: pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs Hi Hisham, Could you also provide full links as reference like how Srikanth L suggested to Noopur yesterday? I cannot click through inline links when checking mails on my Nokia phone. The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. Instead of doing this seperately as a pilot, does not collaborating with the Chapter make more sense? I would also suggest including in the pilot design itself ways for the community to feel ownership of the project so that these projects would continue despite the Chapter or the WMF. Also, a nudge to the Chapter to take more responsibility for and interest in the projects that (some very innovative) it undertakes. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 10:36 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Program constantly works on is that the the work that your team does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. Basic Community Building is the work that Shiju is doing with small Indic communities - in this case, Assamese. It will show what steps can be taken to build such communities - from communication to collaboration to outreach. This work is especially relevant to small Indic communities - but there are pointers even for larger communities (including English.) Story-telling for Community Building is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. Supporting Community Communications Initiatives (Wikipatrika) for Community Building is the initiative just announced by Noopur to support our community's newsletter, Wikipatrika. The attempt is to see how Wikipatrika can become more participative, richer in content and more regular in publication. Do go through these. Do also add your comments on the respective talk pages. The constant endeavor of all the work that we do is to help community members who want to take up the various initiatives that we are piloting (with them or with other
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 11:36 AM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: A bigger question: On what basis did India Programs zero in on these topics for the pilots? Was the community asked whether this is what they want? I get the feeling that there is no community ownership whatsoever, which is what Pradeep was also talking of. True. It is glaringly unsettling to see community not being consulted on these. On a larger scale, I suggest that the community must decide what India Programs should do on a macro basis with India Programs then being free to design pilots/programs within that macro framework. i.e., an annual plan of what India Programs is expected to achieve, say in the next financial year. Thereafter next year we must have a way of community assessment to find out whether the parameters set have been met or not. If they have been met there should be some incentive for India Programs - and if they havnt there must be some penalty for them, as that will spur them to meet the targets set by the community. I am talking of the community at large and not for the Chapter EC or Board or Advisors - this must be done by the community as a whole. I think you've made some good points here although it could've been put in a different way. Agree strongly about the need for community assessment of India programs to ensure that it actually ends up helping the community and movement. It is essential to have people from out of the community for any such evaluation. And yes, it helps to have people who're not part of the Chapter EC or the India programs or the WMF board/Advisors evaluating this. -- Hari Prasad Nadig http://hpnadig.nethttp://twitter.com/hpnadig http://flickr.com/hpnadig ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 11:27, Pradeep Mohandas pradeep.mohan...@gmail.comwrote: The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. IIRC Shiju has been doing the Basic Community Building (covering all aspects of work detail mentioned) for years now with very decent success without calling it one. Pilot is trying something new / untested. May be you should call it a program instead of a pilot. An example of Indic pilot which I can give is conflict resolution / increasing awareness of Wiki policies / culture to newer/older community members alike through policy pages and sorting uneasiness between new and old editors which exist in few Indic wikis. This will lead to fewer cases of misuse / abuse of wiki-resources against good interest of community / wikimedia at large.(in effect prevent more cases like the recent RfC on a Hindi Wikipedian) Yes, this is a tough task, there are issues in it, but taking up something like this at least at a smaller level, can be called a pilot, not something that's been proven successful for years now. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building -- Regards Srikanth.L ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
Hi, Both the members list and the AGM are venues open to members only. How will the community participate in this discussion? Not all community members are chapter members. I agree with wheredevelsdare, though in that the nAture of the incentives will change for Chapter. But the discussion should happen in a fora accessible to community members. My last and final take on this discussion isbthat both the Chapter and the Office's plan of action must be guided by community concerns and requirements. These discussions are also better done on wiki than on the mAiling list. May I propose that these discussions be done on Meta with sufficient notice for all communities in India to participate in the same. Having separate pages for Chapter and Office may help. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 1:20 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: True, but that would probably have to be slightly different as the chapter is volunteer driven. During the AGM we could frame what the chapter should be doing in the next year and review it at the next AGM. We cant have an incentive/penalty as everyone is a volunteer, but it will keep the EC on their toes if they want people to re-elect them. IMO, the chapter part of this discussion should continue on the chapter members list, lets focus on India Programs here - it would be great if we could get more views on this here to get a feel of what everyone thinks. -- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:28:36 +0530 From: pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs Hi, I also think this idea of the community defining the framework must be extended to the Chapter as well. As long as Wikimedian organisations are not driven by what the community wants but sets the program themselves, there will be a disconnect. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 11:37 AM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: A bigger question: On what basis did India Programs zero in on these topics for the pilots? Was the community asked whether this is what they want? I get the feeling that there is no community ownership whatsoever, which is what Pradeep was also talking of. On a larger scale, I suggest that the community must decide what India Programs should do on a macro basis with India Programs then being free to design pilots/programs within that macro framework. i.e., an annual plan of what India Programs is expected to achieve, say in the next financial year. Thereafter next year we must have a way of community assessment to find out whether the parameters set have been met or not. If they have been met there should be some incentive for India Programs - and if they havnt there must be some penalty for them, as that will spur them to meet the targets set by the community. I am talking of the community at large and not for the Chapter EC or Board or Advisors - this must be done by the community as a whole. -- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:27:46 +0530 From: pradeep.mohan...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs Hi Hisham, Could you also provide full links as reference like how Srikanth L suggested to Noopur yesterday? I cannot click through inline links when checking mails on my Nokia phone. The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. Instead of doing this seperately as a pilot, does not collaborating with the Chapter make more sense? I would also suggest including in the pilot design itself ways for the community to feel ownership of the project so that these projects would continue despite the Chapter or the WMF. Also, a nudge to the Chapter to take more responsibility for and interest in the projects that (some very innovative) it undertakes. Pradeep Handheld On Mar 29, 2012 10:36 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Programhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program constantly works on is that the the work that your teamhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Team does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. - Basic Community
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 29th @ 9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Vickram, what you said is an 'expanded' version of what I meant. I see no point in wasting time and efforts on such sessions if the net result is zero. On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Vickram Crishna vvcris...@radiophony.comwrote: On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: Hisham, you say you're conducted 22+ sessions. How would you rate the relative success of each of them? Four people editing on the day isn't good enough. Long term editors should be used to measure success. I think what you mean to say is that the editors on the day need to be tracked (not them: their contributions) regularly. This might aid in directing them to whatever post-outreach assistance they need, and also might result in the outreach 'business' snowballing, once other editors see how effective this is. I see two kinds of success for an outreach program: 1. Outreach multiplication, measured in outreach sessions per period (week/month/year) 2. Successful outreach sessions, measured in number of editors contributing x periods (weeks/months/years) after they participated in an outreach There is a third possible outcome, which is identifying (and perhaps rewarding) people who are good (ie conversion of newbies into editors) at outreach. I also see a different kind of outreach outcome, but which probably needs a different kind of outreach session, and that is through the addition of software contributors. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Vickram Fool On The Hill http://communicall.wordpress.com ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Support for the Bhojpuri language
Hoi, We have supported input methods and web fonts for the Bhojpuri language for quite some time at translatewiki.net. In essence it needs the same support as Hindi. We are happy with the results and intent to make them available on the bh.wikipedia.org. Have a look at translatewiki and let us know if there are any issues [1] When you read about the Bhojpuri language at Ethnologue [2], it is indicated that the language has also been written in the Kaithi script [3]. When there is a freely licensed font for the Kaithi script, we are quite happy to provide this as well as an option. If you know of such a font please let us know. Thanks, Gerard [1] http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Portal:Bho?uselang=bho [2] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bho [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaithi ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Request for not sending so many mails
Sir, nbsp;I had herpes a months back and it is still troubling me. hence I am not able to go through the wikimails. Kindly stop sending me these re- letters at your earliest convenience. R K S Rathore 10, Govind Nagar Shahganj AGRA 282 010 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-I]Wiki Workshop at JIIT, Noida
Greetings Everyone, Wikipedia has been invited by Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noidahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaypee_Institute_of_Information_Technology (JIIT, Noida) to conduct a workshop during their annual fest Impressionshttp://impressions12.com/index.html. There will be a session on the 31st of March (Saturday). The agenda includes explaining the Basics of Wikipedia, 5 Pillars, Few Policies, Anatomy of an article, Basic editing etc. Here is the link to the event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop/Delhi_Workshop_5 If you'd like to help out please add your details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop/Delhi_Workshop_5#Facilitators Apologies for sending this mail so late, got caught up in work. Cheers, Piyush Aggarwal ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Open letter to the Indian Wikimedia community
Hey, I have been watching the list silently for last few months, have discussed with some of the active members in the community and here is what I feel: *To the community:* * There is simply too much noise and politics in this list. I got so fed up that I chose to receive no mails for some time. Please be aware that this list is also followed by global community due to the global south strategy's significance. Should I request that we can behave better? * WMF India programs, Wikimedia India chapter and the Indian Wikimedia community are autonomous entities each answerable to their own framework. The community can express its requirements, give feedback and point out when the chapter and WMF India programs can do better but we cannot imagine us to be in a position to control each and every detail of their activity. For example, questioning the hiring rationale of the WMF India programs is simply wrong. Do we interfere on such things with the global WMF? Then why do so with India operations? Such things are completely within the autonomy of the organization. If we need something from the chapter, let us join it and participate. If we need something from the WMF India Programs, let us voice it officially. For example, Shiju was asking for project proposals from each Indic Wikipedia community village pump. That will be the best place to partner with WMF India programs. Not the mailing list. If something can't be done by WMF India programs, then let us request a grant. Unless the community is cleary impacted in a negative way, criticising every activity of the WMF India programs even before they start can only shatter their morale. * I don't know the value of the match-stick impact of the first Wiki conference India. But, let me wait for its report to see if its really worth the lakhs and lakhs of Rupees spent on it. Until then, I am not so keen on an annual Wiki conference of the same scale. Let us do the real work in Wikipedias and improve them instead of spending our time in mailing lists. *To the chapter and the WMF India programs:* I expect something bigger and grander from both of these organizations. They should undertake work that the community can't do by itself or which doesn't require the community work at all. Example: Making strategic partnerships with academic, knowlege, corporate and Govt. institutions for non-IEP purposes. This could be acquisition of archives under free license or partnering with media / mobile phone companies to distribute Wiki content. Right now, there is too much overlap on who does what that ultimately most of the community work is claimed as work done by chapter or the India programs. We don't require a chapter or India programs to do what the community was already doing by itself. At least, I don't see how this can justify their annual budgets. One personal request: I see that too much of your time is wasted in the mailing list. Be BOLD, communicate / clarify only when required and to the minimum. Just implement better and bigger programs and delight the community with good results. Thanks, Ravi ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] PRESS: New search tool to unlock Wikipedia
A very interesting idea to extract specific information out of Wikipedia. Do have a look. -- Forwarded message -- From: Richard Symonds richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk Date: Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 8:12 PM Subject: [Wmfcc-l] PRESS: New search tool to unlock Wikipedia To: Communications Committee wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21625-new-search-tool-to-unlock-wikipedia.html WOULD you like to ask Wikipedia tougher questions than today's simple keyword searches allow? A prototype plug-in that can do just that will be demonstrated at the World Wide Web conferencehttp://swipe.i-mozart.com/www2012demo/TR_swipe.pdf in Lyon, France, next month. Called Swipe - loosely short for searching Wikipedia by example - the software aims to let users of the online encyclopedia answer complex questions that most search engines would stumble over. For example, trying to figure out which actresses won academy awards when they were under 30 years old in the last 25 years? becomes relatively simple when using the program. To use Swipe, questions are not typed out in the form of the natural language above, but Swipe is nevertheless designed for everyday users: no knowledge of arcane database query languages is necessary, say the developers, Maurizio Atzori at the University of Cagliari, Sardinia, and Carlo Zaniolo at the University of California, Los Angeles. The pair wrote Swipe using MediaWiki, the software Wikipedia is based on, but it draws its answers from DBpediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dbpedia#Example , an expansive collection of 3.6 million data entries harvested from Wikipedia's pages. The data pop up in the info boxes on the right-hand side of Wikipedia entries, which list the details we use to describe the world, such as dates, prices, ages, heights, names, places, distances, bit rates, bytes, running times and geographical coordinates. At a very basic level, Atzori and Zaniolo use this process in reverse: Swipe activates those Wikipedia info boxes, allowing users to take the data in them and create a tweaked version, and in doing so calls up pages that match that altered information. For example, says Atzori: Imagine you want to search for all Wikipedia pages about singers from North America who are younger than 20. With Swipe running, you go to an example of a known singer's page - Lady Gaga's, say - and in the Born field overwrite her age of 25 with 20 and replace New York, New York with North America. Swipe then automatically converts that into a DBpedia query that returns a page with a list of entries that match your requirements. In a demo video, the pair show how to use pop singer Robbie Williams's Wikipedia page to find a list of musicians with the first name Mike who don't play poprock - by overwriting his name and occupation, and placing the construct un before the genre poprock (watch the video above). Swipe could easily be made available as an option on Wikipedia one day, says Atzori. I like the idea because of its simplicity and the way it uses familiar Wikipedia info boxes to construct powerful queries, says Nigel Shadbolthttp://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/nrs , head of the web and internet science group at the University of Southampton, UK. Structured data resources like DBpedia represent a really rich knowledge base, he adds, but they are difficult for the average internet user to take advantage of. If we could build a query engine that's usable by all, that would be a real winner, he says. Richard Symonds Office Development Manager Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 207 065 0992 -- Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited, a Charitable Company Registered in England and Wales, No: 6741827. Charity No:1144513 Office: 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. Wikimedia UK is the local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). It is an independent non-profit organization with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents. ___ Wmfcc-l mailing list wmfc...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wmfcc-l -- Noopur Raval Student Arts and Aesthetics Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Ph: 9650567690 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 29th @ 9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Hey, Just a reminder. We are starting in 10 mins. Do join in! Thanks Nitika On 29-Mar-2012, at 8:54 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks Reminder about the IRC later today (9pm IST on March 29th.) Join in using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office. As I had indicated earlier, what we will do going forward is to publish an opening statement - which is below. We'd like to have a rich discussion around these topics for 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss. There have been more than 22 outreach sesssions (English + some Indic languages) across India over the past 2 1/2 months. We have been working on constantly every component of outreach. * Pre-session work - building supporting material (documents, presentations, handouts etc), evaluating different ways of conducting an effective outreach, using different ways to reach out to organisations with the proposal to conduct a session etc. * Session work - adopting different techniques of doing outreach, how do we get participants more involved during the session, how to filter out the folks so that we do the editing session only with the genuinely interested participants, how to balance between practical and theoretical aspects of training, how much information to give out in one session etc. * Post-session work - how do we provide editing support to the participants, how do we collect their contact information, how do we keep in touch with them on regular basis, how do we invite them to join other Wiki projects, how do we track their edit count - soon after the session, after 1 and 3 months of conducting the session etc. We'd like to discuss these. In the IRC, the following will be covered: * Indic Outreach: How can we do more outreach session in Indic langauges in particular? / Can regional communities work to translate supporting material? / How do we provide more support to different language communities to conduct these sessions? * More Outreach: If we are doing 7 outreach session in one month right now is there a way of us doing 10 every month? / Can we find more community members who will be willing to conduct these session? / For community members who are interested to conduct outreach sessions but think they lack confidence - is there a way we can help them? * Better Outreach: Can we find some volunteers who will be willing to adopt these newbies and give them support? . I'd strongly encourage all those folks who have been actively involved in conducting these sessions over the past 2 months to join this IRC. It will be great if you could share your first hand experience with the wider community on what worked, what didn't, what we could have done better etc. I especially do want to ask Indic Wikimedians to join because we desperately need more outreach sessions in Indic languages. We will also briefly address the early stages of the communications work - which are the storytelling and Wikipatrika support that was announced yesterday. Given it's early days on communications, I'd prefer this IRC stay largely focussed on outreach since there is so much to work through there. See you all there! Apologies for sending this note this morning and not last night as I had promised. hisham p.s. There is a (tiny) possibility that I might be slightly late but you'll all be in Nitika's safe hands. I shall try and my level best to be on time. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: [Wmfcc-l] PRESS: New search tool to unlock Wikipedia
Sounds exciting. I really hope this works out. It'd make online work so much simpler. Although it reminds me of an unrelated computational search engine called Wolfram Alpha. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Request for not sending so many mails
There's a link to unsubscribe at the bottom of this mail. Click on it, and follow the instructions and you won't recieve any more mails. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 11:41, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: Here you go: Maybe this is just with me, I don't have a great audience on Twitter, and I doubt it if anyone else has tried this: Take the case of Actor Siddharth. His article on enwiki used to say Siddharth Narayan. He tweeted out [Verified account] saying that his name was Siddharth Suryanarayan and not Narayan. User:FilmLover1426 changed the name but when it came to moving the page, she told me, I need to contact some one to have it changed, inspite of me telling her, she could do it herself. Then, there came an issue of Reliable sources, she argued that the tweets would be sufficient. Another case, this time more successsful, would be of the Bangalore Helicopter pictures. I found it on Twitter, got in touch with the fellow who uploaded, but got no result. But then, a friend of his, who accompanied him on the ride, had uploaded to FlickR, and thanks to a mail sent by me, AroundTheGlobe and AshLin, he released his images under CC-BY-SA. I'd concentrate more on socio-economic forums online than Twitter for getting new people to Wikipedia. Getting Wikipedians to Twitter is easy, the reverse is a bit tough. Thank you. This body of data is fascinatingly insightful. I should hope the foundation folks are taking notes. I will ensure I represent this point about the consequences of social media personally with the greatest intensity I can gather to the appropriate foundation folks during my next trip to Delhi. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
While I don't know about the Foundation folks, several editors have already contacted me on this matter and have taken notes. Who knows, we may just have to change our approach. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-del] [Wikimedia-I]Wiki Workshop at JIIT, Noida
Great, do join us there, it'll be really great if you can come. Thanks, Piyush On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Kinshuk Sunil kinshuksu...@gmail.comwrote: Aweomse! I'd like to help with anything that needs doing. On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 7:43 PM, Piyush Aggarwal me.piyushaggar...@gmail.com wrote: Greetings Everyone, Wikipedia has been invited by Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noidahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaypee_Institute_of_Information_Technology (JIIT, Noida) to conduct a workshop during their annual fest Impressionshttp://impressions12.com/index.html. There will be a session on the 31st of March (Saturday). The agenda includes explaining the Basics of Wikipedia, 5 Pillars, Few Policies, Anatomy of an article, Basic editing etc. Here is the link to the event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop/Delhi_Workshop_5 If you'd like to help out please add your details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Workshop/Delhi_Workshop_5#Facilitators Apologies for sending this mail so late, got caught up in work. Cheers, Piyush Aggarwal ___ Wikimedia-in-del mailing list wikimedia-in-...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-del -- Kinshuk Sunil +919910024895 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l