Hi All,
We had a very successful Bangalore Meetup 45 on 29th April (
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiMeetups/Bangalore/Bangalore45). Yes, it is the
FORTY-FIFTH meetup in the city - which is quite extraordinary by any
standards anywhere in the world!!!
As is unique and special about Bangalore meetups, we had participation from
multiple communities - in this case Kannada, Telugu, English, Sanskrit and
Tamil.
In total, we had 13 people attending, including Barry from WMF.
We wanted to share some tips on how we conducted the meet-up this time -
which you might find useful as you conduct various meetups.
a) We invited folks one-on-one, in addition to the posts on the mailing
lists.
b) At the start of the meet-up, after the introductions, we asked people
why they have come to the meet-up - and aligned the meet up accordingly to
address the question "What do you want to gain from today"
c) We made sure that EVERY single person talks. Near the 3/4 mark of the
meetup, we stopped everything and reached out to the quiet folks and got
them to talk - and they had SO MUCH to say!!! Don't let any one person or
any one topic monopolise the discussion.
d) Discuss specific next steps. Folks get energised when you talk about
specific next steps. The ideas we got were so inspiring: wiki summer camps
for students, Kannada GLAM, Telugu digital outreach model, Sanskrit
education program!
e) Make it fun! We laughed throughout the meetup!!!
Coming now to the specific things we discussed, here’s a summary of the
various discussions
a) Kannada Wikipedia spoke about the Translation Enhancement project - and
the challenges they were facing getting new users. It was discussed on how
we can try and use the Kannada wikipedia facebook group - which now has
nearly 1800 followers - to see if we can attract new or retired users to
Kannada Wikipedia project. This will also require a basic FAQ to be
updated for Kannada and maybe even an outreach presentation.
b) Another discussion was to explore GLAM or a school project in Kannada.
It was also suggested that we can explore a Wikipedia summer camp - as so
many students are now on summer holidays. (This is an idea that will have
relevance across the country and across communities.)
c) Wiktionary continues to have potential in Kannada - and indeed other
languages - and we should explore ways of promoting participation. This is
an area where we did not have any specific ideas and we welcome all
community members who might have some insights to share them for us - and
for other communities. Wiktionary (and Wikisource) are great ways for
folks to get introduced to our communities and projects (because they are
relatively easy to contribute to.)
d) A school project was also discussed in Sanskrit - involving 11th-12th
standard - and we should have some discussions around this. There are many
students studying the subject in these years and we must try and explore
how we can encourage them (and their teachers) to incorporate Sanskrit
Wikipedia as part of their teaching programs. It will help energise the
Sanskrit community and projects - and will make Sanskrit learning so much
more fun. Wikisource was discussed as a high-potential project. Nitika
and Shiju from India Program will be in touch with the Sanskrit community
to see how this can be done
d) All of us discussed with the Telugu community members about their
ambitions to get newbies into their community and the challenges they are
facing and it was suggested that an exploration should be done if we can
try a digital outreach pilot can be done for Telugu. The basic idea would
be to have a notice on Telugu Wikipedia that progressively invited those
interested in learning about Telugu to click through to pages which would
have a basic outreach presentation as well as FAQs (all in Telugu) and
encourage them to edit.
e) Shiju, Nitika & Noopur will be in touch with Kannada, Sanskrit and
Telugu communities to help out on these initiatives.
The meeting concluded with a group picture - which is available at this
link:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/WikiMediaBangaloreMonthl…
See you in next month’s meetup.
--
Thanks & Regards,
RadhaKrishna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Arkrishna
Next Wikimedia Bangalore Meetup on 13th May
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WP:MBL46
