[Wikimediaindia-l] On the spot Chapter membership.

Mon Dec 5 13:31:10 UTC 2011

Hi all,
        I am very much in favour of ( sincerely wishes so) the active
community members being part of the chapter and its leadership and taking
the chapter is next level. The chapter will have lose its relevance unless
the community takes control of it and shape its future.

On a side note, I get these interesting questions each time when I ask
people to join the chapter, "How will the chapter benefit me?" "What do I
get from the chapter, if I join?" ( I am not blaming anyone, but pardon me,
 honestly that is the our typical Indian psychology).
I reply them with another question " Think of this way, think of what I can
do for the Wikimedia chapter ?".

Remember , We all became Wikimedians not because of thinking how we will
benefit out of it, but by the sheer passion and joy of sharing knowledge
with the whole world.

I keep iterating this often,  May I ask to kindly remove the notion that
Chapter = EC. Each one of us has an equal responsibility ( and opportunity)
to take it forward and drive the chapter.

I am sure that many of you are aware there were just two nominations when
the 3 vacant posts that were announced for the chapter Executive Committee.
Saddened by the lack of interest, I had to literally ask, beg , "threaten"
many of the members to stand for the elections and later we got another 4
more nominations. I myself had to stand for the elections, to prove my
point, in spite of  my insane personal & professional emergencies that I
have been going through in the last few months. It is always easy to blame
the system for " not working "  but it takes some courage to stand up and
be part of the system to change it.

I take this opportunity to sincerely invite all our dearest active
community members to become the part of the chapter and shape its future.

Having said that, when our founding members drafted the MoA, the chapter
membership was made open to any Indian who is above the 18 years of age. We
didn't want to say No to anyone who is coming forward to join the chapter.
We wanted it to be open and inclusive, we wanted to set no barriers for
anyone to join, anyone who is genuinely interested and enthusiastic , just
like in Wikipedia. If you think that model doesn't work, bring in a
resolution. We can all discuss and make amendments to
our  chapter constitution to that effect ? So what will be the eligibility
criteria for joining the chapter? Wiki username ? Edit counts ? Number of
articles ?

We are still baby stepping... The chapter is officially just less than one
year.. we have made some mistakes but we made more learnings and that will
help us grow forward.

With lots of Wikilove,

Regards
Tinu Cherian

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
parakara.ghoda at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with Srikanth.
> Some people with vested interests may want to join ...
> -+-~~~~
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 15:39, Jayanta Nath <jayantanth at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 1) On-spot *India Chapter membership* for visitors if they wish.
>>>
>>
>> Was : Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Proposal: Wikipedia participation at
>> 'Kolkata Book Fair 2012'
>>
>> I think we are going for numbers game here. Whats the point of on-spot
>> membership? Seriously, does having 50,000 chapter members do any great
>> thing for Wikipedia? I seriously fail to understand (in the past, future),
>> what can the chapter do with just so many members who do not have an idea
>> about Wikipedia community and many of whom may not go beyond attending
>> meetups and conferences.
>>
>> Sorry if am sound odd here, I just dont like this part of chapter, where
>> the chapter instead of instilling confidence in community and making them
>> members, chooses people who attend a meetup / conference / stall to become
>> its members.(In many cases makes someone member of chapter without having a
>> clue about it. I personally know this since my friend who happen to
>> accompany me to a meetup, just because he had nothing else to spend time is
>> a chapter member now) I do not mean any offense to any of those who sign
>> up(they may be genuinely interested, good guys), but just fail to
>> understand what we are trying to achieve with chapter membership numbers.
>>
>> --
>> Regards
>> Srikanth.L
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
> Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
>
>
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