[Wikimediaindia-l] Report on WikiKovai meet 1.

[Srikanth Ramakrishnan]

Heya all,
This should've come in elaier but didn't as my lab was shut.
To Pradeep, who's been asking for two days,
And Noopur, the only other Wikipedian who asked about this meet.

Our meetup was held at the KG Inst. of Tech [KITE] who offered us an
A/C presentation hall for this event.
KITE, is a part of KG Information Systems Ltd, one of the city's most
respected IT establishments.
The meetup space was offered by Mr. Ashok Bkathavatsalam himself, the
MD of KGISL, who in turn was told about this meet by Gautam John and
Venkat Mangudi. Thanks you two.

The meetup started at 11am.

We had ~14-15 attendees, out of which 8 or 9 were part of ILUGC Pondy
[Indian Linux User Group Puducherry].
One Wikipedian saw the link to the meetup on my signature on an online
forum SkyScraperCity and came from Chennai.
Bala Jeyaraman, aka Sodabottle joined me a few minutes into the meetup
and it was him who spoke for the rest of the day.
Pre lunch, we basically spoke on how and why the Wikipedia model
worked, the principles of the project, with Bala using the age old
debate of whether Coimbatore or Madurai was the second largest city in
Tamil Nadu as an example for verifiability.

Bala explained the ease of typing in Tamil, etc.

Post lunch, we were joined by two faculty members of KITE, while Mr.
Ashok himself stepped in. Interestingly, he himself has an account on
the English Wikipedia and contributes too.

The meetup ended at around 4, we took a few photos. I shall ask
Prasanna to upload them soon.

It was a success, there were three existing Wikipedians, and the rest
were interested newcomers. I wouldn't call it an academy though.

We've not scheduled a meetup for January yet, as the most probable
date is 15th Jan [Wikipedia Day] because both Bala and I won't be in
town. If anyone from the chapter/foundation can help lead it, I can
get people to attend and myself attend virtually thru Skype or so from
Kakinada.

Comments, suggestions most welcome.

All brickbats my way, bouquets to Bala please.

--~~~~

-- 
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
Sathyamangalam-Gobichettipalayam Star Gazers
My Commons uploads, now exceeding 75.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Rsrikanth05