Nitika,<div><br>You folks are doing a great job with this on your own, but I wanted to be sure you know that I can lift the cap of 7 account creations per day, if you let me know what day you're doing something. :)<br>
<br>That's an open offer to anyone doing outreach...</div><div><br></div><div>pb<br clear="all"><div>___________________</div><div><div>Philippe Beaudette</div><div>Head of Reader Relations</div><div>Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.</div>
<div><br></div><div>415-839-6885, x 6643 </div><div><br></div><div><a href="mailto:philippe@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">philippe@wikimedia.org </a></div></div><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 4:15 AM, Nitika <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ntandon@wikimedia.org">ntandon@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="word-wrap:break-word">Hi Folks,<br><ul><li><i>There were no laptops for the participants or the internet connection
was weak - so I could only give a lecture on wikipedia but could not
give hands-on training</i></li><li><i>I conducted sessions but I really don't know if anything productive came
out of it since I'm not confident that anyone of the participants will
actually start editing. My time is limited and I really want to figure
out how to make the best use of it.</i></li><li><i>I keep reading that outreach sessions should be done in a fun manner -
but I just don't know how to handle such a serious topic like Wikipedia
in a fun manner.</i></li><li><i>I could not get more than 7 people to create user accounts because of
the 7 per day limit for creating user logins from an single IP address -
so the rest of the participants were not able to be more actively
involved in the session.</i></li><li><i>I want to help out on outreach because I love doing it - but I'm
relatively new to Wikipedia and not sure if I can convey the
right messages.</i></li><li><i>I prepared standard presentations introducing Wikipedia and the basics
of editing - but I wish I had structured material available on the
difference between paraphrasing, close paraphrasing and
plagiarism/copyvio.</i></li><li><i>I asked the participants to write down their names and email IDs so that
I could stay in touch with them after the session - but could not read
the handwriting of a couple of them.</i></li><li><i>I really want to do outreach - but I am not confident of my public
speaking skills. I really wish I could help out but not sure how.</i></li><li><i>I got irritated preparing the presentations because I am sure many
others would have already prepared these and it seem like a waste of
time.</i></li><li><i>It would have been really good if I have left handouts for each participants so they could read and refer to them at leisure.</i></li></ul>
<br>
For all those who have conducted (or thought about) outreach sessions,
do these sound familiar? I've been talking to a whole host of community
members and participating in outreach session and I wanted to share
some thoughts with you and to ask your help and advice. I'm a new mail
thread on this because I am trying to combine some fantastic points from
a series of recent, related (and somewhat related) threads<br>
<br>
<a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005815.html" target="_blank">http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005815.html</a> (Srikanth R's thread on "What's in it for me")<br>
<a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005657.html" target="_blank">http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005657.html</a> (Pradeep's thread on improving infrastructure)<br>
<a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005453.html" target="_blank">http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005453.html</a>
(Arnav S' thread on help for outreach in Gujarat)<br>
<a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005632.html" target="_blank">http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005632.html</a>
(Noopur's post on GLAM - and specfically the point that GLAM and
outreach should inter-linked.)<br>
<br><i>Most of us believe that we need to attract
more newbies to our projects to help our Indic projects grow and to
improve Indian content on English Wikipedia. I also think that many
would agree that not enough outreach is happening and that results from
the outreach that is happening can be improved. I suspect that a lot
more people might be interested in doing outreach but are often not sure
how to do it. I think that we need to figure out what are all the
various things we can do to make sure that every minute spent by
volunteers on outreach is as productive as possible. </i><br>
<br>
I would like to propose that I start working on these aspects. My current (very initial) thinking is as follows:<br><ol><li>Speak to as many more community members as possible who have
conducted outreach sessions, plan to conduct them or even attended
session and learn from them their experiences on outreach. Document and
share tips and best practices to the entire community.</li><li>Create a repository for all presentations as well as handouts, FAQs
pages, etc. (prepared in English to begin with, but later translated to
Indic languages). These presentations must be in distinct module so
that there could be a standard basic introduction section, editing
basics and then separate sections for specific sub-topics such as NPOV,
referencing, WP:MOS, etc. These could be accessed at will by any
community member and used / edited / adapted at will by them. I realise
there might be some duplication because a lot of this exists in various
places - but it will be useful to have them all together in one place.</li><li>Identify what kind of audience is most receptive to outreach by
volunteers - and try and help organise more outreach sessions for
these. To illustrate, are there interest groups that might hold
particular potential like college festival or an ornithology society or a
language club. Also, do a lot of hands-on outreach in areas where
the current volunteer community is particularly small, such as in Delhi.</li><li>Work closely with community groups (like we did for Pune's recently
concluded CDMA expo or I am working with the West Bengal community on
the upcoming Kolkata Book Fair) to help in the planning and organising
and conducting of various outreach programs. I can help in many things
from background support or (wo)manning a stall!</li><li>Provide ad hoc support for any kind of outreach activity that anyone
needs help with. (I am not sure about what this might involve but I'm
putting it down because I'm sure there will be things that need need to
be done!)</li></ol>
<br><b>
I need some help from you.</b><br>
<br>
Would you let me know if the above 5 points would be useful? Please
feel free to share ideas, comments, suggestions, modifications,
warnings, etc.<br>
Please do go through the following page
(<a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outreach_Program_Handbook" target="_blank">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outreach_Program_Handbook</a>)
even though it is still in early-stages but will house my work. Please
feel free to edit the page or to add comments on the talk page or
offline to me. (My email ID is <a href="mailto:nitika@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">nitika@wikimedia.org</a>)<br>
Would you let me know (offlist, please) if I can connect with if you are
interested in sharing your experiences, can help me out on this work or
just need some help on outreach? I really would like to talk to as
many of you as I can to learn from you and to offer whatever help I can,
however little it might be. (...To the folks who I have reached out
but are still ignoring me - you know who you are... :-( Do talk to me.
I'm really very nice! :-)<br>
<br>
Thank you so very much.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div><br></div><div>Nitika</div><div><br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br></div>