Hello,
The second session of Stay Safe Stay connected, a lightweight interaction
zone for the Wikimedians in India, will take place on Saturday 5 June 2021
at 5 pm to 6:30 pm IST (11:30 am to 1:00 pm UTC). Please see the event page
here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stay_safe,_stay_connected#Session_II
This will be a Wikisource community fraternity meeting where Wikisource
editors can meet and talk to each other. We may speak about the ongoing and
upcoming Wikisource projects, share interesting news and updates around
Wikisource.
Wikisource editors from all around India are expected to be attending the
call. User:VIGNERON, French Wikisource editor, and User:Samwilson, from
English Wikisource, will be attending. If you are a Wikisource editor or
enthusiast, please join this Wikisource community call.
Please fill this short form, if you are interested to attend:
https://forms.gle/e85k84tX4oroKkjx7
For any query, please email wmwm(a)cis-india.org
Stay safe, stay connected.
Regards,
Jayanta
Note:
1) The session will be hosted on Zoom and this session will be recorded.
2) Please feel free to speak in your native language during the call.
That's cool. We'll try to translate.
3) In the open session or during the discussion, you may speak about
your/your community's Wikisource work. If you want to show any page/project
keep the link handy.
Dear Hindi Wikimedians,
Based on an extensive call for feedback
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call…>
earlier this year, the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation Board
of Trustees announced the plan for the 2021 Board elections
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_noticeboard/2021…>.
Apart from improving the technicalities of the process, the Board is also
keen on improving active participation from communities in the election
process. During the last elections, Voter turnout in prior elections was
about 10% globally. It was better in communities with volunteer election
support. Some of those communities reached over 20% voter turnout. We know
we can get more voters to help assess and promote the best candidates, but
to do that, we need your help.
We are looking for volunteers to serve as Election Volunteers. Election
Volunteers should have a good understanding of their communities. The
facilitation team sees Election Volunteers as doing the following:
1. Promote the election and related calls to action in community
channels.
2. With the support from facilitators, organize discussions about the
election in their communities.
3. Translate “a few” messages for their communities
Check out more details about Election Volunteers
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Electio…>
and add your name next to the community you will support in this table
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_elections/2021/Electio…>.
We aim to have at least one Election Volunteer for Hindi, even better if
there are two or more sharing the work. If you have any queries, please
ping me under this message or email me.
--
Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (he/him)
Board Governance Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation
Hello,
Hope this email finds you safe in this difficult time. Many people and
Wikimedians have been affected or have suffered a loss. In an effort to
ensure community solidarity where Wikimedians can meet and talk to each
other, we are starting a lightweight interaction zone for the Wikimedians
in India. This interaction zone is named "Stay Safe Stay Connected".
Please see the event page here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stay_safe,_stay_connected
The first talk will be on Saturday, 22 May 2021, 7 pm to 8 pm IST (1:30 pm
to 2:30 pm UTC). Asaf Bartov will be the guest of the session. Asaf is a
familiar name and he has been a mentor to many Wikimedians in India. This
will be a lightweight discussion on general Wiki-topic (note the exact
agenda will be updated on the event page before the event)
We invite you to join the first talk. The session will be hosted on Zoom.
Please fill this short form, if you are interested to attend the first
interactive talk on 22 May 2021
https://forms.gle/e85k84tX4oroKkjx7
Please follow the event page for updates. Stay safe, stay connected!
Regards,
Jayanta
Hello Wikimedians,
We are all passing through a very difficult time as the second wave of
COVID-19 has hit hard throughout the country. It is a bitter and hard truth
that many of us have lost our loved ones, close friends, relatives,
neighbours already. Some of us have faced economic difficulties due to loss
of jobs, losses in businesses, huge hospitalization expenses etc.
In the midst of this crisis, a support program has been initiated to
provide some reliefs to our Wikimedia volunteers residing in India. The
program will support the following -
1. Reimbursement of vaccination costs
2. Sending of COVID-19 protection kits
3. Counseling by experts
The support will be provided by CIS-A2K. The vaccination expenses will be
reimbursed as early as April 30, 2021. The COVID-19 protection kits will
get couriered within a week or more, depending on various logistical
factors. The team will try to support the more vulnerable section of the
community first.
Volunteers are requested to fill up this Google Form to request support -
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYcjEeuT7vUxP3NJg7KfIiZaude9IXLyC…
If you do not need this kind of support but you know some volunteers from
your community who are in dire need, you can nominate them too through this
form or mail the support team directly. Affiliate contacts and community
leaders are also kindly requested to help identify the volunteers who need
the support the most.
You can find more details about the support program here -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_support_for_Wikimedians/India
Please read the FAQ subpage too -
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_support_for_Wikimedians/India/FAQ
The support team would also like to emphasise that,
a) there might be some delay in sending support as there are lockdowns in
different parts of the country and there is scarcity or non-availability of
different items in the market,
b) there might be some unintentional or unexpected errors from the team, as
this is the first time, this kind of support is being set up for Indian
Wikimedia volunteers and the team does not have prior experience to deal
with this kind of global health situation before.
c) the team members are also facing the same critical situation like
everyone else; there are possibilities that they can become sick sooner or
later, which might hamper the support to some extent.
That's why the team would like to request you to understand the limitations
and assume good faith that any failure to serve sometimes would be due to
situations beyond control.
If you want to contact us directly for any questions, concerns,
suggestions, help etc. you can mail us directly at wmwm(a)cis-india.org .
Let's join hands to overcome this situation.
Regards,
Jayanta
On behalf of the COVID-19 support team
Dear Hindi Wikimedians,
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is organizing a call for
feedback about community selection processes
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call…>[1]
between February 1 and March 14. While the Wikimedia Foundation and the
movement have grown about five times in the past ten years, the Board’s
structure and processes have remained basically the same. As the Board is
designed today, we have a problem of capacity, performance, and lack of
representation of the movement’s diversity. Direct elections tend to favor
candidates from the leading language communities, regardless of how
relevant their skills and experience might be in serving as a Board member,
or contributing to the ability of the Board to perform its specific
responsibilities. It is also a fact that the current processes have favored
volunteers from North America and Western Europe. As a matter of fact,
there had only been one member who served on the Board, from South Asia, in
more than fifteen years of history.
In the upcoming months, we need to renew three community seats and appoint
three more community members in the new seats. This call for feedback is to
see what processes can we all collaboratively design to promote and choose
candidates that represent our movement and are prepared with the
experience, skills, and insight to perform as trustees? In this regard, it
would be good to have a community discussion to discuss the proposed ideas
and share our thoughts, give feedback and contribute to the process. To
discuss this, you are invited to a community meeting that is being
organized on March 12 from 8 pm to 10 pm, and the meeting link to join is
https://meet.google.com/umc-attq-kdt. You can add this meeting to your
Google Calendar by clicking here
<https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=MDNqcjRwaWxtZThnMXB…>[2].
Please ping me if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Krishna Chaitanya
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees/Call…
[2]
https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=MDNqcjRwaWxtZThnMXB…
Dear Wikimedians,
CIS-A2K is in a process of writing 2021–2022 work-plan. To design the
programs based on the needs of the community and volunteers, we invite your
valuable suggestions and thoughts. We would like to improve our working
continuously taking into consideration the responses/feedback about the
events conducted previously. We request you to go through the various
sections in the form and respond.
Google form link - https://forms.gle/WQ73j4AbjCgwCdEs5
Please write in detail. We would like to discuss over phone/email also if
needed. Contact tito+2020(a)cis-india.org if you have a question(s) or for
further details or detailed comment.
With best wishes,
Jayanta Nath
On behalf -
Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K)
Hello,
The Access to Knowledge (A2K) team at CIS has been engaged with work
on research on Indian language Wikimedia projects as part of the APG since
2019. This year, following up on our learnings from work so far, we are
undertaking a needs assessment exercise to understand a) the awareness
about research within Indian language Wikimedia communities, and identify
existing projects if any, and b) to gather community inputs on knowledge
gaps and priority areas of focus and the role of research in addressing the
same.
We would therefore request interested community members to respond to the
needs assessment questionnaire here: https://forms.gle/2xGAUBKSVJTK7Wks9
The deadline to submit your response has been extended till 5 March 2021.
Feel free to write in any language. For any query please write to us at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CIS-A2K/Research
Regards,
Jayanta Nath