Apologies for delay - this was written the day after the wiki10 celebrations
hence many 'yesterdays' in report,
Bishakha
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: jayanta nath <jayantanth(a)gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: Kolkata wiki10 meetup; personal report
To: "bishakhadatta (wiki)" <bishakhadatta(a)gmail.com>
Dear Bishakha
Could you please send our west Bengal and India and 10 mailing list
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta(a)gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 9:00 PM
Subject: Kolkata wiki10 meetup; personal report
As the meetup ended, two law students said they had clicked the wiki10
banner on wikipedia not expecting to find a celebration in Kolkata. "We were
pleasantly surprised," they said. "No one ever comes to the East."
Ok, ok, I'm Bengali and I *was* born in Cal. But even if you factor that
in, it's still true: the eastern part of the country often seems cut off. In
general, it gets a smaller piece of the national pie - action, attention,
opportunities, resources - so much so that the 7 states in the North-east
have pretty much given up on 'India'. The two students reeled off every band
or concert that had made it to Del, Bom, Bang - but not to Cal.
Given this, I'm glad a meetup was held here in December. Without it, who
knows if Kolkata would have joined in the celebrations? As Jayanta jokingly
told one reporter, "Atleast we had a meetup in time to join the
celebrations." Till yesterday, Jayanta Nath, who hosted the Dec meetup and
is an admin on Bangla wikipedia, was the only community member active
offline; Arnab Dutta, a student and bn:wp editor who lives in Kolkata,
pitches in online.
The biggest direct benefit from yesterday's meetup was identifying three
more community members: Rimi Chatterjee who edits in English, Biswarup
Ganguly who is on commons, and Shankar Vishwanathan, a most charming and
eccentric senior citizen who edits in English and wants to popularize
wikipedia among senior citizens. Hopefully, they'll help form the core that
is needed to keep meetups going (and which seems to have developed in Mumbai
and Pune, among the ones I know).
The crowd yesterday was exactly what we were expecting: about 60-odd folks,
the majority of whom had never made a single edit. Less than 10 said they
had ever edited. Anticipating just this, and given Cal's yen for quizzes, I
hosted a quiz: 10 things you may not know about wikipedia, which covered all
the basics and some fun birthday stuff. Luckily, the crowd was game, so the
event was interactive from the word go. The meeting was bilingual, with
English and Bengali flowing in abundance; much clapping when I announced the
Foundation's plans for India and the India chapter. No one had any idea of
either. Media coverage has been much lower here too.
There was huge interest in Bangla wikipedia; many questions after Jayanta's
presentation, including some chicken-and-egg ones: Why edit in Bangla when
there are more readers in English etc? Since many editors are bilingual, one
suggestion was to encourage editors to also mirror their English
contributions in Bangla (only voluntarily, of course). Because of the
unexpected interested in Bangla editing, Arnab did an impromptu
demonstration of Bangla wikipedia to 25 enthusiasts after the official
program had ended.
Rimi followed up with a fascinating talk on how the English department at
Jadavpur Univ, where she teaches, knows students use wikipedia for their
class projects; so instead of fighting this, they do a two-week session on
'How students should use wikipedia'! One of her colleagues also assigns
students specific pages on wikipedia to upgrade, and marks them after going
through the page's edit history - to assess participation. Quite unique.
There was a discussion on uploading images to Commons, including a demo of
the lack of photos of Kolkata and possibilities such as Wikipedia Takes
Bangalore/Mumbai, both of which happened this week as part of wiki10. Maybe
it's easier to get young people started off with taking and uploading photos
to Commons? asked Mr Vishwanathan. He and Bishwarup Ganguly are likely to
speak with Jayanta and Arnab at a student-run half-day hands-on meetup in
Feb.
Two specific requests for half-day workshops emerged between yesterday and
today:
-the all-male participants at the FSF workshop wanted a hands-on session;
this seems a critical bridge step to becoming an editor
-a few women at the event yesterday requested a hands-on session
exclusively for women (so that they don't feel like dummies because of
technological issues - Soma is very keen on this; let's keep for my next
trip)
Today, I attended part of a two-day workshop of the Free Software
Foundation, mainly to support Jayanta and to build relationships with sister
orgs/movements. An aside: at wiki meetups in other cities I've been to, many
people have their own laptops; here, less people did yesterday (expected)
and today (unexpected). Needs to be kept in mind while doing hands-on
sessions.
So three thoughts in closing:
One, let's make sure we don't neglect the east or the northeast in our
plans. This part of the country needs exposure to other wikimedians, to
ideas, access to conferences etc, so it does not remain cut off. Language is
a factor influencing the participation of Bangla editors on the India list.
Two, Jayanta and Arnab feel the biggest barrier facing Bengali wikipedia is
lack of awareness that it exists; they would like media coverage, specially
in Bengali newspapers, so that people start using it. No one ever became an
editor without first being a user, right?
Three, of course, Cal can't lay claim to being the biggest anniv
celebration or anything or anything. But give us our due: Cal could lay
claim to 'Best gender ratio among panelists', since women comprised 66% of
the panel. :)
Jesus, after a month here I'm already saying 'us'. Thank god I return to
Bombay this week.
Cheers
Bishakha
--
With Warm Regards,
*Jayanta Nath*
Calcutta,West Bengal
+91 9836294438
Facebook :http://www.facebook.com/jayantanth
Wikipedia :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jayantanth
Twitter : jayantanth
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