Dear All
Here is a summary of the Wikimedia India Chapter and WMF India programs coordination call.
Date of call: Wednesday Dec 21 (Voice Conference)
Attendees:
Arjuna Rao Chavala, Arun Ramaratnam, Naveen Francis, Sudhanwa
Jogalekar, Tinu Cherian, Anirudh Bhati, Asaf Bartov & Hisham Mundol
Operations
Hisham
provided an update on the status of India Programs staffing. He spoke
about the challenges getting the right candidate for Consultant,
Communications, and requested help on this.
Hisham
also briefed the Chapter about the offer that was accepted by
Subhashish Panigrahi and the redesignation of his position from
Consultant, Team Support to Consultant, Community & Program Support.
Chapter
provided an update about the formation of five task forces to increase
member involvement and ownership in both the operations and projects.
Several SIG Chairs have been announced and some more are being explored.
Programs
Hisham
shared an update on Indic languages. He mentioned that summaries of
discussions had been shared for all languages where discussions had
taken place and also that a synthesis of these discussions and
recommendations / suggestions had been shared by Shiju. He further said
that the next stage would be to give specific suggestions for
individual language communities on the respective village pumps /
mailing lists. He also said that an effort would be made to encourage
every single active editor to participate in the discussions of these
suggestions and every avenue possible - including identifying and
reaching out to individual editor’s talk pages would be explored. The
eventual outcome will be to promote community discussion, provide
suggestions for community initiatives and identify areas where
communities wanted support from India Programs for pilots or other help.
Hisham
said that learnings from IEP are being gathered and documented and that
any future IEP initiatives will be designed based on learnings and with
community inputs.
India
Programs had provided some support to the West Bengal initiative for
the Kolkata Book Fair as well as to the Pune community for te CMDA IT
expo stall. Hisham mentioned that some CAs are planning to start a
student club in Pune on their own initiative - and that India Programs
had provided advisory support.
Hisham
also outlined the work that Nitika was doing to support community
outreach efforts through collating and sharing best practices and
outreach material. Wikimedia India (board) appreciated the detailed
planning and execution material being prepared by Nitika. EC suggested
to Hisham to engage with SIG chairs, as the objectives of strengthening
the community is common to both. Hisham said that India Programs would
support Wiki Academies. Both of these were agreed.
Naveen
explored the support that can be provided by India Programs. Hisham
extended all the possible help for any outreach initiative. Hisham also
offered help to EC for Arun’s work Special Projects (e.g., GLAM, etc.)
It is agreed that EC members and India programs team will reach out to
one another as required on each project for better coordination.
A discussion on formalising a collaboration framework has been initiated. It is agreed to speed up the work on the same.
Arjuna Rao Chavala
President, Wikimedia India