I am very much in favour of ( sincerely wishes so) the active community members being part of the chapter and its leadership and taking the chapter is next level. The chapter will have lose its relevance unless the community takes control of it and shape its future.

On a side note, I get these interesting questions each time when I ask people to join the chapter, "How will the chapter benefit me?" "What do I get from the chapter, if I join?" ( I am not blaming anyone, but pardon me, honestly that is the our typical Indian psychology).

I reply them with another question " Think of this way, think of what I can do for the Wikimedia chapter ?".

Remember , We all became Wikimedians not because of thinking how we will benefit out of it, but by the sheer passion and joy of sharing knowledge with the whole world.

I keep iterating this often, May I ask to kindly remove the notion that Chapter = EC. Each one of us has an equal responsibility ( and opportunity) to take it forward and drive the chapter.

I am sure that many of you are aware there were just two nominations when the 3 vacant posts that were announced for the chapter Executive Committee. Saddened by the lack of interest, I had to literally ask, beg , "threaten" many of the members to stand for the elections and later we got another 4 more nominations. I myself had to stand for the elections, to prove my point, in spite of my insane personal & professional emergencies that I have been going through in the last few months. It is always easy to blame the system for " not working " but it takes some courage to stand up and be part of the system to change it.

I take this opportunity to sincerely invite all our dearest active community members to become the part of the chapter and shape its future.

Having said that, when our founding members drafted the MoA, the chapter membership was made open to any Indian who is above the 18 years of age. We didn't want to say No to anyone who is coming forward to join the chapter. We wanted it to be open and inclusive, we wanted to set no barriers for anyone to join, anyone who is genuinely interested and enthusiastic , just like in Wikipedia. If you think that model doesn't work, bring in a resolution. We can all discuss and make amendments to our chapter constitution to that effect ? So what will be the eligibility criteria for joining the chapter? Wiki username ? Edit counts ? Number of articles ?

We are still baby stepping... The chapter is officially just less than one year.. we have made some mistakes but we made more learnings and that will help us grow forward.

With lots of Wikilove,

Regards

Tinu Cherian

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with Srikanth.
Some people with vested interests may want to join ...
-+-~~~~

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik.lak@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 15:39, Jayanta Nath <jayantanth@gmail.com> wrote:

1) On-spot India Chapter membership for visitors if they wish.

Was : Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Proposal: Wikipedia participation at 'Kolkata Book Fair 2012'

I think we are going for numbers game here. Whats the point of on-spot membership? Seriously, does having 50,000 chapter members do any great thing for Wikipedia? I seriously fail to understand (in the past, future), what can the chapter do with just so many members who do not have an idea about Wikipedia community and many of whom may not go beyond attending meetups and conferences.

Sorry if am sound odd here, I just dont like this part of chapter, where the chapter instead of instilling confidence in community and making them members, chooses people who attend a meetup / conference / stall to become its members.(In many cases makes someone member of chapter without having a clue about it. I personally know this since my friend who happen to accompany me to a meetup, just because he had nothing else to spend time is a chapter member now) I do not mean any offense to any of those who sign up(they may be genuinely interested, good guys), but just fail to understand what we are trying to achieve with chapter membership numbers.

--
Regards
Srikanth.L

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--
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore

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