Hi Pradeep

Thanks for sharing this. I've been thinking about what you say and i agree with you.  Based on your ideas, here's what I suggest.  Going forward, one day before the IRC, we will publish a brief opening statement (which will be relevant to the topic, e.g., Indic Languages) which will be on meta.  The IRC will start with a link to this statement.  For the next 45 minutes we will discuss the statement.  We will then open the floor up for that last 15 minutes.  When we publish the logs, we will publish the opening statement above it - so the context is clear to those who could not attend.  This way, I hope that we will have a enough time and space to discuss the particular topic and allow for maximum participation - and still keep open the option for other discussions.

On the aspect of comfort with IRCs, I agree it does take a little getting used to.  The key thing (in addition to the structure I am proposing above) is that we encourage everyone to get involved in the discussion.   I do hope that we keep getting newer folks on - as we had the last time round - and it  is they who are most likely to feel they don't have the space to join in a conversation when they see the volume of messages and diversity of topics.

...and yes, we will continue the IRC sessions and keep looking at how we can improve effectiveness.

Best

hisham

On Mar 15, 2012, at 10:17 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote:

hi,

I hope some of the IRC-veterans can pitch in here. 

Not everyone is comfortable with IRC. I think these sessions will be more helpful for all involved if we had a statement put up on a wiki or on the mailing list by individuals who want to make these statements and then have a round of questions around the topics (as an example: community and outreach) which were meant to be discussed at the meeting.

Then, perhaps throw the floor open for general questions that members of the community want to raise. I think this will make it interactive and not be percieved as a narrative or a one-sided discussion. These may not have been intentional and should have been raised earlier.

I hope the Office continues this practice and tries to improve its effectiveness as they move forward.

warm regards,
User:Prad2609

On 15 March 2012 20:45, Hisham <hisham@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes.

Do join in!  Details below.

hisham

On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote:

Gentle reminder. Do join in.

hisham

On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote:

Hi Folks

One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects.

We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program.   (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room.  It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.)  I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications.

a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly.  (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss.  I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.)  I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE.  Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530)
b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general.  The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them.  To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach & Communications.  I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach & Communications.

The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach & Communications.  



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