Agree and disagree.

Though WCI takes a lot of effort, yes, the results are for all of us to see. A new incubator has been initiated (Ahirani), there is talk of revival of other Indic pedias such as Kashmiri, several Photowalks, hackathons, Workshops and Academies have been held (or are being planned) in the last couple of months, COTM has been revived on en.wiki. Several people who came as attendees are now active members of the community. These are just some of the major happenings - When we came up with the idea, we never imagined this sort of impact. Each community seems to have taken a leaf out of anothers book. No one can take credit for this, it is just a result of mingling with one another. WCI was ridden with mistakes and severly short on manpower, but hey - it was our first attempt at anything like this and Im sure we did a decent job given the circumstances. Im also sure it is a lesson for the future, the start of a learning curve.

On the other hand, there need to be resources available to do it all over again. So, IMO if a certain local community anywhere in the country feels it can take it up, yes they should go ahead with another version in 2012 as hosting it on an annual basis will only take the event to the next level and give us exposure that no local event can give.

The only advice I can give to communities interested, dont think holding it is a cakewalk, horrendous things will happen and you will need to deal with them, be prepared to work your ass off (literally, 16 to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week), have atleast 5 people working on it full time and 20 people who can give atleast 5 hours a week to begin with and 10 hours a week in the last couple of months and be ready to face the worst with a brave face.

We will soon be coming out with our report on WCI 2011 and hope that it would help future organisers of similar events in their endevours.


Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:16:16 +0530
From: ravidreams@gmail.com
To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Foundation-l] REMINDER: Wikimania 2013 - invitation to bid

Hi,

I appreciate the wise decision from Indian Wikipedia community to opt out of Wikimania bid until next few years.

Even Wikiconference India need not be an annual event considering the amount of human and financial resources spent on it. What we need is strengthening local communities in each language and city by means of more meetups, unconferences, outreach, on project activity and events with specific goals like hackathons.

Ravi

_______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l