On Tue, May 8, 2012 at 9:55 PM, RadhaKrishna Arvapally
<arkrishna@wikimedia.in> wrote:
Hi All,
We had a very successful Bangalore Meetup 45 on 29th April (http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiMeetups/Bangalore/Bangalore45). Yes, it is the FORTY-FIFTH meetup in the city - which is quite extraordinary by any standards anywhere in the world!!!
As is unique and special about Bangalore meetups, we had participation from multiple communities - in this case Kannada, Telugu, English, Sanskrit and Tamil.
In total, we had 13 people attending, including Barry from WMF.
We wanted to share some tips on how we conducted the meet-up this time - which you might find useful as you conduct various meetups.
a) We invited folks one-on-one, in addition to the posts on the mailing lists.
b) At the start of the meet-up, after the introductions, we asked people why they have come to the meet-up - and aligned the meet up accordingly to address the question "What do you want to gain from today"
c) We made sure that EVERY single person talks. Near the 3/4 mark of the meetup, we stopped everything and reached out to the quiet folks and got them to talk - and they had SO MUCH to say!!! Don't let any one person or any one topic monopolise the discussion.
d) Discuss specific next steps. Folks get energised when you talk about specific next steps. The ideas we got were so inspiring: wiki summer camps for students, Kannada GLAM, Telugu digital outreach model, Sanskrit education program!
e) Make it fun! We laughed throughout the meetup!!!
Coming now to the specific things we discussed, here’s a summary of the various discussions
a) Kannada Wikipedia spoke about the Translation Enhancement project - and the challenges they were facing getting new users. It was discussed on how we can try and use the Kannada wikipedia facebook group - which now has nearly 1800 followers - to see if we can attract new or retired users to Kannada Wikipedia project. This will also require a basic FAQ to be updated for Kannada and maybe even an outreach presentation.
b) Another discussion was to explore GLAM or a school project in Kannada. It was also suggested that we can explore a Wikipedia summer camp - as so many students are now on summer holidays. (This is an idea that will have relevance across the country and across communities.)
c) Wiktionary continues to have potential in Kannada - and indeed other languages - and we should explore ways of promoting participation. This is an area where we did not have any specific ideas and we welcome all community members who might have some insights to share them for us - and for other communities. Wiktionary (and Wikisource) are great ways for folks to get introduced to our communities and projects (because they are relatively easy to contribute to.)
d) A school project was also discussed in Sanskrit - involving 11th-12th standard - and we should have some discussions around this. There are many students studying the subject in these years and we must try and explore how we can encourage them (and their teachers) to incorporate Sanskrit Wikipedia as part of their teaching programs. It will help energise the Sanskrit community and projects - and will make Sanskrit learning so much more fun. Wikisource was discussed as a high-potential project. Nitika and Shiju from India Program will be in touch with the Sanskrit community to see how this can be done
d) All of us discussed with the Telugu community members about their ambitions to get newbies into their community and the challenges they are facing and it was suggested that an exploration should be done if we can try a digital outreach pilot can be done for Telugu. The basic idea would be to have a notice on Telugu Wikipedia that progressively invited those interested in learning about Telugu to click through to pages which would have a basic outreach presentation as well as FAQs (all in Telugu) and encourage them to edit.
e) Shiju, Nitika & Noopur will be in touch with Kannada, Sanskrit and Telugu communities to help out on these initiatives.
The meeting concluded with a group picture - which is available at this link:
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