On 25 August 2011 13:29, Ravishankar
<ravidreams@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I appreciate the transparent, detailed and professional planning of
conference and I am sorry I couldn't take part in WikiConference related
planning earlier.
For those who don't know, I am a Tamil
Wikimedian since 2005 with 20,000+ edits. My major interest lies in
outreach and policy decisions concerning Tamil Wikimedia projects.
http://toolserver.org/~quentinv57/sulinfo/Ravidreams
Am I qualified to express my opinions now ? ;)
I have two major concerns:
1. The overall budget. It is huge even if we get 100% commercial sponsorship. We could do more useful things with this budget.
2. The amount of money that is being granted from the foundation.
Given the indication that this may be an annual event, here are my ideas on how a WikiConference shall be arranged.
* WikiConference need not be an annual event.
* It should be planned well in advance ( a year in advance at least to allow time for planning and fund-raising )
* Let's not have an ambitious plan and wonder for funding. We should have a
realistic estimate for non-grant funding and plan accordingly. Bidding
city / community should show guarantee to meet at least half the budget
by means of commercial sponsors and other revenue sources. If they cannot provide this guarantee, they should revise the budget.
*
Tie up with local universities / academic institutions for free venue /
dorms and look for the dates when these can be available. WikiConference
is a media event and I am sure there will be many hosting partners for a
brand like Wikipedia. If we can convince schools to run campus
ambassador programs why not they be convinced to host this?
* Need not be a 3 day event. Even a 1 or 2 day event will be good. (will cut down logistics, accommodation costs) .
What if this is 2001 with no WMF and grants? How will we plan and organize?
This is not a corporate conference to have 100% professional and
rocking experience at any cost. This is a community conference and that
spirit should be kept.
Here are some ways to minimise expense and generate revenue:
* We are getting lakhs of eyeballs for sponsorship / participation announcement and they all land in WikiConference India home page. But http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011/Sponsorship
has no info and I couldn't find sponsorship related info anywhere else.
This should be the highlighted info in conference homepage asking for
sponsors.
* Why not convert the conference itself into a fund-raiser? Open a
donation booth. Have an agreement with chapter / foundation to get 50%
donations for conference expenses and donate the rest to the movement.
Can we place a banner of this budget in the conference venue? Will our
expenses be justified to a common man? Will people be motivated to
donate? If not, we are doing something the wrong way.
*
Registration cost should be at least 300 INR per day. ( The current
budget allots 200 INR plus per day for food alone). The value of the
conference is in the knowledge they gain and not in the goodies we give.
Meritorious
candidates can apply for sponsorships. We don't need a crowd. The local
crowd may come and forget it as yet another event. The prime focus
should be to bring together best minds already active in Wikimedia at
one place. The attendees party can be free for scholarship recipients
but others can pay. If you compare that a movie going experience in
Mumbai should cost at least 200 INR per head, we need not feel shy to
charge where it is due.
* Sell Wikipedia souvenirs including T-Shirts, mugs etc.,. Or give them as a freebie when people make large donations.
* If we can make the event a two-day conference, we can cut down
logistics and accommodation costs. Even an international event like Wikimania
has some less quality presentations. Have four tracks: Language
Wikipedia projects, English Wikipedia, Tech and General. ( I found only
two seminar rooms in the budget and assume only 2 or 3 tracks) Have only
the best papers and move the rest to lighting talks.
Personally,
I am not so happy with some of the ways WMF, chapters are spending the
donated money and I know there are more people feeling this way. If even
regular Wikipedians feel like this, we should be more responsible in
how we project ourselves for the public. I have been a regular donor to
WMF but will reconsider from this year
on. A good idea will be to apply to join the grants committee or take
part in the discussions there. So, this is nothing personal against
WikiConference India.
Personally,
I have experiences running a whole day blog camp for 200 people with
less than 50,000 INR with no registration cost and free lunch. In
another instance, Tamil Wikipedians ran a 3 day Wikipedia workshop for
1000s of people with less than a 20,000 INR budget. So, I can't help
compare the value brought forth by some of the items in the current WikiConference budget. There have been tens of outreach programs by local communities so far
with zero grants and zero cost. Special mention can be made of annual Wikipedia
meetup, CD releases by Malayalam Wikipedia and State wide article
contest by Tamil Wikipedia. Just because we have a chapter and grants
now doesn't mean we can spend it somehow.
We shall look for unconventional ways to invest wisely which will have maximum ROI. Here are some examples:
*
Once, a financially striving Tamil Wikipedian was contributing
regularly by spending his own money from a browsing center. We managed
to collect some cash from the community and presented him a PC with
internet connection. Cost: 25,000 INR. You can guess his edit activity
now and the lifetime value it brings.
India is still a developing
country and there may be many more such Wikipedians. Why not develop a
Laptop scholarship program for qualified Wikipedians?
*
http://www.noolaham.org is a volunteer driven NPO that aims to digitize
Tamil resources from Sri Lanka. Their annual budget for 2010 was roughly
8 lakh INR and they have digitized 1000s of books so far. This is a
significant achievement for a regional language given their civil war
situations. When we wonder about lack of citations for Indian languages,
imagine the impact of similar projects bootstrapped for all Indian
languages.
* A resource center with one or two full-time
professionals can be run for each Wikipedia with an annual cost of less
than 10 lakh INR and this will have a huge impact on the quality and
quantity of the Wikipedias.
Finally, every Wikimedian has his own way of contributing to the movement. He
cannot and need not take part in all activities but if he has an opinion
on what is done in the name of community, I believe it should be
discussed with an open mind.
I will not be able to attend this year's WikiConference due to personal reasons.
My best wishes for the event and special kudos for the organisers.
Regards,
Ravi
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