So good to hear that Yann. Indeed participants will be editing articles relating to Indian context like Indian culture, history, arts etc - something that interests you, I hear!

It will be great if you could join us. :-)

Thanks Nitika

On 19-Jun-2012, at 3:46 PM, Yann Forget wrote:

Hi, I may be able to come, but I am not sure yet. Yann

2012/6/19 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.ghoda@gmail.com:

...

Just a question. Are any proper, experienced community members part of this?

On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Nitika Tandon ntandon@wikimedia.org wrote:

...

Hi,

We are trying to build partnerships with some of the organisations to set up Wikipedia Clubs. The idea is to run outreach events at institutes or amongst interest groups that engage people in activities around Wikipedia.

Our first such attempt to is to partner with British Council India in Delhi. We've been in discussions with them for the past couple of months and I'm pleased to announce that we'll be initiating a series of Wikipedia workshops for some of the British Council's library members with the desired end result to set up a Wikipedia Club that will organise regular activities around Wikipedia at British Council. The basic objective of the club would be to:

Organise regular activities to increase the level of editing activity by club members. This could be in form of edit-a-thons, photo-thons, starting wiki projects based on common interest etc. Organise regular outreach sessions to recruit more club members and expand club size. Organise regular fun activities to keep high level of enthusiasm and spirit amongst club members. This could be in form of trivia nights, games night, meet ups, field trips, museum trips etc.

To begin with we'll be conducting three sessions with the same group of attendees. The first session will aim to brief all about workings of Wikipedia, editing rules and talk page protocols etc. The following sessions will be dedicated to only those participants who'll be willing to and excited to get more involved in Wikipedia. We'll provide them additional support to better understand Wikipedia editing and our community. And the third session will aim to formalise a Wikipedia Club at British Council where we'll provide ideas to the club members to organise regular activities like edit-a-thons, photo-thons, games and trivia nights, museum visits etc.

We've built this 3 level outreach program to make sure that club members will be better equipped and trained to organise club activities by themselves and will be able to conduct regular outreach activities within British Council (for members of movie clubs, writing clubs etc.) to further expand their club size.

The first session at British Council is scheduled for 23rd June from 10am to 1pm. All are welcome to help run the session. Will keep you all informed on the outcome of the session and next step thereon.

Thanks Nitika

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On 19-Jun-2012, at 7:33 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote:

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 6:08 PM, Nitika Tandon ntandon@wikimedia.org wrote: Indeed participants will be editing articles relating to Indian context like Indian culture, history, arts etc

I just hope you meant to say participants will be editing articles *they are interested in* and which may / may not happen to be articles relating to Indian context like Indian culture, history, arts etc. People shouldn't be told to edit on subjects (None of the wikipedians were not told to edit on some topic, they just found it themselves). People must chose what they are interested in themselves and edit. This was also partly a reason why IEP failed, because not everyone was interested in data structures!

Agreed. No one can direct or command any editor to edit any single type of article. We're only suggesting - that too for the initial edits. We shall not be instructing participants to edit India related articles *only* but would be encouraging them to edit such articles at least to begin with because of the following reasons: Articles pertaining to Indian context are under covered/documented leaving a higher scope for improvement; thus making it easier for a new editor to expand and improve. We want to make things as easy as possible for new editor while s/he is learning and figuring Wikipedia. Our experience from outreach indicates if we leave it open to the audience to decide an article they'd like to edit, they usually pick a high visibility article. It is difficult for new editors to improve when experienced editors have done so much on an article. For e.g., if it's a first time editor, editing an article on Shaktimaan (with limited content and only 15 references) will be easier than editing an article on Harry Potter (which is relatively well documented and has 164 references). However, new editors don't understand this instantly and need to be suggested, at least for their initial edits. Once again, I'd like to reiterate, that we'd just be suggesting the participants to start by editing an India related article because in most likeliness it will be not be as well covered as an equivalent 'western article' (if I can say) and it will be easier for them to edit an article which is not well covered. Another way could be suggesting them to pick start/stub or non-existent articles, however in the later we'll have to guide them to check multiple times or else there is always a fear of making a duplicate.

Thanks Nitika