Hi Subhashish

This is an excellent agenda. I also went through the facebook page and it's really good to see you using digital outreach/social networks (whatever you want to term it) to increase attendance of the workshop.

I thought I'd share a few comments with you (and I'd love to chat with you and Shiju and anyone else who's interested) about them

a) Given that (as I suspect) we might have complete newbies attending, you might want to consider having a "basic intro to Wikipedia" and a "how to edit wikipedia" session planned in. The "how to edit Wikipedia" is the session that is most likely to be the most engaging to the audience so I would suggest that we have it relatively early on (and have a "how to edit Wikipedia Odia" later in the schedule as well - to discuss specific Odia language aspects.) b) Though it is probably not intended to be so, and it is probably not coming out in the agenda - it is crucial to not just inform but also inspire the audience to participate in Wikipedia. The tone of the sessions ought to, therefore, be inspiring and fun. (My personal view and happy to discuss c) I think a specific aspect you could also incorporate is "what to edit?" ...This would serve to provide some examples for those who want to start editing but are not sure where to begin. As I'm going to be articulating on the India Programs page, the thought I had for the country is to message "Edit Bharat" as an overall message. I'll add more details on the India Programs page - but in summary it serves as a big campaignable idea which will serve as an umbrella for participation. You could interpret it as "Edit Odisha." It could be brought to life by stuff like suggesting editing pages on the state, or districts or the larger towns and cities or Odia culture or Odia monuments, etc. etc. etc. d) It would really be useful to understand from the audience what is the takeout of the session. This could be done by simply asking people to write out their take-out in 5 words and having them feedback on the session with a simple "Very Good - Good - Average - Below Average - Poor" scale. e) Not sure what you have planned to keep in touch with the participants after the session but taking their email IDs and on a very carefully chosen frequency (maybe once a month for the first 3 months) - asking them how they were getting along and if they needed help might be something you considered. Needless to say, this would only happen with their consent. f) The last point I have is that, in my experience, outreach sessions work best when there is a single message that is constantly reinforced during the session. If you chose to have "YOU CAN EDIT ODISHA" - then do consider repeating this message multiple times during the academy/workshop - and weaving all the sub-topics within it. g) You might want to consider involving the local media / press to provide publicity to the workshop to increase attendance. h) You might also want to consider increasing the digital outreach and on-ground outreach to increase attendance. The former could be done by activating social networks in schools and colleges in Bhubanewswar and the latter could be done by posters and word-of-mouth in these schools and colleges.

I'm really happy and eager to explain/clarify and work with you on all these points. I'm going to be reaching out to you.

Last, and most certainly not the least, Good Luck! I'm sure it will go great.

Hisham Mundol India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs skype: hisham.wikimedia google talk: hmundol@wikimedia.org twitter: @mundol

On Mar 25, 2011, at 9:24 PM, Subhashish Panigrahi wrote:

Hi All,

This is Subhashish from Odia (Oriya) Wikipedia.

It is my pleasure to inform you all about the 2nd Odia (Oriya) Wikipedia Academy/Workshop is going to be organized in Bhubaneswar on 2011April03 at 10 AM, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. This is the first of its kind of workshop in the home state Odisha. The first workshop was conducted by Malayalam Wikipedian Shiju A in Bengaluru.

Main Agenda: Session1:

• Introduction about Wikipedia and Wikipedia Odia
• Recent developments and new features added in Wikipedia
• Why Wikipedia Odia?
• Future deveopment and possible opportunities with Wikipedia

Session2:

• Discussion of common problems raised (And by audience)
• Display and typing issues and solution
• Building community
• Translation issues & possible measures to solve them
• Incubation of new projects for students in Odia Wikipedia
• Future Projects for Odia Wikipedia

Anyone from any other language Wikipedias are most welcome to this event to share their thoughts and ideas for the development of Odia Wikipedia. This is an open event and free for all. Anyone who has some ideas to share can also share them here or here.

Thanks & Regards ସୁଭ ପା/ Subhashish Panigrahi _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Odia (Oriya) mailing list wikipedia-or@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-or

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