Dear Ashwin,
Thanks for your message. I have to say that specific comments are much more
useful than vague generalisations, because these are actionable for us and
we can correct misperceptions (of which there are some significant ones
below). I'd like to respond to your points below. Please don't read my
responses too personally, as I'm more focused on the themes in your
comments that are persistent rather than responding personally.
Thanks for the constructive comments and questions.
Best,
Barry
On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Ashwin Baindur <ashwin.baindur(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
Thank you for your responding to me, Barry. I would
like to point out a
few issues, if I may, to set the context to my stated wish about what India
Programs should be doing.
A significant proportion of the events listed in your reference were
community events and if we consider only those conducted by the India
Program team we would see a smaller list which is not so impressive.
Who really cares, seriously! The purpose of any list is to share
information openly and encourage community members to participate. It is
not a credit taking exercise.
Some of these events had minimal help from India
Programs. For example in
the GNUNIFY Wikipedia event conducted in February by the Pune community,
Nitika's presentation was used and that was all. (Since I had myself added
the entry to this page thinking it to be a collation of India outreach
events, I am not protesting its inclusion). There are other such events
where the involvement was low and these need to be excluded, keeping only
those conducted primarily by India Program personnel.
I see your point about value being added by these
activities. Any outreach
is useful. However, India Program resources are scarce and valuable ( both
in the point of view of your multi-100,000$ budgets and limited capacity of
the very small team). In this context, it is the mix of activities carried
out and the proportion of its components that worry me and the community.
If you look more deeply, you'll see the IP team is doing work that helps
move us forward. They aren't simply replicating what the community can do
(note: I will still take issue with the point that there is some invisible
community being held back from doing copious amounts of outreach or other
work because the IP team is crowding out their activity). I think the
value that the IP team can and is bringing is more about the overall
support of outreach and the improvement of outreach work to increase
impact. The sad fact about a lot of outreach work is that it doesn't
produce that much community growth in its current form. Ask yourself
honestly, Ashwin, how much has your Pune community grown as a result of
your excellent and dedicated efforts to conducting outreach? What Nitika
(yes, I think it should be clear to all that she is working hard on this)
is doing is really investigating the efficacy of outreach and trying to
identify things that will improve the results for the tireless work that
you and other community members are doing. The link that I pointed to has
a handbook for outreach that is evolving and would benefit from a
collaborative, wiki-style partnership to share learning in which Nitika
can be the facilitator and doer of the heavy work. In addition, Nitika and
Subhashish in partnership with the Global Development research team is
piloting a tool that will help with follow-up after events with attendees
to encourage actual editing. The tool also allows us to measure whether
attendees ever actually edit. This is a small pilot that they are
investing a lot of time in and has the potential to dramatically improve
outreach (or tell us conclusively that it is not an effective way to build
community, which I hope isn't true). IMO this is the kind of work that
adds real value to the community and will help us achieve our shared
mission in India.
The presence of a small outreach activity is
definitely justifiable as
keeping a pulse on the overall community and in touch with reality. IMO the
conduct of two events a month by India Program staff is more than adequate
- it still means 24 events a year, a very sizeable contribution. Hence,
events should be carefully chosen for maximum impact deriveable and maximum
diversity of experiences. It should be driven by only one staff member,
assisted by volunteers, and Hisham should appear there to enthuse the
participants, as per the time he can spare from his main agenda, not get
involved in the training himself. (More on this later).
Thanks for the advice. I think that is already largely the case. Nitika is
the main resource focused on outreach with some support from Subhashish.
Hisham involves himself as the manager of the work and has been
instrumental in guiding us toward a more analytical and learning-oriented
approach that we hope will be fruitful.
Comments on Roles
* From what I have seen, the community will concur with me that adding
Shiju to India Program staff is definitely the right way to go. Shiju has
identified the "state of the nation" very well. He needs to keep working on
this field without being distracted by other things. But now the need is to
build the Indic language infrastructure - community building beyond a
certain point is the business of the community itself, not India Programs.
India Programs needs to tackle programs/seed projects/tasks which cannot be
easily done by the Indic community and which will lead to
empowerment/growth/development of the entire Indic movement.
Thanks. He is indeed focused here and is doing excellent work. It is
useful to note that he partners very closely with Hisham, who provides a
lot of silent support and guidance and gets useful input from the rest of
the team (and he contributes to the work of the team as well). We believe
(and most organizational effectiveness research supports) that teaming is
an effective approach to getting things done. It isn't about putting
people in silos and leaving them there to figure it out.
* There is considerable confusion of roles of Noopur, Nikita & Subhashish.
The roles are nebulous and the explanations/justification for their
activities not convincing. Noopur had, to my mind, potential to be a great
GLAM resource. Yet she is doing suboptimal activities. So we have three
people working but the responsibilities/areas are not what the community
feels are required. Of the three resource people, one is more than enough
for the outreach, outreach handbook, WikiPatrika & communication roles
required. The other two and Hisham should be addressing things that are not
being addressed. These activities could be done by Subhasish.
I've explained Nitika's work above and she will also play an important role
in future education work. Noopur has been on the job for a month and her
role will become clearer as she settles in and starts getting some
communications-focused initiatives going. Subhashish's role is by
definition less simple to express. He is there to support the team and
handle administrative elements. He is playing a valuable support role to
Nitika and Shiju. He also frees Hisham from some of the burden of
administration.
* IEP - Gives the impression of prematurely being abandoned by the India
Program, the IEP version 2 is terribly behind schedule. It gives the
impression that Hisham and his team are once bitten, twice shy. The ghost
of IEP can only be laid by struggling through to a successful model, not by
trying to do other activities to make up the lack of success. At least, one
person should be deployed full time on this - Nitika. We need IEP, Hisham
& Nitika to make a good success of IEP 2. In no other way, can we retrieve
our reputation. I say, our. because the Indian community feels let down,
unhappy and involved in this program, it is nt a matter of the IEP & the
CAs/Students only.
So, we are taking this slowly on purpose. It is not because of shyness on
Hisham and Nitika's part. They are ready to go for it again and are excited
to lay the ghosts to rest as you say. We did wait a bit to let everyone
have some time to reflect on the pilot lessons (including us). We want to
get the conversation going again, soon, though there is nothing stopping
you from starting it yourself if you like. I will say I'm really encouraged
by part of your remark, as we haven't really heard anyone say that the
Indian community is committed to trying again to make this kind of program
work in the Indian context. We too, particularly Hisham and Nitika, remain
committed to education work in India. We are also looking forward to
incorporating the lessons we are garnering in our work in Brazil and Egypt
at the moment into future designs. We'll be getting back on the elephant,
for sure.
* Liaison with government, academia, industry, Institutes of learning,
NGOs, etc. The aim is to familiarise, educate and create opportunities
which are beyond the reach of the common wikipedian. Sadly, this is not
being pursued with any sincerity, much less any purpose. Some of the
community members feel, it is not happening at all. The nation's top movers
& shakers need to be engaged by Hisham, not the newbies & Indic editors.
This should be Hisham's primary agenda - vision, leadership & engagement at
the highest levels.
You are incorrect, actually, so you might reflect on use of terms like
"sincerity", since this speaks to motivations that you don't really have
insights into. Hisham has been engaged with institutions and is developing
a valuable network, though not as much as he would like as these efforts
take serious time. Hisham would love to have even more time to do this.
Do note that as the leader of a team of people he does a lot to help them
be effective - this is a core role in team leadership - and is a valuable
use of time, even if it isn't always visible. He also has had to carry
significant administrative duties that we are working to get off his
shoulders. Finally, he spends an inordinate among of time on "India
politics" (the other IP) - fighting off accusations of malintent, attacks
on himself and his team members, and arguments that go nowhere about who is
the "boss of X". The guy is working is butt off...often seven days a week
and is available at odd hours to engage with colleagues in the US and with
community members around the country. It is worth stepping back and
reflecting before offering personal critiques of Hisham and the IP team.
One might ask oneself: "do I understand the full context of the situation
that this person is dealing with?" There is some great research on
"attribution bias" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributional_bias) that
is worth keeping in mind when you think you have things all figured out and
are comfortable ascribing motives to people or commenting on what you think
they are doing.
* GLAM & preservation of Indian Culture. This requires a full-time
commitment. Part-time responsibility, and one-off projects simply wont do.
Noopur is well-suited for this and it should be one of her major
commitments. WikiPatrika & some other smaller commitments may be part of
her responsibilities.
In the absence of concrete action on things that really need doing, and
the far too large emphasis on community building by India programs, which
is frankly in my opinion, none of their business, Barry, I feel skeptical
about the cost to value derived by this multi-hundred thousand dollar India
Program program.
People in the general community may disagree with me on individual issues,
but the general unhappiness of most concerned editors on Indian community
are based on these lines.
I respect your concerns, but I would prefer that you speak for yourself
rather than invoking "most concerned editors". Let's not pretend that we
have any special authority to speak for the community.
My view of the IP is that it will not be built in a day. We committed to a
multi-year investment because it will take time to build and we would need
to do a range of pilots (some successful, some not), learn from them and
then build programs that work. If this work was easy, it would have been
done already. I'd like nothing more than to have "figured it all out" in
India, so that we could move on to other challenges, but that isn't what we
signed up for. This is a long, hard road with elusive rewards and a lot of
difficult work along the way (including building community support), but
the rewards are pretty huge if we can find solutions that help build our
projects in India and expand access and contribution to the sum of all
knowledge.
You would do well to consider from a Project
Management perspective, what
are the goals of the complete year for the India Program, where we want to
be and the exact activities & events needed for this. As of now,
Hisham/India Programs seems to be functioning month-to-month, in a reactive
mode.
You might refer to the India Program plans on Meta (
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program), which have been there for
people to contribute to for about a year and is evolving as we learn. The
team is working to this plan and is adjusting as needed based on learning
from their engagement on the issues and discussions with people in the
community. If you have better ideas or think that their plans can be
improved, then click edit. I'm actually serious about this. There has been
a ton of keys clicked in the mailing lists criticizing, but not many on
contributing to the plans and helping improve them. They are on a public
wiki for a reason.
On my side, I have only a desire to see the community,
chapter and India
Program all succeed and prosper. And my support for this wish of mine is
assured to all concerned.
I don't doubt your sincerity. You make a lot of valuable contributions
including this note. I would say that we all would benefit if you (and
others) would ascribe the same sincerity to the IP team, recognize that
what they (and all of us) are engaged in isn't exactly straight-forward and
their goals are the same as yours.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 4:22 AM, Barry Newstead <bnewstead(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:
Hi all,
On mobile: We are working on this. Deals take time to consummate and are
confidential until they are finalized with partners, but there is work
going on in India and we hope to have some good stuff soon.
@Ashwin: At one level I agree, but another way to think about this is as
follows...It is useful to differentiate between things an editor "can" do
and what an editor "actually chooses to do". There may be thing that an
editor can do, but chooses not to do that is still worth doing and India
Programs can fill that gap. On Outreach, India Programs is a) helping to
cross-pollinate learning across the community and take more of an
analytical approach to assessing Outreach than had been done before Nitika
started to really focus on this; and b) bring added capacity to help us all
reach more groups (look at the volume of outreach that has happened since
Nitika started pushing on this theme - not pure coincidence).[1]
@Srikanth: I don't think we should be ready to say there is no need for
group X to focus on activity area Y, since group Z exists. Existence does
not equate with "satisfying all of the needs in India". India Programs will
stop supporting outreach the moment the chapter or local communities feel
they are fully able to met all of the demand for learning about the
Wikimedia projects from groups across India. Even today, the India Program
team seeks ways to support community members or the chapter to do the
outreach and does outreach sessions when a) they are asked to provide
support; or b) where there aren't community members ready to take the lead.
General point: IMO the debates which crop up regularly on this list over
"who should do what" is tangential to the goals we all share of
strengthening our community and realizing our mission in India. The
capacity represented by Existing Community + Chapter + India Programs is
nowhere near the need required to reach the full potential of the movement
in India, so what is there to fight over? The more appropriate question
IMO to ask is: "How best to work together in a way that we utilize the
differing capabilities to maximum effective, given we're a long way from
reaching a point where we are "finished with our mission"? It would also be
cool if we celebrate what people actual "do" and debate the efficacy based
on the results (since all of our work is experimental in nature and
unproven at this time) rather than debate "who" should do the work.
My 2 paise. ;)
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs
Kind regards,
Barry
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