MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite: "The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."// The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Hey,
The last mail should just start with hey. Marhey is a typo.
Check https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events#March_2014f... the list of paid outreach events which have disputable value.
I assume that such outreaches are done despite the value to hunt for potential partners for Wikipedia Education program.
Ravi
Hi, Just a small observation from my side:
On 17 May 2014 16:40, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote: <snip>
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps... where Pavanaja quotes as follows: //There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.// And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
It is true that the stats peaked during the workshop and dropped after. This is normal for any workshop - either paid or unpaid - as one would have to work within the constraints of a university calendar. The workshop was not one-off but an effort to include 'collaborative writing in the local language' into the curriculum using wikipedia as a tool. Since integrating wikipedia editing has the potential to improve the pedagogy, activities for the next four semesters are in the pipeline. The idea is to make editing a self-sustaining process and we are planning on these lines.
I appreciate the effort you are making in trying to understand how the system works and how we can constructively change it. Regards Vikram
Vikram,
Except for Christ University workshops, I assume all other outreach efforts are one time events.
Let us wait two more years to understand what the Christ University experiment delivers :)
Ravi
Ravi,
You should perhaps post this to the Kannada Wikipedia mailing list to get some answers from some actual contributors.
On 17 May 2014 16:40, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite: "The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."// The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Hari,
I will appreciate if you could discuss this in Kannada Wikipedia Village pump and mailing list being a Kannada Wiki contributor yourself and educate the Indian Wikimedia community.
I am afraid that this won't be a good first mail from me for the Kannada community :)
Ravi
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned – https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%... http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404 &cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404. I am extracting the same data for current –
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
2. Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ravishankar Sent: 17 May 2014 16:40 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep doing it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what has the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The sine qua non of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used? On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned – https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%.... I am extracting the same data for current –
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
- Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ravishankar *Sent:* 17 May 2014 16:40 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used? On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%.... I am extracting the same data for current -
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
- Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ravishankar *Sent:* 17 May 2014 16:40 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up--the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work - write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community--although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Dear Ansuman,
Please go through the thread fully. Ravi asked a question about Tulu and I answered that.
Regarding your statement that the stats are overall from 2007 and not for one month only - Please read my email carefully. The first stats, ie, total 147 articles is for the period 2007 to March 2014. The current figure that I mentioned is 284. This growth happened in just one month as I already wrote.
Regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of ansuman Sent: 18 May 2014 21:06 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju ly_2014_-_June_2015/Making_the_Tulu_Wikipedia_Live.
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
. 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
. 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
. 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp% 2Ftcy http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp %2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404 &cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404. I am extracting the same data for current -
. 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
. 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
. 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
2. Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ravishankar Sent: 17 May 2014 16:40 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a nd_notes
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up-the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep doing it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what has the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The sine qua non of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work - write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community-although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps -students-for-kannada-content/article5824580.ece
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
_______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
_______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
//Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all. //
This is Ravi's original statement. He did not ask for stats on Tulu.
As for Tulu being small, I misread your post. I thought you were giving stats for Kannada. Even still, as Ansuman said, those are stats for 7 years.
Again, no mention of metrics on Kannada. Straight to Tulu.
Tulu might be incubator, might have great editors, which is great, but to this thread it is irrelevant.
Ravi has explicitly asked for metrics and stats on Kannada, it would be nice if someone could actually give some info on that instead of dilly dallying around.
On 19 May 2014 12:02, Pavanaja U B pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ansuman,
Please go through the thread fully. Ravi asked a question about Tulu and I answered that.
Regarding your statement that the stats are overall from 2007 and not for one month only – Please read my email carefully. The first stats, ie, total 147 articles is for the period 2007 to March 2014. The current figure that I mentioned is 284. This growth happened in just one month as I already wrote.
Regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *ansuman *Sent:* 18 May 2014 21:06
*To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned – https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%.... I am extracting the same data for current –
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
- Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ravishankar *Sent:* 17 May 2014 16:40 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
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Sorry, I may be getting this wrong or missing something.
I do not see any query from Ravi regarding Tulu stats, did I miss something?
Ravi, could you clarify as well please.
Pavanaja, I am sorry, again I might be wrong in my understanding here as well on your abilities. You are free to correct me, please share your profile which I can read through if you do not mind.
Just was wondering from your email domain name (vishvakannada), that I thought you are an expert on Kannada. Is Tulu also something that comes under the same remit. Again, I am a layman, sorry if I am getting it wrong and you are free to correct my wrong understanding.
Abhi
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pavanaja U B Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 12:03 PM To: 'Wikimedia India Community list' Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Dear Ansuman,
Please go through the thread fully. Ravi asked a question about Tulu and I answered that.
Regarding your statement that the stats are overall from 2007 and not for one month only - Please read my email carefully. The first stats, ie, total 147 articles is for the period 2007 to March 2014. The current figure that I mentioned is 284. This growth happened in just one month as I already wrote.
Regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of ansuman Sent: 18 May 2014 21:06 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <rsrikanth05@gmail.com mailto:rsrikanth05@gmail.com > wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" <pavanaja@vishvakannada.com mailto:pavanaja@vishvakannada.com > wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju ly_2014_-_June_2015/Making_the_Tulu_Wikipedia_Live.
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
* 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
* 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
* 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp% 2Ftcy http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp %2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404 &cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404. I am extracting the same data for current -
* 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
* 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
* 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
2. Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org ] On Behalf Of Ravishankar Sent: 17 May 2014 16:40 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a nd_notes
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up-the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep doing it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what has the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The sine qua non of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work - write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community-although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps -students-for-kannada-content/article5824580.ece
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
_______________________________________________ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
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Tulu is a language with roughly 2 million speakers that is used on the West Coast of Karnataka and North Kerala, around Mangalore to kasargod and a few other coastal spots.
On 19 May 2014 12:52, Abhilash S Unni abhilashunni@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry, I may be getting this wrong or missing something.
I do not see any query from Ravi regarding Tulu stats, did I miss something?
Ravi, could you clarify as well please.
Pavanaja, I am sorry, again I might be wrong in my understanding here as well on your abilities. You are free to correct me, please share your profile which I can read through if you do not mind.
Just was wondering from your email domain name (vishvakannada), that I thought you are an expert on Kannada. Is Tulu also something that comes under the same remit. Again, I am a layman, sorry if I am getting it wrong and you are free to correct my wrong understanding.
Abhi
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Pavanaja U B *Sent:* Monday, May 19, 2014 12:03 PM
*To:* 'Wikimedia India Community list' *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Dear Ansuman,
Please go through the thread fully. Ravi asked a question about Tulu and I answered that.
Regarding your statement that the stats are overall from 2007 and not for one month only – Please read my email carefully. The first stats, ie, total 147 articles is for the period 2007 to March 2014. The current figure that I mentioned is 284. This growth happened in just one month as I already wrote.
Regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [ mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgwikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *ansuman *Sent:* 18 May 2014 21:06 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned – https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%.... I am extracting the same data for current –
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
- Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ravishankar *Sent:* 17 May 2014 16:40 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Dear Abhilash,
Here is that part of Ravi's email to the list where he mentioned about Tulu-
<QUOTE> Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all. </QUOTE>
Here is my profile - http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/pavanaja-profile.pdf http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/pavanaja-profile.pdf
Yes, I am an expert in Kannada. I belong to coastal Karnataka where Tulu is spoken. I can talk and understand Tulu.
I hope I have answered your queries.
Shameless plug:
If I am allowed to blow my trumpet here, you may read this at leisure - https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/bytesforall_readers/conversations/messa ges/200 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/bytesforall_readers/conversations/messag es/200
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Abhilash S Unni Sent: 19 May 2014 12:52 To: 'Wikimedia India Community list' Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Sorry, I may be getting this wrong or missing something.
I do not see any query from Ravi regarding Tulu stats, did I miss something?
Ravi, could you clarify as well please.
Pavanaja, I am sorry, again I might be wrong in my understanding here as well on your abilities. You are free to correct me, please share your profile which I can read through if you do not mind.
Just was wondering from your email domain name (vishvakannada), that I thought you are an expert on Kannada. Is Tulu also something that comes under the same remit. Again, I am a layman, sorry if I am getting it wrong and you are free to correct my wrong understanding.
Abhi
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pavanaja U B Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 12:03 PM To: 'Wikimedia India Community list' Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Dear Ansuman,
Please go through the thread fully. Ravi asked a question about Tulu and I answered that.
Regarding your statement that the stats are overall from 2007 and not for one month only - Please read my email carefully. The first stats, ie, total 147 articles is for the period 2007 to March 2014. The current figure that I mentioned is 284. This growth happened in just one month as I already wrote.
Regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of ansuman Sent: 18 May 2014 21:06 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju ly_2014_-_June_2015/Making_the_Tulu_Wikipedia_Live.
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
. 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
. 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
. 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp% 2Ftcy http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp %2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404 &cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404. I am extracting the same data for current -
. 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
. 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
. 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
2. Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ravishankar Sent: 17 May 2014 16:40 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a nd_notes
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up-the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep doing it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what has the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The sine qua non of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work - write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community-although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps -students-for-kannada-content/article5824580.ece
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
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Ravi only made a reference to Tulu. He didn't ask for Tulu stats now did he? On May 19, 2014 10:57 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Abhilash,
Here is that part of Ravi’s email to the list where he mentioned about Tulu-
<QUOTE> Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all. </QUOTE>
Here is my profile - http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/pavanaja-profile.pdf
Yes, I am an expert in Kannada. I belong to coastal Karnataka where Tulu is spoken. I can talk and understand Tulu.
I hope I have answered your queries.
Shameless plug:
If I am allowed to blow my trumpet here, you may read this at leisure - https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/bytesforall_readers/conversations/messag...
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Abhilash S Unni *Sent:* 19 May 2014 12:52 *To:* 'Wikimedia India Community list' *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Sorry, I may be getting this wrong or missing something.
I do not see any query from Ravi regarding Tulu stats, did I miss something?
Ravi, could you clarify as well please.
Pavanaja, I am sorry, again I might be wrong in my understanding here as well on your abilities. You are free to correct me, please share your profile which I can read through if you do not mind.
Just was wondering from your email domain name (vishvakannada), that I thought you are an expert on Kannada. Is Tulu also something that comes under the same remit. Again, I am a layman, sorry if I am getting it wrong and you are free to correct my wrong understanding.
Abhi
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [ mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgwikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Pavanaja U B *Sent:* Monday, May 19, 2014 12:03 PM *To:* 'Wikimedia India Community list' *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Dear Ansuman,
Please go through the thread fully. Ravi asked a question about Tulu and I answered that.
Regarding your statement that the stats are overall from 2007 and not for one month only – Please read my email carefully. The first stats, ie, total 147 articles is for the period 2007 to March 2014. The current figure that I mentioned is 284. This growth happened in just one month as I already wrote.
Regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [ mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.orgwikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *ansuman *Sent:* 18 May 2014 21:06 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
The Subject line says "Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia". Why the stats for Tulu ?
No wonder, they always try to cover up with something else!!!
Anyway in the stats, those numbers are overall from 2007, not just one month's.
Ansuman
On 18 May 2014 20:45, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikanth05@gmail.com wrote:
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned – https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%.... I am extracting the same data for current –
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
- Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
*From:* wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Ravishankar *Sent:* 17 May 2014 16:40 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Subject:* [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep *doing* it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what *has* the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
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Pavanaja,
Thanks for providing info regarding outcomes from your efforts in Tulu Wikipedia outreach and Kannada Wikipedia education program.
I will provide a detailed response by tomorrow.
Hey Srikanth and others,
Doesn't matter if I asked for Tulu stats. I appreciate Pavanaj's efforts to highlight the outcome of their Tulu outreach work even if it is a passing mention from me.
Ravi
Ravi, with all due respect. It's been 15 mails on this thread and there is nothing about what the thread subject says: Kannada. There is talk of Tulu, but no Kannada.
On 20 May 2014 01:49, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Pavanaja,
Thanks for providing info regarding outcomes from your efforts in Tulu Wikipedia outreach and Kannada Wikipedia education program.
I will provide a detailed response by tomorrow.
Hey Srikanth and others,
Doesn't matter if I asked for Tulu stats. I appreciate Pavanaj's efforts to highlight the outcome of their Tulu outreach work even if it is a passing mention from me.
Ravi
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Hello Pavanaja
Thanks for your note and links. Impressive and convincing. No that is not shameless at all, after all your effort and the achievements are result of that effort, which should of course be appreciated and you can, and should claim due credit for that.
That said, I do feel that it is odd, when Ravi had specifically asked for details regarding Kannada outreach, the response more or less seems to be concentrating on Tulu.
The fact that this thread subject line mentions Kannada means that someone who might be interested to know about Tulu may not even look into this. Another thread which could ask for Tulu details might eventually originate asking for the same information, and it could be a mish-mash. A situation which could have been very well avoided. My two paise.
Sadly, this seems to be an ongoing situation here, not just this instance. There seems to be a concentrated effort (it could be un-intentional, however the general feeling as far as I am concerned and my personal take is that it is concentrated effort), to always divert attention or focus of a discussion away from the actual subject, leading to an unfortunate situation where, either the queries are not answered properly or the responses from the concerned get lost in the cacophony.
Abhi
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Srikanth Ramakrishnan Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 02:00 AM To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Ravi, with all due respect.
It's been 15 mails on this thread and there is nothing about what the thread subject says: Kannada.
There is talk of Tulu, but no Kannada.
On 20 May 2014 01:49, Ravishankar <ravidreams@gmail.com mailto:ravidreams@gmail.com > wrote:
Pavanaja,
Thanks for providing info regarding outcomes from your efforts in Tulu Wikipedia outreach and Kannada Wikipedia education program.
I will provide a detailed response by tomorrow.
Hey Srikanth and others,
Doesn't matter if I asked for Tulu stats. I appreciate Pavanaj's efforts to highlight the outcome of their Tulu outreach work even if it is a passing mention from me.
Ravi
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Hi all,
The very first email in this thread by Ravi had two main queries –one was about Tulu Wikipedia workshop and another one about Christ University project. I have answered both of them. Since both questions were asked in the same email, I answered both of them in same reply mail. Vikram also answered about the Christ University project. Complete report of CIS-A2K activities and outcome is available on meta and I am sure all the people who have been active in this thread have thoroughly gone through them. I don’t think we will be gaining anything more by doing further hair-splitting on this.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Abhilash S Unni Sent: 20 May 2014 09:05 To: 'Wikimedia India Community list' Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Hello Pavanaja
Thanks for your note and links. Impressive and convincing. No that is not shameless at all, after all your effort and the achievements are result of that effort, which should of course be appreciated and you can, and should claim due credit for that.
That said, I do feel that it is odd, when Ravi had specifically asked for details regarding Kannada outreach, the response more or less seems to be concentrating on Tulu.
The fact that this thread subject line mentions Kannada means that someone who might be interested to know about Tulu may not even look into this. Another thread which could ask for Tulu details might eventually originate asking for the same information, and it could be a mish-mash. A situation which could have been very well avoided. My two paise.
Sadly, this seems to be an ongoing situation here, not just this instance. There seems to be a concentrated effort (it could be un-intentional, however the general feeling as far as I am concerned and my personal take is that it is concentrated effort), to always divert attention or focus of a discussion away from the actual subject, leading to an unfortunate situation where, either the queries are not answered properly or the responses from the concerned get lost in the cacophony.
Abhi
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Srikanth Ramakrishnan Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 02:00 AM To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Ravi, with all due respect.
It's been 15 mails on this thread and there is nothing about what the thread subject says: Kannada.
There is talk of Tulu, but no Kannada.
On 20 May 2014 01:49, Ravishankar ravidreams@gmail.com wrote:
Pavanaja,
Thanks for providing info regarding outcomes from your efforts in Tulu Wikipedia outreach and Kannada Wikipedia education program.
I will provide a detailed response by tomorrow.
Hey Srikanth and others,
Doesn't matter if I asked for Tulu stats. I appreciate Pavanaj's efforts to highlight the outcome of their Tulu outreach work even if it is a passing mention from me.
Ravi
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On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Pavanaja U B pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
The very first email in this thread by Ravi had two main queries –one was about Tulu Wikipedia workshop and another one about Christ University project. I have answered both of them. Since both questions were asked in the same email, I answered both of them in same reply mail. Vikram also answered about the Christ University project. Complete report of CIS-A2K activities and outcome is available on meta and I am sure all the people who have been active in this thread have thoroughly gone through them. I don’t think we will be gaining anything more by doing further hair-splitting on this.
I am not entirely sure that the above is a correct summary of things. If http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-May/011351.html is the first email on the thread (from Ravishankar), then the points raised were:
[+] Section 1.3 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_and_notes provides a set of observations in the form of "Lessons Learned"
[+] Ravishankar's point is that although the lessons were recorded, there are more instances where similar has occurred and lessons have not been implemented. To quote from that email "Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all."
I am not sure whether than phrase "Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all" was meant to read as "no active editor community at all". Since no clarification or, amendments were provided, that line is kept dangling - but the reference to Tulu does not obvious ask for stats.
[+] The mail thereafter goes to cite http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm which is a more broad update of the status/stats for Kannada and positions this in contrast to a news article http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps-students-for-kannada-content/article5824580.ece. The objective for the comparison is to provide data for the assertion that "when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month".
In short, the original email, if that is the first on this thread, neither asked about Tulu and nor did it ask about the Christ University project.
As a sysop, significant contributor and presently an avid observer on Kannada Wikipedia, I can say that it is true that the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month or faster than that. In fact, there has not been considerable increase in quality or momentum on par with organic growth despite CIS shelling close to 17 Lakh rupees (correct me if I'm wrong) - much of it constituting a percentage of Dr. U B Pavanaja's salary at CIS.
There have been tens of such events being announced in a nutshell and carried out without definitive impact.
What is more concerning is that the media reports (which is quite easy to get in this part of the world) being used to cover up the lack of definitive impact.
Perhaps we should hear more from the fellow Wikimedians who're neutral and friends on Kannada Wikipedia mailing list who're neutral to assess the actual impact than from CIS's partners (Christ College as on this thread, for instance).
On 20 May 2014 09:58, sankarshan foss.mailinglists@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 9:31 AM, Pavanaja U B pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
The very first email in this thread by Ravi had two main queries –one was about Tulu Wikipedia workshop and another one about Christ University project. I have answered both of them. Since both questions were asked in the same email, I answered both of them in same reply mail. Vikram also answered about the Christ University project. Complete report of CIS-A2K activities and outcome is available on meta and I am sure all the people
who
have been active in this thread have thoroughly gone through them. I
don’t
think we will be gaining anything more by doing further hair-splitting on this.
I am not entirely sure that the above is a correct summary of things. If < http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-May/011351.html
is the first email on the thread (from Ravishankar), then the points raised were:
[+] Section 1.3 of < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
provides a set of observations in the form of "Lessons Learned"
[+] Ravishankar's point is that although the lessons were recorded, there are more instances where similar has occurred and lessons have not been implemented. To quote from that email "Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all."
I am not sure whether than phrase "Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all" was meant to read as "no active editor community at all". Since no clarification or, amendments were provided, that line is kept dangling - but the reference to Tulu does not obvious ask for stats.
[+] The mail thereafter goes to cite http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm which is a more broad update of the status/stats for Kannada and positions this in contrast to a news article < http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
.
The objective for the comparison is to provide data for the assertion that "when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month".
In short, the original email, if that is the first on this thread, neither asked about Tulu and nor did it ask about the Christ University project.
Hi HPN,
On 21 May 2014 08:21, Hari Prasad Nadig hpnadig@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps we should hear more from the fellow Wikimedians who're neutral and friends on Kannada Wikipedia mailing list who're neutral to assess the actual impact than from CIS's partners (Christ College as on this thread, for instance).
It is good that the Wikipedia community (of which I am a part) is trying to come up with metrics to assess contributions of a paid organisation and separating those of the volunteers so that due credit is given to all contributing entities. I had mentioned this here [1].
While CIS has an MoU with Christ Univ, I was speaking up as a person interested in the educational angle and not as a signatory of an MoU (my work with CU is on a consultancy basis as an educational technology consultant which means that I am trying to find ways to improve the learning of the students). AFAIK none of "CIS's partners" have spoken up so your statement in this regard is not valid.
Any project needs some time to stabilise itself. And there are times when we need to think long term vs short term and strategy towards a project will automatically vary. I think the community needs to start asking productive questions so that Wikipedia and its sister projects develop.
The question of monthly compensation that the A2K employees are taking home from the WM funds is a strong question and the organisation will have to justify this using reliable metrics. Thanks Vikram
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-April/011081.html
Pavanaja,
Thanks for the explaining the outcome of Tulu Workshops and Christ University partnership.
While you take a microscopic view of the recent activity and ask me to be optimistic, I would like to be realistic after taking a macroscopic view on past activities.
Please see
http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-pr...
where active editors going from 20 to 20 over a period of 6 months is called 45% growth.
The real state of Assamese Wikipedia now after two years can be seen at
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaAS.htm
Here is what Asaf from WMF has to say on this:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/T...
"For a tiny Wikipedia like Assamese, it's possible the temporary editing boost leading to a *doubling* of its size by article count and *tripling*of its size by contents was itself the seed of future growth, as the bootstrapping of a Wikipedia is also slow and not self-sustaining work, until that moment when a virtuous cycle kicks in and the usefulness of the resource begins attracting new editors "organically". We have perhaps not reached that moment with Assamese, and as you point out, the program is implicitly judged to be less valuable than other opportunities and has thus been discontinued."
If this is the case of Assamese Wikipedia which is already out of incubator and that once had a very small but dedicated community, then what is CIS doing working with projects in incubator?
Even after CIS working for a year on Konkani Wikipedia, it is not out of incubator.
But, it seems you have started the Tulu plan even before the FDC grant is approved.
Your FDC proposal staff assessment also notes as follows:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Ce...
"CIS’s strategy for its stand-alone projects may not be the most effective for the language communities each project is targeting, given that projects other than Wikipedia (for example, Wikisource or Wiktionary) may be more effective entry-points for working with language communities like Tulu or Santali."
To quote Asaf from WMF again:
"The *sine qua non* of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors... Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program..."
Tulu has a population around 2 million speakers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulu_language
You can find a realistic estimate of Editors per million speakers here:
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm
For the Indian landscape, Malayalam has around 3 editors (those who make 5+ edits every month) per million and it is the highest (you need to ignore the highly extrapolated value for Sanskrit owing to its tiny population and institutional support). It goes down until 0.2 editors per million for Hindi. To put it in plain words, for every 50 lakh people speaking Hindi, we can hope to get 1 editor making 5+ edits. This trend has been consistent over the years and I don't expect drastic change occurring in the near future unless there is a huge change in socio-economic scenarios.
If you look for languages similar to Tulu, Nepal Bhasa comes close.
You can check the activity for their Wikipedia at
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaNEW.htm
(to be continued.. ) :)
Ravi
(Continued from http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-May/011389.html )
Hang on !
While all these stats highlight the people who make 5+ edits, the real strength of any Wikipedia is people who make 100+, 1000+, 2500+ edits per month. Only those Wikipedias which manage to nurture a continuous supply of such editors can progress while keeping in balance editors who go inactive periodically or forever.
Let's take the case of Tamil Wikipedia.
(Everyone should excuse me quoting Tamil Wikipedia often. It is my home Wikipedia and where have I exclusively worked for many years. I do watch how other Wikipedias work and will try my best to showcase case studies from as many Wikipedias possible. If you know better case studies, please feel free to add to the discussion)
Please check the page
https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:cms
Since February 2013, we are keeping track of people who make 100+, 250+ and 1000+ edits every month.
So far, in the last 15 months alone, we have
100+ edits - 30 contributors
250+ edits - 41 contributors
1000+ editors - 13 contributors
Many of these people hit these milestones often.
With so many in the pool, the most number of contributors who have made 100+ in a single month is 34 which happened in January 2014.
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTA.htm
The number of new articles created, daily edits all depend on this most active editor count.
For example, check the distribution of article edits in following three languages
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm#editdistribution
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#editdistribution
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaML.htm#editdistribution
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTA.htm#editdistribution
Almost universally, the trend of 1-2% editors making 80% of edits is prevalent.
And let us see the kind of effort these people put in.
During May 2012, just for fun, I asked my fellow Tamil Wikipedians this simple question:
https://ta.wikipedia.org/s/qbz
How many hours per week do you spend on activities related to Tamil Wikipedia? (Includes time to collect references)
14 people answered and they collectively spent 294 working hours per week.
Extrapolating for the stats that month, we found that we spend at least 400+ working hours every week collectively improving Tamil Wikipedia.
That is equivalent to employing 10 full time staff just to keep editing Tamil Wikipedia !
And after all this we don't even feel we are anywhere near a very useful and comprehensive encyclopedia. There is lot of work to be done yet.
**
CIS is liberal in throwing lot of jargons at the community. Say for example, Needs assessment, Coordination problem, etc.,
For a difference, I would like to ask them:
* Have you ever done a feasibility study for the chances of having a high quality Wikipedia led by active community before engaging in language community plan? Some of the key factors that determined the selection of languages areas as listed at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju...
don't talk about this.
That is why I question the sanity of engaging with incubator projects like Tulu.
* Are your plans creative enough, big enough to capture and nurture the most active contributors? Without such contributors all efforts will remain one-off and inorganic. That is why I question the effectiveness of paid physical outreach you engage so much. Physical outreach by volunteers can be equally ineffective. But it serves other purposes like community leadership building, brand building etc., and not direct editor recruitment.
* What is the lifetime value of one such contributor? In other words, is your spending worth the results you produce?
(to be continued.. ) :)
Ravi
(Continued from http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-May/011390.html )
OK, where were we :)
Ah yes, I was asking about the outcome of CIS's work in general in Kannada Wikipedia.
I wanted to hear the story from the community as most of the reports by CIS are unilateral. So, CIS or its partners are under no obligation to answer here. But, as Pavanaja had mentioned that he had answered my questions, I would like to clarify that some of my concerns remain unanswered.
* What is the direct impact of numerous Kannada outreach sessions done?
As tabulated at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju...
you have even exceeded the dream target for number of outreach sessions even 6 months in advance ! I wonder why this is even set as a target when it is documented to have negligible value by WMF.
Please also go through Wikimedia evaluation portal
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs:Evaluation_portal
where more such programs are evaluated and best practices are shared.
* Regarding Christ University partnership, I would like to have few clarifications.
In this mail thread, you have written as follows:
//I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic. //
Whereas at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju...
it is documented as follows:
"Retaining these as active editors will be a difficult task. Writing article on Wikipedia was a compulsory activity for the students. Only a small percentage of these students have realised the importance of writing on Wikipedia and promised to continue editing Wikipedia."
Both are official statements from CIS and are contradicting each other. At least, the optimism shared :)
In this context, I have few issues:
* Enrolling students compulsorily is a problem that is documented already
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Ind...
* All the upward pointing graphs at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju...
can mislead the FDC as they don't take into account the project returning to natural growth rates afterwards.
* Similar spike and fall is also seen at Hindi Wikipedia
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaHI.htm
I assume this could be an effect of the Christ University partnership too as
http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/cis-a2k-mou-christ-university
says 800 students studying Hindi are also enrolled in this project.
Is the Hindi community kept in loop about this effort?
Please note that engaging the local community in planning is a recommended best practice as explained at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Ind...
Where it also notes
"A pilot with more than 1,000 students will result in an unmanageable amount of new material for a finite editor community to monitor"
If 1000 students is a problem for the gigantic English community, how is the relatively smaller Hindi Wikipedia handling 800 students?
How is Kannada Wikipedia handling 600 students?
This is especially important as unlike Pune education program, we don't have campus ambassadors, online ambassadors and the entire work load is on the community or the professors (if they are helping).
* Is there any data available regarding the quality of content added like the one available at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Ind...
Given that most of the Indic Wiki communities are still reeling from the work load of Google Translation project,
how equipped are the communities to engage these students, clean up and nurture them in to active contributors?
* Is CIS engaging in this kind of high volume education program because its previous outings with voluntary enrollment of students did not produce sufficient results?
For example,
Here are the reports about Assamese and Odia Wikipedia education programs:
http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odia-wikipedia-education-program-iimc-dhe... stubs out of a 3 month program)
http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-pr... clue about results)
And that's all for now !
Ravi
Dear Srikanth,
Tulu Wikipedia is in incubator. The community is very small now. The articles did not come just in one day of the workshop. They are adding articles daily after the workshop. You can check this page - https://incubator.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges https://incubator.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:RecentChanges&limit=500&days=30&rc-testwiki-project=p&rc-testwiki-code=tcy&translations=noaction &limit=500&days=30&rc-testwiki-project=p&rc-testwiki-code=tcy&translations=noaction
Regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Srikanth Ramakrishnan Sent: 18 May 2014 20:45 To: India public list Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
Editors with 10 edit count? That's nothing great. Half of them might have edited from the workshop itself and then disappeared. Also, edit counts are never considered a good measure of success. Are there any real metrics being used?
On May 18, 2014 7:00 PM, "Pavanaja U B" pavanaja@vishvakannada.com wrote:
Dear Ravi,
1.Tulu Wikipedia outreach programs and outcome:
Please look at the work plan here and the stats mentioned – https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_Ju....
Pay little attention to these numbers (excerpt from the work-plan above)-
The current stats, as of March 2014 stands like this:
· 147 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 31 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 8 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
Now please take a look at the stats at this page - http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%... http://tools.wmflabs.org/pathoschild-contrib/catanalysis/index.php?title=Wp%2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404 &cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki&listpages=on#distribution_201404. I am extracting the same data for current –
· 284 articles including categories, templates, and talk pages.
· 41 total number of editors; including those who have done just one edit.
· 18 editors with more than 10 edit counts.
These figures definitely point to the fact that the workshops are not wasted efforts. These changes have happened in just one month. In the stats page you may also notice that Tulu Wikipedia was almost dormant from Sep 2009 till April 2014 with some occasional activity spikes in between. Let us hope the new set of editors who have come in will actively keep contributing to Tulu Wikipedia. Optimism is not a bad idea after all.
2. Wikipedia in UG education program at Christ University Bangalore:
It is true that a spike can be seen in the stats for Kannada Wikipedia. But the program will be continuing this year also. Students will continue to write for Kannada Wikipedia. This academic year they will also add content to Kannada Wikisource. I have personally interacted with many students. There are quite a good number of students who are passionate about enriching Kannada language and bringing latest knowledge into Kannada by way of adding articles to Kannada Wikipedia. Nurturing those students will help not only Kannada Wikipedia but also Kannada language and people in general. Again, I would emphasis, let us be optimistic.
Thanks and regards,
Pavanaja
From: wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimediaindia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ravishankar Sent: 17 May 2014 16:40 To: Wikimedia India Community list Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Outcome of CIS work in Kannada Wikipedia
MarHey,
Any community member here from Kannada Wikipedia?
I would like to understand the outcome of CIS work there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-10-02/News_a...
lists one of the lessons learned as follows:
//Single-session, general-audience outreach has negligible impact everywhere (for example, just giving a single talk about Wikipedia to whoever shows up—the conversion rate to editors is tiny, and yet we keep doing it".//
(Do give a full read of that whole section 1.3 Lessons learned)
Yet, CIS seems to be repeating sich negligible impact outreach programs many times in March and April 2014. This includes Tulu workshops where there is active editor community at all.
To quote Asaf again:
//So just what has the Foundation learned about the criteria for funding successful activities? Bartov first talked about a fundamental prerequisite:
"The sine qua non of most programs is a core of self-motivating active editors. Most of the things you want to do, most of the things chapters in the global north are doing, depend on this core. It can be as small as four or five people, but those people need to be actual active editors ... who edit because they like it, they enjoy editing Wikipedia or Commons, they get it, and they are inherently committed to our principles like NPOV; not people who are editing because there's a contest on and they want to win the laptop.
"Where that core doesn't exist, it's very hard to deploy any other type of program. If you want [a GLAM partnership] with the National Museum of Cameroon ... how are you going to deliver on what you promise the museum if you don't have local editors who will do the work – write the articles, show up to meet the curators. So this is the big, big challenge for which we don't have an answer: how do you grow such a core ... in a certain country? ... we're now cautious about active investment where there is not an active community—although it's still possible if you give us a really great idea."//
The only outcome of such initiatives seem to be PR material like this:
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/wikipedia-taps...
where Pavanaja quotes as follows:
//There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.//
And when you look at Kannada Wikipedia stats, the user activity has returned to pre-education programme levels within a month
http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaKN.htm
So, I would like to understand why the wheel is getting reinvented again and again with an insane budget besides documented evidence of WMF's learning on this.
Stop doing paid outreach.
Ravi
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