[Wikimediaindia-l] News from the Chapter and the Conference

Thu Aug 25 08:08:45 UTC 2011

Off the cuff, I want to appreciate the great ideas put forth, Ravi. Thanks
for taking the effort. These ideas need to be preserved even if we are not
able to use them right now.

Warm regards,

Ashwin Baindur
------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 1:29 PM, Ravishankar <ravidreams at gmail.com> wrote:

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