[Wikimediaindia-l] Supporting Outreach

[Nitika]

Hi Folks,
There were no laptops for the participants or the internet connection was weak - so I could only give a lecture on wikipedia but could not give hands-on training
I conducted sessions but I really don't know if anything productive came out of it since I'm not confident that anyone of the participants will actually start editing.  My time is limited and I really want to figure out how to make the best use of it.
I keep reading that outreach sessions should be done in a fun manner - but I just don't know how to handle such a serious topic like Wikipedia in a fun manner.
I could not get more than 7 people to create user accounts because of the 7 per day limit for creating user logins from an single IP address - so the rest of the participants were not able to be more actively involved in the session.
I want to help out on outreach because I love doing it - but I'm relatively new to Wikipedia and not sure if I can convey the right messages.
I prepared standard presentations introducing Wikipedia and the basics of editing - but I wish I had structured material available on the difference between paraphrasing, close paraphrasing and plagiarism/copyvio.
I asked the participants to write down their names and email IDs so that I could stay in touch with them after the session - but could not read the handwriting of a couple of them.
I really want to do outreach - but I am not confident of my public speaking skills.  I really wish I could help out but not sure how.
I got irritated preparing the presentations because I am sure many others would have already prepared these and it seem like a waste of time.
It would have been really good if I have left handouts for each participants so they could read and refer to them at leisure.

For all those who have conducted (or thought about) outreach sessions, do these sound familiar?  I've been talking to a whole host of community members and participating in outreach session and I wanted to share some thoughts with you and to ask your help and advice.  I'm a new mail thread on this because I am trying to combine some fantastic points from a series of recent, related (and somewhat related) threads

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005815.html (Srikanth R's thread on "What's in it for me")
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005657.html (Pradeep's thread on improving infrastructure)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005453.html (Arnav S' thread on help for outreach in Gujarat)
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005632.html (Noopur's post on GLAM - and specfically the point that GLAM and outreach should inter-linked.)

Most of us believe that we need to attract more newbies to our projects to help our Indic projects grow and to improve Indian content on English Wikipedia.  I also think that many would agree that not enough outreach is happening and that results from the outreach that is happening can be improved.  I suspect that a lot more people might be interested in doing outreach but are often not sure how to do it. I think that we need to figure out what are all the various things we can do to make sure that every minute spent by volunteers on outreach is as productive as possible.   

I would like to propose that I start working on these aspects.  My current (very initial) thinking is as follows:
Speak to as many more community members as possible who have conducted outreach sessions, plan to conduct them or even attended session and learn from them their experiences on outreach.  Document and share tips and best practices to the entire community.
Create a repository for all presentations as well as handouts, FAQs pages, etc.  (prepared in English to begin with, but later translated to Indic languages).  These presentations must be in distinct module so that there could be a standard basic introduction section, editing basics and then separate sections for specific sub-topics such as NPOV, referencing, WP:MOS, etc.  These could be accessed at will by any community member and used / edited / adapted at will by them.  I realise there might be some duplication because a lot of this exists in various places - but it will be useful to have them all together in one place.
Identify what kind of audience is most receptive to outreach by volunteers - and try and help organise more outreach sessions for these.  To illustrate, are there interest groups that might hold particular potential like college festival or an ornithology society or a language club.  Also, do a lot of hands-on outreach in areas where the current volunteer community is particularly small, such as in Delhi.
Work closely with community groups (like we did for Pune's recently concluded CDMA expo or I am working with the West Bengal community on the upcoming Kolkata Book Fair) to help in the planning and organising and conducting of various outreach programs. I can help in many things from background support or (wo)manning a stall!
Provide ad hoc support for any kind of outreach activity that anyone needs help with.  (I am not sure about what this might involve but I'm putting it down because I'm sure there will be things that need need to be done!)

I need some help from you.

Would you let me know if the above 5 points would be useful?  Please feel free to share ideas, comments, suggestions, modifications, warnings, etc.
Please do go through the following page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outreach_Program_Handbook) even though it is still in early-stages but will house my work.  Please feel free to edit the page or to add comments on the talk page or offline to me.  (My email ID is nitika at wikimedia.org)
Would you let me know (offlist, please) if I can connect with if you are interested in sharing your experiences, can help me out on this work or just need some help on outreach? I really would like to talk to as many of you as I can to learn from you and to offer whatever help I can, however little it might be.  (...To the folks who I have reached out but are still ignoring me - you know who you are...  :-(  Do talk to me. I'm really very nice!  :-)

Thank you so very much.

Nitika


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