[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India chapter

Sun Jan 30 11:04:20 UTC 2011

> I rmember I asked about chapter's future plans in one of the other 
> threads, but still no answer. Is there any basic ideas about future 
> activities? Where I can find them?

Praveen, http://wikimedia.in/wiki/Main_Page is the place where chapter 
activities are discussed.
By the way, the chapter doesn't mean just the EC, it'll include all volunteer 
members once membership can be opened.
Please also remember that the chapter has come into existence only on Jan 3, 
2011 and we have had only one meeting so far.
We've tried to communicate as often as possible with the wider community through 
this list and the wiki, but more can be done certainly.

Following is a list of activities (compiled by ArunRam for an internal 
discussion) of the chapter prior to registration (which itself turned out to be 
a huge exercise):

	* We have a open mailing list people can write to. It has started to work well. 
As an example we received an email from community this morning.
	* The EC members are now responding to queries or comments that come up on the 
Foundation and India list. 
	* The Wikimedia. in is up and running. You may have noticed EC members 
beginning to encourage community to use this organize their events.
	* We have an established internal wiki where our meeting minutes are published, 
 EC project plans drawn, contact repositories being built.
	* As a team we have learnt to work with each other and understand our 
complementary skills, we have evolved mechanisms for decision making, rapid 
actions and dealing with conflict openly and objectively.  (To me these are 
important steps that make effective teams)
	* The EC team is paying attention to the OTRS lists. Anirudh is taking the lead 
here.
	* The EC has been engaging and met community in some cities  (Bangalore, Delhi, 
Mumbai). With grant support form Barry we will be able to do more face to face 
meetings to build traction.
	* Sundar and Arjuna are engaging with Google. I am engaging with CDAC. HPN with 
Knowledge commission. Anirudh and Srinivas are bootstrapping communities in 
Ahmedabad and Indore. 
	* Arjuna and Anirudh participated and manned stalls at Foss.in along with 
community (Arun Ganesh).
	* The EC members have now taken it on them to participate and speak at external 
forums to spread the word about wikipedia and wikimedia: Gautam spoke at a 
conference, Arjuna spoke at a international conference in Delhi on localisation, 
Srinivas spoke at a conference in Bangalore, I spoke at a conference in Bhopal 
organised by the MP government.
	* Chapter teams attended meeting with Barry when he was in India and attended a 
few meetings with Eric and Danese. HPN and I were present for the Jimmy visit.
	* Gautam and I  have been persistently following up with regular follow-up 
visits to the registrar to close out the Chapter registration. Yes, it has been 
painfully slow due to government bureaucracy.
	* Chapter EC members have also actively helped run meetups and academies in 
cities - Bangalore, Kannada meetup (held recently), Delhi meetup 2. The many 
Academies that Arjuna has helped with.
Individual chapter members co-ordinated many of the hugely successful WP Ten 
celebratory events across the country recently. BLR (Arun, Gautam, HPN, Arjuna, 
Srinivas and me), Indore (Srinivas), Delhi (Anirudh), Mysore (HPN), Because of 
the delay in registration, we have not put these activities under official 
chapter functions so far. There are so many other examples of such activities of 
individual members. 
See http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Sundar and 
Anirudh's participation in the movement roles' project for example. 

That said,  I agree that we should have better and more frequent communications 
in the future. Hopefully, we can all do that with more support from community 
members.

- Sundar
"That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the 
expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted."
- George Boole, quoted in Iverson's Turing Award Lecture

----- Original Message ----
> From: praveenp <me.praveen at gmail.com>
> To: Discussion list on Indian language projects of Wikimedia. 
><wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Sun, January 30, 2011 3:36:41 PM
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India chapter
> 
> On Sunday 30 January 2011 11:56 AM, jayanta nath wrote:
> > Nos of edit is  not criteria. The chapter created as society so there 
> > must be voting  system. So not worry!!
> Then what was the criteria?
> 
> On Sunday 30  January 2011 01:03 PM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar wrote:
> > Can you please put up  your ideas and give some examples so that people
> > here will get some more  clarity.
> >
> > As you mentioned, things are "fair but not enough"  please put up your
> > ideas so that things will be "enough and  more"
> 
> I feel I am keeping myself here without any bruises, even against 
> chapter members, challenging their credibility and ability. For me it is 
> good; but for a community it is bad. That explains a lot. :-( (BTW where 
> is president and some other members of chapter? are they members of this 
> list?)
> 
> I rmember I asked about chapter's future plans in one of the  other 
> threads, but still no answer. Is there any basic ideas about future 
> activities? Where I can find them?
> May I know, whether asking idea is the  basic idea? :) (I dont think it 
> is bad, but a chapter need atleast basic  line up. don't give MoA link, 
> I've seen it many times :D)
> 
> For eg, in  commons many images originated from India are deleted or 
> waiting to get  deleted, just because no source available saying it is in 
> PD. Chapter can  initiate a project to find PD images from India. Any 
> member can find many  such issues, if they are wiki-rooted.
> 
> I didn't said I am an 'idea'(l)  man. I tried to say, lack of openness of 
> chapter, non-supportive character  and credibility doubts of members of 
> chapter. (I got one more, I  think.)
> 
> For now I said enough. I don't want to start this from very  beginning 
> again. I hope "chapter" will take appropriate measures to erase  any 
> doubts of users.
> 
> Thank  you.
> 
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