Dear Wikimedians,
Sorry for cross-posting this from Meta.
On Tuesday 15 April 2014 07:31 PM, Ravishankar wrote:
'''Questions for CIS-A2K'''
4. How do you attribute or separate the performance of CIS-A2K from
the organic efforts and the growth of the community?
5. What is the (subtle) pressure, if any, on the community to achieve
the expected results? The plan is quite ambitious but looks completely
top down in approach. Do you expect the community to be burnt out?
Hi Ravi, as always appreciate your active engagement with CIS-A2K's
work. Responses below.
* The methodology we follow to assess our impact is a year on year
tracking of various metrics for a particular focus language area. We
have discussed this in detail in all the 4 language plans that we
propose to continue to work from last year. For instance, see the
discussion on impact on Telugu language projects here[1]. Also see our
quarterly reports, for instance this[2]. We have also set out SMART
goals, wherever possible, for the Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects[3],
Community Strengthening Initiatives [4], etc, which will be
independently tracked. Would be nice to get suggestions on how we could
do this in a better way.
* It is difficult to give a simple and direct answer to the question
about pressure and burn-out, as the experiences change from community to
community and also within the community. For instance, some Wikimedians
within a language community were concerned when an activity was not
successful and get more involved and bothered, whereas some are ok and
some just move on after doing whatever they can and so on. We have been
following the strategy of focus language area interventions for exactly
a year now and have not experienced a community level burn-out, which
could be a rare possibility. Even while doing off-wiki activities like
community events, outreach, etc. we try to ensure that the CIS-A2K does
majority of the leg work and conserves the volunteer time for more
productive purposes.
: We are cautiously ambitious about the plans. There were many more
ideas that were thrown at us, which we could not accommodate. For
instance, one of the Urdu Wikipedia admins wrote to us asking to take up
the development of Urdu Wikipedia project by growing the community in
India, we have requests from institutions to partner with us for
Wikimedia work that we are unable to honour currently, etc.
: Top-down approach: Could you please say more about the top-down
approach, probably citing some examples from any one of 21 plans? Thanks!
Best,
Vishnu
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J…
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Q…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_J…