[Wikimediaindia-l] Improving outreach efforts in India
Dear All, The following is a post I've put up on the India Program page on meta regarding outreach (Please see:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs). Please do comment on the page itself; I'm posting it on this mailing list only to make sure it doesn't slip your attention. We have conducted over 13 outreach sessions in the past one month and have many more events scheduled to participate in over the coming weeks. (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Outreach_Sessions). It's amazing that we're doing so many outreach events all over the country to create awareness about Wikipedia, motivate attendees to learn about editing and training newbies to contribute to Wikipedia in their own special way. The single biggest challenge is that we don't know the actual outcome of these efforts in most cases, and the results are weak when we have the data. I think most of us agree that outreach can be made to work better. (For example, 2 outreach sessions conducted recently by the Assamese community had about 80 participants, and 8 active editors emerged - which is a hit rate of 10% - which is FANTASTIC!) For most other sessions, the results have been closer to 1-2% or even lower - which is depressing. What makes outreach work? How can outreach work better? Is there anything you need from me? Over the past 3 months, I have been working on building a handbook for Outreach (Please see: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Handbook) where you can get presentation material and tips. Please do go through it and help me build it. My post consists of 5 (deliberately) provocative statements on the day of and the days after an outreach session. These are framed with the objective of generating debate and suggestions. THE DAY OF Hypthesis 1: Don't Shoot the Puppy: Outreach is not being done effectively and we aren't adequately introspecting on what we can do better; instead choosing to lose faith in attendees Should we discontinue general introduction sessions completely and just convert everything into Wiki workshops? Every second of volunteer time is precious and we need to make sure that every second is made to count. The good sessions appear to be those where people are actually shown how to edit - rather than just doing a song-and-dance about Wikipedia. The best sessions are those where people have actual hands-on editing opportunity. Shall we limit the intro session on Wikipedia to just 15 minutes and then spend 45 minute on basic editing, 30 minutes on hand-on editing and leave 30 minutes for QA? Not everyone is a natural presenter and might need help on basic outreach skills. Is there value and interest in a capacity building roadshow where we help existing editors who want to improve their outreach and presentation skills? Is it useful to pair up a good presenter with a not-so-confident presenter when we are doing outreach? THE DAY AFTER Hypothesis #2: Staying in Touch: We assume the job is complete after the outreach session when in fact the journey has only just begun Can we gather (basic) information about attendees (e.g., names, usernames email IDs?) so that we can stay in touch with them after sessions? Can we get feedback on sessions (duration, level of detail, quality of presenters, etc.?) so that we can all improve? Do we need some sort of CRM solution for this or will something like Google Docs suffice? How do we get more folks to actually provide their contact details and feedback? Which of the following will get higher response rates: asking for these just before the end, immediately after the end or the day after a session? Hypothesis #3: Nudge-Nudge: Newbies struggle with the most basic things - including which article to select Should we send links to useful wiki pages and tutorial videos where they can read up more about how Wikipedia works and how to edit Wikipedia? Can we leave handouts on basic editing after all sessions? Can we send them links to the actual presentations made at the session. Can we suggest / elicit potential articles that individual newbies will work on after the workshop? Can we give them individual pointers on what they can do with each article by reviewing them there-and-then during the session? Can we schedule a follow-up session (even if virtually using google+ hangout) to clarify any doubts about Wikipedia editing or otherwise - maybe 2 weeks after a session? Hypothesis #4: Loneliness - Newbies feel alone and the only time they sense the community is when their edits get reverted Should we not encourage them to join project pages (such as the WP:INDIA) and/or the India mailing list and/or their city/language mailing list to get involved with the community? Can we involve them in COTM or conduct specific editathons for them? Can we celebrate their successes and get newbies to talk to other newbies about how they learnt
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Formation of Communications, PR Media Relations Team
And congratulations, Naveen, on all the portals. Lots of work! Cheers Bishakha On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:59 PM, Naveen Francis navee...@wikimedia.inwrote: All the best for the communication team !!! Hi Bishakha, We will be rolling out Administration and Fundraising teams very soon. Thanks, naveenpf On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Bishakha Datta bishakhada...@gmail.com wrote: The scope of work looks extremely comprehensive and impressive - congratulations on the formation of this team. And if past experience is anything to go by, may it continue to go from strength to strength. Best Bishakha On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) tinucher...@wikimedia.in wrote: Hi all, We are pleased to announce the first batch of our team for Communications, PR Media Relations of the Wikimedia India Chapter. - Tinu Cherian, Head, Communications - Arun Ramaratnam, Official Spokesperson - Anirudh Bhati - Srikeit Tadepalli - Noopur Raval - Srikanth Lakshmanan - Naveen Francis - Pranav Curumsey - Ram Shankar Yadav - Mitra Sharma - Anivar Aravind We are still discussing with lots of potential people who are interested and have the necessary skills. We will be adding them as we progress. *Scope of Work* Duties and Responsibilities of the team include, but are not limited to the following: *General :* - Development of a comprehensive multi-language Communications Plan for Wikimedia Movement in India to support the Chapter's strategic objectives. This plan must include social media, digital outreach, Public Relations (PR) and supporting community and chapter outreach. - Implementation of the Communications Plan - including measuring of results focused on growth in participation and readership within India and continuous improvement as required. - Identification, selection and onboarding of specialised agencies as required. - Build a close partnership with the Community and Wikimedia Foundation India Programs to support communications and media outreach. - Participating in Global Wikimedia Communications committee and subscribed to its mailing list: wmfc...@mail.wikimedia.org * Communications :* - Supporting and overseeing communication with Wikimedia community which includes Chapter members, general public and media. - Helping the Chapter Secretary in the monthly report that is send to the members and the community. - Providing ad hoc support to the Chapter Community on all aspects of communications as may be deemed necessary. *Public/ Media Relations :* - Coordinating communications with the press, including press releases, interviews, and inquiries. - Handling press enquiries and answering them. - Build a close partnership and working relation with a network of journalists and news editors all over India and abroad. - Maintaining a list of people willing to be contacted interviewed by the media. - Identify potential media worthy stories and getting them published into the mass media. - Contacting editors and publishers of Wikipedia press coverage to request that corrections be published as needed. - Public Relations (PR) to build and manage relationships with media and drive messaging that promotes participation. - Researching press lists, monitoring and analyzing media coverage, both negative and positive. - will be responsible for executing and carrying out PR campaigns on behalf of the chapter. - Improve Wikimedia media coverage especially on Indian local languages. - Supporting the media coverage of Chapter , Wikimedia Foundation and Community led events and initiatives in India like Wikiconference, wikimeeetups, wikiacademies, workshops etc * Digital Properties/Social Media :* - Digital outreach comprises how to drive awareness and education and movitation to participate in various projects from within the existing readership base. - Social media includes managing and driving social media vehicles to drive participation (i.e., building awareness and driving traffic to Indic language editions, raising awareness of how content is created on various projects and motivating and enabling participation.) - Maintain the official IRC channel on freenode: #wikimedia-in and regularly conduct planned IRC sessions. - Maintain the social media properties including the ones on facebook twitter and Youtube channels, and all Public facing Digital resources like the wiki, blog and website. - Keeping the Wikimedia India Press kit and In
[Wikimediaindia-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions
There's an interesting article out in the current issue of the Chronicle: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/ It's behind a paywall, but in the spirit of fair use and in keeping with the author's intent (the article is on Wikipedia, and I believe the author would want to have us discuss it) I reproduce it here: The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia By Timothy Messer-Kruse For the past 10 years I've immersed myself in the details of one of the most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. Along the way I've written two books and a couple of articles about the episode. In some circles that affords me a presumption of expertise on the subject. Not, however, on Wikipedia. The bomb thrown during an anarchist rally in Chicago sparked America's first Red Scare, a high-profile show trial, and a worldwide clemency movement for the seven condemned men. Today the martyrs' graves are a national historic site, the location of the bombing is marked by a public sculpture, and the event is recounted in most American history textbooks. Its Wikipedia entry is detailed and elaborate. A couple of years ago, on a slow day at the office, I decided to experiment with editing one particularly misleading assertion chiseled into the Wikipedia article. The description of the trial stated, "The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing. ... " Coincidentally, that is the claim that initially hooked me on the topic. In 2001 I was teaching a labor-history course, and our textbook contained nearly the same wording that appeared on Wikipedia. One of my students raised her hand: "If the trial went on for six weeks and no evidence was presented, what did they talk about all those days?" I've been working to answer her question ever since. I have not resolved all the mysteries that surround the bombing, but I have dug deeply enough to be sure that the claim that the trial was bereft of evidence is flatly wrong. One hundred and eighteen witnesses were called to testify, many of them unindicted co-conspirators who detailed secret meetings where plans to attack police stations were mapped out, coded messages were placed in radical newspapers, and bombs were assembled in one of the defendants' rooms. In what was one of the first uses of forensic chemistry in an American courtroom, the city's foremost chemists showed that the metallurgical profile of a bomb found in one of the anarchists' homes was unlike any commercial metal but was similar in composition to a piece of shrapnel cut from the body of a slain police officer. So overwhelming was the evidence against one of the defendants that his lawyers even admitted that their client spent the afternoon before the Haymarket rally building bombs, arguing that he was acting in self-defense. So I removed the line about there being "no evidence" and provided a full explanation in Wikipedia's behind-the-scenes editing log. Within minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: "You must provide reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines to the article." That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site's "undue weight" policy, which states that "articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views." He then scolded me. "You should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to replace it with a minority view." The "undue weight" policy posed a problem. Scholars have been publishing the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries. "Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one?" I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, "You're more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy." I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my
[Wikimediaindia-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions
There's an interesting article out in the current issue of the Chronicle: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/ It's behind a paywall, but in the spirit of fair use and in keeping with the author's intent (the article is on Wikipedia, and I believe the author would want to have us discuss it) I reproduce it here: The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia By Timothy Messer-Kruse For the past 10 years I've immersed myself in the details of one of the most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. Along the way I've written two books and a couple of articles about the episode. In some circles that affords me a presumption of expertise on the subject. Not, however, on Wikipedia. The bomb thrown during an anarchist rally in Chicago sparked America's first Red Scare, a high-profile show trial, and a worldwide clemency movement for the seven condemned men. Today the martyrs' graves are a national historic site, the location of the bombing is marked by a public sculpture, and the event is recounted in most American history textbooks. Its Wikipedia entry is detailed and elaborate. A couple of years ago, on a slow day at the office, I decided to experiment with editing one particularly misleading assertion chiseled into the Wikipedia article. The description of the trial stated, The prosecution, led by Julius Grinnell, did not offer evidence connecting any of the defendants with the bombing. ... Coincidentally, that is the claim that initially hooked me on the topic. In 2001 I was teaching a labor-history course, and our textbook contained nearly the same wording that appeared on Wikipedia. One of my students raised her hand: If the trial went on for six weeks and no evidence was presented, what did they talk about all those days? I've been working to answer her question ever since. I have not resolved all the mysteries that surround the bombing, but I have dug deeply enough to be sure that the claim that the trial was bereft of evidence is flatly wrong. One hundred and eighteen witnesses were called to testify, many of them unindicted co-conspirators who detailed secret meetings where plans to attack police stations were mapped out, coded messages were placed in radical newspapers, and bombs were assembled in one of the defendants' rooms. In what was one of the first uses of forensic chemistry in an American courtroom, the city's foremost chemists showed that the metallurgical profile of a bomb found in one of the anarchists' homes was unlike any commercial metal but was similar in composition to a piece of shrapnel cut from the body of a slain police officer. So overwhelming was the evidence against one of the defendants that his lawyers even admitted that their client spent the afternoon before the Haymarket rally building bombs, arguing that he was acting in self-defense. So I removed the line about there being no evidence and provided a full explanation in Wikipedia's behind-the-scenes editing log. Within minutes my changes were reversed. The explanation: You must provide reliable sources for your assertions to make changes along these lines to the article. That was curious, as I had cited the documents that proved my point, including verbatim testimony from the trial published online by the Library of Congress. I also noted one of my own peer-reviewed articles. One of the people who had assumed the role of keeper of this bit of history for Wikipedia quoted the Web site's undue weight policy, which states that articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. He then scolded me. You should not delete information supported by the majority of sources to replace it with a minority view. The undue weight policy posed a problem. Scholars have been publishing the same ideas about the Haymarket case for more than a century. The last published bibliography of titles on the subject has 1,530 entries. Explain to me, then, how a 'minority' source with facts on its side would ever appear against a wrong 'majority' one? I asked the Wiki-gatekeeper. He responded, You're more than welcome to discuss reliable sources here, that's what the talk page is for. However, you might want to have a quick look at Wikipedia's civility policy. I tried to edit the page again. Within 10 seconds I was informed that my citations to the primary documents were insufficient, as Wikipedia requires its contributors to rely on secondary sources, or, as my critic informed me, published books. Another editor cheerfully tutored me in what this means: Wikipedia is not 'truth,' Wikipedia is 'verifiability' of reliable sources. Hence, if most secondary sources which are taken as reliable happen to repeat a flawed account or description of something, Wikipedia will echo that. Tempted to win simply through sheer tenacity, I edited the page again. My
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [WMIN-Members] Formation of Communications, PR Media Relations Team
Good job Tinu. good to see the energetic members of wiki are in the list. On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) tinucher...@wikimedia.in wrote: Hi all, We are pleased to announce the first batch of our team for Communications, PR Media Relations of the Wikimedia India Chapter. - Tinu Cherian, Head, Communications - Arun Ramaratnam, Official Spokesperson - Anirudh Bhati - Srikeit Tadepalli - Noopur Raval - Srikanth Lakshmanan - Naveen Francis - Pranav Curumsey - Ram Shankar Yadav - Mitra Sharma - Anivar Aravind We are still discussing with lots of potential people who are interested and have the necessary skills. We will be adding them as we progress. *Scope of Work* Duties and Responsibilities of the team include, but are not limited to the following: *General :* - Development of a comprehensive multi-language Communications Plan for Wikimedia Movement in India to support the Chapter's strategic objectives. This plan must include social media, digital outreach, Public Relations (PR) and supporting community and chapter outreach. - Implementation of the Communications Plan - including measuring of results focused on growth in participation and readership within India and continuous improvement as required. - Identification, selection and onboarding of specialised agencies as required. - Build a close partnership with the Community and Wikimedia Foundation India Programs to support communications and media outreach. - Participating in Global Wikimedia Communications committee and subscribed to its mailing list: wmfc...@mail.wikimedia.org * Communications :* - Supporting and overseeing communication with Wikimedia community which includes Chapter members, general public and media. - Helping the Chapter Secretary in the monthly report that is send to the members and the community. - Providing ad hoc support to the Chapter Community on all aspects of communications as may be deemed necessary. *Public/ Media Relations :* - Coordinating communications with the press, including press releases, interviews, and inquiries. - Handling press enquiries and answering them. - Build a close partnership and working relation with a network of journalists and news editors all over India and abroad. - Maintaining a list of people willing to be contacted interviewed by the media. - Identify potential media worthy stories and getting them published into the mass media. - Contacting editors and publishers of Wikipedia press coverage to request that corrections be published as needed. - Public Relations (PR) to build and manage relationships with media and drive messaging that promotes participation. - Researching press lists, monitoring and analyzing media coverage, both negative and positive. - will be responsible for executing and carrying out PR campaigns on behalf of the chapter. - Improve Wikimedia media coverage especially on Indian local languages. - Supporting the media coverage of Chapter , Wikimedia Foundation and Community led events and initiatives in India like Wikiconference, wikimeeetups, wikiacademies, workshops etc * Digital Properties/Social Media :* - Digital outreach comprises how to drive awareness and education and movitation to participate in various projects from within the existing readership base. - Social media includes managing and driving social media vehicles to drive participation (i.e., building awareness and driving traffic to Indic language editions, raising awareness of how content is created on various projects and motivating and enabling participation.) - Maintain the official IRC channel on freenode: #wikimedia-in and regularly conduct planned IRC sessions. - Maintain the social media properties including the ones on facebook twitter and Youtube channels, and all Public facing Digital resources like the wiki, blog and website. - Keeping the Wikimedia India Press kit and In the News sections on the public wiki up to date. - Interacting with the Chapter OTRS team. - Help and co-ordinate the Community Newsletter, WikiPatrika * Team Structure* - The team is led by Head of Communications, PR Media Relations, Wikimedia Chapter. The position is a voluntary and not a staff/paid position. - There is an official Spokesperson of the Wikimedia India Chapter. The position is a voluntary and not a staff/paid position. - The above positions will be handled either
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [WMIN-Members] Formation of Communications, PR Media Relations Team
Thanks SJ, Bishakha , Ramesh and et all. SJ, Currently the internal details of the team are only available on the members wiki ( members.wikimedia.in) . May be I will put it on the public wiki too ( wiki.wikimedia.in) Regards Tinu Cherian On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Ramesh N G rames...@gmail.com wrote: Good job Tinu. good to see the energetic members of wiki are in the list. On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Tinu Cherian (Wikimedia India) tinucher...@wikimedia.in wrote: Hi all, We are pleased to announce the first batch of our team for Communications, PR Media Relations of the Wikimedia India Chapter. - Tinu Cherian, Head, Communications - Arun Ramaratnam, Official Spokesperson - Anirudh Bhati - Srikeit Tadepalli - Noopur Raval - Srikanth Lakshmanan - Naveen Francis - Pranav Curumsey - Ram Shankar Yadav - Mitra Sharma - Anivar Aravind We are still discussing with lots of potential people who are interested and have the necessary skills. We will be adding them as we progress. *Scope of Work* Duties and Responsibilities of the team include, but are not limited to the following: *General :* - Development of a comprehensive multi-language Communications Plan for Wikimedia Movement in India to support the Chapter's strategic objectives. This plan must include social media, digital outreach, Public Relations (PR) and supporting community and chapter outreach. - Implementation of the Communications Plan - including measuring of results focused on growth in participation and readership within India and continuous improvement as required. - Identification, selection and onboarding of specialised agencies as required. - Build a close partnership with the Community and Wikimedia Foundation India Programs to support communications and media outreach. - Participating in Global Wikimedia Communications committee and subscribed to its mailing list: wmfc...@mail.wikimedia.org * Communications :* - Supporting and overseeing communication with Wikimedia community which includes Chapter members, general public and media. - Helping the Chapter Secretary in the monthly report that is send to the members and the community. - Providing ad hoc support to the Chapter Community on all aspects of communications as may be deemed necessary. *Public/ Media Relations :* - Coordinating communications with the press, including press releases, interviews, and inquiries. - Handling press enquiries and answering them. - Build a close partnership and working relation with a network of journalists and news editors all over India and abroad. - Maintaining a list of people willing to be contacted interviewed by the media. - Identify potential media worthy stories and getting them published into the mass media. - Contacting editors and publishers of Wikipedia press coverage to request that corrections be published as needed. - Public Relations (PR) to build and manage relationships with media and drive messaging that promotes participation. - Researching press lists, monitoring and analyzing media coverage, both negative and positive. - will be responsible for executing and carrying out PR campaigns on behalf of the chapter. - Improve Wikimedia media coverage especially on Indian local languages. - Supporting the media coverage of Chapter , Wikimedia Foundation and Community led events and initiatives in India like Wikiconference, wikimeeetups, wikiacademies, workshops etc * Digital Properties/Social Media :* - Digital outreach comprises how to drive awareness and education and movitation to participate in various projects from within the existing readership base. - Social media includes managing and driving social media vehicles to drive participation (i.e., building awareness and driving traffic to Indic language editions, raising awareness of how content is created on various projects and motivating and enabling participation.) - Maintain the official IRC channel on freenode: #wikimedia-in and regularly conduct planned IRC sessions. - Maintain the social media properties including the ones on facebook twitter and Youtube channels, and all Public facing Digital resources like the wiki, blog and website. - Keeping the Wikimedia India Press kit and In the News sections on the public wiki up to date. - Interacting with the Chapter OTRS team. - Help and co-ordinate the Community Newsletter, WikiPatrika * Team Structure* - The team is led
[Wikimediaindia-l] towards a Gujurati Wikisource
Hoi, Now that the localisation for the Gujarati language of the compulsory messages has been completed, we are moving towards the next steps in this process. It is really exciting to notice how Wikisource is getting traction in India. A lot of important work is done and it shows. I have blogged about it and I find it amusing that there is a logo adapted for the Gujarati language and not yet for the Marathi language. I also noticed that WebFonts and Narayam have not yet been configured for the Marathi Wikisource. I assume that as this beneficial for the project i can ask for it to be configured. Thanks, Gerard http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.com/2012/02/towards-gujarati-wikisource.html ___ 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
