CIS-A2K/Community Evaluation

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Collaboration for Sanskrit Wiki projects

नमस्ते,

संस्कृत की इतनी सारी अच्छी पुस्तके पुणे में हैं कि अगले पाँच वर्षो के लिये सं.वि.स्रोत को साहित्य मिल सकता है। वैसे ये गोष्ठी का मुख्य उद्देश भांडारकर ही था परन्तु वैदिक संस्थान, फर्ग्युसन महाविद्यालय और ज्ञान प्रोबदिनी स्थान भी मुझे अधिक आशास्पद लगे।

6 सितम्बर को तो भांडारकर संस्थान में हुई गोष्ठी के आरम्भ में ऐसा लगा कि ये कार्य विफल हो गया। क्योंकि वो लोग मानने को सज्ज ही नहीं थे कि विकिपीडिया में पुस्तक रखना योग्य होगा। परन्तु गोष्ठी के अन्त में आया परिणाम अत्यन्त उत्साह जनक था। वो वाक्य बारं बार बोला गया कि, संस्कृत विकिस्रोत के लिये और मराठी विकिस्रोत के लिये स्कैन् पिडिएफ देने के लिये कोई मना नहीं कर रहा। तब लगा कि हाँ अब सही हो रहा है।

उसके पश्चात् वैदिक संशोधन संस्थान गए, जो कि अपने आप में ऐतिहासिक संस्थान था। वहाँ जा कर लगा कि हम किसी विश्वविद्यालय के साथ जुड़ कर संस्कृत में स्रोत संबंधित कार्य और विकिपीडिया में लेख निर्माण कार्य करवाने में सफल हो सकते हैं। सभी बिन्दुशः निम्न प्रकार से है....

1. क्रैस्त विश्वविद्यालय का जो प्रकल्प है, वो अत्यन्त विफल है और विफल से भी बढ़कर हानिकारक है। ऐसी स्थिति में पुणे से साहित्य मिले तो वो उन विद्यार्थीओं को देकर स्रोत कार्य का परिष्कार करवाना चाहिये। तब जा कर वो प्रकल्प सफल हो सकता है।

2. भांडारकर के स्कैनर अत्यन्त मूल्यवान् हैं और उन्होंने एक विशेष पद्धिति भी विकसित की है। वैसे मेरा अनुमान है कि वो उतनी भी विशिष्टता से कार्य नहीं कर रहे जितना दिखता है, परन्तु कहीं न कहीं एक दृष्टि मिल सकती है, विकिस्रोत में कार्य करने वाले सदस्यों को। अतः यहाँ एक विकस्रोत के सदस्यों को देखने की योजना करनी चाहिए। भाण्डाकार में अनेकों बार जाना पड़ेगा, तब जा कर आगे के सम्बन्ध सुकर बनेंगे। पुस्तके समय समय पर मिलती रहेंगी।

3. वैदिक संशोधन संस्थान - यहाँ विद्यार्थीओं को विकिस्रोत के लिये कार्यशाला द्वारा प्रेरित किया जा सकता है। फ्रर्ग्युसन कोलेज के अंकितजी की सहायता से हम कार्यशाला का सहजता से आयोजन कर सकते हैं।

4. ज्ञानप्रबोधिनी - इस संस्थान में आर्या जोषी जी से सम्पर्क हुआ। वो संस्कृत में सम्पादन करने के लिये उत्साहित थी परन्तु उनको और प्रेरणा की आवश्यकता है। तदुरान्त उनके अनुसार वहाँ और भी ऐसे संस्कृत के प्राध्यापक और शिक्षक हैं, जो विकिपीडिया में कार्य करने को तत्पर हैं। उन्होंने एक कार्यशाला का आयोजन करने के लिये कहा है। अतः विद्यार्थीओं की कार्यशाला लेने से पूर्व हमें उन शिक्षकों और प्राध्यापकों की एक कार्यशाला अवश्य करनी चाहिये, जिससे हम आगे की योजना में सफल हो सकें। इस संस्थान में कुछ ऐसी पुस्तकें प्राप्त हुई हैं, जो अवश्य ही विकिस्रोत में जाने योग्य हैं। वहाँ संस्कृत और मराठी की पुस्तकें हैं। परन्तु स्कैनिंक व्यवस्था सोचनी होगी।

5. सुबोधजी और मैंने यात्रा के समय कुछ योजनाएं सोची थी, वो योजनाएं निम्नप्रकार से हैं -

• प्राध्यापकों की कार्यशाला करना, जिस में आर्या जोषी, अंकितजी, पूणे के प्राध्यापक, अन्य शिक्षक उपस्थित हो सके।
• विद्यार्थीओं के लिये कार्यशाला करना, जिस में फर्ग्युसन महाविद्यालय, पुणे विश्वविद्यालय जैसे संस्थानों के विद्यार्थी के लिये मार्गदर्शन कर सकें।
• छः मास के लिये एक कार्यक्रम भी सोच सकते हैं, जिसमें बारं बार इन महाविद्यालयों में और विश्वविद्यालय में कार्यशाला करके स्रोतकार्य और लेख के लिये प्रेरणा दे सकते हैं। कम विद्यार्थी परन्तु गुणवत्तायुक्त कार्य करने का प्रयास करना चाहिये।
• ज्ञानप्रबोधिनी-संस्था में कुछ पुस्तक हैं, जिनके स्कैनिंक की व्यवस्था करनी है।
• विकिस्रोत की एक कार्यशाला, जिस में सभी भाषाओं के सदस्य हों वैसा एक सम्मेलन पुणे में करना हितावह होगा। NehalDaveND (talk) 05:43, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Review of activities of CIS-A2K in Tewiki

This is a review of activities taken up by CIS A2K in Tewiki during the calendar year 2018. I am writing this review here because I am given to understand that this page is created to facilitate this kind of reviews.

Since Pavan Santhosh (CIS-A2K) is the only CIS resource in Tewiki, I have assumed his activities alone are CIS activities.

To keep the focus of the review, I will confine the review to the performance of the following programs taken up by him, with respect to the goals set for those programs.

Copyrights issues on Tewikisource

I consider this one work as the most valuable of Pavan during this year. He did an exemplary work on Tewikisource with respect to copyrights. He identified the flaws in the present handling of copyrights by Tewikisource and offered solution to the same. His inputs in the discussion on copyrights brought good amount of awareness about the copyrights among some members of the community. because of this, people are now aware that some works done by the community so far, are not within the realm of copyrights policy of the Wikisource.

Village pages of AP, TS

This is an ongoing project which involves improving the village pages of AP and Telangana: [Declaration: This reviewer is an active participant in this project.]

This project was initiated and conceptualised by Pavan in 2017 and is being taken forward actively by three other users. The success of the project can be evaluated at 7 on 10 vis-a-vis the goals set for it. Lot of work is still to be done. Presently it is progressing at slow pace owing to the very few people working on the project.

The magnitude of the project can be imagined by the following figures:

1. Content to be added to more than 25,000 pages to take the average page size from about 2K to to about 11K.
2. About 12000 pages are affected due to State reorganisation, District reorganisation and Mandal reorganisation.
3. About 600 templates need to be reorganised

Besides evolving the concept of the project, Pavan is also working on obtaining official information from the Givernments about the Villages - one of the items being the correct names of the villages.

GA program

This project involves the improvement of the Quality of pages, in general. [Declaration:This reviewer is an active participant in this project.]

A "Good Article" movement is initiated by Pavan and this reviewer. A process is created based on the existing process in Enwiki. Some modifications are made to the process to suit it to Tewiki. The process is tested successfully by them. But, then the process is stopped there and things did not move from that point. Basically it requires push in the the following forms:

1. The process is to be popularised sufficiently amongst the Wikipedians.

2. Wikipedians should be encouraged to evaluate and improve the articles based on GA guidelines

3. A rewards scheme needs to be introduced based on GA system.

The GA system too has a potential to offer lateral benefits to the growth of Wikipedia. one such benefit is: Academic and other institutes etc can be encouraged to introduce a co-curricular activity to its students whose work in Tewiki can be evaluated based on the GA guidelines. CIS A2K may examine this idea and take it forward to help improve the quality of  Wikipedia

CIS A2K can also examine the possibility of identifying the top Wikipedians with respect to the value addition, using the GA system. This will motivate the wikipedians to work towards the improvement of the program.

Introducing Wikipedia to new people

Expanding the Wikipedia to new users is one area that organisations like CIS A2K take some serious look. Their present activities seem to be successful in just introducing Tewiki to new users, but not to retain them. In communities like Tewiki, where the user base is very small, special attention should be paid by CIS A2K to retain the new users. A follow up mechanism shall be introduced by them to sustain the interest among the new users and retain them in Wiki-fold. This follow up will augment the efforts of people like Pavan and lead these efforts to fruition. I understand that Pavan is putting some effort on follow up also which helped in retaining some good resources in WIkipedia and Wikisource.

If a team of three or four work on this project in stead of one individual, this project can be more useful.

Other Suggestions

Organisations like CIS A2K shall also look at a higher level activities which bring greater benefit to the Wikipedia. Some examples

1. Coordinating and lobbying with Governments, Universities and other academic institutes to encourage them to add Wiki-work as part of their co-curricular/extra-curricular activities.
2. Focussed programs for different communities like teachers, Telugu teachers, Journalists etc.

__Chaduvari (talk) 07:18, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

CIS A2K's support for "Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing" Project

CIS has always been very supportive in promoting new initiatives and experimenting with different ideas. The idea of WWWW like many other projects like Indic language help desk were projected during the Wiki Advance Training at Ranchi (2018). CIS A2K team lead is very supportive to promising ideas and are of immense help in coordinating with people from different communities, financial aid and also in shaping the proposals that we propose. The guidance and awareness about the steps to follow and assistance in making the most out of it is highly appreciated. The organisers of WWWW are grateful for the support,motivation and assistance by the members of CIS A2K Team. -Manavpreet Kaur (talk) 06:24, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Support from CIS-A2K for Wikidata, en Wikipedia, VVIT WikiConnect, and other activities

I am writing this review about the support provided and collaboration with CIS-A2K during the calendar of 2018 (Jan – Dec). This review will generally speak of how CIS-A2K has been supporting activities for the growth of English Wikipedia, Wikidata, (in India) and the Wiki-club in my college, VVIT WikiConnect. Though I will try to speak for the overall support, all the points do not necessarily the community's opinion.

Wikidata

A2K team has been very crucial for the growth of the Wikidata community in India. It has been supportive of Wikidata related activities right from the beginning. Wikidata activity took a major leap with the development WikiProject India on Wikidata, after Asaf’s Wikidata tour in India in 2017. Post that, A2K has been supportive has to several training workshops, and also editing campaigns such as IMLD-ODD 2018 Wikidata India Edit-a-thon and Independence Day Label-a-thon. One more important activity organised by A2K is the Advanced Wikidata Training in December 2018. This was very helpful for active Wikidata editors across India to groom their Wikidata skills and contribute to the project even more effectively.

The advanced training was useful to learn many tools such as OpenRefine and Tabernacle. As a result which, we started, census import project under the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana portal of WikiProject India on Wikidata. These tools are very much essential to make good use of the power of Wikidata. So I would suggest A2K organise more regional level workshops such as their copyright workshops, which have also been successful. Since everyone was not able to attend the national workshop, these can be useful. For example, South India Advanced Wikidata Training workshop. Such events would help Wikimedians to learn from each other, and we can also have a diverse and better set of participants compared to doing it for just one community, which I believe will be too limited. One more thing that I would like to see is edit-a-thons and campaigns focused on data and data models than just labels.

en Wikipedia

I completely understand that the focus of A2K programme is to support the development of Indian-language Wikimedia projects and communities, I suggest some support to be extended to Wikimedians working on English Wikipedia around content related to India. Wiki Advanced Training 2018 in Ranchi, was a good event learn about policies and structures of Indian-language Wikipedias comparative to English Wikipedia. I also received support for the English Wikipedia Training Program in my college. A2K has been supportive in several ways, but I would like to see more activity in this area. This is because as the content related to India on English Wikipedia is not well written, and we are also facing issues such as the number of active editors working in this area, and no major activity. Leadership should also be developed in these areas. An instance where I was disappointed was TTT 2018 did not have any Wikimedian from the English Wikipedia community. Such things should be taken care of.

VVIT WikiConnect

The A2K team has very much supportive of forming a Wiki-club in my college, VVIT WikiConnect. Right from the beginning in 2017, we have been receiving consistent support for all the activities wherever sought. This support helped us to formally establish the club and also run a full-fledged annual plan. Apart from that, the team also conducted talks with college officials in various instances, making our work easier. With A2K’s support, we were able to organise a 2-day advanced training workshop for active editors with Asaf Bartov in December 2018. This has been very helpful for the members to improve their understanding of various policies and also learn new editing techniques.

Other activities

I strongly appreciate A2K’s support for Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India) (report). They have been helpful in several ways including financial, programmatic, and logistical. Without their support, I do not think it would be as successful as it was.

I believe doing much good work, and they are improving their process and programs year after year, which is very good, and I strongly recommend their staffing capacity to be increased. This community evaluation is also an excellent move to understand the communities, and plan their activities better. Best, KCVelaga (talk) 05:19, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

CIS-A2K

I am Mallikarjuna I am with Kannada Wiki Community. These are my inputs for CIS-A2K's 2018 Activities.

1. Events conductedː Various Bootcamps, Editathons, 3 types of Training Events (Starter, Advanced & Train-The-Trainers), Grant-Review and Share-Knowledge Events were conducted all over India. These events did help in
   1. Getting the Know-How of writing stuff to Wiki.
   2. Insights into best-known methods (Tito's Home Page is one Gold-mine of Tools, which we all keep digging into̠)
   3. Tools that we can ask for, from Admins that would go long way in reducing clutter & maintanence- One Session of AutiWikiBrowser cleared up cobwebs in Karnataka Movies Wiki. Now, most of Kannada Contributors are comfortable in doing the Most-Needed work and leaving the painsome maintenance works about categories & templates.
   4. New stuff that are trendy - like using WikiData to cutdown writing stuff in Infoboxes. Though not being used, it is exciting to know & start using it.
   5. One caveat I have is facilities provided in these are too pampering to the attendees. Wholesome lunch makes post-lunch sessions a bit tiff to focus on. Informal atmosphere invites agenda-hijacking and trivial-issues overtaking agenda-items. While these are mild-irritants, Certainly, re-jig is needed to make the most of time allotted. Easy-Wins
      1. a Count-Timer while presenting/talking, so that man-hours are tracked
      2. Sign-up on the Event Pages, Forms On-Arrival
      3. Submit paper-work On-Exit
2. ̰##
   1. Learning in-person; Personally for me, Meeting Dr Tanvir Hasan, Tito Dutta, Loganathan, Charan Singh Gill, Arun RamaRatnam, Shyamal Lakshminarayanan, Col. Ashwin Baindur, Balaji Jagadeeshan, Srinivasan, Sangram Senapati & many more is quite motivating & humbling. Without attending these events, I would have never known these people, who are in mission-mode. Lunch/Snack time are exhilarating for wide-variety of discussions that are animated, fact-filled & exciting. In-fact, I look forward to attending these events, purely to get face-time with these amazing people & I am not exaggerating one bit. Thanks to CIS-A2K for being a bridge, for being able to draw all such people. This is no mean achievement in itself.
3. Activities conducted
   1. Getting Students to get a hang of Wiki is working fine in Kannada Community. Gopala & Anantha have been driving this at Bangalore Christ University, Moddabidare Alva's College, Mangaluru St. Aloysious and other places. While being from Students, there is surely scope for betterment in their content/quality, these programs have bought much needed crowd who are the much needed contributors and readers for Wiki-endeavors. This effort has been most significant for improving reach & visibility of Wiki in Kannada, Tulu ( & surely for other Indic Communities as well).
4. Community Outreach

CIS has ensured contributors are informed regularly over email, WhatsApp, telegram & thru Phone about events, policy changes & etc. This has bolstered trust level. Add to it, vibrant community advocates do necessary background work to reduce clutter & fluff.

Update.. noticed randomly,.... the 4 tildes wasn't working.. placed it again today.... Mallikarjunasj (talk) 06:31, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

For Marathi Community comments By user:QueerEcofeminist

What was good till now

• TTT Banglore/Ranchi and mini TTT Pune, TWLcon Pune, were very enriching experiences. As we got to meet representatives of various Indic communities and learn from them.
• Several trainings were organized for groups/individual fashion and such small sessions and situational supports are needed from experts in the field. So those were really helpful.
• Marathi wikisource community got really active with book donations under CC and various efforts by CIS-A2K.
• Marathi community as in active community - could be imagined and seen in stats too.

What are the possibilities of improvement/more engagement/sustainable output

Periodical Real life Meetups/events/sharing/etc

• To build a active community, help editors to grow together, real life meet ups of active editors in various cities of Maharashtra, can come together and hold day long or few hours edit a thons/ drives etc
• In the lack of technical/policy level skills and information in new groups of editors such periodical events would help more.
• CIS could facilitate such meetups by networking with local organizations/institutions or partially funding the meetup activity by arrenging the place/hall or something. This will help communities to bring the members of community on the same level of technical and other skills.

More training around user of scripts/templates/bots/admin tools

• Specific needs to few active editors could be handled by specialized trainings around themes like translations, copyright violations, javascript development, template development etc.
• Few more active editors can be trained to use bots/admin tools/ etc
• This can happen for all Indic communities together.

Consultations on/around Policy Building

• Still there is a lot to improve on this side,
• We could start with the list of core policies every wiki project should have.
• What are the ways in which policies are formed on wiki a basic intro.
• Few themes like Vandalism, copyvio, wikihounding, bringing more accountancy and transparency on Indic wikis, (Sadly, this lacks greatly!)

Targeted interventions to specific groups like Women/LGBT/Dalits etc

• Edit a thons with various social groups
• thematic intervention to build active community that with the diverse representation.
• Covering Local pride parades, protests, events through photowalks.
• Organizations/institutions working on the same could be of great help in this.
• Fusion of skill building program(camera handling, editing, research literacy) + targeted interventions (researchers, social activists, autonomous groups) + edit a thons/ meetups = would be really helpful in recruiting more editors, sustaining them for long and bring real community activity through that. QueerEcofeminist ^{"cite! even if you fight"!!!} [they/them/their] 06:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)