CIS-A2K/Reports/CIS-A2K Report 2023-24/Movement Communications & Wiki Education Program

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Movement Communications

Engagement Calls

Indic Community Monthly Engagement Calls

A2K's Indic Community Monthly Engagement Calls are monthly calls that attempt to improve collaboration in Indic language Wikimedia communities. These calls aim to provide a platform for Indic-language Wikimedians to connect with Wikimedians who are involved in building or working on various initiatives.

• June 3, 2023 Call: The inaugural call under the India Community Monthly Engagement Calls initiative took place on June 3, 2023, at 6:00 PM, focusing on the "Let's Connect" initiative. The session was led by Jessica Stephenson, Learning and Evaluation Program Officer at WMF, and Chinmayee Mishra, a representative from the Let's Connect Working Group. With 19 participants, the call began with an icebreaker that emphasized peer sharing, asking, "Who has been someone important in your life that you have learned from?" The speakers discussed the importance of creating an open, flexible, and safe learning space for Wikimedians and volunteers. They highlighted how the Let's Connect initiative helps individuals learn new skills through one-on-one sessions or calls and provides communities access to rapid funds to replicate the initiative locally. Chinmayee shared her experience in the South Asia region, emphasizing the need for accessible platforms to support Wikimedians and develop learning clinics tailored to regional needs while maintaining safe spaces. The session concluded with a Kahoot quiz on Let's Connect, followed by participant questions and feedback.

• August 5, 2023 Call: On August 5, 2023, CIS-A2K hosted a 1.5-hour session on Leadership Development within the Wikimedia movement, attended by approximately 24 participants. Speakers Mrb Rafi and Jyotsna discussed the Leadership Development Working Group (LDWG) initiative, emphasizing the importance of leadership skills for sustaining Wikimedia projects and fostering community growth. They defined leadership as the ability to guide, inspire, and motivate a group towards a shared vision, noting its adaptation to linguistic and socio-cultural contexts. The session highlighted the LDWG's Leadership Development Plan as a resource for both emerging and existing leaders. Additionally, Ashwini Murmu, Pooja Jadhav, and Komal Sambhudas shared personal experiences regarding leadership challenges and successes within their respective communities. Ashwini focused on the Santali community's efforts to engage members virtually post-COVID, while Pooja and Komal reflected on their own leadership journeys. The session concluded with renewed enthusiasm for strengthening leadership within the Wikimedia community. Participants were encouraged to reach out to leadershipworkinggroup@wikimedia.org for further inquiries, with additional details available on the etherpad.

• April 12, 2024 Call: On April 12, 2024, A2K launched the Collaboration Program and invited Indian communities to submit collaborative proposals. A total of 26 people joined the call. The primary goal was to provide a detailed explanation of the Collaboration Program. The call was held from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM and included a welcome and check-in session followed by an icebreaker activity. Speakers from CIS-A2K introduced the A2K Collaboration Program and outlined the process for submitting proposals. Attendees had opportunities to ask questions during the session. The meeting also emphasized adhering to the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) to ensure a safe and respectful space for all participants.

• June 28, 2024 Call: Several Movement Charter (MC) Ambassadors from South Asia collaboratively organized an Open Community Call to review the Movement Charter in partnership with MCDC members and CIS-A2K. This call marked a significant step towards fostering a comprehensive understanding of the Charter as the ratification process approached. Led by MC Ambassadors from different Indian communities, it was part of the India Strategy Meet where ambassadors and community representatives who had participated in Wikimedia Summit 2024 engaged in further discussions on MC drafts and voting processes. The primary objective was to encourage active participation and ensure that all community members were well-informed about discussions surrounding the Movement Charter.

• Open Hours on Committee Appointments - November 11th, 2024: On November 11, 2024, CIS-A2K organized a short informational call for Wikimedians interested in joining key committees within the Wikimedia movement. The 30-minute session was moderated by Pavan Santosh with speakers Manavpreet Kaur (WMF) and Ramzi (WMF). It aimed to provide insights into the roles and responsibilities of the Affiliations Committee (AffCom), Ombuds Commission (OC), and Case Review Committee (CRC). The call served as an opportunity for participants to learn more about these committees that recruit new volunteers annually from October to December and ask questions regarding opportunities for involvement in their important work. A total of 35 Wikimedians attended and posed questions about committee formation, requirements, processes, and more.

WikiConverse Calls

• An Interactive Session with WMF Staff from India: On July 24, 2023, A2K hosted WikiConverse India—an interactive session with key Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) members attended by 30 participants including A2K and WMF representatives. The call aimed to introduce WMF staff from India so community members could learn about their key areas of work. The event focused on WMF's initiatives—particularly the "Wikisource Loves Manuscripts" project—which utilized OCR technology to improve handwritten manuscript transcription while boosting Wikisource community engagement. Discussions also covered expanding collaborations; A2K emphasized support for user groups and chapters while WMF staff shared insights on technical issues like language keyboard fixes. Speakers including Satdeep Gill, Praveen Das, Vidhu Goyal, Manavpreet Kaur, and Rachit Sharma encouraged community participation in preserving Indic language content. The event concluded with A2K inviting participants to join the "Wikisource Loves Manuscripts Learning Partners Network," underscoring commitment to growth within the Wikimedia movement.

• Disinformation and Misinformation in Wikimedia Projects: The WikiConverse India Call on Disinformation and Misinformation in Wikimedia projects was led by Abhas Tripathi from the Trust & Safety team focusing on challenges related to disinformation in Wikimedia projects. A total of 22 people joined this call which discussed handling emergencies, harassment issues, and combating false information while distinguishing between misinformation and disinformation. Key topics included political disinformation, historical negationism, election disinformation as well as problematic behaviors like sockpuppetry and biased sourcing. The session emphasized a nuanced approach considering community dynamics while highlighting Wikimedia Foundation's efforts to maintain community integrity through adherence to UCoC.

Other Engagement Calls

• WikiHour: Amplifying Women's Voices: The International Women's Day meeting celebrated women's contributions in the Wikimedia community while discussing strategies for promoting gender diversity. Attended by various community members, this meeting featured an engaging icebreaker activity led by Chris which fostered camaraderie among participants. Nitesh (CIS-A2K) introduced the session followed by Manavpreet Kaur who shared insights from Wiki Women Camp 2023 proposing a steering committee formation for future initiatives. Additionally introduced was the "She Leads" initiative aimed at empowering female Wikimedians in India which received positive feedback during discussions about future plans including monthly calls and leadership programs—reinforcing a collective commitment towards gender equality. Total participation included 14 women.

• International Mother Language Day 2024 Virtual Meet: On International Mother Language Day, a session was held discussing preserving linguistic diversity with a focus on endangered languages. Bharatesha—a Tulu language Wikimedian—shared his efforts safeguarding Tulu through documentary filmmaking while highlighting challenges such as limited connectivity in remote areas along with logistics management during production processes. Participants shared updates from their own language communities emphasizing collaborative efforts necessary for language preservation success while providing valuable insights into documenting endangered languages’ complexities underscoring careful planning’s importance in ensuring project success.

Learning Hours

The Learning Hours Initiative by CIS-A2K is designed to create a space for continuous learning to develop skills and build capacity within the Indic Wikimedia communities. Launched with the goal of empowering contributors from the Global South, this initiative aligns with CIS-A2K’s broader mission of strengthening the technical capacities of communities in Wikimedia projects.

A2K conducted its first Learning Hour call in November 2024 where the participants where the tool of the hour were TABernacle and QuickStatements, focusing on the use case of these tools for editing Wikidata in a more efficient manner. The session kicked off with TABernacle, a tool designed to streamline data editing on Wikidata by displaying items in a tabular format. The focus shifted to QuickStatements, where participants came to know about the two ways of using the tool. The November Learning Hour focused on Command Sequence Syntax by demonstrating how to add simple statements, labels/aliases/descriptions & sitelinks and create new items from the tool directly. Following the feedback received from the participants of the call, the December Learning Hour session focused on QuickStatements and diving deeper into the Command Sequence Syntax. This time, the focus expanded to more advanced tasks: adding statements, qualifiers, and sources, as well as handling labels, aliases, descriptions, sitelinks, item creation, merging, removing statements, and using comments effectively. From the insights from recent Technical Consultations led by the Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group, Phabricator and Programs & Events Dashboard were picked as tools of the hour for the January Learning Hour call. During this call, participants were introduced to the Phabrictor’s purpose for reporting technical bugs/issues or requesting for new features for their project. The participants were also introduced to Programs & Events Dashboard by demonstrating the use case of the tool especially when running a campaign or event like edit-a-thon.

Moving forward, A2K team is planning on continuing these Learning Hour Initiative by continuing to expand its reach and impact by in-corporating participants’ feedback. The A2K team will be organising Learning Hours to bring more tools which can be used by the communities and is planning on creating a repository for the usage of these tools tailored for content contributors.

Wiki Education Program

VVIT WikiConnect Tech

The Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K), in collaboration with the Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group, has launched the "VVIT WikiConnect Tech" project at VVIT College, Nambur. This pilot initiative has started from July 2024 and will be running till end of March 2025, with an aim to introduce a group of seven third-year college students to the principles of Open Movements, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), Wikimedia technical development and give them an exposure to working on tool building for real-time use cases.

The program is designed as a structured learning pathway, where students gain hands-on experience with essential tools such as SQL, Python, Git, and version control. The students will be working on a project to develop a tool called Indic Community Insights Dashboard, a functional and interactive platform that will use Wikimedia’s public Superset instance to track key community metrics. These metrics have been carefully defined and will be visualised on the dashboard by querying data from various language project databases.

To ensure effective mentoring and guidance, weekly sync calls have been scheduled with the students, facilitated by User:KCVelaga from the Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group. These sessions provide technical training, problem-solving support, and discussions on best practices in data handling and visualisation.

This initiative marks a significant step towards engaging young developers in the Wikimedia ecosystem while strengthening the Indic tech community’s capacity to build impactful tools. By the end of the project, the students are expected to contribute meaningfully to Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem and gain valuable real-world experience in open-source software development.

This pilot marks the beginning of nurturing open-source contributors during their formal education by providing opportunities to learn and work on projects with real-world applications. It will also serve as a model for future collaborations between technical developers and educational institutions, helping to cultivate a new generation of contributors in the Indic Wikimedia technical community.

Support for Wiki Club Tech - Road to Wiki program

The Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) has actively supported the WikiClub Tech India initiative, led by IIIT-Hyderabad, by providing strategic guidance, and engagement opportunities to students who are interested in contributing to the Wikimedia’s technical ecosystem.

As part of our involvement, the A2K team participated in the inauguration of a WikiClub Tech at Alva’s Institute of Engineering & Technology (AIET), Mangalore. A Program Associate from the A2K team has introduced students to Wikipedia & its sister projects, the broader Wikimedia movement, and areas of contributions in Wikimedia’s technical spaces. The session aimed to foster awareness and interest in open-source contributions within the Wikimedia movement, inspiring students to engage with its existing projects and developing new technical projects.

CIS-A2K has also contributed to the development and refinement of the Road to Wiki Tech program, a key learning initiative under WikiClub Tech India. The Program Associate from A2K team has reviewed and recommended improvements to the curriculum, ensuring that it aligns with best practices for engaging students and volunteers who are completely new to the Wikimedia content project ecosystem and technical community. The recommendations also focused on enhancing the student/volunteer and mentor engagement process, making the program more structured and effective.

The Program Associate from A2K team had sync calls with the WikiClub Tech India Coordinator after the launch of the Road to Wiki Tech program. These discussions helped address challenges and provide ongoing support in the process.

Through these efforts, CIS-A2K has supported the WikiClub Tech India in building technical capacity among students and community engagement in Wikimedia’s ecosystem. Moving forward, A2K remains committed to supporting such initiatives that promote open knowledge.

A pilot project to train language educators on Wikipedia

In response to the integration of Wikipedia-related lessons in Indic language curricula observed in 2024, CIS-A2K has initiated efforts to support educators in effectively utilizing this resource. Recognizing the potential of Wikipedia as a learning tool, CIS-A2K is developing a structured training module tailored for language educators. This module aims to equip educators with the necessary skills to navigate, edit, and contribute to Wikipedia, ultimately fostering digital literacy and enhancing educational experiences. The Telugu Wikipedia Training Session, held on April 19–20, 2024, serves as a test case for this initiative, allowing us to assess its impact and gather insights. Based on this experience, we plan to refine and expand the approach, taking it forward in 2025 with a broader implementation strategy.

The training session, organized in collaboration with DRG Government Degree College, Tadepalligudem, focused on Telugu-language lecturers from Andhra Pradesh’s East and West Godavari districts. Participants received hands-on experience in Wikipedia editing and content creation, covering key policies such as Verifiability, Neutrality, and No Plagiarism. They also worked on improving the biographies of Telugu poets and writers, applying their learning in real-time. Additionally, an extra session introduced Telugu Unicode and blogging platforms to support digital literacy in education. With 20 lecturers in attendance, including observers from the Telugu Wikimedia community, the event provided valuable insights into the feasibility and effectiveness of educator-focused Wikipedia training. Moving forward, A2K aims to refine this model and expand similar programs across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana later to other states too in 2025.