Grants:TPS/Hindustanilanguage/Wikimania/2017/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2017!

Participant[edit]

Hindustanilanguage (Syed Muzammiluddin)

I am active on a number of Wikimedia Projects (see User:Hindustanilanguage on Meta), including Wikimedia Commons with maximum number of edits - although my main activity is now focused mainly on Hindi and Urdu Wikipedias. I am also keen on writing community blogposts and leading Wikimedian profiles for Wikimedia Foundation Blog, TranslateWiki contributions, Wikipedia Outreach and Wikipedia Education Programmes (WEPs) besides newspaper and media inputs on Wikimedia as well as collaborating with various Wikimedia communities.

Outcome[edit]

[01.] Wikipedia Education Programs (WEPs) and Wikipedia Outreach Efforts:

I met Nichole Saad, Program Manager, Wikipedia Education Programs. I discussed the following with her:

a) Proposed Wikipedia Education Program at Kathmandu University, Nepal. I am glad that one of the Nepali conference attendees Krish offered on-ground support through his contacts in rolling out the program.

b) Possibility of including Wikipedia education as part of curricula in India universities.

c) Planning Hindi Wikipedia outreach programs outside of India.

[02.] Wikimedia Foundation Blog:

As a frequent Blogger for Wikimedia Foundation Blogs, I was looking for opportunities of meeting WMF blog team members.In this connection, I discussed several aspects of Wikimedia Foundation Blogs with Victor Grigas in person and Ed Erhart online.
I also worked on a blog related to Wikimania Scholarship which is scheduled to be published on Wikimedia Foundation Blog after some time.
Wikimania provides an excellent avenue for me to interact with some of my interviewees and I was glad to meet Rich Farmbrough (English Wikipedian) and Başak Tosun (Turkish Wikipedian) - two persons on whom I had written WMF blogs sometime back.

[03.] Discussion and Proposals During Hackathon for Effective Administration of Wikimedia Projects: As a Bureaucrat and Sysop of Urdu Wikipedia, I gave the following ideas:
To the best of my knowledge, no sysop or bureaucrat is fully aware as to where to look for system messages/templates for modification. They seem to be available in four different directions:

a) on the Wiki itself

b) on Media Wiki

c) on Meta

d) on Translatewiki

I suggested a listing page, i.e. admins should know where to look for in addressing issues on hand easily.

I suggested designing a training video for effective use of admin rights. I gave the suggestion that initially this video could be in English which could be later translated into other languages.
I also suggested online sessions for admins of different Wikis. This I feel could be carried on Skype/ Google hangout and groups of admins and bureaucrats could participate in the sessions with the aim of getting deep insights and at the same time clarifying many technical doubts about available tools, templates, system messages and also other aspects such as using Phabricator.

[04.] Phabricator: I filed the following bugs during this Wikimania:

(a) I filed a bug for Display short url version of links on desktop and PDF print styles after discussion and with the help of Olga Vasileva from the WMF team.

(b) I filed a bug requesting congratulations bot for users on every 500 edits / 50 kb for Urdu Wikipedia with the help of JD Forrester from the WMF team.

(c) I filed a bug requesting autocorrection of numbers for Urdu Wikipedia based on the advice of the WMF team soon after returning from Wikimania based on the discussion that took place there.

[05.] ORES: I had a fruitful discussion with Adam Wight about the possibility of ORES for Hindi Wikipedia. Post-discussion, he left a message on my Hindi Wikipedia talk page. His message was welcomed by the admins there and has been favorably discussed on Google Hangout by the community.

[06.] Expressing Solidarity with Turkish Wikipedians: I apprised the attending Turkish Wikipedian Başak Tosun about the Hindi Wikipedia Project page I had created on which three Hindi Wikipedians wrote 23 articles related to Turkey in order to show their solidarity with Turkish Wikipedians in the wake of 2017 block of Wikipedia in that country. I personally authored 19 out of these 23 articles.

[07.] Community Collaborations:

During this Wikimania, I received my prize for participating in the Monuments of Spain Editathon 2014 where I stood # 3 across the globe. I discussed the possibility of having articles on South Asian writers/poets in all the languages of Spain with members of Wikimedia Espana. I hope the details will be worked out in the coming months.
I met Farkhad from Tatari Wikipedia. We discussed the possibility of entering into the first ever Hindi Tatari Wikipedia Collaboration, similar to my efforts for Urdu-Ukrainian Community Collaboration during Wikimania 2016.

[08.] SAARC Meetup:

I participated in the Wikimedia SAARC Meetup during this Wikimania with Indian, Bangladeshi and Nepali participants. It was decided to hold the next round of Wiki Conference India in 2018 in the Indian state of Orissa.
Possibilities of independent Wikisource projects in Hindi and Urdu were also discussed besides other issues related to other language communities in the region.

[09.] Asia Meetup:
I participated in Wikimedia Asia Meetup where a number of issues related to Asian language Wikimedia Wikimedias were discussed.

[10.] Delivery of Material under the Hardware Donation Program:
I carried a laptop given by WMF and delivered it to a Telugu Wikipedian in my city under the Wikimedia Foundation's Hardware donation program.
(relevant link: Hardware donation program/స్వరలాసిక).

[11.] Gaining more insights:

I gained more insights on a number of Wikimedia projects during the talks and presentations made during this Wikimania.

Connections[edit]

WMF Team[edit]

During this Wikimania, I was able to interact with a number of WMF team members. While it is difficult to list all the names, I am mentioning a few of them:

Jimmy Wales
Katherine Maher
Asaf Bartov
Ellie Young
Nichole Saad
J D Forrester
Olga Vasileva
Vahid Masroor
Amir Aharoni
Rachel Farrand
Morgan Jue

Interaction with other participants[edit]

During this Wikimania, I was able to interact with a number of other participants. While it is difficult to list all the names, I am mentioning a few of them: