CIS-A2K//Work plan July 2014 - June 2015/General Support and Service to the Movement

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Introduction[edit]

CIS-A2K deeply believes in extending support and service to the Wikimedia volunteer community in India. This has been one of the important aspects of our work. We have honoured up to 100 requests of all sizes that we received from the Wikimedia volunteer communities across all Indic languages. Most of these requests are listed here and here. CIS-A2K also receives requests over e-mail and some community members do reach out to us over mobile phones to place requests. In general the quick response time of CIS-A2K to these requests has been appreciated by many of the community members. We would like to continue with our efforts in supporting and serving the Wikimedia community in India and maintain the quick response time. CIS-A2K has actively consulted with the Wikimedia India Chapter (WMIN) before supporting most of the community requests, especially when it involved allocating funds for large community events like Tamil Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebrations. We also ensure that supporting community events is done in a transparent manner. However, we would need to review our methods and further streamline systems of support, which will be worked up on during this year. Based on support and service that we extended to the community so far, we have categorized them under two broad heads, which are Community and Technical.

Community Support and Service[edit]

Work done so far[edit]

Since the inception of the grant we have supported the following types of community requests.

  1. Designed and produced swag for various Wikimedia volunteer driven outreach and community events.
  2. Supported volunteers' travel and stay expenses in conducting Wikimedia outreach programs.
  3. Supported volunteers' travel and stay expenses to participate in Wikimedia community events.
  4. Supported volunteer led Women's History Month 2013 and Women's History Month 2014
  5. Supported volunteers in designing and running competitions on Indic Wikimedia projects.
  6. Supported volunteer groups across India in celebrating the Wikipedia 13th Anniversary.
  7. Offered CIS's office space for various Wikimedia events held in Bangalore and Delhi.
  8. Supported the following Indic Wikimedia communities in organizing their respective language Wikipedia 10th and 11th anniversaries.
Indic Wikimedia Community Type of Support
Tamil
  1. Contingency funding of INR. 185,000/-
  2. Swag and other support.
  3. CIS-A2K Program Director took part in the event.
Malayalam
  1. Part funding of the Wiki Sangamotsavam of INR
  2. Swag and other support.
  3. CIS-A2K Program Director and a Program Officer took part in the event.
  4. In collaboration with ML Wikimedia Netha Hussain wrote a blog about the event
Kannada
  1. Significant funding to the Kannada Wiki 10 event.
  2. Actively helped with the event planning and organization.
  3. Organized media publicity.
Telugu
  1. Significant funding to the Telugu Wiki 10 event.
  2. Routed the money from the WMF-GAC to the Telugu Wikimedia community.
  3. Actively helped with the planning and organization of the event.
  4. Organized print and electronic media publicity.
  5. Helped in getting significant discounts
  6. CIS-A2K Program Director and a Consultant took part in the event.
Odia
  1. Entirely funded the Odia Wiki 10 anniversary celebrations.
  2. Actively helped with the event planning and organization.
  3. Organized media publicity.
  4. CIS-A2K Program Officer took part in the event.

Plans for July 2014-June 2015[edit]

  1. During CIS-A2K's recent meeting with the WMIN Executive Committee (EC) and the visiting WMF team, while appreciating our quick response time to requests placed by community, suggested more active consultation with the WMIN EC. CIS-A2K will work with WMIN EC to review the current process and put in place a rigorous protocol of consultation with the WMIN in extending community support (especially when it involves giving funds).
  2. Based on the protocol agreed upon by the WMIN, CIS-A2K will in consultation with WMIN continue to support and serve the Wikimedia communities in India.

Technical Support and Service[edit]

Work Done so Far[edit]

  1. Facilitated Echo system message translations in various Indic languages.
  2. Liaison with WMF Engineer Team for Echo roll out on Indic Wikimedia projects.
  3. Beta testing of Visual Editor (VE) on Indic Wikipedias and shared feedback with the WMF Engineer Team. During our feedback to the WMF Engineering liaison we shared how there is no handshake between VE and ULS.
  4. Helped the community to file the bugs and resolved some technical issues.
  5. Continuous support to various Indic communities in troubleshooting various technical issues they faced. For example when ULS was removed as a default option, many of the Indic community were at a loss and confusion. CIS-A2K took swift measures to reach out to many volunteers who were facing problems.
  6. Gave timely information to the volunteers about the new technical developments and helpful tools.
  7. Facilitated inter Indic language interactions among volunteers on technical matters.

Plans for July 2014-June 2015[edit]

Technical Support and Service[edit]

  • Help community to check and resolve technical issues concerning Indic input
  • Help community to check and resolve technical issues concerning font rendering in Wikipedia sites
  • Will take active lead in Beta testing of VE on Indic Wikimedia projects whenever it is ready. Specifically we will check if there is smooth handshake between VE and ULS across all the Indic languages. CIS-A2K will proactively reach out to the Indic communities in testing the VE and channelising the feedback to the WMF Engineering team.

Technical Liaison WMF Engineering Team[edit]

  • Help WMF Engineering Team in understanding requirements and needs of Indic Wikipedia communities.
  • Help WMF Engineering Team in getting feedback and opinion about various new features and tools being implemented on Indic wikimedia projects.
  • Regular participation in WMF Language Engineering Team and Multimedia Team office hours.

Technical Liaison Indic Communities[edit]

  • Help Indic community members’ voices reach to WMF Engineering Team.
  • Strengthen Indic Community members by creating awareness about various policies pertaining to WMF Engineering Team.

Technical Leadership[edit]

  • Train selected Wikimedians on Mediawiki. Nurturing Mediawiki and Tech Talent in Indic Communities, another Community Strengthening Initiative from CIS-A2K would help in realising this.
  • Encourage Wikimedians to participate in Technical discussions over Meta.
  • Create a technical peer network across Indic language Wikimedians.

Technical Documentation[edit]

  • Create sufficient technical documentation on topics like Advanced Wikipedia Editing (involving advanced topics in editing like templates, tables, style sheets, images, media, infoboxes, etc)
  • Create Wikipedia cheat-sheets in 5 Indic languages
  • Create “How to file a bug - wikimedia way” in 5 Indic languages
  • Create Indic input (typing tutor) guide in all Indic languages)

The above would be taken up under Creating Movement Resources project to be implemented by CIS-A2K in continuous consultation with Wikimedia India Community.

Budget & Resources[edit]

Expenditure Item FDC Support (INR) FDC Support (US$) Other Sources and in kind support (INR) Other Sources and in kind support (US$)
1 PD x 10% * 144,000/- 2,330.04 81,600/- 1,320.35
1 PM x 5% ** 48,000/- 776.68 - -
2 PO x 10% *** 153,120/- 2,477.61 - -
Consultant/Resource Persons - - - -
Design/Documentation/Research - - - -
Consumables/Printing/Stationery/Swag - - - -
Miscellaneous - - - -
Total 345,120/- 5,584.32 81,600 1,320.35

Notes:
* 10% of T. Vishnu Vardhan as Program Director, who will anchor these initiatives at CIS-A2K.
** 5% time of a Program Manager at CIS-A2K.
*** 10% time of two Program Officers at CIS-A2K to assist in execution of activities and community liaison.