Talk:CIS-A2K/Work plan April 2013 - June 2014/Pilot Project – Performing Arts in India

Timeline and focus

The proposed timeline is too long IMO. It is better to do couple of pilots for 3-6 months time frame to assess the potential. There appears to be too much focus on increasing editors. In any pilot, the readers who will turn out to be editors will be a small fraction and even those numbers will not be sustainable, unless the readerbase increases on a sustainable basis through institutionalisation of creating awareness through Education partnerships and active community events.--Arjunaraoc (talk) 03:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Arjuna's feedback was discussed further in this IRC. --Visdaviva (talk) 17:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree that doing a one-year project in such a big way is a bit out of the norm of the agile approach that has been evolved and time-tested on all the Wikipedia projects. I am quite sure the numerous collaborators listed on this project can pick a couple of common themes and begin working on them straight away with a two month timeline and check for themselves if they can continue. A quick fail would be better if things do not go the way they are planned. Shyamal (talk) 05:37, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Shyamal and Arjuna. One year is too long. Interested people may leave, they may get bored, or have other commitments. ----Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:30, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Agree with all of you. We are trying to do short term partnerships or run short term programs to strengthen the Konkani community. We're looking at partnering with some institutes like Konkani Department at Goa University, Directorate of Official Language - Government of Goa, Nirmala Institute of Education etc. and we're looking at no more than 2-3 months long programs. However for this particular pilot, Performing Arts and Wikipedia, is something that is still under discussion and will be decided when new Program Officer comes on board and takes charge of this pilot. Nitika.t (talk) 10:44, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Arjunaraoc, Shyamal and Rsrikanth05.. would it be useful to work with a milestone (no. of articles) than the time frame of one year? What is an ideal time? Is there any past experience that we can bank on done by WMI or any community within India? Appreciate relevant links. --Visdaviva (talk) 08:20, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that what we need here is a clarity of vision. My impression as a community member purely from what is available on wiki is that the A2K organization are engaging with "expert editors" to develop "articles" that are chosen by the "expert editors". Personally I would rather see these "experts" uploading all the material they have to the Internet Archive and leaving these sources for future editors to make use of than actually have to spend time on editing-which option would also really bring into focus what the A2K funding is actually used for-"buying" time from experts? "buying" resources that experts have? or "freeing" locked up resources? Will the efforts have impact beyond the life of the A2K project? Clarity on principles would make it easier to see how the structures and actions could fit in. Shyamal (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi, you cannot set No. of Articles, or size of articles as a milestone. Articles vary by quality, by content, because of the information available about them, and the interest of editors editing them. You can't achieve any deliverables if you take quantity as a target. At the Chapter, we don't look at Quantity as a deliverable, we try and take User feedback from workshops attended. ----Rsrikanth05 (talk) 06:06, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

So sorry about coming late into this but had been on a wiki break of sorts. So, here are my points in brief.

1. I agree with what the others have said in terms of the timeline being too long. Wikipedians have been used to a maximum of one year long off-line projects (Wikimania). It might make sense to tone down the timeline in line with this idea. But, from the other side, I understand that talking to and educating these organisations on the free knowledge thing can take the kind of time mentioned here.
2. Perhaps the A2K can work on several pilots at once within a short span and get the institutions in section-by-section. For example, talk to one institution on one performing art which might really get what Wikipedia is about and engage with this wing first.
3. The focus of selecting the organisations could be devolved to the Wikipedians in the locality/language.

Prad2609 (talk) 17:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Prad2609 +1 for point 1 and 2. Do not understand though why you suggest that "selecting the organisations be devolved to the Wikipedians in the locality/language"? I think this is where A2K could complement the Community members by bringing in the institutions on board, which requires a lot of effort. This is not to mean that A2K will not take Community members into cognizance. In fact this is explicitly stated as a requirement by many Wikipedians across languages. Would like to go with my experience of acitvely interacting with Indian Language Wikimedia Communities for now, but I am open to be corrected and proven wrong on this. Thanks! Great that you have come back from Wiki-break :) --Visdaviva (talk) 06:36, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

What I mean is that the A2K need visit institutions where Wikipedians have expressed their interest in working. I do not see the point of going and talking to institutions where Wikipedians do not find interesting. Prad2609 (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Rationale for choosing performing arts as a pilot target for the A2K project

(sorry, hard to follow the organization of these pages - copy of this) I ran through the links but do not see a debate or rationale for the choice of performing arts as an area to work with in the A2K project. While it is certainly an interesting area, it would seem like something that has low impact. Would really have thought something related to geography, agriculture, health or other aspects of day to day application would be an area of work where local language Wikipedias could show their real value. I am quite sure that there must have been a debate among highly-qualified folks, but would be nice to know. Shyamal (talk) 14:05, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Hello Shyamal. Thanks for asking a useful question. Gives us a chance to explain the thinking within the A2K team. Firstly, it is important to note that this is only one of the Pilots that we intend to take up through this year. So we are definitely open to considering some of the aspects that you have mentioned. For instance, we are exploring the possibility of taking up a bio-diversity and Western Ghats as topics. Hopefully, with the new Programme Officer (Pilot projects) on board there could be more momentum, as the rest of the team currently has its hands full. Some of the factors that made us select Performing Arts are: a) Areas like Geography, Health and Agriculture are relatively better covered than Performing Arts. This is a sense that we got during the interaction with various community members in Indian languages and the five language Wikipedias that we looked at; b) Some of the Indian language Wikimedia communities have already taken up pilots on these aspects. For instance, Odia and Telugu communities have a Village/District project. In fact these are also part of our plan. See this for instance; c) There also seems to be a demand for content on Performing Arts among journalists, researchers and students; and d)this was dovetailing into some of the institutional partnerships that we proposed to work with. Not sure if you see these as compelling reasons. Would love to have you engage with us in developing a Bio-diversity pilot. --Visdaviva (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, however I really wanted to see the original transcripts of the debate. An important thing on Wikipedia has been process rather than outcome and it would be good to see the process by which these decisions are taken. Ideally it should be on-wiki, but given that many people in India fear transparency, it would be great if the numerous collaborators listed on the report have the points they made listed next to them. It would really be nice to see the essential Wikipedia processes here before specific outcomes are sought. To start with, debates and decision making on-wiki. Shyamal (talk) 02:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

There are other points out here as well that could be clarified on the project page:

• • One gets the impression that the project collaborators are going to be creating a primary reference here which probably needs to be clarified.
  • Assuming that it will follow policy and not be a primary reference, what secondary/tertiary sources would the people involved in the performing arts use?
    • If these can be listed, it would make for more sustainable usage to make those sources accessible (via digital libraries etc.) - so that "anyone" else can actually edit in this area and quote the high quality sources.

Look forward to more on-wiki discussions. Shyamal (talk) 02:16, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

You are right Shyamal. We did not have a debate or On-Wiki discussion to arrive at a topic for the Pilot. It was an internal discussion within the CIS-A2K team and we hoped that there will be a discussion on this when announced on Meta; on the mailing lists and on IRC. Except for Arjuna and now you, we have not had much engagement on the proposed Pilot. We could still open this up for discussion and invite community feedback on the possible topics for pilots. Probably by end of August. We could host a dedicated IRC for this. What do you think?

• In general, could not agree anymore about the importance of the open process and transparency in our work. I think, we had an open and transparent process in developing the Indian Language Wikipedia plans and all of this is done on-wiki. Also we have been otherwise transparent and accountable (if not, at least sincerely and seriously attempting) about our work to the community; like, openly disclosing our travel plans on respective regional mailing lists, putting up blogs on almost every activity we do, A2K Newsletter circulation, grant budget disclosure, etc. But I do strongly believe that transparency and accountability are an ongoing processes and how ever much we do, there is still a lot to improve. Any further specific feedback on our efforts so far and in future vis-a-vis transparency and community accountability will be appreciated. Happy that you are closely engaging with CISA2K work.

I do not mean to question the integrity of the operations of this project, just that it would be good if the cultural practices of Wikipedia communication and debate are followed and secondarily complemented by email or IRC channels. Each has its role and although IRC is more spontaneous, on-wiki discussion tend to be more thoughtful, cumulative (based on earlier comments) and unlike email, tends to be more easy (when properly indented) to follow as it is in one place. Importantly it would be nice to have the specific contributions (at least paraphrased) of the people on this list. If their contributions are not listed, it can look like of an unethical practice (at least in scholarship - e.g.). Further, it would be good to see the entire team participate on-wiki (as if they were community - rather than have us-vs-them in-out groups). If only one project member responds here, it gives the impression that there is no shared vision and that the project is working in a traditional hierarchical mode. It would be particularly nice to see a team with diversity and a strong sense of direction expressed here even if it the multiple voices are dissonant (at least I would see that as positive!). Shyamal (talk) 05:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Very useful suggestion in terms of listing down specific contributions. Completely in agreement.

Diversity in the team is very important and I strongly believe in that and advocating it. Not to say that the hierarchies do no exist. But definitely not for an engagement like this one. I am hoping that the other A2K team members might also participate in these or such discussions. Let's see.--Visdaviva (talk) 06:48, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• Re. primary reference...We are extremely clear that we will be using secondary/tertiary sources, which is also why we have mentioned conducting a "baseline survey through the anchor institutions on the existing material available on performing arts in their respective languages", etc.
  • Re. what secondary sources are available... I think this is already addressed, Shyamal. Could I urge you to re-read the Execution details? Let me know if we need to elaborate it further. Similarly, listing of the existing resources, has already been proposed. Please let me know if this is not coming across sharply. Thanks. --Visdaviva (talk) 20:29, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I can restate it having re-read the statements namely: "have ready-made content/archival material pertaining to performing arts and Aggregate available material in respective languages." - this needs expansion and clarity, if it is privately prepared manuscripts, it would not meet en:WP:RS - at least on the English language WP, not sure about whether such policies are in place in Indic languages. If they are not peer-reviewed works or traditionally published texts, does this mean other forms of media? Shyamal (talk) 05:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Definitely not private manuscripts. As I understand archival material would be photographs, lithographs, chromo-lithographs, posters, pamphlets, audio and video recordings which would go on Commons. Aggregation would be of published material like books, conference proceedings, journals, anthologies, books or booklets of encyclopedic nature, news paper features and exhibition booklets in English and regional languages. --Visdaviva (talk) 06:58, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Are these going to be digitally archived? Freely licensed? Where? Do clarify on the project page. Shyamal (talk) 04:47, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Talking about the section under rationale. The rationale seems to suggest that there is content already easily available. Could this not then be easily accessed by Wikipedians. What value add is the A2K team to provide to the same? Can you not let the Wikipedians do the bulk of the heavy lifting on this? Your time/effort might be better spent on trying to access sources which are difficult for Wikipedians to get at and might need a more professional approach or more weight of the movement to get behind them to open certain doors. Just a perception. Prad2609 (talk) 17:36, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Deliverables should be Wiki-based

Hi,

• As a first step to serious engagement & execution of the Pilot project, the Wikipedia community should engage in discussion on Wiki and decide what is desirable, reduce to what is achievable and identify the Pilot's needed deliverables in the general subject i.e. performing arts in India.
• The deliverables should be clearly defined Wikipedia articles, lists, images, videos, soundclips, improvements, FAs, GAS, portals, Wiki-books, Wiki-source etc.
• The deliverables should span multi-languages (may restrict to a few to be practical) and must involve Commons and WikiSource, at the very least.
• There would be paths to achieve these deliverables, each of which is a milestone. There should be parallel processes.
• As is usually the case with WMF driven initiatives, Wikipedia editors do not seem to be integrated into the process. Involving knowledgeable editors are the best, easiest, most suitable and most economical way to achieve and maintain Wikipedia principles, pillars, MoS and avoid copyright, RS, copyvio pitfalls and other issues which invariably crop up.
• My personal choice would be a two way process pattern simultaneously:-
  • Develop Indic language deliverables directly and have a fact/image/reference transfer process to English Wikipedia.
  • Develop En deliverables and have a fact/image/reference transfer process to Indic language Wikipedia.

AshLin (talk) 06:30, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks AshLin for the useful detailing of the execution strategy. But not sure if one should start with these as first steps, especially when one is trying to involve institutional partners and bringing on board people who are interested in the subject area and are currently not Wikipedians. I feel it is important to first build a base, while one could engage with the Community parallely. Probably it could also differ based on the pilot area.

Useful if you could list out more specific steps on "involving knowledgeable editors". Am all game to change the way the WMF driven initiatives are done :) Let's please make it community driven. Change in attitude from the Community members end will also be an important precursor to truly achieve this. I believe this should be a two way process. Otherwise it will look too artificial or could become an exercise of manufacturing consent, every time. But I understand that, given the historical baggage, this has to be a slow process and cannot be achieved in a specific time period. I believe in the last 3-4 months time this process seems to be relatively faster with some Indian Language communities, with which we are actively engaging. Of course a lot more needs to be done.

The two way process.. I couldn't have put it better myself. This is what I also had in mind, with one more additional step though. That is to have one Indian Language to another Indian Language transfer directly than mediating it through English WP

--Visdaviva (talk) 07:31, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Vishnu. I would like to expound further on my comments. At the outset, it is my sincere belief that a big part of the "problem" is nothing but discussing and defining things in term of "me/you" as this dialog is creeping into. I will henceforth avoid using this especially in accusatory mode. I, for one, accept in good faith, that the A2K project aims to achieve what it is being funded to do - increase access to knowledge, with specific reference to Wikimedia Foundation run platforms. Just as the Community expects you will embrace them as true partners in whatever you do. I agree that transparency has definitely improved since the India Program days. However, integrated involvement of the Community needs to be achieved in planning, discussion and decision-making all of which needs to be done on wiki, as Shyamal mentioned above. That is the "desired level of transparency". It may involve hassle, delay & much effort in deliberation but will give the A2K venture something intangible which every outreach activity or real-life Wikipedia needs, and very few have had, - trust of the community. Nuff'said. Lets go into the main topic of this thread - Deliverables.

• Since the A2K project is intended to increase access to knowledge and funding is WMF, which implies the knowledge platforms involved are WMF projects, I think you will agree that the nature of the deliverables should be as I had stated.
• The final form of the deliverables will be in two sets - Part A (those we need to so as to achieve the Pilot Project aim - in this case, to increase the knowledge of performing arts in India, basically Wikipedia deliverables); and, Part B - those needed to meet the interest of other stakeholders - principally the institutions we are talking about.
• The first step for any successful mission/task is to identify the aim - WE should discuss the aim in general, explore the facets and then identify the specifics. This forms a draft set of deliverables which get refined as time passes. This is what I referred to as the Part A.
• Based on the general and specific aim, we then contact and involve institutional partners who are relevant to the aims of the project. Doing otherwise, means we have no idea what we exactly want/need from them.
• As far as the institutional stakeholders are concerned, involving them in the Pilot Project will also require that we meet their interest as stakeholders. For example, some of deliverables may be well be Wikipedia deliverables, such as, help with developing a Wikipedia article on the institution, or articles on the key issues they are interested,but which may not figure in Part A deliverables. There will also be other deliverables of other types which they would desire, such as, say, lectures to institutional staff on Wikipedia issues, press releases, joint outreach activities, joint research in topics, creating some primary materials - mainly in the form of media, etc, final reports of collaboration etc, etc. These would be mutually decided as we interact with the institutional stakeholders. Part B deliverables kept getting added/removed/modified as we go ahead and interact with them. By the time we have reached a charter of cooperation with each stakeholder, our Part B deliverables should have largely been finalised.
• With draft set of Part A & B deliverables we then go ahead with planning the execution. The execution will need to involve not only outreach with the institutional stakeholders but all editors, city or language communities, and the community as a whole. Much thought needs to put into this. But that is another thread. Here, I discuss only deliverables, how to formulate, what nature, what shape they take & related issues.
• As regards the third track you mentioned, indic to indic language WP, it would definitely exist and in a particular case or so may be substantive, but it would require bilingual editors who cross-edit both language Wikipedias. However, perhaps this may be a much smaller part of the process and one which we could not institutionally drive or depend upon as most of us as are bilingual in En and mother-tongue WP only. Truly multi-lingual editors, should we find them, would be rare and precious commodity and I see little more we could do than encourage them. But definitely, this third track will need to be added to the list of two, I initially mentioned above.
• AshLin (talk) 13:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• "However, integrated involvement of the Community needs to be achieved in planning, discussion and decision-making all of which needs to be done on wiki, as Shyamal mentioned above..." Just to reiterate that all the planning, discussion and decision making for the A2K work plans has been done in a participatory manner including on wiki, f2f discussions, IRC and mailing list disclosures. It is also important to note that a multi pronged approach was adopted to reach out to as many community members as possible in developing the plans. As pointed out by Shyamal, except for deciding on the topic of "Performing Arts", which still could be discussed and changed. Also it should be noted that A2K will be revisiting the work-plans every quarter. Useful to read this. --Visdaviva (talk) 08:38, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
• The feedback on the deliverables is very methodically laid out Ashwin. Brings a lot of clarity to the steps. Only worry would be whether we could proceed so sequentially, as we are dealing with multiple institutions, multiple languages and multiple communities. But it is definitely good to begin with this clarity. --Visdaviva (talk) 15:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Nature of Community Involvement

• Involving knowledgeable users would mean informing the community at large, taking their feedback right fro the grassroots level to advanced levels and ensuring their participation in every step, as explained by both Shyamal and AshLin, the process of discussion should be made on-wiki and should involve long-term users. ----Rsrikanth05 (talk) 10:44, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with you. But they don't communicate/respond on-wiki properly. That means we need to disinvolve A2K employees, i don't consider them all long-term users based on their experience level and inability to deal with various issues. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 10:45, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Ansuman! I know how you feel but I think we should give this project a fair chance even if none of its members have had any prior involvement with any of the Wikimedia projects. If "they" are not part of the community "we" should be welcoming them. I think the team really needs to be part of the community and engage with the community and we need to guide and goad the team even if it does not involve remuneration which is seen to set apart the project team from other community members. Shyamal (talk) 16:41, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, i understand. But the question is, are they willing to involve the community. I don't think so, they are just pretending. I had a long discussion with Vishnu on on-wiki participation and transparency. So I know, they are not ready for this, they don't want any transparency. Because it's easy for them, less work. And I know they could say the same, so there is no point discussing. And the greatest excuse of all is this, i don't know who wrote this but please have a look , India Access To Knowledge/Programme Plan#Approach to measuring results and evaluation and India Access To Knowledge/Work plan April 2013 - June 2014#Risk and mitigation. Quoting one of the sentences from many "This kind of work has failure fore-written". They are doing just experiments. So I guess it's okay if we don't see any outcome. WMF has handed over the project to CIS, and who is evaluating A2K's work? The team itself!? I think there is no one, to watch and take actions? And AFAIK, many users don't support A2K for various reasons. To name a few, their mistakes at wiki-editing, so many errors in the numbers/figures (which shows how much they care), attitude, many complaints yet no action. I think we are loosing users because of this farce. Do we realize that many users are silent, not participating well in the community discussions. PS:"They" here could be one, two or all members of the A2K team. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 09:20, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

"I had a long discussion with Vishnu on on-wiki participation and transparency. So I know, they are not ready for this, they don't want any transparency." - Not sure from where you get this impression. I clearly stated including on this page various measures initiated so far in being transparent with A2K's work. However, there is and will be a definite scope for improvement. It would be constructive if you list out specific measures that A2K could adopt.

"This kind of work has failure fore-written" - Thanks for pointing this out. Have revised it. Please check.

"They are doing just experiments. So I guess it's okay if we don't see any outcome." - The nature of the work of developing Indian Language Wikipedias and associated 'open knowledge digital volunteer communities' is clearly experimental. AFAIK there is no foolproof model. It's important to recognize this. Re. not having outcomes...What makes you think so? Projected Goals/outcomes, some even have activity-wise break-ups, are already listed out for every part of the plan. So reasonably positive that we will meet most of the listed outcomes.

"who is evaluating A2K's work? The team itself!? I think there is no one, to watch and take actions?" - Among other mechanisms a quarterly review of performance against plans had also been proposed. See this. I think I have suggested (in our e-mail discussions) if you could be part of Community Advisory Team for Odia Work Plan, but you refrained. You can still consider being part of it.

"many users don't support A2K for various reasons. To name a few, their mistakes at wiki-editing, so many errors in the numbers/figures (which shows how much they care), attitude, many complaints yet no action." Thanks for listing out the mistakes. We will definitely try and improve on all these aspects. It will be useful if you point to complaints made in the last 4 months, so that necessary action can be taken after appropriate evaluation.

"I think we are loosing users because of this farce." -- Useful if you could please substantiate this with data or examples.

--Visdaviva (talk) 03:31, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

It seems like we need to examine the MoU between CIS-A2K and WMF to see if we have the right even to seek transparency or open-debate. If it a case of funding to a private NGO project, perhaps we do not have a right to seek engagement or a voice in all this. I have posted elsewhere to request the actual conditions under which the project is being funded. Shyamal (talk) 03:14, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I have responded about the CISA2K transparency here --Visdaviva (talk) 00:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks Shyamal, i didn't know this. I am extremely sorry if i violated any rights here. Just want to respond to Vishnu, then I'm done. There is no point discussing about this uncertain Project. Probably it's best for everyone if we (i) leave it alone irrespective of what chaos it is gonna make! Reply to Vishnu: From you i got the impression and I am sorry i can't help you. Are you sure the rest of contents in the work plans are good? Because I had gone through only that section, and you had to rephrase it! Good luck with your experiments. Make proper plans, no matter how much time it takes. About evaluation, so now i'm sure officially there is no one, to watch the progress and what the team is doing?, no wonder. You only consider matters which are happened in the last 4 months! I was talking about A2K for Wikimedia, which is there since inception. Should we forget there was no A2K before you? Finally i don't want to violate any privacy. If you have so much doubt that you need example/data for everything then don't expect us to believe in your work, ability. Sorry Vishnu for not helping with your project and causing distress. At least i don't have ego problems accepting mistakes unlike you. Thanks for your time. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 15:47, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks Srikanth "should involve long-term users" pray explain more-who and how. Specific points will be useful. "informing the community at large" & "ensuring their participation in every step" - did we not do it? Please tell us how we could improve in addition to what we have done/doing. --Visdaviva (talk) 08:57, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I would think that engaging with the community automatically means communicating on-wiki with participants active now and those who might join later - so it is more useful not to have design as if there were specific people who need to be heeded to. In other words, there should be no specific need to identify "long-term users" - if one used on-wiki communication, there will be an automatic response from the ones who care, either now or later. Shyamal (talk) 16:16, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Disagree with the comment that CISA2K has not communicated on-wiki or engaged with the community well enough vis-a-vis work plan development. To be noted: initial drafts of the plans (including the Pilot project) were published on Meta for discussion some months ago; announcements were made on all India Wikimedia mailing lists asking for feedback (with links pointing to Meta); drafts were shared with WMI Chapter EC seeking feedback; announcements were made on FB and twitter asking feedback; announcement was made on Wikimedia Forum; an IRC was organized to get feedback; A2K monthly newsletter carried information about draft work-plans; and reached out to some individual WMI community members requesting feedback. Further, the current discussion is continuing on-wiki. --Visdaviva (talk) 18:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

'New Section'! what, we don't make any sense! I understand it's hard for you to agree as you lead the team. A2K, having the less amount of support should reach to users through talk pages individually. Shyamal, Good thought. Lets see how the team works on it, and how much time they need to complete this task. Or whether the team is willing to apply our suggestions at all? We will see how many users come forward and support this team? And I think the team need to exercise their hands at wiki-editing, and it seems a good task to start with. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 07:27, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I have made the point above that the additional interaction, transparency of Vishnu & A2K team is good to have but not sufficient. What we need is integration in decision-making/process with community. One realises that this is not required to be universal but should definitely be there in the core knowledge activities. More importantly, integration with community needs to begin right away. I feel the Performing Arts pilot is a good place to start, even though its beginning and activities have been otherwise. AshLin (talk) 15:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC).

Very useful point. Completely agree with starting this discussion. Shall we start a discussion on what kind of Pilots that CISA2K and the community could take up? Let's even let go of the 'Performing Arts' as a topic if that is a bone of contention.

"What we need is integration in decision-making/process with community." I have outlined on this page the process CISA2K followed in integrating the community in the decision-making vis-a-vis developing the work-plans for 2013-14. Could you Shyamal, AshLin, Rsrikanth05 and ɑηsuмaη please specifically state or list what else we should have done or do and what we should not have done? This is important for CISA2K so that these could be done in future. Appreciate your feedback. --Visdaviva (talk) 07:18, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Long term users don't need to be identified. They will find you if you make an announcement. For EG: On the English Wikipedia, we used to have the India project newsletter, which we can reboot to carry info about such projects. Woefully, not many people ON the wiki are aware. Not many Wikipedians are on the mailing list, and the converse also applies. ----Rsrikanth05 (talk) 14:25, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

• The above discussion about the "Nature of Community Involvement" is a broad discussion about the CISA2K work and would probably makes better sense if this entire section is moved here. Also this could bring others into the discussion on this critical aspect. --Visdaviva (talk) 11:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Draft Aim for Pilot Project – Performing Arts in India

Here is a draft aim :

To increase the knowledge about performing arts in India by :

• creating a framework of articles on performing arts in India in multiple Indic languages (includes English).
• substantially increasing the knowledge of Performing Arts in India on Wikipedia so that all major art forms, genres, artists, events, artistic works are covered.
• interacting with prominent artists and GLAM institutions concerned with performing arts with a view to bringing new information and media into the WMF knowledge projects.

AshLin (talk) 06:00, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Great! You deserve a gift of a book purchase coupon for that crisp and clear set of actionable suggestions. Alas I have no say in the A2K project! Shyamal (talk) 06:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

List of Topics suitable for development as articles on WPs under aegis of Pilot Project – Performing Arts in India

One way we can start earmarking a very few articles for development is by seeing what is on Wiki & identifying gaps & what it should be like. This link is pertinent :-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Performing_arts_in_India

AshLin (talk) 06:33, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

For those who don't know, Performing arts include dance, music, opera, theatre, magic, spoken word, circus arts, recitation and musical theatre. From Performing arts. AshLin (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Key articles on English Wikipedia appear to be :-

• Performing arts in India (red link)
• Dance in India
• Theatre of India
• Music of India
• Indian musical instruments

AshLin (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a lot Ashwin for initiating this section. This was very much needed to prioritising the tasks to be taken up. Collaborative editing has worked well in some of the cases and we could start with it. Many of the less known and notable articles take birth because of the intervention of some kind of strategic project (e.g. Theyam from Kerala because of the Oral citation project). From a long list Wikipedians from various language Wikipedia communities could shortlist the articles they'd like to write in their language Wikipedia (that others might not write in their Wikipedias) and there would be some common articles which everyone would be editing in their Wikipedias. Ashwin, could I request you to list the challenges we might face for interlanguage community collaboration and technicalities we'd need (e.g. Tag and assess, bots, etc.)? --Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 05:06, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Work continues here AshLin (talk) 12:22, 15 August 2013 (UTC)