User:Tito (CIS-A2K)/12SV

Supporting Indian Wikimedia communities through CIS-A2K request page[edit]

What? CIS-A2K maintains a request page to support Indian Wikimedia communities and Wikimedians to conduct Wiki-events. This includes both financial and non-financial support.
Why? Wikimedians regularly approach CIS-A2K to support their Wiki-activities, events etc and we also feel that CIS-A2K should provide such support. This is important to handle these requests in a systematic way. This request page is the place to inform CIS-A2K about ideas/plans and request support.
When? The request page support system is a continuous process. In this report, we'll talk about the support we provided in the last 6 months.
Where? Online, at Talk:CIS-A2K/Requests
How? Any community member can post a request to support a Wiki-activity. The support may be in the idea-level, or to support financially to conduct an event. Between 1 July and 30 December 2018 we received 28 financial requests from 8 Indian Wikimedia communities, we also received 1 non-financial request and 3 technical requests. The following pie chart shows the distribution of requests we got from each community.

In the section below we are going to highlight 2 requests and going to explain in details:

Wiki Loves Monument India 2019: Wiki Loves Monument in India, 2019 was conducted by West Bengal Wikimedians and Punjabi Wikimedians. On 20 July 2018, we got a request to support the activity. The request was to distribute gift card for the top ten contributors to the event. Initially, we had 2 observations:
- The event information was not sent to Wikimediaindia-l, and we suggested to notify the mailing list about this national event,
- We asked to slightly revise the proposed prize amounts. After both these things were taken care of by the community, we supported the event. After the completion of the event, they collected details of the prize winners and we sent the requested gift vouchers to them.
Tulu Wikipedia 2nd anniversary meetup: Tulu is a south Indian language. In August 2018 Tulu Wikipedia completed its second anniversary. On 9 August we were informed by the Karavali Wikimedians that they wanted to organise a meetup and workshop on this occasion. Although we request to inform us about a plan at least 2-3 weeks prior to an event, they informed that this was a "last-minute plan". They requested financial support for this event. The community discussion took place on Tulu Wikipedia village pump before the request page posted on our page. After a team discussion, we felt that this was an interesting event, and we supported this event. This was not possible to advance the amount to them in 2 days. The amount was reimbursed to them post-event.

2 zonal copyright workshops in Delhi and Bangalore[edit]

What? CIS-A2K conducted 2 zonal workshops on copyright and free licenses.
Why?Copyright is an important topic for projects like Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource. All Wikimedia projects' content is released under the free license (free license also comes under the topic "copyright"). We conducted the first copyright workshop in Delhi for Punjabi Wikimedians and the second zonal workshop in Bangalore for Wikimedians in South India (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana states)
When and where? The first zonal workshop took place on 1-2 September 2018 in Delhi, India. The second workshop took place on 20–21 October 2018 in Bangalore, India.
How? In July 2018, we received a request from Punjabi Wikimedians to conduct a workshop for them on copyright and the free licenses. They informed us that many of the Punjabi Wikimedians were actively working on Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons, and such a workshop could be helpful for them. We agreed to serve them by conducting this workshop. After getting this request it took us almost 2 months to conduct this workshop, as we were looking for an expert copyright trainer for this workshop. In early August, we contacted French Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons admin User:Yann and requested him to be a trainer for this workshop and accepted the requested. We conducted this workshop in Delhi, India on 1-2 September 2018. 7 Punjabi Wikimedians participated in this workshop. 2 of the participants were female.

After this Delhi workshop, we conducted a similar workshop in Bangalore. Bangalore, Karnataka for Wikimedians in South India (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana states). 17 Wikimedians from 6 language communities participated in this workshop. 4 of them were female participants.

In both of these workshops User:Yann was the primary trainer. In the Delhi workshop User:Jayanta (CIS-A2K) talked about Wikisource-related topics. The agenda of both of the workshops were more or less similar and we discussed topics like copyright, different free licenses Indian copyright act 1957 and amendments, URAA-restored copyrights, Government Open Data License, the license of books, magazines, stamp, government documents, 2D and 3D public and private sculpture etc.

Learnings

We waited for almost 2 months before we could find an expert trainer for this workshop. However, this worked really well. Involving experts as trainers improve quality of workshop a lot.

Advanced Wikidata Training 2018[edit]

What? CIS-A2K conducted a Wikidata Training in December 2018. We named it "Advanced Wikdiata Training" because some advanced Wikidata topics such as Lexeme, OpenRefine were taught during this workshop.
Why?In 2016–2017, a few Wikidata training took place in India, notably 2017 Technical trainings in India. In 2018, many editors from different Indian communities were actively working on Wikidata. We felt that it was important to take the Wikidata editing-experience in India to the next level. So, we conducted this workshop for the active Wikidata editors in India so that they can further improve their skill.
When and where? The workshop took place on 15–16 December 2018 at Mumbai.
How? Asaf was the trainer of this workshop. 10 editors participated in this workshop. In this workshop, only active and experienced Wikdiata editors participated. The agenda was prepared after a needs-assessment. Some of the topics trained during this workshop were: Advanced Query, OpenRefine, Lexeme, Content (database) donation for Wikidata, external sites/applications using Wikidata, Tabernacle, OpenStreetMap, and Wikidata etc.

We also had a peer-learning session during the workshop. In this session, the participants shared useful tips and tricks with other participants. User:Planemad in this session discussed Mapbox and OpenStreetMap. After the workshop, we got mostly positive feedback. Please see all the feedback here. Bengali Wikisource admin and active Wikidata editor commented:

Overall, I can say, it was the most enriching Wikimedia workshop I have ever attended. It was really thrilling to sit together with the most experienced Wikidatans from different parts of India and learn from each other. I hope, the interaction doesn't end with this workshop and we can closely coordinate with each other in the coming days.

User:MKar found the workshop "very good" but also felt that we could make it a 3-days workshop, and the internet connectivity during the workshop was not stable and was a hindrance.

Learning:

In several workshops we may find a mixed audience, which may be a hindrance towards conducting an advanced-level workshop smoothly. Conducting advanced/special workshops with focused participants may be helpful in such cases. We have written a learning pattern on this Learning patterns/Advanced workshop with focused and dedicated participants

Future plans:
In this work-plan year, we do not have any plan we do not have any plan to conduct a national-level advanced Wikidata training workshop. We have plans to conduct/support at least 1 zonal workshop before 31 July 2019.

Communities of Interest[edit]

What? CIS-A2K worked with like-minded organisations, groups and individuals who share similar interest to improve content on different Wikimedia projects.
Why? In the work-plan we discussed that it is important to ensure that the current community leaders do not face burn out and leadership pool is not restricted to a few people. We have conducted programs towards building capacities and leadership among individuals, communities of interest, user groups. There are 2 objectives:

increase awareness about Wikimedia projects among these groups, organisations, and individuals;
involve them into different Wikimedia activities, use their expertise to improve content on different Wikimedia projects

How? We approached film critics, literary historian, professional photographer, NGOs and discussed different aspects of the movement. A few examples:

User:Yasshu28 is a film critic and reviewer and and User:Raamanamma kalidassu is a literary historian. Both of them started contributing to Wikipedia after attending our Wiki-orientation program. User:Raamanamma kalidassu also relicensed one of his books under the free licenses. We are in regular contact with them and help them by answering their Wiki-related queries.
Jal Bodh: "Jal Bodh" means "Knowledge about Water". INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) and SANDRP (South Asian Network of Dams, Rivers and People) organised a River Dialogue on endangered Indian rivers and water crisis. CIS-A2K actively participated in the conference held on 20–21 April 2018 to introduce the potential of different Marathi Wikimedia projects to the organisations working across Maharashtra state. After this orientation, a follow-up plan was prepared and several groups expressed their interest collaboratively work with Marathi Wikimedia projects. On 28 May 2018 a workshop was conducted by CIS-A2K and Jeevit Nadi. 15 researchers and activists from different organisations such as from Jeevit Nadi, EcoUniv, Jal Biradari (Tarun Bharat Sangh), Ecological Society, Sagarmitra participated in this workshop. This was followed up by a second on 25 July 2018. 5 researchers and activists participated in this workshop, and topics like Wikipedia article structure, categorisation, uploading photos to Wikimedia license were discussed. The participants uploaded their photos on Wikimedia Commons. 2 other similar wokshops were conducted at Sangli, Maharashtra on 7 December 2018 by Jal Biradari & Tarun Bharat Sangh organisation and on 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan. The event pages for these 2 workshops may be seen here and here.
Van Bodh: Similar to "Jal Bodh" CIS-A2K is also working on "Van Bodh" (English: Knowledge about Forest) project that attempts to improve Marathi Wikipedia coverage of knowledge repository on biodiversity and forests with the organisations working in this sector and we are currently working with different organisations like Tribal Research & Training Institute (TRTI) of State Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, Mumbai University, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL)

Rivers are very basic essence of existence of life in land. Thus, keeping sanctity, health and preservation of rivers are utmost important. The Wikimedia workshop during December in TBS on inclusion of river science, it's genesis and awareness to protect it through Wikipedia was really worthwhile. It provided wing to individuals like me to pendown more on revival of rivers because of present river pollution issues. The Wikipedia as an open forum can put an intense and long standing impact by including river as portal because mainstream can easily get the zeitgeist of problems, ways to tackle and sometimes use society as a whole to respond for revival of rivers. - Username:Mrityunjay1010

Understanding the river basin to design the category tree of articles
Participants of River knowledge workshop conducted in Pune
Hands-on activity of mapping with Open Street Maps
Participants creating village articles on Wikipedia