Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Club Pune/Archive 1

Suggestions
Please give suggestions regarding Wikipedia Club! AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 17:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Umm, in a conversation with Abhishek we came up with the following points:

1. To promote the idea of the club have competitions in various colleges. Define a certain time limit and then whoever edits the most,get a prize and a chance to be an exclusive member of the club. Once you have a prize attached, and only a few can join, the whole idea becomes more appealing and exclusive.

2. Putting up posters informing people that such a club exists. College students are more interested in posters (in canteens, preferably) than emails.

3. Thirdly, if we're looking to divide the club on the basis of languages, make sub-groups within these groups based on Interests, like sports or politics. This makes it easier for people to help each other.

4. Fourthly, and most importantly, if its a student club, make the members feel that its entirely run by students (Even if its not). Once you know that there is a chance of rising higher in the hierarchy the more you contribute, there is a certain goal you're moving towards (Instead of the commonly used 'making knowledge freely available), which college students do not really care about.

(Tb0412 (talk) 18:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC))


 * Thank you so much Tahera, for adding summary of conversation AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 18:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, so I have a few issues with this hierarchical structure. Please read, WP:OWNER. I understand its a club but Wikipedia is the free encyclopaedia which anyone can edit and no matter how much experience you have, you are the same as everyone else. Its a flat hierarchy. Please see WP:HEC for reference. Having mentors is ok but there should be no concept of leaders. The whole point of the club is to find people who care about editing Wikipedia, so trying to gain students by merchandise or exclusivity would be a direct violation of the five pillars on which Wikipedia stands. If the student is not interested, don't take him. But creating a parallel hierarchy of editors who state "I'm better than you" would violate the very fundamentals of Wikipedia. --Debastein (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

On Leadership
Hi Debastein,

I saw your views above and respect them. But I do wish to point out to you that in Wikipedia, as in all organisations, to achieve coordinated activities we require leaders and leadership. Anything worthwhile which needs to be done and involves the activity of more than one editor involves a leader or leadership.

The leader in Wikipedia is not a guy who holds a post and orders people around but a do-er who gets out there and does the things that need doing. While doing that, people realise that there is someone doing something they would like to do and join him/her. They may look to him for guidance, encouragement, knowledge and help. Providing these, and motivating such people who look for support is all leadership. So if you ever did these things, then you were a leader. By this definition you will realise that all Campus Ambassadors who participated heart and soul in IEP (God bless that program and especially forthcoming version 2), is already a leader. So de facto, you are already a leader. :)

What you are possibly confusing with leadership is hierarchy and position-based status.

My two cents, AshLin (talk) 14:06, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks AshLin for clarifying on Leadership, and I totally agree with you on that. What Debastein is trying to say here is that we should not focus on hierarchy and other lucrative offers proposed by Tahera, coz the whole point of doing any type of contribution to Wikipedia is all about supporting the free movement, if the person doesn't believes in it, he's not the fit here, and after taking the goody bag he'll never come back.
 * Yes we do need Leaders/Mentors who believe in doing things and lead by examples.
 * Cheers,

Ram (talk • contribs) 16:06, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clarifying, Ram. There are indeed some aspects of the present plan that could do with a rethink but I do not wish to comment any further. Hey, this your club. You students make the decisions, the successes and mistakes are there for you to experience and learn. WikiPuneri are always there to support you if you need us! AshLin (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Hey AshLin, I completely agree with you on the leadership thing as its exactly as Ram mentioned, I'm not in support of the hierarchical structure that is proposed. Yes mentors are very much required, even leaders. But I object to two points.


 * Point 1: " Once you know that there is a chance of rising higher in the hierarchy the more you contribute"

- How do you define this hierarchy and what do you mean there is change of you rising up? I mean, we all edit Wikipedia because we love doing it right? Not because I just want to be the person who edits the most and has the maximum edit count. I mean to say, if this is the motivation, that the more you edit, the further you go up the hierarchy, then am sure after one time it will fizzle out. I mean, what would your ultimate goal be, to make great contribs or just be the top honcho? Is that not a conflict of interest?


 * Point 2: "...there is a certain goal you're moving towards (Instead of the commonly used 'making knowledge freely available), which college students do not really care about."

- What is the point of a club? To have a group of people having the same interest right? If you have people there who are there only because the club is exclusive and because of the goodies, but care not about Wikipedia, then what is the point of the club? Don't get me wrong, I am assuming goo faith to what tb has written, but the point itself to me is redundant. If a person doesn't care about Wikipedia and there is a conflict of interest, I don't think, he belongs in an exclusive club. Rather, I'd have a person who loves to edit wiki because he actually wants to rather than because of goodies. Then we'd be sending a wrong message.

Two more small points:
 * 1) AshLin: Your two cents are always valuable, and its best to have a discussion about this that restrict yourself. We generally want your opinion. Debate and discussion helps us build better, together, i.e. collaborative learning.
 * 2) I think it would be better to move this page to Outreach than English Wikipedia, what say??

Regards, Your friendly neighbourhood Campus Ambassador, --Debastein (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply, Debastein, like I said I reserve my comments as my views are already stated above. It is good that you are discussing the core principles behind the effort. If we get that wrong right at the start of an endeavour, it is very difficult to change midway and, if not changed it does not matter what all efforts you do, your work gets tainted nevertheless.
 * Support for move of page(s) to Outreach wiki as this has more to do with outreach than English Wikipedia and it is not restricted to English Wikipedia, say. AshLin (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment It's obviously the club's decision to make, but as an outside observer, I'd strongly suggest moving this to the Outreach wiki. Not only for the reasons outlined by Debastein and AshLin, but also because English Wikipedia frowns on "invitation only" closed groups, and especially ones that are sitting in the Project namespace (as opposed to User space, but even there, it's generally not considered appropriate). Best wishes, and good luck with your club. It has a lot of potential. Voceditenore (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Main objective of Club is to enrich content on WikiProject India


 * I have received good response from people [potential future members of club], and most of them are comfortable in editing "On English Wikipedia". It will be somewhat similar to voluntary version of India Education Program (with limited and highly curated students/members). So, its in order to keep track of all edits by members, its essential to have Project Page on English Wikipedia. I will explain functioning of this Wikipedia Club Pune "Project" Page later on.Outreach is one of the aspect.Overall concept of "Project" Wikipedia Club Pune is to have more Indian Content on English Wikipedia and other Indic Languages. Thanks for all support and encouragement :)
 * Keep Supporting, Keep Inspiring! AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 12:21, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Register
Everyone is requested to submit Google Form - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFE4MzNqVzVmMTNOamRLZFlqNE1aWkE6MQ#gid=0.

More details are available on above Link. Its mandatory to submit form. AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 10:02, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

'''* Entering Name here does not guarantee your Membership to Club! Members/Mentors will be selected only after Workshop.If you want to provide only "Online Help" Please mention accordingly''' In order to be eligible,add your name and submit Google Form.

Core Team
Core Team will design workshop model and will manage Club Activities.




 * Ishu.aghav
 * Devanshi tripathi
 * Gunit Kaur S. Kalada

Club Member
Club Members will be *active participants of club* and will join workshops and respective sessions.

Mentors
Mentors will guide and help Club Members regarding editing,technical as well as Wikipedia Policies aspect.

<>
 * For those wanting to work on online activities of WikiProject India (English Wikipedia,this Wikipedia). AshLin (talk) 13:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Gunit Kaur S. Kalada Gunit31 (talk) 11:36, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Arjun Mangol Kanoth --Écrivain (talk) 11:15, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * MikeLynch - Ping me for anything and everything related to English Wikipedia, as well as technical help on Sanskrit Wikipedia. I am not based in Pune, but I will be more than happy to assist people online through talk pages, email, or chat (by request only).  Lynch 7  09:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Srikeit - Will be there :)
 * Rangilo Gujarati ( talk ) 08:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Debastein (talk) - Ready and willing to guide for English Wiki as well as Bengali Wiki

Bengali Wikipedia
I am very happy to see in Pune a Bengali community group is gnawing up. If any kind of help needed from me, please contact me.--- Jayanta Nath (Talk 12:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes Jayanta da,
 * Pune has a good number of Bengalis and I hope to tap that number, I will be needing your help and guidance, surely.
 * Regards,
 * --Debastein (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Some Feedback
I remember Ram making a point about having a mediawiki component to it - given the large number of software students / professionals who might also be interested. I think it would be really useful if you try and get 1 Team / Project working on mediawiki. As Ram said, there might be folks who are interested in supporting Wikimedia/Wikipedia but are just not interested or able to edit Wikipedia. You will need help from the techie folks in the community and WMF and I'll be delighted to connect you guys.

Another aspect I want to discuss is to try and start small. There will be teething up difficulties and it is essential to face these in a more manageable scale. It really doesn't make a difference if there are 5 or 10 or 15 members to begin with. Start small; smooth out the rough edges and then slowly scale up. You'll find enough issues even on a small scale. (To that extent, if you restrict it to 1 or 2 English teams / projects and 1 or 2 local language ones (ideally Marathi and 1 more Indic language), plus a media wiki group, you are already taking of diverse scale. I would suggest to begin with, limit yourself to these kind of numbers.  The choice of Indic language should be based on number of folks interested.  For instance, if Marathi & Bengali has more interest, then go with Bengali & Marathi only - and think of other Indic languages later.  Staying with the point on scale, I would recommend that you limit the total numbers to 25.  Eventually, you can always scale up but start small.  If you have a situation where the ratio of students to mentors become 3:1 or 4:1 instead of 5:1 (either because there are more mentor or less students), that's also fine!

I would suggest a specific section on recruiting members (both students and students.) Unless there is a proper effort that adequately conveys what you are trying to do and why and what the benefits are in doing it, you will struggle to get involvement. For instance, this section could talk about low-hanging fruit at this stage - which would be interested students who contributed effectively during IEP. You already have their contact details or a way of contacting them. Look at other avenues to generate interest such as social media or physical outreach sessions that drive interest in the Club.

I am presuming at some stage you will make a loud announcement to the community? Would be good if we can get as many mentors as you can. This announcement should hopefully generate more interest. Ideally, given that there might be face to face meetings, folks from Pune would be most suited. Having said that, do inform the India community, WikiProject India, India Chapter and maybe even some of the folks who helped out from outside India on IEP. (On the last, I don't know if you have a role that can be played remotely by anyone - but give it a think if you see merit.)

On the point on leaders / mentors / call-them-whatever-you-want, my (personal opinion) is that this club will need people to conceptualise, drive and manage the club. You guys are already doing that. The club will also need folks who can hand hold students during their editing. Students must know that there is a specific person they can reach out to for help. The groups should meet face-to-face reasonably regularly. What you call the leaders or mentors (to my mind) is not critical. The kind of time they can volunteer and the skills (e.g., organising club activites, intimate understanding of wikipedia editing, etc.) they bring to the table are so much more critical.

Hisham (talk) 05:07, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much for suggestions,
 * * Hisham : I remember Ram making a point about having a mediawiki component to it - given the large number of software students / professionals who might also be interested. I think it would be really useful if you try and get 1 Team / Project working on mediawiki. As Ram said, there might be folks who are interested in supporting Wikimedia/Wikipedia but are just not interested or able to edit Wikipedia. You will need help from the techie folks in the community and WMF and I'll be delighted to connect you guys.
 * That would be great! It would be great to have MediaWiki component to Club! — Preceding unsigned comment added by AbhiSuryawanshi (talk • contribs) 03:38, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * We are going to start with small number and curated members only (At Max 25 Members / 5 Teams)
 * Ratio of Mentor-Student will be 1:5 or 1:3 if needed.
 * Target Members(Audience) - Experienced students from India Education Program and existing passionate Wikipedians from Pune.
 * These experienced/well trained Club Members will conduct WikiAcademies / free Editing Workshops Periodically for Colleges and other students.
 * Each and Every Activity will be documented on Project Page.

Keep Suggesting,Keep Inspiring!

AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 12:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Template
Created a template here, check out, thanks to Abhishek for creating the template in the first place. Wikipedia Club Pune Subsequently created a category also, Category:Wikipedia Club Pune

Am thinking of designing a userbox also, but maybe use a different pic for that. Suggestions are welcome. --Debastein (talk) 19:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC)