Announcements/Chapter-Foundation: Co-Ordination Call-December 2011 Update

Here is a summary of the Wikimedia India Chapter and WMF India programs coordination call.

Date of call: Wednesday Dec 21 (Voice Conference)

Attendees: 
 * Arjuna Rao Chavala,
 * Arun Ramaratnam,
 * Naveen Francis,
 * Sudhanwa Jogalekar,
 * Tinu Cherian,
 * Anirudh Bhati,
 * Asaf Bartov
 * Hisham Mundol

Operations:

Hisham provided an update on the status of India Programs staffing. He spoke about the challenges getting the right candidate for Consultant, Communications, and requested help on this.

Hisham also briefed the Chapter about the offer that was accepted by Subhashish Panigrahi and the redesignation of his position from Consultant, Team Support to Consultant, Community & Program Support.

Chapter provided an update about the formation of five task forces to increase member involvement and ownership in both the operations and projects. Several SIG Chairs have been announced and some more are being explored.

Programs:

Hisham shared an update on Indic languages. He mentioned that summaries of discussions had been shared for all languages where discussions had taken place and also that a synthesis of these discussions and recommendations / suggestions had been shared by Shiju. He further said that the next stage would be to give specific suggestions for individual language communities on the respective village pumps / mailing lists. He also said that an effort would be made to encourage every single active editor to participate in the discussions of these suggestions and every avenue possible - including identifying and reaching out to individual editor’s talk pages would be explored. The eventual outcome will be to promote community discussion, provide suggestions for community initiatives and identify areas where communities wanted support from India Programs for pilots or other help.

Hisham said that learnings from IEP are being gathered and documented and that any future IEP initiatives will be designed based on learnings and with community inputs.

India Programs had provided some support to the West Bengal initiative for the Kolkata Book Fair as well as to the Pune community for te CMDA IT expo stall. Hisham mentioned that some CAs are planning to start a student club in Pune on their own initiative - and that India Programs had provided advisory support.

Hisham also outlined the work that Nitika was doing to support community outreach efforts through collating and sharing best practices and outreach material. Wikimedia India (board) appreciated the detailed planning and execution material being prepared by Nitika. EC suggested to Hisham to engage with  SIG chairs, as the objectives of strengthening the community is common to both. Hisham said that India Programs would support Wiki Academies. Both of these were agreed.

Naveen explored the support that can be provided by India Programs. Hisham extended all the possible help for any outreach initiative. Hisham also offered help to EC for Arun’s work Special Projects (e.g., GLAM, etc.) It is agreed that EC  members and India programs team will reach out to one another as required on each project for better coordination.

A discussion on formalising a collaboration framework has been initiated. It is agreed to speed up the work on the same.

Arjuna Rao Chavala President, Wikimedia India