FDC Proposal 2013

Page for Members/Community input

Ideas for inclusion in calendar year 2014 plan

 * Edit and add your ideas and proposals. If you have any proposal, it will be advisable to share them in detail. It might just help us in knowing what exactly you are planning or and how the process will look. 


 * 1) *Wiki Loves India/Villages*: Planning to come up with the photography competition next year. Tentatively, it might be very general; Wiki Loves Indian Villages or Wiki Loves India. The plan is to feed Wikimedia Commons with more repository files about India, its culture, its people, etc and to educate people that they also can contribute to Wikipedia. It will be exactly on lines of Wiki Loves Monuments, and will succeed Tamil MediaWiki Contest in a local way. We will not award something generally likes best 10 images, but we will award people in various categories like; monuments, rivers and lakes, buildings, nature, villages, culture, etc. This will make sure that people will contribute images of various categories. -- ♪Karthik♫ ♪Nadar♫ 16:53, 6 September 2013 (IST)
 * 2) Workshop for English Wikipedia editors during which they share editing expertise. Yogesh Khandke 19:42, 6 September 2013 (IST)
 * 3) One national conference, and 4 regional conferences (one per quarter)Sowmyan 19:10, 7 September 2013 (IST)
 * 4) Workshops similar to TTT program for each of the Indian languages. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * 5) Meetup for all SIG chairs physically at least once annually to exchange ideas and experiences. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * 6) One part Wikiconference India that focuses on improvising existing editors with Technical background on those lines. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * 7) Promotion of other wiki projects, apart from Wikipedia, e.g. wikisource, wiktionary, etc. in regional language media Dsvyas
 * 8) Regional workshops on referencing Dsvyas
 * 9) Strategic partnership with Cultural Institutions for Content Donation. --Rangilo Gujarati 16:44, 21 September 2013 (IST)
 * 10) Workshop similar to TTT Program, but for editors with certain level of experience. --Rangilo Gujarati 16:44, 21 September 2013 (IST)
 * 11) Chapter funded WiR/Fellowship for GLAM. --Rangilo Gujarati 16:48, 21 September 2013 (IST)

Integrated and Universal Database and repository of All Indian Knowledge-ware
WMIN can take up a grand project on building up an integrated database of ALL books, manuscripts and other materials ever published in any Indian languages.

objectives
The project will have the following objectives:
 * Collect a universal list of all libraries and repositories in and out of India (with all data pertaining to them).
 * Collect a universal list of all publications and materials (including lost, curated, referred on and available now in the market)
 * Collect a universal list of all personalities in India or those who have some connectivity with India - their images, voice recording/video recording and brief biodata. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * Make the entire data available openly and freely to the public through popular industrial formats, channels and gateways
 * Maintain a core team to ensure the sustainability and updates of this database network.
 * Shortlist and prioritize the access, digitization and re-publication of all books that come under the purview of public domain.
 * Initiate / collaborate / assist / execute digitization of all such materials in a large scale multi-nodal fashion.
 * Create and maintain teams and units of personnel (voluntary/ compensated) for executing / training / outreaching the large scale digitization projects and events.
 * Make the above repository also published through Wikimedia projects
 * Make/customize citation tools and templates to utilize this repository for increasing the authenticity of Wikipedia articles effectively and efficiently.

collaboration

 * WMIN can act as a project lead in garnering all available resources and institutions to work with the project. It can solicit co-operation and assistance from governmental, academic and other institutional agencies and entities. WMIN can implement agreement and SOP structures catering to different scenarios as plug-in modules.

WMIN can also network with other Wikimedia Chapters and WMF in particular in a bilateraly beneficial way.

Project planning

 * The exhaustive planning of the long-term project can be done over a midterm (2-5 years) period. However, we can start with a few tiny/small pilot projects within 6-12 month span and extract some useful results to begin with. We can thus acquire valuable lessons and realistic estimates for the final ambitious integrated programme.


 * The planning will be carried out by a select team of volunteers. If necessary, this will be assisted by some professional manpower. Costs for planning will be audited in public.

Financing
WMIN will seek out all possible means and resources to finance the project. These may include funding from WMF,governments, collaborating agencies or by dedicated domestic/international donations.

Crowd sourcing

 * At all phases, crowd-sourcing and voluntary involvement of public will be stressed upon. In general, the work plans will be based upon the methodologies of Wikimedia projects. A set of several data access layers will be set forth for the refining, upkeep and maintenance of the incoming data.

I hereby propose the above concept -  വിശ്വപ്രഭ ViswaPrabha Talk 17:00, 20 September 2013 (IST)

Provision of free/subsidized telephone channels to selected/active Wikimedia volunteers in each language community
Direct voice communication (off the internet, via telephonic conversations) has proven much effective in the development and sustenance of a vibrant community. Many volunteers, chapter members and WM well wishers who are often highly restricted to access the internet resources due to geographic/financial/social constraints have been helping the projects via outreach, program and content planning and liaison. They use telephonic channels as an alternate means.

However, the expenses incurred for such communication are still a dampening factor limiting their ability to get involved much more intensively. WMIN can help reduce this dampening effect.

I propose an ongoing scheme in which WMIN will provide subsidized subscriptions to such community/chapter members. The provision will be limited in terms of money (say IRS 200 per month per member or 300 minutes per month per member). To start with, the number of members in each community may be restricted to 10-25 depending upon the performance and potential.

I second this proposal. Rahmanuddin Shaik

Selection
The selection of candidates for such a scheme can be a tedious task. However, we can formulate some commonly acceptable parameters and criteria to shortlist the user set. Edit count, media visibility, nominations by community etc. can be among these criteria. A subset of chapter board members, staff, advisers and SIG heads could also be considered into this pool with an alternate budget.

This could be initiated as an experiment for the current year and then extended as a regular program depending on the results and costs involved.

Rough cost Estimates

 * Community members and volunteers: Rs. 150 per member * 20 members per community * 10 communities * 12 months = Rs.3,60,000 (Approx. US $ 5500 per year)

Rs. 300 per person * 20 persons * 12 months = Rs. 72,000 (US $ 1200 approx.) per year.
 * Chapter personnel: (EC members, staff, advisers and others such as SIG heads etc.)

Total: Rs. 4,32,000 per year ( approx. US$ 6700)

Free biweekly teleconference facility for each community / SIG
An additional suggestion is to make a free teleconference gateway that can be utilized by each community on a predetermined weekly or bi-weekly schedule. (Costs to be calculated by best market prices and schemes)

I propose the above concept -  വിശ്വപ്രഭ ViswaPrabha Talk 17:41, 20 September 2013 (IST)

SIG Gender gap activities
Budget for outreach activities: Basic and advanced workshops and targeted workshops (students, bloggers) in 5 Indian cities @ Rs 50,000 per city = Rs 250,000

Merchandise: Wiki Women's Collaboration stickers, badges, tee shirts, and flyers for outreach events (to be included in budget for merchandise). - Rohini 16:56, 22 September 2013 (IST)

Creation of videos of women Wikimedians and participants of outreach events (equipment rentals, shooting, and editing): Rs 10,000 This becomes a part of our outreach and communication library. - Rohini 17:14, 22 September 2013 (IST)

Details of these activities are in the Gender gap India work plan: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gender_gap_India_work_plan - Rohini 17:14, 22 September 2013 (IST)

GLAM: Digitisation project of newspapers
Newspapers are in English, Marathi, and Gujarati. Timeline of the project: 1 year Rohini 23:33, 21 September 2013 (IST)

Rough estimate of costs
Rs 500,000 per month for 12 months.

Scanning: Rs 200,000 per month (manpower costs, equipment rentals, facilities such an Internet connection, etc)

OCR of scanned images, proofreading, and other post-processing: Rs 300,000 per month (involves manpower costs, OCR licenses, facilities such as Internet connection, equipment, incidental costs, etc. Rohini 23:33, 21 September 2013 (IST)

Remarks
Costs would reduce by Rs 150,000 to Rs 200,000 per month if we create searchable PDFs. Rohini 23:33, 21 September 2013 (IST)

Background of Indian language wikis

 * Arjuna's Blogpost on state of Indian language wikis in 2012
 * [[File:WMIN-Annual-Report2011-2012TwoUp.pdf]]

Usage

 * Wikimedia website users stand at 24.14M as of Jan 2013. This number was  5.14M in Jan 2008. The year over year growth rate as of Jan 2013 was 40.34%

Social

 * Increase in female literacy
 * Large number of youth with access to Internet

Economy

 * India growth rate in 2012-13 estimated to be 5 %, it was 6.2 % in 2011-12.

Technology

 * Proliferation of smart phones and Tablets
 * Public Information Infrastructure to provide high bandwidth connectivity to village level by 2020
 * Automated translation technology

Governance

 * E-Governance reaching out to village level and providing various services for people

Potential partners

 * India development gateway offering info on Government projects in Indian languages]
 * Technology Development in Indian languages Scheme of Government
 * State level Encyclopaedia projects
 * Union Ministry of HRD who have the responsibility in promoting education
 * Union Ministry of Culture who are the custodian of most GLAM institutions with Government
 * Union Ministry of Tourism who are interested in promoting information of interest to tourists

Strengths

 * Huge youth population
 * Positive image and sentiment towards Wikimedia among the public

Weakness

 * Small number of Active wikipedians in Indian languages
 * Not so user friendly wiki interface
 * Difficulty in automated translation. Poor quality of current tools

Opportunities

 * Internet penetration potential
 * Multi lingual country
 * Government plan to improve language technologies and improve internet infrastructure
 * Government's enthusiasm for releasing educational material (NCERT) on CC BY SA
 * Untapped potential of a huge population segment
 * Potential for adding articles across languages through automated translation

Threats

 * Social media and other knowledge sites
 * Negative perceptual associations such as wikileaks with government agencies
 * Volunteer burnout; Editors burn out
 * Conflicts within the community

Priorities

 * Increasing awareness by an order of magnitude
 * Scaling the rate of training of wikimedians
 * Building skills in admin activities as we increase editors count
 * Cross fertilizing promotional ideas across language communities

Ideas for implementation
Ideas that you would like to see implemented during the five year plan.
 * Increase WMIN membeship upto 1000 minmium. Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Alteast all wikipedia ( all Indic) contributor tirn to WMIN member.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * WCI host in small city ( except Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, kolkata)Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Wikimeets are an important part of the Wikimedia community, bringing together local Wikimedians to talk about on-wiki activities, off-wiki projects and to generally socialise and get to know each other.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Wikimeets are managed and run by the local community. WMIN can provide support and encouragement for these meetups.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Creating regular and informative methods of informing our membership and supporters about our activities.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * To have achieved membership satisfaction on key metrics ( communication to membership process should be easy)Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Practical ways that members and volunteers can be supported in their Wiki related activities.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Staff resources are specifically allocated to the support and dvelopment of our volunteer community.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * A pool of equipment is easily accessible and available at a range of geographical locations.Jayanta Nath 17:07, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Each SIG be provided with sufficient infra to organise a wikiacademy such as an internet dongle/projector/working computer. These can be exchanged or used interchangably from community to community. These can be acquired easily as CSR from well known companies in IT corporate field. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * Monthly online sprints for translating mediawiki, and selected articles of certain particular topic. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * Monthly online/offline meetups. More workshops. More inclusive, divergent voices encouraged in meetups and workshops. Become nicer and humbler than we currently are. Prad2609 21:54, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * Make wikisource (or any other wikiproject apart from Wikipedia) our next target, where in next five years' time, more people should know about the Literature available on Wikisource. Dsvyas
 * GLAM activities, and getting source material (PD and non-PD under CC license) from Libraries Dsvyas
 * Pursue state governments to release their publications in PD and facilitate its upload on wikisource. This primarily could be focused in the states with the native languages that has active wikisource. Dsvyas
 * Strengthening on physical resources for digitization, e.g. high quality scanner, etc. Dsvyas
 * Offering more small grants to the wikimedians to carry out reference search, enriching article(s), travel, etc. The process for grant making and approval as well as payment methods to be relaxed. Dsvyas
 * Organise events to attract corporate giants, press, government, media, other parties to donate to WMIN chapter. More money means more activity and more support to the community. To take Fundraising a bit more seriously and focus more on larger donations apart from membership fees. Also, to attempt to have recurring donations, where parties would enter in an agreement or sign up a mandate where they donate a fix amount at a regular interval (monthly or annually), which will be chapter's regular income for a long term and more long term activities could be planned and funded. Dsvyas
 * QR code and Wikipedia town to create. Dsvyas
 * Funds/assistance to wikimedians to participate/showcase at major events/university fairs, etc. Emphasize on increasing number of readers/users of wikis, which would turn editors.Dsvyas

Dream outcome
Ideal outcome at the end of the five year plan.
 * 1) A million articles in all Indic languages put together in 3 years? (Currently they are at around 500,000) Sowmyan 19:10, 7 September 2013 (IST)
 * 2) As an operator of a Massive Online Open Course on editing / contribution to Wikimedia projects (to churn out 200,000 editors per year, and provide for volunteer fatigue) Sowmyan 19:10, 7 September 2013 (IST)
 * 3) A popular quiz program on TV in 3 years (As a means of promoting Wikimedia in a sustainable way, as the multi faceted knowledge source) Sowmyan 19:10, 7 September 2013 (IST)
 * 4) A major promoter of translation technologies (To enhance article count and article quality, as well as facilitate cross indic language translations) Sowmyan 19:10, 7 September 2013 (IST)
 * 5) One Wikimania in India by 2019. Pranav 15:01, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * 6) Language Technology expertise implemented into Wikimedia projects. Rahmanuddin Shaik
 * 7) Have a volunteer base in every major city.Yohannvt 19:29, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * 8) Every Indian, a Wikipedian. Prad2609 21:52, 20 September 2013 (IST)
 * 9) At least one Wikipedia Town in India with QR codes in a few languages or at least English and town's local language. Dsvyas
 * 10) Regular regional events every year for native language wikipedians. Dsvyas
 * 11) Wikimedia India Chapter a fixture on major Conferences, e.g. Indian Science Congress, TechFair, National Book fair, etc. Dsvyas
 * 12) WMIN recognized as a leader in Public information space through institution of an annual conference related to  public information repositories (in Government and non government management) and  awards for excellence. Probably a new initiative across the global wiki communityArjunaraoc
 * 13) Productionising of Indian language wikipedias in Incubator.Arjunaraoc
 * 14) Setting up of research centre  for studies on the Indian language Wikipedias knowledge production and utilisation. Arjunaraoc

Recommendations from Tamil Wikipedia Community
Following are the recommendations and wishlist from Tamil Wikipedians collectively gathered over time. We might update a little as the translation was done in a rush. -- Sundar 19:34, 23 September 2013 (IST)

Outreach

 * professional video tutorials in Indian languages
 * creation of brochures and posters for colleges
 * a dedicated staff member for outreach

Community/Volunteer Development

 * internship with a stipend similar to GSoC program
 * corpus for scanner, cameras, and some computing resources for volunteers
 * travel support for networking among wikipedians in different places (4 times a year)

Training

 * tutorial sessions and webinars for basic computing, image processing, article writing, improving language skills, researching for references, copyright education for wikipedians with various levels of experience
 * there are style guides for Tamil from language bodies which can be supplied to some wikipedians

Facilitating Contribution

 * collaborate with organisations that work for free or cheap internet access
 * work on large projects to improve computer literacy among subject experts like professors

Content Development

 * contests where they have shown to have worked
 * Tamil typing contests
 * Wikidata for Tamil Wikipedia and other Indian Wikipedias
 * Develop tools to extract data about books, movies, events, etc so the data will be structured and linked; this can be used in multiple platforms/projects and would eliminate redundant work
 * Integrated and Universal Database and repository of All Indian Knowledge-ware

Publications

 * CDs and DVDs
 * printed manuals
 * pamphlets
 * an Indian Wikimedia press to release quarterly magazines or printed books of selected wiki articles

Language Tools

 * Support research projects involved in making futuristic tool
 * For example, machine translation between Indian languages and make them available under open source licences. Some Machine Translation tools among Indian languages are available in university labs.
 * Spelling and Grammar Correction Tools for Indian languages

GLAM Initiatives

 * try to get existing public domain or government sponsored works e.g. there's a Tamil Encyclopaedia developed with funding support from Govt of TN

Useful Links

 * WMF Strategic plan 2010-2015
 * India TaskForce page for Strategy development : The task force could not ultimately come up with recommendation, though it had few proposals and discussions. Many of the points mentioned in the proposals like setting up of offices, conducting outreach, Language issues were addressed.
 * Wikimedia Amical Strategy planning