Grants:PEG/Tinucherian and Shijualex/Wiki Community development in India and newsletter

Funded

This submission to the Wikimedia Foundation Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2010-11. This is a grant to an individual.

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This project has been funded, completed, and a project report has been reviewed and accepted by WMF Staff.
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Legal name of chapter: Not a chapter grant)
Grant contact name: Cherian Tinu Abraham & Shiju Alex
Grant contact user-name or e-mail: User:Tinucherian ( tinucherian (at) gmail (dot) com ) & User:Shijualex (shijualexonline (at) gmail (dot) com )
Grant contact title (position): Tinu Cherian & Shiju Alex are primarily Wikipedia/Wikimedia volunteers and are not directly associated, as of now, with the Wikimedia India chapter , which is still in process of creation as a legal entity in India, and waiting to open the membership to the Wikicommunity. Tinucherian is a sysop on English Wikipedia and ShijuAlex on Malayalam Wikipedia.
Project lead name: Cherian Tinu Abraham & Shiju Alex
Project lead user-name or e-mail: tinucherian (at) gmail (dot) com & shijualexonline (at) gmail (dot) com
Project lead title (position), if any: Wikimedia Volunteer.

Full project name: Wiki Community development in India & taking forward the Wikimedia India newsletter initiative
Amount requested (in USD): 8000 USD ( Rs 3,20,000 - Indian Rupees Three lakh and twenty thousand only) ( 1 USD ~= 40 INR )
Provisional target start date: November 2010
Provisional completion date: October 2011

Project scope

Funding the Wiki Community development in India & taking forward the Wikimedia India newsletter initiative.

Project goal

The project goal is to seed and develop Wikimedia/Wikipedian communities in different parts of India , by setting up Wikimeetups & Wikiworkshops in different cities and towns in India. The aim is also take forward the Wikimedia India newsletter initiative further . With this project, we aim to promote/spread the movement of Wikimedia / Wikipedia all over India.

Background

Wikimedia India Community Newsletter Sept 2010

India is the second most populous country in the world, with a population of 1176 M people . India , with its 81 million users, is also the fourth largest country in the world, in terms of number of Internet users [1] . Wikipedia is the fourth popular website in India, according to Alexa rankings [2] . But India stands only 11th in terms of page views [3] and 14th in terms of Wikipedia edits (just 1.5% of total edits) [4]. Also remember that we have 20 Indic language Wikipedias and another 20 are in incubation.[5] One of 2011 key goals of the Wikimedia foundation is to bootstrap community programs in the key geographies like India and this project is to help these efforts.

Chennai Wikimeetup

Both Tinu Cherian & Shiju Alex were instrumental in organizing many Wikimeetups & Wikiworkshops in different cities/towns of India. One of the earliest city Wikimeetups in India ( Bangalore , July 2009 ) was hosted by Tinucherian at his residence and has been leading the Bangalore Wikimeetups / Wikiacademies ( along with other volunteers) , since then.

Shiju Alex has been instrumental in organizing Malayalam wikimeetups and Wiki workshops through out Kerala starting from 2007 December. So far 3 wikimeetups and 8 wikiworkshops had happned in Kerala. Shiju Alex led the first Wikimedia India Community newsletter efforts, which was released in September 2010. Shiju was also one of the key members of the first offline Wikipedia project among non-latin languages, viz Malayalam Wikipedia CD. One of the issues that we found during the Newsletter effort was the serious lack of Wiki communities in most parts of India. Although there are 20 Indian language Wikipedias and another 20 in incubation, we were able to get community input from only 8 of them. This necessities the need of outreach and Wiki awareness all over India. Apart from Bangalore, we have already seeded the first Wikimeetup in Hyderabad and many others in the state of Kerala.

Proposed Activities:

1) Wikimeetups & Wiki workshops all over India :

We intend to organize wikimeetups or workshops in different cities & towns across India. We plan to conduct Wikimeetups/ Workshops in minimum 10 locations around India, during the project period . Some of the target cities & towns to seed wiki-communities includes Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Indore, Amritsar, and so on. We are already in discussion with different people in these cities to set up wikimeetups and wiki workshops in the near future. We will try to organise more Wikimeetups , if we are able to save some expenses / get help from people in more locations.

This project starts from the Chennai Wikimeetup ( Nov 14, 2010), which was attended by over 50 Wikienthusiasts & Wikipedians ( Photos here ). The first Kolkata Wikimeetup is organized and scheduled for Dec 11, 2010. The future meet ups will be mostly on weekends, due to the professional & personal commitments of Shiju and Tinu. The meet ups will be held on no-cost basis by taking the help of universities, colleges, tech startups or even NGOs who will possibly share and help the cause of Wikipedia movement. Pre-meetup discussions of organising the meetups will be started much earlier than the meetp date. Either Shiju Alex or Cherian Tinu Abraham or both of them together will be traveling to these locations for organizing & leading the wikimeetups or wikiworkshops. In the cases when only one of us are able to travel ( due to some personal reasons) to these locations, another enthusiastic Wikipedian may accompany us to help & assist us to lead the operations.

2) Wikimedia India newsletter.

We will be distributing prints / photocopies of the first Wikimedia India community newsletter at the Wikimeetups. The future Wikimedia India newsletters are a necessary by-product of the wiki-evangelism, we are trying to seed in India. As we create and develop more wikicommunities, more content on communinity news & activities will drive more Wikimedia India newsletters on a regular basis. We also plan to create a newsletter team of volunteers in the future.

Budget breakdown

Here is a draft budget to cover the costs involved in this program.

1) Wikimeetups & Wikiworkshops all over India:

a) Refreshment or other operational costs for the Wikimeetups - 1000 X 10 = Rs 10,000.

b) Printing cost of the FAQ book and the WikiMedia India Newsletters to be distributed during the wiki meetups - 100 copies each for the 10 locations – 100 X 10 X 10 = Rs 10,000.

c) Airfare costs for travel to meetup locations: Rs 9000 X 10 X 2 = Rs 1,80,000

d) Taxi cab costs : Rs 3000 X 10 X 2 = Rs 60,000

e) Food & Accommodation costs : Rs 5000 X 10 = Rs 50,000

2) Wikimedia India newsletter.

a) Newsletter design, Typesetting (creating a template that needs no further cost): Rs 10,000

Total : Rs 3,20,000 ( Indian Rupees Three lakh and twenty thousand only) ( Approximately 8000 USD ( 1 USD ~= 40 INR )

Assumptions

a) Return air travel costs between 2 cities in India is Rs 9,000 per person on an average ( as of now) . The earlier we could plan & book the tickets, we may be able to bring the costs.

b) We plan to stay in decent but reasonable cost hotel accommodations. In most of the cases, not more than 2 or 3 star hotels may be required.

c) All costs & expenditure will be furnished with bills.

d) We will share taxi & hotel rooms, whenever possible.

e) Taxi costs includes travel to & from the aiports & the meetup venues.

f) The hotel accommodations will be booked wherever nearer to locations as possible.

g) Lots of mail conversations , phone calls with different people etc in setting up these meetups are not covered.

Non-financial requirements

It will be great if some of the Wikimedia officials can attend these Wikimeetups.
Local Volunteer support from different cities and towns.
We will need to work together with local volunteers in getting the venues and other facilities from Government institutions, colleges, NGOs and companies, who will support our cause. Any support from the foundation for contacting such people or organisations are highly welcome.
Possibly printed copies of promotional materials like w:outreach:File:Welcome2WP_English_082310.pdf or other Wikimedia goodies for distribution.

Fit to strategy

We believe this project covers several points of the Wikimedia strategic plan. One of 2011 key goals of the foundation is to bootstrap community programs in key geographies like India. The project hopefully help in increasing people awareness of Wikipedia , to get more people contributing to the various Wikiprojects and boosting up the development of Indic language Wikipedias & India related content to English Wikipedia.

Other benefits

Building relationships with the communities and the budding Indian Wikimedia chapter.
We have good media relations with which we aim to get more PR mileage for Wikipedia all over India.
More and more people will be introduced to Wikipedia and editing in Indic language Wikipedias.
We aim for more content contributions from larger number of volunteers to Indic language Wikipedias.

References

1) Top 20 countries with the highest number of internet users : http://www.internetworldstats.com/top20.htm

2) Top Sites in India http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/IN

3) Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Wikipedia Page Views Per Country - Overview 2010 Q3 http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryOverview2010Q3.htm

4) Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Wikipedia Page Edits Per Country - Overview 2010 Q3 http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerCountryOverview2010Q3.htm

5) List of Indian language wiki projects http://www.wikimedia.in/wiki/List_of_Indian_language_wiki_projects

Measures of success

Number of Wikienthusiasts & Wikipedians attending the Wikimeetups & workshops.
Reception of the newsletter and other material.
Media coverages on meetups, workshops & Wikimedia in general.
Future Wikimedia India community newsletters
New contributors to the Indic language & English Wikipedias (unmeasurable)
There are, of course, things that cannot be tangibly measured, such as the impact of the larger participation of Indian community in the dissemination of the free culture and access to knowledge via Wikipedia/Wikimedia.