WikiConference India 2025/Minutes

WikiConference India 2025
India

Overview

This is the page for the Wiki Conference India (WCI) 2025 preparations. It will serve as a central hub for organising committee activities and consultations with the community.

Wiki Conference India 2025 is an opportunity for the India's Wikimedia community to collaborate on projects, initiatives, and discussions. This page will track the progress of preparatory activities and consultation calls.

Preparatory Calls (Organizing Committee)

15 Nov 2024

Participants : Pavan, Suyash, Soni, Shreya, Shakuntala, Jinoy, Aafi, Santhosh, Kuldeep, Kavitha Ganesh, Babitha Shetty, Medini

Recapped 2 Nov COT+All Hands meeting, 29 Oct COT-only meeting
Main priority for us now - COT and composition, the timeline of WCI25
Proposal for new COT structure from Suyash ji:
- 12-15 members max in COT
- 60% members should be fresh, 40% should be experienced from previous WCI
- Kerala User Group should have at least 2 members in COT, decided by UG
- Supporting staff from CIS-A2K and WMF employees
- More local volunteers based on teams, Share Conflict of Interests beforehand, Share everyone’s contributions on meta
- Core values based on team - Assume good faith, respect diverse perspective, active listening
- Departments : Each COT member heads one + Supporting Staff + Helping Hands (volunteers)
- Guideline for stepping down from COT
- Note: it is a draft and will be discussed in the google document and will be finalized in upcoming meeting.
COI declarations from different members.
It was also made clear that the grant amount of the WCI 2025 is doubled becuase grant was submitted excluding some estimates that are handled by WMF.

2 Nov 2024

Participants: Aafi, Babitha Shetty, Chitraparna Sinha, Kavitha Ganesh, Manavpreet Kaur, P Iflaq, Pavan Santhosh, Pranamika Adhikary, Praveen Das, Shreya, Santhosh Notagar, Suyash Dwivedi, Tanveer Hasan, Kuldeep

COT Structure and Roles
- Discussion centred on the roles of CIS staff in the COT, emphasising their involvement in an official capacity rather than as volunteers. The aim is to maintain an equitable, community-led decision-making process with representation from diverse Indian communities.
- Suggestions included including new members alongside previous members for a balanced structure and listing support team separately from the core committee to provide clear distinctions in roles.
- The COT structure should be adaptable and open to suggestions, focusing on leadership and mentorship for new members.
City Selection Process
- Kochi (Cochin), Kerala has been chosen as the host city for WikiConference India 2025 after a thorough evaluation. Selection was based on a rubric assessing criteria such as community support and infrastructure, with Kerala scoring slightly higher than the next option, Bangalore. The selection criteria included volunteer support, local community strength, cost, connectivity, and infrastructure.
- It was recommended that the selection criteria be made publicly available on Meta as a resource for future events.
Future Plans and Next Steps
- The need to onboard the organising team and establish a clear timeline for grant approval was highlighted. Monthly milestones are to be defined to ensure smooth communication and planning. Emphasis on transparency and inclusivity in the planning process.
- A suggestion was made to use a shared document to collect agenda items from team members for better organisation and prioritisation in upcoming meetings.
Action Items and Responsibilities
- Several action items were outlined, including the proposal of a new COT structure and initiation of contact with the Kerala community for city preparations.
- Responsibilities and timelines for the organising team are to be clarified, with the support team providing assistance without taking over the core planning process.

29 Oct 2024

The WCI Core Organizing Team (COT) Meeting focused on key updates regarding city selection, team structure, and volunteer management strategies.

The city selection process, now extended to October 30th, centers on two potential cities, Kochi and Bangalore, with a decision expected shortly thereafter.
Discussions clarified the distinctions between the COT and Support Team roles, and proposals were made for a clearer membership process and the optimal size of the COT.
The group considered meeting bi-monthly and emphasized the importance of structured agendas and clear communication.
- COT will meet 1 to 2 times a month as per need, and All Hands 1 times a month
Volunteer engagement was highlighted, proposing the creation of an ‘All Hands’ team for broader participation, while decisions regarding the final COT membership and communication improvements were solidified.
- Any volunteers who reached out to Santhosh after the call to actions will be added to All Hands, people from All Hands will be added to subgroups like Grants/Trust&Safety etc as per need.
- Some volunteers need to be added to All Hands telegram group
- COT will be expanded or reduced only by Communications Team, please discuss with Comms Core members if someone should be added/removed. The sheet with roles and responsibility will be considered accurate.
- Everyone is requested to add username/name on the Sheet
Action items were assigned, including the finalization of city selection, contact for an official email ID, and scheduling a meeting with the Support Team.
- Email ID, Evaluation and Learnings, Trust and Safety recommendations from last COT is urgent priority
- Grants team needs to be made
Date of next call needs to be confirmed.

October 15, 2024

Participants:
- COT: Santosh, Kavita, Ashwini, Babita, Kuldeep, Pranamika, Shakuntala, Jinoy Pavan, 511KeV, Suyash
- Support Team: Rachit Sharma, Manavpreet Kaur, Nitesh, Satdeep, Praveen, Gopala, Medini, Chitraparna Sinha, Nivas, Tanveer
This meeting was helpful in sharing experiences of the WCI-23 core team members regarding things that worked and challenges that they faced while organising WCI-23.
- Setting up of clear responsibilities
- Commitment towards agreed upon deadlines
- Supporting team members across different processes is essential
- Financial oversight and policies need to be constantly reviewed
- Multilingual imagination for WCI-25
- Setting up of a central document for coordination
- Transition and transfer of official accounts and access to drives and social media
Share the updates on other groups where Indic Wikimedians are active (telegram groups, facebook chats and other social media channels and regional mailing lists)
Comms to arrange POSH Training for COT of WCI-25. This is a best practice continuing from WCI 23
- Guidelines for participation of minors in WCI-25 need to be updated and discussed with the design and ops process
Set cadence of the COT WCI25 and Support team meetings
- The cadence should also be followed by the various processes

October 11, 2024

Attendees:
- (New COT- Volunteers, 2-CIS): Aafi, Ashwini Lele, Babhitha Shetty, Kavitha Ganesh, Kuldeep Singh, Pavan Santosh, Pranamika Adhikary, Santhosh Notagar, Shakuntala Marnd, Shreya, Soni, Iflaq
Introduction and Roles and Responsibilities
- Roles and responsibilities of the Core team WCI-25 team members was discussed
- It was suggested that the roles and responsibilities should be flexible and open for discussion for a few more meetings to understand the skills and interest of the COT members.
- It was also suggested that the design team and the learning and evaluation team should be independent (not in the same process) to avoid bias. Soni raised a concern about potential bias if the design team was involved in the learning and evaluation phase. It was suggested that a collaboration between the design and operations teams would be more appropriate for L&E plan

City Selection Framework
- Framework:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XqfO0VlEJXmclhclSdpgBI4JlgIVUV8EoIpuqLC09-g/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.ido5bpz8a405
- It is decided to upload the framework on Meta and ask for community input.
- The operations team is suggested to be in charge of city selection
- The deadline for community input on the framework isl 26th October

Documentation and Deadlines
- A central document would be created and updated as needed to track discussions and deadlines associated with the tasks was discussed

Community consultation during the Train the Trainer 2024
- The idea of presenting the previous conference's details and asking for input is discussed.
- It is suggested to have a small team present during the event to explain the conference plans.

October 4, 2024

PARTICIPANTS: Tanveer, Pavan, Nitesh, Nivas, Satdeep, KC Velaga, Santhosh Notagar, Aafi, Shreya, Pranamika, Ashwini, Suyash, Mourya, Gopalakrishna, Kuldeep,

Wikimedia Technology Summit presented an opportunity for Wikimedians to discuss Wiki Conference India 2025 (WCI-25)
A new Core Team for WCI-25 has been formed. The core team comprises volunteers who have shown interest in organising WCI-25. The expression of interest has been sought on mailing list, community conversations
Core team of WCI-23 has been disbanded. Formal transfer of gmail account, google drive, introduction and context setting with WMF Conference team and with other stakeholders will follow in the upcoming weeks.

Four processes were suggested -

Design (Phase 1 - Scholarships, Phase 2 - Program, Phase 3 - Learning & Evaluation)
Operations (Phase 1 - T&S, Phase 2 - Logistics, Recurring - Finance)
Communications (Obj 1 - Internal Coordination, Obj 2 - External Communications, Obj 3 - Design Support)
Collaborations (Obj 1 - Event Collaboration, Obj 2 - Value Aligned Partnerships, Obj 3 - In-kind support)

The Organising team for WCI-25 consists of two teams. Core Team - Comprising volunteers and some CIS staff members for adhering to compliance matters. and Support team - comprising of staff members and some members of CoT of WCI-23.
- There might be changes in the roles of the support team members depending upon requirements and context

Core Team of WCI-25 will receive support from WCI-23 in introductions, transitions and setting up processes for the workflow.

September 24, 2024

The meeting focused on gathering input from community members interested in supporting and organizing WikiConference India 2025. Participants were introduced by Nitesh, highlighting the importance of community engagement and collaboration. Previous conferences were briefly reviewed, and CIS-A2K expressed its commitment to support the upcoming event.

During the discussions, various areas of responsibility were identified, including communication, program development, and general coordination. Community members shared their interests in different roles, with Shakuntla and Shreya focusing on communication, while Chaduvari expressed interest in program development. CIS-A2K is committed to assisting with logistics and finance, while community members will take the lead in organizing.

The conference is tentatively scheduled for the end of September 2025 to allow ample time for planning. A potential host city, Bangalore, was discussed, with the final decision pending community input. Action items were assigned to facilitate ongoing communication and gather feedback from the Wikimedia Foundation, ensuring that the planning process remains inclusive and collaborative.

Participants

Ashwini - Marathi Wikisource
Babitha Shetty - Tulu Wikimedian
Chaduvari - Telugu Wikimedian
Kavita - Kannada Wikimedian
Kuldeep - Punjabi Wikimedian
Nitesh - CIS-A2K
Pavan - CIS-A2K
Pranamika - Assamese Wikimedian
Sakuntala - Santali Wikimedian
Santosh - Kannada Wikimedian
Shreya - Commons Contributor
Soni - English Wikipedian
Suyash - Commons Contributor
511KeV - Kashmiri Wikimedian

Key Topics

1. Introduction and Purpose

The meeting focused on consultation with community members who expressed their interest in supporting and organizing WikiConference India 2025. Participants introduced themselves, facilitated by Nitesh.

2. Context:

WikiConference India Background
Previous events were held in 2011 (Mumbai), 2016 (Chandigarh), and 2023 (Hyderabad). The importance of community engagement and networking was emphasized.
Efforts to invite interested community members
Leads & Key organizers of previous WCI 2023 initiated the conversations and process to invite community members and movement entities interested in organizing the next WCI.
Some of the new interested candidates include a couple of earlier organizers who came forward to support WCI 2025 while CIS-A2K came forward to support this conference.
Proposal submission and Next steps
A proposal was submitted for WikiConference India 2025 by CIS-A2K after consultation with the interested community members to honour the deadline and keep the opportunity alive for community members to explore.

This call is being organized to take this process forward in line with A2K’s commitment to involving community members in decision-making processes and ensuring that they play a key role in leading the conference. This call includes Wikimedians who expressed their interest in supporting the conference and some more Indic Wikimedians who joined upon outreach by CIS-A2K.

The intention behind this call: The purpose of this call was to gauge community members' interest in taking on responsibilities for organizing the conference. It included initial discussions about the conference's objectives and shared responsibilities for immediate next steps, such as responding to feedback, creating processes and teams, and expanding the team in consultation with and inclusion of the broader community.

3. Discussions

Roles and responsibilities:

Various areas of responsibility were outlined, including community coordination, Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) coordination (Including communications), Programs, Finance, Logistics, and Trust and Safety.

Shakuntla: Interested in communication.
Shreya: Interested in communication and scholarships.
Kavita: Interested in coordinating communication efforts.
Chaduvari: Interested in program development.
Santosh, Soni and Suyash: Open to various roles, including coordination with the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), logistics, finance, scholarships, and overall workflow coordination.

CIS agreed to contribute to logistics and finance, primarily and extend support in other aspects while Community members will lead the majority of the aspects.

4. Conference Focus and Challenges

Chaduvari discussed what can be the focus of the WCI. He expressed that WCI should create a network of Indian Wikimedians who can understand Common challenges across Indian Wikimedia communities, such as attracting new contributors. The idea also included that there should be extensive research carried out by CIS-A2K on the common challenges before the conference and that should lead the conference program and next steps. The importance of evaluating funded programs was highlighted by another community member.

5. Host City, Participation and Timing

Based on the question from Soni, Pavan (CIS-A2K) clarified that the venue for now is tentative. For the convenience and diversity, Host cities generally would be metro with high connectivity and a city other than previously hosted cities. Bangalore as a tentative host city was discussed. However, the final decision would be made after a process to explore other suggestions by the wider community and the process to decide upon the host city was also rested with the interested members of the group.

To a question about participation in general, Pavan responded by saying that 200+ overall participation can be expected. The proposed number of scholarships can be found on the proposal page. CIS-A2K is proposing to organize the event at the end of September 2025 to allow sufficient time for planning and organizing. Some participants agreed that giving the organizing team ample time is important, particularly Suyash, who mentioned that having a full year would provide everyone with a good opportunity to plan effectively. As a follow-up question, Pavan mentioned that the end of October 2024 would be the time when we get the decision from the WMF grants team about the funding status.

6. Communication and Next Steps

A Communication channel will be created for ongoing discussions.
Feedback from the Wikimedia Foundation needs to be reviewed, and the proposal improved.
Roles were taken up for proposal feedback review, communication development and other aspects.

Action Items

Nitesh & Pavan:

Create a group for ongoing internal discussions. Coordinate the review of feedback from the Wikimedia Foundation and support community members on the responsibilities

Suyash, Ashwini, and Soni:

Review and incorporate Wikimedia Foundation feedback into the proposal.

Shreya:

Create communication for WikiConference India mailing lists and village pumps.

Soni and Santhosh:

Develop a framework for deciding the conference host city.

Shreya and Nitesh Gill:

Collaborate on scheduling future calls and maintaining communication.

September 8, 2024

The meeting took place before the proposal submission (on 10th September), during which the first draft of the proposal was shared with a group of volunteers who expressed interest in joining the organizing team. They reviewed the proposal and provided feedback, which was then incorporated into the revised draft.

Agenda of the meeting:

WCI 2025 objectives
Idea behind the call
Proposal review
Open discussion on the venue, with Bangalore being decided as the tentative venue city

Attendees:

Aafi
Santosh Natogar
Shreya
Suyash Dwivedi
Pavan (CIS-A2K)
Nitesh (CIS-A2K)
Nivas (CIS-A2K)

Consultation Calls

Consultation calls are open for feedback and ideas from the wider Wikimedia community. These calls will focus on the theme, participation, and potential collaborations for the conference. Most of the consultation calls happened in South Asia "Open Community Calls" and one call with the interested candidates to support the process.

August 25, 2024, South Asia Open Community Call

The deadline for submitting WikiConference India 2025 was reiterated during the call, along with an invitation for interested participants to join. The survey results were discussed, and it was noted that a few Wikimedians had come forward to offer their support for organizing the event, while CIS-A2K committed to supporting the process.

September 8, 2024, Call with the interested candidates

Call with interested candidates from the community, including Aafi, Santosh Notagar, Shreya, Suyash, and Soni, along with CIS-A2K members Pavan, Nitesh, and Nivas, to discuss and make necessary changes to the draft proposal. Key decisions included tentatively submitting Bengaluru as the host city and increasing scholarships for community members.

July 21, 2024, South Asia Open Community Call

Leads of WCI 2023 introduced the initial discussions and timelines for WikiConference India 2025 (WCI 2025).

Survey: They shared the community survey, which was essential for the proposal application, encouraging participants to discuss it within their communities.

Call for organisers: Initial outreach to members of the previous Conference Organizing Team (COT) received positive responses, and several community members, including Aafi, Santosh Notagar, Shreya, Suyash, and Pavan from CIS-A2K, pledged their support for organizing WCI 2025. The event is tentatively planned for early to mid-2025, with key work required over the following 40 days to meet the Conference Funds submission deadline. Volunteers were invited to reach out via contact wikiconferenceindia.org.