Grants:IEG/A revival of Outreach to Increase Participation

status: not selected

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eligibility and selection criteria

project:

A revival of Outreach to Increase Participation

idea creator:

Ansuman Giri, Home Wiki

project contact:

ansumanggmail.com

participants:

Ansuman Giri, Mrutyunjaya Kar

summary:

Revival of outreach programs by applying new, collaborative approaches to increase Participation and improve Editor Retention.

engagement target:

Odia Wikipedia and sister projects

strategic priority:

Increasing Participation

total amount requested:

5800 USD

2013 round 1

Project idea

As the title and summary imply, I would do outreach in Indian state of Odisha. Whole idea is, reach to new users in other parts of the state, communicate to existing Wikimedians how they can contribute more, and to address the issues in various aspects.

I would try to make them understand the project, it's mission and how important it is for us to improve such projects. Explain about Wikipedia, our status, community, how they can contribute writing articles to lead projects. I would shed light on different important campaigns, such as Gender Gap, Teahouse Project, Wikipedia Zero, Visual Editor, etc. Also I'd explain about other Wikimedia sister projects and how they can contribute in many ways.

When we started working on Wikipedia in February 2011, (I started in March), Odia Wiki have only 4-5 volunteers including me who were regular. And then gradually few more came and became inactive. Now we have another 4-5 regular editors, few semi-active editors, totaling 12-15. But many yet to learn many things in order to write a very good article, communicating on Wiki, and to help new users. And we have to translate many templates and Wikipedia policy pages, and to modify them as per our requirements. And few WikiProject we started are discontinued, because there is nobody to lead, coordinate. Few were, still are busy at translatewiki.net. Most of the active contributors are from the places we conducted Wiki academies. So we need more volunteers at Odia Wikipedia and sister sites. And to increase the pace of the growth.

From past two years we Wikimedians have done outreach in only few places in Odisha. So I want to increase the reach by doing outreach in other places and districts. More I will elaborate on "Project Plan" section.

Project goals

Increase the reach, participation. Improve Editor retention by supporting them in many ways. It would be for both Odia (Oriya) and English languages, as people in Odisha use both languages in their Educational and Professional lives. To sum up, the goal is to build and strengthen the Community.

Open questions

My request to all of you who landed on this page, to share your ideas, approaches. So we can make it a better project. Thank you :–)

Project plan

Scope:

Scope and activities

I'd be preparing a presentation for the academies as per my understanding, our requirements what and how the context of the presentation should be. Then others can help improve it. Obviously I'd refer other existing presentations.

Offline outreach

First I will analyse the workshops which are conducted since March 2011. What are the responses, outcomes and what ways could have been better.
I would conduct workshops in various schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. Apart from regular outreach I would be meeting professors, scholars, research fellows and make them understand about Wikimedia projects and free knowledge. In every institute I conduct a workshop, there would be a followup workshop. So at minimum I would conduct 4 workshops, if possible more in a month including followup workshops.
Would meet existing Wikipedians personally and organize Meet-ups, and discuss to improve quality of the existing articles on various aspects (this depends on their availability in Odisha and their participation) and support for technical issues. Various activities they can perform individually:
1. Welcome new users as well as IPs.
2. Continue existing or initiate new WikiProjects, coordinate WikiProjects and encourage others to join them.
3. Help selecting good articles, and good images for the Main page.
4. See the status of basic help, guideline and policy pages, and improve them.
5. Finding out and prepare model for new editors to assist them.
6. Use of barnstars and other methods to encourage new editors.
Trained them to be capable to provide effective help to new editors, so they can diversify there contributions by helping many different ways.
Later as they became experienced with the ability to perform various tasks, we 'd start a WikiProject where interested new users can be adopted by experienced users.

Online outreach

We'd create a on-wiki help portal, where new users can learn how to edit by themselves with the help of the portal. It'd be something like improved version of or:WP:CS or bn:উইকিপিডিয়া:নতুন ব্যবহারকারীর জন্য সাহায্য. (This is yet to confirm as I 'd be needing help to create such pages. And still wondering if this will work as we see very less number of users everyday!)
Would contact users on mailing list, registered users, Odia Wikipedia FB group members and conduct IRC/Skype chats for them. Then list out interested users and assist them. Support editors on social media and conduct regular online campaigns for new editors. On-wiki support, Whenever possible.
I would try to resolve other issues regarding editing Wikipedia online; System compatibility, fonts and typing tools.

Review and reports

Would be keeping records of each activity and all the people I meet and their wiki contribution details; Area of interest, which sister projects they like the most and are willing to contribute.
I would set a target of 30 - 50 users to make them regular editors for both Odia and English Wikimedia projects who would have been either new or inactive. But it may take little more time for them to be regular by the time I finish. List out the Wiki User Ids and their contributions.
Would work on analyzing patterns and trends metrics of editor contribution, new editors, retention and overall progress and generate reports. The quantitative metrics of measurements are may include the following: (credit:Wikimedia Fellowships/Project Ideas/Editor engagement strategies for new or smaller Wikipedias)

Welcome messages sent per day
New users and existing users per day/month
Visits per week per each user
Active conversations per day (measured via unique edits on talk pages)
Edit count by namespace
Bytes added
Editing sessions per day/month
User rights gained
Blocks of new editors
Number of reverted edits (to find out the vandalism rate)
Number of articles created
Number of deletions of created articles
Collaborations among users (edits on talk pages, articles, etc)
Warning templates and guidance messages posted per user page
Wiki-love messages per month.

Tools, technologies, and techniques

All the resources and tools needed for outreach, meetups (Mrutyunjaya has agreed to join me, still if anybody is willing to join, you are more than welcome.)
Database queries on Users (as whole, statistics) of/from Odisha (if possible and appropriate)
Wikimedia Merchandise for volunteers and new users as a token of reward
Booklets, brochures, FAQs, other resources
Community support!

Budget:

Total amount requested

5800 USD

Budget breakdown

Booklets, Brochures, Forms:200 USD
- FAQ & Typing help Booklets (PDF) 600 units
- Wikipedia Cheatsheets (PDF) 500 units
- Feedback forms (PDF) 500 - 600 units
Wikimedia merchandise:
- Welcome to Wikipedia brochures (PDF) 50 units
- Stickers and buttons, and 10 pieces of newly designed tee by India Access To Knowledge/Requests

(W2W brochures and items not included in the budget, if WF or Chapter or A2K could provide, 'd be of great use.)

Travel and accommodation:800 USD
- Roundtrip from Bangalore to Odisha included.
Travel & accom. (User:MKar):300 USD
For a Camera:400-500 USD or less (might move the rest of the amt. to merchandise)
Project Management:4000 USD

Intended impact:

Target audience

Getting the attention of new people (Students, Professors, Scholars, Internet users), existing/inactive users, readers and encourage them to become contributors. Expand the reach.

Fit with strategy

Out of five strategic priorities, it addresses three:Increase participation, Improve quality, Increase reach.

Sustainability

Will have a diversified community, contributing to many areas and different sister projects. And definitely it will go on as new users join. But the pace might get abated. But we will find new way of approaches to continue afterwards.

Measures of success

I'd make note of contributors and their contributions, prepare reports about the improvements. Based on responses, new contributors and their contributions, we will measure the success rate.

Number of Wikipedia readers, users 'd be attending the workshops, all the people I'd be meeting and as they become contributors.
Reception of the booklets, and response we'd be getting through feedback forms.
Media coverage on workshops and Wikimedia in general.

resources

Participant(s)

Ansuman: Active in Wikimedia since March, 2011. Since then I have volunteered for many on-wiki and off-wiki activities. I am active at Odia Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, Commons Wikimedia and translatewiki.net. As a translator I have translated more than 5000 messages in Hindi and Odia. I am an administrator at Odia Wikipedia and do various tasks; assisting new users, tweaking pages, categorizing pages, handle license related issues, updating templates, mediawiki pages, cleaning up, etc. etc. Also familiar with Wikimedia policies and guidelines. I help users creating accounts at English Wikipedia account creation tool. I attend Bangalore monthly Wiki-meetup and organized, led workshops in Bangalore and Balasore. And I was assisting participants online for the Pune India Education program. Almost forgot! I am a MBA graduate and currently working as a Research Analyst for a start up company based in Bangalore. To know more about me and my contributions feel free to visit my user pages and twitter page @an5um. Thank you

Mrutyunjaya Kar: Active in Wikimedia projects since May, 2011. I am active at Odia Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, Commons Wikimedia and other WM projects. I am an administrator at Odia Wikipedia and do various tasks, assisting new users, formatting, categorizing and adding references to pages, tweaking, updating templates etc. I attend Cuttack monthly Wiki-meetup and organized, led workshops at Angul, Cuttack and Dhenkanal. I was assisting participants onsite and online for the first Odia wikipedia education programme, Dhenkanal. Currently working as a technician for an Odisha-based PUS, I'll assist Ansuman (whenever and wherever it is possible for me) for conducting workshops. To know more about me and my contributions feel free to visit my user pages. Thank you

Discussion

Community Notification:

Please paste a link to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions, here.

at Odia Wikipedia

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

Community member: add your name and rationale here.

Srikant Kedia Yes, the project should be granted as Ansuman bhai and Mrutanjaya bhai are trustable; experienced as they have participeded in many of the outreached programs. Odisha, wants this type of outreach activities as wikimedia has less or no contributers from here except in Angul, Bhubaneshwar & Cuttack. Since 2 years the community members wanted to do similar activities, but is financially weak and no one thought for the grants. All kudos to Ansuman bhai and Mrutanjaya bhai as they have taken a wonderful step to make our mission successful throughout Odisha. --Srikant Kedia 19:44, 24 February 2013 (UTC)