Grants:IdeaLab/WikipediaSummitIndia

Wikipedia Summit India

The summit will be an action-oriented event where Wikipedians as well as several university directors and deans will participate to connect, act and inspire in Pune.

idea creator• AbhiSuryawanshi

project manager• Sunnynitb

researcher• Abhinav619

designer• Abhinav619

developer• Surajkumarmishra

advisor• QEDK

volunteer• Satdeep Gill• Saileshpat

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created on17:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Project idea

Wikipedia has been popular in India since its initial years, especially as a source of information. Though a major number of edits from India are anonymous IP edits, India has produced some excellent editors as well. These editors have worked hard to improve and increase India related content on Wikipedia over the years. WikiConferenceIndia 2011 was successful in many ways, and we need such conference for national integration.

About Summit

The summit will be an action-oriented event where Wikipedians as well as several university directors and deans will participate to connect, act and inspire in Pune. Indic Language Wikipedia development will be the central focus; the ultimate aim is its implementation and the dissemination of ideas that will reach every corner of the country.
Along with the university directors, the summit invites people with the potential to run or administer projects who have a constructive bent to promote and to come up with ideas for the events. Three separate "tracks" will be devised for the summit, where a brainstorming session will take place and an agenda formulated for the action plan.

Being the free and open knowledge base that Wikipedia is, there are ample opportunities and methods of usage for every individual to immensely benefit from. India, as a nation, can be perceived by the global community and in return, our culture and lifestyle can be better appreciated and understood through this large platform. Through the summit, Wikipedia Club Pune strives to meet these ends, while enabling them to become more familiar with Wikipedia and all that it has to offer.

The summit, which will take place in the second half of 2015 (after community consultation), will be a coming together of some of the best minds to bring about a change. Wikipedia Club Pune will act as a catalyst in bringing to reality the ideas put forward during the event, which we will collectively formulate into a plan at the end of the summit.
This conference would act as a gathering for people in the India participating in any Wikimedia community, including GLAM, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wikipedia Loves Libraries, Wikipedia Education Program, Wikimedia chapter,Movement partners, MediaWiki developers in the India,any other Wikipedia community groups. Other aligned community groups which seek to advance access to free information will be invited as they have been to the WikiConferencIndia 2011.

Why Pune ?

Pune (Maharashtra, India) is known for movements like Swaraj, Quit India, Women’s emancipation and Swadeshi. It has progressed in the fields ranging from super-computing to cell sciences and molecular genetics. Pune has led India - and even the world in more ways than one - and has been an ideas' capital for centuries. Pune's thinkers and doers have inspired better citizenship and have striven for better education opportunities. Pune has also developed into a major education hub of the country, with over 2.5 lac students in 9 universities.
Pune City: Pune is the seventh largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the center of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 meters above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula River (India) and Mutha river. The city is the administrative capital of Pune district.Pune became the center of Indian politics during the early 18th century. After the town was annexed to British India in 1817, it served as a cantonment town and as the "monsoon capital" of the Bombay Presidency until the Independence of India.
Today, Pune is known for its educational facilities and relative prosperity. Pune is the cultural capital of Maharashtra. Pune has had manufacturing, glass, sugar, and forging industries since the 1950-60s. It has a growing industrial hinterland, with information technology and automotive companies setting up factories in the district. The city is famous for a variety of cultural activities like ranging from music, to theater, sports, and literature.These activities and job opportunities attract migrants and students from all over India and abroad, which makes for a city of many communities and cultures.
Pune is ranked as a Gamma World City and it is an ideal place for the onset of Wikipedia events and activities.

Project goals

Our goals for the conference:

To have 1000 conference attendees
Fund approximately 100 attendees from throughout the Asia through scholarships, with an emphasis on areas that do not have regular in-person Wikimedia activities
Enliven coordinated national outreach campaign programs, such as GLAM-wiki, Wiki Loves Monuments, and Wikipedia Loves Libraries.
Create stronger partnerships between local Wikimedia communities and outside interdisciplinary organizations and institutions.
Identify areas of improvement for future national conferences.
Maintain detailed accounts of keynotes, workshops, and panels for public viewing through film, media, and published conference presentations and logs.
Deepen local Education Program activities, GLAM / institutional ties.
Create 30-40 conference workshops and panels divided into five tracks: GLAM; Community Issues; Technical; Legal/Policy; and Education
Train interested attendees in community leadership skills
Curate a forum for sharing best practices, and encourage discussions about larger breadth of Wikimedia projects in the Open Access Movement.
Lay groundwork and encourage discussion about new tools, technologies, data platforms, and tecnological applications within Wikimedia.

Measures of success

Throughout the conference, we will be asking participants to fill out comment forms and surveys that will be available on paper and online. We hope to compile participant comments as a quantifiable measure of participant engagement, as well as a measure of effectiveness of each curated session.

Following the conference, we will have obtained the following important datasets. The results will be published in a formal conference report which will also include a comprehensive financial report:

Conference attendance
New editors, as analyzed through Wiki Metrics
Geographic representation
Organizational and institutional representation
New projects started by attendees over the year following the conference
Reports from scholarship recipients post-conference, and 6 months after

Get involved

Endorsements

Interaction between all the communities is going to be quite motivating and many new ideas sprung up during the process. Satdeep Gill (talk) 19:19, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Recently, Indic Wikipedias are increasing in good content and number of articles. It will be a platform for every Indic langauge wikipedias, to put forward there ideas and innovations within there language community and will share it among other language Wikipedias. Saileshpat (talk) 19:42, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Collaborations among Indic language Wikipedians are shaping in a positive direction. Recent and ongonig meetups of Wikipedians from all over the country have been increasing the rapport among the contributors. This summit will be a great step forward. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 20:09, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Frequent interaction between the active wikipedians will make the movement stronger--Schwiki (talk) 20:20, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
As an ex Wiki CA, I fully endorse this initiative. Will lead to a boost in national level collaboration and increased contributions and awareness from Indic and India based Wikipedia editors. -- Écrivain (talk) 21:04, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
This is a great idea; such an event is expected to have a positive impact. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 01:56, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
The Idea is great, It's really boost the Indic language Wikipedians to go forward. Support-- Biplab Anand (Talk to me) 16:33, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
this is a really great idea because interaction among the nation wide language communities can give birth many plans to overcome many barriers --Dr. Bir (talk) 18:48, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Support Good Idea for Indic language Wikipedians. --Hasive • talk • 04:44, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
I think is a great idea for Wikipedia in the Global South Rberchie (talk) 14:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
It's an excellent idea towards strengthening the communities, The summit will surely attract a large crowd from various socio, linguo, cultural background and create tremendous amount of resources for wiki.Also I particularly like the idea of involving Deans and representatives from academic institutions. This will surely pull more students as volunteers. Atanuami (talk) 11:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Against

A major conference cannot be driven by a single person, no matter how well-intentioned or energetic. Two city communities (Mumbai & Pune) were hard pressed to arrange the WikiConference in 2011. In effect a WikiIndia Conference 2015 is sought to be organised in a clandestine manner by calling it a summit but in no case has the proposer sought community support and no city community has agreed to take this challenge up. Such a proposal must be driven jointly by Chapter, city communities and also the sister organisation CIS-A2K in partnership. The proposal in itself is basically okay, its time India had anpther conference or Summit or what you will. But to place the funding and execution responsibility in the hands of a single individual not backed by the community at large is NOT the way to go. This proposal should be vetted by WMIN Chapter, community buy-in to the proposal obtained, proper planning done and then put forth by India Chapter as one of its events. AshLin (talk) 18:02, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

I do agree with you. It is important to have organizational support and leadership. Such kind of initiative needs community support and proper planning. As of now - this is just 'plain simple idea'. I hope WMIN and/or CIS will take lead and execute it. I thought it is nice idea to plan another conference/summit and created this page, I am happy to see without any promotion many people endorsed idea and they are also ready to volunteer for same. Now everything depends on seniors members like you, WMIN/CIS and larger community. :-) AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 04:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It is our collaborative efforts that would lead Wikipedia to more fruits of success. It's all about good community engagements! Some of your concerns are genuine and substantially backed up by good reasoning, but then, Yes ! they all can be achieved. Such concerns are potentially challenging besides being potentially accomplishing. I believe with your support and cooperation we should proceed ahead. Abhinav (talk) 01:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment

What do the organizers which to promote – contributions to the English language wikipedia, or contributions to Indian languages (Hindi Bengali, Tamil, etc.) wikipedia versions? I think the latter needs to be the focus. The Hindi, Bengali, or Tamil wikipedias each have currently fewer articles than the Estonian language wikpedia! --Furfur (talk) 20:09, 22 February 2017 (UTC)t

Participants

Volunteer(Punjabi Community) I would like to help in any way i can. Satdeep Gill (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Volunteer I want to be a part of the event. Saileshpat (talk) 20:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Volunteer Will provide online support whenever possible. Écrivain (talk) 20:52, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Volunteer(Marathi Community) I would like to help. Santosh Shingare 01:20, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Advisor I guess, I'm fluent in English, Bengali and Hindi and I'd do well as an advisor probably. I'm just around 14, though. This idea's nice and will go a long way to fix a few problems. QEDK (talk) 03:48, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Researcher This is one of those cornerstone projects we all have been tying to build over these years. Yes, Indian languages have a huge potential and would put all necessary labor in making this happen. I am willing to provide all research activities in this regard.Abhinav619 (talk) 03:31, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Designer I would voluntary take up this responsibility. I plan to provide a setup where best Wikipedia minds can coherently discuss and further deliberate within the specified time frame of this conference.Abhinav619 (talk) 03:35, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
Project manager I've guided similar projects in the past and looking forward to doing that again. Sunnynitb (talk) 17:07, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Developer I am a software developer with many tools under my belt. So I would like to help with any kind of development stuff that would be required to make this event successful. Surajkumarmishra (talk) 17:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)