Talk:Hindi WikiSammelan

Background

Hindi Wikipedia is biggest Indic Language Wikipedia. We have 1,00,000+ articles and 258 million (258,000,000) people in India reported Hindi to be their native language. Hindi Wikipedia needs more offline activities (meet-ups/conferences) for improvement. During India Community Consultation 2014 Hindi Wikipedians requested special attention towards Hindi Wikipedia, everyone encouraged representatives to take lead and plan activities. WikiSammelan will be effort towards building better Hindi Wikipedia. AbhiSuryawanshi (talk) 12:16, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Draft Proposal

After a telephonic conversation with AbhiSuryawanshi, pre-meeting plan has been designed. Kindly add to it.

Inputs

Some essential inputs have been categorized under three different heads. These inputs debate on the positives associated with this project.

Economic

• The internet economy in India contributes around $30 billion or 1.6% of the GDP.
• Out of 100 individuals, at least 10 have an internet connection in India. Out of the 10 individuals, at least 1 has a broadband connection.
• The estimated consumer surplus from the internet market is $9 billion. This refers to the extra money internet users are willing to pay.
• India has a population of more than 120 million and this points towards the growth potential . Google, Facebook are few internet companies that have been successfully dominating this sector.

Social

• A large bulk of the Indian population lives under the Hindi speaking belt. They read and write in Hindi.
• This account for 41% of the living population as per the Census of India 2011 compared to 8.1% under Bengali while 7.2%, 7% and 5.9% for Telgu, Marathi and Tamil respectively.
• The Government of India considers Hindi written under Devanagari script along with English to be its official language.
• The technological gaps in the Internet ecosystem had so far been the obstacle. However lot of Government sponsored programs along with rise in Education level among the masses have made the prospects enriching.

Community

• Chapter has a massive representation under the Hindi speaking belt. This includes the national capital region of India.
• It could be supplemented with the offline programs in rural areas. A large bulk of rural India follows Hindi as their primary language.
• An easy initiative to promote Wikipedia sister projects that so far have been restricted to English Wikipedia.

Challenges

• Training Volunteers in Hindi. This includes provision for Hindi keyboard otherwise, making the volunteers comfortable with virtual Hindi keyboard.
• Adequate financial support to reach out on every possible opportunity.
• Necessary representation across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar regions in Northern India. The student community under this region carries a good command over written Hindi.
• No delay in follow-up and effective monitoring to meet the high quality standards.
• Cellular phones in India contribute heavily towards the internet usage. The lower-middle income group relies on it for the primary internet usage. A general observation forecasts that they visit Hindi webpages frequently. The chapter could lasts its impression here.

Solutions

• Tie-up with education institutes that offer education in Hindi.
• An effective marketing campaign to project that Hindi language user could also contribute towards one of the biggest internet portal. Most of the Silicon Valley companies require proficiency in English.
• Link project with the present day Government programs. Wikipedia articles could be used as an instrument providing awareness on different critical and important issues.
• Financial Help : Possible sources - WMF, CIS, WMIN etc
• Link Wikipedia and its sister projects with Android, Microsoft etc platforms such that Hindi Wiki could be accessed with user's comfort.

--Abhinav619 (talk) 14:17, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

A humbler beginning?

I'd like to encourage the organizers to consider aiming for a humbler beginning. The above analysis is both very broad, encompassing many different challenges and circumstances, and very general, and thus not very actionable, in the present state of the community, I think.

I would suggest focusing on a community gathering rather than on outreach activity. That is, on a meeting of existing, active editors to discuss among themselves things like policy and plans (including plans for outreach), rather than an open event with training of the general public on how to edit etc.

It seems to me that such a gathering would be beneficial to the Hindi community, and serve as a good basis for some concerted efforts, on- and off-wiki, which could follow that event down the road.

What do you think? Asaf (WMF) (talk) 04:55, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I completely endorse your views. The focus is strictly on community gathering, no such activity "training of the general public on how to edit" are talking place. --Abhinav619 (talk) 16:06, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you, Asaf.--Muzammil (talk) 08:54, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

First Meet-up report

We met on 17th and 18th January 2015 to plan broader basic-introductory meet on 14th and 15th February.

Participants :

• Abhinav Srivastva
• Abhishek Suryawanshi
• Ashish Bhatnagar
• Aniruddha Kumar

Discussed things :

• Asaf suggestions analysis.
• Plan two day small meeting for active contributors.
• 14th and 15th February finalised after community consultation on hi.wikipedia.org
• Selection of appropriate venue for 14th and 15th February meeting. Everyone is comfortable with Delhi.
• Logistic management (hotel,conference room, local transport etc)
• Basic agenda and flow of two day event.

Challenges :

• Hotels with vacant rooms dont have conference room facility and hotels with available conference rooms dont have enough rooms on 14th and 15th.
• We need financial help to manage scholarships and logistics.

Action :

• We visited several hotels and conference rooms to get quotations.
• Follow-up with existing editors (central notice about meet-up page s active on all Hindi Wikipedia pages))
• Basic budget draft is ready.

What Next :

• Plan time-line for two day workshop on 14th and 15th February.
• Finalise venue and list of participants.
• Submit grant for approval.
• Community follow-up for review of designed program.

Event report?

Dear HIWP colleagues,

I'm very glad the WikiSammelan has taken place last month. Are you perhaps working on a report about the discussions and plans made at the event? I am eager to learn how it went, and to see how WMF might be able to help develop and realize your plans. Please let me know if you're working on a report, and if so, when you expect it to be ready. Thanks! :) Asaf (WMF) (talk) 01:33, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Dear Asaf, it is currently posted on WMF blog. --Muzammil (talk) 09:04, 4 March 2015 (UTC)