Wikimedia Foundation in India

Sundar

WikiLove Triangle

Chapter

WMF

Community

WikimediaProjects

Chapter

WMF

Community

Chapter

WMFWMF

Community

WikimediaProjects

Community

Asynchronous collaboration Headless, bottom-up Tremendous, unmatched energy No individual obligations, right to vanish Independent, free thinking, not to be

disturbed inside wiki Needs support for real-world activities

Chapter

Think tank Outreach front

Community liaison Geographically distributed (eventually)

Partially synchronised Reasonably funded Needs staff support Members have day jobs

Can’t commit to external meetings

WMF Office

Full-time staff members Only sufficient as anchors Execution must involve community and the chapter

Can handle external contacts Fund-raising Lobbying Content acquisition

Need to work with chapter for execution e.g., curate content for print or CD versions Outreach activities

Commission projects Mediawiki (embrace community members as much as possible) Professional services Grants route

How?

India Strategy Wiki as an asynchronous collaboration mechanism

Mailing lists for wider consultation Fortnightly calls with the chapter Some community members will be on either

side, forming bridges Meetups with community members

Goals

Top-7 and bottom-3 in focus Topline has greater promise But, bottomline is in critical condition

Establish many low-cost beachheads Seeding is low-cost Could trigger organic (slow) growth

Bootstrap wikis in all Schedule 8 languages All have > 1 million speakers Beyond that community will take over

Bootstrapping strategy

Bootstrap Wikis (ref. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=

Proposal:SEO_Market_and_Contributor_Funnel&oldid=74248 )

Content-acquisition GLAM Long literary tradition -> Wikisource Lobby government for content

Targeted promotion in-wiki and off-wiki Location Affinity Other context

Tech support Localisation Input-method editors (IME)

Focus areas

North East India needs to be tapped High literacy “Unexplored” territory Bishnupriya Manipuri could be our window to the

region

Other focus areas to be data-driven

Tech challenges

Input method Punjabi Wikipedia split by script

Eastern wiki uses Gurmukhi Western Wiki uses Shahmukhi Result: the wiki is disproportionately smaller

Kashmiri Wikipedia one wiki - two scripts Managed to remain as one wiki But, no automatic transliteration for readers

Konkani wiki – three scripts in incubation (http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/gom)

Saurashtra Wiki

“Need: Localisation for India, built-in internationalisation for the world, the latter needs to be driven into Mediawiki minds”

Community efforts

Malayalam Wikipedia CD Tamil Wiki article writing contest Wikimedia India Community NewsLetter

“Cross-pollination of these ideas happening, needs to be encouraged.”

Conclusion

Huge scope for development in India. WikiLove triangle should be understood and

leveraged. India has needs not comparable with western

Wiki projects. Even among Indian language wikis,

differences are many.

“Open-minded, data driven, facilitatory approach necessary”