Wikimedia India

Submitted by hpn on March 8, 2010 - 11:20

Back in 2004, we used to have discussions on how to improve Indian language projects on Wikipedia and related projects. It was then that the discussions had also channeled towards a probable Indian Chapter that could provide support and backing for the local community and the local projects. At that time, there were just a few chapters worldwide.

We have since then had attempts almost every year to form an Indian Chapter. Most of us involved in each of these attempts were volunteers active in the Wikimedia community. I had coordinated most of the efforts except for the last one. Sadly though, we never had the resources or the backing needed to kick-start the formal process. So, the idea of an Indian Chapter never got realised. It was quite an ordeal to even arrange a meet-up back then.

Some of the earlier attempts failed either due to lack of consensus among the volunteers participating on varying issues or due to the natural processes of attenuation in the crowd that was interested. While the excitement was very much palpaple and the interest genuine among the people involved, we were unable to give the idea the time
and commitment it needed primarily because we lacked the critical mass.

Fortunately, things have changed for the better. Things changed drastically last year when Sunil from Center for Internet and Society brought several Wikimedians under one roof. Thanks to the invaluable efforts from Achala Prabhala in getting a few committed and responsible volunteers together back again to boot start the process during that time, we now are much closer in realising the Chapter idea than we were ever before. The team that had come together for this purpose has spent plenty of time towards this in the last one year.

The team has also spent innumerable hours in writing the bye-laws needed for the legal entity. It has now been put up on Meta. The Wikimedia Community in general, and Indian Wikimedians in particular are invited to send in feedback on the bye-laws.

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