Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh/Outreach

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The outreach department of the Bangladesh WikiProject is a centralized workgroup for project recruitment and member interaction efforts. Ideas are always welcome!

News

~~List of Bengali language authors has been nominated as a featured list candidate. Please feel free to leave your comments.~~
A new categorization scheme / directory structure has been proposed here. Please visit this page - edit it if you may and/or leave your comments on related talk page.
All articles under List of Bangladesh-related topics have now been added to the project with assessment of quality and importance. Project members can benefit from using the automated task list.
New stub for Bangladesh-related article created by Ragib: {{Bangladesh-stub}}
Categorization and classification of Bangladesh related articles have begun. Please participate in the effort. Check out the list below and also the to-do section.
Full table of transliteration based mainly on the IPA symbols has been put on Bengali script page. (Please try to use it to transliterate any Bangla words you use!)

Competition to promote Wikiproject Bangladesh: A proposal

Hi everyone, this is a proposal to promote wiki culture among the student community of Bangladesh and recruit new Wikipedians to work for Wikiproject Bangladesh.

The idea is - there will be a competition of improving Bangladesh related articles among all HSC+ students of Bangladesh. Interested participants will first submit their names and educational institution details by email to a "Competition committee". The committee will assign them articles to work on (each competitor a different article randomly choosen from Category:Bangladesh articles needing attention). They will be assigned 3 months to raise the assigned articles to GA status. After 3 months the successful performers will be required to submit proof of their actual identity and educational details. Then the second round will commence when they will be assigned different Top/High important B-class articles and they will be asked to improve those articles to FA status.

After these two rounds are complete, a third round may be arranged among the top 5 performers, in which, they work on their articles of choice (Article must be Bangladesh related) on next 3 months.

The selection committee will have the sole discretion in short-listing and finally selecting the winner.

After the completion the winner will be given a reasonable award (I propose monetary value of BDT 5,000/-) and another 4 good candidates would be given consolation prize (worth Tk. 1,000/- each). Prizes may be given in cash or "books".

The promotional expenditure of this project should be minimum, as the announcement of the competition should be via email and website only.

Here's the good part: if active wikipedians in Bangladesh are willing to organize the whole event (which I don't think will be a huge undertaking anyway), I can promise to personally sponsor the prizes (to the amount I mentioned). Of course, if there are other willing donors, we can increase the number / value of prizes.

I know giving out cash for writing on Wikipedia is usually discouraged. I'm not sure whether this would violate any policy on Wikipedia or not, but I strongly believe if we can do this, that will immensely help Wikiproject Bangladesh.

Please share your views on this. Arman ^(Talk) 01:50, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response

A very nice idea. Involving the student community might actually provide the needed boost Bangladesh articles need here. But, we still probably need to sort a few kinks in the plan:

The selection committee: Apart from the few really unavoidable structures (like administrators, bureaucrats or arbitrators), a few fringe groups that are continuously challenged (like esperanza), and some activities run by the Wikimedia Foundation (like Wikimania), hierarchies are not really encouraged by the principles of Wikipedia. This is a free encyclopedia that puts everyone on the same platform, well almost. Informal Wiki-meets notwithstanding this "comittee" probably needs an approval of the Foundation.
Proof of identity: The Wikipedia maintains a very strict idea of privacy and anonymity. We probably can't ask for identities, though there is nothing against volunteering to provide so.
Rewards: Yes, you are right. Cash goes fundamentally against a free encyclopedia. The reward of Wikipedia lies in the satisfaction of a good contribution. The only reward that can possibly be given are barnstars and good will posts to talk pages, may be supported by a userbox that claims - "I helped the Drive to Improve Bangladesh articles".

I would strongly recommend that this wonderful idea goes through either a discussion with a bureaucrat (may be Nichalp, he comes from South Asia) or a presentation to the foundation. Let's not kill off this fantastic proposal for a few odd kinks. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 07:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have requested Nichalp to take a look. However, I meant to propose that we arrange this whole thing independent of Wikipedia foundation. Just like wikipedia encourages teachers to assign wikipedia articles as term-papers, in similar spirit, Wikipedia foundation should not have any objection if a few wikipedians independently arrange a competition to write wikipedia articles. I hope we don't make this whole thing more complicated than it actually is. Arman ^(Talk) 13:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very well put. Let's not complicate things further. Just imagine the same module of operation used by a Satanist Cult or a Jihadist Organization. Would you want people to mobilize on-ground activists to take charge of developing Wikipedia without moderation of the Foundation? Would you want them dolling out rewards to write/rewrite articles on the basis of judgment by an independent committee without supervision? I am not against your brilliant idea, all I want to propose is a little caution. Certainly caution doesn't make things more complicated? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 14:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting. How was it promoted among potential participants? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 11:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! This sounds a very nice proposal. Best wishes. However, why only HSC+ students are being thought to be eligible? Junior students should also participate.--Dwaipayan (talk) 14:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia does have a system to reward editors with money after all (though in limited circumstances). Take a look at WP:REWARD. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)}

Comments

I think its a good idea to promote Wikipedia and articles in Bangladesh but I have some concerns and thoughts:

For the competition, allow the users to create a pseudonym account. This account should be linked to their real names and addresses, but this information shall only be made known to the organization committee. If the contestants optionally wish to disclose their real identity, they can state so during registration. This information will be kept confidential.
In the competition, all the rules about wikipedia should be detailed. (Free content, NPOV, citations, references, well written, summary style, free images etc.)
The judging panel should consist of people experienced with wikipedia article writing.

Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response

That should be easy. Let's see:

Every Wikipedia editor account is supported by an e-mail account. Therefore, the winners can be identified by that e-mail account (may be sending a wiki-mail first to tell them to contact a certain address to collect the award).
A special contest page can be created under the Bangladesh Wikiproject to guide contestants through the policies and guidelines. There can also be a Q&A service maintained by a couple of experienced editors.
Editors like User:Ragib and User:AA (both admins from Bangladesh), as well as User:Armanaziz, User:NAHID, User:Niaz and User:Tarif Ezaz (non-admin editors from bangladesh who are highly experienced), and even volunteers from other countries can fulfill the task more than adequately.

A couple of additional ideas:

Editors living in Bangladesh (like Nahid, Niaz and Tarif) can actually go down to the schools/colleges/universities to put posters/flyers/etc. calling for participation.
The office that hosts Bangla-Wiki meets can be used to make on-ground contacts.
Instead of random articles, may be the contest page can list out high importance articles that needs attention. May be a hundred of such articles can be prioritized as such. That would ideally build the core of Bangladesh articles.

Other minor problems can be solved as the process moves forward. May be I can be of some help as well. Good luck. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 11:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to everyone

Great! Looks like the idea is being appreciated by everyone. So, I guess, it's a "Go"!

However, before we jump start we still need to discuss about it a lot more. To do so, I'm creating a new page at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh/Competition. This is not the final page for the competition, it will be the initial discussion page. I'll organize the page with sub-sections, so that all comments on a specific point can be at the same location. I'll gradually try to summarize points from this page into the new page. Please feel free to comment there. Arman ^(Talk) 03:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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