Dear All,  
Over the past couple of weeks, I have been sharing ideas on village pumps and mailing lists for more than 10 Indic language communities to drive community growth and project quality. In all cases, I have made sure that the ideas are specific to that community. In some cases, the ideas are somewhat similar because most of the Indic communities are at a similar stage in their evolution. I had taken some time to share this with Tamil community because I came to know that Tamil community is having some community discussions on various strategic questions related to Tamil projects.  
For Tamil, my ideas/suggestions are different because of the presence of relatively larger and stronger community and the relatively higher maturity of the projecs. I would like to suggest the following 4 different ideas and request your feedback on that.  
<big>**a) An Offline project**</big>  
I know much have been discussed in Tamil wikipedia regarding this topic. I still recommend to go forward and release an offline version of 500/1000 selected articles from Tamil wikipedia. I am sure such a release will help Tamil wikipedia to spread its wings not only in Tamil Nadu but also in all places where Tamilians live. I can provide all external support for this project if copmmunity decides to do such a project.  
<big>**b) An education program to attract students**</big>  
In the Wikipedia world, a very large number of editors are students - both in college and in secondary school. The reason for this is that students are in an environment where they are absorbing (in classes and libraries) and disseminating knowledge (in submissions and tests.) This makes them ideal to be contributors to Wikipedia. It will be very useful to explore a potential education program where students and teachers can be encouraged to. In Kerala, for example, Wikipedia is already taught in 8th/9th/10th standard so there is already some academic "blessing" for it.  
An education program can encourage new editors, but please be aware of the complexities. It requires a strong local community to provide training and support. It will require frequent in-class sessions to explain, repeat explanations, and clear doubts. It will need online support for newbies. It will be encouraged by frequent community meet-ups. It is important that you start on a small scale so that it is manageable. I will not recommend a number more than 50. The selection of students and teachers is critical - and you should apply great thought to making sure that the students and teachers selected have the calibre to in the Tamil have a strong academic foundation that controls plagiarism (which plagues our education system) and a history of innovative teaching techniques. Each community will need to take a call on whether to make it voluntary or compulsory for students.  
However, the opportunity is massive given our young population (infact they are the future Tamil Wikimedians). It can be a great vehicle to bring newbies and to bring new energy to our projects. If the community is interested I can help to design and roll out this project with interested community members according to the need of Tamil wiki community. This will be done openly and collaboratively with the Tamil community.  
<big>**c) GLAM**</big>  
For those of you who donot know, GLAM stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums. They are an important source of content for our projects and many of the topics assocaited with these institutions are very poorly (digitally) documented.  
The advantage for the institution is that an initiative with Wikipedia serves to share knowledge (which is in any case their mission), increases footfalls for them (which is their objective) and gives them publicity (which is their motivation). The advantage for Tamil Wikipedia is that it improves very locally relevant content with strong references and pictures (where applicable.)  
In summary, a way of doing GLAM is to have volunteer work as a "Wikipedia In Residence" at a GLAM. This person would explain the concept to the GLAM authorities and staff. He/she would then conduct a detailed workshop with that the staff on Wikipedia editing. After this, he/she co-ordinates editing sessions (maybe every week on a Saturday morning - as most GLAMs work on Saturdays) where local community members and GLAM staff work on creating / improving one or more articles about one or more artifacts at that GLAM. He/she will co-ordinate these sessions but over time, GLAM staff will take up the primary role. Progressively, the Wikipedian In Residence will reduce his direct involvement at that GLAM and move onto another GLAM as the staff in the first GLAM take over the project and sustain it.  
Apart from the content created and the community collaboration and new editors (from GLAM staff), GLAM projects have additional benefits because media coverage can be encouraged for the intiative and visitors to the GLAM can be encouraged to participate in the editing sessions (thereby attracting even more newbies.) Tamil Nadu has a large number of GLAMs. asi.nic.in/asi_monu_alphalist_tamilnadu.asp list shows more than 400. http://www.tnarch.gov.in/ (Department of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu) is definitely a place where we can get lot of information. Two institutons that I suggest in the initial phase are:  
- Government State Museum : http://www.tamilselvi.com/government-state-museum.htm
- Fort Museum, Fort, St. George (Chennai) - http://asi.nic.in/asi_museums_chennai.asp  
In terms of specific next steps, here is what I would suggest:  
- Think about the idea and share your views
- Put together a formal proposal that can be shared with the GLAM. The proposal must include introduction to Wikipedia, benefits for the GLAM and mechanics of the Wikipedian In Residence. (I can work with and support and help interested community members put together this proposal.)
- Interested community members should volunteer to be Wikipedians In Residence.
- Individual GLAMs should be contacted with the proposal by the (proposed) Wikipedian In Residence and other community members.  
You can contact Wikimedia India Chapter also for any help as chapter is also supporting GLAM initiatives.  
<big>**d) Free Licensing**</big>  
A great initiative that you are already doing is to encourage state governments to release all their content on free license. A fantastic thing to request is for releasing the State Encyclopadia - which is in the Tamil in Free License. It might be available in digital format and will help in creating / improvement content of Tamil wikipedia. Another thing you can explore is local government data (at a panchayat or lower level) which can be used to improve articles on villages and towns.  
<big>**e) Continued outreach**</big>  
Many times you might have read that Tamil/Malayalam communities are the biggest in India - which is true. It is also heartening to see outreach acitivities being conducted in Tamil Nadu. Thank you so much to all those for these efforts. We need to continue our strong outreach efforts because in absolute terms, the community sizes are still very small (compared to number of language speakers.) We desperately need more outreach programs.  
Can I request all of you to share your thoughts about these ideas. Do you think they are the ideas for Tamil? Would you suggest any alternate ideas? Please share your ideas. We shall discuss and see how we can work together. Thank you. --Shiju Alex (WMF) 11:37, 18 சனவரி 2012 (UTC)