This is my summary of the first ever Wikipedia Meetup in Hyderabad, India:
- I was late by half an hour. By the time I and Cbrao were there, about 10 people were there. I think overall about 15 attended.
- Shabda asked about articles created by new users getting deleted and that is disappointing new users. Mspraveen pointed that articles need to be notable and have references and explained the framework he follows while creating articles. He also suggested help me and adopt me templates.
- There was a question about getting help and FAQs. Showed them the Help desk and FAQ
- Someone asked if anyone uses MediaWiki outside Wikipedia and sister projects. I said I use it for TeluguPadam. Kashyap mentioned he used it for a private project.
- As people keep joining, we had second round of intros.
- All agreed to have meetup recurring on third Sunday of every month.
- Mspraveen also showed the how he creates articles and in that process created an article about Asher Noria.
- We wanted to get a mailing list for Hyderabad meetups.
- There was also a mention of single sign-ons. I mentioned about Help:Unified login.
- There was also a question of Wikisource and how it is different from Wikipedia. I tried to explain. But this line from Wikisource:What is Wikisource? page puts it across nicely—
- While Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wikisource is a library. Wikipedia contains articles about books, while Wikisource includes the book itself.
- Other (high|low)lights:
- Of all attended, only two weren't native Telugus.
- Majority of the attendees (including me) are not active contributors in English Wikipedia.
- Couple of the attendees didn't know that they can contribute to Wikipedia.
- Couple of the attendees didn't know that there is Telugu Wikipedia