[Wikimediaindia-l] Farewell
Dear India Community I'm writing to inform you that I plan to leave my current role supporting Wikimedia in India. I am going to be exploring opportunities and evaluating options that are closer to my career aspirations and my personal circumstances. I will be working through to ensure that there is a smooth transition - and this is likely to take 2-3 months. I am writing now because I felt it appropriate and opportune to inform you as early as possible. I want to start off by thanking the Wikimedia community and movement for giving me this extraordinary opportunity. Working on something like India Program has been something that has been professionally enriching and personally fulfilling. Over the past 1 1/2 years, I have been supported by so many of you - and I want to thank you for everything you have done! The passion and intellectual firepower of our community has been my constant source of drive and guidance. There are so many examples of powerful stories from all over the country: the incredible efforts put in by the IEP Campus Ambassadors in Pune; the army of volunteers that drove the outreach push across the country in the first few months of this year; the beautiful stories of fantastic community initiatives from far and wide across the country and sub-continent, and indeed the world; the remarkable stories from so many communities - large, small and tiny ones! I want to thank the team that I have had the pleasure and privilege of working with - Nitika, Noopur, Shiju Subha. You guys have been wonderful. The work that we are doing is experimental and we have been innovating every day, and I know the circumstances have not always been easy. Take strength and inspiration from the large number of community members who have been touched by you and appreciate your efforts and value your work. I will send an actual over and out message later. In the meantime, I will continue to work on everything that needs working on. Happy Editing! Warmest Regards, hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikipatrika]: Announcing the third issue of Wikipatrika!
Thank you to everyone (around 25 at the last count!) who helped out on Patrika. I was going through this again and 5 particular stories caught my attention - from the HUGE number of stories in Patrika[0] a) The 10th anniversary plans of the Assamese community.[1] For a small community, you guys are breath-takingly ambitious and are going about realising your dreams in a wonderfully collaborative manner. b) The section of Why I do it by User:BPositive[2] regarding the Collaboration of the Month at the bottom of the English page [3] is what IT is ALL about. Rock On, Pratik! c) The Wikiproject Film [4] - quietly started by the Hindi community [5] - is fantastic. Check out the articles that they have been editing and join them on more! d) To be honest, the Malayalam page [6] just blew my mind... Phew. So much has happened - but the best part for me was the community interaction section. That is the surest sign that there is so much more to come. e) Isn't it amazing that there is actually an Experiments section on the Tamil page [7]. How cool is that! The trial of site notices and the use of that information for a planned redesign of the main page to try and attract new users is really interesting - and tips from the Tamil community would be useful across India, and indeed the world. I did also want to (re)extend the invite from Kannada[8] Wikimedians for fellow lovers of Kannada to join in their Articles Enhancement Project.[9] The planning stage is complete - and the actual work has started but with about 1800 articles to work on, the workload is huge for a very small set of volunteers. If anyone can help them out, I'm sure they'd be most appreciative. (Some tasks can be done be be done quite comfortably by new editors - and some can even be done by non-Kannada speakers! Everyone is welcome!) Best, hisham [0] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05 [1] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News/as [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BPositive [3] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News/en [4] http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE:Film [5] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News/hi [6] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News/ml [7] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News/ta [8] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05/Community_News/kn [9] http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%95%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%AA%E0%B3%80%E0%B2%A1%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%AF:%E0%B2%85%E0%B2%A8%E0%B3%81%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%BE%E0%B2%A6%E0%B2%97%E0%B3%8A%E0%B2%82%E0%B2%A1_%E0%B2%B2%E0%B3%87%E0%B2%96%E0%B2%A8%E0%B2%97%E0%B2%B3_%E0%B2%B8%E0%B2%82%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%B0%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%A7%E0%B2%A8%E0%B2%BE_%E0%B2%AF%E0%B3%8B%E0%B2%9C%E0%B2%A8%E0%B3%86 On May 10, 2012, at 10:03 PM, Noopur Raval wrote: Dear all, I am very happy to tell you all that the third issue of Wikipatrika - the community newsletter is finally out! You can check it here: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2012-05 First things first, a humble acknowledgement to all the editors who helped out with this issue of the newsletter. A special thanks to Gitartha (as), Debanjan (bn), Karthik (en and mr), Pratik (en), DS Vyas and Sushant (gu), Siddhartha (hi), Omshivaprakash (kn), Anoop, Kannan, Sreejith, Viswaprabha and Shiju (ml), Abhishek (mr), Rajesh and Saroj (ne), Mkar and Srikant Kedia (or), Abhiram (sa), Logicwiki and Shanmugam (ta), Arjuna and Rahimanuddin (te). In other contributions, thanks to Srikanth R for Commons, Logic, Santhosh, Achal for Free culture news and Tinu for Press news. This entire venture could not have been possible without Tanvir's constant support with templates and tweaks. Forgive me if I have missed someone. So, what has changed from last time? Since all the Wikimeetups are listed on Wikipedia here and on the respective community pages, we've omitted the section on events and meetups. Instead, we've added a section on Featured Interviews which has a GLAM interview this time and the EPOV column (Editor's point of view: INCOTM report). The idea is to make Wikipatrika a supplement to the mailing lists and village pumps and not replicate the same information in all places. Hopefully, by the next issue, with more featured interviews, insightful pieces from editors and free culture persons we will be able to achieve that. The way forward: It's a proud moment to see the amount of activity that all our language communities are involved in. We should definitely strive to make Wikipatrika regular and hopefully get more editors to contribute. This is one space where editors can express the dreams, visions and challenges that their Wikipedia community faces. If you have projects you want to publicize or successful projects that could be started in other communities
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] TOI:Urdu Wikipedia to be up and running in June
On Jun 1, 2012, at 7:13 PM, Arun Ganesh wrote: This article in today's Times of India left me puzzled. This is not related to the Urdu wikipedia is it? snip Mooted by the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), instituted by the human resource development ministry, the project is likely to be up and running in June. Article: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Urdu-Wikipedia-to-be-up-and-running-in-June/articleshow/13695535.cms Shiju and I are meeting up with the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language on Monday to understand this better and explore any opportunities that might be there. There have been attempts in the past to try and build a (similar-ish model) to Wikipedia (such as bharatpedia) - but we need to learn more about this particular initiative. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] TOI:Urdu Wikipedia to be up and running in June
On Jun 1, 2012, at 9:11 PM, Ravishankar wrote: //The Urdu Wiki, its current tentative nomenclature, will work along the lines of Wikipedia allowing readers to edit and add comments.// This makes it clear that this is an independent encyclopaedia initiative. Wikipedia, Wiki have long become common names to indicate anything like encyclopaedia. I suspect as much. ...but let's see how the meeting goes and if we can work out some form of mutually beneficial partnership. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Building Pilot Update: Fantastic Story from Assam
Dear All I wanted to share with you an update on the work that Shiju[1] is doing on Indic languages[2] as part of India Program.[3] A guiding principle for the thinking and efforts of our team is that community building should be the most essential aspect of all the work that we do. In the context of small Indic communities, Shiju has been working to try and identify the various elements that need to come together to foster community building. This update is about the Community Building pilot[4] that was run for the Assamese community. For context, community building means different things to different people and in fact there was a very interesting post[5] that Shiju put out that articulated his thinking on this and, hence, our priorities. The results of these efforts have been outstanding number of editors on Assamese Wikipedia has increased to 31 in April 2012 (from 18 in December 2011 and just 10 in November 2011.) number of Wikiprojects increased to 6 (from a situation where there were no reasonably active ones in December 2011- and including 5 Wikiprojects independently conceptualised and managed by the community) average monthly edits on Assamese Wikipedia increased to about 5000 in April 2012 from around 3000 in November 2011 There are 5 key factors that are responsible for this remarkable growth Strong communication. This started with Shiju building personal connections with Assamese editors and then encouraging them to communicate with each other on-wiki, online and in meet--ups and outreach sessions. Initial push. Shiju visited Assam in January where he spent time in 2 towns with 7 of the most active community members, who also conducted 2 outreach sessions. This visit has proved to be really useful because it helped to energise the community and also helped to establish a personal relationship between Shiju and these editors (and also, amongst the editors themselves.) Encouraging collaboration. Wikiprojects and outreach are really useful to galvanise a community and helped build personal equations. It's wonderful to see the increase in Wikiprojects and Building capacity confidence. In all the work that has been done for the Assamese community, the endeavour has been to build capacity. For instance, support was given to get basic outreach material including FAQs prepared and outreach sessions were guided by Shiju. It's inspiring to see the Assamese community now take things to a whole new level and plan out an ambitious 10th anniversary.[6] Healthy environment. This is the last - but probably the most essential point - and it is something I want to call out because it is what will help or severely hinder the abilities of individual communities realise their dreams and potential. The reason why the Assamese community is making such wonderful steps forward is because there is a set of editors with the right level of initiative and motivation a strong sense of co-operation and good spirit amongst the editors an extremely welcoming approach to new editors None of this would have been possible without the efforts of every single Assamese community members. In the early days when Shiju started off, he was interacting with Bishnu, Dipankar, Gitartha, Jyoti Prabhakar - who helped organise the first meet-ups and outreach sessions. Thanks to their efforts, a list of thank-yous would now be 31 strong! Thank you and congratulations to all of you! To the Assamese community, I wish you the very best for your 10th anniversary.[6] There are exciting plans including your photo contest and your article contest and the meet-up and the outreach session. I know that you are doing most of the event largely independently (with Noopur[7] providing media assistance for the 10th anniversary and an India Chapter[8] grant[9] supporting you.) This is the true signs of a community that is coming of age. There are tremendous opportunities in outreach to get new editors, initiatives like your article photo contests to improve content and in proposed projects like offline to make transformational changes in the community. With regard to the way forward for India Program, the pilot design page[4] on meta[3] has now been updated. The next steps are going to be to see how we can adapt or build on these experiences with other communities, and as we move to other communities, do them in a more scaleable manner. To all community members - across languages across India - if you did want any help in any aspect of community building, please feel free to reach out to Shiju[1] at sh...@wikimedia.org. Please also do add comments or ideas or suggestions you might have to the Community Building Pilot's talk page.[10] hisham[11] Notes [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Shiju [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Telugu Wiktionary launches WOTD
Congratulations to all Telugu Wiktionarians (...I did not know that word existed till now!) Thank you, Tejas, for spotting someone asking for help, seeing there was something you could support, being bold and offering a hand - and making a great contribution! ...and to the (unnamed) en-wp editor who tried to help - I thank you for trying! ...you know who you are ;-) This mail represents the very best of our community - a bunch of breathtakingly high-minded, incredibly bright, wonderfully talented folks who help each other out in pursuit of an inspiring common goal! The Bangalore meetup [1] that I had the privilege of attending was fantastic - and I'm really pleased that there are tangible outcomes. I urge everyone on this list to read the report, if you've not already done so. hisham [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-in-blr/2012-May/000635.html On May 22, 2012, at 11:58 AM, Arjuna Rao Chavala wrote: Hi, Telugu Wiktionary launched Word Of The Day (WOTD) feature on its first page[1] yesterday. The series is featuring words as per the Telugu alphabet with today's word being COW (ఆవు). On behalf of Telugu Wiktionary community, I thank Tejas Jain, Kannada Wiktionarian (user page[2]) for all the tech help over three weeks in creating and fine tuning the templates for WOTD and also for updating the first page to give a new look. This feature has been a long felt need for Telugu Wiktionary and not much work was done due to lack of competent tech editors in Telugu after the initial roll out period of 2006-2009. During the recent special Bangalore meetup with Hisham and Barry, there was a good discussion around the needs of Indian language wikipedias. I, representing Telugu wikipedia and OmShivaprakash, Kannada SIG Chair shared the need for fixing the template problems. Hisham helped us connect with an English Wikipedia Editor with technology interest. I projected WOTD and Infobox India Jursidiction templates (translated into Telugu long time back) as the major need. However the said editor expressed regret as he is not comfortable with working on localised tempaltes. Tejas who happened to see the discussion offered to help out with WOTD as he has done a similar thing for Kannada. After two weeks of development and updates based on feedback, the feature is now released. Thanks to Hisham for interaction and followups which helped in getting us connect with Tejas. We need more of interactions offline and online among the various Wiki language communities (technical/content) to strengthen our projects serving information needs of people. Regards Arjuna Rao Chavala On behalf of Telugu Wiktionarians. [1] http://te.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E0%B0%AE%E0%B1%8A%E0%B0%A6%E0%B0%9F%E0%B0%BF_%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%87%E0%B0%9C%E0%B1%80 [2] http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%B8%E0%B2%A6%E0%B2%B8%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%AF:Teju2friends ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia to be free on mobiles in Africa, Middle East (SciDev.net)
Hi Srikanth Comments inline. On Apr 12, 2012, at 11:38 AM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote: On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 04:22, Barry Newstead bnewst...@wikimedia.org wrote: It would also be cool if we celebrate what people actual do and debate the efficacy based on the results (since all of our work is experimental in nature and unproven at this time) Since we are talking something related to outreach, let me remind the talk[1] is still open and am unaware about the analysis on outreach / metrics, since they haven't been figured out in the discussion. We are working on trying to analyse the editing trends of newbies who have attended sessions. It's in this context, we've been in touch with nearly 20 community members across the country to gather the usernames of newbies who have recently attended outreach sessions. We wanted a couple of months of data to be available so that we could run an analysis of editing trends using some tools that are being developed. I can also imagine the need to finetune elements of the analysis once we see the first round of output. A quick comment on the style of getting community input. While I appreciate IP for trying hard to get sound feedback from community which is good and very important, but sometimes I feel tired by just looking at things they ask for. Just look at the questions here[1][2], community is NOT a group of survey takers who have loads of free time(This has been mentioned somewhere in meta for research as well IIRC). It is quite obvious that they were unanswered(may remain so) because it will turn off most people. IP is - and will continue to be for the foreseable future - in experimentation mode. We would love to have the answers to everything - be we won't. The questions I mention were meant to elicit suggestions, generate debate and indicate IP's thinking and the challenges we are working on. To share with you how these evolve, a question like Can we introduce story-telling as a effective means of sharing the work that is done by community members such that we are able to cross-pollinate ideas? has already evolved into a story like http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/04/realizing-the-dreams-of-communities-3-years-6-users-1000-articles-counting-the-source-of-gujarati-wikisource/ and I know that there is another story from another community on another project that will be out rather soon. A pilot design for story telling has also been put up here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling Similarly, How do we build a toolkit for media/PR/social media such that community members are able to rapidly deploy to support specific initiatives such as Wikiprojects or to celebrate community or project milestones? is being discussed with interested Odia community based on the following initial draft http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Social_Media Something like. How do we support a community initiative like Wikipatrika in a manner that it remains entirely owned by the individual community members - but we are still able to help them? How do we do this without taking away credit and also without building dependence? is governing the way that we are doing the support work for Wikipatrika. It's being done with nearly 15 community members across communities. A pilot design for this has been put up here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Wikipatrika Lastly, when we ask for something to be worked upon[3], there is a difference between seeking input and getting the work done. If only I had the time and skill to do what I suggested, I would have proposed an RfC myself, why would I even ask IP to work on it. With regard post [3], I mentioned at the bottom of that post the kind of sensitives that we work within - and we will continue to be exceedingly aware of them. Over the past few days, Shiju has been working on a particularly sensitive community matter but he is doing it in the manner that is most appropriate for it - quietly and 1-on-1. hisham [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs#10_Questions [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-March/007734.html [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia to be free on mobiles in Africa, Middle East (SciDev.net)
On Apr 12, 2012, at 12:57 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: snip there is no report for March This delay is on my side. It is now up at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Reports/Community_Monthly_Reports/Mar_2012#Monthly_Report_-_Mar_2012 snip but where is April? snip Coming up in the next couple of hours at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Reports/Community_Monthly_Reports/Apr_2012 hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Program - Monthly Report: March Plan: April
The month community report for March is available here [1] and the areas of work in April are available here [2]. (Apologies for the delay in this. Going forward, we will have these out before the 7th of every month.) Please do share your comments and suggestions on the respective talk pages. Best hisham [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Reports/Community_Monthly_Reports/Mar_2012 [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Reports/Community_Monthly_Reports/Apr_2012___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Odia Wikipedia Outreach Programs in Odisha (Mar-Apr)
Congratulations, Odia Wikimedians, for an extraordinarily productive weekend. You all should all be really proud of: a) The sheer level of activity over 3 days: 3 outreach sessions and 1 meet-up is awe-inspiring! b) The fact that even relatively new folks in the community are standing up and taking initiatives, such as MKar conducting (what I think) is his first outreach session! MKar, loved reading your mail about how you explained to folks that only the most interested need remain in the outreach session after the initial introductory bit (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2012-April/007897.html). It came from the heart, and it was a delight to read! c) Looking at all aspects of the various activities - from planning out the venues to getting a beautiful Odia version of the prezi presentation for your outreach sessions (http://prezi.com/ljk3w0m44w6x/copy-of-introduction-to-wikipedia/) to talking in detail about the next steps d) Showing wonderful initiative like approaching work colleagues for an outreach session at work. We should try that in other places too. e) Working collaboratively as a community on all the various activities - which you have done so magnificently across this weekend! You are a warm, friendly community - and that comes from each of you as individuals! f) Having a constructive meetup which was focussed on specific issues and from emerged clear plans and way forward! I am sure this will encourage more meetups and more attendance in these meetups! g) The press coverage that has been shared on this link is great, but I also have been seeing the social media that you are using (facebook, etc.) which is also going to be very useful for a language that has a decent level of activity on the Internet. h) The medical outreach will give you great benefits for you Medicine Project. I know there are exams for the students right now, but let's approach them after that and see how they can join your community and projects. i) You've put in huge physical effort and time - and I know some guys have travelled for hours to get to the various places! All the very best for everything going forward. Also, as always, please reach out if you need any help from India Program. Do reach out to Subha or Shiju for anything. Warmest Regards, hisham On Apr 9, 2012, at 2:30 PM, Mrutyunjaya Kar wrote: Hi all Apologies for the delayed report. Odia Wikimedia Community had a very eventful, exciting and constructive weekend last week! i want to share with you a report of 3 (yes THREE!) outreach sessions and the community meet up held between March 30 and April 1. Odia Wikipedia Editing Workshop - Anugul - March 30 *Summary* An Editing Odia Wikipedia workshop was conducted on 30th March at the National Institute of Computer Education, Nalconagar, Anugul. It was attended by 14 newbies. Odia WikipedianMrutyunjay Karhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/or:MKar conducted the workshop by introducing Odia Wikipedia to the newbies. (In fact, Mrutyunjay single-handedly organized the session and most of the audience were his work colleagues who he had told about Odia Wikipedia.) He talked briefly about Wikipedia, five pillars and policies. Then there was a demonstration session on how to edit Odia Wikipedia. One of the attendees was called up to create his own account and then Mrutyunjaya demonstrated basics of editing by interacting with the audience. Once we had shown everyone this, we invited those who were interested to stay for a more detailed and hands-on editing to stay, and told everyone else they were free to leave. A few of the audience left the lab, and the remaining 9 created their user accounts. 4 of the new wikipedians have made small but significant edits. *Challenges Solutions* - An issue that was faced was that newbies initially had problems typing in Odia. We requested the newbies to check the *Typing Help*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/or:Help:Typing page to understand the key combination. Mrutyunjaya explained how they can improve by gradual exercise, using the Show Preview option and that making corrections is allowed on Wikipedia. *Next Steps* - Mrutyunjaya will personally interact with the new editors, either 1-on-1 or in groups to give them more support on editing and to address doubts - Mrutyunjaya could conduct more physical meetups in Anugul where help more newbies with editing *Lessons* - Mrutyunjaya's initiative to reach out to his colleagues and friends to introduce them to Odia Wikipedia and to encourage them to learn about editing by attending the session is really interesting because it increases the chances of like-minded folks attending outreach sessions. - When we do outreach sessions, it will be nice to share a small note about the session (with some useful links) beforehand - so that interested participants can read up
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] WikiSangamolsavam - Annual WikiConference of Malayalam Wikicommunity
Dear All This is a sweet invite from the Malayalam community - and I thought I would add a few points about why it might be useful for non-Malayalam Wikimedians to attend. The Malayalam community is one of India's largest Indic communities (with nearly 100 active editors.) It also has a wonderful history of community building and collaboration - and any non-Malayalam editor who attends this even would gain tremendously from hearing at first hand about their activities, which include (and I'm listing only a few here): systematic organisation of outreach (they have, for instance, conducted outreach sessions in every district headquarters in Kerala) attracting, training retaining newbies (in terms of reaching out and providing the intial hand-holding that is so necessary) collaborative efforts such as wikiprojects (Wikiproject Gramapanchayat - which created / improved articles on Malayalam Wikipedia on every gram panchayat in Kerala) large scale organisation initiatives such as the offline project (which contained 500 Wikipedia articles, and the world's first offline version of Wikisource) Wikisource now has more than 500 Malayalam books (and includes a very interesting model where 50 secondary schools students are currently helping out as wikilibrarians!) ambitious community-wide communications efforts such as an annual report You will meet the Wikimedians who did all of this and be able to take back ideas for your own communities and projects. You will find the Malayalam community incredibly friendly - and I am sure relationships that you build there will be useful when you return to your communities. Best hisham On Apr 10, 2012, at 11:08 AM, Ramesh N G wrote: In continuation to the earlier announcement, here are the latest updates on WikiSangamolsavam - The Annual WikiConference of Malayalam Wikicommunity. The conference is happening on April 28th and 29th at Kollam, Kerala. We expect around 200 people to attend this conference. 1. The Programs has been Finalized. Click here to view the page in En. 2. The registration is now open. Click here to register. (currently only available in ml). If any non-ml users want to register, Please send a mail to wikisamgamothsavam2...@gmail.com. Registration is in full swing and already close to 100 people registered. Some of the highlights of Malayalam conference: 1. We expect around 200 people to attend this conference which includes around 50 students selected from different schools of Kollam district. 2. There are 26 Submissions / Presentation by Wikipedians / public in two days. 3. A panel discussion regarding Copyright of Government documents. - Day-2 4. Parallel Wiki School Students Conference - on Day-2 5. An Analaysis of all Malayalam wiki projects and discussion about taking the Malayalam wiki projects forward. 6. Public Speeches by prominent IT movement leaders of Kerala. 7. Wiki workshops to introduce malayalam wiki projects to new bies If any non-ml users want to register, Please send a mail to wikisamgamothsavam2...@gmail.com. Registeration fee is 300 Rs and there are no scholarships available for this conference. We are planning to run a special 2 hour session for non-Malayalam wikipedians attenduing the malayalam confernce. We welcome all of you to God's own country. FAQ is available in ml. If you still have any question, please write to wikisamgamothsavam2...@gmail.com User:Rameshng On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Adv. T.K Sujith tksuj...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Friends, The annual meet-up of Malayalam Wikimedia Community - Wikisangamolsavam 2012 will be held on 28th and 29th of April 2012 at District Panchayath Hall, Kollam, Kerala. We expect 200 participants for the event from inside and outside Kerala. This is an open event and in this meetup, along with the whole malayalam wiki community, any person those who interested in Malayalam Wikimeida Activities such as Students, Teachers, Computer Professionals, Educational and Social workers etc. can attend. Plz see the event page of Wikisangamolsavam2012 for more details In these two days Meetup we will discuss annual reports of Malayalam Wikimedia Projects. There also 3 parallel sessions for presentations and discussions on general topics connected with wikipedia. We expecting papers on different subjects mainly come under the tracks of Community, Knowledge, Technology and Outreach. Selected participants can present papers and talks. You can submit your paper through this link. General Speeches of eminent personalities in subjects like Internet Freedom is also included. A second edition of Malayalam Loves WIkimedia is successfully going on as a campaign for WikiSangamotsavam. At present 2819 more uploads done into Wiki Media Commons through this programme. The registration fees decided are Rs 200 for early bird, Rs 300 for regular and Rs 150
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Fortnightly IRC: Indic Languages: Thursday April 5th 9pm (IST): wikimedia-office
starting in 15 min. hisham On Apr 5, 2012, at 6:09 AM, Hisham wrote: HI Folks Reminder about the IRC today (9pm IST on Thursday April 5th) Do join us using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office. Here is what we would like to discuss today - which we shall do for the first 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss related to India Program. You may have noticed that we are increasing our emphasis on Wikisource. Please see Shiju's post on using simple technology to support digitazation (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages/Digitization_of_books_in_Wikisource_using_DjVu) and Noopur's story of the Gujarati Wikisource (http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/04/realizing-the-dreams-of-communities-3-years-6-users-1000-articles-counting-the-source-of-gujarati-wikisource/) In addition, Shiju has been engaged with other communities on how to start or accelerate their respective language Wikisources. Wikisource has some very important characteristics that make it attractive. It's a (relatively) easier way for newbies to start contributing than the respective Wikipedia It's a great way to reach out to language lovers - and love for a language is an important motivator for contribution (on this and other projects) There is a much lower gender gap on Wikisource, and it's easy for a wider age group to contribute It's more accessible as an entry point to newbies because it has less policies than other projects It's can act as a gateway to other projects In today's IRC, we'd like to talk through the work that's happening on Wikisource by many communities, discuss best practices and provide a channel of support for anyone interested in joining the project from any language. Speak soon. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Fortnightly IRC: Indic Languages: Thursday April 5th 9pm (IST): wikimedia-office
HI Folks Reminder about the IRC today (9pm IST on Thursday April 5th) Do join us using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office. Here is what we would like to discuss today - which we shall do for the first 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss related to India Program. You may have noticed that we are increasing our emphasis on Wikisource. Please see Shiju's post on using simple technology to support digitazation (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages/Digitization_of_books_in_Wikisource_using_DjVu) and Noopur's story of the Gujarati Wikisource (http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/04/realizing-the-dreams-of-communities-3-years-6-users-1000-articles-counting-the-source-of-gujarati-wikisource/) In addition, Shiju has been engaged with other communities on how to start or accelerate their respective language Wikisources. Wikisource has some very important characteristics that make it attractive. It's a (relatively) easier way for newbies to start contributing than the respective Wikipedia It's a great way to reach out to language lovers - and love for a language is an important motivator for contribution (on this and other projects) There is a much lower gender gap on Wikisource, and it's easy for a wider age group to contribute It's more accessible as an entry point to newbies because it has less policies than other projects It's can act as a gateway to other projects In today's IRC, we'd like to talk through the work that's happening on Wikisource by many communities, discuss best practices and provide a channel of support for anyone interested in joining the project from any language. Speak soon. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 29th @ 9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Here's the log. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/IRC_meeting_2012-03-29 Do go through it. It covers a lot of the work that is being done in outreach - including the kind of material that is available on (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Outreach_Programs/Handbook#Respository_of_Documents) as well as ideas and suggestions on how best to conduct outreach sessions. Am repeating the request for Indic community folks to help translate the documents so that (they) and others in their respective communities can use this material. I'm also reiterating Nitika's point about the need to do more outreach in Indic languages and if anyone needs any support, please do reach out to her at nit...@wikimedia.org Also, we discussed Wikipatrika and storytelling. Wikipatrika needs involvement from all communities so that all are covered well. For storytelling, we are looking at individual editors from all communities for us to celebrate their stories. For any help on either, please do reach out to noo...@wikimedia.org. Thank you. From April onwards, we will move to our regular routine of 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month. Next IRC is planned for this Thursday (April 5th at 9pm IST.) It will be about Indic languages. More details will follow. Best hisham On Mar 29, 2012, at 8:52 PM, Nitika Tandon wrote: Hey, Just a reminder. We are starting in 10 mins. Do join in! Thanks Nitika On 29-Mar-2012, at 8:54 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks Reminder about the IRC later today (9pm IST on March 29th.) Join in using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office. As I had indicated earlier, what we will do going forward is to publish an opening statement - which is below. We'd like to have a rich discussion around these topics for 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss. There have been more than 22 outreach sesssions (English + some Indic languages) across India over the past 2 1/2 months. We have been working on constantly every component of outreach. * Pre-session work - building supporting material (documents, presentations, handouts etc), evaluating different ways of conducting an effective outreach, using different ways to reach out to organisations with the proposal to conduct a session etc. * Session work - adopting different techniques of doing outreach, how do we get participants more involved during the session, how to filter out the folks so that we do the editing session only with the genuinely interested participants, how to balance between practical and theoretical aspects of training, how much information to give out in one session etc. * Post-session work - how do we provide editing support to the participants, how do we collect their contact information, how do we keep in touch with them on regular basis, how do we invite them to join other Wiki projects, how do we track their edit count - soon after the session, after 1 and 3 months of conducting the session etc. We'd like to discuss these. In the IRC, the following will be covered: * Indic Outreach: How can we do more outreach session in Indic langauges in particular? / Can regional communities work to translate supporting material? / How do we provide more support to different language communities to conduct these sessions? * More Outreach: If we are doing 7 outreach session in one month right now is there a way of us doing 10 every month? / Can we find more community members who will be willing to conduct these session? / For community members who are interested to conduct outreach sessions but think they lack confidence - is there a way we can help them? * Better Outreach: Can we find some volunteers who will be willing to adopt these newbies and give them support? . I'd strongly encourage all those folks who have been actively involved in conducting these sessions over the past 2 months to join this IRC. It will be great if you could share your first hand experience with the wider community on what worked, what didn't, what we could have done better etc. I especially do want to ask Indic Wikimedians to join because we desperately need more outreach sessions in Indic languages. We will also briefly address the early stages of the communications work - which are the storytelling and Wikipatrika support that was announced yesterday. Given it's early days on communications, I'd prefer this IRC stay largely focussed on outreach since there is so much to work through there. See you all there! Apologies for sending this note this morning and not last night as I had promised. hisham p.s. There is a (tiny) possibility that I might be slightly late but you'll all be in Nitika's safe hands. I shall try and my level best to be on time
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
On Mar 29, 2012, at 11:27 AM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: Hi Hisham, Could you also provide full links as reference like how Srikanth L suggested to Noopur yesterday? I cannot click through inline links when checking mails on my Nokia phone. Full links updated next to hyperlinks in the mail forwarded below and I'm including them just below this line as well. India Program: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program India Program Team: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Team Pilot Designs: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs Basic Community Building: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building Storytelling: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling Wikipatrika: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Wikipatrika Going forward, we will put the full links in the mails directly. A lot of folks are now accessing stuff directly on their mobiles. The Story Telling and Wikipatrika initiatives that you list here as pilots were efforts undertaken by the Chapter. Instead of doing this seperately as a pilot, does not collaborating with the Chapter make more sense? Absolutely on both. More than happy to. (On Wikipatrika, we have already spoken on this matter with the Chapter.) Wikipatrika is going to need collaboration with a whole host of folks - and in the pilot design page, we've mentioned who all we will reach out to - and these include chapter CIGs / SIGs, for instance. On story-telling, you're right again - and in fact, quite a few profiles are already there on the chapter site (http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Main_Page as well as http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Featured_Wikimedian/Archive). We're going to try and help accelerate this - and see if there are any modifications we can propose. Will speak to the Chapter on this. I would also suggest including in the pilot design itself ways for the community to feel ownership of the project so that these projects would continue despite the Chapter or the WMF. I love this point and the idea! That is exactly what we want. For the current pilot designs, please feel free to make suggestions. For future ones, we will publish them at earlier stages and welcome inputs into the design. Let me also think through how we can start off pilot designs completely afresh. I'm thinking that we put out a problem statement about something that is important to the community, and then facilitate a ground-up community collaborative design for a pilot? Would be great to hear from anyone and on potential candidates in mind in terms of pilots? Throwing some ideas here Digital outreach (or a contribution campaign, as it is sometimes called) Similar to Wikiproject Medicine (currently underway in a few Indic languages), how about Wikiproject Software or some other subject (in other or the same communities) Student Clubs (whether in English or in Indic languages) hisham On Mar 29, 2012 10:36 AM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Program (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program) constantly works on is that the the work that your team (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Team) does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs) - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. Basic Community Building (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_Building) is the work that Shiju is doing with small Indic communities - in this case, Assamese. It will show what steps can be taken to build such communities - from communication to collaboration to outreach. This work is especially relevant to small Indic communities - but there are pointers even for larger communities (including English.) Story-telling for Community Building (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Storytelling) is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. Supporting Community Communications Initiatives (Wikipatrika) for Community Building (meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Wikipatrika) is the initiative just announced by Noopur to support our community's newsletter, Wikipatrika
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipatrika: Next Issue
The line that is inadvertently visible was part of an email from me. There are some sensitivities regarding posting content in English on the Marathi Urdu mailing lists and village pumps. My apologies for this. hisham On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik@gmail.com wrote: ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Pilot Designs
Hi Folks One of the aspects that India Program constantly works on is that the the work that your team does for and with our community is based on clear objectives, robust design and relevant progress parameters. India Program has / is / will be undertaking a series of pilots. Pilots by nature indicate that we try innovative things out sometimes, and we may or may not always suceed. We must be bold and try them out - but we must also carefully build these pilots out and measure progress. On the main India Program meta page, I've created a tab that links to a new sub-page called Pilot Designs - where I have published 3 of these pilot designs. More will follow as they are ready, or as we undertake new work, so do add the page to your watchlists. Basic Community Building is the work that Shiju is doing with small Indic communities - in this case, Assamese. It will show what steps can be taken to build such communities - from communication to collaboration to outreach. This work is especially relevant to small Indic communities - but there are pointers even for larger communities (including English.) Story-telling for Community Building is the work that Noopur just announced (and as illustrated by the profile on Netha) - where we want to celebrate the diversity and magic in our community. Supporting Community Communications Initiatives (Wikipatrika) for Community Building is the initiative just announced by Noopur to support our community's newsletter, Wikipatrika. The attempt is to see how Wikipatrika can become more participative, richer in content and more regular in publication. Do go through these. Do also add your comments on the respective talk pages. The constant endeavor of all the work that we do is to help community members who want to take up the various initiatives that we are piloting (with them or with other community members.) Do go through these pilot designs and if you are interested in getting involved, or if you need clarification, or if you want support - please feel free to ask for it on the talk pages or offlist to any of us. Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
On Mar 26, 2012, at 11:01 AM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: Hi, The conversation is moving off topic. Perhaps the question to mull over is what to do next? How do we move the predominance of media coverage beyond mainstream English print into local language print and other media channels such as radio and the Internet? How do we encourage volunteers from as many Indic communities as possible to volunteer for communications activities so that as many languages are covered? How do we ensure that news coverage is not all warm fuzzy stuff about Wikipedia - but also provides a call to action to potential newbies as well as links or contacts that they can reach out? How do we build and expand our network of media contacts? How do we build a toolkit for media/PR/social media such that community members are able to rapidly deploy to support specific initiatives such as Wikiprojects or to celebrate community or project milestones? How can we use media to support specific community events such as meet-ups or outreach sessions? Can we use media/PR to celebrate editing excellence - by showcasing select articles - and also sharing insights and invitations into the movement that is behind this content? Can we acknowledge individual life / wiki stories of editors to promote editor retention and newbie attraction? Can we build a digital outreach model that is effective? What will it take - in terms of resources such as online tutorials or videos or help pages or chat rooms? How does a digital outreach model not duplicate existing efforts already underway or in advanced stages of planning? Can we integrate community building into the digital outreach model? How do we determine if a language community is able to manage the potential newbie load from such a digital outreach model? How do we teach the media about the movement and community and projects - given relatively low levels of understanding within such an influential group? How do we support a community initiative like Wikipatrika in a manner that it remains entirely owned by the individual community members - but we are still able to help them? How do we do this without taking away credit and also without building dependence? How do we make the India Program monthly newsletters richer and more useful to community members? Can we introduce story-telling as a effective means of sharing the work that is done by community members such that we are able to cross-pollinate ideas? How can social media be used to drive not just attendance of events (such as photothons) but can be used to introduce newbies to Wikimedia policies? How can we adapt the WikimediaIndia handle on facebook so that it expands in popularity - but remains relevant to newbies and more experienced community members? How do we build the WikimediaIndia handle on twitter? How do we constantly remain on top of trends in social media so that we are present and relevant in channels where potential newbies might be? Do we need to localise swag and if so what do we do we need? How do we work intimately with the Chapter's communications team - but remain accessible to non-Chapter members as well? How do we ensure that everything we do on communications is rooted in community building and not marketing mumbo jumbo? How do we measure results in communications? How do we constantly ensure that everything done on communications - which will require the communications expertise - can be done in a manner where capability is transferred to interested community members? hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
Here's the log for March 22nd There were very interesting discussions on how the community building work for Indic languages was conceptualised and how it is evolving. It is especially interesting to see how WikiProjects (like Medical or Translation Enhancement) in Indic communities can play multiple roles apart from the most obvious one of improving content. Projects of this nature hold tremendous potential in community building - from facilitating collaboration, encouraging communication, attracting newbies as well as inviting back retired editors. All Indic wikipedians: If you want any support or clarifications on these points, please do reach out to Shiju (sh...@wikimedia.org) There was also a very useful conversation started on the role of India Program within communities. Please note that in the IRC log, I have blanked out content in 2 lines. (I have marked them BLANKBLANKBLANK) This was done so that the privacy of a fellow community member is not violated. All of us should remember that IRCs (and for that matter, mailing lists such as this, user pages and talk pages) are publicly logged. We need to be sensitive to personal details - of other community members as well as ourselves. Please do pass on this message to other community members, especially newbies. As always, please do put any additional comments on the talk page for this report. Don't forget we are back on IRC on March 29th at 9pm India and will talk a lot about outreach and a little about communications. hisham On Mar 22, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Hisham wrote: We're starting in 15 minutes at 9pm IST. Speak soon. hisham On Mar 22, 2012, at 7:14 AM, Hisham wrote: Dear All Reminder that there's an IRC for the community with India Program on 22nd March at 9:00 pm IST in #wikimedia-office. This session is an open house with no specific topics to be discussed. (This was scheduled because we ran out of time in the previous IRC. To avoid spamming lists, I won't be sending this to any other lists apart from this one. Please do share this mail with whoever you know might be interested. (To join the IRC, all you have to do is go to: http://webchat.freenode.net/ and enter a nickname ( it does not require prior registration) and enter #wikimedia-office as the channel name.) I'll send a reminder 15 minutes before the session. hisham On Mar 17, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Hisham wrote: Here's the link that gives the log of this meeting - for those who couldn't attend. As planned, the major topic of discussion was the Indic Languages initiatives. We talked about the overall approach that Shiju has been following with several dozen community members. We walked through the Medical project - currently underway in Assamese, Telugu, Oriya (Odia) Malayalam. (This seeks to create vital articles in Indic wikis with the help of community members with medical/healthcare background, or users who are interested in healthcare articles.) During the IRC, Jayanta informed us that the Bengali community have also started it - which is great. We also discussed the Translated Articles Enhancement Project which has been started by the Kannada community. Thank you to every one but a special thank you to the new folks who came on today. It's always nice to see new faces! We ran out of time on this IRC. As discussed, I would like to suggest Thursday March 22nd @9pm IST for another IRC. (This is in addition to the IRC planned for March 29th.) The March 22nd IRCwill be an open house - and will not therefore have a predetermined agenda. As always, do visit the India Program page for more information on everything we do. Best hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Hisham wrote: Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
Thanks, much, Theo! Much appreciated. We'll follow the template you've added. It's very useful. hisham On Mar 24, 2012, at 12:47 AM, Theo10011 wrote: This was all getting a bit complicated. I made those sub-pages earlier so the content can scale, I was also trying to keep the Indian IRC hours separate from the usual WMF IRC office hours. I reorganized things a bit. The meetings page is now a template that transcludes to other locations, the main India programs page, etc. All the India staff has to do is just update a single page from now, and the rest will be updated on its own. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:India_Program/meetings It will automatically transclude and update here- http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program#Communication You can add more locations with the template and it will update on its own. Regards Theo On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 12:32 AM, CherianTinu Abraham tinucher...@gmail.com wrote: Logs of the previous IRC meeting ( March 15, 2012) is available on this page http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/meetings but it is not linked here http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program#Communication Hisham/ Noopur, may be you want to update there too or just avoid the need to update on both pages. -TC On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 12:19 AM, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Last log was on 12 October http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program . Please update On 23 March 2012 22:11, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: Heya, since I was unable to join in yesterday, can I have a link to the archive/log? On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 8:45 PM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: We're starting in 15 minutes at 9pm IST. Speak soon. hisham On Mar 22, 2012, at 7:14 AM, Hisham wrote: Dear All Reminder that there's an IRC for the community with India Program on 22nd March at 9:00 pm IST in #wikimedia-office. This session is an open house with no specific topics to be discussed. (This was scheduled because we ran out of time in the previous IRC. To avoid spamming lists, I won't be sending this to any other lists apart from this one. Please do share this mail with whoever you know might be interested. (To join the IRC, all you have to do is go to: http://webchat.freenode.net/ and enter a nickname ( it does not require prior registration) and enter #wikimedia-office as the channel name.) I'll send a reminder 15 minutes before the session. hisham On Mar 17, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Hisham wrote: Here's the link that gives the log of this meeting - for those who couldn't attend. As planned, the major topic of discussion was the Indic Languages initiatives. We talked about the overall approach that Shiju has been following with several dozen community members. We walked through the Medical project - currently underway in Assamese, Telugu, Oriya (Odia) Malayalam. (This seeks to create vital articles in Indic wikis with the help of community members with medical/healthcare background, or users who are interested in healthcare articles.) During the IRC, Jayanta informed us that the Bengali community have also started it - which is great. We also discussed the Translated Articles Enhancement Project which has been started by the Kannada community. Thank you to every one but a special thank you to the new folks who came on today. It's always nice to see new faces! We ran out of time on this IRC. As discussed, I would like to suggest Thursday March 22nd @9pm IST for another IRC. (This is in addition to the IRC planned for March 29th.) The March 22nd IRCwill be an open house - and will not therefore have a predetermined agenda. As always, do visit the India Program page for more information on everything we do. Best hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Hisham wrote: Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: Just a question. Is it possible to ever schedule a session in the afternoon/evening? Happy to schedule at whatever time works best to most - but I suspect that the 9pm slot is the one that will probably be the most convenient (for working folks and many students.) We used to have it at 8pm earlier and I got a bunch of requests to move it to 9pm. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
We're starting in 15 minutes at 9pm IST. Speak soon. hisham On Mar 22, 2012, at 7:14 AM, Hisham wrote: Dear All Reminder that there's an IRC for the community with India Program on 22nd March at 9:00 pm IST in #wikimedia-office. This session is an open house with no specific topics to be discussed. (This was scheduled because we ran out of time in the previous IRC. To avoid spamming lists, I won't be sending this to any other lists apart from this one. Please do share this mail with whoever you know might be interested. (To join the IRC, all you have to do is go to: http://webchat.freenode.net/ and enter a nickname ( it does not require prior registration) and enter #wikimedia-office as the channel name.) I'll send a reminder 15 minutes before the session. hisham On Mar 17, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Hisham wrote: Here's the link that gives the log of this meeting - for those who couldn't attend. As planned, the major topic of discussion was the Indic Languages initiatives. We talked about the overall approach that Shiju has been following with several dozen community members. We walked through the Medical project - currently underway in Assamese, Telugu, Oriya (Odia) Malayalam. (This seeks to create vital articles in Indic wikis with the help of community members with medical/healthcare background, or users who are interested in healthcare articles.) During the IRC, Jayanta informed us that the Bengali community have also started it - which is great. We also discussed the Translated Articles Enhancement Project which has been started by the Kannada community. Thank you to every one but a special thank you to the new folks who came on today. It's always nice to see new faces! We ran out of time on this IRC. As discussed, I would like to suggest Thursday March 22nd @9pm IST for another IRC. (This is in addition to the IRC planned for March 29th.) The March 22nd IRCwill be an open house - and will not therefore have a predetermined agenda. As always, do visit the India Program page for more information on everything we do. Best hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Hisham wrote: Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530) b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach Communications. The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach Communications. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Additional IRC: Thursday March 22nd @ 9pm IST(Open House) (#wikimedia-office)
Dear All Reminder that there's an IRC for the community with India Program on 22nd March at 9:00 pm IST in #wikimedia-office. This session is an open house with no specific topics to be discussed. (This was scheduled because we ran out of time in the previous IRC. To avoid spamming lists, I won't be sending this to any other lists apart from this one. Please do share this mail with whoever you know might be interested. (To join the IRC, all you have to do is go to: http://webchat.freenode.net/ and enter a nickname ( it does not require prior registration) and enter #wikimedia-office as the channel name.) I'll send a reminder 15 minutes before the session. hisham On Mar 17, 2012, at 7:35 PM, Hisham wrote: Here's the link that gives the log of this meeting - for those who couldn't attend. As planned, the major topic of discussion was the Indic Languages initiatives. We talked about the overall approach that Shiju has been following with several dozen community members. We walked through the Medical project - currently underway in Assamese, Telugu, Oriya (Odia) Malayalam. (This seeks to create vital articles in Indic wikis with the help of community members with medical/healthcare background, or users who are interested in healthcare articles.) During the IRC, Jayanta informed us that the Bengali community have also started it - which is great. We also discussed the Translated Articles Enhancement Project which has been started by the Kannada community. Thank you to every one but a special thank you to the new folks who came on today. It's always nice to see new faces! We ran out of time on this IRC. As discussed, I would like to suggest Thursday March 22nd @9pm IST for another IRC. (This is in addition to the IRC planned for March 29th.) The March 22nd IRCwill be an open house - and will not therefore have a predetermined agenda. As always, do visit the India Program page for more information on everything we do. Best hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Hisham wrote: Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530) b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach Communications. The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach Communications. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 15th @ 9pm IST (Indic Languages) Thursday March 29th @9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Here's the link that gives the log of this meeting - for those who couldn't attend. As planned, the major topic of discussion was the Indic Languages initiatives. We talked about the overall approach that Shiju has been following with several dozen community members. We walked through the Medical project - currently underway in Assamese, Telugu, Oriya (Odia) Malayalam. (This seeks to create vital articles in Indic wikis with the help of community members with medical/healthcare background, or users who are interested in healthcare articles.) During the IRC, Jayanta informed us that the Bengali community have also started it - which is great. We also discussed the Translated Articles Enhancement Project which has been started by the Kannada community. Thank you to every one but a special thank you to the new folks who came on today. It's always nice to see new faces! We ran out of time on this IRC. As discussed, I would like to suggest Thursday March 22nd @9pm IST for another IRC. (This is in addition to the IRC planned for March 29th.) The March 22nd IRCwill be an open house - and will not therefore have a predetermined agenda. As always, do visit the India Program page for more information on everything we do. Best hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:45 PM, Hisham wrote: Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530) b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach Communications. The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach Communications. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 15th @ 9pm IST (Indic Languages) Thursday March 29th @9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Hi Pradeep Thanks for sharing this. I've been thinking about what you say and i agree with you. Based on your ideas, here's what I suggest. Going forward, one day before the IRC, we will publish a brief opening statement (which will be relevant to the topic, e.g., Indic Languages) which will be on meta. The IRC will start with a link to this statement. For the next 45 minutes we will discuss the statement. We will then open the floor up for that last 15 minutes. When we publish the logs, we will publish the opening statement above it - so the context is clear to those who could not attend. This way, I hope that we will have a enough time and space to discuss the particular topic and allow for maximum participation - and still keep open the option for other discussions. On the aspect of comfort with IRCs, I agree it does take a little getting used to. The key thing (in addition to the structure I am proposing above) is that we encourage everyone to get involved in the discussion. I do hope that we keep getting newer folks on - as we had the last time round - and it is they who are most likely to feel they don't have the space to join in a conversation when they see the volume of messages and diversity of topics. ...and yes, we will continue the IRC sessions and keep looking at how we can improve effectiveness. Best hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 10:17 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: hi, I hope some of the IRC-veterans can pitch in here. Not everyone is comfortable with IRC. I think these sessions will be more helpful for all involved if we had a statement put up on a wiki or on the mailing list by individuals who want to make these statements and then have a round of questions around the topics (as an example: community and outreach) which were meant to be discussed at the meeting. Then, perhaps throw the floor open for general questions that members of the community want to raise. I think this will make it interactive and not be percieved as a narrative or a one-sided discussion. These may not have been intentional and should have been raised earlier. I hope the Office continues this practice and tries to improve its effectiveness as they move forward. warm regards, User:Prad2609 On 15 March 2012 20:45, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530) b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach Communications. The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach Communications. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org
[Wikimediaindia-l] Invitation to Community Meet-Up: Hyderabad (Friday 16th March) Outreach Session: ISB Hyderabad (Saturday March 17th 11am)
Hello Hyderabad, Sorry for the short notice on this one. Few invites requests: a) I am traveling to Hyderabad on work and thought it would be really sweet to catch up for tea/coffee or dinner on Friday March 16th. Maybe we could have a community meet-up to celebrate Telugu's 50k articles! (We are trying to fix up a venue; I will tell those interested asap.) b) I'm combining my trip with an outreach session at ISB Hyderabad on Saturday March 17th at the ISB Campus. The initial plan was to have a general intro to Wikipedia but they have agreed to have a wiki workshop instead. They have specifically told me that there is interest in both Indic and English language. If anyone's interested, would love your help! The page is here. c) Also, if there is anyone who is interested in conducting outreach sessions but isn't sure how it's done, do join me for the ISB session. The team has been working really hard at improving outreach effectiveness and I'd love to give you a sense of what it looks like. d) Lastly, if you know anyone else who might be interested in attending the wiki workshop as a newbie , I will try and work something out. If you're interested in either the meet up on Friday evening or getting you or your friends to the session on Saturday morning, would you drop me a line offlist (his...@wikimedia.org) Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 15th @ 9pm IST (Indic Languages) Thursday March 29th @9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Reminder that we are starting in 15 minutes. Do join in! Details below. hisham On Mar 15, 2012, at 8:38 AM, Hisham wrote: Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530) b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach Communications. The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach Communications. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia Telugu article count crosses 50, 000
Congratulations, Telugu Wikipedians! This is an important milestone and you deserve all the warmest best wishes. May I suggest a community meetup to celebrate this? A landmark like this can provide acceleration to your community - and could be the catalyst for more collaboration (WikiProjects, etc.) and outreach. A meetup must celebrate but can also look forward and initiate increased community building. It can also be an opportunity to attract Telugu media coverage which will get new users and recognise existing editors. As always, do reach out if you need any support on any of this. Many thanks for sharing this, Rahimanuddin. Best hisham On Mar 14, 2012, at 12:03 AM, రహ్మానుద్దీన్ షేక్ wrote: Hi all Wikipedia Telugu's article count has crossed 50,000 mark. On this occasion, I congratulate everyone who was directly and indirectly involved. Now I request every tewiki user to concentrate on articles' quality improvement. తెవికీ సభ్యులందరి కృషి వలన తెవికీ ౫ వ్యాసాల మైలురాయిని దాట గలిగింది. అందరికీ శుభాకాంక్షలు. ఇకపై ప్రత్యేక వ్యాసం యొక్క నాణ్యతను మెరుగుపరుద్దాం. -- Rahimanuddin Shaik నాని ॥రామానుజార్య దివ్యాజ్ఞాం వర్ధతామభివర్ధతాం॥ Telugu Wikipedia : http://te.wikipedia.org A new address for ebooks : http://kinige.com ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 15th @ 9pm IST (Indic Languages) Thursday March 29th @9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Gentle reminder. Do join in. hisham On Mar 11, 2012, at 6:41 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump / talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach events) or wikiprojects. We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by clicking on the following link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by restarting, with a couple of modifications. a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST (which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at 9pm IST which is GMT + 0530) b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups, folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges or Outreach Communications. The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March 29th will be on Outreach Communications. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Report: Wiki workshop @ IIT Delhi
On Mar 12, 2012, at 11:12 PM, Deepon Saha wrote: I too think we should conc. more on quality than quantity. If we get 4/5 interested students from a session (be it only 5% or 10%) then we should take good care to support them keep them motivated.. Good point..:-) Hey, Deepon, I totally agree with you. More below on focussing on smaller groups. On your point on providing support and motivation, Nitika and Subha are working on something that you will hear from soon. On Mar 12, 2012 11:04 PM, Nitika ntan...@wikimedia.org wrote: cut Kritharth is a student at IIT and has been actively involved in Wikipedia monthly meet-ups in Delhi. It was through him that we got in touch with the organisers at Tryst - annual tech fest organized by IIT-Delhi. I'd really like to thank him for helping us organise this session and a big thank you to Noopur, Rajesh and Piyush for all their help. Thanks so much Kritharth, User:Piyush.Aggarwal and User:RajeshPandey! These were really well organised sessions! Second session on March 5th, Monday: cut We organised the session a bit differently - after giving a brief introduction about Wikipedia and showing some basic editing we invited the uninterested participants to feel free to leave the session and requested only the interested lot to stay back for the remaining session. The participants were informed that in the second half of the session we'll be talking in greater detail about Wikipedia policies and do more hands-on editing training hence it made sense only for those students to stay back who'd like to get deeper knowledge about Wikipedia. Eventually we were left with 8 participants but in my opinion that's was the beginning point of a more interactive and interesting session. Each of these 8 participants were more involved when discussing about Wikipedia policies, they wanted to do more hands on editing and we were also able to provide them individual attention because of limited numbers. Three advantages. The quality of the discussion became so much richer because you had only the most committed in the room. The kind of attention we were able to give to everyone left was so much more personal. Also, as a presenter, I actually felt so much more motivated because the only guys in the room were so much more involved. During the session we edited the article on Chacha Chowdhary and one of the participants started an article on tunde ke kabab. It's really essential to do actual editing on article - and get the participants themselves to edit. You should have seen the look of pride on the participants with every edit. Large groups in outreach sessions become unmanageable - so we should focus on smaller groups. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Report: Wiki workshop @ IIT Delhi
On Mar 13, 2012, at 4:24 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Oh, so that's where Tunde Ke Kabab came from! strictly speaking, the Tunde ke Kabab came from Lucknow... ;-) (sorry, couldn't resist) and *ducks for cover while a mailing list admin hunts him down* The article's got 8 editors contributing 20+ edits over 5 days. That's not earth-shattering but it's so encouraging to see! It was also one of those rare moments where a newbie in an outreach session got a chance to create an article. I usually discourage newbies from getting too fussed about creating an article and try and get them to edit existing articles - but this time we just got lucky. I tried to get support to bring it to DYK, but didn't have time after that. I'm sure it would be a great DYK candidate but it's got a long way to go to hit the 1,500 mark. For folks on the mailing list who don't know DYK, it stands for Did You Know, and it's a series of interesting facts from new or recently expanded articles on Wikipedia. If you ever run into acronyms on this mailing list (or any other), just check where you go for everything else: Wikipedia! Happy Editing! hisham On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Mar 12, 2012 11:04 PM, Nitika ntan...@wikimedia.org wrote: During the session we edited the article on Chacha Chowdhary and one of the participants started an article on tunde ke kabab. It's really essential to do actual editing on article - and get the participants themselves to edit. You should have seen the look of pride on the participants with every edit. Large groups in outreach sessions become unmanageable - so we should focus on smaller groups. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Report: Wiki workshop @ IIT Delhi
On Mar 13, 2012, at 5:14 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: Hisham, it seems you now owe the community tunde ke kabab during the next bash. ;) Considering that Shiju is trying to get support to improve the health of the community, tunde ke kabab I suspect would be ill-advised. Now on the other hand, if you had asked for brinjals... Shameless plug: Please click on the community health link above or on the Medical Translate page and join up. We already have 12 editors from 7 Indic languages participating - which is great. ...but we ONLY have 12 editors from 7 Indic languages!!! Srikanth, do humour only if you can do it. It should be used sparingly, like salt. Its counter-productive if it falls flat. er, strictly speaking, salt in tunde ke kabab can't fall flat. It can either be too much or too little. in the context of tunde ke kabab, though the recipe is secret, i have tasted a hint of cloves - which could theoretically fall flat. *mailing list admin bursts a vein* Better that instructors/volunteers should be positive, smiling and enthu while editing to get similar effects. On a serious note, I wanted to raise another point. English is not a first language for all of us. Not all of us are comfortable speaking in public - and that too in English. However (some) times, we feel pressured to conduct outreach in English by a college room full of guys who are chattering in English. There's nothing wrong if you choose to do outreach in our mother tongues. In fact, there is everything right in the presenter presenting in the language that he or she is most comfortable with. Bengali or Gujarati or Tamil or Punjabi or whatever is the non-English common language between the audience and the presenter. It doesn't have to be English if you're not comfortable. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 15th @ 9pm IST (Indic Languages) Thursday March 29th @9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Hi Folks
One of the essential things that India Program needs to constantly work out is
keeping the community informed of the work that we are doing - so that this
work is clearer but also to help cross-pollinate ideas amongst a wider set of
community members who might not have been engaged on specific village pump /
talk page discussion or involved in particular activities (e.g. outreach
events) or wikiprojects.
We used to have a monthly IRC with the community and India Program. (For
those who are not familiar with IRC, it is an Internet messaging system similar
to a regular chat room. It's very simple to use and you can join in by
clicking on the following link:
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office.) I have been remiss
in conducting these for the past few months - and I'd like to make amends by
restarting, with a couple of modifications.
a) I'd like to propose fortnightly instead of monthly. (I was wary of doing it
any more frequently than monthly earlier because I didn't know if there would
be enough on the plate to discuss. I have changed my mind now - because there
is too much to discuss to cover in a single monthly session.) I'd like to
propose that we do it in the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month at 9pm IST
(which is GMT + 0530) - THOUGH NOT THIS MONTH - BECAUSE I HAVE MISSED THE
TIMELINE. Just for March, we will do it on March 15th and March 29th (both at
9pm IST which is GMT + 0530)
b) I'd like to propose that we do it focussed on specific work streams instead
of general. The reason I say this is that - as with many community meet-ups,
folks will give time to attend a meet-up or participate in an IRC only if there
is a topic of relevance to them. To that extent, we could do one IRC on Indic
languages and one on Outreach Communications. I'd start both the IRCs with a
re-cap of India Programs activities for the fortnight (or so) prior to the IRC
and forward from the IRC - and then we could talk about either Indic langauges
or Outreach Communications.
The March 15th one will be focussed on Indic Languages and the one on March
29th will be on Outreach Communications.
Having said that, there is quite a bit of overlap on these topics - so feel
free to join both. The more the merrier! Please do also invite anyone who is
interested to know more about India Program or - even more importantly -
interact with fellow Wikimedians interested in a particular activity to join
in. (It's quite a lot of of fun {citation required} - and i've heard a rumour
{citation required} that there was actually a romance that started on one of
the IRCs...)
As always, the logs will be put up on meta for the benefit of those who can't
attend and for the record.
I'll send a reminder on the day of the session and one 30 minutes before the
session.
Thanks
hisham
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Update: India Program Emphasis for March 2012
On Mar 8, 2012, at 9:42 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: Hey, I have given a comment yesterday. Hisham, are you monitoring the comments? Absolutely. ...have responded on the page itself.. ...and would love to hear suggestions and comments from as many folks as possible. Please do post your suggestions or requests or comments here. It'll help us work better for you in March (and in the future.) On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 7:54 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: Referring to my earlier email with regards to this, could you please provide a detailed report instead of a very general one as it is at the moment? We'll keep working on how best we can improve it. Also, the meta page detailing Outreach Sessions gives a link to only one event report - despite the fact that IP staff including yourself have been involved in other sessions. Could you please add links to reports on the same? Links are there for the events where a page was created on wiki. (Think they were done only for 4 of the events.) hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Monthly Report: Feb 2012
On Mar 7, 2012, at 1:01 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: Hisham: IP has taken initiatives that need to be commended as well. Thank you! ;-) For eg. Virtual Outreach via Google Hangout is Nitikas initiative. Not nit-picking - but want to make a distinction. It is not Nitika's initiative. If it is regarded as Nitika's initiative, it will fail! It will only succeed if there are folks in the community who agree to get involved with it, try it out, draw learnings from it, improve it, share it with other community members - who can then choose to adopt / adapt it. It is an idea that she proposed - and she is having a bunch of discussions with a bunch of community members about how to actually realise it. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Monthly Report: Feb 2012
On Mar 7, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Anirudh Bhati wrote: On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:42 PM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Nothing is conducted solely by India Program - and hence I said supported. Everything is conducted by the community - sometimes under the aegis of the Chapter and sometimes independently. The support that we have provided varies - from getting the actual event fixed up to providing presentation material to interested community members to participating in these events. Can this be clearly specified in the report? That is more helpful than simply supported. For instance, when you say Supported the community to get a venue in Guwahati University, it would help us understand more if you could tell us how. Please refer this mail On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 12:45 PM, CherianTinu Abraham tinucher...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Pranav, In India, it is extremely difficult to hairline separate who has done which event. - Chapter, Community and WMF India Programs. I agree it's not possible to do that, but it is entirely possible to list out the work done in specific. This enhances our accountability and transparency towards the community. Let us take the case of the Trichy event, the request came to a community member Rsrikanth to the chapter. Nitika was actively involved along with me and Naveen. The chapter signed the MoU and supplied some goodies. Nitika was actively involved in coaching Sohan, a chapter member and Rsrikanth. One must not also forget that both Hisham Nitika are also chapter members. Fact: Nitika is a paid employee of the WMF India Programs and is not a chapter/community volunteer. Anyone who contributes - in whatever manner - is a community member. All of us in the India Program team have the freedom to do whatever we want to in our free time. fyi: all of us contribute in our personal, voluntary capacity as well as work for the movement in our official capacity. fyi: it's not part of the job description. Another event in Chennai (Jaya eng college) , where Subha led, his travel expenses was reimbursed by the Chapter, Subha is a Chapter SIG Chair .. The event is supported by Hisham Nitika too. Subha is also an India Programs executive. Fact: Subhashish, former volunteer, and now paid consultant with India Programs. Much water has flown beneath this bridge, but I am disappointed with the suggestion that someone becomes a former volunteer just because they join the India Program team. See earlier point. I actively organize Bangalore Meetups and support several others .. Should I be worrying whether I am doing as a chapter member, board member or a community member? By a matter of principle, chapter and community volunteers are just... volunteers. Paid consultants are hired to executive specific programs, and hence the results of their work and reports should be presented with clarity. Simply supporting something does not clarify the extent of their involvement. The work that we are doing is actually supporting communities. The healthiest way of us doing our jobs is to work closely (and in most cases, individually with community members) and help them in various ways - and make sure that the individual community members are front and centre of the initiative - as is right. As in the mail I shared earlier on Guwahati, or indeed in the Nature of Support column on this page, we document them and share them through wider channels. In other cases, they are discussed on village pumps or individual talk pages or on chats or whatever manner that the respective community member feels most comfortable - and we leave it at that. A lot of our community members do not have the experience and confidence to engage publicly or take initiatives. We will continue to work quietly with them. The purpose behind my monthly newsletter is to try and document a varied list of the things we do - not from the point of view of documenting every last detail - but to provide a summary and useful links. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Monthly Report: Feb 2012
On Mar 7, 2012, at 1:46 PM, Anirudh Bhati wrote: We will discuss overlapping roles and notify the community about our decision. Who is we? hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Update: India Program Emphasis for March 2012
I'm starting a monthly note on what the India Program team will be focussing on at the start of every month. March 2012 is posted here. I hope you find it useful. Please do add comments on the discussion page, or on this mail trail, or offlist to me. Many thanks. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Monthly Report: Feb 2012
I'm starting a monthly update on India Program activities. The report for February is posted here. I hope you find it useful. Please do add comments on the discussion page, or on this mail trail, or offlist to me. Many thanks. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program: Community Monthly Report: Feb 2012
On Mar 7, 2012, at 12:12 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: Im a bit confused. IIRC, for the Trichy event, the Chapter signed an MoU, which means it was a chapter outreach session which India Programs may have supported (correct me if I am wrong). Hisham, can you please divide outreach activities into two - those conducted by India Programs and those conducted by Community/Chapter but supported by India Programs, giving details on how you supported them? Likewise, if the chapter supports an India Programs initiative, it must mention in its report that it was a supportive role and not a chapter event. As things stand, both the Chapter and India Programs will put in a report stating they conducted x events, which will overlap with one and other, thus not giving a clear picture of who conducted how many events. Nothing is conducted solely by India Program - and hence I said supported. Everything is conducted by the community - sometimes under the aegis of the Chapter and sometimes independently. The support that we have provided varies - from getting the actual event fixed up to providing presentation material to interested community members to participating in these events. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Announcing Noopur Raval as Consultant, Wikimedia Foundation (India Program, Communications)
Dear All, I am pleased to announce that Noopur Raval ([User:Noopur28] has been selected as Consultant to the Wikimedia Foundation, and will support Communications for India Program. This position will perform 4 key functions. Firstly, it will support communications with our community. This involves a regular set of updates (such as newsletters) as well as specific communication projects such as story-telling of local community initiatives (to document experiences, celebrate successes and cross-pollinate ideas.) This is not for day-to-day program communications - which is a core part of each of our responsibilities in the India Program team. Second will be to support media PR for local community initiatives. The single biggest challenge here will to be get more Indic language media coverage to support community building efforts. This will be done directly with community members and also in co-ordination with the India Chapter's Communications Media PR team. The third aspect is to build and expand existing community social networks (such as WikimediaIndia on facebook) and to help with the use of social networks to support community building. Lastly, there is untapped potential of using digital outreach - to augment existing physical outreach efforts. We need to (very, very carefully) explore if we can reach out to our large and growing reader base and inform, encourage and enable them to become editors using online channels and resources. Noopur is a community member and has supported outreach activities (in Ahmedabad Delhi), is a member of Delhi SIG of the Chapter, has participated in community collaborations like Collaboration of the Month and has been actively trying to start GLAM in India. Noopur is from Gandhinagar and is graduating from JNU with a Master's in Arts Aesthetics. She has a triple honors Bachelor's in Media Studies, Literature and Psychology from Christ College, Bangalore. She has interned with Radio Mirchi, Times of India and the Centre for Internet Society (amongst others) - as well as done some teaching assignments. She is an active blogger (including for the India Art Summit, 2011.) She has published a novella and co-authored an anthology of poems, plays short stories and has co-presented a paper on Wikiwars with [User:Srikeit.] She is also an amateur photographer and has contributed to Commons as well as other platforms. The Communications position has taken a long time to fill. The initial call for selection was in September. I reported back to the community in December that I had failed to find the right candidate and hence the delay. There were a number of deserving candidates and this selection has taken time because of the need to find the most suitable profile for a complex role. This role requires the right mix of an academic foundation in communications, domain expertise as well as adequate familiarity with our community. It also requires adaptability and strong learning skills - because so much of what we are trying to do is pioneering. I am confident that she brings the right level of experience and competencies - and I'm very excited by the opportunity of making a step jump in the impact of communications for our community. Do join me in welcoming Noopur. She will start on March 12 and will be based in New Delhi. Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Improving outreach efforts in India
to the community? Have posted these on the page Logic referred to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Outreach_Programs shameless-re-plug http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Digital_Outreach_and_Physical_Outreach sounds like a fantastic session to attend! /shameless-re-plug hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Analysis of IEP: Quantitative Analysis Tory Read's Report
On Jan 23, 2012, at 8:10 AM, sankarshan wrote: Is the planned schedule/calendar for the IEP available ? One that puts dates to specific phases of the exercise. Not currently, Sankarshan. Once we start the work of designing a new pilot - taking into account the learnings from the Pune Pilot. This will have detailed schedule calendar. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Analysis of IEP: Quantitative Analysis Tory Read's Report
Two reports have just been released as the analysis of IEP Pune Pilot. An quantitative analysis has been prepared and is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Quantitative_Analysis Tory Read's report is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Analysis/Independent_Report_from_Tory_Read Thank you. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Reflections Plans: India Programs Mid-Year Report to the Community
thread of a few weeks ago, do not lose faith in outreach. It is hard and it can take a huge toll on time but it is so, so, so essential to the growth of our community. Nitika will be driving this, supported by Subha. • Redesigning India Education Program There is enormous opportunity in the youth of India and specifically with students. They can - in right circumstances - help contribute to our projects and can become shining additions to our communty. We need to figure out a much more successful way of tapping into this - avoiding (as many of) the problems as we had in the first pilot. We will work collaboratively with the community and design a new pilot for this. Anything and everything can be changed in this new pilot. Do engage on this from the design stage itself, and through the course of the new pilot. We need your help right through the journey. Nitika will be driving this, supported by all of us. • Improving Communications An important step will be to get a communications person on board. However, before (and of course after this person joins), there are things that we will do more and better. We are doing more on this but we will intensify our community communications. We will make sure that monthly IRCs happen on time. We will have monthly newletters. We will share work plans of the team. We will be (even) more regular with other updates. We will explore all options, and not limit ourselves to mailing lists such as village pumps. If required (and this might be so in the case of relatively nascent Indic communities), we will reach out to individual editors on their talk pages to inform and invite them if they are not active on more public channels. We will continue to build on the strong base of the relationship with the Chapter. Do engage with us and reach out whenever you feel we have not been clear on anything. Once the communications position is filled, we will also initiate work around press (especially local language print publications), digital outreach (providing online resources to inform and encourage newbies) and social media (to support community buildling.) We will work closely with the Chapter as well as with individual community members / groups. • Trust Operations A lot of work still needs to be done on the Trust and the various regulatory requirements. This includes a bunch of regulatory compliance things as well as applying for the necessary funding approvals. This is not sexy stuff - but it is necessary. Also, we will start putting in place the essential elements for a small team's smooth operations - including the accounting systems and basic personnel functions. Subha will be driving this, supported by me. . . . . . . . . . . . Do let me have your views. Also, please do reach out if you need any clarifications or have suggestions. As always, do respond on this mailing list or feel free to reach out to me directly. We exist to serve the community. We will do this to the best of our abilities. Do reach out for any help you need. Happy Wiki 11th! Happy New Year! Happy Editing! Warmest Regards, hisham Notes [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005813.html [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005872.html [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs [4] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-November/004894.html [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IEP [6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2011 [7] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Indic_Languages/Summary_of_initial_discussions_-_2011 [8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outreach_Program_Handbook ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikipedia-AS] Assamese wikipedia crossed the 1000 article milestone
Congratulations Assamese Wikipedians! This is a wonderful achievement. It's really inspiring to see a small community like the Assamese community starting to discuss and plan community communication / collaboration and outreach events (http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E0%A7%B0%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%9C%E0%A7%B0_%E0%A6%9A%27%E0%A7%B0%E0%A6%BE_%28%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BF%29#Building_Asaamese_wikipedia_and_Assamese_Wiki_community) Request and invite all Assamese community members and all who love Assamese to engage in the above discussion on the village pump. All the very best for your next milestone. It'll happen much sooner than the earlier ones, I'm so very sure! Congrats, once again! hisham On Jan 9, 2012, at 9:21 AM, Shiju Alex wrote: Dear All, Assamese wikipedia has crossed the 1000 article milestone yesterday (2012 January 7). Congrats to all Assamese wikipedians who contributed to this. Started in 2002 June 2, Assamese wikipedia is the first Indic Language wikipedia. Assamese wikipedia will celebrate its 10th Anniversery this year June. I remember last year this time Assamese wikipedia was having just 300 articles and just one highly active user. The excellent efforts put forward by some of the senior community members using various social networking sites are helping Assamese wikipedia to grow its community. Now it crossed 1000 article milestone and has more than 10 high active users. Hope community will be able to add more members to its crew this year. Shiju Consultant, WMF India Programs ___ Wikipedia-AS mailing list wikipedia...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-as ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India: Wikipedia Takes Ahmedabad, January 2012
Thanks for sharing this, Anirudh. Thank you all - Noopur, Anirudh, Srikeit, Aviral, Khayal, Yash, Konarak, Smit, Karthik, Chirag, Arnav and the other members of the 75 gang (75??? WOW!!!). This is amazing. There's a treasure trove of stuff here from the pictures of Gandhi's room to Chaniya Choli sellers and to the 25 pictures you can choose from to add to the Law Garden article on Wikipedia! oh, and thank you for a dhokla one! Noopur: Thank you! You're a star! Best hisham On Jan 3, 2012, at 6:06 PM, Anirudh Bhati wrote: Greetings! This is a short update on the January edition of Wikipedia Takes Ahmedabad. From where I stand, the event has been a resounding success! Over seventy-five people turned up, both old and young, this morning, which is no mean feat since it was very cold as well as a working day. Special thanks to Noopur Raval, our benevolent dictator and project mastermind, Srikeit Tadepalli, who spent time with me following the project participants prepping them and helping them figure out Wikimedia projects. Our heartfelt gratitude to Aviral Mediratta, Khayal Dave, Yash Vadiwala, Konarak Ratnakar, Smit Shah, Karthik Mistry and Chirag Solanki; our team leads and coordinators for helping everyone take beautiful pictures. Please keep an eye on our maintenance [[Category:Ahmedabad 1]], specially created for the event. 238 pictures have been uploaded so far... and we expect a lot more being uploaded by tomorrow. I will be posting a project report soon. Thank you! Sincerely, Anirudh Bhati Wikimedia India ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Update on India Programs Team: Communications
Dear All As you might be aware, there is one more team member I have been trying to get on board for the India Programs Team (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004251.html) - Consultant, Communications. I have unfortunately not been able to find the right candidate (yet!) for this. The role involves community communications (newsletters, mailing list updates, village pump updates, etc.), press/media/PR (building media relationships, supporting community initiatives through media coverage, etc.), social media (using social networks like facebook and twitter to compliment community efforts) and digital outreach (supporting community building through online outreach of existing readers through online tutorials, videos, etc.) I have interviewed dozens of candidates - most of who are really bright - but I'm not confident that we have anyone yet who is adequately familiar with our movement, community projects. Having said that, I'm still looking; If you know of anyone, please do connect them with me. In addition, I am asking some of the interested candidates who had applied to get more involved with the community and build understanding and familiarity; we can relook at their candidature down the line. Do let me know if you need any clarifications. Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Welcoming Subhashish Panigrahi
Hi Folks, As you might be aware, the Consultant, Team Support position is to be filled as part of the India Programs team. (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004251.html.) I am really pleased and excited to announce that Subhashish Panigrahi has agreed to join as Consultant, Community Program Support. Some of you might know Subhashish (or Subha as he's also called.) He is all of 23 and a wonderful Wikimedian from Odisha. He has a BE in Biotechnology from Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Bangalore. He has worked for about 1 1/2 years in business development and is currently based in Bangalore. He's been an active Wikimedian since a friend of his attended a Wikipedia 10th event in Bangalore in January and told Subha about Wikipedia. Subha then spent considerable time - quite a bit of it in Shiju Alex's living room apparently :-) - learning about Wikipedia. Since then, he's been on fire! He's helped the Bangalore community organise the monthly meet-ups, been a central figure in building community momentum for Odia Wikipedia and has conducted outreach programs for Odia projects back home in Odisha as well as in Bangalore. He's also been helping out other projects and communities; a couple of weekends ago he was in Chennai conducting a WikiAcademy there. He is a fantastically inspiring example of a complete outsider being welcomed into the family, having his hand held in his growth as a newbie, charging forward taking responsibility ownership and then spreading his skills knowledge to others. He is also one of the sweetest human beings I have ever met. He is a perfect example of the Wikimedia Dream. His interests (outside of Wikimedia) are cooking, graphic design and handwriting analysis. (I bet most of you who know Subha don't know that last bit about him. So the next time you see him, show him your writing and get him to reveal your deep dark secrets!) He has also been involved with campaigns for social work during the floods and cholera outbreak in Odisha and been involved with a Odisha community organisation, eOdissa.com. Originally, the Consultant, Team Support position (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Team_Structure) was to manage the back-end aspects of India Programs (basic accounting, basic personnel management, office administration, travel support, expense statement management, logistics support for the community, etc.) I have been looking at the actual work load involved and I do not think this is a full time role. The functions listed are essential and need to be done - but there is an opportunity to improve the richness of the position and it's value to the community. I'm therefore proposing that the Consultant, Team Support be redesignated to Consultant, Community Program Support. I envisage this position to have about 1/3 of time spent on the back-end work listed above but 2/3 of time can be very productively utilised supporting community efforts - such as helping community building outreach and supporting community-led initiatives. An important consideration I have for this redesignation is after looking at the specific skills that Subha brings to the table; I want to make sure that he has the required space to realise his potential and to support the community and movement. Subha will of course continue to pursue his personal voluntary work for and as part of the Wikimedia community. The one question that he emphasized during the selection process was whether he would retain the flexibility to continue to pursue his personal passions on Wikimedia; the answer he got was a loud Y-E-S!!! :-) I'm delighted to have another community member joining the team. He'll formally start in Delhi on January 9th 2012. Do join me in welcoming him. Warmest Regards, hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] mediawiki-uploader
+1 to Philippe Tinu's comments. Thanks, Shrini, for such wonderful initiative and great work! I read you saying you are relatively new so, Big Welcome! Warmest Regards, hisham On Dec 20, 2011, at 8:20 AM, CherianTinu Abraham wrote: #WIN. -TC On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Philippe Beaudette phili...@wikimedia.org wrote: This is really fantastic, and makes me very very happy. This represents the best of what makes the Wikimedia projects great - someone identifies a need and then rolls up their sleeves and fills that need. Well done, Shrini, and thank you. pb ___ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 415-839-6885, x 6643 phili...@wikimedia.org On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:10 AM, Shrinivasan T tshriniva...@gmail.com wrote: Friends. Tamil Wikipedia announced a Media Contest to increase the commons media files like photos, audio and video in the wikipedia world. see the announcement here. http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest/en To upload the photos there are two ways available so far. 1. The web based upload wizard http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard 2. Java based upload tool - Commonist http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Tools/Commonist We have to provide a detailed filename and description to the images for uploading. When we have a bunch of photos to upload, we have to select them, crop, or edit them before uploading. Found that that GThumb Image Viewer can show the files, edit the files and add IPTC tags to the images. We can view,edit,delete,rotate,crop and add the required Description and Title to the images for uploading to wikimedia commons. How to upload the files? There are two tools already. But, I wanted to plugin to any image viewer to upload to wikimedia commons directly. No image viewer has that plugin. DigiKam has it, but due to some issues, the mediawiki plugin is not released. So, I started to write my own script for uploading all the files in a folder to upload to mediawiki. Here is it. http://code.google.com/p/mediawiki-uploader/ Usage details are available in INSTALL and README files. Thanks for the wikipedia users Surya and Sodabottle for their valuable suggestions. Please report if there are any issues. Provide your suggestions for improving too. Thanks. -- Regards, T.Shrinivasan My Life with GNU/Linux : http://goinggnu.wordpress.com Free/Open Source Jobs : http://fossjobs.in Get CollabNet Subversion Edge : http://www.collab.net/svnedge ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-WB] Kolkata Photo Walk (Esplanade Dalhousie)
Just went through the pictures. There are so many wonderful images from the firewood seller to the sugar cane juice machine to the road-side shave to the wonderful stained glass inside of St John to Kolkata's delightfully quaint trams! Thank you so much! I am guessing the thank you should be directed to everyone in this image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Photowalk_-_Kolkata_2011-12-18_0009.JPG (and the photographer who took it!) You all look like you had a wonderful time! There's something cooking in the West Bengal community and it tastes sweet as sandesh! Warm Regards, hisham On Dec 21, 2011, at 11:34 AM, Kalyan Sarkar wrote: I missed the following from my mention. 17. Metro Cinema 16. United Bank of India Building 18. Emerald House 19. Kolkata High Court 20. Town Hall 21. Hong Kong House (HSBC) Thanks and regards, Kalyan Sarkar On Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Deepon Saha hideeponh...@gmail.com wrote: missed it..:( On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 9:05 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: Thanks for the report Kalyan, the first Kolkata Photowalk was a resounding success from what I gather. What is the Commons Category under which your uploading these pictures? Would love to see them. Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 21:01:47 +0530 From: kalyan.sar...@gmail.com To: wikimedia-in...@lists.wikimedia.org CC: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-WB] Kolkata Photo Walk (Esplanade Dalhousie) We met at the foot of Shahid Minar at 7AM in the morning. It was a bit foggy and chilly. We are enjoying an early winter chill and record low temperatures in Kolkata this year. After enjoying a steaming cup of tea at the CSTC Canteen and began our walk. ROUTE We crossed the J.L.Nehru Road and Lenin Sarani crossing and took Bentinck Street. Then we took left along the Waterloo Street, reaching the Great Eastern Hotel, we took right along the Hemanta Basu Sarani to B.B.D.Bagh Square. Then we proceeded along B.B.D.Bagh Sarani and took left turn to Red Cross Place to reach the entrance of Raj Bhawan. From there we proceeded along the Government Place to St John's Church and took right along Council House Street and Netaji Subhash Road and ended at the Writers Buildings. MONUMENTS We covered the following monuments. 1. Shahid Minar 2. Metropolitan Building 3. Tipu Sultan Mosque 4. Victoria House 5. Statesman House 6. Aaykar Bhawan 7. Great Eastern Hotel 8. Central Telegraph Office 9. National Assurance Building 10. Junior Staff Quarters of the Governor 11. Raj Bhawan 12. St. John's Church 13. General Post Office 14. Kolkata Collectorate 15. Writers' Building 16. St. Andrews Chapel STATUES 1. Lenin 2. Asutosh Mookerjee 3. Prafulla Chaki 4. Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy 5. Binay Badal Dinesh Please correct me if I missed out something. Thanks and regards, Kalyan Sarkar On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 5:24 PM, Jayanta Nath jayanta...@gmail.com wrote: Congratulation to all for our first step of success. Please anyone tell what we cover -- With Warm Regards, *Jayanta Nath* Calcutta,West Bengal https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-wb -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-in-wb/attachments/20111218/83081d1d/attachment.htm ___ Wikimedia-in-WB mailing list wikimedia-in...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-wb ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] ONE simple step to double or triple visits to Indic Wikipedias
On Dec 19, 2011, at 8:16 PM, Theo10011 wrote: On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 8:01 PM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: This is a really useful discussion and there's a powerful idea. I agree with Ravi that there is an opportunity to build awareness and traffic to Indic language sites. While we are already seeing considerable readership of Indic languages, there's clearly a lot more that can be done to support this and also to help build Indic language communities. I also hear Theo's point that it didn't work last time, or maybe wasn't adequately measured. I'd like to suggest that - even as the technical challenges are resolved - to explore this. The first step would be finalise what the objectives are (e.g., is it basic awareness building of the existence of Indic language projects or to is it to drive readership of these projects or is it encourage more active participation in these proejcts?) The next stage would be to test different banner/notice/page design options and figure out the most appropriate solution (in the same systematic way that the WMF fundraising team tests banners and optimises the ones that work best.) If you see value and you think we need resources for this, I'm happy to see what we can do about it. (Maybe see if any of the fundraising team's people are free after the fundraiser to help with the analytics for determining what might work best?) What say? hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikita-l] Salem Wiki Workshop Report
On Dec 12, 2011, at 5:55 PM, Surya Prakash wrote: A Wiki workshop in Salem was conducted on December 11, 2011 by the Tamil Wiki community. Thanks for sharing this, Surya. Thank you to you and to ParvathiSri, Thagavaluzhavan, Sodabottle, Essar for your time and effort. It sounds like a wonderful session! I especially like the fact that you explained the basic ideas of Wikipedia first and then also had hands-on editing session. Sodabottle's part about why it's important to improve / increase local language content is an important point and it's great to see it was covered. Often times, something like this - even though it sounds very simple - is a powerful and critical part of the message. They way I often say it is that even if one might be conversant in English, more times than not, one counts and thinks and dreams in one's mother tongue. ...and the conversation at home over dinner is largely in the respective mother tongues. ...therefore the critical importance of Indic content. It'll be wonderful if folks who attended are kept in touch with so that they could get some hand holding as they start their journeys as newbies. Warmest Regards, hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Chapter-Foundation: Co-Ordination Calls / Meeting - Updates Minutes
Responding to both Srikanth R Arjun's responses. hisham On Dec 11, 2011, at 11:07 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Thank you for your explanation for the explanation Arjuna, but I still have a question. What feedback are you looking for? On 11/12/2011, Arjuna Rao Chavala arjunar...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Srikanth R, Please allow me to share my view. On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 11:39 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: Hisham, I don't understand why the Executive Committee offer to be informed 48 HOURS in advance of the community. Isn't Wikipedia a community based system? If the chapter or trust is everything then what is the community sitting here to do? I know I sound rude, but I fail to understand why some people get prior preference. Srikanth R: It is indeed a community-based system and it is the community that is everything!, and yes, everyone is equal. My thinking when I had volunteered the advance notice idea was a combination of continuing to build stronger communication with the Chapter, facilitating better co-ordination with the Chapter , professional courtesy to the Chapter as well as to get their advice and counsel in case we were not on the right track. The idea of 48 hours was just to give some time to look and reflect and feedback. In any case, the information would be shared with the community at large after the 48 hours - and it would hopefully be better that way. As a community member, you should hopefully have better thought out and better communicated initiatives through this. Especially after I spend an entire day talking to newcomers telling them that everyone in Wiki is equal. Thank you taking time out for this session! I am some times puzzled by assumption that people have about Wikipedia policies for individuals related to editing a wiki page online apply equally to real world Wikimedia organisations with accountabilties to various stakeholders including Government. I am also concerned about the assumed separation between community and chapter based on some recent mails to the India list. Let me elaborate my thoughts on this. Chapter members including EC members are part of community and serve Community and the movement. It is just the level and structure of engagement of a person that determines whether he/she is part of Chapter. If a person reads Wikipedia, he/she is member of community. If a person contributes to Wikipedia, he/she is part of smaller subset of communitycalled editors. If a person would like to promote Wikipedia in real world, he could do as an individual or become a member of chapter, leverage the benefits of the legal entity called Wikimedia chapter, get affiliated with SIGs and contribute. Chapter IRC is open for everyone. Even membership is open for every Indian aged above 18. So I would request everyone to treat Chapter as a subset of community with more focus on growing the movement in real world. Completely agree with Arjun. Coming to your specific question about the plan for sharing public communications in advance, here is my view. As I understand, Trust is an independent legal entity contributing to Wikimedia movement in India. So the coordination calls are a mechanism to share plans and issues so that the overall effectiveness can be improved. Advance notice for any public communication was agreed so that each entity could provide the other feedback if any, if such communication were to attribute some things to the other or lead to confusion in the stakeholders. It is mutual. I am sorry the minutes did not reflect the same, though it was discussed and agreed. Srikanth R: As clarified by Arjun, the Chapter will also be sharing information to India Programs - and I'll be happy to give my feedback to them on anything they send. It'll help in co-ordination and make sure that the action (of India Programs or India Chapter) is appropriate and is appropriately communicated. Hope the above helps. I request Hisham to share his view as well. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Consultants on WMF Staff page
Hey Srikanth L Anivar On Dec 10, 2011, at 7:17 AM, Anivar Aravind wrote: On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 11:19 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan srik@gmail.com wrote: Hello, I dont see India Programs Staff being mentioned in this page[1]. Is there a specific reason to it? IIRC number of employees / contractors from this page is important since goes to fundraising appeal numbers. While it is said that 95 staff, am not sure if some there are more are missed out like this. Can someone take it and forward and update. Thanks! [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff AFAIK, They are Contractors, and not staff as such , due to the absense of legal structure for WMF in India And I believe they will become the staff of India Programme Trust , once it is on wheels (And since India Trust is not an official WMF body, they will not be WMF Staff) There is no reason I am aware of for us not being on the page of WMF Contractors - and this is one of the many things on my (long) to-do list. ...It is also (tragically) dependent on my finding a mugshot of mine where I don't look like I am in a line-up... ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-WB] Proposal: Wikipedia participation at 'Kolkata Book Fair 2012'
On Dec 5, 2011, at 3:50 PM, Jayanta Nath wrote: Hi, Thanks for the initiative Hisham and Nitika! Pleasure. We need some following documents before submit the application 1. Apply on our own letterhead for participation I am presuming the Chapter EC will take care of point 1? Let me know if you need any help. 2. name address 3. required space : stall (sq. mt) / table 4. space allotted in the last two years 5. photocopy of current trade licence catalogue In addition to the society registration, if you see merit, you can also share the following documents with them http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report 6. latest issue of the journal 7. undertaking to abide by the rules and regulations So we need help from WMF/Chapter for Point 1 and 5. They want photocopy of society registration instead of current trade licence catalogue . hisham On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Nitika ntan...@wikimedia.org wrote: Completely support the idea. The book fair seems a very good idea to reach out to those who might be interested to edit English or Bengali Wikipedia. I was going through some of the best practices in setting up a Wikipedia booth I learnt that using eye-catchers is one of the successful ways to attract attention of the attendees. Maybe we could use this idea too: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Use_eye-catchers_to_attract_attention. Would be more than happy to discuss things over a call/Skype etc. Please let me know if I can help out in anyway. Nitika On 02-Dec-2011, at 12:43 PM, Biswarup Ganguly wrote: Dear Kalyan, Thank you for your detail proposal of hiring sound system and stickers and/or caps, T-shirts etc. You are right that we need broad band connection or data card whichever is available for running the live edits, teach and show throughout the exhibition. Regards. On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 11:44 PM, Kalyan Sarkar kalyan.sar...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Biswarup da, We need the sound system to assist the promotional videos that we would run on the TV as well as promotional events like spot edit/quiz contests. The promotional videos could either be extracts from Jimmy's inspiring speeches, clips from Wiki Conference India or small video tutorials on how to make the first edit. We can also hold spot edit contests, where a random person is selected from the crowd to make an edit. If that is a fair edit, we hand him/her a prize. We can also hold spot quiz contests, where the correct answer gets the prize. The prize could be a T shirt. In order to organize such promotional events, we need a sound system. I also think, we need internet connection or data card whichever is applicable. For promotional purposes we can also think of stickers and/or paper caps (sun guards) with Wikipedia logo. We can also sell the surplus T shirts from the Wiki Conference India programme or other merchandise if any. Thanks and regards, Kalyan Sarkar On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Biswarup Ganguly gangulybiswa...@gmail.comwrote: Dear Jayanta, It seems to be fine as a starting point of the 'Budget' to me but how the sound system be used there? Regards. On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 2:14 PM, Jayanta Nath jayanta...@gmail.com wrote: Hi I am submitting tentative budget breakup for this event... *Item* * Cost in Rs * 1 Stall Booking @9 sqm Rs 60,000.00 2 Stall decoration Rs 15,000.00 3 Furniture Rent Rs 5,000.00 4 Plasma TV 44” With Stand With DVD Player Rs 15,000.00 5 Laptop rent Rs 6,000.00 6 Sound system Rs 10,000.00 7 Transportation Rs 5,000.00 8 Food@Rs1000/day Rs 12,000.00 9 Leaflet Bengali FAQ@1 Nos Rs 20,000.00 Bengali Promotion Rs 2,000.00 English Wikipedia Rs 2,000.00 10 Hire staff/bearer @ Rs 500@12 days Rs 6,000.00 11 Banner Rs 2,000.00 12 other incidentals Rs 10,000.00 Rs 170,000.00 $ 3,296.05 http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=1From=INRTo=USD Please I would request to every of Bengali/Kolkata community,add/modify or expand as requirement above Budget breakup. On Sat, Nov 26, 2011 at 5:55 PM, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi. Perhaps you should correct Mr Tapas: we belong in the education/reference sector, not the IT sector. And we are non-profit. It is a good idea to remind our partners that although we're based on Internet projects, we are not at all *about* the Internet, but about free knowledge, and the creation and dissemination thereof. Cheers, Asaf On Nov 26, 2011 12:10 AM, Biswarup Ganguly
[Wikimediaindia-l] Chapter-Foundation: Co-Ordination Calls / Meeting - Updates Minutes
Dear All As you might be aware, we've been have a monthly call between the India Chapter and India Programs team. Since we last updated you, we have had 2 calls and also a face-to-face meeting after WikiConference. Here's an update on these meetings. I must beforehand apologize for being so late on updating you on these calls / meetings. Shall endeavor to be more on schedule going forward. Do share your feedback and comments. Do let us know if there are any clarifications we can provide. Thursday November 9th (Voice Conference) [Arjun, Arun, Naveen, Sudhanwa, Tinu, Asaf Hisham] India Programs Update India Trust has been set up and a formal announcement will be made shortly on this matter. India Education Program has encountered significant problems with regard to copy-pasted material. While efforts have been made (including asking for help from Online Ambassadors), in-class sessions from Campus Ambassadors (in almost every single class of the program), asking for intervention from faculty, asking students only to work on sandboxes, etc., the situation remained particularly serious at College of Engineering, Pune. As a result, the program was suspended at this college. It currently runs at 1 class at Symbiosis School of Economics (while the other classes there have concluded their assignments) and at 1 class at SNDT Women's University. Specifically, the lessons learnt on the pilot were discussed. These included scale, choice of faculty, choice of classes, inadequate engagement and communication with en-wp community, modifications to Campus Ambassador training going forward, modifications to student training going forward, etc. It was pointed out that a comprehensive and honest learnings exercise would be undertaken. Recruitment of additional team members (for Communications and for Team Support) have been delayed because the right candidate was not available. The initial work on the Indic Languages initiatives would start off with preliminary discussions and data analysis of the various language projects. This will help to build a picture with both experience and data of the current state, challenges, opportunities and potential of the various projects. Eventually, the objective will be to identify potential pilots and language communities that might be interested in these pilots. Chapter Update Arjun said that as Wikipedia is always evolving with contributions of community, any project needs to be carefully planned and executed to minimize the load on community. We had some experiences with Google Translate project, which received adverse reaction from wikipedian community. Even if Foundation undertakes an initiative, there is a possibility of similar adverse response. He hoped that we can use this experience to improve future project planning. Sunday November 20th (Face to Face Meeting) [Arjun, Arun, Naveen, Sudhanwa, Tinu, Barry Hisham] India Programs Update Point of View was shared about the nature of communication and co-operation between the Chapter and India Programs. It was pointed out that all the activities of India Programs have been in line with the publicly available page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs. The monthly co-ordination calls that the Chapter EC had initaited and that are now being regularly undertaken is useful and must be continued. Chapter EC requested prior information on activities and it was suggested by India Programs (and agreed by Chapter EC) that all important announcements would be sent to the Chapter EC 48 hours before being shared publicly. The nature of the work that was happening on Indic Languages initiatives was shared (including the kinds of discussions and how these discussions were being conducted) and that Shiju will shortly start sharing the updates of language discussions with the community. The learnings process of the India Education Program was shared - including the fact that data gathering was going to be commenced and that the learnings would inform the next steps of the project. Nitika will shortly update the community about how these learnings were going to be gathered. It was reiterated that the plans going forward would be finalized only after a thorough review of the program was conducted. It was proposed to identify potential areas where the Chapter EC and India Programs would work collaboratively. Chapter Update Arjun said that it is essential to have clarity on the focus areas of WMF and identify projects where WMF and WMIN could work together. Arun suggested the need for a governance framework for the various activities in India. Arjun summarized the focus of Wikimedia India on Wiki academies and Strengthening City/Language SIGs. Preliminary discussions around Regional Conferences, GLAM, Wiki loves monuments and Knowledge Kiosks are in progress. He explained how Knowledge Kiosks pilot, where visitors to public libraries
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Karthik Nadar is in the banners!
On Dec 4, 2011, at 10:58 AM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: If I remember correct, Karthik was one of the Campus Ambassador applicants from Mumbai. Yes, I think Karthik was one of the Campus Ambassadors applicants. fyi for the rest of the community, what we had done was to pass on the names of the CA applicants to local community members and they were invited to community meet-ups. This was done for Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai (around May 2011.) For Pune, for example, we invited those had been selected and those we couldn't select as CAs were invited. This had resulted in 2 community meetups in Pune with 50 of these folks attending. (For other cities, we informed them the pilot would not be running, but invited them nevertheless.) Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Help with an WP outreach event in Gujarat
responding to both Pradeep Noopur. On Dec 3, 2011, at 11:10 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: hi Noopur, Hope you're enjoying your time in Amsterdam. We expect a longer report on list after you return to India on GLAMcamp. :) I totally agree with you that we need to reach-out more at college fests and events. +1 I think an email was sent around on the list about participating in the Calcutta (still not used to writing Kolkata) Book Fair as well. I think it is best to let community members learn about, inform and participate in the events. If and when an organisational affiliation is required, I''m sure that the Chapter will be able to provide the same. +1 Hope some of the members in the Bombay community will take you up on your Mood Indigo offer. :) +1. Let me know if you need any help from us and I'd be delighted to support. User:Prad2609 Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 13:30:18 +0100 From: noopur.ra...@gmail.com To: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Help with an WP outreach event in Gujarat Hello! Sorry for inbox spamming :) Sitting in the GLAMcamp, I cannot stop thinking how our community is doing so much and not getting highlighted, especially all you Indic editors out there. Though I don't really belong to the Wiki-geeks group, I think an excellent way of outreach is GLAM events. They are simple to understand, easier to participate and fun things :) In response to Arnav's mail, I thought I'll put this idea on the table. I think fests like Footprints, or bigger fests such as Mood Indigo are excellent places to set a booth and do some outreach. +1 We could have a photography event (which we call Wiki loves monuments) and get students to get us images. We already have rules for the event and we can arrange a small prize or swags. That way, you don't have to specially call people to places or events and same time we start smaller and have sure results. What we essentially need is a wiki-geek (or an experienced editor as you call it) and someone who can communicate the idea well. I think you have touched on a really important point and I've been reflecting on it. I think a pairing of experienced editors and reasonably informed newbies would be a very powerful combination. Caveat to my follow sentences is that I run the risk of gross generalisations - but bear them out as reflective of one perspective out of others. One common refrain I hear from experienced community members is that the results from outreach efforts are sub-optimal. The numbers that one gets from outreach are always going to be low (after all, globally, ~90k people edit out of 450+m readers so the ratios are always going to be low. Informally, you will also hear that (some) attendees on sessions conducted by experienced wikipedians find the sessions passionate but too daunting and they find those conducted by newbies to be clear but somewhat inadequate. Can we arrive at a best of breed? However, there must be ways that we can work out how volunteer time in outreach and academies and workshops can get better results. I intend to share my thoughts on this in the next few days - but thank you for catalysing something in my head. What do you guys think? I have friends at Mood Indigo and if Bombay people are willing to take me up on it, we can have a stall there too! as above, +1! Warmly Noopur Thanks for this, Noopur. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: Help with an WP outreach event in Gujarat
and this is where I feel a little stupid because Arnav has been hounding me for answers to these very same questions for a while now, and I have been lax. Arnav, apologies and please see inline... hisham On Dec 3, 2011, at 3:02 PM, Arnav Sonara wrote: Hello, This is User:Rangilo_Gujarati here basically from Gujarat and now in Pune, am planning an outreach event most probably a workshop in MS University Baroda, Gujarat during their forthcoming technical festival Footprints. Also am the Campus Ambassador for India Education Program too, I need some input from you guys. The organizers of this event have basically no idea about what a community is or how WP works, since I ll be targeting newbies I am planning to start from Introduction to WP, then an editing session and main motto behind this would be to start an active community in Baroda or Gujarat and get the contributors to EN and GU WP and commons too. Now the organizers are asking few questions like Why anyone should attend it?, Wikipedia is (arguably) the worlds most popular source of knowledge. It is entirely free to use. Globally 450+ million read Wikipedia articles every month - and in India, betwen 15-17 million people read it every month. Few people however know about how content actually reaches Wikipedia. Folks attending will get an insight and introduction into how content gets onto Wikipedia as well as basic introductions on how they can contribute content and links with local community members who can support them if they choose to edit. People attending will get an opportunity to learn a little bit about participating in this fascinating free knowledge project and join tens of thousands of committed, learned and high-minded community members all over the world in their quest to spread spread free knowledge to every single human being on the planet. Folks who edit wikipedia gain tremendous pride and satisfaction from their contributions. Folks who start to edit Wikipedia learn amazing things as they start their editing journey - including better writing ability, richer critical thinking and stronger research skills. These are all incredibly useful in their academic and professional and indeed personal lives. What would be the exclusivity of the workshop?, I'd play this a little differently. If they are really keen on exclusivity, one can always say that while we conduct workshops and academies and meetups, the numbers are relatively small. (My guess on workshops and academies is that we might have conducted 50 in the last year.) In a country like India, 50 is hugely exclusive! Given it is a festival, and there are likely to be students from other colleges, not sure we can (or want to make it exclusive for that college.) How can we (university and attendees) be benefited from this?. Please see the last point on the question, Why should anyone attend? ...For the University, you can rattle of the list of the kind of colleges that have worked with us globally. Some of them are really well known and are available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:United_States_Education_Program/Courses/Fall_2011 and include Columbia, Georgetown, George Washington, New York, California-Berkely, Yale, etc. etc. etc. They are worried too much about exclusivity, how to convince them that these type of sessions are some thing more than exclusively in Footprints, first time in gujarat ?? Sometimes, the questions they are raising are best answered in person or on the phone. If you need me to speak to them, or even come down in person, happy to do that. Just let me know. I shall reach out to you and sort out the letter from. (...and yes, I know I have delayed the letter to you.) Since I have no experience in conducting an outreach workshop independently I want your feedback on it, and what possibly should I answer them?. Please do reply with your valuable suggestions/critics. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Blog Post on WikiConference
Sharing a blog I posted on the WMF blog: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/02/wikiconference-india/ hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] An Offline Wikipedia for the Aakaash Tablet?
We're on it. Jessie Wild (who manages offline projects at WMF) and I had a meeting a few days ago with the persons in charge of the Akash initiative at the GoI's Ministry of HRD. I've briefed the Chapter EC on this. The meeting was very promising. There are a bunch of things that need to be done to take it forward - but there is initial interest from the GoI. I need a few more days to share a proper update to the community list. Need a little bit of time because I need to tape up a few things and make sure I send out a note that accurately reflects the opportunity and the requirements. (I'm in some exploratory discussions at this stage.) Having said that, there are 3 big challenges we will face a) Need to establish a solid base of acceptable quality articles of Indian relevance. Ashwin: Thanks for expressing interest on this. b) Need to establish a reasonable set of acceptable quality articles in Indic languages (since Akash's remit is pan-India.) c) Need to build a customised offline interface for wikipedia offline. ...and, yes, we did see and play with the tablet and it's bloody impressive at the price!!! hisham On Dec 1, 2011, at 10:34 AM, Bishakha Datta wrote: On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Gautam John gau...@prathambooks.org wrote: Worth checking out for the Chapter? And the Trust? Maybe both together? Datawind, the inventor of world's cheapest tablet computer – UbiSlate – has joined hands with NASSCOM Foundation to help bridge the digital divide in India. Partnership focuses to announce a contest targeting the non-profit network across India, wherein 10 of them will stand an opportunity to win 20 Aakash tablets/UbiSlates each, to improve their operations and programme implementation, said a press release. The contest will open between December 2011 and January 2012. How will the winning streak be decided? Each of the participating organizations will have to showcase how best the UbiSlate will be used for socio-economic challenges such as education, health and livelihoods. NASSCOM Foundation definitely sees potential for the information and communication technologies sector playing a crucial role in the process of social change. http://www.ciol.com/News/News/News-Reports/NASSCOM-contest-winners-to-get-Aakash-tabs/157101/0/ Suneet Singh Tuli, the founder of Datawind, spoke about this at TEDxGateway in Mumbai on Sunday, and expressed a personal interested in providing free Aakash tablets for 'developmental' purposes. (He's verbally committed 500 free tablets to another Indian non-profit I know). He lives in Canada; it may be worth talking to him too. http://tedxgateway.com/speaker-section.aspx?strid=MTc= Also, seconding Gautam's idea: can the chapter and trust speak to each other and figure out who has the drive, inclination, ability and capacity to take this forward? (Working together never a bad idea, imho). Cheers Bishakha ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] An Offline Wikipedia for the Aakaash Tablet?
On Dec 1, 2011, at 12:28 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Aakash is basically an Android tablet. So if we create an offline version of Wikipedia for all Android devices, [India specific], I guess that should do? Right? Yes. A version of Aakash is on Android. It is probable that we will need to create an Android Wikipedia offline version. On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Santhosh Thottingal santhosh.thottin...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: b) Need to establish a reasonable set of acceptable quality articles in Indic languages (since Akash's remit is pan-India.) AFAIK, Akash is based on android and Indic language rendering support is not available so far. Anybody tried indic languages in Akash? hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] An Offline Wikipedia for the Aakaash Tablet?
On Dec 1, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Aditya Sengupta wrote: @Hisham, Jessie: Any updates on getting the sample tablets from the manufacturer? Request made and politely declined. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Quality Issues with English Wikipedia
. For this to happen, we need to be generous in our celebration. I think every article that interested editors work on as part of your Collaboration of the Month should be celebrated - on this mailing list, on the WP:INDIA talk page, on various social handles (let's shamelessly exploit Tinu's vast fan following here) and maybe even in the press. We need to have something to work towards (in your parlance, a beachhead... :-)). I have an idea. There are a bunch of discussions happening on various offline initiatives. One challenge that these will face will be to select a reasonable set of acceptable quality articles on India. I don't know what that number should be or how long it should take - but whatever the determinations are on both of these, what if you have these work with the offline initiative (which I also know is also very dear to your heart.) We need to magnify an already big message. One common refrain I've heard from many who are interested in editing Wikipedia is the equivalent of everything is covered; I don't know what to edit. Asking folks in India to edit about India is a powerfully relevant message - and one that they are likely to intuitively connect with. ..and as you've outlined, there is no shortage of articles - many of great importance / relevance. Maybe this could be a message covered in every outreach sessions that community folks undertake? [Edit] India! In all of this, do let me know if there is anything we can do to help and we'll do our best. Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Required - articles for Collaboration of the Month Dec 2011
On Nov 29, 2011, at 1:49 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: Now, I want to raise another point. Do we really have the wherewithal for a 5 article collaboration? I think that is too optimistic, perhaps we should have a two article collaboration to begin with each month? My personal view is that any number is good and if it looks like 5 is too high, 2 is a great start. It's really interesting to see the points made by Srikanth R and Naveen on the articles on transport. Clearly, this idea has worked in the past and has potential. I'd suggest that you start with any number, even 2. ...I suspect that as momentum builds, you'll find that it naturally scales up. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Required - articles for Collaboration of the Month Dec 2011
On Nov 29, 2011, at 2:23 PM, Naveen Francis wrote: It may not work :( Tried earlier http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Collaborations_of_the_month -- naveenpf if at first you don't suceed... :-) btw, today I read an article yesterday about Ratan Tata and how he institutionalized an annual competition for the best failed idea - and is quoted as saying the equivalent of failure is a gold mine for a great company. ...not counseling failure as the only and sure stepping stone for success, but you do get my point. :-) I passionately believe that we should give this idea our collective best shot - and try and see how we can do things differently from circa Oct-Nov 2010. Much has happened since and I sense a degree of momentum that we can ride on. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Creation of mailing list for co-ordination of Indian Wikipedians on English Wikipedia.
I'd like to share my perspectives based on conversations with a wide range of wikipedians. To that extent, this is not a scientific summary - but more of anecdotal evidence. Some Indic language wikimedians say they don't follow/like wikimediaindia-l because too much is taken up by English language wikipedia and that it is aggressive in tone (and will say this is a fallout of the tone on en-wp.) Conversely, some English language wikimedians say they don't follow/like wikimedia-l because too much of it is taken up by Indic language discussions (which are not relevant to them, and are about really tiny projects.) There are a few wikimedians who are active in their local language projects as well as English and they subscribe to both wikimediaindia-l and their local language list. In my view, communities tend to build around projects and to that extent, local language mailing lists are of great importance. I agree with Ashwin and TInu that English should also be regarded as a language project - and therefore I suggest that there is an exclusive mailing list for English as well (though I don't have a point of view on what it should be called.) also, WT:IT is a relatively quiet page and WP:IND is (relatively) more active - but still doesn't cover the breadth of discussions that happen on mailing lists. I continue to see the relevance of wikimediaindia-l as a forum for sharing and gaining thoughts, experiences, etc. - related to Indic language projects. The one way that these communities and projects will expand will be if there is cross-pollination of ideas. I hear Pradeep and Pranav's points on too many mailing lists - and I don't know how one can effectively answer that question. Maybe if we are more disciplined on what goes on what list, it will make it easier for readers to manage the volumes? hisham On Nov 30, 2011, at 10:18 AM, CherianTinu Abraham wrote: My first preference goes for something on the lines of wikimedia-in-eng , basically a list for the Indian Wikipedian community contributing to en.wiki and other English Wikimedia projects. wikiproject-india-en was in case there is much opposition to oh , we already have a English Wikipedia list :) Either of the name, I am personally ok, the purpose remains the same :D -Tinu Cherian On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:57 AM, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com wrote: Hmmm, my stand has been that the union set of english Wikipedians in India with WikiProject India article space also forms another genuine indic language community - especially since English is the secondary official language of our nation. In that case. the community must have a list of its own. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:13 AM, Subhashish Panigrahi psubhash...@gmail.com wrote: IMO wikiproject-india-en speaks for itself and would be good. regards Subha On 30 November 2011 05:50, CherianTinu Abraham tinucher...@gmail.com wrote: While wikimediaindia-l is the main mailing list of Wikimedia Community in India, a larger discussion of English Wikipedia/ns in India or WikiProject India on en.wiki is out of scope on wikimediaindia-l and its subscribers. While most of the Indian language Wikipedia have their separate mailing lists, co-ordination collaboration among the Indian Wikimedians contributing to English Wikipedia has become the most difficult. English Wikipedia mailing list wikien-l is too boarder scope of discussing them. I am aware that we have too many lists, but it is expected as the community grows in size and creation of separate lists is justified as long as we have enough activity on/around it. I am of the opinion that India-related content and community of Indian Wikipedians on English Wikipedia is as equally important to grow as Indic language Wikipedias. In this context, I would propose the creation of a wikimedia-in-eng or wikiproject-india-en mailing list. Regards Tinu Cherian On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 1:07 AM, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com wrote: Agreed in principle with Pradeep, but let some talk of content take place here. I'm sure the majority of wikimedia-l readers do not have WT:IN on their watchlist. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:56 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Pradeep Mohandas pradeep.mohan...@hotmail.com wrote: I think the list should be used more as a helpful pointer and as much discussion as possible should be done on Wikipedia itself. I think there are more lists than Wikipedians can handle and more time is spent on the lists than on editing Wikipedia, which is what we're primarily here for. +1. warm regards, Pradeep User:Prad2609 Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Sharing insights and experiences from Indian language wikipedias - Assamese
Couldn't agree more On Nov 23, 2011, at 6:11 PM, Subhashish Panigrahi wrote: Good to see the progress the Assamese Wiki Community building, and the FAQ set. Hoping to see the FAQ Booklet in PDF and more outreach activities, WCI would work like a catalyst to promote. Personally, I think the *real* value of WCI was to serve as a catalyst for further growth. Of course the sessions were important - but (arguably) even more important was the opportunity to make connections, share ideas informally, start conversations that lead to friendships and motivate community building. In fact Assamese people are widespread all over India and quite conscious for language and literature. So, that is a great way to reach to more language enthusiasts. An interesting point, Subha. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Sharing insights and experiences from Indian language wikipedias - Assamese
On Nov 23, 2011, at 6:10 PM, Jayanta Nath wrote: Hi Shiju, Thank you for this initiative about Assamese Wikipedia. I am personal eager to work with this community because our are using same script (Bengali). As you know that my future plan is not only in Kolkata, I want to expand Wikimedia movement to rural Bengal (India), where most of the native speakers live. We are waiting for help each other between Bengali/Assamese/Manipuri community and Foundation/Chapter to future expansion our native language in Wikipedia. As Shiju mentioned, he will be sharing the discussions that he's been having (and continues to have) with various communities. We can and must identify ways that the Foundation / Chapter can support various communities. Let's talk more on Bengali and any ideas that you might have including the ones that were discussed at WCI. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Let's *Talk*
Hi Folks
I'm deliberately opening a new mail chain on this. This is at the risk of me
being told off for doing so - but I believe that email protocol is one thing -
but communication philosophy is (arguably) even more critical.
I (and personally upsetting to me, others at India Programs - namely Nitika
the Campus Ambassadors) have taken some beating over the past few days. Some
has been personal and not been circumspect or constructive; not pretty. I have
been touched by the offlist messages of comfort and support that I and the
others have got.
I am exceedingly worried about the impact it has had on team morale. To all
those who have criticised the India Education Program, spare a thought for the
volunteers who have helped out on this. I want to tell the Campus Ambassadors
to be strong and keep your chins up. You guys have been incredible. Hand on
heart, you have given your hearts and souls and have conducted probably the
single biggest Wikipedia outreach program in the world. (btw, I really don't
care if someone wants to tag this as {citation required.}) You have taken time
out of your working lives and college days. I know how tough it's been -
conducting more than 100 in-class sessions, working with so many students and
faculty, reaching out on email and talk pages and SMS and mobile calls and
social networks and in canteens, poring over student entries, learning
Wikipedia policies, figuring out new tools to help your work, building
relationships with other editors across the globe, doing the back-breaking
documentation that's been required on project course pages, and I can go on
and on and on. I know that sustaining this level of motivation and energy over
months has been hard on you. I also know some of you faltered. I know some of
you wanted to scream and kick someone some times, maybe even many people many
times! Keep the faith, guys.
I am sorry for the personal attack on Nitika. To her, I want to publicly
apologise. I know her to be hard-working, diligent, honest, competent and an
all-round professional. She's new and she's learning and has and will make
mistakes - like all of us do. It is fantastic to have her on the team. Period.
The program is a pilot - and we made a ton of mistakes. Sorry, let me rephrase
that. I led the initiative so all responsibility should be mine. I made a ton
of mistakes. I promise the following. We will have a thorough, honest and
fact based evaluation. We will be open to make all the changes that are
required. We will not let the events of the past few days force us into a
bunker mentality. We will be open and we will be intellectually rigorous. We
will learn and we will improve. The India opportunity is massive - and our
ambitions are huge. It is also fraught with challenges. Unless we try and do
things - new and tough and complex things - we will never be able to realise
our true potential.
I know that some who have participated in these exchanges are driven by an
awe-inspiring love and passion for Wikipedia. I urge you to continue to come
forward and work with others and us. Come forward early though - and stay
engaged through the journey. It will have ups and downs.
On communication, I urge everyone to maintain WP:CIVILITY and WP:NPOV in all
our interactions. On this - and to be fair - quite a few other interactions
recently on totally unrelated topics (and involving a whole host of others), I
daresay we have drifted from core Wikipedia principles. These should apply to
us to all our community's interactions as religiously as we apply them to our
projects.
I would urge folks who agree with me to write back. Even a +1 will do. Let's
hear the voices of the quieter folks. Let's hear from the folks who don't
always get involved in mailing list exchanges out of either apprehension or
apathy. Let's move forward.
Warm Regards,
hisham
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Update on India Education Program
I thought I'd share with you a couple of links that are of relevance to the India Education Program. As you are aware, we are running a pilot of the education program in Pune. We are collating hard numbers to evaluate the pilot - and we'll share a full evaluation as soon as it is ready. However, it is clear that there are a number of mistakes that have been made - some of which ought to have been avoided (especially with regards to communicating stronger with the global wikipedia community, not agreeing to so many students signing up, anticipating the copy-pasting issue, etc.) There've been many learnings that we're taking from it and Nitika has been collating these at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program Please do note that this page is a draft and is very much work-in-progress. In addition, do also check out the discussion page - which we are trying to have as a focal point for all discussion regarding the education program. In addition, Signpost covered the education program on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-07/Interview and there are some very nuanced and insightful comments on it. I wanted to share these two pages because some of you might not be aware of them. Please feel free to join the conversations on either/both page. I also do want to publicly acknowledge the stunning work of the Campus Ambassadors. I know they have taken a lot of flak and my heart goes out to them. You are an awesome team and it's been wonderful to see you at work. Your fingerprints are all over every good article! Thank you! I also know that there have been wonderful contributions by a bunch of students and I do hope their fantastic accomplishments are not lost out in the discussion on the pilot's problems. Do check out some more of the geat work of students (in addition to the ones Nitika had shared earlier) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenges_of_Inflationary_Policy_In_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sector_banks_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Control http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_paper_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_money_market http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_management_in_Indian_banks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy_of_India Over the next few weeks, we will take an objective, data and fact driven review of the pilot and then determine the best way forward. We will learn from our mistakes and will do so with brutal integrity and objectivity. Warm Regards, hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
Our mails coincided, Srikanth, but my comments inline. hisham On Nov 12, 2011, at 6:10 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote: Hi all, If you are not aware of it yet, India Education Program Pilot died around a week back[1] and a post mortem was done on Signpost[2]. I wonder if we Indians like to only rejoice success's and keep silence when we fail. One could have acknowledged the death on this list. It didnt happen. Bad. That's not accurate. The dates are as follows: It was concluded in all but 1 class of Symbiosis School of Economics a few weeks ago (because the assignements were concluded.) It continues in 1 class at this college and at 1 class at the SNDT Women's University. We asked College of Engineering Pune to stop the program in their classrooms last week. It is still being continued at this college by 1 professor nevertheless. I am sad, guilty, angry all at the same time. I could not give more time for being an Online Ambassador. I thought role of an OA would be to help out people who are reaching out for help, only to understand later OA needs to look what people are doing edit by edit, reach out to them and help them. That is a lesson learnt for me. The program has taught us many different lessons for each of us but are we too fast in race to pause for a moment and analyze? Plans for next rollout is already ON[3], without doing enough justice to large post-mortem. Am disappointed. There is going to be a through analysis of this pilot. The links you are referring are not plans for a rollout; they are just an invite to see if any existing community members in other cities could invest the kind of time (during work hours and in classrooms) that Campus Ambassadors need to do. While large section of post mortem completely ignored one basic premise. Quality of Indian Students Faculty. If you dont select only the interested / qualified ones, we will fail again miserably, no matter how many ambassadors are there. Probably the students in the program must be selected how ambassadors were selected in Pune and then try the pilot with 20-30 *interested* students/faculty instead of heading to a college, pushing through top management of College and making a failure out of IEP. Another thing with colleges are If you can't do in odd semester, you can't do it in even semester. So I would suggest some detailed analysis before launching any further programs. At none of the colleges did we push this through the top management. Having said that we should have looked at much lower student numbers. I didn't get the comment on even and odd semesters I find a lot more can be done to this Findings and Learnings[4]. Please do share your additional points. As I mentioned, it's very much work in progress. It is good to have CAs who have reasonable experience in editing wikipedia. Fully agree. Having said that, given the relatively small community size in India, and the amount of face-to-face class time that Campus Ambassadors need to put in, there will be a number of CAs who will be newbies. We must however amend our selection and training criteria for them going forward. Its MUST, not good to have. Infact this factor made some OA, CA's from PPI feel bad on why they are ambassadors. I personally don't believe that Indian culture had much bearing on this pilot. Some students in India – as elsewhere – are either lazy and plagiarize or they genuinely believe that close paraphrasing means something is no longer plagiarized. Please get to close to reality Hisham, As i mentioned in my mail, we are going to do am objective review of this and this will inform the way forward. Many of us went through college recently know its not *Some*, its *Most*. Anything called assignment and graded will be copy-pasted even by the brightest 5% of students in class who would have potential to do on their own. If IEP continues to do Marks for Wikipedia editing campaign, we will fail again, only consolation next time might be it would be easy to clean up since we would be cautious with numbers. Also certain level of competence is required for article creation (or even basic editing for that matter), I think we need to acknowledge it and shouldnt just be going around with the notion Everyone can edit simply without adding a pinch of Salt. WP:COMPETENCE[5] is not about subject matter expertise, its about Competence required for Wikipedia editing, many of which cannot be practically expected from all Indian students / Faculty. There are many learnings and we will take all of them on board. [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program#Meeting_with_the_Director_of_College_of_Engineering.2C_Pune [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-07/Special_report [3] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-in-blr/2011-November/000545
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 6:28 PM, Gautam John wrote: Srikantha, thanks for posting this. I did not know about it till you posted it and I am sure there are many like me. It is worrying but at the same time offers us a chance to make things better for the future. Apologies, Gautam, Srikanth and others, I ought to have posted the updates on the India mailing list too. As I see it, the majority of the challenges have been around plagiarism and copyright violations. (I wish we wouldn't conflate these things - they aren't the same.) Agree There are multiple ways to solve this - one is technology and the other one is the age old methods of 'capacity building' and 'sensitisation'. Question is, are the latter two areas of work for the India Programs office because they aren't short term or easy. A via-media is to run all submission through some http://turnitin.com/ type system to check. Or maybe a hybrid - where they don't edit on the mainspace but say on a sandbox run in India by, perhaps, the Chapter and then they graduate? It's easy to overwhelm the system when so many students sign up - a ladder of evolution in to a Wikipedia editor might help. As might the idea of pairing/twining either the students together (they check each other) or student with current editor (which may have already failed). All valid suggestions and we will consider them all in our analysis of what went wrong and how/if we can do things better going forward. that's needed but some honesty and vulnerability to learn, accept and act on the feedback. Absolutely, Gautam, and that's exactly how we will approach this. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 7:02 PM, Gautam John wrote: Fair enough. Just that at the scale the India program will run at, a technology solution might very well be a easier first step than human interventions. If we can't manage the scale (as we couldn't in this pilot), then we will reduce the scale. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 7:33 PM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote: Many of us went through college recently know its not *Some*, its *Most*. Anything called assignment and graded will be copy-pasted even by the brightest 5% of students in class who would have potential to do on their own. +1. with Srikanth This is the SINGLE MOST important thing to remember for the future. Lets cut the political correctness and putting the blame everywhere else than where it belongs - the students and faculty involved My view is not driven by political correctness but I do want to avoid generalising all students and all faculty. Just take a look a the user talk and article discussion pages and it's immediately apparent that quite a few students and teachers wouldn't deserve blame. Many students did make mistakes - but they made the same mistakes that many newbies. So here is what is to be done: 1) Keep the number low - Agree and we need to work on how we select the colleges and faculty and classes and students. 2) Penalise those who copy paste This is something that can (and should) be led by the faculty. Some teachers have shown the way on how this can be done. 3) The CA to student ratio has to be 5 to 1. Clearly the student:CA ratio needs to be reduced significantly. ...but did you mean students:CA 5:1 or 1:5? Anything more seems to non-workable. Online Ambassadors/mentors are not handholders and error correctors. I signed up to be an online ambassador. But stopped reading the IEP mails that were sent to me after i realised, that the IEP program essentially wanted to me to do the students' work. That's one way of looking at it. Another way would be that an editor (in this case who happened to be a student) contributed content to an article. It would (almost routinely) reviewed by other editors who coudl/would improve it or point out issues. One of the aspects that the better students have fed back to us is the value of the collaboration with the global editing community. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 7:33 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote: On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 18:56, Hisham hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: That's not accurate. The dates are as follows: It was concluded in all but 1 class of Symbiosis School of Economics a few weeks ago (because the assignements were concluded.) It continues in 1 class at this college and at 1 class at the SNDT Women's University. We asked College of Engineering Pune to stop the program in their classrooms last week. It is still being continued at this college by 1 professor nevertheless. Probably the same could have been highlighted enough at Signpost. The signpost heading conveys its closed down. We had requested Signpost to amend it's heading. At none of the colleges did we push this through the top management. Well I cant help point CoEP where the director was much excited about the program and without his push directly / indirectly, I wonder if 800+ students would have voluntarily signed up. I will never agree if anyone says 800+ students voluntarily asked/agreed for Wikipedia assignments without staff / whoever else asking them to do so. True. However, even at CoEP, faculty were at liberty not to join the program (and indeed, most of them chose not to.) However, the point made on the learnings ought to be taken in conjunction with that of faculty involvement. Director buy-in is important but can only compliment and not substitute for faculty involvement and capability.In the classes where we have got better results than in others, this played a critical role. I didn't get the comment on even and odd semesters Well it was my suggestion/opinion if you are planning next roll out in Jan. Odd semesters in Indian colleges are longer ones July- Dec typically and give time for students / staff to do extra things. Even semesters are shorter Jan-May (April in many cases) so the duration for anything in colleges are limited in even sem. This is the reason why you will find most extra-curriculars happening in odd-sem. I am not sure if we did a time audit of the pilot, but it took very late to have students start editing and they were stopped almost in 2-3 weeks. We may not have that much time to engage with students / faculty on even semesters. Ah, understood. That's an interesting and great point. It is good to have CAs who have reasonable experience in editing wikipedia. Fully agree. Having said that, given the relatively small community size in India, and the amount of face-to-face class time that Campus Ambassadors need to put in, there will be a number of CAs who will be newbies. We must however amend our selection and training criteria for them going forward. I would say make CAs as wikipedians with atleast 500+ edits on en.wiki to give them a flavor of complexities in enwiki before they help out others. In other words, start early on CA's get more commitment early on, that before they go ahead and preach(teach) they practice(edit) enough. I don't think anyone would suggest that CAs shouldn't edit more or understand Wikipedia policies better. Having said that, the experience in the US suggested that newbie CAs were as good as (and sometimes even better) than existing Wikipedians in the role of CAs. (They hypothesis on this is that they were helping teach Wikipedia to newbies - so they were able to calibrate and structure their messaging accordingly.) As I said a sentence earlier, we do need to modify our selection, training and ongoing development regime for CAs - but edit count alone might not be the only measure (though an important one.) hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 7:37 PM, wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wheredevelsd...@hotmail.com wrote: Iv used turnitin during my MBA and can say that Iv seen people upload their projects there, note where the software catches them, change the language in that part and re-submit. People will go to any lengths .. We do need to work on something going forward for sure, whatever the actual package is. ...but we'll certainly look at turnitin for sure. Thanks, Pranav hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 8:04 PM, Swaroop Rao wrote: Also, it seems that CoEP has most of the problems; I think that CoEP being an engineering college, is more rigid in its working than other science/commerce/liberal arts colleges. What we could do is branch out into other streams (other than engineering I mean); Law for example: Why not have law students editing about Intellectual Property Rights (I know the irony we'll have in case we have copyvios out of that). And the course structuring in other colleges are a bit different, so they could accommodate programs like the Wikimedia education programs much easier. Actually, my view is that many colleges (regardless of stream) have the structural flexibility to accommodate a program like this. To illustrate, there is (in most cases) an option for class assignments (marked or otherwise) to be determined by the faculty (sometimes independently and sometimes after getting the approval of the Director and / or an academic council of some kind.) Event those affiliated to Pune University, for instance, had this kind of flexibility. We do need to look at what kind of streams we should look at it. Another learning for instance is that a first year engineering student ends up (in many cases) being taught basic fundamentals - which are either well covered on Wikipedia or on which it is difficult to put in a meaningful entry. A 3rd year arts/humanities student does not have this particular problem - but sometimes are more concerned by placements / admissions than academic endeavors. My point being that we need to look at the results of the pilot and then establish patterns which can help evaluate the pilot and inform the way forward. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 8:59 PM, Surya Prakash wrote: From Bala's words... //Online Ambassadors/mentors are not handholders and error correctors. I signed up to be an online ambassador. But stopped reading the IEP mails that were sent to me after i realised, that the IEP program essentially wanted to me to do the students' work. // Sure. We can (OAs) guide the students can help them in editing kindaa things. But, expecting OAs should keep an eye on the particular student's article keep tracking them is not a good idea. And, doing it in this way is a small English Wikipedia Admin kindaa thing. Many OAs including me, are contributing taking initiatives to develop their language projects, the OA role gives them a burden really. Because I felt it. ONLINE AMBASSADORING IS NOT REALLY ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA ADMINISTRATING ROLE. Because, I indirectly directed to that role only. I really DISLIKE that. I hear you Surya, and we will keep this in mind. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 10:39 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: hi, It was a pilot and hence I guess was meant to die at some point. First up, to the Campus Ambassadors, you guys showed a lot of courage in taking up and then following through on your commitment of being Campus Ambassadors through the length of this Pilot. I hope the team will also speak to the Ambassadors whilst doing the post-mortem so future programs have the benefit of their experience. Absolutely. The same also goes to the India Programs team that initiated this project. Absolutely. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 11:18 PM, Arnav Sonara wrote: Thanks to all of you, yes this was a Pilot, but at no point I see it dying. Its just that we have taken a pause right now to learn from the findings and ll come back all prepared and with the help of you all we ll try to gain new heights again. Agreed. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
On Nov 13, 2011, at 5:58 AM, Shiju Alex wrote: Another strategy that we can adopt while doing this program in India is, about the selection of articles for editing. We can ask students to contribute to articles that they are interested in, rather than of all of them editing the articles on the same topic. The reason I am telling this is, In India (in general) it is not the students who are deciding the course (and career) that they want to study/pursue. Parents, relatives, and community around them decide that. So even though the student's interest may lie in a specific area, he might be studying a different course. Allowing students to edit in a topic that they like will bring in more original content. But the issue with this methodology is, the role of Professors might be reduced, and the role of CA and OA might be increased. And I am not sure how the But this methodology is adopted very successfully in Kerala using School wiki. But we may say, that is school children and they are not mature enough for wikipedia editing. Again that is our misconception. In general, personally I am more interested to target school students (high school and Plus 2) than college students. School children are fantastic. It is true that most of us under estimate them. But to see the successful result from India, see the young and wonderful wikipedians we have in Malayalam wikipedia and wikisource. Note: Please note that I am replying to this thread as a Malayalam wiki community memeber. Shiju Those are very valid points, Shiju. ...and we should and will take lessons from the malayalam wikipedia and wikisource initiatives, and other similar ones. is what you are suggesting something similar to a student's club hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 12, 2011, at 11:36 PM, Arjun mangol wrote: Hey all, I refuse to believe it dead as of yet. There's yet a lot of avenues that haven't been explored. My personal suggestion was that let IEP establish a Wikipedia Club in every college in Pune to begin with, that would inculcate new, interested members who have a genuine passion for the project. Such clubs could meet every second Sunday, hold guest lecs, set a quota for a certain no. of articles to be created by the Pune chapter and so on by the members, teach its members better editing skills, and spread the knowledge. The CA training prog that I attended was a hell lotta fun and I wish many of my friends get the feel of it too. These clubs would be managed by all the 'veteran' CAs and newer ones if needed as and when. IEP would be the umbrella organisation to it all, and we can focus a lot more on quality of articles rather than the sheer no. of editors and rampant copyvio-ing done as a consequence by the newbies. Give it thought. My friends in many colleges throughout India were literally jealous that I was a part of it. Let's not let it go unnoticed that there is genuine interest spread in pockets throughout the country. - Arjun all valid ideas, Arjun - and we will evaluate all of them (and all those shared on this mail thread as well.) we'll be reaching out to everyone and anyone who's interested to get their experiences, learnings, suggestions, etc. as we move forward in our evaluation. this will be an open and collaborative process - and i invite everyone to please take part in this. we'll send out details on this asap. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot -- #DelayedMail
On Nov 13, 2011, at 12:07 AM, Swaroop Rao wrote: That's true Arjun, there is a lot of interest in this program in many colleges, and this is going untapped. No, its not dead for sure. It was a pilot, and it didn't come out pretty; no issues, that's how we learn. I think that one thing we learnt is that the US model may not work out well for India, so we need to develop an India specific model for this (That's what we've been trying to do in these previous mails actually I guess). Swaroop Rao (MikeLynch) Agree with you fully, and as I mentioned earlier, we will approach the assessment of the pilot and the way forward objectively, comprehensively and dispassionately. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India Program Trust
have any comments or questions. Warm Regards, hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Presenting The India Chronicles
Hi Folks, A few months ago, the Foundation asked Tory Read to travel to India and listen and learn and write about the movement in India. The objective was to harvest experiences and learnings and to have an open discussion around what we could all do to further the movement. This isn't in the form of a (possibly) long boring report - but in the form of a story. (Tory's a professional researcher, writer and former journalist.) To put this together, Tory travelled for a couple of weeks across Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and across towns in Kerala - attending community meet-ups and meeting up/speaking with a host of individual community members (in these cities and indeed beyond.) Tory's tale is called, The India Chronicles, and is available on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_India_Chronicles_(150dpi).pdf Do have a read through and do share your views on it - positives and negatives - and do feel free to comment on any aspect of it. It would be wonderful to have an engaging conversation on this. Warmest Regards, hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Introducing Wikimedia India New EC members: Naveen, Sudhanwa and Tinu
On Oct 1, 2011, at 2:57 PM, Arjuna Rao Chavala wrote: Hi Members of Wikimedia India and Wikimedian Indian Community, I am happy to introduce Naveen, Sudhanwa and Tinu who are elected to Chapter EC in the recent elections. Congratulations: Naveen, Sudhanwa Tinu. It's exciting to have you on the Chapter EC. These are exciting times for the movement, community Chapter! All the Very Best! hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Gautam John steps down from Wikimedia India board and Secretary's position
On Oct 1, 2011, at 3:35 PM, Arjuna Rao Chavala wrote: As you might have known, Gautam K John, stepped down from the Chapter EC and Secretary's position recently. On behalf of Wikimedia India EC, I would like to thank Gautam for all his contributions in bootstrapping the Chapter for nearly three years. He has been great source of strength and wisdom to the EC specially over the last nine months, as Chapter raced to grow membership, conduct AGM and EC elections in a systematic manner. As he is deeply committed to free culture projects including Wikimedia, the members and the community can always count on him for any support and advice. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors. I wanted to add my own personal note to thank Gautam for all he has done and for being Gautam - a wonderfully genuine, principled, friendly, action-oriented and smart-working person! hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamizh Nadu
On Oct 3, 2011, at 2:14 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: 9,12 lakh Laptops will be completely distributed by the end of the Academic year. We are trying to establish a line of communication with ELCOT to discuss how we could have Wikipedia Offline installed on these computers. After all this nonsense, I ask a few questions to several groups of people: This isn't nonsense! It's fantastic context!!! Many many thanks! 1 The chapter, the Foundation office, and board members. This includes Hisham Mundol, Bishakha Dutta, Achal Prabhala, Shiju Alex, Nitika Tandon et al. Are you willing to launch any school student oriented plan in South India, [not limited to TN]? I'm not asking for anything similar to the Campus Ambassadors program, but more of a series of Seminars, workshops, academies, meetups, tutorials etc. We need your support for such a mass scale program, as individually we cannot achieve anything. Yes! Happy to discuss and see how best we can help out. Let me know when we can talk. 2 South Indian wikipedians, especially the Bangalore, Chennai and Kerala communities. Are you open to helping us out? Especially Kerala, you are the most advanced in the Indic wiki sphere, will you please help out your neighbour TN? I'm willing to do as much as possible from my side[I'm not too good at arranging meetups, when I say Wikipedia, people stare at me blankly, and I can't explain it to them in Tamil, even though it is my mother tongue]. Please do consider this Golden opportunity. There is plenty of potential out here. The laptops run on Linux, which means, a big boost to Open Source software. The primary target is school students, which means, more young editors [and oldies in their late teens like me]. I couldn't think of how to say this, but somehow I just typed it and sent it. Once again, Thank You for this! hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] India Chapter Foundation : Sep 2011 : Meeting Update
Dear All: Tele conference of Wikimedia India (Wikimedia chapter) and Wikimedia Foundation took place on 28 Sep 2011. Here is an update Chapter Update General: Naveen, Sudhanwa, Tinu who are elected in the recent EC elections introduced themselves. Naveen has rich experience on several India focussed wikiprojects, Sudhanwa is a well known name among FOSS projects in India and Tinu has done a lot to promote wikimedia communities across India. Detailed profile at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wikimedia_India_Chapter_Executive_Committee_Members Asaf gave a brief introduction of his role. He works on supporting communities and chapters in emerging countries such as India and heads up the Wikimedia Grants program globally. Asaf and Hisham welcomed the new members. They thanked Gautam, outgoing Chapter Secretary for his excellent contributions to the movement. Arjun explained that FCRA application will be initiated now that the AGM is done and EC elections are completed. He said that Chapter is in close touch with Wiki Conf India team and is extended the best possible support. Initiatives/Projects Update 1st WikiAcademy with the Department of Public Libraries, Karnataka for their senior Library professionals was held on 12 Sep 2011. Over 30 people attended the event. Report of the event Some leads have been generated as a result of the sharing of the report of first wiki academy. EC team is planning to conduct more such events and requested for the support of Wikimedians across India and India Program office staff. Foundation Update Hisham gave an update on Education Program. He talked about the increase in number of Campus Ambassadors and enrolling Online Ambassadors to extend support to the students to produce quality articles and to help them understand Wikimedia content guidelines. He mentioned that Shiju has started work and will soon be sharing an update to the community on how he will be developing an Indic languages plan. There are plans for workshops to understand indic language wikipedia learnings, challenges opportunities. The objective is to identify potential project pilots. Arjun suggested to include wiki academies as part of the workshops with the support of Wikimedia members or senior Wikipedians from the community as the same can be beneficial for the objectives. Independent public trust setup is in progress Collaboration on projects Wiki Conference India. Team reviewed the status of the planning for conference and agreed to extend additional help to the conference team. Hisham said that he has been mentoring Pranav and Pradeep on several conference planning topics and also wanted the EC to provide additional timely help on priority areas like payment process and program. Arjun clarified that Gautam and Arun, Chapter representatives on Conf organising committee have been participating fully in various discussions and extending timely help. Chapter also had a call with Conf OC to understand the priorities and provide additional support as required. Thank You. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Chapter Foundation : Sep 2011 : Meeting Update
On Oct 1, 2011, at 4:58 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan wrote: General: Arjun explained that FCRA application will be initiated now that the AGM is done and EC elections are completed. Aside from the Chapter, did the office also plan something like this? IIRC you mentioned something similar on the lines in the last fundraising thread. Can you please share some update on it? 1. Office being registered as a non profit. 2. Office having a bank account and applying FCRA as well. Correct me if i got it wrong, these things before 2011 fundraiser? (Though i felt it was tough ask back then itself) I'll be sending out an update on these in a few days time. Do bear with me until then. hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Indic Languages: Shiju Alex
cross-posting to reach pan-India; apologies if you have got it from other mailing lists. Dear All As I had mentioned in a previous posting (and as was so touchingly welcomed by so many of of you), Shiju Alex is joining us to lead our Indic Languages initiatives. In this mail (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-July/003845.html), I had indicated that he would join around September-October. I'm really pleased to inform you that he has now joined India Programs (on September 24th.) Indic Languages is an important priority for us - and Shiju intends to start work on this urgently. He'll be in touch shortly on this matter. Welcome aboard, Shiju! Warmest Regards, hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Welcoming 2nd Generation Pune Campus Ambassadors
On Sep 27, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Nitika wrote: Hi everyone, To support over 1000 students enrolled in the India Education program we now welcome 17 more Campus Ambassadors onboard..!! user:roshnisaigal user:Vedantgupta7890 user:Devanshi tripathi user:Debastein1 user:RDebashruti user:Mihir Kelkar user:Pratiklahoti8004 user:minakshinajardhane user:Anurag acj user:Vaibhavchandak user:Gunit31 user:Ishu.aghav user:kumarvikramsingh user:Shefalinaik user:Tb0412 user:nikita.agarwal user:arjunmangol I want to add my own personal warmest-possible welcome to this addition to the band of brothers'n'sisters. They've hit the ground running - and have brought even more energy to the program. They are a wonderful bunch - even though they emotionally and physically drained me during their training and I have aged considerably since they came on board! :-) hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India - AGM and Election Results
On Sep 24, 2011, at 6:48 PM, Gautam John wrote: Just to say that the AGM is over as are the EC Elections. The results are as below: Naveen Francis Sudhanwa Jogalekar Tinu Cherian Congratulations: Naveen, Sudhanwa and Tinu! These are exciting times for the movement and the community - and it's great to see you joining the Chapter EC at this time. We'd like to thank the Nominations Committee and everyone else who contributed to making this a success. Congratulations: Nominations Committee for running a smooth process! Thank you. Best, Gautam Thank You: Gautam for your fantastic contributions as part of the Chapter EC! Warmest Regards, hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Pune intro to wikipedia workshop: a short report
On Sep 26, 2011, at 7:53 PM, Bishakha Datta wrote: This was the first time undergrads had taught postgrads in this department - a nice role reversal. And this was the first time the CAs had stepped outside the India Education Program to do a non-program workshop. The student-to-student thing really worked. This is actually a real interesting point - and I'd love more CAs to get similarly involved in talking Wikipedia outside of their own classrooms. They bring a powerfully fresh perspective, are amazingly motivated and are able to connect really well with potential newbie editors, especially students. So many thanks Abhishek, Arnav, Devanshi and Nikita. It was great! And thanks a ton, Hisham, for putting so much together at such short notice. Thanks for the many kind words, Bishakha. I'm glad it went off well. Strictly speaking though, all the credit for the organizing of this goes to Ram (who's co-ordinating the program in Pune) and to the CAs themselves! I just made a phone call... hisham___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Report on First Wiki Academy organised by Wikimedia Chapter
On Sep 13, 2011, at 3:13 PM, Arjuna Rao Chavala wrote: I am happy to share the report on the first Wiki Academy organised by Wikimedia Chapter. http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Department_of_Public_Libraries,_Bangalore#Report Please spread the word around and help in identifying other institutions for co-hosting future events Chapter will be happy to send the brochures and provide any other assistance. Congratulations on this. It's really good to see the level of interest it's generated. I especially loved reading the bit about them being shown the basics of editing and being encourage to start editing and actually starting 3 new articles. Wonderful stuff. I'm sure we'll see many more of this. hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program
Hi Folks (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto their articles. We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's a summary of the action that we have taken. a) Conducted classroom sessions in all 3 colleges where the program is running and conveying the importance of not making this mistake - and the fact that they will be caught - and that too quickly. Between Nitika and I, we've conducted sessions in at least 10 separate classes last week (along with Campus Ambassadors.) b) Conducted meetings with the directors and faculty members to convey the gravity of the issue and asking them to pass on the message to their students in the strongest possible terms. c) Almost doubling the number of Campus Ambassadors to provide more on-ground support for students. We will be sending out an update on this soon. The issue of copyvios was taken up specifically during the training for these Campus Ambassadors. d) Started work on establishing an Online Ambassador program (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004299.html) to provide additional support e) Disabled the leaderboard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Leaderboard) so that we make sure that recognition is given only to deserving students. Controlling the copyvio issue is the single biggest issue for the program and we will continue to do everything it takes to minimize it. Of course, some students who will still try and cut corners and the actions listed above should hopefully reduce the problem. Having said all this, we must not cloud the fantastic work of many students by the errors committed by (some) newbies who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia. Do continue to support and celebrate the work of the good guys! Thank you for you continued support on this. Best hisham ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program
hisham On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:07 PM, Béria Lima wrote: There are another way (who works fine in Brazilian program): Treat then as adults they are and the articles as projects. If I cheat in a project in any college in Brazil my professor would give me a zero. In some brazilians college I may be expelled for do that (without count the fact that is also a crime in Brazil). We (and they) need to realize how serious copyright violations are. But to make sure, i'm not saying you people to threat your students, but to make them realize how serious that is. Hi Beria Agree with you - and my intention and actions are precisely to do what you said: to convey to students that this is a serious matter and they need to treat it with the seriousness that it deserves. (In terms of the specific academic approaches to be taken, that is a call that faculty and directors of the colleges will take; not us.) ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Copyright Violations by (some) Students: Wikipedia India Education Program
hisham On Sep 12, 2011, at 3:11 PM, Gautam John wrote: On 12 September 2011 13:16, Hisham Mundol hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: (Some) students in the Pune pilot have copy-pasted copyright material onto their articles. We are taking these copyvios extremely seriously and here's a summary of the action that we have taken. You know, Hisham, it's nice that the WMF takes this seriously but we might be over blowing it a tad too far. The WMFs policies work really well in a 1st world environment where there is great sensitivity to copyright and violations. In India, it's a different kettle of fish and we need to treat it as such. Yes, it is important to explain why copyvivos are important (and from an academic, plagiarism point of view too) but the bigger issue if intellectual honesty. I think they'll do just fine! I'm sure they'll do fine! I continue to remain optimistic and refuse to get cynical about it. …and I'll continue to celebrate some awesome awesome work. Maybe the tone of my message conveyed the wrong impression. The primary goal is to explain what a copyvio is, convey why copyvios are not to be done and how to write good quality articles - all in the context and spirit of better learning, more fun, intellectual honesty and the need to avoid academic plagiarism - so I'm with you on that. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
