[Wikimediaindia-l] CIS-A2K draft work plans July 2015 to June 2016
Dear Wikimedians, We are happy to share with you the draft work plans for the period July 2015 to June 2016 [1]. We have more or less followed the same work plan templates from last year. Some of these plans have been done in consultation with the community members. We look forward to receiving your feedback and inputs on the talk pages. This time we have included an endorsement section at the end of every program plan for the community members to endorse, should they wish to do so. Based on these plans we have also put up the next round of FDC proposal here[2]. We intend to revise these draft work plans based on your and FDC feedback in July, 2015, subject to grant support from FDC. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_July_2015_-_June_2016 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form ___ 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] [WMIN-Members] IRC with Punjabi Wikipedia Community on March 11 at 9 PM (IST)
+1 Ravi for this initiative. Punjabi WP community has been doing exciting work on wiki and in terms of community building using social media. Let me also join Ravi, and request all Wikimedians to join the IRC and share their wisdom and experience with this young community with immense potential. Best wishes, Vishnu On 03/10/2015 09:45 PM, Tito Dutta wrote: That's a nice thinking. Good wishes.:) On 10 March 2015 at 20:24, Ravishankar Ayyakkannu ravidre...@wikimedia.in mailto:ravidre...@wikimedia.in wrote: Hi, May I invite the larger Wikimedia community to join us for a chat with Punjabi Wikipedia Community? They have been displaying tremendous energy and doing interesting activities recently. It will be a good opportunity for other budding communities to learn from them. Such interactions will also boost their morale and make way for further cross-community interactions. The IRC is scheduled on March 11 (Wednesday) at 9 PM (IST). Please see http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Internet_Relay_Chats#How_to_participate which explains how to join this chat. We look forward to your active participation at *#wikimedia-in* IRC channel. Ravi -- Disclaimer: The Wikimedia India Chapter (WMIN) is an autonomous entity with no direct control over the Wikipedia project and other websites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, USA. This mail is sent to the members of the Chapter as part of the official communications between the Chapter, its Director Board and the members. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups wmin-members group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to wmin-members+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:wmin-members+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to wmin-memb...@googlegroups.com mailto:wmin-memb...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/wmin-members. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/wmin-members/CANY2_jCRcgm53itHo%2Bz%2BnD-n1KVnwsGejSv_ktq5MEho3m85SQ%40mail.gmail.com https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/wmin-members/CANY2_jCRcgm53itHo%2Bz%2BnD-n1KVnwsGejSv_ktq5MEho3m85SQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=emailutm_source=footer. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. ___ 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] Fwd: [Wikimedia-l] New Free Research Accounts via the Wikipedia Library
Please see the below email about free access to online academic resources. Do encourage deserving Wikimedians, whom you know, to apply. Best, Vishnu -- Forwarded message -- From: Jake Orlowitz jorlow...@gmail.com Date: Tuesday, 3 March 2015 Subject: [Wikimedia-l] New Free Research Accounts via the Wikipedia Library To: wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org, wikimediareferenc...@lists.wikimedia.org, wikipedi...@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Libraries librar...@lists.wikimedia.org, Open Access discussions openacc...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi! The Wikipedia Library has new, free research donations available: Project MUSE (humanities and social science books and journals): http://enwp.org/WP:Project_MUSE DynaMed (clinical reference for medical topics): http://enwp.org/WP:DynaMed Royal Pharmaceutical Society (pharmaceutical information and practice resources): http://enwp.org/WP:RPharmS Women Writers Online (digital humanities database focused on women's literature): http://enwp.org/WP:Women_Writers_Online Newspapers.com (American newspapers database w/ open access tools): http://enwp.org/WP:Newspapers.com And many other partnerships with accounts available are listed at: http://enwp.org/WP:TWL/Journals Do better research and help expand the use of high-quality references across Wikipedia projects. Sign up today! --The Wikipedia Library Team http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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 Train the Trainer Program
Dear Sankarshan On 03/03/2015 11:21 PM, sankarshan wrote: On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 12:17 AM, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com wrote: This is the second such event held in India, the first one was in 2013. Has there been an outreach to the participants from 2013 asking them to document (in form of blog posts etc) the efficacy of the event in enhancing their skills and aiding in what they are currently doing. We have been tracking, informally (as the group was small), the 2013 participants' outreach activities. More than 50% of the participants have been doing outreach (on and off wiki). Some of them have become outreach champions in their respective communities. Documentation (especially in the form of blog posts) is not realistic and a huge ask. The active editors among Indic projects is small and such external documentation will be a needless overhead, of course unless they voluntarily do it. Most use their respective language projects for on-wiki documentation and publicize in social media groups. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] CIS-A2K Quarterly Reports (Announcement)
Dear Wikimedians, We are happy to share with you the quarterly reports of CIS-A2K for the period July to December 2014. These reports give a comprehensive overview of all the activities undertaken by CIS-A2K under the current FDC Grant. We welcome your suggestions and feedback on the Talk page of the report. July-September 2014: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Progress_report_form/Q1 October-December 2014: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Progress_report_form/Q2 Apologies for the delayed submission of the first quarterly report. Best, Vishnu User:Visdaviva ___ 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 Train the Trainer Program
Dear Sudhanwa, Srikanth and Ashwin, Thank you for your wishes! This has been conveyed to all the participants. You can follow the live feed on Twitter with hashtag #CISA2KTTT (: Best, Vishnu On 02/26/2015 01:49 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: We eagerly look forward to blogs, tweets discussion summaries from this event! :) On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 11:56 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikant...@gmail.com wrote: Vishnu, all the very best for the program. On 26 February 2015 at 10:22, Sudhanwa Jogalekar sudhanwa@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Nice to see the participants across various language wikis. We will now have good trainers available for languages and places. All the best wishes for the program. Regards -Sudhanwa On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 12:17 AM, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Wikimedians, The Wikipedia TTT-2015, a four day residential training workshop to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia volunteer community, will begin tomorrow. This is curated and run by CIS-A2K with the help of Wikimedia volunteers. About 30 Wikimedians from across 12 Indian languages and from various part of the country will be taking part in this workshop in Bangalore. This time we also have some Wikimedians from Nepal joining the program. This is the second such event held in India, the first one was in 2013. For more details see the event page here [1]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2015 ___ 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 -- ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~! web: www.sudhanwa.com blog: www.sudhanwa.in Twitter: sudhanwa Check on FB, Linkedin for more. ___ 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 -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan, What goes around, may not necessarily come around, it may simply bounce back. Please sign this petition for Volvo buses in Coimbatore: https://www.change.org/en-IN/petitions/the-transport-minister-tamil-nadu-introduction-of-volvo-city-buses-in-the-city-of-coimbatore ___ 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] Wikipedia Train the Trainer Program
Dear Wikimedians, The Wikipedia TTT-2015, a four day residential training workshop to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia volunteer community, will begin tomorrow. This is curated and run by CIS-A2K with the help of Wikimedia volunteers. About 30 Wikimedians from across 12 Indian languages and from various part of the country will be taking part in this workshop in Bangalore. This time we also have some Wikimedians from Nepal joining the program. This is the second such event held in India, the first one was in 2013. For more details see the event page here [1]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2015 ___ 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] Steward Candidate Submissions are open
+1 Srikanth. Vishnu On Sunday, 25 January 2015, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikant...@gmail.com wrote: Would be great to see a few candidates. Better still would be to have some stewards from the subcontinent. On 25-Jan-2015 9:41 am, Jyothis E jyothi...@gmail.com wrote: All, 2015 election for Stewards is underway and candidate submission can be done till 28th. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards/Elections_2015 For those who are not familiar with Stewards and Steward functions - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Stewards Regards, Jyothis. http://www.Jyothis.net [[User:Jyothis]] Camerocks - Rock your digital world! completion date = (start date + ((estimated effort x 3.1415926) / resources) + ((total coffee breaks x 0.25) / 24)) + Effort in meetings ___ 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] Train-the-Trainer Programme - 2015 (Announcement)
Dear Srikanth, We are exploring possibilities of holding this in other cities, taking various factors into consideration. We will update the location and venue on the Event page on Meta as soon as we have decided. Best, Vishnu On Wednesday, 14 January 2015, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikant...@gmail.com wrote: Vishnu, I'm very glad to hear of this years edition of the TTT Program. Will it be centered around Bangalore again or are there any plans to take it to other cities which would be more beneficial in the long run? On 14-Jan-2015 7:02 pm, Tito Dutta trulyt...@gmail.com wrote: That is a fantastic news. Thank you a lot. Regards On 14 January 2015 at 18:59, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Wikimedians, As most of you are aware, CIS-A2K conducted the first Wikipedia Train-the-Trainer (TTT) programme[1] in 2013 with an aim to support and groom leadership skills in the community members. We are extremely thankful to all the senior Wikimedians who acted as Resource Persons for the 2013 event. Achal, Arjuna, Hari, Shymal, Tinu and Viswa thank you once again! Without your help we could not have conducted it so successfully. This email is to let you all know that we have scheduled to conduct the second iteration of this program at the end of February 2015. We are inviting applications from interested Indian Wikimedians. Please see this page on Meta for more details [2]. Some important dates: January 27, 2015 - Last date for registration. January 30, 2015 - Confirmation of selected participants February 26 to March 1, 2015 - TTT-2015 workshop We are working on the schedule and other details. You are welcome to leave your suggestions and inputs here [3]. Please write to us at tanv...@cis-india.org and vis...@cis-india.org if you have any further queries. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2015 [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2015 ___ 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] Train-the-Trainer Programme - 2015 (Announcement)
Dear Wikimedians, As most of you are aware, CIS-A2K conducted the first Wikipedia Train-the-Trainer (TTT) programme[1] in 2013 with an aim to support and groom leadership skills in the community members. We are extremely thankful to all the senior Wikimedians who acted as Resource Persons for the 2013 event. Achal, Arjuna, Hari, Shymal, Tinu and Viswa thank you once again! Without your help we could not have conducted it so successfully. This email is to let you all know that we have scheduled to conduct the second iteration of this program at the end of February 2015. We are inviting applications from interested Indian Wikimedians. Please see this page on Meta for more details [2]. Some important dates: January 27, 2015 - Last date for registration. January 30, 2015 - Confirmation of selected participants February 26 to March 1, 2015 - TTT-2015 workshop We are working on the schedule and other details. You are welcome to leave your suggestions and inputs here [3]. Please write to us at tanv...@cis-india.org and vis...@cis-india.org if you have any further queries. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2015 [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2015 ___ 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] Copyright and CC primer for Indian Wikimedians
Dear Wikimedians, I would like to introduce you all to Thomas, a fourth year law student at the National Law University Jodhpur. He has joined CIS-A2K as an intern and will be developing a primer on Copyright and Creative Commons for the use of Indian Wikimedians. Thomas' aim is to cater to the broad spectrum of Wikimedia users and to provide both an introduction to copyright law and to address more advanced questions of copyright law that users might encounter with regards to issues like digitisation, public domain works, etc. His approach thus far has been to comb the India Mailing List to discover the common questions or concerns that Indian Wikimedians face while dealing with content. He hopes to then transpose answers to these queries along with general copyright related information onto a primer following a mixture of a FAQ based and prose based format to allow for better transposition of information as well as to allow for better readability and engagement. As you will realise, this approach suffers from a number of defects: 1. There are a large number of queries or concerns that users might have which are not addressed onto the mailing lists and are near impossible to pre-empt. 2. There are a number of unique processes that Wikimedia implements (like the “precautionary principle”) that is unique to the context of copyright and Wikimedia which he is yet to familiarise himself and such a familiarity can only be built with periodic use. 3. There are a large number of Wikimedians who might be unrepresented on the Mailing List and might have queries regarding the use of content. To this end, Thomas hopes to get some support from the community here in terms of: 1. Asking any queries that you may have regarding copyright law and its application to the Wikimedia Universe. 2. Passing along any queries or issues that you may have heard of from other users, so that this may be introduced. 3. Passing along any other information that may be specifically relevant to this endeavour, in terms of experience with Wikimedia policy, practice that has been developed over the past few years and the like. Any support in this regard would be extremely helpful. This primer will of course be a work in progress for subsequent authors to edit and build upon, true to the Wikimedia ethos, however for the sake of at least an initial completeness, I request you to reply in over the course of this week, latest by the 3rd of January 2015. You can reach Thomas at thomasjv93{at} gmail.com or on his EN Wikipedia User Talk page:Thomasjv93 He is copied on this e-mail. It would be useful if you could post this message on your respective Wikimedia project's village pump. Thank you for your support. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] Scanner machine
Dear Tito, I would have given the same advice as Shyamal did. One could also look at using a ssecond-hand Smartphone with 6MP and above camera to do a decent image capture and then use scantailor for bulk processing. Viswa trained many Wikipedians including Jayanta on the use of scantailor during the TTT . Please consider reaching out to Jayanta for help. Best, Vishnu On Wednesday, 26 November 2014, Shyamal Lakshminarayanan lshya...@gmail.com wrote: Tito, Just some comments from experience but not directly related to your request. I have scanned a fairly large number of documents (mostly thin brochures in which the staples could be removed) using a low-cost flatbed scanner. The one I use is in the Canon LIDE series - these use LEDs and work off USB power (no additional powercord). They are quite inexpensive (around Rs 3000) but slow (like all flatbed scanners). It is useful if you are doing high resolution scans of images. If your focus is more on text - and it readability or OCR-ability - then a digital camera based rig works much more efficiently. Lots of sites on DIY book-scanners (and you can probably get Viswaprabha to demo you Scantailor). For library research purpose copying I routinely use a small pocket digital camera and it does a perfectly good job. Most librarians I have met have been ok with their use. best wishes Shyamal On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 2:29 PM, Tito Dutta trulyt...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, For a year or more I have been looking for an individual grant to buy a simple image scanner. My most recent application was at Ta Wikipedia From that application:, I need a scanner regularly, so I would not be able to do all works in a particular period (for example, someone says, take a scanner for two weeks and return after that) Can anyone give me oive me one? ___ 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] (Announcement) Community help in selecting the CIS-A2K PO
Dear Wikimedians, Sorry for X posting. We, at CIS-A2K, are looking for Wikimedians to help in the selection process of the CIS-A2K Programme Officer. You will be expected to go through the short-listed candidates' resume and covering letter and rate the person's suitability against the criteria for the position advertised here [1]. Please write to me off-list, if you are interested in helping us with the selection process. We would like to keep the participation limited to 10 Wikimedians from across India. So please hurry and let us know your intent by November 18th. Thank you. Vishnu [1] http://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-institutional-partnership ___ 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] (Announcement) Recruitment of Programme Officer, CIS-A2K
Dear Wikimedians, Sorry for cross-posting. The Centre for Internet Society (CIS) is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer (Institutional Partnerships) for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme. The position will be based in its Bangalore office. Programme Officer will collaboratively work with the A2K Team and would report to the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at CIS. Position Summary: As Programme Officer (Institutional Partnerships) your job will be to collaborate with institutions especially in the higher education sector to drive and support the growth of open knowledge movement in India and Indian language Wikipedias and its sister projects. Your primary responsibility will be to assimilate the work started by CIS-A2K through various institutional partnerships during the last 15 months. You are also expected to research, design and implement different pilot projects with an aim to create high quality content and cultivate new editors on different language Wikipedias in a time bound manner. In addition to this you will be anchoring the development and growth of at least one Indian language Wikipedia and its sister projects. You are encouraged to deeply engage with the CIS-A2K Work Plan before making the application. You will work cohesively with the Wikimedia community, the Wikimedia India Chapter, the Wikimedia Foundation and like-minded institutions to meet specific goals of each language Wikimedia community in India. You will be a part of a small team of 5 to 6 doing high visibility and high impact work. You should be open to work in a highly transparent and accountable environment. For more details see this link [1]. The last date of submitting applications is November 14, 2014. Best, Vishnu CIS-A2K [1] http://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-institutional-partnership ___ 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] (Announcement) Recruitment of Programme Officer, CIS-A2K
Dear Wikimedians, Sorry for cross-posting. The Centre for Internet Society (CIS) is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer (Institutional Partnerships) for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme. The position will be based in its Bangalore office. Programme Officer will collaboratively work with the A2K Team and would report to the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at CIS. Position Summary: As Programme Officer (Institutional Partnerships) your job will be to collaborate with institutions especially in the higher education sector to drive and support the growth of open knowledge movement in India and Indian language Wikipedias and its sister projects. Your primary responsibility will be to assimilate the work started by CIS-A2K through various institutional partnerships during the last 15 months. You are also expected to research, design and implement different pilot projects with an aim to create high quality content and cultivate new editors on different language Wikipedias in a time bound manner. In addition to this you will be anchoring the development and growth of at least one Indian language Wikipedia and its sister projects. You are encouraged to deeply engage with the CIS-A2K Work Plan before making the application. You will work cohesively with the Wikimedia community, the Wikimedia India Chapter, the Wikimedia Foundation and like-minded institutions to meet specific goals of each language Wikimedia community in India. You will be a part of a small team of 5 to 6 doing high visibility and high impact work. You should be open to work in a highly transparent and accountable environment. For more details see this link [1]. The last date of submitting applications is November 14, 2014. Best, Vishnu CIS-A2K [1] http://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-institutional-partnership ___ 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] (Announcement) Recruitment of Programme Officer, CIS-A2K
Dear Anivar, Thanks for the suggestion. Will get this change reflected. Best, Vishnu On Saturday 01 November 2014 06:48 PM, Anivar Aravind wrote: Just a comment . free knowledge or free and open knowledge are the usual terms used by wmf and movement in general . the term open knowledge movement may be misleading because it is the current legal name of open knowledge foundation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Knowledge ___ 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] CIS-A2K revised plan for July 2014 to June 2015
Dear Wikimedians, Based on the feedback and suggestions given by the community and FDC and based on participation in the India Community Consultation (organized by the Wikimedia Foundation), we have revised the work plans[1] and budget that will guide our work until June 2015. You are encouraged to share your feedback on the discussion pages on Meta. We look forward to your continuous engagement in our collective dream of further growing the Wikimedia and open knowledge movement in India. Best, Vishnu CIS-A2K [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015 ___ 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] CIS-A2K revised plan for July 2014 to June 2015
Dear Wikimedians, Based on the feedback and suggestions given by the community and FDC and based on participation in the India Community Consultation (organized by the Wikimedia Foundation), we have revised the work plans[1] and budget that will guide our work until June 2015. You are encouraged to share your feedback on the discussion pages on Meta. We look forward to your continuous engagement in our collective dream of further growing the Wikimedia and open knowledge movement in India. Best, Vishnu CIS-A2K [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015 ___ 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] WMIN is looking for a FEMALE representative for AdaCamp Bangalore
+1 On Wednesday 29 October 2014 05:45 PM, Ravishankar Ayyakkannu wrote: Hi, Wikimedia India is looking for a FEMALE representative to participate in AdaCamp Bangalore http://bangalore.adacamp.org. The representative * Need not be a chapter member. But, we would like you to become a member in future and take an active role in our Gender Gap SIG http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Gender_gap. * Shall submit a report to the chapter about the event and participation. * Shall fulfill the expecatations of AdaCamp's usual selection process http://bangalore.adacamp.org/how-we-select-attendees/. * Shall avail travel scholarship from the chapter. Please apply before 31st October 05:00 PM IST at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/AdaCamp_Bangalore Ravi ___ 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] Support to Community participation - Wikipedia at Swatantra 2014
Dear Wikimedians, This e-mail is to take your suggestions about the below proposal. As some of you may know that Swatantra 2014 (5th International Free Software Conference, Kerala) is being held in Trivandrum during December 18-20, 2014. More details can be found at this link http://icfoss.in/fs2014.html. Organized by ICFOSS (GoK) this event is set to attract hundreds of Free Software enthusiasts. CIS is one of the supporters of this conference. There is a dedicated track for Wikipedia/Wikimedia during the conference. We are also planning to set up a Wikimedia stall at the event. We are hoping to have ML Wikimedians take lead on this. We are considering to give travel and stay scholarships for select Wikimedians from across India, who are interested to participate in this event and benefit from it. This will also be a great opportunity to meet and interact with Malayalam Wikimedia community. CIS-A2K is considering to support upto 2 Wikimedians from each language community. Interested Wikimedians will be asked to put up a request, along with a statement of purpose, in their respective Wikimedia Village pumps and will request the community members to second them. Based on the community response CIS-A2K will decide on providing travel and stay scholarships. CIS-A2K will support this as part of its Community Strengthening Initiatives [1] Please let us know your suggestions on the above process and share your inputs on how we could do this in a better manner. We would like to put out a call by November 10. We will be open to receiving your feedback until November 7, 2014. You could also leave your feedback on Meta here [2] Best wishes, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Community_Strengthening_Initiatives [2] http://bit.ly/1tBuWpT ___ 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: [Wikimedia-l] Re-licensing Wikimedia logos on Commons to CC BY-SA 3.0
Dear Wikimedians, The below crucial e-mail from WMF Legal about re-licensing the Wikimedia logos for your information. Do spread the word among your community. Best, Vishnu Forwarded Message Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re-licensing Wikimedia logos on Commons to CC BY-SA 3.0 Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:51:47 -0700 From: Yana Welinder ywelin...@wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi folks, I'm happy to announce that we are re-licensing the Wikimedia logos on Commons to CC BY-SA 3.0: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/10/24/wikimedia-logos-have-been-freed/ I would really appreciate your help with replacing the undefined https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Copyright_by_Wikimedia[1] templates on the logos with the undefined https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_trademark[2] and undefined https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Cc-by-sa-3.0[3] templates. But we don't want to replace templates on the MediaWiki https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MediaWiki.svg[4] and the Community https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg[5] logos, which were originally released under free licenses. There are also some pages on Commons, like this one https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing[6], that may need to be updated based on the re-licensed logos. Thanks, Yana [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Copyright_by_Wikimedia [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wikimedia_trademark [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Cc-by-sa-3.0 [4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MediaWiki.svg [5] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Community_Logo.svg [6] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing -- Yana Welinder Legal Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6867 @yanatweets https://twitter.com/yanatweets NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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] Hindustani Music resource donation event - Mumbai
On Monday 06 October 2014 10:24 AM, Pranav Curumsey wrote: This is wonderful. Thanks, Pranav. Will you also be getting some audio examples uploaded to Commons? I am glad your team has taken up the cause of Indian classical on Wikipedia and look forward to more in this sphere in the coming months. We have managed to get this resource, thanks to Dr. Tejaswini's (A2K Advisor) efforts. In her individual capacity she is doing research on Hindustani music and I am sure that she will be able to source some good recordings, historical images and videos and upload them on to commons and also build an interest group that works on improving relevant articles on Wikipedia. She has committed to getting more content donated from the Hindustani music world. Let's hope that everyone of her effort becomes successful. It will be great, if you are any other Wikimedian interested in Hindustani music collaborates with her in these efforts. Please feel free to write to her off the list. Cheers, Vishnu ___ 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] Hindustani Music resource donation event - Mumbai
Dear Wikimedians, We are glad to invite you to join us for an event in Mumbai on October 7th where Pandita. Neela Bhagwat [1] will donate her comprehensive textual compilation of Gwalior Gharana [2] bandishes. Timing: 5.30 to 7 pm Venue: Shivaji Park Nagarik Sangh, (hall next to Shivaji statue at Shivaji Park, Dadar) As some of you may know that Gwalior Gharana is one of the old traditions of Hindustani gayaki and like other gayaki's the tradition has been passed on orally in the guru-shishya parampara. Pt. Neela Bhagwat has over a period of 30 years (of learning and teaching music) meticulously compiled most of the Gwalior Gharana bandishes with notations and notes. Upon the request of CIS-A2K, she has agreed to donate this comprehensive collection which will be scanned and hosted on Wikisource. We hope that this will be of interest to music aficionados and those interested in the study of Hindustani Music. CIS-A2K is thankful to the event hosts, Khayal Trust. The event will attract a community of Hindustani music lovers and we hope to orient them to consider improving the quality of content on Hindustani music and musicians on Wikipedia during the event. We welcome the community members in Mumbai to join us in this effort. Please help spread the word. Best, Vishnu [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neela_Bhagwat [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwalior_gharana (needs wiki love) ___ 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] Etherpad link - India Community Consultation
Dear Wikimedians, Here is the link to the Etherpad [1], which captured the proceedings of the Day 1 (1 to 8 pm) of the India Community Consultation-2014. Best, Vishnu [1] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Indiacommunityconsultation-Day1 ___ 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] Indian women in science edit-a-thon
Dear Shyamal, Last year we did Lilavati's Daughters Edit-a-thon on notable Indian Women Scientists [1]. I am sure the users registered there would be interested to take part in this too. You could probably alert the event organizers about this if you know them. Lilavati's Daughters Edit-a-thon received a better response from Indic Wikimedians and I am sure they would also be interested to take part in this. Best, Vishnu [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lilavati%27s_Daughters_Edit-a-thon On Wednesday 01 October 2014 04:28 PM, Shyamal L. wrote: Please note this upcoming event - http://www.indiabioscience.org/content/women-science-wiki-edit-thon You can also contact the organizers via en:User:Fluentflux or t...@indiabioscience.org mailto:t...@indiabioscience.org best wishes Shyamal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shyamal ___ 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] [Wikikn-l (kannada wikipedia)] Release of 105 books by Govt of Karnataka under CC-BY-SA
On Thursday 25 September 2014 11:19 AM, Rajesh Ranjan wrote: On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Anivar Aravind anivar.arav...@gmail.com mailto:anivar.arav...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 9:55 PM, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com mailto:visdav...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Ravi, On the copyright question AFAIK... it is the manner in which a certain content is expressed (e.g. analyzed, compiled, paginated, represented, etc..) the author could claim copyright, as there is a certain basic amount of creative labour that went into it. So Govt. of Karnataka could rightfully copyright these works, which it has now released under CC-BY-SA 3.0. A useful thing to read in this context would be this [1]. As Ravi pointed 11th Century Kannada literature is already public domain . There is no point in re-licensing it as CC-BY-SA . Digitization does not create fresh copyright . While thanking Govt for their efforts to make it available , please dont create fresh copyright on it . And while looking at details, There was no point of time in which govt of Karanataka had copyright on this content . This effort is almost in same lines of Open access initiative of rare public domain books by Kerala Sahitya academy happened almost same time last year (http://www.keralasahityaakademi.org/online_library/index.html) . They havnt claimed any undeserving copyright on these books . SO it is better if people involved canm correct Govt of Karanataka at this point itself showing kerala example to avoid further ambiguities surrounding license . ~ regards Anivar I agree with Ravi and Anivar! I am not an expert of licensing, but the thing that is already in public domain, licensing the same under CC-BY-SA 3.0 is one way limiting the public availability of the same content. Rajesh and Anivar, Purely from a copyright POV, it is important to recognize the idea - expression divide. The content per-se in this case may be public domain, but it is the expression of it that is copyrighted as I stated above. Especially, as I understand, the copyright act in India has bare minimum requirements for creative labour. But I am willing to be better educated on this. Cheers, Vishnu ___ 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] Software Freedom Day Celebrations across India
+1 Ravi Vishnu On Wednesday 24 September 2014 04:02 AM, Ravishankar Ayyakkannu wrote: Hi, Software Freedom Day is a global celebration and education of why transparent and sustainable technologies are now more important than ever. You may find an event happening near your place at http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/map/index.php?year=2014 If not, you can start an event and gather friends from Wikimedia, FOSS and other Free Culture communities. This is a good opportunity not only to spread awareness about Wikimedia projects but also a chance to network and win friends for our community. I will be attending Software Freedom Day celebrations in Chennai on 27th September at Anna University Campus, Chennai. More details can be found at http://fsftn.org/sfd2014-stall-registration-form/ We have a stall registered already for Wikimedia projects. I welcome the Wikimedia community in and around Chennai for this event. Thanks, Ravi, Program Director, Wikimedia India Chapter. ___ 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] [Wikikn-l (kannada wikipedia)] Release of 105 books by Govt of Karnataka under CC-BY-SA
Dear Ravi, On the copyright question AFAIK... it is the manner in which a certain content is expressed (e.g. analyzed, compiled, paginated, represented, etc..) the author could claim copyright, as there is a certain basic amount of creative labour that went into it. So Govt. of Karnataka could rightfully copyright these works, which it has now released under CC-BY-SA 3.0. A useful thing to read in this context would be this [1]. Coming to this specific case of CC release,what I see important for our context of open knowledge movement in India is the gesture of release of such large content under Creative Commons by the Government of Karnataka, than anything else. I am sure you will agree that we all could cite this as a precedence in negotiating with other Government entities for getting more content released under CC. For instance, we at CIS-A2K showed Goa University's Konkani Wikipedia re-licensing under CC as an example in persuading the Mysore University authorities to release the Kannada Encyclopedias under CC. Such precedents become even more important in the Indic Wikimedia project's context as the publication of majority of non-fiction writing in the Indian languages during the last 60 years happened under aegis of the Government in India. Cheers, Vishnu [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea-expression_divide (needs wiki love) On Wednesday 24 September 2014 07:00 PM, Ravishankar Ayyakkannu wrote: Hi Pavanaja, Please excuse my ignorance regarding Kannada Literature. Are we talking about the works of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purandara_Dasa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanaka_Dasa and works like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasa_sahitya These seem centuries old and should be already available in public domain with no copyright claims. Why woud we need them re-released under Creative Commons? If Dept of Kannada Culture, Govt of Karnataka provides access to readily available digitized sources, it is an important gesture and I appreciate the effort behind this. But, not sure on the copyright part. Could you please clarify? Thanks. Ravi, Program Director, Wikimedia India Chapter. ___ 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] Fwd: [Wikimedia-l] ***Security notice*** for IRC: vulnerability prior to September 15, change passwords
For those who are active on IRC [1]. Best, Vishnu [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat Forwarded Message Subject: [Wikimedia-l] ***Security notice*** for IRC: vulnerability prior to September 15, change passwords Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:45:59 -0700 From: Pine W wiki.p...@gmail.com Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org To: wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia-announce wikimediaannounc...@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org, secur...@wikimedia.org All, As you may have heard, Freenode found some compromised servers on their networks. Network traffic, including SSL traffic, may have been sniffed by a third party. This likely affects many Wikimedia IRC users, including users who do not speak English, so please forward this notice and translate as needed for the benefit of other Wikimedians. If you have not changed your nickserv password on September 15 or later, please do so now. From the Freenode blog: Before changing your password, please check your email address in /msg nickserv info and, if needed, update it – see /msg nickserv help set email (remember to check your new email for the verification key). This will ensure that we can send you a password reset email should, for whatever reason, your password change not work properly. If you have no email set on your account or an email set that you cannot access, we cannot send password resets to you, so do please keep this up-to-date. To change your password use /msg nickserv set password newpasshere Since traffic may have been sniffed, you may also wish to consider any channel keys or similar secret information exchanged over the network. Please direct questions to Freenode IRC ops. They are voiced in the #freenode channel. Pine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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] Recruitment Announcement : Program Director of Wikimedia India Chapter
Dear Ravi, Congratulations and welcome! Best wishes. Vishnu On Sunday 21 September 2014 01:25 PM, Jayanta Nath wrote: Dear Members of Wikimedia India Chapter, It is my pleasure to announce Ravishankar Ayyakkannu as the Program Director of Wikimedia India Chapter. He was involved in various projects of the movement that dealt with the State Government of Tamilnadu and multinational firms like Google. His experiences working for the movement have been featured in media including The New York Times and BBC. He has served as the General Council member of the International Forum for Information Technology in Tamil. He is also actively involved in promoting Free and Open Source projects and Free Culture movements in Tamil. Ravishankar completed his graduation from Nanyang Technical University, Singapore and Technical University of Munich, Germany and later worked as a researcher for the Leiden University in The Netherlands.He has been working as an independent Web development consultant. The Interview committee consisting of Sudhanwa Jogalekar (Past president) , Navin Francis ( Past Secretory), Moksh Juneja (President) and myself were honored to be part of this efficient, effective, and enlightening process. Ravishankar joined Wikimedia India on 20th September 2014 as Program Director. He will be based in Bangalore. His primary roles are supporting community members in organizing and executing the various chapter programs, strategic planning for the chapter, mentoring interns and devise success measurement metrics for community projects. Please join me in officially welcoming Ravishankar Ayyakkannu to Wikimedia India Chapter! Jayanta Nath President Wikimedia India Chapter ___ 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] Fwd: [Wikimedia-l] Open call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals
Dear Wikimedians, Please see the below call for proposals for IEG. Best, Vishnu -- Forwarded message -- From: Siko Bouterse sboute...@wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, 2 September 2014 Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Open call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals To: wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Greetings! The Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grants program is accepting proposals for funding new experiments from September 1st to 30th. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG Your idea can improve Wikimedia projects by building a new tool or gadget, organizing a better process on your wiki, conducting research on an important issue, or providing other support for community-building. Whether you need $200 or $30,000 USD, Individual Engagement Grants can cover your own project development time in addition to funding for a team to help you. The program has a flexible schedule and reporting structure, and Grantmaking staff are there to support you through all stages of the process. Do you have have a good idea, but you are worried that it isn’t developed enough for a grant? Put it into the IdeaLab, where volunteers and staff can give you advice and guidance on how to bring it to life. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab Also, IEG will be hosting three Hangout Sessions for real-time discussions to help you make your proposal better - the first will happen on September 16th. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IdeaLab/Events#Upcoming_events For inspiration, you can read more about past projects https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/individual-engagement-grants/ that received funding or review open proposals https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-reviewing. We are excited to see some of the new ways your grant ideas can support our community and make an impact on the future of Wikimedia projects. Submit your proposal in September! https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG#ieg-apply Warm regards, Siko -- Siko Bouterse Head of Individual Grants Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. sboute...@wikimedia.org *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. * *Donate https://donate.wikimedia.org or click the edit button today, and help us make it a reality!* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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] 20 volumes (8376 pages) of Tamil Encylopedia released under Creative Commons
Dear Ravi and Tamil Wikimedians, This is fantastic news! Congratulations to Prof. C.R. Selvakumar and all the Tamil Wikimedians and to Prof. P.R. Nakkeeran of (Tamil Virtual Academy) for this significant content donation!! Best wishes, Vishnu On Saturday 30 August 2014 08:10 PM, Ravishankar wrote: Hi, Tamil Development Board (an autonomous institution under Government of Tamilnadu) releases its Encyclopedia (10 volumes, 7407 pages) and Children's Encyclopedia (10 volumes, 969 pages) under Creative Commons license. Tamil Wikipedians lead by Prof. C. R. Selvakumar and Prof. P. R. Nakkeeran, (Director, Tamil Virtual Academy) spearheaded this initiative coinciding with Tamil Wikipedia's 10 years celebrations. An official confirmation (in Tamil) can be seen at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Letter_from_Tamil_Development_Board_donating_20_volumes_of_encyclopedia_in_Tamil_under_Creative_Commons_license.jpeg Scanned copies of these works are already available at http://tamilvu.org/library/kulandaikal/lku00/html/lku00ind.htm At Tamil Wikipedia, we are discussing how we can get this content typed and transferred to WikiSource. Doing so can be a good model to encourage more such works to be released in public domain. Following are two options I can think of: 1. Volunteers type all the content. Besides taking years to complete, this won't do justice for the value of time of volunteers who can do more valuable work than typing mechanically. A program like IT@School present in Kerala or a contest can encourage more people to join this effort but not all communities can't emulate this model successfully. 2. Request WMF to give a grant to the owner of the content and let them hand over the typed content to Wikisource volunteers who will upload and wikify the content. This will ensure maintaining the spirit of volunteerism and yet getting the work done in a professional and time bound manner. Numerous works in Wikisource are such ready made content uploaded already in the web through other projects like Project Gutenberg. If providing grants to non-Wikimedia organizations is an issue, a grant towards this can be given to community / chapter who will then outsource the typing work. I welcome community's input on any other model for this as India has vast amount of literature and works like this are waiting to be transfered to Wikisource. This is one area where we can add lot of content to Wiki projects at once. Ravi ___ 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] (Announcement) Nitika's exit from CIS-A2K
Dear fellow Wikimedians, It’s with regret that I announce the exit of Nitika Tandon as Programme Manager of CIS-A2K on July 31, 2014. Sorry for this delayed announcement. As many of you know, Nitika joined the Wikimedia movement in August 2011 as a Consultant for the WMF's India Programme. She later on transitioned into the CIS-A2K program in September 2012. Nitika has played quite an important role in the CIS-A2K programme since then. CIS would like to thank her for all her valuable contributions to the Wikimedia movement and particularly in anchoring the Konkani language plan during the last one year. As a Konkani language anchor Nitika did her best in helping the Konkani Wikipedia community grow. During her stint at CIS-A2K, Nitika also had put concerted efforts to build partnerships with the Goa University and the Nirmala Institute of Education and in sharing the A2K's work openly with the Wikimedia community. We wish Nitika the best in life! Vishnu ___ 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] Statement on CIS-A2K's FDC Proposal
) feel that Wikipedia Outreach should be supported by paid professionals whereas some think it should be done by volunteers. While we appreciate the broader philosophy that define each of these approaches, we have been putting every effort to bring the best of both of these approaches in our work. We strongly believe that there is an immense amount of learning for all of us as a movement, if we could collectively explore how to best utilize volunteers and voluntary sector professional energies than to pitch them as mutually exclusive. At the end of the day we all are driven by the same collective vision of growing open knowledge. We will soon share the revised plans and budget for the next year and look forward to your continuous engagement in our collective dream of further growing the Wikimedia and open knowledge movement in India. Best wishes, Vishnu CIS-A2K Note: This is being put up on Meta here [1] [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Staff_proposal_assessment [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Board_decisions/2013-2014_round2 [4] http://bit.ly/1sY6XQU ___ 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] A brief message
Thank you, Asaf. Looks like there was some problem with the email I had sent, which could be because of the poor internet connection. Apologies! You can read it on Meta too, from here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk%3AAPG%2FProposals%2F2013-2014_round2%2FThe_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society%2FProposal_form#Statement_on_CIS-A2K.27s_proposal_discussion Best, Vishnu On Friday, 15 August 2014, Asaf Bartov abar...@wikimedia.org wrote: Dear fellow Wikipedians, Yesterday, Vishnu Vardhan, the CIS-A2K programme director, sent a Very Long Email to this list, titled Statement on CIS-A2K's FDC Proposal. I suspect the subject line, and the length of the e-mail, may have discouraged many from bothering with it. This is a brief message encouraging you to make the effort, this once, as I believe the significant news shared in it are worth hearing. Cheers, A. -- Asaf Bartov Wikimedia Foundation Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org ___ 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] CIS-A2K Bulletin June 2014
Dear Subha, I think, Ravi has a valid observation and a useful suggestion. Cheers, Vishnu On Friday 11 July 2014 03:19 PM, Ravishankar wrote: Subha, To clarify further: * This is a good project. * I don't mind whether you spend your personal time or official time for this. * Issues regarding denial of contribution requests doens't fit in this discussion. My issue is when you asked me to contribute for this, I saw you as a community member and contributed. But, I was shocked to see this reported as a CIS-A2K project later. I might have even contributed knowing that but not revealing that in advance is a serious disappointment. I am not sure how many other contributors were informed of the CIS-A2K affiliation. Here is another instance where CIS-A2K claims affiliation to this work: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#Q10 My request is simple: EITHER declare this affiliation in the Twitter page. OR stop mentioning this as a CIS-A2K initiative anywhere. Ravi ___ 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] Wiki Loves Pride, India 2014
Dear Wikimedians, Wiki Loves Pride is a global campaign to expand and improve LGBT-related content across several Wikimedia projects [1]. We invite you to participate in a two-week long edit-a-thon to help improve Wikipedia's coverage of India relevant LGBT-related content. The edit-a-thon will lead up to offline events on *Saturday, July 19, 2014 in Bangalore and Delhi* [2]. You are welcome to join the offline events. The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various Indian languages with a focus on LGBT Rights, Culture and History in India. Please feel free to chip in with ideas, articles and activities on the event page on Meta [3]. Everyone is welcome to join the event as enthusiasts, editors, translators, bloggers or event managers. Start by signing up as a participant [4]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014#Off-line_Events [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014 [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014#Sign_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] Wiki Loves Pride, India 2014
Ravi, This is an ongoing lable-a-thon. Please see the event page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Indian_Parliamentarian_Label-a-thon We will put up a report after the event. Vishnu On Monday 07 July 2014 04:54 PM, Ravishankar wrote: Vishnu, I would love to know the achievements of the last edit-a-thon aka label-a-thon that CIS-A2K arranged. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Indian_Parliamentarian_Label-a-thon#What_does_this_achieve.3F Ravi ___ 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] (Announcement) Draft Policy for Open Access to DBT DST funded research
Dear Wikimedians, I am happy to share with you the Draft Policy for Open Access to Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India funded research http://dbtindia.nic.in/docs/DBT-DST_Open_Access_Policy.pdf CIS has contributed to this draft, which is up for comments until July 25, 2014. Hope this will come through soon and ensure that more scientific research in India would be openly accessible for all of us. Best, Vishnu ___ 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: [Wikimedia-l] Please spread the word: Tools only on Tool Labs from July 1
Below FYI. Vishnu Original Message Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Please spread the word: Tools only on Tool Labs from July 1 Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 12:50:34 +0200 From: Silke Meyer silke.me...@wikimedia.de Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Organization: Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi all, please spread the word: Tools only on Tool Labs from July 1 About one year ago, we, Wikimedia Deutschland e. V., announced June 30th as the deadline of the Toolserver migration (Roadmap at [1]). This deadline is approaching. The Toolserver will stop working on June 30th. What will happen afterwards? Background information The Toolserver is a community based infrastructure that hosts software supporting Wikipedia and its sister projects. Over the years many active volunteers have developed helpful and great software tools that are running on several Wikimedia projects. The Toolserver is operated by Wikimedia Deutschland with assistance from the Wikimedia Foundation and several chapters. For many reasons, the Toolserver will be discontinued and replaced by Tool Labs [2], a platform operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Please see the reasons at [3]. For more than one year Wikimedia Deutschland has been coordinating the migration of software tools from Toolserver to Tool Labs. What editors should know The toolserver is a community-driven project. The tools shall be migrated by the developers resp. maintainers themselves. Many of them have already migrated their tools or have indicated that they will do so before the end of this month. We have a special agreement with the OpenStreetMap projects and with the developer of Merlbot [4] to ensure these tools don’t stop working. All other tools will stop working by July 1st. What editors can do * On Tool Labs [2], you can look up if the tools that you use and need have already moved there. * Talk to the developers of your favourite tools: It is important to let them know how much you appreciate their tools and that you need them to do your work. * Contact us if you don’t know who these developers are or if you have any questions or if you want us to forward wishes or requests to tool developers. Contact information is given at the end of this text. Information for tool developers If you are still facing the migration of your tools, please keep in mind that lots of people use your tools. They are a great support for their daily work and will be missed when they fail. Please take the time to migrate them or poke us: WMDE can still support you during migration - what we can’t do is maintain abandoned tools in the long run. From July 1st on, the toolserver admins will still hand you over your backups upon request and create redirects to Tool Labs for you. *You won’t be able to log in to the toolserver anymore though.* If anyone wants to have and reuse other people’s code, we recommend to seek approval from them directly, even if from a legal point of view there is no problem. Don’t hesitate to talk to us if you need a contact person. Here is a collection of the relevant links for you again: * Tool Labs: http://tools.wmflabs.org * Tool Labs help pages: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Tools/Help * How to create redirects to Tool Labs: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/.htaccess#.htaccess * Magnus Manske’s migration manual: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske/Migrating_from_toolserver * Scripts to clean up your toolserver account]] after migration: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Main_Page * Mailing list Labs-l: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/labs-l * IRC channel #wikimedia-labs: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-labs * Marc-André Pelletier (Coren) and Andrew Bogott (andrewbogott) are the WMF Tool Labs ops. Petr Bena (petan) and Tim Landscheidt (scfc_de) are voluntary Tool Labs admins. We invite you to join our IRC office hour in #wikimedia-office on Wednesday, June 11th, at 5 p.m. UTC. Contact: The migration is coordinated by Silke Meyer (WMDE). Birgit Müller supports her in communications. The two toolserver admins Marlen Caemmerer und Alexander Mette are glad to help you with advice. Marc-André Pelletier can answer all questions concerning Tool Labs. Contact us at Silke: silke.me...@wikimedia.de, Talk page at [5], IRC: Silke_WMDE Birgit: birgit.muel...@wikimedia.de, Talk page at [6], IRC: Birgit_WMDE We hope that the transition will happen as smoothly as possible! Best, Silke [1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Tool_Labs/Roadmap_en [2] http://tools.wmflabs.org [3] https://toolserver.org/ [4] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:MerlBot [5] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Silke_WMDE [6] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer_Diskussion:Birgit_Müller_(WMDE) -- Silke Meyer Internes IT-Management und Projektmanagement Toolserver Wikimedia Deutschland e.V
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
On Wednesday 14 May 2014 08:17 PM, Ravishankar wrote: So, I would like to know if you have signed a separate MoU or some sort of lgeal contract that defines the terms and conditions of working relationship with WMF apart from the grant agreement. Dear Ravi, Hari and Dhaval, Other than the 2 year Grant Agreement CIS has not signed any other separate MoU with WMF. Asaf has explained in detail on this list as to why this Grant Agreement is not being shared publicly. I am quoting him here again We (i.e. WMF) will not be sharing that agreement, on principle: not because there's anything secret or damning in it, but because we do not want to create a misleading precedent that may set the expectation that all WMF contracts are subject to community review. This isn't, and cannot be, the case. We likewise do not expect Chapters or other partners to publicly share contracts Please see his posting here http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-November/010603.html Best, Vishnu ___ 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-blr] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Hari, I am afraid that the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) is being interpreted selectively here. While Section 3 of the FCRA is important it is important to read it in conjunction with Section 4 of the FCRA (an exception clause for Section 3), which states that even those who participate in broadcast and electronic media can receive foreign money, “*by way of salary, wages or other remuneration due to him* or to any group of persons working under him, from any foreign source or by way of payment in the ordinary course of business transacted in India by such foreign source”. I do not think there is any violation in Pavanaja writing for Prajavani. Best, Vishnu On Wednesday 14 May 2014 12:15 AM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote: Dear Pavanaja, Please correct me if I'm wrong. You have received an annual compensation of about *17 Lakhs* last year (that also excludes travel and other reimbursements) as per the declaration made by Vishnu on the talk page of this proposal [1]. This came from the funds granted to CIS that was received from WMF through FCRA. And this will be increased by 20% for this year? Further, for Kannada alone, *12.3 Lakhs* seem to be set aside out of which you seem to be the primary beneficiary. [2] And all this while, you have been a columnist for Prajavani. This seems to be a clear violation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act as outlined by Srikanth on the copied email. Regards, [1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#CIS_Staff_details [2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Budget On 13 May 2014 22:29, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikant...@gmail.com mailto:rsrikant...@gmail.com wrote: Pavanaja, as per the FCRA: 3. (1) No foreign contribution shall be accepted by any- (g) association or company engaged in the production or broadcast of audio news or audio visual news or current affairs programmes through any electronic mode, or any other electronic form as defined in clause ® of sub-section (I) of section 2 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 or any other mode of mass communication; (h) correspondent or columnist, cartoonist, editor, owner of the association or company referred to in clause (g). Writing a weekly column, as a freelancer makes one a columnist. * * * * On 13 May 2014 15:52, Pavanaja U B pavan...@vishvakannada.com mailto:pavan...@vishvakannada.com wrote: Hi, There is a factual error. I am not employed with Prajavani. I write just one column per week as freelancer. Regards, Pavanaja *From:*wikimedia-in-blr-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-in-blr-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikimedia-in-blr-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:wikimedia-in-blr-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Srikanth Ramakrishnan *Sent:* 13 May 2014 12:50 *To:* Wikimedia India Community list *Cc:* Kannada Wikipedia Discussion List wikik...@wikipedia.org mailto:wikik...@wikipedia.org; Mailing list for Wikimedians / Wikipedians in Bangalore, India *Subject:* Re: [Wikimedia-in-blr] [Wikimediaindia-l] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation Hi all, I have one important question here. The Foreign Contribution Regulatory Act prohibits money received from abroad to be used as payments or salaries to anyone employed with the press or media. I believe Dr. Pavanaja is a columnist for Prajavani. How does this work out? It's just a preemptive question. On 12 May 2014 17:45, Hari Prasad Nadig hpna...@gmail.com mailto:hpna...@gmail.com wrote: Fellow Wikimedians, As you all know, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore has sought funding of about *1.8 Crores* through the FDC process from Wikimedia Foundation to carry out work on seven local language projects in India that includes Kannada, Telugu among others. [1] The funds primarily cover the salaries of the people belonging to the CIS-A2K team among other administrative expenses and other expenses as outlined on their proposal page. The proposal was up for Community review and comments until April 30th and many have recorded their response about it [2]. Several community members have come forward in pointing out that the staff salaries being paid and that being proposed - are quite on the higher side (which is up to 2.4 Lakhs per month per person). Apart from the concerns on extremely high salaries for Indian norms of the team members of CIS-A2K team, there have been some serious concerns raised about
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
On Wednesday 14 May 2014 10:11 PM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote: We do not have the property ownership documents (no. 4) as CIS does not own the building. These are with the owners and we cannot provide them. In that case, you could perhaps provide the rental agreement made and signed by CIS with the owner? And perhaps the electricity bill (which specifies the name of the owner)? Dear Hari, Yes, this should be very much possible. Cheers, Vishnu ___ 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] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Hari, Please see my replies in-line. On Wednesday 14 May 2014 12:51 AM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote: Vishnu, There have been detailed discussion on how the salaries seem to overshadow everything else in CIS's proposal of *1.8 Crore*. And it is not just me, many other community members who have logged their comment there have felt that the salaries are quite extravagant to Indian standards. Even the staff assessment takes note of this. You yourself seem to be drawing around *24 Lakhs *per annum (which is 2 Lakhs per month!) that excludes travel and reimbursements as declared by you. [1] I'm pretty sure even the readers on this mailing list recognize that these are pretty huge salaries that we're talking about for Indian standards in non-profits for the responsibilities outlined. Yes, it is no secret how much salary I draw or what the CIS-A2K program budget is and what we have proposed. Members on this list will remember that once I took over as the Program Director of CIS-A2K, I have ensured that we bring transparency to the entire CIS-A2K program including the project budget. We shared the entire A2K budget with the community in May 2013 on this list [1]. Staff salaries which also includes my salary were disclosed. Members on the list do know that we have taken this transparency measure much before the current FDC application (or at a time when we were not thinking about this FDC application). Neither I nor the current CIS-A2K team had any say in determining the salaries. There has been an extensive discussion on this here [2]. I am afraid that in your earlier mail the proposed A2K program plans number was wrongly quoted along with the per-person salary and I was merely highlighting the right facts. Further, on the FCRA compliance issues, the compliance to Karnataka Societies Act and the concerns about Conflict of Interest - there are apparently some grave issues *which require that more documentation is made public* by the CIS as stated by me at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Staff_proposal_assessment#Assessment_overlooks_some_grave_concerns and at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Staff_proposal_assessment#Serious_FCRA_violations.3F We appreciated this effort on Meta here [3]. Again let me appreciate the community members and your effort to throw light on these concerns. As stated in the reply on Meta [3], and I quote here for the benefit of the members: CIS has never compromised in getting the best available professional expertise in complying with the various statutory requirements. So at the outset we need to state that CIS has always complied with the statutory advice received from our legal adviser and whenever required also sought second opinion. Thus to our current understanding we are in the best possible compliance with the statutory requirements for the not-for-profits in India. However, because a few of the community members, in the interest of continuing support to Wikimedia movement in India, expressed serious concerns, CIS will take every effort to share these with our legal advisers for their professional opinion. This could take some days, but we are certainly committed to sharing our legal advisers' opinion on these matters with the community and FDC at the earliest. This exercise is also important for CIS as it will help us to put ourselves in much better compliance, if required. We are committed to seeking the opinion of our legal advisers on the concerns raised, as we respect the voice of the community members, including you. Also it is more in the interest of CIS to better comply with the statutory requirements. I'm afraid that just the explanations may not suffice here as the concerns are serious in nature. I sincerely hope that you shall open up the documents for at least the sake of transparency. Please note that CIS has never kept its documents closed to open them again. CIS gets its financial and institutional documents scrutinized every year and reports to multiple authorities as part of various statutory compliances. The Income Tax department periodically scrutinizes CIS's accounts. All the documents are always open for scrutiny by the donors. We have made every document available that was asked by the WMF's visiting team to CIS (which includes WMF's CFO Garfield Byrd) in February 2014. We had also thrown open all our document to the general public for scrutiny during May 2013. I have written to members on this list and other Wikimedia lists, inviting them to come and scrutinize all our documents during this Open Week. Please see the announcement here [4]. Thanks for engaging with CIS-A2K's work, which we always appreciate. Best, Vishnu [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-May/009980.html [2] https
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Legal threat for Wikimedia community volunteers in India getting WMF grants
Dear Ansuman, I am assuming that you are referring to our e-mail exchange during April 29 to June 26, 2013. Firstly, it was I who brought to your notice to not threaten in my e-mail dated June 25, 2013. At which point you indicted me of threatening you. It would be best if you could share the entire e-mail discussion for an objective assessment by any senior Wikimedian and I would tender an apology should I be at wrong. Best, Vishnu On Wednesday 14 May 2014 12:45 PM, ansuman wrote: I have had a similar experience with Vishnu when I first wrote an email (prior to the job application) to him with the concerns about A2K. He couldn't understand my concerns, misunderstood my intention, and threaten me without seeking clarification. That day I knew of his intentions and understanding of Wikimedia movement; the reason i have been keeping track of their work plans, activities and pointing out mistakes. He always makes such mistakes and when someone points out, he denies the allegations. Ansuman On 14 May 2014 12:29, Hari Prasad Nadig hpna...@gmail.com mailto:hpna...@gmail.com wrote: Vishnu, What you were writing there was fairly off-topic, and quite unnecessary. And that hints of malice. In retrospect, that could have been seriously avoided. It also dangerously undermines other community members who're willing to speak out expressing their opinion in an open discussion. I protest and object strongly to the way it has been put forward. On 14 May 2014 11:19, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com mailto:visdav...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Hari, I seriously refute the way you are wrongly interpreting my intentions. It is never my intention nor style of work to threaten anyone, least of all a Wikimedian friend like Ravi. I was only making a legal point that we as a movement should look into and I have very clearly stated that we should take this concern on board. I have also amply stated that my interpretation is up for correction. Ravi, if you think, event remotely, that I am trying to threaten you, I profusely apologize. If you or the community members think that I was wrong to take the Tamil Wiki 10 celebration example to illustrate a legal point [1], apologies for that too. I was only doing it to state a point without any intention of malice or wrong doing what-so-ever. Cheers, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Staff_proposal_assessment#Additional_concern_that_should_be_taken_on_board On Wednesday 14 May 2014 01:46 AM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote: Ravi, While I do not approve of the way this has been worded here or presented here by you, it does seem like a veiled threat clearly directed towards you by Vishnu for your speaking out (which has been quite vehement, to be honest). And an apparent threat like this coming in from a Program Director does look very ugly. The worst thing is that it seems to be trying to distract readers from the actual issues. I sincerely hope that Vishnu shall clear this up with an appropriate step that befits his position and the respect his position merits. And I wish and hope these shall not happen in future. On 14 May 2014 00:58, Srikanth Ramakrishnan rsrikant...@gmail.com mailto:rsrikant...@gmail.com wrote: Is receiving money as an individual from a foreign body in violation of the Act? If that is so, won't half of India be violating it? I have a copy of the Act from the Ministry of Law and Justice and it doesn't seem to say so. On 13 May 2014 19:11, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com mailto:ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Hey, Is there a legal threat for Wikimedia community volunteers in India getting Individual engagement grants and grants for running community events from WMF? An alert regarding this has been raised here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Staff_proposal_assessment#Additional_concern_that_should_be_taken_on_board Any professional legal / financial advise will be much appreciated. Thanks, Ravi ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Legal threat for Wikimedia community volunteers in India getting WMF grants
On Wednesday 14 May 2014 11:29 AM, Ravishankar wrote: How were programs like India Education program run? Will this come under FCRA violation? How is the IEP different from any community led event in receiving foreign money and executing projects? Dear Ravi, I do not have a clue how this was done. It is best to seek clarification from the team that was involved from WMF. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Ravi, On Wednesday 14 May 2014 01:02 PM, Ravishankar wrote: Vishnu, //Please note that CIS has never kept its documents closed to open them again. // //We had also thrown open all our document to the general public for scrutiny during May 2013. I have written to members on this list and other Wikimedia lists, inviting them to come and scrutinize all our documents during this Open Week.// Please let me know when is this open week for 2014. It was done as part of the CIS's 5th anniversary. I am not sure if we will have a similar open week for 2014. But should we get the FDC funding, I would like to explore means by which the community can also take part in financially auditing the A2K expenses. We could discuss this separately, later? I would like to come and have a look at the MoU you signed with WMF. As stated earlier on this mailing list, we are unable to share this MoU as WMF has given us a clear instruction not to do so. Since WMF is silent on answering crucial questions on the MoU, could you please answer one question: What is the exit clause for your working partnership with WMF? The Grant agreement is for two years. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Hari, On Wednesday 14 May 2014 02:11 PM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote: [..snip..] On 14 May 2014 12:53, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com mailto:visdav...@gmail.com wrote: I'm afraid that just the explanations may not suffice here as the concerns are serious in nature. I sincerely hope that you shall open up the documents for at least the sake of transparency. Please note that CIS has never kept its documents closed to open them again. CIS gets its financial and institutional documents scrutinized every year and reports to multiple authorities as part of various statutory compliances. [...] Noted. Kindly make the following documents public: 1. Information about the AGMs and elections held by CIS for its governing body for all these years. 2. Latest copy of the Memorandum of Association as filed with the Registrar of Societies, Karnataka (as mandated by Clause 13 of the Karnataka Societies Registration act). 3. The annual filings of CIS with the Registrar of Societies, Karnataka for all these years. 4. The property ownership documents of the premises where CIS office works from. 5. The MoU signed by CIS with WMF. 6. The FCRA certification and compliance related documents. We do not have the property ownership documents (no. 4) as CIS does not own the building. These are with the owners and we cannot provide them. As stated on this list many times we cannot share the WMF Grant Agreement (no. 5) without the explicit permission from WMF. Rest of the documents could be made available. But the admin team is in the middle of audit. Let me consult Sunil (he will return to office mid next week) and get back on this. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] On CIS's grants request from Wikimedia Foundation
Dear Wikimedians, Some responses here on Meta [1] on behalf of CIS. I have also commented in my individual capacity on the statutory aspects to the best of my knowledge. Also see some in-line replies. On Monday 12 May 2014 05:45 PM, Hari Prasad Nadig wrote: Fellow Wikimedians, As you all know, Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore has sought funding of about *1.8 Crores* through the FDC process from Wikimedia Foundation to carry out work on seven local language projects in India that includes Kannada, Telugu among others. [1] The funds primarily cover the salaries of the people belonging to the CIS-A2K team among other administrative expenses and other expenses as outlined on their proposal page. As may of you know, please note that CIS has proposed the said budget to implement 21 plans of which there are 7 language area plans, 8 stand along projects, 3 community strengthening initiatives, etc. The proposal was up for Community review and comments until April 30th and many have recorded their response about it [2]. Several community members have come forward in pointing out that the staff salaries being paid and that being proposed - are quite on the higher side (which is up to 2.4 Lakhs per month per person). As you may have already seen in the budget, please note that the salary proposed is for 7 employees on the CIS-A2K team and the average per person salary would come to less than 1 lakh per month, per person and not as stated above. CIS-A2K welcomes your feedback and suggestions. Thank you, Vishnu [1] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form [2] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form [3] - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Budget#Budget_as_per_Expenditure_Heads ___ 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-gu] Attn: Wikisource communities - Don't waste your time typing text. Get paid.
Dear Dhaval, I am sharing the link on the Meta where this has been discussed Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#Questions_about_this_form_and_the_relationship_between_CIS_and_Wikimedia Best, Vishnu On Friday 02 May 2014 12:38 PM, Dhaval S. Vyas wrote: Dear Kartikbhai, That is not the proposal by Gujarati wiki community, it is from CIS. Also, if you notice, in that proposal, there is no payment to the community, who will really be putting pain in digitising/uploading/typing/correcting the content. And on the contrary, CIS staff will be paid a reasonable share from the grant. I have my name mentioned in that proposal, for which I have to had provide declaration on a discussion page of CIS's grant application. I am on my mobile at the moment so can't find the link to it to share. If anyone wants to see my comment, let me know and I will share the link. Yes, of course, the idea on which CIS has built the proposal was from me, but I had only spoken once soon after wikimenia and then came to know about proposal just when it was ready. I have had no more involvement in that proposal apart from initial idea, which was jointly shared by Sushant Savla, a fellow admin on gu.wikisource. Dhaval On 2 May 2014 04:33, Kartik Mistry kartik.mis...@gmail.com mailto:kartik.mis...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 1:45 AM, Dhaval S. Vyas dsv...@gmail.com mailto:dsv...@gmail.com wrote: Please visit the link in below email, where Wikimedia Foundation (shortly known as WMF) is suggesting that they are funding (in simpler term paying) for content upload. This is the task that we all are doing free of cost so far. Because you have uploaded hundreds (may be thousands) of pages so far as we have created 50+ books on gu.wikisource, all our efforts will be paid now by WMF (in fact should have been paid so far as well). If you have any doubt, reach out to User:Bluerasberry and User:Ijon on meta (meta.wikimedia.org http://meta.wikimedia.org). Asaf (User:Ijon) clearly suggests that Bots are under the paid activity considered by WMF. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#Q2c Already in progress: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/100_Books_on_Gujarati_Wikisource -- Kartik Mistry/કાર્તિક મિસ્ત્રી | IRC: kart_ {kartikm, 0x1f1f}.wordpress.com http://wordpress.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] Proposed Wiki Data Marathon program by CIS-A2K
Dear Ravi, On Wednesday 30 April 2014 01:12 PM, Ravishankar wrote: But, when an unusually high amount is spent on a resource person through CIS-A2K, I can't help point out the double standards followed for similar programs planned by WMIN. Please check https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:PEG/Tinucherian_and_Shijualex/Wiki_Community_development_in_India_and_newsletter/Report a similar pan India outreach program done by two volunteers for roughly 13% of this whole Wiki Data Marathon program. With due respect to what has been done... I don't think this takes into account the salary component and if it is only travel expenses then after 3 years the proposed travel budget is comparable. I could not but notice this in the report // Going forward we will not be able to contribute actively in these community building efforts due to our current personal and professional priorities.// which requires some introspection. Cheers, Vishnu ___ 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] Proposed Wiki Data Marathon program by CIS-A2K
will assume good faith and understand our sincere intentions about this program, whether we will be able to do it or not. Best, Vishnu [1] Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#Replies_to_FDC_Staff_about_CIS_Programs [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF-A2K_Revised_Budget_%28draft%29_and_Utilization_Sept_12-Feb_13.pdf [3] This is the posting on list just after I returned from DivCon http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-November/010670.html [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Wikidata_India_Marathon [5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Wiki-Data_India_Marathon#Budget On Thursday 24 April 2014 12:16 AM, Ravishankar wrote: Hoi Gerard, ( Context for others: Please see * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Wiki-Data_India_Marathon * https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#Q14 * http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2014-April/011104.html ) //If something new has to start and Wikidata is new, then it needs more than just a video or a conference call.// 100s of Wikimedia projects, including many in India, didn't need any kind of intervention. //I gave a presentation to professionals who work in data. It took me an hour to set up the environment with them and for them so that they could start.. We had a meeting for three hours and we scratched the surface enough to make a difference. The fact that we were together ensured good faith and enough understanding.// Are they Wikimedians? It is enough if Wikimedians can make sense of it. If Wikimedians are not able to make sense of it, then we need to improve Wiki Data for the global community too. //I have seen some of the agenda and if only a fifth of what is started pays of it is well worth the investment.// Is it? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narrowing_Focus_presentation_to_the_Board_(26_October_2012).pdf https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Narrowing_Focus_presentation_to_the_Board_%2826_October_2012%29.pdf talks about reducing focus on events. WMIN's FDC proposal was heavily criticized for a focus on events and its impact was questioned. And yet, we have an event for Wiki Data with a proposed budget as follows: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Wiki-Data_India_Marathon#Budget This is 29.7% of the annual budget of WMIN ! To give a context this is almost 40% of the 2011 Wikimedia India conference !! The single biggest expense in this Wiki Data Marathon program is the cost for resource person which is 4,50,000 INR. So much cost for a resource person for a month hints that this could be someone visiting India from abroad. Any idea who this is ? :) Even University faculties don't understand Wikipedia editor and our markup. So, what do we do? Run marathons like this for all Wikipedia projects? //Just consider what a challenge it is to bring Wikidata to India in a way where it actually makes a difference.// Please provide evidence that this is an India specific problem. When communities don't even get the decade long Wikipedia project, it is only expected that they won't get Wiki Data too. How good is Wiki Data adoption in similar parts of the word and how do you address it? Thanks, Ravi ___ 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] WMIN's grant report
On Tuesday 22 April 2014 10:29 PM, Ravishankar wrote: It is interesting that CIS-A2K makes ceremonial media reports about the MoUs it signs with institutions but the MoU it signed with WMF is not public yet. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:CIS-A2K_MoU_signing_ceremony_with_KISS-KIIT CIS-A2K grant is expring this year and WMF has assured of no never ending renewals but CIS-A2k goes on to make 3 year long MoUs. Quote: Signed an MoU with Goa University Goa University entered into a three year MoU with CIS for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University and CIS-A2K will work together to help build Konkani Wikipedia and community. http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/work-accomplished-konkani-wikipedia So, I hope both WMF and CIS will honor the community by making the MoU they signed a public record. Thanks, Ravi P.S. Here is another instance of a request for the same - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum/Archives/2013-08#Terms_.2F_MoU_for_India_A2K_project Dear Ravi, CIS has earlier stated on this mailing list itself that it does not have a problem sharing the agreement of the WMF's existing grant and Asaf has clarified WMF's stance on this matter. With regard to the other MoUs CIS-A2K has signed with various institutional partnerships... please note that the term is often determined by the institutional partner and we do not insist on changing the institutional systems, which anyhow does not productively contribute the programmatic aspect. Also all our MoUs have an exit clause with one months notice by either of the parties. So CIS-A2K is extremely clear what it would do if the further phase of support does not come through. Trust this helps. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] A new steward from India
Congratulations Shanmugam!! Cheers, Vishnu On Wednesday 23 April 2014 03:30 PM, Ravishankar wrote: Hey, Just wanted to let you know that Shanmugam has been elected as a Steward recently. He started editing in Tamil Wikipedia and serves as a sysop there. He is available in the Indian time zone and should be able to make sense of issues involving some of the Indian language Wikimedia projects. Do reach him at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Shanmugamp7 if you need help from a steward. Ravi ___ 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] Reports on WMF grants team visit
Dear Ravi, Thanks for flagging this. You did send an earlier reminder about this, but we completely got consumed by the work planning and the FDC proposal and could not get to this. Apologies! Will share the draft soon and will request friends from WMIN EC to contribute to it. Cheers, Vishnu On Friday 18 April 2014 10:41 AM, Ravishankar wrote: Any updates on this? I asked Anushaya about this during IRC with Indic Wiki IRC in Feb 2014 and she said I should ask WMIN and CIS-A2K :) // Hey, Any reports from Wikimedia India chapter / CIS - A2K regarding the plans after WMF grants' team visit? Thanks, Ravi// ___ 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] Reports on WMF grants team visit
Hi Karthik, I think our mails crossed. We will take lead in sharing a draft with you and other in the EC for your inputs, soon. Best, Vishnu On Friday 18 April 2014 12:40 PM, Karthik Nadar wrote: Hi Ravi, Thanks for bringing this up. I was wrong in believing that WMF and CIS would actively take part on this while making the report, but none of the full time paid people seem to be interested. Wikimedia India would take it up, but the report will completely one-sided, thus requesting the concerned parties (WMF and CIS) to initiate or participate and help us on this. On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com mailto:ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Any updates on this? I asked Anushaya about this during IRC with Indic Wiki IRC in Feb 2014 and she said I should ask WMIN and CIS-A2K :) // Hey, Any reports from Wikimedia India chapter / CIS - A2K regarding the plans after WMF grants' team visit? Thanks, Ravi// ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l Karthik Nadar. ___ 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] CIS-A2K Work Plan for July 14-June 15
Dear Ansuman and Wikimedians, Thanks for engaging with our plans. We have replied to some and in the process of replying to some more of your questions on Meta here [0] and it will be good to continue the discussions there. Some replies to questions not raised on Meta. On Tuesday 15 April 2014 12:07 PM, ansuman wrote: It also claims that it works with WMIN here [2], but has anyone from WMIN involved in making the corresponding plans/proposals? We had invited WMIN EC to share their inputs and feedback on the plans on March 22, 2014. It would have been nice to have shared these a bit more early (after knowing how stretched the EC members are), however, it took more time than anticipated in putting up the plans. Here[3] it's written, Based on the protocol agreed upon by the WMIN, CIS-A2K will in consultation with WMIN continue to support and serve the Wikimedia communities in India. What protocol? How come it's not been out yet? CISA2K needs support from WMIN and Communities in India. During the first meeting with the WMIN Chapter EC, held on February 24, 2013, we had mutually agreed upon certain protocols of working together. Detailed minutes of this meeting are available here [1]. CIS-A2K has mostly adhered to these protocols. There were some unintentional lapses in communication, which were raised by the EC during our recent meeting in February 2014. During this meeting we have also discussed how the complementarity between us could be further improved. At least here in this sentence, CISA2K should write that it will collaborate with WMIN and work with Wikimedia communities in India!! About collaborating with WMIN... We have extended help to WMIN whenever asked for and the Executive Committee (EC) of WMIN has been generous to give us inputs and feedback on our plans and activities since September 2012, when the WMF gave a grant. During the last 18 months we reached out to the WMIN EC periodically [2] and had consulted the EC before executing key activities and extending significant support to volunteers and communities in India. We also collaborated with the WMIN and in organizing events like the Creative Commons India re-launch. CIS will continue to engage and collaborate with the WMIN. For the coming year we specifically propose to more actively work with WMIN in the following activities. * One out of the 7 Language Area Plans which would be Bangla https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Bangla. * In extending general support and service to the movement in India https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/General_Support_and_Service_to_the_Movement. * Med GLAM Project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Med_GLAM_Project * Gujarati Wikisource Project https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/100_Books_on_Gujarati_Wikisource * Wiki Loves Public Arts, India https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Wiki_Loves_Public_Art_%28India%29 Best, Vishnu [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015 [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j6xofnVk59WT7rh8FcytsOBRAW6uA8hJxov0EEkXHhs/edit?usp=sharing [2] For instance, (based on a quick look at my Sent folder) after I took over as the Director of CIS-A2K in February 2013 I have written to them 62 times. ___ 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] CIS-A2K Work Plan for July 14-June 15
Dear Wikimedians, Sharing the below some replies, which were put up on Meta [1], in case you have missed seeing it. Sorry for cross-posting. It would be good to continue the discussions on Meta. On Monday 14 April 2014 12:24 PM, Ravishankar wrote: (copy of this comment placed at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015 . We can continue discussing there) Hi, Thanks for the elaborate work plan. 1. The way the budget is presented at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Budget is misleading. A good percent of this budget will be spent on staff salary, travel logisitics and other things which will not be there if the work is done by the community. So, this is not the actual cost needed for the desired output but the cost arising because of the involvement of paid professionals. So besides this way of presenting the budget, there should also be a regular way of presenting budget like how the chapters are asked to submit during FDC application. It can be noted that during the last round of FDC funding application, WMIN faced very strict criterion regarding infrastructure cost, staff salary cost. Hi Ravi, thanks for engaging with the work plans and the questions. Have tried to address some within the context of the work plans. We had shared a google spreadsheet [2], which gives a micro level picture of the Budget against each of the planned activity. Also each plan has an independent budget and is closely mapped on to the implementation plan, and clearly lists the proposed expenses for CIS-A2K staff costs and travel costs. An attempt is made to correlate why we are spending a certain amount on a certain activity. Thus all these budgets are very optimally planned and the overall budget is an assimilation. CIS-A2K chose this design to provide mission level transparency to our work and to provide a clear structure of accountability to the movement and community. However, based on your feedback we have realized that it would be useful to also give item-wise break-up on Meta. We have given this budget break-up here [3]. 2. I have an eerie feeling that the community development work in India is getting outsourced to NGOs like CIS at the cost of crippling budding local chapters like WMIN. The way Hindi Wikipedia seeks help for content management (fixing Google articles) confirms my concern. 3. Where can I find WMF's open assessment of the work done by CIS-A2K in the previous year? How is the cost for the work done justified? If the cost if justified, then the actual communities and the content they have developed on their on own are worth many crores of Indian rupees. But, we face strict guidelines when applying for grants whereas NGOs like CIS don't have that strict criterion. We feel it is more productive to see the complementarity between the WMIN and CIS-A2K than to pitch them as competitors for financial resources. The later would undermine trust-building and consequently threatens the growing synergies between WMIN and CIS-A2K. It is particularly intriguing that outsourcing is being mentioned here as a model. Would be useful to have more clarity and larger discussion on these. Probably, it would be apt to raise these broader concerns on CIS-A2K's FDC proposal discussion page [4]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Budget.2C_CIS_support_rationale_and_Assessment_by_WMF [2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AshSF7ZKRBR5dGpMUnNKdHItUFJGMHluQUFxZGRHMmcusp=sharing#gid=4 [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Budget [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form ___ 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] Photography and ethics symposium
Dear Shyamal, Thanks for sharing this. CIS will explore the possibilities of web streaming this event. Will share details closer to the date. Best, Vishnu On Monday 07 April 2014 02:09 PM, Shyamal L. wrote: This might be of interest and worth participation in by the Chapter. http://wantedseries.com/ethics-in-photography-symposium/ Symposium Objectives The main symposium objectives are to: ► Bring together thinkers, scholars and practitioners of photography as well as the media, museums, social and business institutions, to examine the state of ethics and values in photography and to formulate a voluntary code of ethical conduct for creators and consumers of photographs ► Promote a rich and open environment in which to discuss these critical and urgent issues ► Develop effective strategies to disseminate and implement across India the outcomes of the symposium. Symposium Topics: Relevant research work on all aspects of ethics in relation to photography including but not limited to: ► Freedom of Expression ► Censorship ► Freedom of Information ► Morals or Ethics? ► Copyright/Copyleft /Creative commons ► Ethics policies: funding agencies and policy makers ► Information Law Language, Culture and Ethics Code of conduct ► Principles and standards of ethical behavior ► Genres of photography and ethical differences (nature/anthropological / photojournalism) ► Conservation ethics August 11, 2014 Goethe-lnstitut/ Max Mueller Bhavan 3, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi best wishes Shyamal ___ 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] CIS-A2K Work Plan for July 14-June 15
Dear Wikimedians, Sorry for cross-posting this from Meta. On Tuesday 15 April 2014 07:31 PM, Ravishankar wrote: '''Questions for CIS-A2K''' 4. How do you attribute or separate the performance of CIS-A2K from the organic efforts and the growth of the community? 5. What is the (subtle) pressure, if any, on the community to achieve the expected results? The plan is quite ambitious but looks completely top down in approach. Do you expect the community to be burnt out? Hi Ravi, as always appreciate your active engagement with CIS-A2K's work. Responses below. * The methodology we follow to assess our impact is a year on year tracking of various metrics for a particular focus language area. We have discussed this in detail in all the 4 language plans that we propose to continue to work from last year. For instance, see the discussion on impact on Telugu language projects here[1]. Also see our quarterly reports, for instance this[2]. We have also set out SMART goals, wherever possible, for the Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects[3], Community Strengthening Initiatives [4], etc, which will be independently tracked. Would be nice to get suggestions on how we could do this in a better way. * It is difficult to give a simple and direct answer to the question about pressure and burn-out, as the experiences change from community to community and also within the community. For instance, some Wikimedians within a language community were concerned when an activity was not successful and get more involved and bothered, whereas some are ok and some just move on after doing whatever they can and so on. We have been following the strategy of focus language area interventions for exactly a year now and have not experienced a community level burn-out, which could be a rare possibility. Even while doing off-wiki activities like community events, outreach, etc. we try to ensure that the CIS-A2K does majority of the leg work and conserves the volunteer time for more productive purposes. : We are cautiously ambitious about the plans. There were many more ideas that were thrown at us, which we could not accommodate. For instance, one of the Urdu Wikipedia admins wrote to us asking to take up the development of Urdu Wikipedia project by growing the community in India, we have requests from institutions to partner with us for Wikimedia work that we are unable to honour currently, etc. : Top-down approach: Could you please say more about the top-down approach, probably citing some examples from any one of 21 plans? Thanks! Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Telugu#Impact [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Quarterly_Report_1/Telugu [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Stand-alone_Wikimedia_Projects [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Community_Strengthening_Initiatives ___ 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] CIS-A2K Work Plan for July 14-June 15
Dear Ansuman, It is not clear what you mean by No outcome. It would be helpful if you could take up one of the plans, for instance Odia[1] which you are more familiar with, and give some examples. Please feel free to critically assess the plan and point out lacunas and suggest improvements. This will help us with other language plans too. Would appreciate if you could also post this feedback on the work plan page on Odia Wikipedia [2] so that the larger Odia community will also see it. Thanks, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015/Odia [2] https://or.wikipedia.org/s/l7x On Wednesday 16 April 2014 11:24 PM, ansuman wrote: Vishnu, glad to see your prompt replies...not good enough..you left some important points!! All i see is plans and reports.. No outcome! Ansuman On 16 April 2014 21:28, Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com mailto:visdav...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Wikimedians, Sharing the below some replies, which were put up on Meta [1], in case you have missed seeing it. Sorry for cross-posting. It would be good to continue the discussions on Meta. On Monday 14 April 2014 12:24 PM, Ravishankar wrote: (copy of this comment placed at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015 . We can continue discussing there) Hi, Thanks for the elaborate work plan. 1. The way the budget is presented at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Budget is misleading. A good percent of this budget will be spent on staff salary, travel logisitics and other things which will not be there if the work is done by the community. So, this is not the actual cost needed for the desired output but the cost arising because of the involvement of paid professionals. So besides this way of presenting the budget, there should also be a regular way of presenting budget like how the chapters are asked to submit during FDC application. It can be noted that during the last round of FDC funding application, WMIN faced very strict criterion regarding infrastructure cost, staff salary cost. Hi Ravi, thanks for engaging with the work plans and the questions. Have tried to address some within the context of the work plans. We had shared a google spreadsheet [2], which gives a micro level picture of the Budget against each of the planned activity. Also each plan has an independent budget and is closely mapped on to the implementation plan, and clearly lists the proposed expenses for CIS-A2K staff costs and travel costs. An attempt is made to correlate why we are spending a certain amount on a certain activity. Thus all these budgets are very optimally planned and the overall budget is an assimilation. CIS-A2K chose this design to provide mission level transparency to our work and to provide a clear structure of accountability to the movement and community. However, based on your feedback we have realized that it would be useful to also give item-wise break-up on Meta. We have given this budget break-up here [3]. 2. I have an eerie feeling that the community development work in India is getting outsourced to NGOs like CIS at the cost of crippling budding local chapters like WMIN. The way Hindi Wikipedia seeks help for content management (fixing Google articles) confirms my concern. 3. Where can I find WMF's open assessment of the work done by CIS-A2K in the previous year? How is the cost for the work done justified? If the cost if justified, then the actual communities and the content they have developed on their on own are worth many crores of Indian rupees. But, we face strict guidelines when applying for grants whereas NGOs like CIS don't have that strict criterion. We feel it is more productive to see the complementarity between the WMIN and CIS-A2K than to pitch them as competitors for financial resources. The later would undermine trust-building and consequently threatens the growing synergies between WMIN and CIS-A2K. It is particularly intriguing that outsourcing is being mentioned here as a model. Would be useful to have more clarity and larger discussion on these. Probably, it would be apt to raise these broader concerns on CIS-A2K's FDC proposal discussion page [4]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015#Budget.2C_CIS_support_rationale_and_Assessment_by_WMF [2] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AshSF7ZKRBR5dGpMUnNKdHItUFJGMHluQUFxZGRHMmcusp=sharing#gid=4 [3
[Wikimediaindia-l] Fwd: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedians in Residence -- what makes a good program
Sorry for cross posting. This could be useful in the Indian context too. Cheers, Vishnu Original Message Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikipedians in Residence -- what makes a good program Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2014 11:29:46 -0700 From: Pete Forsyth petefors...@gmail.com Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org I thought it might be worthwhile to put some attention on what a well planned and effective Wikipedian in Residence program looks like. Especially for anybody on this list whose introduction to the topic was the Belfer Center program, this might be a worthwhile read: Five things a Wikipedian in Residence can do: http://wikistrategies.net/5-things-wikipedian-in-residence/ This is of course only 5 things -- not the 5 things. Perhaps others will post ideas about what a great WiR does. Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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] CIS-A2K Work Plan for July 14-June 15
Dear Wikimedians, I am glad to share with you the detailed work plan of CIS-A2K for the period July 2014-July 2015 [1] . This work plan consists of 21 plans across 6 verticals. These are: * 7 Language Area Plans * 3 Community Strengthening Initiatives * 8 Stand-alone Wikimedia Projects * Creating Movement Resources * Publicity, Research and Documentation * General Support and Service to the Movement The work plan includes details of aims, objectives, programme activities and expected outcomes. Most of the language area plans were put together in active consultation with the respective Wikimedia language communities. Various inputs and ideas contributed, opportunities provided, and challenges thrown at the CIS-A2K program during the last year by the Wikimedia communities in India, our institutional partners, Executive Committee (EC) of Wikimedia India Chapter (WMIN) and the Wikimedia Foundation's Grantmaking Team have significantly informed our work plans. Each plan has an independent budget and is closely mapped on to the implementation plan. An attempt is made to correlate why we are spending a certain amount on a certain activity. Thus all these budgets are very optimally planned and the overall budget is an assimilation. CIS-A2K believes that this will give mission level transparency to our work and provide a clearer structure of accountability to the movement and the community. Please do share your feedback and inputs on the respective plan discussion pages. We would be glad to correct ourselves if you could point out to any major omissions and errors in plans. We will be approaching the FDC requesting support for this work plan [2]. Thanks, Vishnu (Program Director, CIS-A2K) [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Draft_Work_plan_July_2014_-_June_2015 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014_round2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form ___ 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: Re: Gujarati Wikisource - completes 50 books
Please see the below email from Sushant Savla. Congratulations to Sushant and other Gujarati Wikimedians for their efforts in achieving this milestone!! Best, Vishnu Original Message Subject:Re: Gujarati Wikisource - completes 50 books Date: 27 Mar 2014 15:01:24 - From: sushant savla sushant_sa...@rediffmail.com To: vis...@cis-india.org Dear Vishnu, this is in continuation to our telecon regarding i am not able to get my name registered in Wikimedia India list hence writing this email to you. Gujarati Wikisource has achieved yet another milestone on its second birthday (29.03.2014) completed uploading full 50 books which has come in public domain. The collection of these 50 books includes well known Gujarati literary creations in the form of Autobiography, Novels, Plays, Collection of Poems, Essays, Moral Stories etc. This includes works of prominent writers such as Mahatma Gandhi, Zaverchand Meghani, Kavi Nhanalal, Surasinhji Gohil, Educationist Gijubhai Badheka, Kavi Dalapatram, Ramanlal Nilkanth etc. This feat was achieved in 2 years time. As OCR is not available, volunteers of Gujarati wiki Community have typed this books. The community proceeds in a planned manner. A book is selected and its announcement is made at common platform on source. Volunteer interested joins the project. Chapters are distributed among the particants and proof reading is done. Once completed, another book is undertaken. Kindly inform this on Indian Community List Regards Sushant ___ 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: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals and committee members
Dear Wikimedians, Individual Engagement Grants Committee is receiving proposals. Do share and encourage applicants with interesting ideas to improve Wikimedia projects. Best, Vishnu Original Message Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals and committee members Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 11:04:47 -0800 From: Siko Bouterse sboute...@wikimedia.org Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org To: wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi all, The Wikimedia Foundation and the Individual Engagement Grants Committee invite you to submit and review proposals for community-led experiments to improve Wikimedia! Individual Engagement Grants support individuals and small teams to organize projects for 6 months. You can get funding to turn your idea for improving Wikimedia projects into action, with a grant for online community organizing, outreach and partnerships, tool-building, or research. Funding is available for a few hundred dollars up to $30,000. Proposals for this round are due 31 March 2014: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG We're also seeking new committee members to help review and recommend proposals for funding. Candidates are invited to sign up by 9 March 2014: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Committee Some examples of projects we've funded in the past: *Organizing social media for Chinese Wikipedia ($350 for materials)[1] *Improving gadgets for Visual Editor ($4500 for developers)[2] *Coordinating free access to reliable sources for Wikipedians ($7500 for project management, consultants and materials)[3] *Building community and strategy for Wikisource (EURO 1 for organizing and travel)[4] You can read more on the WMF blog: https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/individual-engagement-grants/ Hope to have your participation in this round! Best wishes, Siko [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Build_an_effective_method_of_publicity_in_PRChina [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Visual_editor-_gadgets_compatibility [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/The_Wikipedia_Library [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Elaborate_Wikisource_strategic_vision -- Siko Bouterse Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. sboute...@wikimedia.org *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. * *Donate https://donate.wikimedia.org or click the edit button today, and help us make it a reality!* ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2014 scholarship now accepting application
Dear Wikimedians, FYI Vishnu Original Message Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimania 2014 scholarship now accepting application Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2014 17:37:11 + From: Katie Chan k...@ktchan.info Reply-To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org To: Wikimania general list (open subscription) wikimani...@lists.wikimedia.org CC: wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Hi all, Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2014 in London are now being accepted. Applications are open until the end of the day UTC on 17 February. Wikimania 2014 scholarships is an award given to an individual to enable them to attend Wikimania in London from 6-10 August, 2014. Only a single type of scholarship will be available from the Wikimedia Foundation for Wikimania 2014. A Wikimedia Foundation scholarship will cover the cost of an individual's round-trip travel costs as arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation travel agency, shared accommodation as arranged by the Wikimedia Foundation, and registration for Wikimania. Applicants will be rated using a pre-determined selection process and selection criteria by the Scholarship Committee, who will determine which are successful. To learn more about Wikimania 2014 scholarships, please visit https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships. To apply for a scholarship, fill out the application form on http://scholarships.wikimedia.org/apply. It is highly recommended that applicants review all of the material on the Scholarships page and the associated FAQ before submitting an application. If you have any question, please contact wikimania-scholarsh...@wikimedia.org or leave a message on https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scholarships. Katie Chan Chair, Scholarship Committee -- Katie Chan Any views or opinions presented in this e-mail are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the view of any organisation the author is associated with or employed by. Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list wikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ 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] How to Edit Hindi Wikipedia: Video training module is ready
Dear Wikimedians, After many weeks of effort, CISA2K is happy to share with you #HindiWikipedia https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/hindiwikipedia tutorial videos released under #CC https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/cc-BY-SA 4.0. The entire training module was produced in collaboration with the Christ University students, faculty and staff, as part of the Wikipedia-in-the-UG-Language-Classroom program. CISA2K is grateful to the wholehearted supported extended by the Christ University towards this endeavour. A total of 10 videos are thoughtfully produced to teach anyone how to edit Hindi Wikipedia and are being uploaded here on Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Learn_to_edit_Hindi_Wikipedia All the videos can also be streamed on YouTube here http://bitly.com/hindiwiki CISA2K will be happy to share the entire module in HD on a disk upon request. Video tutorials on Kannada Wikipedia will follow soon. Best, Vishnu ___ 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] Indian Wikipedians featured in Editing Wikipedia outreach booklet
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing this Arjuna. Congratulations Viswa and Netha!! Vishnu On Wednesday 08 January 2014 01:08 PM, Arjuna Rao Chavala wrote: Hi, The new edition of Welcome to Wikipedia called Editing Wikipedia features Viswa (Page 6 ) and Netha (Page 16) from India. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editing_Wikipedia_brochure_EN.pdf Congratulations Viswa and Netha! Cheers Arjuna ___ 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] Kolkata Bookfair report
Dear Jayanta, It's difficult to work with journalists who may be rushing to meet submission deadlines and end up mis-quoting the facts or give wrong details :) Probably, it may help if you could do a Press-Note and send it to all the Media agencies. At least they will have the correct details in hand. All the best!! Vishnu On Saturday 21 December 2013 11:44 PM, Jayanta Nath wrote: KOLKATA: In an effort to enthuse people to become regular contributors to its site, Wikipedia will launch a campaign at the Kolkata Book Fair http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Kolkata-Book-Fair next year. It has already booked a stall and lined up an awareness programme to sign up volunteers. Incidentally, Kolkata fares poorly when it comes to contribute to the world's biggest online encyclopedia. At present, the city has only five contributors. Wikipedia needs people from Kolkata to contribute voluntarily not only to the mother website but also to its Bengali link, Banglapedia. We would hold workshops where we would give presentations about how to edit existing material on Wiki/Banglapedia. The biggest incentive for any contributor is that, the moment he/she writes a piece or edits something, it gets updated and is published for the world to see, explained Jayanta Nath, chief of Banglapedia. The Book Fair authorities have already sealed the deal and are looking forward to this heavyweight participant. Wikipedia's participation will add glamour to the fair, said Tridib Chatterjee, general secretary of the Publishers and Booksellers Guild http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Publishers-and-Booksellers-Guild. On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 11:32 PM, Jayanta Nath jayanta...@gmail.com mailto:jayanta...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, Now another wrong report http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Wikipedia-stall-at-book-fair-next-year/articleshow/27695829.cms Jayanta ___ 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] (Announcement) Selection of Community Communications Consultant at CIS-A2K
Dear Ashwin and Pradeep, Thanks for pointing this out. Somehow the below has missed from my message. Here it is. Rahmanuddin Shaik has worked as a web developer and content provider in his previous job. He contributed to Telugu computing, localization and free software However, his main online passion has been the Wikimedia Foundation projects. He is an active contributor on Wikimedia Commons, Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource. He has been contributing to Wikimedia projects since 2009 and with the current username రహ్మానుద్దీన్ since 2011. He is also Telugu SIG at WMIN. Best, Vishnu On Friday 13 December 2013 10:04 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: Hi, Having his Wikipedia username is as good as or better than having his name, Vishnu. Pradeep Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone http://overview.mail.yahoo.com?.src=iOS *From: * Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com; *To: * Wikimedia India Community list wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org; *Subject: * Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] (Announcement) Selection of Community Communications Consultant at CIS-A2K *Sent: * Fri, Dec 13, 2013 11:26:22 AM Can we have his user id his biodata please? On Fri, Dec 13, 2013 at 8:11 AM, Arjuna Rao Chavala arjunar...@gmail.com javascript:return wrote: Vishnu, Thanks for your update. 2013/12/10 Vishnu visdav...@gmail.com javascript:return Dear Wikimedians, I am happy to share with you that Mr. Rahimanuddin Shaik has been selected for the role of Community Communications Consultant at CIS-A2K! Please join me in congratulating him on the selection and wish him success with the assignment. My hearty Congratulations and best wishes to Rahimanuddin Shaik. Cheers Arjuna ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:return To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l -- Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ 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] Thesis defence ( on crowdsourcing - of some interest to the community)
Interesting! Thanks for sharing this Shyamal. Could you also share the details of the institution? Once the Defense is done, any idea, if thesis be made accessible digitally? Vishnu On Wednesday 11 December 2013 01:39 PM, Shyamal L. wrote: Department of Computer Science and Automation Ph.D. Thesis Defense Speaker : Mr. Swaprava Nath Title : Mechanism Design for Strategic Crowdsourcing Faculty Advisor : Prof. Y. Narahari Date:Tuesday, December 17, 2013 Time:11:30 AM Venue : CSA Multimedia Class (Room No. 252, First Floor) Abstract This thesis looks into the economics of crowdsourcing using game theoretic modeling. The art of aggregating information and expertise from a diverse population has been in practice since a long time. The Internet and the revolution in communication and computational technologies has made this task easier and given birth to a new era of online resource aggregation, which is now popularly referred to as crowdsourcing. Two important features of crowdsourcing are: (a) crowdsourcing is always human driven, hence the participants are rational and intelligent and they experience a payoff in some form through their participation, and (b) the participants are connected over a social network. To understand the behavior and the outcome of such a strategic crowd, we need to understand the economics of a crowdsourcing network. In the thesis, we have considered the following three major facets of the crowdsourcing problem. (i) Elicitation of the true qualities of the crowd workers: as the crowd is often unstructured and unknown to the designer, it is important to determine if the crowdsourced job is indeed performed at the highest quality. (ii) Resource critical task execution: due to the diverse geographical, cultural, socio-economic reasons, crowdsourcing entails certain manipulations that are unusual in the classical theory. The design has to be robust enough to handle fake identities or information provided by the crowd. (iii) Improving the productivity of the crowdsourcing network: as the designer's goal is to maximize some measurable output of the crowdsourcing system, an interesting question is how one can design the network and/or the incentive scheme so that the system performs at the optimal level considering the strategic nature of the individuals. In the thesis, we provide novel solutions to all the questions above using game theoretic modeling and mechanism design innovations. Our investigation helps in understanding certain limits of achievability, and provides design protocols in order to make crowdsourcing more efficient. ALL ARE WELCOME ___ 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 edit-a-thon on Dec 7-8 in Delhi for articles on violence against women
A much needed edit-a-thon, Rohini. Will spread the word to individuals and groups who could participate. Best, Vishnu On Wednesday, 4 December 2013, Rohini Lakshané roh...@wikimedia.in wrote: Breakthrough, a global human rights organisation that runs campaigns such as Bell Bajao, and Wikimedia Chapter (India) are conducting a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in Delhi on December 7 and 8 for editing articles pertaining to violence against women. Facebook page of the event: http://www.facebook.com/events/181325168737101 Basic idea behind this session: A crucial problem with several Wikipedia articles on sexual violence, especially in the Indian context, is that often there are no articles or that articles have been deleted). It would be a knowledge advocacy session to increase gender sensitive editing in Wikipedia. The session will involve editing of articles pertaining to various aspects of violence against women in India. A list of about 10 Wikipedia articles has been drawn up for editing. The session will be live-blogged. Remote participation will be enabled through IRC channels. The edit-a-thon is a part of the 16 days of activism against gender based violence starting 25th November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) to 10 December (International Human Rights Day). This is a global campaign that aims at raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue. This hackathon will be mainly focussed towards data visualisation and several organisations are providing us with statistical datasets and other kinds of data including audio and video. -- Chairperson (Special Interest Group), Gender gap, Wikimedia Chapter (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
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Request for a mediawki hackathon during Congress Everywhere at Dharamshala
Sounds like a great idea, Arun. All the best!! Vishnu On Sunday 01 December 2013 06:31 PM, Arun Ganesh wrote: Dear Indian Wikimedians, Those of you in the hacker community would be aware that the 30th Chaos Communication Congress will be live streamed at a special event in a himalayan hackerspace called Ghoomakad [1] between Dec 27-30. Since it will be unique gathering of technologists in this remote region, it is also an ideal opportunity to conduct a mediawiki hackathon/wikimedia outreach that will be able to target a culturally diverse group of people including the Tibetan exile community from Dharamshala which is 10 km away. As one of the residents of the hackerspace and an active Wikimedian, I have prepared a proposal to the Chapter to provide for travel and accommodation scholarships to 4 Wikimedia volunteers who would like to lead and support a hackathon in the village. You can see the detailed proposal and budget breakdown here: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Grants/Congress_Everywhere_Mediawiki_hackathon Since time is short, those interested to lead the hackathon or conduct outreach in the local schools can already apply for the travel scholarship now: http://bit.ly/1hqFxyD PS: Do note that this grant is pending approval by the Chapter EC and the scholarship is subject to that decision. In the meantime do share this with any community member you might know in the Delhi/North area. Queries on the proposal are also invited on the talk page of the proposal. [1] http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Ghoomakad -- Arun Ganesh (planemad) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Planemad ___ 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] Invite to WikiSangamotsavam-2013, the annual gathering of Malayalam Wikimedians
Thanks Netha. Congratulations to the Malayalam Wikimedia community for doing such detailed planning! Inviting Wikimedians from across India is a wonderful idea!! It's a new bench mark!!! Wishing you all lots of fun filled learning. With a belief that this will bring more energy to the Wikimedia movement in India, Vishnu On Friday, 22 November 2013, Netha Hussain nethahuss...@gmail.com wrote: Dear all, WikiSangamotsavam 2013, the annual gathering of users and well wishers of Malayalam Wikimedia projects, will take place from 21-23 December, 2013 in YMCA Alappuzha, Kerala. Please click here to go to the official page to see more details. . WikiSangamotsavam - 2013 is our first attempt to invite and host selected members from other Indian Wikipedia communities. We are planning to invite our friends and well-wishers from 14 different language wiki communities in India to this most auspicious occasion hosted by Malayalam wiki community! We are also planning to arrange few scholarships for non-Malayalam Wikimedians who are interested in participating in this event. With all these, we expect this year’s conference shall become the largest outreach program any Indian wiki community have ever attempted. As a part of WikiSangamotsavam-2013, we are organizing edit-a-thons, WikiVidyarthiSangamam (a conference of students interested in Wikimedia projects), WikiYuvaSangamam (a meetup of youth interested in Wikimedia projects), a computer training session for the differently-abled, a digitization drive to digitize the information regarding wetlands in Kerala and WikiJalaYathra, a wiki voyage through Vembanadu backwaters. We cordially invite you to participate in WikiSangamotsavam-2013 to share your experiences, to connect with your peers and create partnerships thereby strengthening the Indian Wikimedia community. To participate in WikiSangamotsavam, please register here Looking forward to meeting you in Alappuzha from 21-23 December, 2013! On behalf of Malayalam Wikimedia Community, Netha Hussain User: Netha Hussain on Wikimedia projects -- Netha Hussain Student of Medicine and Surgery Govt. Medical College, Kozhikode Blogs : nethahussain.blogspot.com swethaambari.wordpress.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
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamil Wikipedia crosses 1000 total contributors milestone
Awesome, Ravi! Congratulations to the diverse Tamil WP community!! Loads of wishes for a wonderful wiki year ahead! Hope to see you all during the 11th year Tamil Wiki celebrations :-) Cheers, Vishnu On 24 November 2013 23:17, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, October 2013 stats for Tamil Wikipedia is out. We have crossed many milestones in one jump coinciding with our Tenth Anniversary Celebrations! * 1017 Total contributors . We have crossed the 1000 milestone after Malayalam Wikipedia. Next in line is Hindi Wikipedia with 988 total contributors. * 118 active editors who edit 5 times a month. Highest in ten years and the first time we crossed 100. * 27 new editors joined this month. This is the second highest enrollment in ten years after the 2010 June state wide essay contest time. * 25 very active editors who edit 100 times a month. Highest in ten years. * We went from 1 to 2 contributors for every one million Tamil speaking population now. * Registered 8.5m million page views. That is 2,83,000 per day. Highest in ten years. We hope to sustain this activity through various initiatives. Thanks, Ravi References: 1. http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTA.htm 2. http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/SummaryTA.htm 3. http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyCombined.htm ___ 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] Fwd: A2K, its lies and irresponsibilities
Dear Ansuman, Thanks for flagging this. All the profiles of the CIS-A2K team members are now updated. Please see [1]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Team On 28 October 2013 16:46, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Me: Please make available the job descriptions/roles for all the employees at meta and share the same in the mailing list. Vishnu: YES WE ARE REWORKING THE PROFILES AS THE EARLIER ROLES ARE NO MORE RELEVANT. WE WILL TAKE THIS UP ON PRIORITY AND PUT IT UP ON META. THE LINKS TO A2K TEAM MEMBER PROFILES, SHARED EVERY MONTH IN A2K NEWSLETTERS, WILL IN FUTURE BE LINKED TO THE META PAGES. --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] Fwd: A2K, its lies and irresponsibilities
Dear Ansuman, On 28 October 2013 16:46, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Why still *2* new recruits are missing even after several months, at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Teamhttp://bl-1.com/click/load/ADAAMlM2Um8Hb1w7CTw-b0231 , Why there is no *monthly reports* updated on meta, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reportshttp://bl-1.com/click/load/VGRaaABlVmtQOFA3AjA-b0231 Why there is no *community Mid-year reports* updated, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reportshttp://bl-1.com/click/load/VmZZawdiAj9ROVUyBDc-b0231 A comprehensive mid-term grant report for the period Sept. 2012 to June 2013 of CIS-A2K is published on Meta here [1]. CIS-A2K had been publishing monthly newsletters and circulating it widely to the community through the Indian mailing lists. These give an accurate picture of the CIS-A2K activities on a monthly basis and serve as a monthly report of the work done. We will also initiate measures to put up these details on Meta as indicated here [2]. Best, Vishnu [1] http://bit.ly/A2K-NR [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports#Monthly_Reports ___ 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] Fwd: A2K, its lies and irresponsibilities
Dear Ansuman, On 28 October 2013 16:46, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Why there is no response to this, Evaluation results after months? *How long are your two weeks?* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Learning_and_Evaluationhttp://bl-1.com/click/load/UGAKOFw5WmcCagZhV2c-b0231 We have clarified it here [1] What about *Quarterly Community Survey* mentioned here, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Learning_and_Evaluationhttp://bl-1.com/click/load/XW0PPQdiBzoFbVA3VGU-b0231? Is there any plan to do this ever? Yes, we are working on the Quarterly report for the period July-Sept. 2013 and will be sharing soon. However, in terms of participatory and continuous mode of evaluationhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Learning_and_Evaluation, we foresee a challenge in actively involving the respective language community members in quarterly evaluation cycles. Firstly in the five language communities that we are focusing on, such an introspection exercise was not done systematically before and secondly a mandatory imposition may not be productive either for the Community or for CIS-A2K. We do not want it to end-up becoming a task to be ticked against. Our effort is to train the community to systematically introspect, which will go a long way in strengthening the Indian language Wikipedias and the associated communities. For instance, we have a beginning with Telugu Wikimedia community. See this [2]. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Learning_and_Evaluation [2] https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%A1%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%AF%E0%B0%BE:%E0%B0%89%E0%B0%97%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A6%E0%B0%BF_%E0%B0%AE%E0%B0%B9%E0%B1%8B%E0%B0%A4%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B8%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%82-2013_%E0%B0%A4%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%A4_%E0%B0%A4%E0%B1%86%E0%B0%B5%E0%B0%BF%E0%B0%95%E0%B1%80_%E0%B0%AA%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%97%E0%B0%A4%E0%B0%BF ___ 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] Winners of WLM India 2013
Wow! Amazing pics!! Congratulations to all the winners. +1 to Karthik and everyone else who were involved. Cheers, Vishnu On Thursday, 21 November 2013, Karthik Nadar karthik...@wikimedia.in wrote: Dear all, This year, we received 11,000 images if monuments in Wiki Loves Monuments India 2013. Over a month, the jury team has been working on to select and nominate best images for the WLM international contest and thus also selecting the winning images of India contest. Here are they: http://www.wikilovesmonuments.in/here-are-the-winners-of-the-wiki-loves-monuments-2013-india-contest/ I would like to take a moment to thank all those who helped to make this happen. Thank you Naveen and Kiran Ravikumar for sharing your shoulders. Thanks to jury for sending their valuable time in reviewing images. Also thanks to Pavithra, Arun Ganesh and Manoranjan for been part of special jury. Never to forget the international team for their kind help at all the times! Thanks to Wikimedia India for funding the contest, to INTACH for partnering it for the first time. Apologies if I have missed anyone, but you shall also owe a thousand of thanks from the WLM team. PS: Could you help us spread the work through media, get in touch with me or Naveen or Kiran!! Regards, Karthik Nadar. On behalf of WLM India team. ___ 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] Kerala School text books to be Licensed under Creativecommons, Printing using FOSS Tools
Dear Anivar, Congratulations to you, others in the SMC team and officials who are behind this initiative!! Hope to hear about the official order. Let the Knowledge Go around :) Best, Vishnu On 15 November 2013 18:33, Anivar Aravind anivar.arav...@gmail.com wrote: Sorry for the typos** earlier Dear all , Some happy news for all of us . The School curriculum steering commitee of Kerala Govt's SCERT(State Council Educational Research and Training) decided 3 major points in our interest yesterday 1. SCERT is improving text book printing infrastructure by shifting from Adobe 's softwares to FOSS based XeTeX and free licensed fonts. 2. They will shift from ASCII to Unicode . This will also help in universal access for differentially abled via technologies like Text to Speech even in Malayalam Language . 3. The books will be licensed under CC-BY-SA . Official Order is still pending. But I am posting this since it is already in media reports. Read a report in TOI http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Now-free-software-to-set-school-textbooks-in-Kerala/articleshow/25781341.cms The Change will be applicable to all newly publishing books from now Starting from Malayalam Text books in 5, 7, and 11th standards Myself, Hrishikesh K.B and a team from Swathanthra Malayalam Computing ( http://smc.org) are working closely with SCERT from last few months to help them in initiating this change process. Thanks to Dr. P.K Thilak, Research Officer SCERT , Director SCERT, and Biju Prabhakar IAS (Director of Public Instruction, Govt of Kerala ) for initiating this Change. ~ regards Anivar Aravind Secretary Swathanthra Malaalam Computing http://smc.org.in Ph. 09448063780 ___ 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] Fwd: Lilavati's daughters
Thanks Gerard! Will add this info on the project page too [1] and also on the project pages on Indic Wikipedias. --Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lilavati%27s_Daughters_Edit-a-thon [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lilavati%27s_Daughters_Edit-a-thon#Project_pages_on_Indic_Wikipedias On 12 November 2013 14:04, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijs...@gmail.comwrote: Hoi, I have added all the subjects of the book Lilavati's daughters to its Wikidata item [1]. This makes it the perfect place to coordinate information about all of them. The things that you can do: - add labels for them in your language - make statements about them like their date of birth - or their alma mater - or awards they received - or whatever you think is relevant Many of these fine ladies do not yet have an article in any language that I am aware of. When there is an article in any language, you can add it however to the items that are already there. When YOUR language is not represented in Wikidata and, when it does have an ISO-639-3 code, we are really happy to give you the opportunity to add information in YOUR language as well. PS there is a Wikipedia article in several Indian languages (not in English) you get to all the subjects of the book (these fine Indian lady scientists) by clicking on the data item in the side bar. Thanks, GerardM [1] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14948432 PS I am NOT subscribed to the list.. I do not see replies ___ 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] [CIS-A2K Announcement] MoU with Christ University, Bangalore
Hello TheOriginalSoni, When replying to the digest it would be useful if you could edit your Subject line so it is more specific. Have done that in this instance :) On 10 November 2013 19:16, TheOriginalSoni the.original.s...@gmail.comwrote: Hello I'm new to mailing lists, so please don't mind if I do this incorrectly. Vishnu T, What would be included in the program, and wouldn't English also be an appropriate possible location for the same? Yes. We could undertake a similar program also in English. However, given the IEP experience we are careful to not hurry with such a program in English. Also, are there any plans for help from the WIkipedia community itself to deal and help with any technical or other issues the students in the undergraduate program are likely to face? Yes. We would not be able to do this without the support of the community. We will be putting out a call for On-Wiki mentors for this program and you are welcome to join :) I hope such programs would be successful, and even extended towards other colleges and universities in India Congratulations and regards, Soni (TheOriginalSoni on enwiki) Let's hope for the best and thanks for your wishes. Vishnu ___ 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] CC Launch
Dear Sowmyan, Thanks for the detailed account of the event. Are there any images of the event available on Commons? If yes, would be great to have a link. Cheers, Vishnu On 15 November 2013 00:29, Sowmyan Tirumurti tsowm...@wikimedia.in wrote: The relaunch of the creative Commons India took place at New Delhi on 12thNov 2013. It was a joint effort by the three affiliates of Creative Commons India viz Wikimedia Chapter, Center for Internet and Society, and Acharya Narender Dev College. New Delhi. The Wikimedia banner announcements were very effective. The registrations exceeded 1000, and threatened to make hall capacity of 300 to be woefully inadequate. Mercifully, the actual attendance to registration ratio was just about right to make the attendees count to remain just within the capacity. Staff and Students from Acharya Narender Dev College did a lot of the voluntary work necessary for the arrangements. A nice rangoli at the reception welcomed the visitors. They also managed the reception desk, and behind the screen arrangements to welcome the speakers with potted plants, and present them mementoes. Dr Savithri Singh of ANDC welcomed the gathering. Mr Lawrence Liang, Co-founder of Alternative Law Forum, and the organizer of the first launch of Creative Commons many years ago spoke first. He answered the most frequently asked question as to why this is a relaunch, and what happened after the first launch. Lawrence narrated how the first launch took place from IIT Mumbai. At that time the focus was to create a version of the 2.5 license ported to Indian law. As many of you would know, though the basic licenses have been based on the international legal understandings among the nation members of the United Nations, making these enforceable among all these nations, further scope to port these agreements to a nation’s law also exists, and this is called porting. Lawrence and his associates did this with the 2.5 version. Lawrence remarked with humor that Ekalavya may have been the first person to have breached the copy right law and paid for it by being disabled from using the knowledge. Lawrence also spoke on the current international movement seeking to make the output of publicly funded projects public. Meanwhile, Dr Shashi Throor arrived and a majestic Diya was lit to symbolize the occasion. Dr Tharoor also electronically launched the webpage http://www.creativecommons.org.in/ . The India page within the website of Creative Commons.org can be found here. www.CreativeCommons.org/india http://www.creativecommonsindia.org/india Dr Shashi Tharoor spoke in support for the emerging open knowledge environment, and said his ministry has already made a beginning by releasing the NCERT books under CC By SA. We can count on him to support all reasonable suggestions in these areas. Ms Rohini Nilekani spoke about her experience in launching Pratham books, where the objective was to nurture the reading habit among children and to put a book in every child’s hand. This was followed by Mr Moksh Juneja of Wikimedia who spoke on how Wikimedia is supporting Creative Commons. Delhi has a vibrant community that is eager to participate in such initiatives. Many were impatient with the slow progress in this country, and wanted a lot more to happen quickly. This was amply demonstrated in the questions and answers session, as well as at the end of the talk sessions, when many did not go for the high tea and engaged with the organizers. ___ 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] Wikimedia and Language Diversity in India
Hello, Some of you may know that I was in Berlin, Germany attending the Wikimedia Diversity Conference [1]. I presented on the language diversity in India and the kind of challenges and opportunities it presents to the Wikimedia movement at large. Other than reflecting on the work Wikimedia communities in India, WMIN and CIS-A2K are doing, I have also proposed and talked briefly about a new project called WikiSpeech. As per the 2013 PLSI there are 780 languages in India and we have just about 20 Indian language Wikipedias. Most of these languages are oral cultures and are spoken by small pockets of the population. Thus it may not make much sense for these communities to have a Wikipedia or any of the Wikimedia projects that are text/script intensive. I deeply believe that WikiSpeech can go a long way in preserving the language diversity in India and the world at large. I was thinking through a model based on the work done by a) George A. Grierson during 1898-1928 (the first Linguistic Survey of India); b) the recent PLSI work (2013); c) CG Net Swara (which effectively leveraged mobile in creating a community led journalistic venture in the tribal language of Gonds of central India); and d) www.pad.ma(a platform that allows one to annotate visual and audio. The code is open-source). These are initial ideas and are very much unbaked. The presentation, I did, only has one slide and may not give a lot of detail, but if any one of you is interested, I will be more than glad to discuss this off-list. I have also had a long conversation with Gerard Meijssen about Wiki-Data and the possibilities of opening up knowledge for diverse linguistic communities in India. You can find the link to the presentation [2] and the etherpad [3]. A Round-up session on Geographic diversity and Language pluralism on Wikimedia was also organized. You can see brief discussion here [4]. I am thankful to the Wikimedia Diversity Conference organizers for the travel and stay scholarship they have provided. Look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas on, if and how could we develop these ideas further. Best, Vishnu [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:So_Many_Languages-_Challenges_and_Opportunities_for_the_Wikimedia_Movement_in_India.pdf [3] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wikimedia-movement-india [4] https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/roundup3 ___ 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] WMF and CIS agreement
One of the reasons I personally would want to push for more visibility on the agreement terms is the spending that is being done on the salaries of the people involved in the Indian program. There's not much disclosure on these if I'm not mistaken. Or point me to it if there's any. Dear Hari, The current CIS-A2K Grant budget (including the Team salaries) were openly shared with the community through most of the Indian mailing lists, in June 2013. For the posting on this list see [1]. Also see [2] for original approved budget which was part of the Grant Agreement and see [3] revised budget. Best, Vishnu [1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-May/009900.html [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF-A2K_Grant_Budget_and_Utilization_Sept12_-Feb13.pdf [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CIS-A2K_WMF_Grant_Revised_Budget_%28Approved%29_and_Utilization_Sept_12-Feb_13.pdf ___ 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 Announcement] CIS-A2K Grant Report for September 2012-June 2013
Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society's(CIS) Access to Knowledge (A2K) Program, India! As many of you know that the Wikimedia Foundation approved a 22 month grant to the CIS-A2K. The aim of the grant was to support the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. Please find the Grant Report for the first 10 months period (i.e. September 2012-June 2013) on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Narrative_Report:_%28September_2012_%E2%80%93_June_2013%29https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Narrative_Report:_%28September_2012_–_June_2013%29 CIS-A2K will be happy to receive your feedback. Please let us know if you have any suggestions, questions and concerns about the report and our work. We would be glad to have this feedback on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Narrative_Report:_%28September_2012_%E2%80%93_June_2013%29https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Narrative_Report:_%28September_2012_–_June_2013%29 We are thankful to the Wikimedia community in India, Wikimedia India Chapter and the Wikimedia Foundation for actively engaging with our work. We will continue to work upon our deficiencies, failures and successes. Warm regards, Vishnu Program Director, CIS-A2K ___ 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] Updated Aksharyogini font release in Open Font License
Kudos Sudhanwa! I couldn't help but repeat, what a wonderful gesture! +1 to Ashwin. Vishnu On Sunday, 3 November 2013, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com wrote: What a wonderful gesture! If only everyone followed your lead in social good instead of donating blidly to temples, bursting crackers, etc. On Fri, Nov 1, 2013 at 4:44 PM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar sudhanwa@gmail.com wrote: Dear friends, You may be aware that we (my family) have released a font family earlier. Here is some background if you are not aware of it. On the first death Anniversary of Yogini Joglekar(my aunt), our family released AksharYogini (Normal) Font on 1st Nov. 2006. This font is primarily for Marathi language but can also be used for Hindi (for any language using Devanagari). It also has English support. Later on, on the occasion of Gudhipadwa (Chaitra Shuddha 1, 1931; that is 27th March 2009) , we released the additional fonts to complete the AksharYogini font family. This font family was/is made available on the site http://aksharyogini.sudhanwa.com for free usage/distribution/sharing. Today, on the occasion of Eighth Death Anniversary of Yogini Joglekar, we are now releasing an updated AksharYogini font. This font is also available on the same website http://aksharyogini.sudhanwa.com This is an updated font and has support for the new (MS Windows) operating systems where the internal mechanism for font rendering is changed. Also, it has additional characters for the current Unicode standard and the Rupee Sign is also included. Most important is the licensing. The new release is under the Open Font License. As such, all Linux distributions will be able to freely use it in their packaging. Please feel free to use, share, distribute the new font. You can download it from http://aksharyogini.sudhanwa.com . Give us feedback on my email id or the official id for the font aksharyogini at sudhanwa.com You can also comment on the guestbook on the website. Do share this news and also the font. Wishing you a Very Happy Diwali !! Thanks and regards -Sudhanwa -- ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~! web: www.sudhanwa.com blog: www.sudhanwa.in Twitter: sudhanwa Check on FB, Linkedin for more. __._,_.___ Reply via web post Reply to sender Reply to group Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group You may want to visit Wikipedia sister projects :- http://mr.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page http://mr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use • Send us Feedback . __,_._,___ -- Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ 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] Short-term assignment at CIS-A2K
Surely. We were looking to extend the date until November 5. Will be sending a mail on this shortly. Best, Vishnu On Thursday, 31 October 2013, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Vishnu, //The last date to receive the applications is November 1, 2013. Applicants are requested to use the subject “CCC at A2K” while submitting the application Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed either remotely or in-person. Only short-listed candidates will be informed by e-mail about the interview by November 5, 2013.// I agree with Ansuman that this is a very short notice. Especially, when people are in holiday for Diwali. Is it possible to extend the final date for submitting applications? I hope this can be flexible. Ravi ___ 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] Fwd: A2K, its lies and irresponsibilities
Dear Ansuman, On 28 October 2013 16:46, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, This is part of the replies of Vishnu four months ago. --- --- Me: And also tell the community, who are all involved in the interview process and selection process, and why? Vishnu: BEFORE EVEN PUBLISHING THE JOB ADVERTISEMENT WE HAD DECIDED TO PUBLISH A BLOG POST/WRITE-UP ON THE SELECTION PROCESS AND SHARE IT WITH THE WIKIMEDIA INDIA COMMUNITY AS PART OF OUR TRANSPARENCY MEASURE. ONCE THIS IS UP, WILL SHARE THE LINK. We have published a blog post on the Program Officer selection process on September 10, 2013.[1] This has also been shared with the Indian Wikimedia community as part of the September A2K Newsletter [2], which was posted on all the Indian Wikimedia lists. Best, Vishnu [1] http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/selection-of-programme-officer-pilot-projects-a2k [2] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2013-October/010575.html ___ 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-en] Fwd: A2K, its lies and irresponsibilities
Dear Ansuman, On 30 October 2013 00:45, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Good to see some movements at meta, it worked to an extent so far. This is all you got to cover up; newsletters, and list of events at meta. Except these, is there any page which is updated? Newsletters, we knew where to find, i was not asking for it, but i was asking why there is no updates at meta? In newsletters, you keep repeating few blog posts in the consecutive month, i noticed couple of times. I don't understand the need of it. Do you have answers to each concerns and questions i have raised? I'm not just talking about updates, which are one or two month due, also asking about Community Mid-year reports, Evaluation results, Quarterly community survey which have not been started since the inception of A2K. I see, recently one team member has been added. What about another team member? Isn't s/he in the team, and an employee? Please add the profiles and their work details. You have raised a set of concerns on the same mailing lists 2 days ago. I had informed you on these same mailing lists that I will get back to the list within the next 20 days with updates/answers for your concerns. I said so, and I repeat again, because most of these tasks are works-in-progress and some are delayed. After I share the updates, should you have more or unanswered queries/questions/feedback, it could certainly be brought to the attention of the list-members. Is this agreeable? When i first raised those concerns via email, you didn't listen, delayed. Then I forced you to respond, then you said you'd consider, but you didn't. Then I raised some more concerns at meta, few you didn't accept, few to accept i had to show you facts and figures. All the points I've raised in this duration, there still few to many are pending in which to few you had said you'd get back or consider! Well I don't know how long it'd take you to do that? Then just again I have raised few more questions. Lets see how you and your team will work on that and able to respond to them. Is this how you have planned for the community to make you work? Then I think the community members should be getting twice the amount of yours!! :D I don't know your definition of Lie. But when people don't keep their words, i call it lie, and them liar. Let these figments of imagination be, as they are. I would prefer to stay away from such needless rhetoric, as I and my team have wasted considerable human hours already in doing so. Let's stick to a critical analysis of CIS-A2K's work, which is productive. Your earlier mail (sent 2 days ago) was to the point and concise. As an initial response, I shared the links through which one can see the entire work, or lack of it, of CIS-A2K since the commencement of the Grant in September 2012. For the benefit of the list-members and you I have tried to summarize CIS-A2K's activities below for the period September 2012 - June 2013. Some key activities during the period of Sep 2012 to June 2013 are: - Number of newsletters published: 10 - Number of events conducted: 49 - Number of Wikipedia Education Programs conducted: 5 - Number of people reached: about 1314 - Number of women participants: approximately 406 (30.9%) - Number of community meet-ups IRCs: 12 - Number of sites across India where Wikimedia events were conducted: 18 - Number of valid usernames: 582 - Number of blogs posted: 58 - Number of Print and Electronic Media mentions: 28 - Number of Hackathons supported: 2 - Number of community celebration events: 7 - Number of Institutional partnerships: 13 Soon we will publish a detailed report for this period with more details on the activities, achievements, impact, challenges and learning of CIS-A2K. And of course we would be seeking detailed feedback from the community and continue to improve upon our successes and failures in growing the Wikimedia movement in India. Best, Vishnu PS. Dear Friends, there might be slight delay in my e-mail responses as I will be on a short break during November 1 to November 4. ___ 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] Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA
AFAIK Harriet is more thinking of the modalities of off line delivery of Konkani Wikipedia (once live) through XO Tablets which has Sugar learning environment. Would the current Kiwix easily interact with Sugar? Any idea if the Kiwix UI is already available in Konkani? Best, Vishnu On 30 October 2013 10:28, sankarshan foss.mailingli...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 10:21 AM, Harriet outofin...@gmail.com wrote: My next goal is working in an offline wiki for school kids in Goa. Making the content of wiki(pedia?) offline is something that I see a lot of efforts focusing upon. http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Main_Page / Kiwix is one simple tool that makes it possible. The Kiwix UI is translated into around 80 odd languages (and, more are on their way). -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan ___ 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] Fwd: A2K, its lies and irresponsibilities
Dear Ansuman, Thanks for flagging your concerns pertaining to the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). Most of these are in the pipe-line (or works in progress) and we will share updates on each one of the queries you have posted, on the mailing lists and/or on-wiki in the next 15-20 days. We will also update on our failures in meeting some of the plans. There are some delays with the taking off of some of our current year plans [0]. However, I fail to understand where we have lied? All the A2K work is periodically i.e. monthly, (except for once where we clubbed two months newsletters as we were redesigning the newsletter based on feedback received from some Indian Wikimedia community members0 published through A2K Newsletter. The Newsletters were widely circulated on all Indian Wikimedia mailing lists. Please also see: a) All CIS-A2K Newsletters here [1] under the section The Access to Knowledge Bulletin. b) All the Events CIS-A2K has organized towards strengthening the Wikimedia movement in India. We are currently updating all the events on this [2] Meta page and soon you will see all the events conducted/supported by A2K since September 2012. c) Support to various requests placed by the Indian Wikimedia community. [3] More updates to follow. Vishnu [[:m:User:Visdaviva]] [0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014 [1] http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Requests https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Requests On 28 October 2013 16:46, ansuman ansum...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, This is part of the replies of Vishnu four months ago. --- --- Me: And also tell the community, who are all involved in the interview process and selection process, and why? Vishnu: BEFORE EVEN PUBLISHING THE JOB ADVERTISEMENT WE HAD DECIDED TO PUBLISH A BLOG POST/WRITE-UP ON THE SELECTION PROCESS AND SHARE IT WITH THE WIKIMEDIA INDIA COMMUNITY AS PART OF OUR TRANSPARENCY MEASURE. ONCE THIS IS UP, WILL SHARE THE LINK. Me: Please make available the job descriptions/roles for all the employees at meta and share the same in the mailing list. Vishnu: YES WE ARE REWORKING THE PROFILES AS THE EARLIER ROLES ARE NO MORE RELEVANT. WE WILL TAKE THIS UP ON PRIORITY AND PUT IT UP ON META. THE LINKS TO A2K TEAM MEMBER PROFILES, SHARED EVERY MONTH IN A2K NEWSLETTERS, WILL IN FUTURE BE LINKED TO THE META PAGES. -- If I've missed any updates on this from A2K, let me know. What happened to the decision? When do you plan to share this, next year? If so you should have told the community. Don't you think so? Besides user pages (User pages don't have detailed information about the job description) there is no proper work details of anybody on meta officially . I don't think there is any even off-wiki . (Profiles at CIS site are not detailed enough to know their works) We don't know who is responsible for which work!! Who is doing what? Few more questions.. Why still *2* new recruits are missing even after several months, at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Teamhttp://bl-1.com/click/load/ADAAMlM2Um8Hb1w7CTw-b0231 , Why there is no *monthly reports* updated on meta, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reportshttp://bl-1.com/click/load/VGRaaABlVmtQOFA3AjA-b0231 Why there is no *community Mid-year reports* updated, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reportshttp://bl-1.com/click/load/VmZZawdiAj9ROVUyBDc-b0231 If there is any report available anywhere, when do you plan to update the meta pages? Why there is no response to this, Evaluation results after months? *How long are your two weeks?* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Learning_and_Evaluationhttp://bl-1.com/click/load/UGAKOFw5WmcCagZhV2c-b0231 What about *Quarterly Community Survey* mentioned here, https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Learning_and_Evaluationhttp://bl-1.com/click/load/XW0PPQdiBzoFbVA3VGU-b0231? Is there any plan to do this ever? And on this https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum/Archives/2013-08#Terms_.2F_MoU_for_India_A2K_projecthttp://bl-1.com/click/load/BDRcblQxATwFbQFmUmw-b0231, which Shyamal brought it up; I'd like to see something concrete from the Foundation. I don't know about off-wiki, but there hasn't been proper communication on anything on-wiki. If there is a change in plans or updates on any event, we don't get to see that! Why? * Who is accountable for all these discrepancies??* I request the foundation or whoever
[Wikimediaindia-l] Short-term assignment at CIS-A2K
The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) Program invites applications from experienced Wikimedia community members for a short-term assignment as a 'Community Communications Consultant'. The duration of this assignment is for 3 months. The consultant will work with the CIS-A2K team and report to the Program Director CIS-A2K. *Profile:* An ideal candidate should: a) have been a Wikimedian for more than a year. b) have good understanding of and contribution on Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons projects. c) have links with at least 5 Indian language Wikimedia community members d) have good writing skills in English and at least in 2 Indian languages e) be able to speak/read multiple (at least 3) Indian languages f) be open to receiving community review of his/her work Preference will be given to those who: a) can use python b) can use various tools for community metrics c) can actively use social media *Job Description* The consultant will: 1. Do about 60 profile stories on key Wikimedians (especially those who have not received visibility beyond their language community) from all the Indian language Wikimedia communities. 2. Revive Indian community Wikimedia Newsletter. 3. Undertake research and produce analytical reports based on community wide metrics. 4. Any other tasks that may be assigned by the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge. *Fee and Payment* The consultant will be paid a consolidated sum of about Rs. 40,000/- per month for three months. The consultancy fee will be paid after an assessment of the work done by the Consultant. The consultancy fee could be slightly negotiated based on the experience and expertise of a suitable candidate. *Other Information* The position is based in Bangalore and the consultant will need to work from CIS' Bangalore office. Applicants are requested to send their detailed CV with a covering letter (not exceeding 350 words indicating their motivation to take up this assignment) to *vis...@cis-india.org* . The last date to receive the applications is November 1, 2013. Applicants are requested to use the subject “CCC at A2K” while submitting the application Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed either remotely or in-person. Only short-listed candidates will be informed by e-mail about the interview by November 5, 2013. Vishnu ___ 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] Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (Event Invitation)
Greetings from CIS-A2K! We request the pleasure of your company at the event 'Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh Building Konkani Wikipedia' . The event will take place on the 26th September, Thursday,10am - 11am at the Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao. Upon CIS-A2K' explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC‐BY‐SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. This encyclopedia will also serve as one of the main sources of building and writing articles on Konkani Wikipedia (which is currently under incubation). We'd like you to be a part of this event and help showcase Konkani community and language on a global digital platform such as Konkani Wikipedia. Please see the link for the invite.[1] We look forward to seeing you at the event. Best, Vishnu [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Re-release_of_Konkani_Vishwakosh_under_Creative_Commons_License_CC-BY-SA_3.0_-_Invite.pdf ___ 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] CIS-A2K MoU with Goa University (Announcement)
Dear All, On behalf of CIS-A2K, I am glad to share with you that GOA University has signed an MoU with CIS-A2K. As part of this MoU Goa University and CIS-A2K will work together to digitize “Konkani Vishwakosh” under Creative Common license and build a Digital Knowledge Partnership in order to enhance digital literacy in the Konkani language and facilitate collaborative knowledge production and disseminate the same free of cost through Kokani Wikipedia (currently under incubation). Gos University and CIS-A2K will co-design and jointly implement relevant training programmes to achieve this objective. CIS-A2K is grateful for the support and encouragement received from the Goa University Vice-Chancellor Dr. Satish Shetye; Prof. Alito Siqueira; Prof. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar; Dr. Madhavi Sardesai; Dr. Gopakumar; and other faculty of Goa University. We are also equally grateful to Wikipedians Harriet Vidyasagar and Frederick Noronha who have engaged with CIS-A2K team and been a constant source of support. Wish us best of luck! Vishnu ___ 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] unsubscribing - sabbatical
Enjoy Hacker School, Sumana! Best. Vishnu On Thursday, 19 September 2013, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi folks. Just wanted to let you know I'm unsubscribing in advance of the start of my sabbatical - more info at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-August/071542.html . If you need to talk about Wikimedia technical community stuff before January, please consult Quim Gil, qgil at wikimedia dot org. Thanks! -- Sumana Harihareswara Engineering Community Manager Wikimedia Foundation P.S. More about me and Hacker School: http://www.harihareswara.net/sumana/2013/08/28/1 ___ 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] German University of Tubingen partners with Malayalam Wikipedians to digitize the works of Herman Gundert.
Brilliant news!! Congratulations to the Malayalam Wikimedia community for their excellent efforts. Best, Vishnu On 18 September 2013 09:43, CherianTinu Abraham tinucher...@gmail.comwrote: Hi all, Some of you would have already heard about the recent partnership between Malayalam Wikipedians German University of Tubingen to digitize the works of Herman Gundert. Dr. Hermann Gundert was a German missionary, scholar, and linguist, as well as the grandfather of German novelist and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse. Gundert compiled a Malayalam grammar book, Malayalabhaasha Vyakaranam (1859), the Malayalam-English dictionary (1872), and contributed to work on Bible translations into Malayalam. He worked primarily at Tellicherry on the Malabar coast, in Kerala, India. Gundert also contributed to the fields of history, geography and astronomy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Gundert The corpus of nearly 80 manuscripts, 150 printed works and some palm leaf manuscripts of the German scholar available with the university runs into some 42,000 pages. A detailed history of this effort can be read here http://shijualex.in/tubingen-university-gundert-collection/ ( Blog by Shiju Alex in Malayalam) Project Page in Malayalam WikiSource : https://ml.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%97%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A5%E0%B4%B6%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2:%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%82%E0%B4%AC%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%BB_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B6%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2_%E0%B4%B2%E0%B5%88%E0%B4%AC%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%97%E0%B5%81%E0%B4%A3%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D_%E0%B4%B6%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%96%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%82 The project named “Gundert legacy – a digitization project of the University of Tuebingen” will be started soon. Some News Coverage : The Hindu : http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Kochi/german-university-gifts-malayalam-the-legacy-of-herman-gundert/article5125550.ece Times of India : http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JS1JLTy8yMDEzLzA5LzEzI0FyMDAyMDI%3D New Indian Express : http://newindianexpress.com/cities/kochi/German-University-to-digitise-Malayalam-books/2013/09/11/article1778484.ece Kudos to Shiju Alex and the Malayalam Wikipedian/WikiSource Community who are part of this effort. Regards Tinu Cherian ___ 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] Announcement: CIS-A2K's Train The Trainer Program
Hi Shyamal, Thanks for sharing the deck and for stating the importance of Information literacy and research techniques. Could not agree any more about their importance. However, as you have rightly noted the focus is more on doing a successful outreach. Would try to incorporate some of these skill set into the program design. Best, Vishnu On 7 September 2013 08:43, Shyamal L. lshya...@gmail.com wrote: I see that core editing related matters are included only in point 5 and 6. I was recently examining some statistics related to BSNL dynamic IP addresses since I quite frequently see a new message for me when I log in in the morning on the en.wiki and the message turns out to be in almost all cases warnings against poor editing, vandalism and so on. On some IP ranges, about 1-6% of all IP talk pages have warnings and an analysis shows that the most common problem is poor sourcing, self-promotion and other forms of advertising. In my (limited) experience working with advanced students (MS + levels) on Wikipedia editing, I have found it very useful to cover Information Literacy and research techniques. Information Literacy skills are taught in very few higher learning centres in India (I may be wrong though since such courses were available to me both at undergrad and postgrad levels) I would suggest that it is vital that people know about what research is and how sources are evaluated. I also think there needs to be coverage of technical writing (which includes reviewing literature, structuring, brevity, balance, avoiding closed paraphrasing and plagiarism, inline citation with templates, citation styles - Harvard, MLA, APA, use of bibliographic tools like Zotero ) best wishes Shyamal PS: will check if i can find the slides that i use, only able to find my internet research slides at the moment http://www.slideshare.net/muscicapa/information-literacy-and-internet-use-for-entomologists 1) Public Speaking and Engaging the audience 2) Presentation Skill and Body language 3) Basic Video editing skills 4) Leveraging mainstream and social media 5) Basics of Copyright and Creative Commons for Content Donation and Digitization 6) Technical session on complexities of Indian Languages on Computers (or based on majority participants need) 7) Wikimedia India Chapter - History and Present ___ 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-en] Announcement: CIS-A2K's Train The Trainer Program
Dear Ashwin, The program will have an array of activities, which are still being finalized. The following will be covered. 1) Public Speaking and Engaging the audience 2) Presentation Skill and Body language 3) Basic Video editing skills 4) Leveraging mainstream and social media 5) Basics of Copyright and Creative Commons for Content Donation and Digitization 6) Technical session on complexities of Indian Languages on Computers (or based on majority participants need) 7) Wikimedia India Chapter - History and Present Other than this participants will be introduced to various Energizers and Activities that they could use in Wiki-training like Spectogram, Speed Geeking, World Cafe, Appreciative Inquiry, Visual Journalism, Theater Games etc. There will also be a day long field visit. We are still in the process of finalizing the list of Resource Persons for specific sessions, who will be mostly from Bangalore. This will be in addition to the in-house expertise at CIS-A2K. Sorry for the delayed reply. Best, Vishnu On 4 September 2013 18:37, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com wrote: Who's training, what's the syllabus? On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Nitika Tandon nit...@cis-india.orgwrote: Dear All, CIS-A2K is organising a 4 day Train the Trainer (TTT) program in Bangalore during 1st week of October 2013. The idea of the program is to build capacity and enable community members to conduct outreach sessions independently or with minimal support to introduce Wikipedia to prospective editors in their respective Indian languages. By way of this program, CIS-A2K wants to support and enable community members who might be interested to conduct Wikipedia outreach sessions in their own cities/languages. The event is open to all Wikimedia volunteers from India who can and want to support outreach events in the coming year. CIS-A2K is calling for applicants for it's Train the Trainer Program. If you'd like to be part of this program please make sure that you meet the selection criterion [1] and submit Train the Trainer Program Application From [2] by 13th September, 2013. To know more about the program, rationale, overview, timeline etc. please check the attached document or visit the Meta page.[3] We look forward to hearing from you soon. For any further queries please mail at a...@cis-india.org Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledgehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/TTT#Selection_Criterion [2] http://bit.ly/A2Kttt [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/TTT ___ Wikimedia-in-en mailing list wikimedia-in...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-en -- Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ 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] Reg: Training the trainers (Was: Re: Wikimediaindia-l Digest, Vol 538, Issue 1)
Thanks for the good suggestion Shyamal. Most certainly. Vishnu Sent from a handheld device. Excuse my brevity. On Thursday, 5 September 2013, L. Shyamal lshya...@gmail.com wrote: A good question. I hope the trainers will have experience working on at least one FA class articles or a GA class at a minimum, preferably on the English Wikipedia in addition to expertise on their home language Wikipedia. best wishes Shyamal Date: Wed, 4 Sep 2013 18:37:29 +0530 From: Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com Who's training, what's the syllabus? On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Nitika Tandon nit...@cis-india.org wrote: ... CIS-A2K is organising a 4 day Train the Trainer (TTT) program in Bangalore during 1st week of October 2013. The idea of the program is to build capacity and enable community members to conduct outreach sessions independently or with minimal support to introduce Wikipedia to prospective editors in their respective Indian languages. ... ___ 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