[Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : DNA : College of Engineering Pune students to co-author Wikipedia-India
*DNA : College of Engineering Pune students to co-author Wikipedia-India* http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_college-of-engineering-pune-students-to-co-author-wikipedia-india_1578420 * A total of 843 students of the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) will soon get an opportunity to contribute to the popular search engine, www.wikipedia.org. A six-month semester was recently kicked off at the college, thanks to a joint venture between the CoEP and the Wikipedia team, through their Indian representative, Wikimedia (national programmes) India. While briefing mediapersons on Wednesday, director of CoEP, Anil Sahasrabudhe, said students from seven disciplines — mechanical, electrical, electronics and telecommunication, production, computer, information technology, and mathematics — would undergo the course. “After the students complete the six-month course, they would need to contribute to the website. They would be given internal marks for these assignments,” he said. Wikimedia consultant Hisham Mundol, who also attended the press briefing said, “We are inviting students and educators in India to join us in this mission by taking part in the India education programme. Information about India and contribution by people from India are not adequately represented on Wikipedia, and we want to change that.” According to Mundol, the national programme in India has its genesis in a similar pilot project, a public policy initiative started by Wikimedia in the US that was received well. Mundol said that a total of four colleges in Pune, CoEP, Symbiosis School of Economics, SNDT Women’s University and Modern College of Engineering would be part of the Wikimedia initiative. “Our goal is to encourage professors and teachers in Pune to join a growing global community of educators, who use Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool in their classrooms,” he said. * Regards Tinu Cherian http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news#Aug_2011 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Visually challenged people and Indic language wikipedias - Video
Dear Wikimedians I would like share an unusual story (unusual - especially for Indic language wiki communities) that Malayalam wiki community had faced few months back. In the month of February 2011, I had received an SOS call from a school teacher (Satyasheelan) who is teaching at the Government School for the Blind in the Kasargod districhttp://www.webelmediatronics.in/brlads/directory_Kerala.htmt of Kerala. Satyasheelan was seeking Malayalam wikipedian's support to fix few issues that he and his students faced with few Malayalam alphabets when they read Malayalam wikipedia using a speech synthesizing software called eSpeak http://espeak.sourceforge.net/. His phone call was surprise to us since Malayalam wikimedians were not aware that visually challenged people are using Malayalam wikipedia. (We were aware about the existence of a software by Santhosh (named Dhawni http://dhvani.sourceforge.net/) to read unicode Malayalam (and other Indic languages also) which is in its early stages of development). So Satyasheelan's call was surprising. After his phone call few Malayalam wikipedians (Junaid, Thachan Makan, and I) contacted Jonathan Duddington http://sourceforge.net/users/jonsd, the primary developer (?) of eSpeak, and we worked with him to fix the issues for Malayalam that Satyasheelan had pointed out. Jonathan fixed the issues pretty fast and later Satyasheelan informed us that now they are able to use Malayalam wikipedia without any issues. Later while we were planning for the 4th Malayalam wiki meetuphttp://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%82%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%82/4(2011 July 11) at Kannur, we decided to invite Satyasheelan to conduct a session, since Malayalam wikimedians liked to hear the experience of students of Blind school (using Malayalam wikipedia). But when Satyasheelan came for the meetup we were surprised and taken aback when we learnt that Satyasheelan is also a visually challenged person. Few of the his colleagues (who are also visually challenged) also attended the meetup. Satyasheelan was accompanied by his son, Nalin. The meetup was attended by more than 80 Malayalam wikipedians. Few photos are available herehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Malayalam_Wikimeetup_4_-_Kannur_11Jun2011. We are happy that Bishaka, Hisham, and Tory were kind enough to join us for this meetup. There were various programs conducted as part of this meetup (the report of the meetup is available at various locations (in Malayalam)). Definitely the highlight of the meetup was the demonstration by Satyasheelaman. So this mail is about that. Malayalam wikimedian Ajay Kuyiloor took extra efforts to record Satyasheelan's session. We are sharing an edited version of this session assuming that this information will help other Indic language wiki communities. The video of Satyasheelan's session is available here: * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr1T3HeBTvU* The duration of the video is around 9 minutes. We specially thank Ajay Kuyiloor, Girish Mohan, and Jithin who worked on this video. We admit the low quality of video since we were not prepared for such a session. Inconvenience due to this is deeply regretted. Malayalam community is welcoming your comments regarding this story so that the discussion regarding this will benefit rest of the Indic wiki communities also. We are actually humbled by the fact that work we do in wikipedia is reaching out to people from all wakes of life. *NOTE:* Satyasheelan specially thanked Malayalam wikimedians for creating a special navigational templatehttp://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AB%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B7%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%82%E0%B4%9A%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95_%28%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%97%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%82%29for reaching out easily to wikipedia articles. I still remember in 2008 when Malayalam wikipedia user:Sadhik Khalid http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Sadik_Khalidcreated this template, some of us had doubted the need of such a template. Our doubt was, why such a template is required when users can reach out to articles easily using serach box. Now to our surprise we understood this template is very much useful for the visually challenged people (whom we never thought about before). Video of Satyasheelan's session is available here:* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr1T3HeBTvU* Thanks Shiju Alex ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Visually challenged people and Indic language wikipedias - Video
The only word I said after reading this was WOW! I appreciate Mr. Satyasheelan's efforts. In Tamil Nadu also, few (very few) schools are using Tamil Wikipedia. (for usual children) Thank you Alex for sharing this story. :) *$U®¥∩* http://goo.gl/RoMyo.com http://FirefoxSurya.blogspot.com http://about.me/suryaceg 2011/8/22 Shiju Alex shijualexonl...@gmail.com Dear Wikimedians I would like share an unusual story (unusual - especially for Indic language wiki communities) that Malayalam wiki community had faced few months back. In the month of February 2011, I had received an SOS call from a school teacher (Satyasheelan) who is teaching at the Government School for the Blind in the Kasargod districhttp://www.webelmediatronics.in/brlads/directory_Kerala.htmt of Kerala. Satyasheelan was seeking Malayalam wikipedian's support to fix few issues that he and his students faced with few Malayalam alphabets when they read Malayalam wikipedia using a speech synthesizing software called eSpeak http://espeak.sourceforge.net/. His phone call was surprise to us since Malayalam wikimedians were not aware that visually challenged people are using Malayalam wikipedia. (We were aware about the existence of a software by Santhosh (named Dhawni http://dhvani.sourceforge.net/) to read unicode Malayalam (and other Indic languages also) which is in its early stages of development). So Satyasheelan's call was surprising. After his phone call few Malayalam wikipedians (Junaid, Thachan Makan, and I) contacted Jonathan Duddington http://sourceforge.net/users/jonsd, the primary developer (?) of eSpeak, and we worked with him to fix the issues for Malayalam that Satyasheelan had pointed out. Jonathan fixed the issues pretty fast and later Satyasheelan informed us that now they are able to use Malayalam wikipedia without any issues. Later while we were planning for the 4th Malayalam wiki meetuphttp://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%82%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%82/4(2011 July 11) at Kannur, we decided to invite Satyasheelan to conduct a session, since Malayalam wikimedians liked to hear the experience of students of Blind school (using Malayalam wikipedia). But when Satyasheelan came for the meetup we were surprised and taken aback when we learnt that Satyasheelan is also a visually challenged person. Few of the his colleagues (who are also visually challenged) also attended the meetup. Satyasheelan was accompanied by his son, Nalin. The meetup was attended by more than 80 Malayalam wikipedians. Few photos are available herehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Malayalam_Wikimeetup_4_-_Kannur_11Jun2011. We are happy that Bishaka, Hisham, and Tory were kind enough to join us for this meetup. There were various programs conducted as part of this meetup (the report of the meetup is available at various locations (in Malayalam)). Definitely the highlight of the meetup was the demonstration by Satyasheelaman. So this mail is about that. Malayalam wikimedian Ajay Kuyiloor took extra efforts to record Satyasheelan's session. We are sharing an edited version of this session assuming that this information will help other Indic language wiki communities. The video of Satyasheelan's session is available here: * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr1T3HeBTvU* The duration of the video is around 9 minutes. We specially thank Ajay Kuyiloor, Girish Mohan, and Jithin who worked on this video. We admit the low quality of video since we were not prepared for such a session. Inconvenience due to this is deeply regretted. Malayalam community is welcoming your comments regarding this story so that the discussion regarding this will benefit rest of the Indic wiki communities also. We are actually humbled by the fact that work we do in wikipedia is reaching out to people from all wakes of life. *NOTE:* Satyasheelan specially thanked Malayalam wikimedians for creating a special navigational templatehttp://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%AB%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%82:%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B7%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%82%E0%B4%9A%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95_%28%E0%B4%B8%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%97%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B0%E0%B4%82%29for reaching out easily to wikipedia articles. I still remember in 2008 when Malayalam wikipedia user:Sadhik Khalid http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Sadik_Khalidcreated this template, some of us had doubted the need of such a template. Our doubt was, why such a template is required when users can reach out to articles easily using serach box. Now to our surprise we understood this template is very much useful for
[Wikimediaindia-l] [Press] : DNA : Sahitya Parishad to add more Gujarati pages on Wikipedia
*DNA : Sahitya Parishad to add more Gujarati pages on Wikipedia* * http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_sahitya-parishad-to-add-more-gujarati-pages-on-wikipedia_1578522 * *Gujarati Sahitya Parishad is planning to add more Gujarati pages on Wikipedia. The 100-year-old institution will also correct facts related to Gujarati literature on the site. This was discussed at a discussion organised by the literary institution on the issue of Gujarati language, Wikipedia and internet on Sunday. Veteran Gujarati littérateurs like Ratilal Borisagar and Ramalal Soni discussed the authenticity of information posted on Wikipedia. * *Secretary of Gujarati Sahitya Parishad, Rajendra Patel said, “If we want to pass on a rich legacy of Gujarati language to next generation of Gujaratis, we must use the technology and medium of expression available. Of course, we should check the authenticity of the facts and information posted on the net. Gujarati Parishad is posting Gujarati literature on Wikipedia and as an institution, we would like to check the information available on the site.”* * * *Dhaval Vyas, a UK-based member of Gujarati Wikipedia, who works in a multinational bank, said, “It is the characteristic of Wikipedia that anybody can add, edit or remove information. Of course, there will be people who may distort the content.”* * * *He further said, “The issue of authenticity of the content put on Wikipedia can be taken care of if more and more people start uploading information and verify the content.”* * * *Vyas also argued that while there are millions of pages in English, there are only 21,000 pages in Gujarati available on Gujarati Wikipedia. He also talked about Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wikitionary and stressed for creating more information pages on Wiki.* Regards Tinu Cherian http://wiki.wikimedia.in/In_the_news#Aug_2011 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
