[Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Update: Draft India Plan (WIP)
Dear All One of the first tasks that I've been working on as part of India Programs is to prepare a preliminary plan for India. The first (incomplete, and still work-in-progress) draft is up on meta athttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_programs As you'll notice, I've provided some context, outlined objectives and purpose and wrote out the top 3 initiatives. I've also left placeholders for some additional sections that I'm working on. I'm hoping to have more stuff on it in another day or two. I'm sharing this because it will be wonderful to get your opinions and ideas, and also to give you a sense of how the plan's being evolving.. Please feel free to comment on what's in the plan, but also elements that you think should be in the plan but are not.. Kind Regards, -- /hisham/ *India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation* skype : hisham.wikimedia google talk: hmun...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Next meetup of Pune Wikipedians - 12 March 2011
Hi Ashwin This agenda sounds great and I'm sure the meetup will be very productive. I'm sorry I won't be able to attend, but do let me know if any particular ideas/initiatives emerge for which you require support from India Programs All the Best! / hisham/ *India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation* skype : hisham.wikimedia google talk: hmun...@wikimedia.org On 3/8/2011 4:26 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: The next meetup of Pune wikipedians, WikiPuneri, is planned for Saturday 12 Mar 2011, from 1830 to 1930 hrs at Symbiosis Institue of Computer Science and Research, Atur Centre, Model Colony (near Om Supermarket), 7th Floor, Room Room No 704. The intended purpose of the meetup is: to set up a long-term plan for a year's worth of activities, with detailed planning for photo outreach activities for Wikimedia Commons. The detailed planning for each project will be done, one project at a time. The next project for which planning will be done, Marathi Wikipedia, will be discussed in detail in the April 2011 (Pune 12) meetup. Please sign up here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Pune/Pune11#Participants This is a very interesting and important meet so be sure to be present to push your ideas about what you would like to do! Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Update: Draft India Plan (WIP)
One of the biggest constraints on existing outreach efforts is the availability of volunteer time. It is therefore imperative *that every mine invested* by the community in outreach has the maximum possible impact Sounds like a terrorist plot! :) warm regards, Pradeep Mohandas On 10 March 2011 20:08, hisham mundol hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: Dear All One of the first tasks that I've been working on as part of India Programs is to prepare a preliminary plan for India. The first (incomplete, and still work-in-progress) draft is up on meta athttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_programs As you'll notice, I've provided some context, outlined objectives and purpose and wrote out the top 3 initiatives. I've also left placeholders for some additional sections that I'm working on. I'm hoping to have more stuff on it in another day or two. I'm sharing this because it will be wonderful to get your opinions and ideas, and also to give you a sense of how the plan's being evolving.. Please feel free to comment on what's in the plan, but also elements that you think should be in the plan but are not.. Kind Regards, -- *hisham* *India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation* skype : hisham.wikimedia google talk: hmun...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Choosing topics for Wikipedia for Schools (Offline Ed) - Indian version : #1 Cities
Note: By 'we' I am referring to the persons actively and voluntarily taking part in this project, not the naysayers. As of now only Ashlin seems to have done any effort at all - hence all the others who have raised some concern or the other while loosely but visibly alleging that wikipedia contains pornography and titillating material (and completely ignoring the fact that our mainstream media is 10 times more objectionable in content than the unfiltered wikipedia will ever be) and who predict the end of Indian civilization if underprivileged children (who are blasted with Sheila ki Jawani et al on a daily basis anyways if anybody actually cared to check ground reality) are allowed to see it while all this time not giving any real, actionable solutions to the problems they raise - I would rather give them a complete and total miss until I see the page histories actually showing up their contributions. But that's just my opinion. Hi Nikhil, I register my strong objection for this. There are various concerns even if the content is children friendly: 1. The content should be free of typos, factual errors. If a school teacher browses through random content and finds that the content is full of errors, not much useful then he may not circulate the CD to students. Once people get a bad opinion of Wiki, it will take lot of effort to get rid of that. If the teachers do not take note of these and circulate it is still worse as students get wrong info. Since there is a tendency for uninformed readers to believe whatever they see in print, we have a responsibility here. I understand you are not distributing / preparing DVDs for sake of school children. Nevertheless, why can't we make sure to distribute high quality verified content to whoever it is? 2. Articles need to be vandalism free. Any random zim backup you distribute may have vandal edits in at least few instances. Imagine what will be the reaction of media, academia and Government departments if a state leader's page is distributed with vandal edits. 3. Content with copyright concerns. No explanation needed. 4. Sensitive content: This matters if you intend to distribute to school children. This need not be just porn but even an article on prohibited rebel groups can bring the wrath of local government and ban Wikipedia completely in schools. This is not an impossible case. For example: Articles relating to civil war in Srilanka can be scanned by the Local government. I am not saying that we should censor content to please the government but giving whole dump can be really risky. Whatever content we distribute we need to be aware of the side effects and be prepared for it. Suppose, some one unrelated to Tamil Wikipedia provides such a dump and gets Tamil Wikipedia banned who is responsible then? The people who raise objection do a lot of groundwork in some Wikis and that is the primary reason why they object as they don't want their efforts to go waste. I understand your good intention to distribute DVDs but ultimately it should not hurt the local Wikipedia community's efforts. Please do not continue to see this as a personal / porn issue and do try your best to work together with respective Wiki communities before you proceed with such efforts. Thanks, Ravi ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Mobile Interface in Angika Completed
Hi ! I am pleased to inform you that the translation of all the message texts of Wikimedia Mobile Interface in Angika language has been Completed. -- Best Regards. Kundan Amitabh Managing Director, Ang India Technologies, www.angindia.org CH-2/52, Kendriya Vihar, Sector-11, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, Mumbai-410210, INDIA == 976888 / 9869478444 == Let's Keep Our World Green for Our Children's Future! Please don't print this email unless it's really necessary ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Choosing topics for Wikipedia for Schools (Offline Ed) - Indian version : #1 Cities
On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nikhil, I register my strong objection for this. There are various concerns even if the content is children friendly: 1. The content should be free of typos, factual errors. If a school teacher browses through random content and finds that the content is full of errors, not much useful then he may not circulate the CD to students. Once people get a bad opinion of Wiki, it will take lot of effort to get rid of that. If the teachers do not take note of these and circulate it is still worse as students get wrong info. Since there is a tendency for uninformed readers to believe whatever they see in print, we have a responsibility here. I understand you are not distributing / preparing DVDs for sake of school children. Nevertheless, why can't we make sure to distribute high quality verified content to whoever it is? My approach is different. we are teaching the teachers how to type in their language, and telling them how they can create wikipages. We have told them that the wikipedia is not a completed project and needs their help. The teachers and students are not mere consumers of the knowledge wikimedians and experts create. They can detect edit, and correct mistakes on their own. During the the process they will learn as well as become fellow wikimedians. We are teaching them how to correct as well. If we are only distributing the content without making them aware of the background of the content, I agree with you, we need to be careful. Neither free software nor wikipedia succeeded without frequent releases. Both the children and teachers can understand their roles and help themselves. We can convince the administrators about this process as well. However, if we know that the current school zim files contain some pages with vandalism then we can remove them. But, we can also let the teachers and students detect the vandalism as well since our job will never end. 2. Articles need to be vandalism free. Any random zim backup you distribute may have vandal edits in at least few instances. Imagine what will be the reaction of media, academia and Government departments if a state leader's page is distributed with vandal edits. When the teachers detect the mistake, they could edit the main wikipedia themselves. It is time we tell them that education is not mere consumption of correct or perfect knowledge, but to participate in eternal perfection. Correction opportunity gives a fantastic opportunity for the teachers as well as students to understand how society works. When they are connected they access the pages from full dumps. When we give them offline version we need to tell them that the information is not guaranteed to be accurate. -- GN ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Programs Update: Draft India Plan (WIP)
a) I must not blindly rely on spell check b) I must not blindly rely on spell check c) I must not bindly rely on spell check... ...just as a matter of abundant clarification, i was referring to the minutes invested by the community, and not any weapons of violence. :-) // /hisham/ *India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation* skype : hisham.wikimedia google talk: hmun...@wikimedia.org On 3/10/2011 9:19 PM, Pradeep Mohandas wrote: One of the biggest constraints on existing outreach efforts is the availability of volunteer time. It is therefore imperative *that every mine invested* by the community in outreach has the maximum possible impact Sounds like a terrorist plot! :) warm regards, Pradeep Mohandas On 10 March 2011 20:08, hisham mundol hmun...@wikimedia.org mailto:hmun...@wikimedia.org wrote: Dear All One of the first tasks that I've been working on as part of India Programs is to prepare a preliminary plan for India. The first (incomplete, and still work-in-progress) draft is up on meta athttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_programs As you'll notice, I've provided some context, outlined objectives and purpose and wrote out the top 3 initiatives. I've also left placeholders for some additional sections that I'm working on. I'm hoping to have more stuff on it in another day or two. I'm sharing this because it will be wonderful to get your opinions and ideas, and also to give you a sense of how the plan's being evolving.. Please feel free to comment on what's in the plan, but also elements that you think should be in the plan but are not.. Kind Regards, -- /hisham/ *India Programs - Wikimedia Foundation* skype : hisham.wikimedia google talk: hmun...@wikimedia.org mailto:hmun...@wikimedia.org ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] more clarification on WFSOE
Hi GN, Thanks for elaborating. I'd wanted to convey that sense of potential. One clarification that it seems is not getting through to our concerned friends : There is no ANY material being distributed. Neither are the full Indian language versions being shown or given to anyone under 18 years of age. At least not on my end and if you do find anyone doing that then please pass their contact and I'll explain them why they should not. As I've explained earlier, Shiju made an error (like, whoa!) in misreading an innocent email and assuming completely wrong things, and so inadvertently caused anxiety among the community when there was no ground reality in the concerns raised. I hope it's fair to ask for sensibility, and honestly I'd apologize if I was the one who made the error seeing the damage that loose words can cause. It is a proper package called wikipedia for schools created by a reputed non-profit (SOS Childrens' Villages) that spent 2 years in collaboration with wikimedia foundation making a collection of articles that may be useful for school children. I have so far not found any genuine reason to not trust these organizations, nor have come across anything remotely qualifying as objectionable. If anything, it is lacking due to obvious resource problems of the time. It's a great effort and should be appreciated. Anybody who wants to know what the Wikipedia for Schools collection contains in present form, can kindly go to http://schools-wikipedia.org/ . Please let us all know, with full details, if you found anything wrong in it. I will pass that information on to any teachers I've given the package to and hope others do the same (has anybody else done anything yet? I didn't inform this group just for kicks). Still, I do have a litte faith in their own intelligence and discerning powers also, I would not be a wikipedian if I didn't. For the things that are missing in it, Ashlin has started work on and I urge you to show your enthusiasm and positivity by joining that effort. Anyways, for something that is essentially FREE, if there is something really bad about it, a FREE thing can easily be THROWN away. That's a no-brainer. But irrational fear of a threat that emerged from a gross misunderstanding is something I for one cannot live with. I'd appreciate it if this community does not commit the mistake of negative speculation without proper data to back any serious statement up. After all, if we are wikipedians we ought to have some standards in our discussion group as well. My apologies if I was rude earlier, but you have to admit - there was such a chasm between fact and assumption, it's but natural to feel exasperated. PS: It is not a CD. 2.8 gigabytes cannot fit on a 700megabyte CD. All who are reading this, please stop calling it CD forthwith or you might make people waste their money buying blank CDs and then they'll blame you for it. It can come on DVD or USB devices or others of larger sizes. Kindly refrain from using inaccurate terms, it indicates that the writer in question really doesn't know what he/she is expressing concerns about and takes away the credibility. Cheers Nikhil On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 11:05 PM, Nagarjuna G nagar...@gnowgi.org wrote: On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 10:07 PM, Ravishankar ravidre...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Nikhil, I register my strong objection for this. There are various concerns even if the content is children friendly: 1. The content should be free of typos, factual errors. If a school teacher browses through random content and finds that the content is full of errors, not much useful then he may not circulate the CD to students. Once people get a bad opinion of Wiki, it will take lot of effort to get rid of that. If the teachers do not take note of these and circulate it is still worse as students get wrong info. Since there is a tendency for uninformed readers to believe whatever they see in print, we have a responsibility here. I understand you are not distributing / preparing DVDs for sake of school children. Nevertheless, why can't we make sure to distribute high quality verified content to whoever it is? My approach is different. we are teaching the teachers how to type in their language, and telling them how they can create wikipages. We have told them that the wikipedia is not a completed project and needs their help. The teachers and students are not mere consumers of the knowledge wikimedians and experts create. They can detect edit, and correct mistakes on their own. During the the process they will learn as well as become fellow wikimedians. We are teaching them how to correct as well. If we are only distributing the content without making them aware of the background of the content, I agree with you, we need to be careful. Neither free software nor wikipedia succeeded without frequent releases. Both the children and teachers can understand their roles and help themselves. We can convince the
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Government plans to regulate blogs and user generated content.
I view any attempts at this kind of action by government in the name of regulation as an attack on democracy and vote to fight it. Let us not assume the Government is free from defects - far from it, in recent times they seem to be the ones riddled with the most. I would advise that the community take an absolutely clear stand that they oppose it in this matter. I do not think this matter is something where neutrality is an option - it would be akin to being neutral about pollution. Let us remember that regulation in the name of patriotism / nanny-like defending of the population is exactly what successive repressive regimes in human history started out with. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Let us not make the fatal mistake of blindly trusting any authority or assuming any hubris that India is not susceptible to falling to tyranny. And it's not like we'd be alone in taking a stand against government policy - we will have the company of each and every human rights organization and NGO and the press and every concerned netizen in the country, not to mention all of the same from all around the world. There really is nothing to fear here but fear itself. Wikipedia's existence in itself is a proof that it pays to not give in to any authority. It has actually helped bring about social change at many places, please watch this TED Talk for the corelation: http://www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution.html Cheers, Nikhil Sheth +91-966-583-1250 Pune, India Teach For India http://www.teachforindia.org/ Fellow, 2011-13 www.nikhilsheth.tk Find me on: Twitter http://twitter.com/nikhiljs | Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/nikjs| LinkedIn http://in.linkedin.com/in/nikhiljs | Google http://www.google.com/profiles/nikhil.js| RangDehttp://www.rangde.org/investor/nikhilsheth Join me on: Pune Documentary Clubhttp://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=138497769525636| Let's Do it Pune http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-do-it-Pune/103857326346659 | Toastmasters in Punehttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Toastmasters-in-Pune/148767611833746| Wikipedia For Schools projecthttp://education.wikia.com/wiki/Wikipedia_For_Schools_Offline_Edition On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Gautam John gau...@prathambooks.orgwrote: A few additional data points: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/bloggers-call-content-regulation-a-gag-on-freedom/articleshow/7659593.cms And CIS's RTI on the ban last week: http://www.cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/rtis-on-website-blocking A question: Should/could we as a community have an opinion on this? Thank you. Best, Gautam http://social.prathambooks.org/ ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Government plans to regulate blogs and user generated content.
Thank you, Nikhil. Maybe we could all individually send our comments? Sadly, the date is past but no harm done trying. http://www.mit.gov.in/content/cyber-laws Best, Gautam http://social.prathambooks.org/ On 11 March 2011 07:50, Nikhil Sheth nikhil...@gmail.com wrote: I view any attempts at this kind of action by government in the name of regulation as an attack on democracy and vote to fight it. Let us not assume the Government is free from defects - far from it, in recent times they seem to be the ones riddled with the most. I would advise that the community take an absolutely clear stand that they oppose it in this matter. I do not think this matter is something where neutrality is an option - it would be akin to being neutral about pollution. Let us remember that regulation in the name of patriotism / nanny-like defending of the population is exactly what successive repressive regimes in human history started out with. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Let us not make the fatal mistake of blindly trusting any authority or assuming any hubris that India is not susceptible to falling to tyranny. And it's not like we'd be alone in taking a stand against government policy - we will have the company of each and every human rights organization and NGO and the press and every concerned netizen in the country, not to mention all of the same from all around the world. There really is nothing to fear here but fear itself. Wikipedia's existence in itself is a proof that it pays to not give in to any authority. It has actually helped bring about social change at many places, please watch this TED Talk for the corelation: http://www.ted.com/talks/wael_ghonim_inside_the_egyptian_revolution.html Cheers, Nikhil Sheth +91-966-583-1250 Pune, India Teach For India Fellow, 2011-13 www.nikhilsheth.tk Find me on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Google | RangDe Join me on: Pune Documentary Club | Let's Do it Pune | Toastmasters in Pune | Wikipedia For Schools project On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Gautam John gau...@prathambooks.org wrote: A few additional data points: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/bloggers-call-content-regulation-a-gag-on-freedom/articleshow/7659593.cms And CIS's RTI on the ban last week: http://www.cis-india.org/advocacy/igov/blog/rtis-on-website-blocking A question: Should/could we as a community have an opinion on this? Thank you. Best, Gautam http://social.prathambooks.org/ ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Do you donate to Wikipedia/ Wikimedia?
Hi, I am working with a journo on a news article related to Wikimedia Fundraising and donations from India. Hope at least some of you already know that India in the top 6 donor countries to the Wikimedia Foundation. ( https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=tdr42GK_QfdjmijxzyjNnZwauthkey=CKb59_wD#gid=0 [1]). 10,488 contributions and $193,657.88 . These are approximate figures based on stats available. Still it is great news. The reporter would like to talk to individuals to understand why they donate to Wikimedia/ Wikipedia. So if you have donated to Wikimedia ( however small or big ) and if you filling to be contacted/quoted by the press, please contact me *offlist* asap. Both regular editors and users are equally welcome. Remember to send your contact info ( Name, Mobile, Email , Place, Editor/User) to me personally and not to this mailing list. Please note that list mails are publicly archived for ever. Thanks Tinu Cherian [1] This is a publicly available data, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tracking_Progress_for_2011_chapters_fundraiser_and_reporting ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
