Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Women's Wiki Workshop report

[gokul das]

Dear Bishakha,

  I agree with you on the mix of online and offline
methods to realize Wiki mission.Bu the problem is the velocity with which
the goal can be achieved and the resources and the cost. The simile
that comes to the mind is "the difference in sending 1000 invitations
through e-mail and achieving the same
through the post office."

  Yes, India is a poor country and to reach the target
only through "on line methods" is beyond
reality in the next 20 years. All my support goes with your offline
methods,but my concern is that route shall
further widen the digital divide. But as long as the action is alive it is
okay for a country of our magnitude
and problems.

   I hesitate to advocate---but my thinking is--we the
Wikians may have a different movement to
bulldoze the Govt of India to spend 5% of GDP on IT infrastructure alone for
the next 10 years for the upliftment of the country.When one Anna Hazare can
achieve so much in 5 days, a parallel movement is
believably possible. Am I dreaming too much?

  Hi Wikians "All the best"
Gokuldas

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Bishakha Datta wrote:

> Dear Gokul,
>
> As I understand it, we need to use a mix of online and offline methods to
> realize our mission: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can
> freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."
>
> Given this, I don't see why the spread of this knowledge through CDs and
> PediaPress books would be against the wiki movement - am not suggesting
> replacing the use of wikis or online methods, but adding to or supplementing
> these through CDs/books/offline methods etc.
>
> "Investing in offline products to broaden the movement's reach to
> populations who will remain disconnected from the Internet" is one of the
> planks of the strategic plan [2] currently being implemented. This is
> already happening in some projects, including Wikipedia for Schools.
>
> Cheers
> Bishakha
>
> [1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
> [2]
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:44 AM, gokul das wrote:
>
>> Dear Bishakha,
>>
>>Are you not defeating the fundamentals of Wiki
>> movement by your view point:Quote"There were questions about how to take
>> this knowledge to colleges in the state without access to the internet or to
>> computers."Defend.
>>
>> Gokul
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, jayanta nath wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Apologies for this big delay in reporting - between work, travel and the
>>> rest of my life, I've been in a spin.
>>>
>>> As previously announced on this list, Sanhita, a gender resource centre
>>> in Kolkata had offered to host a half-day session on 'Gender, Information
>>> and Technology' to explore, understand and plan how women's studies
>>> departments in Kolkata's colleges might create content related to
>>> 'gender/women's studies/women' on Bengali wikipedia, for use by colleges
>>> across West Bengal (and of course, by anyone else).
>>>
>>> The workshop was held on 18 March at the Seagull Media Resource 
>>> Centrewhere the Kolkata 
>>> wiki10 celebrations had been held in January - Sanhita
>>> took on the venue rental and snack costs. Sanhita currently works with 18
>>> women's colleges in Kolkata and West Bengal: it creates and distributing
>>> information resources in Bengali on women/gender. It would like to
>>> collaborate with a technological platform such as Bengali wikipedia to
>>> further its goal.
>>>
>>> Biswarup Ganguly, Jayanta Nath, Arnab Dutta and Rimi Chatterjee were the
>>> wikipedians from Kolkata who led this workshop, along with Soma Sengupta of
>>> Sanhita. I was invited along to bridge the gap between gender studies and
>>> wikipedia. The entire workshop was conducted in Bengali; there were 30
>>> participants - 28 women and 2 men, quite the gender reverse of other
>>> workshops I've attended. Please see the 
>>> photosthat 
>>> Biswarup took to get a visual sense of this.
>>>
>>>
>>> Each of the 30 participants used English wikipedia - only 1 knew of
>>> Bengali wikipedia; none used it. All the participating teachers are not
>>> necessarily intending to edit wikipedia themselves in Bengali, but are
>>> 'gatekeepers' to students. So they were more interested in a conceptual
>>> understanding of wikipedia during this preliminary planning session, than a
>>> hands-on editing demo.
>>>
>>> Given the academic nature of participants, the first question was about
>>> the authenticity of articles. How is this established? Along with talking
>>> about the need for references and citations and the no original
>>> research/verifiability principles, two examples [1} [2] were shown. The talk
>>> page on Babri Masjid [1] was also used

Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Women's Wiki Workshop report

[Jessie Wild]

Thanks for the update on the event, Bishakha: I think women and 
communities around the world can learn from this example. I also think 
we should seriously consider how we can keep this concentrated focus on 
women's studies in universities while developing the campus ambassador 
program in India [0].


One note on the offline access to information: for more explanation of 
the strategic fit of offline work in the Wikimedia movement, I would 
point anyone interest to both the strategy page for 
background/statistics [1] as well as the meta page which explains more 
the current work/tools [2].  The general overview as recorded here:


/The goal of the Wikimedia movement at large is to make knowledge freely 
available to all of humanity; currently, however, the content knowledge 
available via the Wikimedia projects is mostly confined to those who 
have access to a broadband Internet connection -- or less than 5% of the 
developing world. It is critical for the reach of the movement to 
proactively consider ways to make the information available to the 
offline majority of the global population. In order to achieve the 
greatest scale of impact possible, Wikimedia must intentionally focus on 
the largest demographic segment of the world in order to address the 
steadily increasing "digital divide 
." The offline work is 
geared to expand the reach of the collective knowledge and broaden 
participation in the project. /


Best -
Jessie

[0] 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Campus_Program

[1] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects
On 4/13/2011 5:41 AM, Bishakha Datta wrote:

Dear Gokul,

As I understand it, we need to use a mix of online and offline methods 
to realize our mission: "Imagine a world in which every single human 
being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our 
commitment."


Given this, I don't see why the spread of this knowledge through CDs 
and PediaPress books would be against the wiki movement - am not 
suggesting replacing the use of wikis or online methods, but adding to 
or supplementing these through CDs/books/offline methods etc.


"Investing in offline products to broaden the movement's reach to 
populations who will remain disconnected from the Internet" is one of 
the planks of the strategic plan [2] currently being implemented. This 
is already happening in some projects, including Wikipedia for Schools.


Cheers
Bishakha

[1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
[2]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf 




On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:44 AM, gokul das > wrote:


Dear Bishakha,

   Are you not defeating the fundamentals of
Wiki movement by your view point:Quote"There were questions about
how to take this knowledge to colleges in the state without access
to the internet or to computers."Defend.

Gokul

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, jayanta nath
mailto:jayanta...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Dear all,

Apologies for this big delay in reporting - between work,
travel and the rest of my life, I've been in a spin.

As previously announced on this list, Sanhita, a gender
resource centre in Kolkata had offered to host a half-day
session on 'Gender, Information and Technology' to explore,
understand and plan how women's studies departments in
Kolkata's colleges might create content related to
'gender/women's studies/women' on Bengali wikipedia, for use
by colleges across West Bengal (and of course, by anyone else).

The workshop was held on 18 March at the Seagull Media
Resource Centre
 where the
Kolkata wiki10 celebrations had been held in January - Sanhita
took on the venue rental and snack costs. Sanhita currently
works with 18 women's colleges in Kolkata and West Bengal: it
creates and distributing information resources in Bengali on
women/gender. It would like to collaborate with a
technological platform such as Bengali wikipedia to further
its goal.

Biswarup Ganguly, Jayanta Nath, Arnab Dutta and Rimi
Chatterjee were the wikipedians from Kolkata who led this
workshop, along with Soma Sengupta of Sanhita. I was invited
along to bridge the gap between gender studies and wikipedia.
The entire workshop was conducted in Bengali; there were 30
participants - 28 women and 2 men, quite the gender reverse of
other workshops I've attended. Please see the photos

that Biswarup took to get a visual sense of this.


Each of the 30 participants used English wikipedia - on

Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Women's Wiki Workshop report

[Bishakha Datta]

Dear Gokul,

As I understand it, we need to use a mix of online and offline methods to
realize our mission: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can
freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."

Given this, I don't see why the spread of this knowledge through CDs and
PediaPress books would be against the wiki movement - am not suggesting
replacing the use of wikis or online methods, but adding to or supplementing
these through CDs/books/offline methods etc.

"Investing in offline products to broaden the movement's reach to
populations who will remain disconnected from the Internet" is one of the
planks of the strategic plan [2] currently being implemented. This is
already happening in some projects, including Wikipedia for Schools.

Cheers
Bishakha

[1]http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home
[2]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf


On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:44 AM, gokul das  wrote:

> Dear Bishakha,
>
>Are you not defeating the fundamentals of Wiki
> movement by your view point:Quote"There were questions about how to take
> this knowledge to colleges in the state without access to the internet or to
> computers."Defend.
>
> Gokul
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, jayanta nath wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Apologies for this big delay in reporting - between work, travel and the
>> rest of my life, I've been in a spin.
>>
>> As previously announced on this list, Sanhita, a gender resource centre in
>> Kolkata had offered to host a half-day session on 'Gender, Information and
>> Technology' to explore, understand and plan how women's studies departments
>> in Kolkata's colleges might create content related to 'gender/women's
>> studies/women' on Bengali wikipedia, for use by colleges across West Bengal
>> (and of course, by anyone else).
>>
>> The workshop was held on 18 March at the Seagull Media Resource 
>> Centrewhere the Kolkata 
>> wiki10 celebrations had been held in January - Sanhita
>> took on the venue rental and snack costs. Sanhita currently works with 18
>> women's colleges in Kolkata and West Bengal: it creates and distributing
>> information resources in Bengali on women/gender. It would like to
>> collaborate with a technological platform such as Bengali wikipedia to
>> further its goal.
>>
>> Biswarup Ganguly, Jayanta Nath, Arnab Dutta and Rimi Chatterjee were the
>> wikipedians from Kolkata who led this workshop, along with Soma Sengupta of
>> Sanhita. I was invited along to bridge the gap between gender studies and
>> wikipedia. The entire workshop was conducted in Bengali; there were 30
>> participants - 28 women and 2 men, quite the gender reverse of other
>> workshops I've attended. Please see the 
>> photosthat 
>> Biswarup took to get a visual sense of this.
>>
>>
>> Each of the 30 participants used English wikipedia - only 1 knew of
>> Bengali wikipedia; none used it. All the participating teachers are not
>> necessarily intending to edit wikipedia themselves in Bengali, but are
>> 'gatekeepers' to students. So they were more interested in a conceptual
>> understanding of wikipedia during this preliminary planning session, than a
>> hands-on editing demo.
>>
>> Given the academic nature of participants, the first question was about
>> the authenticity of articles. How is this established? Along with talking
>> about the need for references and citations and the no original
>> research/verifiability principles, two examples [1} [2] were shown. The talk
>> page on Babri Masjid [1] was also used to demonstrate one aspect of the
>> editing process - how authenticity is constantly challenged and
>> renegotiated. The page on Begum Rokeya [2] attracted considerable interest,
>> since she was a pioneering figure in undivided Bengal to whom this group
>> could relate. The lack of citations about her was brought up, and the oral
>> citations project [3] was cited.
>>
>> In a similar vein, the following pages were also discussed in detail:
>> Feminism portal [4], Gender Studies category [5] and Gender Studies project
>> page [6] - to see if something similar could be launched in Bengali
>> wikipedia with those present and others who had expressed interest via
>> email.
>>
>> Since some of those present saw themselves as advocates, we clarified that
>> wikipedia is not an advocacy platform, it is a knowledge platform - and
>> discussed NPOV etc in this context.
>>
>> There were questions about how to take this knowledge to colleges in the
>> state without access to the internet or to computers. We discussed the
>> creation of offline CDs and PediaPress books, using online content.
>>
>> All in all, there was great excitement around the prospect of
>> collaboratively creating gender-related content on Bengali wikipedia - Arnab
>> and Jayanta demonstrated this. Rimi spoke abo

Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Women's Wiki Workshop report

[gokul das]

Dear Bishakha,

   Are you not defeating the fundamentals of Wiki
movement by your view point:Quote"There were questions about how to take
this knowledge to colleges in the state without access to the internet or to
computers."Defend.

Gokul

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, jayanta nath  wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Apologies for this big delay in reporting - between work, travel and the
> rest of my life, I've been in a spin.
>
> As previously announced on this list, Sanhita, a gender resource centre in
> Kolkata had offered to host a half-day session on 'Gender, Information and
> Technology' to explore, understand and plan how women's studies departments
> in Kolkata's colleges might create content related to 'gender/women's
> studies/women' on Bengali wikipedia, for use by colleges across West Bengal
> (and of course, by anyone else).
>
> The workshop was held on 18 March at the Seagull Media Resource 
> Centrewhere the Kolkata 
> wiki10 celebrations had been held in January - Sanhita
> took on the venue rental and snack costs. Sanhita currently works with 18
> women's colleges in Kolkata and West Bengal: it creates and distributing
> information resources in Bengali on women/gender. It would like to
> collaborate with a technological platform such as Bengali wikipedia to
> further its goal.
>
> Biswarup Ganguly, Jayanta Nath, Arnab Dutta and Rimi Chatterjee were the
> wikipedians from Kolkata who led this workshop, along with Soma Sengupta of
> Sanhita. I was invited along to bridge the gap between gender studies and
> wikipedia. The entire workshop was conducted in Bengali; there were 30
> participants - 28 women and 2 men, quite the gender reverse of other
> workshops I've attended. Please see the 
> photosthat 
> Biswarup took to get a visual sense of this.
>
> Each of the 30 participants used English wikipedia - only 1 knew of Bengali
> wikipedia; none used it. All the participating teachers are not necessarily
> intending to edit wikipedia themselves in Bengali, but are 'gatekeepers' to
> students. So they were more interested in a conceptual understanding of
> wikipedia during this preliminary planning session, than a hands-on editing
> demo.
>
> Given the academic nature of participants, the first question was about the
> authenticity of articles. How is this established? Along with talking about
> the need for references and citations and the no original
> research/verifiability principles, two examples [1} [2] were shown. The talk
> page on Babri Masjid [1] was also used to demonstrate one aspect of the
> editing process - how authenticity is constantly challenged and
> renegotiated. The page on Begum Rokeya [2] attracted considerable interest,
> since she was a pioneering figure in undivided Bengal to whom this group
> could relate. The lack of citations about her was brought up, and the oral
> citations project [3] was cited.
>
> In a similar vein, the following pages were also discussed in detail:
> Feminism portal [4], Gender Studies category [5] and Gender Studies project
> page [6] - to see if something similar could be launched in Bengali
> wikipedia with those present and others who had expressed interest via
> email.
>
> Since some of those present saw themselves as advocates, we clarified that
> wikipedia is not an advocacy platform, it is a knowledge platform - and
> discussed NPOV etc in this context.
>
> There were questions about how to take this knowledge to colleges in the
> state without access to the internet or to computers. We discussed the
> creation of offline CDs and PediaPress books, using online content.
>
> All in all, there was great excitement around the prospect of
> collaboratively creating gender-related content on Bengali wikipedia - Arnab
> and Jayanta demonstrated this. Rimi spoke about how she uses wikipedia with
> her students, while Biswarup did a quick demo of Commons.
>
> All of us felt "a positive energy" (to quote Rimi), specially about the
> "practical concrete questions about next steps" (Jayanta). One disability
> rights activist from an NGO called Sruti had suggestions for improving said
> page in Bengali wikipedia - and
> Sanhita confirmed that several participants emailed back the next day with
> good feedback.
>
> Hopefully, with this optimistic start, this will now go places - and
> contribute not just to Bengali wikipedia, but also to reducing the overall
> gender gap. A special thanks to Jayanta, Arnab, Biswarup, Rimi, and Soma for
> excellent coordination, planning, camaraderie and teamwork to make this
> workshop a grand success.
>
> Cheers
> Bishakha
>
> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_masjid
> [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Rokeya
> [3] http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/12/new-wikimedia-fellow/
> [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Feminism
> [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gender