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 <gokuldas.1...@gmail.com> 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 <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<http://www.seagullindia.com/samrc/facilities.html>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<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kolkata_Mar2011>that >> 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_studies >> [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Gender_Studies >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > >
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