We have had a lot of responses and recriminations on this issue. In the light of all that has happened, please let us stop our grousing. Hisham has opened a new thread, and accepted full responsibility. That is the end of the blame-game as far as anybody is concerned. All of us are inviolved and all of us are both innocent and blameworthy, including and especially me. I know I should have done more.
Let us bring this thread to a close. Let all posts now be in response to his new thread only and couched in positive terms and offering useful suggestions or fresh input. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur ------------------------------------------------------ On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 11:39 AM, Ram Shankar Yadav < ramshankarya...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Bala, > > *"Oh yeah. Do everything wrong and then blame the OA. Hisham, Nitika and > apparently you are clueless what an OAs role is. I had no clue the OA role > involved going through every edit and do the student's work. IEPs mails > did not specify that the expectation about OA role was doing the student's > homework. If you had made this clear, i would have never signed up."* > > - We are not putting blame on anyone. If Hisham and Nitika were clueless > why didn't to step-up and asked them about the expectations. One more thing > when you are starting something new don't expect people will start reaching > you from the Day1, we need to build a relationship and get their faith that > "we are here to help you, and it's going to be great learning experience". > Tell me how many times did you reached out to students, even if you did and > they didn't responded don't loose the faith, they are new to this > environment just help them to take baby steps. > > *It imagined them to be janitors who would cleanup after the students. > (Dont believe me?, ask the other Indian guy who was an OA in both programs > - MikeLynch).* > - First of all I didn't like the way you put this statement, if helping > someone by teaching them the right way is some kind of low grade job for > you, then I can surely say you are a misfit here! Just imagine you are > trying teach a kid to write, they will definitely mess it up by drawing > mangoes and bananas, and when you clear the slate you don't call it > janatorship, coz you know what you are doing, and having faith that the kid > will learn by doing mistakes eventually. > > *Another wrong fact. An Indian admin called spacemanspiff who tried to > point Hisham and group in the right direction in early september when > things started to go wrong (it was in the talk page of Moonriddengirl, > where fluffernutter went to help with copyvios). He even designed a helpful > Q&A page which Hisham did not use. Disgusted with the IEP attitude, Spiff > quit trying to help. The whole issue could have been stopped right then and > there if the warnings of multiple editors and admins had been heeded.* > > - Accept my apologies for not able to recall few Indian Admins who tired > to help us, but if you see the big picture, the whole scene was dominated > by editors from abroad. We needed your help and support when these folks > were pointing fingers on Indian Education System. One more thing, after the > first few instances of copyvios we reached out in person and took 35+ > sessions in various classes but even after putting that effort few of them > kept doing the copy-paste for last minute submissions. > > *And why exactly do you need "Indian" community to help?. The newbie > editors were getting plenty of help from the global community.* > *- *By "Indian" community I mean people like you and me and others you > are either reading or replying this thread, guys we surely needed your > support at the forefront. > > > We never denied the fact that we have failed in certain areas but that > doesn't mean that overall program is a failure or dead. > > We believe in learning from our mistakes and happy to do new ones to learn > better. > > Cheers, > Ram > > > > On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:27 PM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabot...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> >>*we never got the support which was required from an OA. Honestly >> speaking there was no interaction between OAs and CAs and without >> that coordination chances of success are quite low. * >> *My only point here is to all the OAs in this discussion is that if >> Hisham/Nitika has not set the expectations right, why didn't you approached >> them, then and there! Anybody can come and comment on this failure story >> but even you were a part of this sinking ship.* >> >> Oh yeah. Do everything wrong and then blame the OA. Hisham, Nitika and >> apparently you are clueless what an OAs role is. I had no clue the OA role >> involved going through every edit and do the student's work. IEPs mails >> did not specify that the expectation about OA role was doing the student's >> homework. If you had made this clear, i would have never signed up. >> >> So get this straight - IEP had no clue what Online Ambassador's did in >> the PPP. They just used the term in IEP and recruited a bunch of volunteer >> editors expecting them to cleanup after the students. This is not an issue >> of miscommunication, this is an issue of ignorance. The IEP didnt know what >> OAs do. It imagined them to be janitors who would cleanup after the >> students. (Dont believe me?, ask the other Indian guy who was an OA in >> both programs - MikeLynch). >> >> >>,* I can't recall a single instance when an Indian Administrator came >> forward and found a copyvio/poor editing, etc >> >> * >> Another wrong fact. An Indian admin called spacemanspiff who tried to >> point Hisham and group in the right direction in early september when >> things started to go wrong (it was in the talk page of Moonriddengirl, >> where fluffernutter went to help with copyvios). He even designed a helpful >> Q&A page which Hisham did not use. Disgusted with the IEP attitude, Spiff >> quit trying to help. The whole issue could have been stopped right then and >> there if the warnings of multiple editors and admins had been heeded. >> >> And why exactly do you need "Indian" community to help?. The newbie >> editors were getting plenty of help from the global community. You dont >> need a specific nationality editor to come and tell the students what to do >> and what not to do. A student who doesnt listen to "Do not copy paste" >> instruction coming from a American editor is not going to care if the >> instruction came from an Indian editor. >> >> >> >> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:42 PM, Ram Shankar Yadav < >> ramshankarya...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> +1 Srikanth! >>> >>> Hey Folks! >>> >>> I'm Ram and I'm one of the CA's worked closely with CoEP and SSE. I >>> would like to share my views on this most discussed topic, coz the term >>> "FAIL" is quite thought provoking, and now everyone has an opinion and I >>> respect that. >>> >>> As a Campus Ambassador(CA) we faced the heat on ground and nobody can >>> feel the pain like us when we heard the discontinuation of IEP in CoEP coz >>> we gave our personal time physically and virtually in every possible way to >>> make this program a success, and I promise we'll keep doing that. >>> >>> My views on IEP: >>> >>> 1. *Wikipedia India Education Program(IEP) for a CA* : The whole idea >>> of this program like everyone knows is to get more editors, but we have our >>> own set of challenges in the age of Facebook. What a bunch of CAs have done >>> in as short span of 5 months can't be done in a couple of months by >>> existing Community(local or global), coz we touched the students(1000+) >>> personally, we had the experience of interactions with Faculty and >>> Directors. >>> >>> Our only aim was to tell them(students) that Wikipedia is "cool", and >>> indeed we did that! in the way we taught wikipedia to them. Few things >>> which we tell our students in our Wiki Sessions: >>> >>> - Writing on Wikipedia will give you global audience, 400 million >>> unique visitors >>> - It will improve your Writing, Critical Thinking and Collaborative >>> skills >>> - It will add a bullet point to your resume and hence better >>> placements >>> - Lastly it will also give you marks if you follow the given >>> deadlines >>> >>> >>> Yes, I agree that we have seen setback coz of the copyvios, but I >>> totally agree with Srikanth coz this was due to the scale and numbers. >>> >>> 2. *Faculty Involvement* : It is one of the weak link in IEP, though >>> they knew the importance of this program, but they have their own set of >>> obligations/mindset, and we always felt that not all the faculty members >>> are tracking the students and their articles. We have some exemplary Profs >>> who are so much involved that they reached every student's talk page and >>> wrote message on it, and on the other side few never opened the course page >>> itself! >>> >>> Lesson for us is to enroll only those who are really interested and >>> track them as well, drop the course if they are not putting effort as >>> required, but this scenario was different 6 months back, coz no one knew >>> about this program, and yes we did enrolled a few inactive faculty coz they >>> showed interest but never lived up to the expectation. >>> >>> 3. *Online Ambassadors* : As Hisham already told that we got very late >>> engagement of our OAs in this program as well as the OA expectation issue, >>> we never got the support which was required from an OA. Honestly speaking >>> there was no interaction between OAs and CAs and without that coordination >>> chances of success are quite low. >>> My only point here is to all the OAs in this discussion is that if >>> Hisham/Nitika has not set the expectations right, why didn't you approached >>> them, then and there! Anybody can come and comment on this failure story >>> but even you were a part of this sinking ship. >>> >>> 4. *India Community* : We really missed you throughout this program, I >>> can't recall a single instance when an Indian Administrator came forward >>> and found a copyvio/poor editing, etc. We don't bifurcate among community >>> and we never taught our students that only Indian community will help, our >>> aim was to make their "collaborative" skill better instead of creating a >>> division among the community. >>> For my fellow Indian Wiki Community, folks we would love to hear from >>> you and surely need your help and support in future. >>> >>> 5. *Global Community* : Firstly I would say "Thank you" to them for >>> teaching the harsh lessons but we really liked the way you guys supported >>> us. Yes, I know few folks who always crib and do the mud throwing on this >>> program and it's implementation, but I know folks who have helped writing >>> great articles, reviewing them and event doing copy-editing and cleaning. >>> We need to surely communicate better with them in future. >>> >>> 6. *Campus Ambassadors*: The best thing that happen to me coz of IEP is >>> I found great friends who share the same philosophy of free knowledge. We >>> gave our personal time not only in taking session but also training new >>> bunch of CAs and helping students in every possible way. >>> >>> We were the face of Wikipedia on campus and we love it! >>> Like Srikanth said yes we were overloaded coz of the number of students >>> per CA was very large still we did our bit to help every students by either >>> reaching out personally and virtually. >>> One point to note here that out of 40 selected CAs(Gen 1 & 2) only 30 >>> are active and out of those 30 only 20 track/follow and reach out students, >>> so in short we need more involvements for the dormant CAs. >>> >>> 7. *Students* : We found good and bad students, student I know has >>> written a GA and I also know a student who in-spite of several warnings by >>> phone/mail and personal visits they kept copy-paste! Between the two >>> extremes there are folks who failed few times but did learned from it and >>> had become great editors. >>> >>> All in all the learning here is to, assess the level of students based >>> on their skill(writing especially) and their educational background(rural >>> or urban). Also we need to teach them the most important thing, NOT TO COPY >>> PASTE!!!, from the very first day of the wiki sessions. >>> >>> *Summary*: We are challenging the status quo by bringing a new way of >>> learning and teaching things and have learned some essential lessons for >>> making this program a success in future. I would personally request my >>> fellow Wikipedians to keep a faith on us and support us in every possible >>> way coz *"helping hands are better than praying lips"*. >>> >>> Let's make this world a better place! >>> >>> Cheers, >>> Ram >>> >>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:00 PM, Srikanth Lakshmanan <srik....@gmail.com >>> > wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 20:15, Theo10011 <de10...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Nitika <ntan...@wikimedia.org> wrote: >>>>> >>>> I would also like to share with you all some of the good articles >>>>>> that students have written. >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> Nitika, please use right terms from next time, "Good articles" mean >>>> entirely different thing in Wikipedia. http://enwp.org/WP:GA >>>> >>>> >>>>> Robinson Crusoe >>>>> Economy<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_Economy> >>>>> -Another redirect, 'economy' is in lower-case. >>>> >>>> >>>> Theo, >>>> You got it wrong on that alone to best of my knowledge, probably you >>>> did it too fast. Its probably the lone GA which got churned out of the >>>> program and we could call it a lone success among several other things. >>>> Wish that editor continues wiki editing. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Regards >>>> Srikanth.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 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 > >
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