Cross-posting to other lists.
Hi all,
Wikimania is the annual international conference of Wikimedians
, jointly hosted by the local team ( usually local chapter) and the
Wikimedia Foundation.
The previous conferences were held in Frankfurt, Germany (2005), Boston,
USA (2006), Taipei, Taiwan (2007), Alexandria, Egypt (2008), Buenos
Aires, Argentina (2009), Gdan'sk, Poland (2010), and Haifa, Israel (2011).
This year, it is to be held in Washington DC, United States of America,
on July 12-14 , 2012. http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
<http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>
I have attended the Wikimanias in Gdansk and Haifa, along with several
other Wikipedians from India.
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wikimania2011
<http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wikimania2011>
I highly recommend everyone to apply and attend Wikimania !
Like every year, The Wikimedia Foundation is offering a limited number
of scholarships to offset the cost of select individuals' attendance at
Wikimania.
Both full and partial scholarships are available for Wikimania 2012:
Full scholarships will award round trip travel, dorms
accommodations and registration.
Partial scholarships will subsidize up to 300EUR of travel expenses.
Scholarship recipients have to bear themselves the additional costs of
taxis, visa & travel agent charges etc.
More Information : http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
<http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships>
Apply here : https://secure.wikidc.org/wm/schols/
<https://secure.wikidc.org/wm/schols/>
Deadline : *16 Feb 2012*
Around 30 % of the scholarship are allocated to Asia & Pacific, so there
are more chances of scholarship applications from India to be selected. :)
Please note that the selection is mostly based on the merit of the
applications.
One of the common mistakes that Wikimedians in India make is that we
aren't enough vocal of what we do. So please do write in detail about
your Wikimedia activities.
Please feel free to forward this to various language and city mailing
lists and encourage other Wikimedians to apply.
All the best wishes!
Regards
Tinu Cherian
The Wikipedia Tezpur meetup is a get-together of wikipedians (contributors
and users) to meet up, discuss, share experiences, reach out and advocate
for wikipedia and wikimedia. The meetups are intended to be structured as
follows —Introductions, a few focused talks by Wikipedians to share
experience / expertise followed by demos and open discussions on topics of
common interest.
Pre-Meeting discussions can be on the following link please.
English Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Wikipedia:Meetup/Assam/Tezpur
------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
Shiju Alex (WMF) ডাঙৰীয়া পোনপ্ৰথমবাৰৰ বাবে তেজপুৰলৈ আহি আছে| গুৱাহাটীৰ
মিটআপখন কৰি কাজিৰঙাত হাতীত উঠাৰ পণ কৰিছে| আমাৰো সেয়ে আগুৱাই যোৱাত সহায়ক
হ’ব বুলি এই প্ৰস্থাৱটো উত্থাপন কৰিলোঁ| সকলোৱে জয়ধ্বনিৰে আদৰণি জনাই কামফেৰা
সুকলমে কৰাই নিয়াত সহায় কৰে যেন| আপোনালোকৰ দিহা পৰামৰ্শ বাঞ্চনীয়। নিমোক্ত
লিংঅকত আপোনাৰ মন্তৱ্য তথা পৰামৰ্শ আগবঢ়াই যেন|
অসমীয়া ৱিকিপিডিয়া:-
http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A7%B1%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95%E0%
A6%BF%E0%A6%AA%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%A1%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AF%E0%A6%BC%
E0%A6%BE:Meetup/TEZ1
I have prepared the final PPT, Two pages are still blank, I left them
for Chaipau
Barua <https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000461099023> and Gitartha
Bordoloi <https://www.facebook.com/gitartha.bordoloi>, if they can't help
it we can also delete those pages. Please hv a look & give me feedback. And
after the final changes please give me a copy of that for our Tezpur meetup.
--
Bishnu Saikia
Dear All,
I am writing - on behalf of the Assamese wiki community (
http://as.wikipedia.org) - to share some very promising news from the
beautiful land of the Brahmaputra.
Assamese wiki community is tiny and has about 20 active editors now, out of
which 5 are very active editors. Assamese wikipedia has around 1050
articles now. Last year this
time<http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/indian-language-wikipedias-2010-s…>
Assamese
wikipedia was having just 300 articles (that were created during the span
of past 8 years) and just 4 active editors (and not a single very active
editor). So during last one year lot of things happenned in the background
which led to the current active status of Assamese. As an Indic wikipedia
community member I congratulate all the members of Assamese wiki community
who contributed to this change of status.
Over the past few weeks the community has been working on basic community
building blocks. As part of this, there are active community discussions
on the village pump, through
facebook<http://www.facebook.com/groups/assamwikigroup/>
, mailing list <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-as>
(which
was created a few weeks
ago<http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-as/2011-December/000000.html>),
and
through various other channels. The community is actively planning for
various outreach programs to increase the number of active members and
there by to increase the number of articles. As a result of this Assamese
wiki community has decided to conduct an Assamese wiki meetup cum
Wikiworkshop in Guwahati on 2012 January 29.
I do not believe there has ever been any outreach sessions in Assam -
though I could be wrong. Atleast this is the first out reach program for
Assamese wikipedia. Over the next one week, there are going to be not 1 but
2 Assamese wiki outreach sessions! One in *Guwahati* and another in *Tezpur*
.
- Sunday January 29th at Guwahati University (Meetup
page<http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A7%B1%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AA%…>
)
- Wednesday February 2nd at Tezpur University (Meetup
page<http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A7%B1%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%AA%…>
)
Both these session are being promoted on facebook also to attract more
Assamese speakers. Assamese wiki community expect around 20 participants in
Guwahati, and at least 10 in Tezpur (though Tezpur has only just been
posted so this is my guess; it could increase.) I am really excited by
these developments. The Assamese community has realised both the
importance of attracting newbies and also how to work collaboratively on
outreach activities.
There are also a couple of other things that I think are worth sharing.
- Assamese community - like many community members in Indic languages -
were struggling with how to go about doing outreach. To begin with, even
something like a venue proved to be challenge and community members
approached me since their resources are limited. I personally wrote to the
Head of Guwahati University's Computer Sciences department, introducing
Assamese wiki community and myself and asking for her help - and she has
kindly agreed to give us a conference room with all the required facilities
free of cost! The reason I am sharing this is, if other Indic wikipedians
are wondering how to go about doing this, it is really simple: Be Bold!
Just write and ask! Once you mention Wikipedia and what we are trying to
do, there is a very decent chance of getting a positive reply. Remember
that while we are doing a wikipedia program for our mother language
wikipedia we are sending a powerful message to the speakers of the
respective language. So be bold and continue to due more such programs for
your respective mother language wikipedia. Language speakers will support
us.
- Assamese community is working on the FAQs booklet and other outreach
materials that they plan to release as part of this meetup. These are being
done in Assamese. I am helping them out. I am sharing this because if any
Indic wikipedians need help on this, please feel free to reach out to me.
I will help you. Also, do keep in mind that the only way things like this
can work only if outreach materials are prepared in the respective
language. Outreach materials in respective language has so much power to
attract the newbies. Also, do share it with your fellow community members
so they can use them.
I want to conclude by sharing an Assamese quote ‘Bhāxār bikāx holehe jātir
bikāx hobo’ which translate into "The nation develops only when the
language develops."
Do join in me in congratulating the Assamese community for their efforts
and wishing them all the best for their community building efforts.
This is the start of a very exciting journey!
Kind Regards,
Shiju Alex
Cross-posting to other lists. Kindly excuse if you have already received
this via another mailing list.
Regards
Tinu Cherian
Head of Communications,
Wikimedia India Chapter
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Naveen Francis <naveenpf(a)wikimedia.in>
Date: Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 10:39 AM
Subject: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia India Chapter : December 2011 Report
To: Wikimedia India Community list <wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Dear all,
Greetings from Wikimedia India !!!
We are delighted to present the last monthly Wikimedia India report of the
year 2011, almost a year after the chapter received the formal recognition
from the Government of Karnataka on 3 January 2011. The journey so far
wasn't easy, but we appreciate your continued patronage , support and
participation.
*Organisational Updates*
*Formation of Task Forces:*
As announced earlier, with the objective of increasing the engagement and
participation of the members of the chapter actively in various
initiatives, the India chapter has come up with focused Task Forces for
coordinating and driving various chapter activities [1]. There are two
types of Task Forces - Project Task Forces and Operations Task Forces. The
Project Task Forces are focused on growing the Wikimedia projects. The
Operations Task Forces are critical functions to enable the Project Task
Forces and the Chapter in growing the movement. The operations group
consists of Administration, Fund raising, & Communications. The Projects
task force consists of City and Langugage SIGs and Special Projects. The
new task forces will be led by the following people:
- Anirudh Bhati, Head, Fundraising.
- Arun Ramarathnam, Chair, Special Projects.
- Srinivas Gunta, Head, Administration.
- Sudhanwa Jogalekar, Chair, City and Language Special Interest Groups.
- Tinu Cherian, Head, Communications, PR & Media Relations.
*Membership:*
The Chapter membership stands at 190 members as of 31 December 2011.
*Donations:*
Total donations received in Dec 2011 - INR 700
Average donations in Dec 2011 - INR 350
*FCRA:*
Our application for FCRA prior permission under the Foreign Contribution
(Regulation) Act with the Government of India is still pending. An official
from the Home Ministry has visited Arjuna Rao Chavala, President.
*Internet Relay Chat(IRCs):*
>From time to time, Wikimedia India conduct planned online IRC chat
sessions. The Dec 17, 2011 was anchored by Arun with the focus on Chapter
City & Language Special Interest Groups. [2]
*Board Meetings:*
The Chapter Executive Committee had two Tele-conference meetings in the
month of December (dated 07 Dec and 14 Dec, 2011). The Wikimedia India
chapter and Wikimedia Foundation had one joint co-ordination call on 21 Dec
2011, which was attended by Arjuna Rao Chavala, Arun Ramaratnam, Naveen
Francis, Sudhanwa Jogalekar, Tinu Cherian, Anirudh Bhati, Asaf Bartov and
Hisham Mundol. The summary of the joint coordination call was shared
earlier [3].
Community City and Language Special Interest Groups
City and Language Special Interest Groups are a mechanism to engage the
diverse interests of members across India. The objective is to grow the
wiki projects in their areas of interest by reviewing the status, planning
and executing events of interest through growing the community involvement.
The leadership of these groups is part of the extended leadership of the
Chapter.
The Wikimedia Chapter is proud to announce the appointment of the next
batch of City and Language Special Interest Group Chairs [4] as given
below:
*City*
- Delhi SIG - Noopur Raval (noopur [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Bangalore SIG - RadhaKrishna (Arkrishna [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Mumbai SIG - Kundan Amitabh (kundan.amitabh [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Pune SIG - Mandar Kulkarni(mandar.kulkarni [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Kolkata SIG - Kalyan Sarkar (kalyan [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
*Languages*
- English SIG - Ashwin Baindur (ashlin [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Kannada SIG - Omshivaprakash H L (omshivaprakash [at] wikimedia [dot]
in)
- Marathi SIG - Mahitgar (mahitgar [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
- Telugu SIG - Rahimanuddin Shaik (rahimanuddin [at] wikimedia [dot] in)
The current sign-ups of Members for the SIGs are as follows:
*City Special Interest Groups*
City Members Bangalore 10 Delhi 2 Mumbai 3 Pune 6 Kolkata 2
*Language Special Interest Groups*
Language Volunteers Bengali 1 English 15 Hindi 1 Kannada 3 Marathi
4 Malayalam 8 Nepali 1 Odia 3 Sanskrit 2 Telugu 3 Events
A round-up of Wikimedia events and initatives around the nation is as
follows.
- *Wiki Academy @Jaya Engineering college * ( 10 Dec 2011) : The first
Wiki Academy in Jaya Engineering college, Chennai,[5] was organized by the
Wikimedia chapter and co-hosted by Jaya FOSS Club. Odia Wiki Chair &
Chapter member, Subhashish Panigrahi explained basics of Wikipedia, how it
is edited by millions of volunteers, how Wikipedia is exclusively
encyclopedic and kind of articles and notability of articles in Wikipedia,
how Wikipedians communicate and form community, and organization of
Wikimedia foundations and active projects. Then he took the audience
through active editing by signing up, searching for articles, choosing
articles to create. Then he demonstrated about creating an article by using
the Edit toolbar, citing the text by searching the web and uploading and
adding pictures in articles. The editing session was followed by a Q & A
session. Hisham Mundol, Consultant, Wikimedia Foundation India Programs,
connected with the audience via Google Hangout. Hisham interacted with the
audience by giving a talk about the nature of the event, few details about
Wikipedia, WMF and Chapter and foundation are trying to do in India. He
answered questions raised by the audience. Nitika Tandon , Consultant,
Wikimedia Foundation India Programs, later explained about the India
Education program (IEP), how it functions and the
student-teacher-foundation collaborations through the education program.
The photos of the event are available here [6].
- *Coimbatore 1st Meetup*( 10 Dec 2011) : The first Kovai (Coimbatore)
meetup [7] was held at KGISL Campus, Saravanampatti, Coimbatore. The Meetup
was organised by Srikanth Ramakrishnan (User:Rsrikanth05) and
User:Sodabottle.
- *Bangalore Wikimeetup 40* ( 11 Dec 2011) : Around 11 people attended
the 40th Wikimeetup in Bangalore [8]. The Bangalore SIG Chair, RadhaKrishna
presented a talk on the experiences on WikiConference India 2011 and
WikiAcademy events in IT companies. Experiences of Wiki Academy in Jaya
engineering college and way forward was shared by by Subhashish Panigrahi.
Plans regarding Wiki Eleven in January 2012 was discussed. The photos of
the event are available here [9].
- *Wikipedia Meetup1 Salem*( 11 Dec 2011) : A Wikimeetup was organised
at Salem, Tamil Nadu, [10] by Tamil Wikipedians Sodabottle and Surya
Prakash.
- '*Wikipedia Takes Kolkata /Kolkata Photo Walk* (18 Dec 2011) : A Photo
Walk was organised in Kolkata, West Bengal [11] by Kalyan Sarkar (Kolkata
SIG Chair), Jayanta Nath (Bengali SIG Chair) and Biswarup Ganguly. Around
437 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as a part of this
initiative.[12]
- *GLAMcamp Amsterdam * Noopur Raval ( Delhi SIG Chair and GLAM
enthusiastic) attended GLAM worskop in Amsterdam, hosted by Wikimedia
Nederland. [13]
- *Wikipedians participation in CMDA IT Expo , 2011*: Indian Wikipedians
participated in the annual CMDA IT Expo 2011, Pune.[14] The stall were
manned by Sudhanwa Jogalekar ( EC member), Mahitgar ( Marathi SIG Chair),
Ashwin Baindur ( English SIG Chair) , Hisham Mundol and Nitika Tandon ( WMF
India Programs), and Campus Ambassador (IEP) volunteers.
- *Malayalam Wiki-Academies:* Malayalam Wiki-community organised two
Wiki-Academies in Kerala in the month of December at Alappuzha ( Dec 13)
and Kollam (Dec 31). The Alappuzha (2nd Wikiacademy) held at St.Joseph
Vanitha College was led by Adv. T.K Sujith, Adv. M.P.Manojkumar and Akhil
Krishnan. The Kollam (4th Wikiacademy) held at Govt. Higher Secondary
School, Anchal West, was led by Kiran Gopi ( User:Kiran_Gopi) , Faud A.J. (
User:Faudaj) , Kannan Shanmugam ( User:Fotokannan)and Sugeesh (
User:Sugeesh)
Other News
- A new initiative named *"Featured Wikimedian* was started on the
public wiki of Wikimedia India. Every month, one Indian wikimedian will be
featured. [15]
- * Tamil Wikimedia contest*: The Tamil Wikimedia community has
organised an international contest to get more photos, videos and audios
related to Tamil, Tamilians and Tamil culture to the Tamil Wikipedia and
Wikimedia Commons. [16] (themed “Eluthu mattum arivanru” or “Knowledge
beyond text”) . The Tamil Wikipedia Community and the Wikimedia Foundation
have jointly sponsored a prize money of $850 (with nine prizes) for
winners. (The first, second and third prizes are $200, $100 and $50. Three
prizes of $100 each are for those uploading the maximum number of quality
entries. A special prize of $150 is for media files on traditional Tamil
arts and crafts. Winners would be announced on March 15, 2012 and they
would get certificates with their entries displayed on the front pages of
Tamil Wiki projects. The contest (, November 15, 2011 to February 29, 2012)
is open to all and is on Facebook [17].
- India Wikipedians Sengai Podhuvan , Karthik Nadar and Aniruddha Kumar
joins Jimmy Wales among others in the *Wikimedia Fundraising 2011 banners
* [18].
- *New Mailing lists* are created for Gujarati Wikipedia[19], Assamese
Wikipedia [20], GLAM India [21] and India related content on English
Wikipedia & related projects. [22].
Milestones & Anniversaries
* December 2011* [23]
25
- The Tamil Wikipedia<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Ta:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
reached 1,000,000 page edits.
- The Urdu Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ur:> has reached
10,000 total pages.
21
- The Malayalam
Wikipedia<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Ml:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
turned 9.
18
- The Bengali Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bn:> has reached
2,000 entries, as a user adds over 1,300 entries for Malagasy words in 5
hours.
16
- The Bihari
Wikipedia<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=Bh:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
reached 100,000 page edits.
9
- The Sanskrit Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sa:> has
reached 100 entries.
- The Urdu Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ur:> has reached
5,000 entries.
5
- The Marathi
Wikibooks<http://internal.wikimedia.in/index.php?title=B:mr:&action=edit&redlink=1>has
reached 1,000 registered users.
4
- The Kannada Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kn:> has reached
150,000 entries.
Media Coverage
- 28 Dec : Financial Chronicle : Wikipedians say Indian govt should ease
copyright curbs<http://www.mydigitalfc.com/knowledge/wikipedians-say-indian-govt-should-eas…>
- 27 Dec : Ahmedabad Mirror : " Ahmedabad to go Wiki with your clicks"
<http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/article/2/2011122720111227022617405d732bc46/…>
- 24 Dec : The Economic Times : "Wikipedia enlists Indians to be the
standard-bearers for its fund-raising
efforts"<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/wikipedia-enlists-indians…>
- 18 Dec : The Hindu : "Creative Commons: the licence to
evolve"<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/article272537…>
- 16 Dec : The Hindu : "Contest to add files to Tamil Wikipedia gathers
steam"<http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2719118.ece?textsiz…>
- 1 Dec : Tech Marathi: मराठी विकिपीडिया संपादन – अवघड की
सोपे?<http://techmarathi.com/?p=1243>( Marathi)
We look forward to your continued support and active participation.
Best,
On behalf of Wikimedia Chapter (India)
Naveen Francis
Secretary
Notes:
- 1)
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Call_for_participation_of_Members_in…
- 2) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Internet_Relay_Chats/Dec_17,2011
- 3)
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Announcements/Chapter-Foundation:_Co-Ordination_Ca…
- 4) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/City_and_Language_SIG_subcommittee_chair
- 5) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wiki_Academy/Jaya_Engineering_College
- 6)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jaya_Engineering_College_Wiki_Ac…
- 7) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore/Coimbatore1
- 8) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Bangalore/Bangalore40
- 9)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bangalore_Meetup_December2011
- 10) http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SALEM1
- 11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Kolkata
- 12) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Takes_Kolkata
- 13) http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAMcamp_Amsterdam
- 14
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/006135.…
- 15) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Category:Featured_Wikimedian
- 16) http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contest/en
- 17) http://www.facebook.com/tawmc
- 18)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2011#A_Parade_of_Appeals.21_Dece…
- 19) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-gu
- 20) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-as
- 21) http://lists.wmnederland.nl/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wlm-in
- 22) https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-en
- 23) http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Milestones_and_Anniversary
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Dear All,
Assamese wikipedia has crossed the 1000 article milestone yesterday (2012
January 7). Congrats to all Assamese wikipedians who contributed to
this. Started
in 2002 June 2 <http://as.wikipedia.org/wiki/?diff=1>, Assamese wikipedia
is the first Indic Language wikipedia. Assamese wikipedia will celebrate
its 10th Anniversery this year June.
I remember last year this time Assamese
wikipedia<http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/indian-language-wikipedias-2010-s…>was
having just 300 articles and just one highly active user. The
excellent
efforts put forward by some of the senior community members using various
social networking sites are helping Assamese wikipedia to grow its
community. Now it crossed 1000 article milestone and has more than 10 high
active users. Hope community will be able to add more members to its crew
this year.
Shiju
Consultant, WMF India Programs
we would like a resolution on what we should do with these names: should
we transliterate them (wikisource -> ৱিকিচৰ্ছ) or translate them
(wikisource -> ৱিকিউৎস). though it is easy to go overboard and translate
them, as done in bengali, many other languages have transliterated them, as
done in french etc. i prefer transliteration, because it is a proper noun,
and also because of precedence (wikipedia is ৱিকিপিডিয়া not ৱিকিকোষ).
transliterating them (wikisource -> ৱিকিচৰ্ছ) would let us be consistent.
please state your views.
--
Chaipau
Wikipedia