<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 14:10, Gautam John <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gautam@prathambooks.org" target="_blank">gautam@prathambooks.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>On 30 March 2011 11:49, Srikanth Lakshmanan <<a href="mailto:srik.lak@gmail.com" target="_blank">srik.lak@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> Getting sick of this popular "urban legand". Why dont we run a site notice<br>
> banner for "atleast India" alone for 2 months. """ Please Note :- Wikipedia<br>
> and Wikileaks are 2 different things""" and link to a detailed note.<br>
<br>
</div>Srikanth, to be fair, I think he does see it as two different things<br>
or so the quote implies. What he might incorrectly allude to is a<br>
linkage between the two but his criticism of Wikipedia is the model of<br>
knowledge creation.</blockquote><div><br></div><div>At best it could have been the usual misqouting / edit cuts and he might have told about Wikipedia at all. Here is what I think would have happened. He would have got some points to speak from one of his under secretaries who would have sourced it from his/her junior[who might have given what Wikipedia is rightly and might have given it for context due common "wiki" in the name, but might have been lost in grapevine] and hence the miinster would have got it wrong.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Though what the minister was being quoted is a valid criticism against Wikipedia, in all possibilities Wikipedia was never his target. I mentioned this confusion as Urban legand since even few of "Software Engineers" I met dont know the differences. A banner campaign will not only clarify Wikipedia is not associated with Wikileaks, but would also create a larger awareness(includes media and people from all walks of life) on Wikimedia movement(which is lacking to a large extent even among regular readers of Wikipedia in India). Banner campaign is very effective in India and we could see that in Wiki 10 celebrations.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>Srikanth L</div>
</div>