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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].<br>
<br>
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:<br>
<br>
<i><small>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 “<a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/digital_divide"
class="extiw" title="w:digital divide">digital divide</a>.”
The offline work is geared to expand the reach of the collective
knowledge and broaden participation in the project. </small></i><br>
<br>
Best -<br>
Jessie<br>
<br>
[0]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Campus_Program">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Campus_Program</a><br>
[1] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline">http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline</a><br>
[2] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Offline_Projects</a><br>
On 4/13/2011 5:41 AM, Bishakha Datta wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:BANLkTi=ggnbqYQeQ0bdm62Py03020wi8+g@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Dear Gokul,<br>
<br>
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."<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
"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.<br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Bishakha<br>
<br>
[1]<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home">http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home</a><br>
[2]<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/c/c0/WMF_StrategicPlan2011_spreads.pdf</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 11:44 AM, gokul
das <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:gokuldas.1950@gmail.com" target="_blank">gokuldas.1950@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>Dear Bishakha,<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> 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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Gokul</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div>On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, jayanta nath <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:jayantanth@gmail.com" target="_blank">jayantanth@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt
0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);
padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>Dear all,<br>
<br>
Apologies for this big delay in reporting - between
work, travel and the rest of my life, I've been in a
spin.<br>
<br>
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). <br>
<br>
</div>
The workshop was held on 18 March at the <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.seagullindia.com/samrc/facilities.html"
target="_blank">Seagull Media Resource Centre</a> 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. <br>
<br>
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 <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Kolkata_Mar2011"
target="_blank">photos</a> that Biswarup took to get a
visual sense of this.
<div>
<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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 <br>
Sanhita confirmed that several participants emailed back
the next day with good feedback.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
Cheers<br>
Bishakha<br>
<br>
[1] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_masjid"
target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babri_masjid</a><br>
[2] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Rokeya"
target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum_Rokeya</a><br>
[3] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/12/new-wikimedia-fellow/"
target="_blank">http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2011/01/12/new-wikimedia-fellow/</a><br>
[4] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Feminism"
target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Feminism</a><br>
[5] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gender_studies"
target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Gender_studies</a><br>
[6] <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Gender_Studies"
target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Gender_Studies</a><br>
<br>
<div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
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<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
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</blockquote>
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<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Jessie Wild
Special Projects Manager
Global Development
Wikimedia Foundation</pre>
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